Garbage Deck Brewing Thread

Woo, OK, grad school is done for the quarter. I have a little time to breathe. And a little time to breathe means time to make budget decks with weird weakpoints:

You steal your opponent's creatures and sacrifice them for profit. Not a super-novel deck idea, but Hazoret's Favor puts a bit of a twist on the whole thing - stealing the other guy's 3/3 and swinging it back at them as a 5/3 feels pretty good. The main issue I've run into is that I think I might need some early-game defense, because the deck needs some set-up to work, and it tends to get crushed by aggressive decks (or anyone who goes wide, really). I might cut the Dark-Dwellers for some Hobblefiends, at the very least.


This one was less than $10 when I last checked - it might not be anymore. The goal here is to pitch creatures for value - it was originally going to have some more Cycling in there, but I decided that that was boring and overplayed. Cunning Survivor and Wharf Infiltrator are both really hard to block, making them good targets for bloodrush. That's about it - it's a pretty straightforward deck.

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I'm also excited for M21, because of all the jank we'll get. I hope that Hooded Blightspitter ends up settling as somewhat cheap, because I want to build a Deathtouch Tribal with it and Vraska, Swarm's Eminence. I mean, Ornery Dilophosaur looks like it'll go well with Vraska, and there's a fantastic tutor in the form of Mwonvuli Beast Tracker.

Huh, that's a good find. I'm not sure I can wrangle infinite mana from Apprentice Wizards, at least not in this build. My issue isn't usually getting the mana, it's that I need to actually get access to my core combo, and the backup isn't super great.



My playtests have shown that the deck crumples into a heap if anyone removes Umori, and that the opponent running an early flyer utterly kneecaps the deck. It's definitely a build that needs more fiddling.



Yeah, this makes sense.

- Yeah, Hateful Eidolon was a really nice find.
- The main reason Feast of Dreams is in there is that it lets the deck deal with fatties, and because most of the removal auras also decrease power - which is a problem if you hit a creature with Dead Man's Chest. Or, alternatively, your first enchantment is Unholy Indenture. I think I'll give those other removal auras a look - the auras in the deck are a result of me tossing in auras I liked the look of.
- I should hope so - those two cards are the reason I built the deck in the first place.
- The River Trawler is interesting - I'd probably replace Temple Thief with it, because Spiteful Returned actually turns Aphemia into a really effective clock. A lot of White's "auras matter" cards are either too expensive for the deck, or don't fit in well with what this deck likes doing. I could maybe see Auramancer or Heliod's Pilgrim? Dawn Evangel could be a nice card to toss in, actually - it grabs the majority of the creatures in the deck after all. I'm not sure about other Black payoffs, though.
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I ended up taking some inspiration from this and the post you made in sdj's talk about ramp to create something I think is actually worth discussing. Clocking in at about 13 USD, I present:

Five Mana Field Day

4 Arboreal Grazer
4 Entourage of Trest
4 Garruk's Packleader
4 Conclave Naturalists
4 Reach of Branches

4 Wild Growth
4 Search for Tomorrow
4 Growth Spasm
4 Warping Wail

4 Dread Statuary
4 Cradle of the Accursed
4 Gargoyle Castle
12 Forest


So what's the most common problem with ramp? Well, as the saying goes, "Bolt the Bird". Arboreal Grazer, Wild Growth, and Search for Tomorrow solve that issue by being 1-mana ramp hits that aren't boltable. The trickiest part for this deck was finding a cheaper Rampant Growth/Sakura Tribe Elder counterpart that guaranteed you the mana (Explore is just a bit unreliable in this context, and my goal was to eliminate that inconsistency), until I realized that a bunch of creature lands or creature-making lands could easily do that and allow us to run Growth Spasm from the incidental production. You'll always have a land or creature in hand, even if you don't hit your 5 mana card advantage payoffs on turn 3. We specifically run things like Garruk's Packleader and Entourage of Trest to draw gas in the event we somehow need more big stompy dudes and Reach of Branches functions as our way to play around removal-heavy decks. Thanks to Warping Wail we even have a form of interaction against early game decks in the event we somehow need it, allowing us to be the control in an emergency situation along with Conclave Naturalists.

You can replace the 5-mana creature suite with anything you'd like really to tailor the deck against other players - between Warping Wail and Conclave Naturalists we can already hit a decent amount of stuff, but if you run against primarily blue players you might want Shifting Ceratops or Kavu Chameleon instead. If you want to blank targeted removal Wardscale Crocodile could go in for example. I would be careful about putting creatures with in this deck, but other than that this is probably the closest I can get to an efficient mono-Green ramp deck that doesn't get blown out so easily by removal - i.e. aping the appeals of things like Growth Spiral into Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath that recently run around arena a lot. (We even use Arboreal Grazer, too.)

The colorless land suite probably could be better served by Emergence Zone, Enroaching Wastes, Sunscorched Desert, or Cryptic Caves, but my initial build was mainly all about guaranteeing a chance for a creature. It's likely I'll swap Cradle of the Accursed for one of these and maybe even Gargoyle Castle for another - Cradle of the Accursed going out for Sunscorched Desert gives us the ability to at least slow planeswalkers or get in chip damage if we're stalled out and the 2/2 Zombie token is likely the last useful creature here.

Ethereal Elk isn't in this deck because Vivien, Nature's Avenger is surprisingly expensive.

sdfkjgh But what are you doing for the first 3 turns when most of your cards cost 4 or more? = P

sdfkjgh : I think that would go over the edge of "bad" into "really boring to play and to play against".

Unlike this deck, which is totally a blast to play against:


This is the kind of deck you run to teach new players why they might want to run enchantment removal. You mulligan until you get a copy of Lost in the Woods in your hand, then play it turn 5. Reach of Branches eventually turns into 1-2 2/5 Treefolk tokens a turn, to act as blockers for any non-flyers that don't get lost.

Make sure to practice your sadistic smile for this one.

A slightly more serious deck I've been poking at is this one:

The goal here is simple - force your opponent down to an empty hand, then win off of Rekindled Flame. It isn't the best discard deck out there, and it isn't particularly fast... but it gets the job done. Also, I'm glad to have a home for Asylum Visitor.

And, on top of that, here's an update on one of my favorite decks:


Vorrac Battlehorns was a fun find - it gives me another way to give my huge creatures trample, and it pushes people towards blocking with more substantial creatures. I also removed the Frontier Guides in favor of Dawntreader Elks - the deck needed to beef up its early game a little, and I feel like that did the trick.

I mostly tossed Nissa in there because the Mystery Booster printing of the card is something like $1.20 and she's a huge target. The threat of her ultimate going off and drawing me something like 11 cards is a pretty good incentive for people to aim removal at her (and not at the rest of my guys).

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I'm waiting for the prices for M21 to stabilize, because some of the cards look like they could be interesting build-arounds. Seasoned Hallowblade as an engine piece in a Madness deck? Some kind of lifegain deck supported by cards like Survival Cache and Angel of Vitality? Flying-based Control with Lofty Denial and Winged Words? Silly Rogue shenanigans with Thieves' Guild Enforcer? A non-permanent-focused deck centered around Double Vision? A Subira, Tulzidi Caravanner theme deck? An Ornery Dilophosaur "fatties that happen to have deathtouch" deck?

So many choices.

I haven't posted here in a while, huh?

Anyway, I just tweaked a hilarious deck I build a while back to fit in under $20.



So, this is one of them there Lukka combo decks without Lukka in it.

I have 11 cards that make tokens, and 9 cards that let me trade tokens out for any of the creatures in my deck starting Turn 4. The creatures that I'm actually going to try to cheat out are still in flux - I might want to trade one of them for another Satyr's Cunning, or swap around which overcosted monstrosities are in the deck (I probably should look at getting some guys with haste or flying). If I end up drawing one of my non-Fireflux Squad creatures, I can use Fire Prophecy to send it back to the deck and draw another card, and Yidaro can do the same by default.

I'm debating about branching out into more colors - there are probably some fantastic high-cost creatures I could cheat in in other colors, but I'm a bit too lazy to investigate that right now.

I mean, I'm already running three copies of Reality Scramble, because I initially built the deck around both it and good ol' Shifting Shadow.

Well, it's not the most remarkable thing I've made, but it's also easily 6 USD, so I think it qualifies here.

Starter Deck - Jackal Party

Aggro Filler
4 Jackal Familiar
4 Jackal Pup

Party Enablers
4 Resilient Khenra
4 Battlefield Scavenger
4 Bitterblade Warrior
4 Khenra Charioteer
3 Wildfire Eternal

Party-based Cards
2 Synchronized Spellcraft
3 Searing Spear
4 Strength of Solidarity

Lands
12 Mountain
12 Forest

This was inspired by a post I read somewhere else that pointed out several non-Zendikar tribes can get full party - Jackals being one of them. It's meant to be designed in the same way a starter deck would be by using relatively easy to grasp mechanics and a fun theme to tie it all together. (I particularly like the idea of Wildfire Eternal dumping Synchronized Spellcraft out of nowhere.) I was going to do a series for these but my enthusiasm sort of burned out for it when I realized I didn't have much use for them as the people I play with tend to be used to running personalized/fine-tuned decks. That said, if you know a friend that wants to get introduced to the game, and likes Jackals or something similar to them, this deck probably isn't a bad start.

Inherit-Inherit feels like a pretty fresh take on Pack Rats decks to me because most of the ones I've played against all run the same general MonoBlack setup with a high quantity of Rat tribal/Swamps build. I like it.

Lady Mapi: There's a budget combo that can replace Eternal Witness/Familiar's Ruse, but it's a little more mana-intensive: Frilled Mystic/Decoction Module. In fact, I'm currently tweaking, off and on, a deck that runs that combo, and will prolly save posting the list for a future episode of Dicking Around in Tosche Station.

No deck this time, but just as a heads up to anyone brewing budget, Into the North has leaped from 0.75 USD to around 2-3 USD due to the revelation of new common Snow dual taplands with basic land typing.

However, the lands themselves like Ice Tunnel are currently being priced at about 0.75 USD themselves, so you can use something like Safewright Quest (0.29) in combination with them for some possible easy fixing for your 3-5 color decks. It's a little more expensive than Attune with Aether (0.10) + Aether Hub (0.23) but also more flexible since you're guaranteed to get two colors into your hand instead of one.