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Post by Lady Mapi on Feb 16, 2020 20:13:48 GMT
EDIT: Trying this thread out with the Budget limitation as optional. Go wild with your weirdest jank! - ZephyrPhantomHello, one and all! I retired from paper magic a while ago, and so I've mostly fiddled with decks in Cockatrice. One of the strengths of Cockatrice is that the cards cost nothing - I could build myself a $1000 deck, test it out, discover that I don't like it, and throw it away without any guilt or wallet pains. On the other hand, they cost nothing, so it's really easy to get carried away and just toss in a bunch of $20 mythics. So recently I decided to try to bash together some budget decks, with the following requirements: 1) The whole thing needs to cost less than $20. If I decide to go back into paper magic, I should be able to pick one of them up without too much down-payment. 2) I have to break out of my comfort zone and build decks that aren't just  " style="max-width:100%;"]. I've... kinda failed here - most of the decks I've slapped together are either part  or part  " style="max-width:100%;"]. 3) The decks should be goofy fun. I'm a Jimmy at heart, so the decks are usually built around some kinda gimmick. 4) Basic lands don't count towards my budget. I have enough of the damn things floating around that I can wave the cost there. I kinda want to share some of the decks I actually enjoy that have fallen out of this. So, without further ado: The core of this deck are the Eldraine "when you draw your second card each turn" cards... but the gimmick is that I stuck with symmetrical draw as much as possible. Because I actually have two win conditions here - I can beat my opponent to death the old-fashioned way... or I can mill my opponent through wheels and the Folio. My twist on the "throw lands into the graveyard" theme that " style="max-width:100%;"] has been getting lately. It's pretty straight-forward, all things considered - my favorite play is shocking a Ruination Rioter after my graveyard is nice and full, since I can usually whack an opponent in the face for 10 or so damage by doing so. Also, yeah, this is one of four " style="max-width:100%;"] decks I've built for this (a terrible control deck, a Food deck that runs a bunch of Red things that like munching on artifacts, and a Pia's Revolution deck). Like I've said, I have a problem. This thing is pure jank. It's a Golgari mill deck with the slight drawback of needing your opponent to be a good sport who doesn't "fail to find" lands. I mean, it isn't entirely hopeless if they do refuse to grab lands... but it really doesn't help.
So, does anyone else have any dumb budget decks they want to share? Or, alternatively, does anyone have any ideas for something goofy in  ?
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Feb 17, 2020 8:23:14 GMT
Wheel effects seems like a neat way to take advantage of those "draw second card" type effects and I'm a big fan of Mill Forest as well. When playing budget decks and with newer players I've found one of the most common topics is struggling to get a good manabase and avoid bad land draws without the power of fetches so it could be quite the surprise to put down at the table. I might either of those decks it next time I can sit down with a friend to play. Honestly I wish I had more time to figure out interesting jank combos - most of the time I end up sticking with following the budget limit or the tribal restriction I've put on myself. The one under $20 deck I have is from a few years back when I was trying to make a deck out of cards I could get for 0.03 USD or less, not counting lands (the condition was "cheapest deck possible" so I started at 0.01 USD cards and worked my way up). I'd been scratching my head for a while on it until I remembered something a friend had built during Kaladesh Sealed: 4 Explosive Apparatus4 Inventor's Goggles4 Eager Construct4 Gearsmith Prodigy4 Runed Servitor4 Sweatworks Brawler4 Ice Over4 Burn the Impure12 Island12 Mountain4 MuggingObviously, this deck has some pretty clear upgrades it could use - Eager Construct and Runed Servitor could probably be swapped out for better artifact creatures, and Burn the Impure is quite possibly one of the worst shock variants out there. It's not exactly the best aggro deck out there and any deck that is even slightly fast manages to run it over, but when it gets going, I think it manages just find. Plugging it into various websites shows me the actual price is something around 9.00 to 11.00 USD, which is honestly not bad for its intended use.EDIT: So I revisited this deck and it turns out it costs a whopping 2.28 USD as of this post. It was the basic lands that made it look like it was much more expensive. |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Feb 18, 2020 5:26:52 GMT
ZephyrPhantom I gave your deck a look in Cockatrice - it makes a decent "goldfish" to test my decks against, because it's aggressive enough without being terribly complicated. On that note, I'd like to share the following deck, which has a weird playstyle (in my opinion): Yeah, I couldn't decide between Rampage of the Clans (as an alternate finisher) and Madcap Experiment, so I split the difference - I might replace them with something else entirely. There are two separate goals here: 1) Get my opponent's life down to a point where Pia's Revolution becomes a difficult decision. Embraal Gear-Smasher and Reckless Flameweaver help with this process. 2) Complete the Crown/Scepter/Throne trio, and drown my opponent under the value. In practice, it caves hard to any deck that runs fliers or creatures that are larger than X/2 - bigger creatures can be taken out with Liquimetal Coating + Nullmage Advocate, but I'm recurring cards from their graveyard to do so.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Feb 18, 2020 7:29:07 GMT
ZephyrPhantom I gave your deck a look in Cockatrice - it makes a decent "goldfish" to test my decks against, because it's aggressive enough without being terribly complicated. On that note, I'd like to share the following deck, which has a weird playstyle (in my opinion): Hey, I'm honestly glad it found a use after a good year or two of being dead in the water. Maybe I should start looking for some build arounds of my own - I was recently messing with Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore meets Quietus Spike but it's a really bad deck even with some money pumped into it, lol. Liquimetal Coating + Nullmage Advocate looks like a sweet budget combo. How do you feel about 2x Indomitable Creativity instead of Madcap + Rampage of the Clans? It lets you convert excess weak/useless artifacts sitting onto the battlefield in attempts to dig for pieces without hurting you and is sort of a bad removal in a pinch. |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Feb 18, 2020 8:04:44 GMT
ZephyrPhantom I gave your deck a look in Cockatrice - it makes a decent "goldfish" to test my decks against, because it's aggressive enough without being terribly complicated. On that note, I'd like to share the following deck, which has a weird playstyle (in my opinion): Hey, I'm honestly glad it found a use after a good year or two of being dead in the water. Maybe I should start looking for some build arounds of my own - I was recently messing with Evil Eye of Orms-by-Gore meets Quietus Spike but it's a really bad deck even with some money pumped into it, lol. Liquimetal Coating + Nullmage Advocate looks like a sweet budget combo. How do you feel about 2x Indomitable Creativity instead of Madcap + Rampage of the Clans? It lets you convert excess weak/useless artifacts sitting onto the battlefield in attempts to dig for pieces without hurting you and is sort of a bad removal in a pinch. The Indomitable Creativities sound like a good idea to me - I'll give it a try. Honestly, building decks on this kind of budget is pretty fun. It makes you consider cards you'd normally ignore (mostly because a lot of the cards you'd normally consider take up 50% or more of your budget as singletons). |
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Post by arthurxiv on Feb 18, 2020 13:34:57 GMT
Once i bought a 4000 cards package from mkm for 40€ (shipping included). I managed to make around 10 reasonable beginner decks out of this to teach mtg to friends and i gave away around 3000 of those cards to my lgs which privided me with lands. The guy on mkm was reasonable, he never put more than 10 duplicates of a card, except for Shock with the 4 recent reprints i got around 20 of them.
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Post by Lady Mapi on Feb 26, 2020 19:38:24 GMT
I present to you all: my first proper control deck! Kinda. Sorta.
It munches up other creature decks?
The goal here is to slow down other people's creature-based strategies by keeping them tapped down, and then slowly bludgeoning them to death.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Feb 29, 2020 17:59:41 GMT
Double dipping with sdfkjgh's Deckbuilder's Challenge I and keeping the entire list buildable with either less than 20 USD or with only John Avon nonlands, and here's the result: |
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Post by sdfkjgh on Feb 29, 2020 23:59:25 GMT
ZephyrPhantom: Wow. You're certainly impressing by doing this. I used to do shit like this back in elementary school. Whenever I'd have vocabulary homework, the instructions were always to use each individual word in its own sentence, but I hated writing things out (because of my aggressively poor penmanship), so I would try to craft a frankensteinian monster of a sentence that contained ALL the vocab words. Thanks for the bit of nostalgia.
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 2, 2020 8:10:28 GMT
ZephyrPhantom: Treva is cheaper (or same price maybe) as Cloud Dragon. Doesn't she fit better here ? I am indeed very surprised that Seaside Citadel and Treva's Ruins are so expensive. Everyone was giving these away with their commons after the drafts during the Alara block.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 2, 2020 8:22:42 GMT
ZephyrPhantom: Treva is cheaper (or same price maybe) as Cloud Dragon. Doesn't she fit better here ? I am indeed very surprised that Seaside Citadel and Treva's Ruins are so expensive. Everyone was giving these away with their commons after the drafts during the Alara block. Swapping for a non John-Avon art card would result in this deck not being able to answer two challenges at once, but realistically, yeah, I'd swap the Glasskites and Cloud Dragons for much better finishers while using cheaper Fogs. Cheap multicolor lands are really hard to come by because in a world where almost every remotely good dual is used for some format even a decent number of taplands look great for Commander, lol. |
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 2, 2020 9:18:48 GMT
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 2, 2020 9:35:55 GMT
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 2, 2020 17:27:05 GMT
arthurxiv It's a neat list, I'm always down to discover old cards like this that seem like they would fall just short of belonging in a majority of existing format decks for one reason or another. I think it might be worth it to put in more Anthem-type effects like Goblin Oriflamme instead of the 2 Oro (which while cool seem like they'll often be dead draws for a fairly aggressive deck). If there was a Mardu or a less color intensive equivalent to Benalish Marshal I think it'd certainly fit here as well...maybe Agrus Kos, Wojek Veteran? ( Glory of Warfare is surprsingly expensive...)
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 2, 2020 23:14:38 GMT
I'm using the Gear-Smasher instead of the Vandal because it's a good blocker, and I needed to fill a 3-drop slot (I'm practicing building to a curve, you see). I'll give Gideon a look, though - I might make more room for removal later on, though. |
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 3, 2020 8:30:00 GMT
H(2-x) is a curve. It has its steepness but it's a curve nonetheless. (Ok i'm sorry but i had to make this one. ^^) Ok i get your point. I'll defend a little bit more Orcish Vandal by pointing out the fact that it kills early creatures instead of blocking them, and it can block + tap if it's blocking an X/3 where Embraal Gear Smasher blocks 2/X creatures with X>3 which is not so frequent. Anyway i put both of them x4 the day that i built a deck with Implements of Improvement, Combustion and Ferocity, Ichor Wellspring, Mycosynth Wellspring and Terrarion. I could also add Chromatic Star but it's very expensive. Servo Schematic and Navigator's Compass can be useful sometimes too. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 3, 2020 22:19:43 GMT
Adding to the list of decks I'd love to play but probably never will: MonoBlue Hosers4 Govern the Guildless4 Tidal Visionary4 Distorting Lens4 Prismwake Merrow4 Hydroblast4 Blue Elemental Blast4 Flash Flood4 Sphinx of Foresight4 Aetherize24 IslandPremise is simple: draw color-changers, change a bunch of thing's colors to Red, Blue Elemental Blast the heck out of them. Sphinx of Foresight doubles as a way to hopefully fix your draws so that they're not filled with too many of any given type of card, and Aetherize is there in the hopes of having a somewhat decent answer to any monored aggro decks. Unfortunately, Aetherize isn't exactly the greatest boardwipe out there so any halfway decent aggro probably knocks this about, but it can probably handle other somewhat slow decks okay. Also can't help but wonder - is it possible to get a deck under 10 USD and still have something coherent? If you guys are down to brew that "challenge" I'm curious to see what you could come up with. arthurxiv Lady Mapi |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 4, 2020 0:21:33 GMT
Also can't help but wonder - is it possible to get a deck under 10 USD and still have something coherent? If you guys are down to brew that "challenge" I'm curious to see what you could come up with. arthurxiv Lady Mapi I have a mono-Green ramp decklist that comes to $8.95-ish before including basic lands - it's a pretty solid little thing, too. If you want a deck that slides under $10 with the basics included... give me a little time to work. I think I can finagle some decks into something cheaper. EDIT: Throwing the deck up on DeckStats gives me a total cost of exactly $9.95 if I were to buy the deck online, Forests and all. Honestly, given how there are some cards that are literally worth pennies, I think a more interesting challenge would be to try to build a deck that cost $5 or less. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 4, 2020 1:25:14 GMT
I have a mono-Green ramp decklist that comes to $8.95-ish before including basic lands - it's a pretty solid little thing, too. Hey, it's pretty solid, still. I like it. I'll have to keep Timbermaw Larva in mind, there could be a decent Pauper brew there... Currently I've been messing around with Naya Allies at around 8-9 USD (today I learned Scryfall lets you specify what print of the card you want to use for a deck instead of just letting it try and find one - very useful for budgeting!) - the way I've been tackling the idea is that every card on average has to be 33 cents or less, and then if a lot of the cards I'm using are 0.05 cents I might splurge on something archetype-defining. 4 Oran-Rief Survivalist4 Highland Berserker4 Hada Freeblade3 Munda, Ambush Leader4 Veteran Warleader4 Expedition Envoy4 Akoum Battlesinger4 Flame Slash3 Oust2 Nature's Chant4 Ally Encampment4 Plains3 Forest3 Mountain4 Evolving Wilds3 Pinecrest Ridge3 Tranquil GardenI feel like the 4x Hada Freeblade is really necessary to supplement the 4x Oran-Rief Survivalist, but otherwise Hada Freeblade is probably the most expensive card in the deck. Could probably be tuned a bit but it definitely relies on Ally Encampment's cheap price to try to dip into multiple colors at once while still staying within budget. Oust was originally Oblivion Ring but once I used the print-selection part to find the cheapest prints possible I found I had enough room for it - not sure if it's the best removal here but I feel like this deck wants to just turn sideways and stop blockers so I feel it's probably fine. Also not sure about Nature's Chant but I feel like having some kind of hedge against pesky artifacts and enchantments doesn't hurt. EDIT: Throwing the deck up on DeckStats gives me a total cost of exactly $9.95 if I were to buy the deck online, Forests and all. Honestly, given how there are some cards that are literally worth pennies, I think a more interesting challenge would be to try to build a deck that cost $5 or less. Funny, I was just realizing how I could get my Allies list to 8.50 USD as you mentioned that, lol. As for the 5 USD Challenge, that's a good idea - I was trying to build the 'cheapest deck possible' at a certain point (as in, literally 60 cents on paper - cards are generally cheaper on MTGO which is why Penny Dreadful can even be a format) but it just ended up being draft chaft central and overall not very interesting. I'm curious to see how I could work 5 USD or less... |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 4, 2020 1:49:45 GMT
ZephyrPhantomPart of what I'm getting out of this is an appreciation for cards like Timbermaw Larva which are just short of being competitive. It's fantastic in a deck where you can easily have 8+ Forests out on turn 4 - it's not its fault that it doesn't have haste/evasion. I'm afraid that I can't help you with Allies - I wasn't playing during Zendikar, so I'm not familiar with the playstyle.
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 4, 2020 2:12:04 GMT
ZephyrPhantomPart of what I'm getting out of this is an appreciation for cards like Timbermaw Larva which are just short of being competitive. It's fantastic in a deck where you can easily have 8+ Forests out on turn 4 - it's not its fault that it doesn't have haste/evasion. I'm afraid that I can't help you with Allies - I wasn't playing during Zendikar, so I'm not familiar with the playstyle. No worries on helping with the Ally deck, I'm just having fun exploring a bunch of strategies I normally I wouldn't otherwise have given much thought to. Definitely enjoying discovering cards that fell under the radar as well - Fervent Charge is another notable favorite so far. If you do have any other interesting budget decks, though, I'm all ears. Allies are generally similar to Humans/Slivers in that they're good at slamming down a bunch of cheap high value creatures and turning sideways to deal lots of damage. Like Slivers and Humans their main selling point is that they can use any land like Cavern of Souls (in this case, I use Ally Encampment) to easily run effects from all 5 colors to be able to answer a lot of threats. Since Hada Freeblade and Oran-Rief Survivalist get +1/+1 counters from casting almost any creature in the deck, allowing them to get out of hand fast if you stick one early and beat down with several 5/5s towards the end of the game that would be relatively useless 2/2s in other decks. To be honest, I mostly skipped on BFZ, so while I was kind of expecting a card like Veteran Warleader to exist, Munda, Ambush Leader was a pleasant surprise to discover. Sure, he's no Feather, the Redeemed, but in a color combination that's on the weaker end of card selection/card draw type effects, I feel like I could definitely recommend him to anyone doing casual Allies or Changelings. |
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 4, 2020 10:02:17 GMT
I created this. You're supposed to drop token generators and draw cards with cheap spells until you get enough tokens and at least one Seven Dwarves out (if it eats a Legion's End then drop the Mist-Syndicate Naga) then Mirrorweave everyone and cast a Crash Through before attacking. It costs $10 if you remove the lands which cost: - $6 for {11 Islands + 12 Mountains}. - $4.35 for a combination of playsets of all cheap UR taplands + 4 Mountains + 3 Islands. To reduce the cost i could switch the Young Pyromancers to Mad Ratters and Saheelis but with $6 of basic lands it's just impossible to go below $10. |
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 4, 2020 10:16:37 GMT
today I learned Scryfall lets you specify what print of the card you want to use for a deck True but sometimes it's not quite honest to use this tool. I only have one example right now which is painlands: $2->$10 vs $2I don't know how easy it is to get the World Championship version of those cards but their price is a little bit unreal. |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 4, 2020 15:06:49 GMT
I've been using DeckStats.net for this, which lets you purchase the deck directly after building it. It's a great way to confirm that you can really get those cards for the prices they give you. arthurxiv When I look at your decklist, it says that the estimated cost is $14.35. Granted, you're also using some reasonably expensive basics - go with the M20 basics instead, they're like ~$0.05 each. Honestly, I'd dump the Young Pyromancers (or drop them down to a 1-2 of) and look for something else. $4.64 for a single playset of cards is way too expensive when your total budget is $10. |
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Post by sdfkjgh on Mar 4, 2020 16:50:03 GMT
Adding to the list of decks I'd love to play but probably never will: MonoBlue Hosers4 Govern the Guildless4 Tidal Visionary4 Distorting Lens4 Prismwake Merrow4 Hydroblast4 Blue Elemental Blast4 Flash Flood4 Sphinx of Foresight4 Aetherize24 IslandPremise is simple: draw color-changers, change a bunch of thing's colors to Red, Blue Elemental Blast the heck out of them. Sphinx of Foresight doubles as a way to hopefully fix your draws so that they're not filled with too many of any given type of card, and Aetherize is there in the hopes of having a somewhat decent answer to any monored aggro decks. Unfortunately, Aetherize isn't exactly the greatest boardwipe out there so any halfway decent aggro probably knocks this about, but it can probably handle other somewhat slow decks okay. Also can't help but wonder - is it possible to get a deck under 10 USD and still have something coherent? If you guys are down to brew that "challenge" I'm curious to see what you could come up with. arthurxiv Lady Mapi Por que no los Scuttlemutt? |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 4, 2020 17:37:12 GMT
Basically, he's too slow or there are more removal-resistant options in this color. I usually expect people I play with to have creature removal online pretty fast (and most decent easily affordable creature removal is 3 mana or less), so Scuttlemutt is much more likely to eat removal and be a waste of 3 mana without having actually done anything. With Prismwake Merrow you can at least do a turn four play of flashing him in and removing something at instant speed with one of your Blasts, or flash him in on turn 3 on the opponent's combat step to remove an attacking creature. Likewise Govern the Guildless is basically an uncounterable version of the effect that doubles as lategame removal and I mind less if an early Tidal Visionary/Distorting Lens eat removal early on because the former is 1 mana and the latter can activate the moment it hits the field. With that said, he might find a spot if I try to do a version of this deck for the other colors. |
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Post by arthurxiv on Mar 4, 2020 17:48:47 GMT
Lady Mapi: Omg i'm so stupid sometimes. I discussed card prices per version and then i didn't even check basic land prices per version while i was ranting about their price. Thanks !  Yes the pyromancers are overpriced for the $10 challenge. :/ EDIT: Now it's $9,94 still with 3 Pyromancers.
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 4, 2020 19:22:55 GMT
Adding to the list of decks I'd love to play but probably never will: MonoBlue Hosers4 Govern the Guildless4 Tidal Visionary4 Distorting Lens4 Prismwake Merrow4 Hydroblast4 Blue Elemental Blast4 Flash Flood4 Sphinx of Foresight4 Aetherize24 IslandPremise is simple: draw color-changers, change a bunch of thing's colors to Red, Blue Elemental Blast the heck out of them. Sphinx of Foresight doubles as a way to hopefully fix your draws so that they're not filled with too many of any given type of card, and Aetherize is there in the hopes of having a somewhat decent answer to any monored aggro decks. Unfortunately, Aetherize isn't exactly the greatest boardwipe out there so any halfway decent aggro probably knocks this about, but it can probably handle other somewhat slow decks okay. Lady Mapi I gave this thing a playtest, and it basically operates as a hardcore monoblue land destruction deck if you get out a Distorting Lens or two. Definitely on the "I wouldn't want to play with you again" side of things for slower decks. |
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Post by ZephyrPhantom on Mar 4, 2020 21:40:59 GMT
I gave this thing a playtest, and it basically operates as a hardcore monoblue land destruction deck if you get out a Distorting Lens or two. Definitely on the "I wouldn't want to play with you again" side of things for slower decks. Oh snap, I hadn't even thought of that with how focused I ended up on being able to deal with go-wide decks. That's surprisingly deadly for a budget deck then to the point I wonder if it could punch above its weight fighting against focused Pauper decks. |
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Post by Lady Mapi on Mar 5, 2020 3:17:35 GMT
I gave this thing a playtest, and it basically operates as a hardcore monoblue land destruction deck if you get out a Distorting Lens or two. Definitely on the "I wouldn't want to play with you again" side of things for slower decks. Oh snap, I hadn't even thought of that with how focused I ended up on being able to deal with go-wide decks. That's surprisingly deadly for a budget deck then to the point I wonder if it could punch above its weight fighting against focused Pauper decks. It's actually a pretty slow deck - in that test game, I lucked into having a Distorting Lens and a few Hydroblasts in my opening hand, and then I kept drawing more. Further tests against more aggressive decks indicated that it (predictably) falls apart against anything that can generate a wide enough presence. The fact that it completely lacks card draw does not help its case. It's making me curious about trying to make a budget deck that exploits cards that change land types. Might be an interesting brew. In any case, a boring aggro/midrange deck (that doesn't fall under the $10 budget line, sadly.): The general theme here is that Selesnya actually has enough Green cards that care about Plains and enough White cards that care about Forests to make a deck. If I wanted to make a cheaper version, I'd have to find replacements for the lions/leonin, Shalai, and the Always Watchings. I might see if I can make it cheaper without gutting the whole thing. It's kinda absurd to me that Loam Lion is 5 times as expensive as Sunblade Elf - I guess getting an early +0/+1 is better than having the potential to pump the whole field in the late game? |
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