Red/black/white madness

Well we’ve been here for 3 weeks and the feedbacks been great. So I did a bit of listening and it turns out a lot of folks want the same thing; something competitive and something cheaper than the tier. Well i 'm not sure how competitve this one is but its a lot of fun..

This deck is unusual in that it uses s few higher price cards, but as the game has changed these cards have dropped in value and the very idea that you could create a budget deck featuring them would have  been a joke three weeks ago.. Ladies and gentlemen this deck uses Baneslayer Angels and in a previously unheard of fashion. Before you say I’ve gone corporate, remember that a month ago these cards were £30/$45 and now you can pick them up on ebay ‘buy it now’ for £13/20 (just to prove my point look here). This deck also uses the planeswalker that proliferate was so clearly aimed at.... Sarkhan The Mad. You can currently pick one up for just £6.99 and by now you might be thinking ... ‘Oh yeah... I get it...’  Well good but we’ve got more to add, but these two cards have a natural synergy which this deck will exploit to the nines.   I call it.

Scars Tech 2- The Wrath of Sarkhan

You will need

4 Dragonmaster Outcast

4 Baneslayer Angel

4 Sarkhan the Mad

4 Act of Treason

3 Liquimetal Coating

3 Throne of Geth

2 Everflowing Chalice

1 Elixir of Immortality

3 Mimic Vats

4 Ratchet Bomb

4 Condemn

Lands, well I am open to suggestions ... right now I’m running 4 terra morphics and 4 evolving wilds and a mix of basics 

Ok basically this is red black control with a double splash of white for the Angels and condemns. The condemns will keep out early threats and defend well against dragons.  In fact most things in the deck will do well against dragons, which is also lucky because you are going to be facing lots of dragons. Why? Because you’re going to be giving them away like they are going out of fashion.

Ok so in what universe is it a good idea to give away dragons? Well it all depends on planning, let’s say you knew there would be dragons and maybe you had planned ahead and ordered the industrial size tins of wieners and a great big dragon cake for the party... and basically set your deck up around that fact... Well surely that would be better than having just anything turn up and try and eat you... and besides... you might be giving your opponent dragons, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to let them keep them.

So what’s the plan, well first things first, you’re not going to be giving away anything unless you a) need to and b) can handle it.

So here’s the general plan...

Early game you’ll be looking for the outcasts and condemns  to get in the way of early attacks. Then the game can run two ways, firstly use Sarkhan to make your opponent sac their biggest threat and give them a dragon, which will just bounce off your angels until you’re ready to steal them back and swing. Then either sac them to Sarkhan, to get a dragon all of your own or you can get Sarkhan to make it deal damage equal to its power to your opponent or their biggest threat before turning in to an artifact and sacking it to the throne to proliferate Sarkhan back up...

...Or you can steal their creatures, or even just sac an outcast, to make a dragon and swing through the air for massive damage... Obviously their dragons will just bounce of your Angels which have the all important ‘protection from Dragons’. Andif one does get through, don’t worry, that turn two ratchet bomb can take them out at instant speed.

Late game the outcasts will conjure up all sorts of chaos and give Sarkhan more fuel for the fire...  

Use the Chalices and the throne to ramp and you should be able to keep pace with most decks. 

Sarkhan can take out most threats and as long as you can deal with the dragons you are going to give your opponents you can mix up their strategies and confuse their game. Use the mimic vat to steal their sacked creatures and keep swinging.

Dependent on which of the tier you’re up against your play will vary, against Eldrazi Ramp don’t be afraid to blow up overgrown battlements with Sarkhan and obviously any actual Eldrazi, against Red Deck blow up your own outcasts and against elves blow up the mythic regenerator and the archdruids.

In testing it’s proving pretty capable, but as always I’d love to hear some suggestions...

News just  in fromn Karchev.... Bloodghast is a good additon to the gang maybe over the thrones ???  anyway keep em coming...

Blue White The Short Con

Ok I’m sticking with blue for the time being, but I‘m also making a welcome return to white. This one is tricksy little number that they won’t see coming first time round, but you’ll have to really sweat to win after they raid the sideboard....Guys this ones for fun...

 I call it...

The Short Con

You will need...

4 Totem-Guide Hertebeest

4 Merfolk Spy

4 student of warfare

3 spreading seas

4 Aura finesse

3 Celestial mantle

1 True conviction

4  Eel Umbra

4 Felidar Sovereign

4 Palladium myr

1 Elixir of Immortality (as always)

24 lands including , a few of the blue white non basics and maybe even some Celestial Colonnades

Ok so I said this deck is tricksy and it is exactly that. What you are trying to do is get Celestial Mantle on a creature with one blue mana spare.

The myrs are there to help you ramp and there is some card draw and disruption from the spreading seas.

Ideally you want the Celestial Mantle on a merfolk spy with the spreading sea in play. What you are trying to do is to keep getting combat damage through and therefore doubling your life, before eventually playing a Feldar Sovereign with an umbra on it if you can do this you’ll probably win.

The trick is aura finesse, there’s no way you’re opponent is going to let you double your life and will go hell for leather to prevent you getting the damage through. So you’ll want the Aura on the merfolk spy and our opponent will think you’re trying to use its island walk ability to get the damage through, the real trick is you want him to spend all his mana and removal on the spy, because what you’re really trying to do is get the aura on the student of warfare for double strike damage.Next turn you'll have the chance to flash in eel umbra to protect your Student.

In play testing, I found that opponents will let the student through rather than letting the merfolk in. Of course the trick here is aura finesse and that’s why you wanted the one blue spare, after blockers, once action has been taken and just before damage, flash in aura finesse and switch the Celestial Mantle from the spy to the student(if he wasn’t blocked obviously) , or as soon as they try to deal with the spy. Boom you’ve just caused combat damage with a double striker that means your life doubles twice.  Let’s say you’re on 14 instantly you’ll go to 28 and then 56 in one turn...

Early game you’ll want to play aggro, pace your opponent and to keep the student on the field with umbras and keep him levelled. You must have the aura finese in hand and have the spare mana before you play the mantle. Target anything other than the student, your opponent will think you’re an idiot, but they will be laughing on the other side of their face in a second.  

Next turn you’ll want to umbra up the student, if you haven’t already and then get the sovereign on the field as soon as you can. If you have another Aura Finese then you’re gonna win... because all you have o do is switch the umbra to the sovereign when they try and kill him and unless they can get 16 damage past your blockers, not forgetting the double striking student you will enter your upkeep with over 40 life and win.

Use the wildebeest ti find the auras you need,

You can experiment with some counter spells and white removal and the like, but this deck is quite tricky if your opponent makes the wrong play it will be very hard for them to come back, all you need to do to win late game is keep one card in play.

Against elves you’ll need day of Judgement and more umbra’s... Against - Valakut - you’ll want Leyline of Sanctity-  Against Eldrazi ramp you’ll want divine intervention (that’s a joke not a card) Against Blue/White control you’ll want to play cautiously and remember hitting a planeswalker counts as a player and therefore your life will still double.

New Deck - Mono White - Hard Kor

 I’ve had a good look through the lists and I’ve discovered a bit of a gap. 

There’s a green deck and few red decks a black deck and even a blue deck, but we’re missing a white deck and that’s just not cricket. 

White is my colour of choice, my own standard deck is white and I will get to it eventually, I played it last night at FNM and devastated Blue White control in my first game. At the end of the game, my opponent had six Jaces in his graveyard, four Mind Sculptors and two babies, two Vensers and a Gideon which if my calculations are correct is about £350. It was a hell of a fight, and my opponent did take the next game to force the draw, but it goes to show that with some thought you can consistently beat the ‘top decks’.  I promise I’ll post it soon, but mean while, I did some thinking and I reckon there’s a few solid white decks in standard at the moment, but today I’m presenting my homage to white weenie.  I call it...

Hard Kor.

You will need.

4 Armament Master

3 Dawnglare Invoker

3 Kor Duellist

3 Kot Cartographer

3 Lone Missionary

3 Kor Outfitter

4 Sun titan

3 Adventuring Gear

3 Darksteel axe

3 Basilisk Collar

3 Accorder’s shield

4 Emeria the Sky Ruin

4 Tectonic Edge

17 Plains

Ok so this deck is pure aggro, the idea is to get the Armament Master out as early in the game as you can, cover him with cheap equipment and then suddenly your little Kor Army will be looking very nasty indeed.

If you can get an axe on the Master and an axe and a collar on the Duellist, you’ll have a 5/5 double strike/death touch/life-linker ready to defend by turn 4 and by turn five he could be swinging for 18 damage easily.

As early in the game a you can, get a shield on the master to take him out of the range of burn and the rest of the game should be yours.  Use the outfitters to flit equipment back and forth to your advantage and to keep your manna open for more attackers.

Use the Hook Master to take out any opposition and the missionaries if you need some life in a hurry. The cartographers serve double purpose in helping you get to Emeria’s ultimate and triggering landfall for the adventuring gear and remember it stacks, so a duellist equipped with two adventuring gears when the cartographer comes in could swing for18 damage alone.  More if you have an equipped Armament Master. Almost every Creature in the deck is a Kor creature with an extra ability so the +2 +2 bonus from the Master will make them very potent indeed.

Once you have the mana, open simply use the Invokers to take out the defence and the game should be yours. Keeping it mono white and playing a high range of plains will help reach your goal of getting Emeria online, and remember once it’s up and running, bringing back a titan will also bring back almost everything in your deck so don’t worry if they get countered or destroyed early on, the graveyard isn’t a bad place for them in this deck. 

The tectonics will take out pesky threats like other tectonics and horrible non basic like Raging Ravine, Celestial Colonade and Valakut.

You’ll have so much fun with the Sun Titans in this deck. Swinging in and before blockers are declared, reanimating an outfitter to put a collar on the Titan, or a hundred different plays. Remember the Titan can also bring back the tectonic edges, so don’t be afraid to use them on your opponents land and if you do get ‘edged’ yourself the Titan can also bring back Emeria.

You can still pick up pre release Sun Titans for under £5, making them officially the cheapest of the five, this can’t last for long so get them now.

Get them here...

So there we have it, our first mono white deck and I think it’s cheap, fun and very playable.

Price wise, the promo titans are the most expensive cards at £5 followed by the Collars at £4, Emeria the Sky Ruin is about £2 and the Armament Master is only £1.

If you wanted to jazz it up a little you could add an Iona or a couple of Stone Forge Mystics and maybe sword of Vengeance/ Body and Mind, but it works well as it is. Any way have fun and please send in your ideas, comments and thoughts.

  

A Word About EDH

Elder Dragon Highlander

Often referred to as simply E D H, this is probably my favourite faction of magic. EDH is usually played as a multi player game and decks can vary hugely in power and price. Its also very much aboiut diplomacy, you can win games by losing and lose games by playing the best card and sometimes looking at the wrong player funny will take you out of the running,.I love it, because of all these things.

I’ll tell you the basics and if you want to learn more I’ll post some links in a moment, but there’s a point to this story and I want to get to it...

So basically to build an EDH deck, you will need...

One legendary general... Rule of thumb, the more abilities the better...

One 100 card deck ( including the general ) No duplicate cards (except basic lands ) and only cards in the colours of your general...

The general starts off outside of the game in a special exile (known as the command zone, if he is killed or exiled you may return him to the command zone and replay him, but each time you do he/she costs 2 colourless mana more to play,. this is accumulative)
.

 You have 40 life and if you take 21 points of combat damage from a single general you lose.

And that in a nutshell is EDH.

The full rules can be found here...

Last night we played a four player match.  Dave P, Tim H, myself and Kitt.  Both Dave P and Tim H are seeded players, indeed one of them is in the UK’s top 20...

Kitt and I are not.  

Dave’s deck is a carefully created collection of his best cards and his general is Rafiq of the Many, a particularly despised general in the world of EDH, Tim is playing Teneb the Harvester, Kitt is playing Kemba, Kha Regeant and I am playing Patron of the Akki.  

Where this story gets interesting is how the game went, by the second turn both Tim and Dave had at least £100 of cards on the table. Dave’s got a pair of dual lands and Tim is sporting a Mox Diamond and Maze of ith. Now you have to remember that Kitt’s equipment deck is half cats and half rusty swords, bread knives and pots and pans and I picked up my general in a 30p box at the local store and there is only one kind of land in my deck and they are high and pointy and people like to climb them.

Naturally Kitt and I won. Well Kitt won really, but I gave him the game and our smug alert went off the chart...

Over the next week, I shall be building my fifth EDH and I intend to theme the entire thing around cows.  You may laugh and I suspect you might, but trust me when you’ve been beaten to death by a herd of herbivores the laughing stops. (on a related note I was once killed by an alarming amount of Squirrels, which was just embarrassing) 

So to help me on this quest, I’d like all of you to find as many cow or more importantly cow related cards as you can and send me the suggestions.

I also want to know if you have similarly insane theme decks. Do you have a Gang of Gingers? or a Bat Attack deck? or anything weird and wonderful? Send in your deck lists and I’ll create a top ten bizarre EDH deck list...

The email is

gordonvader@hotmail.co.uk

The Dark Design

Mono Black Control

I know I go on about blue players and in particular Jace the Cash Guzzler, but I can’t deny that blue decks are a lot of fun and a lot of blue decks are control decks.  

Control decks, do exactly that, they seek to win games by controlling them. They may try to counter your spells or affect your library and basically ruin your day. Blue cards are particularly strong in this field and therefore a lot of control decks are blue or partially blue, but there have been more recent control decks that have no blue cards at all. Mono white control is possibly the most notable and is an excellent deck, but I’ve been coveting and planning a black version for a while so here it is...

I call it... 

The Dark Design

You will need...

4 Duress

4 Inquisition of Kozilek

1 Sadistic Sacrement

4 Diabolic Tutor

4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Voltaic Key

1 Contagion Engine

4 Throne of Geth

4 Prototype Portal

4 Elixir of Immortality

1 Temple Bell

1 Liliana Vess

1 Lux Cannon

1 Exsanguinate

Lots of swamps and a calculator, because once this thing gets going, you’ll have mana falling out of your ears.

This deck works in a very different way to most. What you are effectively trying to do is to leave your opponent with NO cards, none at all.  At the end of the game if all has gone well your opponent will have no deck, no hand and no permanents.

To play you have to achieve two different goals and keep yourself alive in the process...

The first thing you’re going to need is mana and lots of it, so half the deck is a great big mana battery...    

Here’s how it works...

What you are looking for in an opening hand is a prototype portal and a voltaic key. As soon as you have mana open you need to start generating keys. Because Voltaic key only costs one mana and its ability is pay one un-tap an artifact, the mini combo here is to un-tap the portal and make another one and so on until you use all your mana. When you get an everflowing chalice out you can really start to ramp, add the Throne of Geth and you’ll start to see the picture...  There’s so many ways to use this system it will get very confusing, but basically once it’s under way, within a few turns you should be able to generate hundreds if not thousands of mana. 

So, whilst you’re charging your battery how do you stay alive? Good question, but since you asked, you'll have to snatch the threats out f your opponents hand before they can play them. Turn one use Inquisition of Kozilek to take any 1/2/3 drop creatures and have a good look at their hand. Write down what you see and use your judgement as to when and how to steal the other threat cards... Don’t worry too much about cards out of the range of inquisition, if your deck behaves they’ll never get the chance to play them. 

So you got mana and your opponent’s graveyard is filling up, what next?  Well what you’re actually trying to achieve here is to play a kicked Sadistic Sacrament as soon as you can (possible on turn 5, I think).  

What you’re trying to do here is take out your opponents land. With most decks running 24 lands and assuming they’ve played one each turn that means they should have 5 in play and another 4 in the deck which they are never going to find now with the odds  you’ve just given them.  Now you want to use an elixir to get your sacrament back in the deck and do it all again until naturally they have no cards left. 

Use the tutors to find Liliana then use Liliana to tutor for your combo bits, you can use the Temple bell to draw the card on the turn too or you can use your keys to un-tap the Temple Bell and just draw lots of cards. 

Another trick here is to mill them to death by repeatedly tapping the temple bell with keys and masses of mana. For best effect do it during their end step forcing them to discard them before they have a chance to use them.   

Once you’ve exiled all their lands and any spells that they could have played it’s time to power up the doomsday laser... So go and get the Lux Cannon, with keys and thrones already in play, its possible you could destroy all their permanents in one turn. If you’ve done your job that will mean they have no way of playing any of the spells left in their deck and you will have effectively shut them down...

Ok here is how it works...

Dream hand - 2 x Everflowing Chalice , Prototype Portal, Voltaic Key, Inquisition of Kozilek and a pair of Swamps. 

Turn One - Drop swamp, play inquisition remove negate or goblin guide or the biggest threat and pass turn...

Turn Two - Hopefully draw a swamp lay the other swamp and drop chalice for two

Turn Three – Draw Throne of Geth, lay swamp and drop the portal imprinting the key, fasten seat belt and pass turn...

Turn Four –It’s going to get mental in a minute, let’s say you’ve drawn the god hand and this next card is another swamp... Tap chalice for one and pay one from a swamp for the other chalice -tap chalice and one more swamp for throne – tap another swamp to tap portal and make a key pay the last mana to un-tap the one of the chalices and then pass turn...

Turn Five - Draw a card, let’s say it’s a swamp... First tap one swamp and tap portal to make a key - sac key to throne proliferate. - Putting chalices to 2 -  tap one for 2 mana - use one mana to un-tap portal  use the other to make a key – tap a swamp use one to un-tap the portal make another key - tap chalice for two use one on  key to un-tap portal with last mana make another key lay last swamp to un-tap the throne - sac a key to the Throne and proliferate... you now have 4 swamps two chalices with 3 charge counters each, a Throne Of Geth,  3 voltaic keys  and a prototype portal with a voltaic key imprinted on it...

Next turn you could proliferate the chalices to 6 each and make 16 keys...

On the turn after you could proliferate them to 22 each and make 40ish keys or tap and un-tap one of them 17 times generating over 70 mana, after that it starts getting silly...

Alternative Win conditions...

We already looked at the milling element with temple bell but there are quite a few ways for you to win with this deck.

Alt win 1. Liliana’s ultimate. If you try to target creatures with the Inquisitions you’ll find it’s easy to proliferate liliana to her top ability.  So go rob the graveyard and swing...

Alt win 2. Exanguinate - Once you have the mana (and it shouldn’t take long) go get this little baby and you win....

Sideboard...

The world’s your oyster here you could swap out the snatches (duress, inquisition of Kozilek) for removal (doom blade, Grasp of Darkness)or add some reanimation with Rise from the Grave. If you come across any planeswalkers add Vampire Hexmage and if you need some life in a hurry Corrupt will see you through and even give you another win condition. And if you need graveyard hate then add leyline of the void or Bojuka bog...

Another Contribution This time from Mr Hodge... Keep em coming

So, onto low budget decks and here is Joe, or ‘the Hodge’ with my entry.

After Scars was spoilt I looked at what decks I thought would be good, then decided how best to deal with them. It looks like various forms of control with lots of planeswalkers would be strong considering that Jace is a lot harder to deal with without pithing needle or o-ring. Ramp still looked good with the Valakut version staying strong. Once the meta settled down a bit elves came along and proved very strong as well. When thinking about what deck to build for the new standard I aimed that dealing with 3 problems:
1. Jace the (insert various insulting finish)
2. Decks that land a titan turn 4 and avenger turn 5.
3. Aggro swarm decks, predominantly elves and WW quest.

So, looking at those 3 points, 1 word sprung to mind – RED. Red burns walkers, outpaces ramp and can knock down little dudes till the cows come home. With some new additions to choose from, I decided to toss together goblins and see what happened. I ended up with a pretty standard list until I saw two cards, goblin Gaveleer and kuldotha rebirth and made a connection. Equipments are artefacts; they pump Gaveleer and then make goblins with rebirth. Another list was strung together and got some testing, however it seemed a little slow and I did not like sacrificing good equipment to get goblins, which left lots of dead cards. Then in a dream Memnite appeared to me and all problems were solved. No, seriously, I saw this card and it just dropped right in. Temps increase – yes. Turn 1 rebirth – yes. Keeps Gaveleer powered – yes. In the end I put this together and a seriously enjoying it:

4 Goblin Guide

4 Goblin Chieftain

4 Goblin Bushwhacker

4 Memnite

3 spikeshot elder

4 Goblin Gaveleer

4 infiltration lens

1 darksteel axe

2 basilisk collar

4 Lightning Bolt

4 Kuldotha Rebirth

4 Teetering peaks

18 mountains

Picture this scenario.
Turn 1 – land, memnite, rebirth for 3 goblins.
Turn 2 – Land, kicked bushwacker, swing for 8.
Turn 3 – Land, chieften – swing for 10.
Turn 4- Assume that some damage earlier got prevented, but hey, you still have a guide/bolt/spieshot elder in hand.
This may seem like a god hand, but enough people who have played this deck will testify that, uncontrolled it can often have you turn 4, 5 if something got removed /blocked. I would seriously advise people who are looking for a £30, fun, quick deck that works well in the current meta to sleeve this up, have a play and have some fun.


Solid Deck Mr Hodge and without the need for the doublsstriking Instigator.. It's brutal quick and I bet it wins a lot of game... 

Low Budget Deck Idea

Golem Economics

This deck is nuts if it goes off and once again uses the principle that the clever bods in Wizards R&D may like the odd afternoon snooze, because they must have been napping to let this little trick slip through...

We’re going to let you build the deck yourself but we are going to show you the combo that makes this deck INSANITY...

Here’s the question... What if I told you that for one mana you could draw five cards at instant speed, perhaps even more and at the same time give your creatures a bonus, Intrigued?

Right now you’re probably thinking I’m insane, but it’s true it can be done and without too much hassle either. Naturally there’s a catalyst and here it is...

Precursor Golem

Now the R&D boys obviously thought such an overpowered card needed a negative side and therefore the part of the card that says...‘whenever a player casts an instant or sorcery that targets only a single golem, that player copies that spell for each other golem that spell could target’ was clearly meant for doom blade and lightning bolt and the like... Now Wizards ‘building on a budgett’ have already highlighted a couple of combos with this beast and the likes of Giant Growth and Vines of The Vastwood., but we think they’ve missed a few tricks, so here; the redux with lots of added card draw...

For this experiment you are going to need any of the following cards , you’ll probably have them all kicking around in the commons box , but today we are going to turn them into giant killers...

Twisted Image

Feetting Distraction (only play this one during opponents end step)

Irresistible Prey

Tel-Jilad Defiance (ok so this one costs 2 bite me! )

You can even splash black...

Nighthaze

Basically because these spells copy for each golem in play, and it's easy to have 4/5 or even more out at once, you'll be drawing dcards for each of them., giving you huge card advantage.

There are a good few golems in standard at the mo...Lodestone Golem, Rusted Relic, Platinum Imperium, Dread Statuary, Golem Artisan and more...

...And a few ways to protect them, but we recommend Asceticism and Leyline of Vitality...It’s in colour and boom, they’ll come in at 0/4 and you’ll gain 3 life , also when you swing and play twisted image they’ll all be hitting for 4...

Whichever way you go you can be certain that you won't be running out of cards...

Ok We've done no budget...

Now its time to check out low budget....

Low budget for me means a deck that has a few lower priced rares, but nothing over say £10. It may have some cheap mythics but it's not going to play any super cards...

In this field I know there are some amazing competitive decks and we could start seeing sme real contenders...   

1. Adventures In the Meta Rule No.1 -  To be a low budget deck - The entire thing has to come in under £65... (ie. less than a Jace the Money Scammer...)
2. Adventures In the Meta Rule No.2 - You can ignore rules if your version is better or funnier...

 So what you waiting for get innovating... I'll be posting my first low budget deck later today...

Our First Outside Contribution and I like it... Here it comes... exactly as Joe T sent it

The Sack Race

Hello all. Joe T here with another built on a budget deck. It was devised in the same vein as Gordon’s ‘handful of commons and thought’ philosophy – I had done well at the previous FNM with my current pet deck, but I had noted that it was leaning on a bit of ‘rare power’ to enable its god draws. I then thought it was due time to create something out of left field, without using any rares if possible, but more importantly, was a blast to play. The following deck was the result.

The Sack Race

4 Furnace Celebration
4 Zektar Shrine Expedition
4 Panic Spellbomb
4 Act of Treason
4 Spawning Breath
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Fling
3 Culling Dais
3 Expedition Map
3 Kuldotha Rebirth

4 Ember Hauler

4 Terramorphic Expanse
3 Evolving Wilds
1 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle
12 Mountains

Huh?

The grand plan behind this deck is to abuse Furnace Celebration for fun and profit. There are a great many synergies contained within the deck that utilise sacrificing permanents, and the Celebration rewards this with virtual card advantage and even a potential win condition. Let’s discuss the other cards in the deck.

• Zektar Shrine Expedition – A cousin deck to Control This! – the Sack Race uses the hasty 7/1 to good effect as the activation involves a sacrifice, it can be made hard to block and is particularly tasty paired with…
• Fling – for another seven damage before its untimely demise, another sacrifice trigger, and is itself a particularly nasty combo with…
• Act of Treason – This little one-two punch has seen a lot of play in M11 mono-red drafts. Independently however, Act is a solid metagame call as there are any number of Titans, Wurmcoil Engines, Baneslayers and Eldrazi kicking around and the ability to steal one AND use its benefits attacking for a turn are huge. Ideally though you’d want to end up sacrificing it before giving it back, either to the aforementioned Fling, or…
• Culling Dais – This deck mostly utilises chump blockers of creatures to hold larger creatures at bay, so why not cash them in for more card draw?
• Expedition Map & Panic Spellbomb – Both sacrifice for a benefit, either to force through a hasty Zektar elemental and draw, or fetch more land to power up the Shrine’s landfall trigger. Both are also sacrifice targets for…
• Kuldotha Rebirth – Gives the deck a way to generate chump blockers to keep pace with faster aggro decks. These will usually be sacrificed to the Dais, where they will be turned back into more cards.
• Spawning Breath & Ember Hauler – More chumps and burn combined in one card.
• Lightning Bolt – The burn spell of choice.
• Terramorphic Expanse & Evolving Wilds – Sacrifice triggers and pull double duty for landfall.
• Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle – My one concessionary rare, can be found by Maps and gives the deck a way to finish off the last few points of burn in the long game.

The Road Not Travelled

One option I considered for this deck was to go more of the Eldrazi route, using Brood Birthing, Emrakul’s Hatcher and Rapacious One alongside Spawning Breath. I ultimately decided against it, believing it to be too slow, but I would be interested to see what someone could make of it.

But At What Cost?

The Sack Race clocks in at just under £12 or less than a tenner if you decide to drop the Valakut. I suppose if you wanted to pimp it out a bit and add rares, the rare fetchlands and more Valakuts would go in, but as we’re building on a budget, the rare I would be most excited to add to this deck would the 50p rare king himself, Magmaw. Time for him to shine.

Matchups

This deck is still in its initial design phase and hasn’t been tested against many of the major archetypes yet, so I’ll just add some thoughts on each.
• Destructive Force – Act of Treason + a sac outlet is huge against their Titans, but the titular Force sets you back a long way and disrupts the Valakut plan.
• Valakut – No real way to disrupt their Valakuts, perhaps run a singleton Tectonic Edge in the main to fetch with Maps and more in the side.
• Eldrazi Ramp – Similar to D-Force, you’ll need to have Act of Treason ready after they land their first huge fatty.
• Red Deck Wins/Turbo Goblins – If you can get enough early burn and chump blockers to keep pace, you’ll likely win if you can survive long enough to get a Celebration and/or Valakut active.
• U/W Planeswalkers – Their Wraths do very little to this deck, so aiming burn and/or Zektar elementals at their face at strategic intervals is the way to go here. You have very little way of removing their walkers apart from burn, so it’s better to just go for the face and attempt to Treason their Baneslayers.
• Infect – Most infectious creatures are small enough to fall to the burn suite, however the green Infect deck with Giant Growths could be a problem.
• Zero Weenie – Most of their creatures will die to the burn, but it will be important not to give them a window of opportunity to activate their Quest for the Holy Relic, otherwise you will likely lose.
• Fauna Shaman – Vengevine will give you a lot of trouble, so much so that it will need to be addressed in the sideboard.
• Tribal Golems / Wall for Nothing / Control This! – God only knows.

Sideboard

A little up in the air, but the following should probably be considered;
Tectonic Edge – vs Valakut, Eldrazi Temples, Eye of Ugin, Manlands
Brittle Effigy – Titans, Eldrazi, Vengevine, Baneslayer
Combust – I really hate Baneslayers
Unstable Footing/ Leyline of Punishment – Kor Firewalkers
Pyroclasm – Goblins, Elves, random aggro.
Manic Vandal – Mimic Vat and other random artifacts that are bound to show up.

Pack Up Your Party Sack

And there you have it – a spicy new deck to confound people with at the next FNM that won’t break the bank. I welcome questions and comments, as always, Please Evaluate And Critique Honestly, Yo. PEACHY.

Thanks Joe and a fine additoon to the database...

I like the idea and I love the mechanics... If i had to suggest anyhing, I'd maybe offer Horizon Spellbomb, sod the green for the card draw you don't need it, but thining the deck and getting to thst Valakut trigger is tempting, plus its another fuse for the furnace bomb...

Also I'd suggest adding Elixir of Immortality, just incase you run out of steam ( but mainly because i'm slightly obsessed with adding Elixir of Immortaility to everything., not that I'm in love with it or anything. It's not like its a bear o anything.and definately  not a Wombat...  See post titled There's some cards I like if you're wondering what I'm on about ).  

Deck 3 Toxic Toolbox

Deck 3 – Toxic Toolbox

Ok this one’s another budget beauty... For this deck you will need...

4 Heavy Arbalest

4 Necropede

4 Ichorclaw myr

4 Corpse Cur

4 Razor Boomerang

4 Throne of Geth

4 Contagion Clasp

4 Voltaic Key.

2 Elixir of Immortality

4 Everflowing Chalice

4 Dread Statuary(man-land)

18 lands of any description.   

Because this deck is colourless the mana curve is very shallow. And because of that you could experiment with any of the cheaper non basics in the set. As you can see above, we’ve included the excellent dread statuary which you can pick up for about £0.30 $0.50 each and fits the artifact creature build brilliantly.

Ok here’s the deal, this deck is simplicity itself... 

You use the arbalests with the infect artifacts and use the keys to un-tap them and then do it again, that’s 4 poison each one every turn, because the Arbalests grant their damage ability to the creature, and infect creature will give a player poison counters instead of the damage. The Razor Boomerangs work in the same way and once the poison counters are through, sac the necropedes to the Throne of Geth take out any threats and proliferate your chalices up and your opponent and his fatties to death. Use your Corpse curs to recur the necropedes and do it all again.

The Arbalests will also help you take out threats like planeswalkers and key creatures, which your opponent needs to hold back, like lotus cobras, fauna shamans and the like.

This deck has great synergy, you can also use the voltaic keys to un-tap the thrones to proliferate higher or on the chalices to help you ramp or use them late game on the clasps to proliferate again.

Of course if there’s nothing in your way you can also just swing in with poisonous little beasties...

And once again NOT a single RARE...  

There's some cards I really like...

but this guy may have issues...

Enjoy...Here

Well the stats are singing... So welcome everyone... And a wee reminder about why we're here...

Ok I got some feedback recently some good, some bad and some ugly, I guess we better keep the Jace bashing to a minimum in future...(he he)

Anyway some of the feedback on Wall or Nothing got me thinking that maybe our message isn't clear enough, because one of them suggesting adding Wall Of Omen to the deck.. Dude! 4 x Walls of Omen costs more than the rest of the deck!

This blog is aboiut building decks when you only have budgets of £10/20 $15/30 to spend. We may comment on other decks and we welcome submissions about anything on topic.We're even planning one on a top budget Legacy Deck soon, but at our heart, we are cards for the masses...

So while there may be better cards for our Wall deck we're keeping it as it is because its cheap and fun...

And besides this was our thinkng...

Wall of Vines v's Wall of Omen

Vines is one drop with 3 in the ass and the all important reach. There isn't a card in standard that cnn topple it with the Leyline Of Vitality in place

Omens is storng with the cantrip, has one more in the ass, but costs one more and doesn't have the all important reach...

Verdict! Whilst drawing cards is great, this deck isn't about that.... Its about gaining life and digging in...  We stay with the Wall of Vines

Oh and there's one more reason!
Wall of Omen todays price Magic Madhouse £3.99/$5.50

Wall of Vines  same source £0.10$0.15

Sure, there's some argument for using Overgrown battlement, and tapping for mana is a great ability, (and we did suggest this as an alternative), but it still can't block fliers...

The Wall or Nothing deck works by being able to block anything your opponent can throw at you.  Sitting back and either gaining life to keep you out of the range of ultimate effects (like Valakut Ramp, because when those mountains are on the field that card is over) or swinging in with huge fliers (an equipped gargolyle with it's ability paid, one stalwart and one leyline on the field will fly in for 8/8...)  But the decks real win is simply to top deck your opponent. (leave them no way in, play only what you need to, keep a hand full of cards and use the elixir when you need to., eventually they will run out of cards)

Its strong against valakut ramp beacuse of the lifegain and safe passage...
It eats red deck...
It's strong against infect...
Its weaker against blue/white control and Mono Green Eldrazi Ramp (isn't everything?) But with a sideboard of leylines of sanctity for the former and tajura preservers for the latter, it can take even them.( which you can afford, because they are still cheaper than wall of omens...)

But here's where you really win...

Total build cost

Wall or Nothing £10

Single Card Cost

Eldrazi ramp/Valakut ramp Primeval Titan  £35 (and you'll need four)
Blue White Control Jace the Mind Sculptor £65 (and you'll need four)

Of course Control This... will beat all of them and costs even less than the wall deck...(see the archives)

Anyway its good to know people are reading and what I'd really like to hear just now are ideas for other decks, and articles. So if you fancy writing something (constructive please) then email me... As for Jace bashing, well if anyone can think of better ways to use him and can actually use photoshop, please get intouch...

Later,

Gordon Vader...

Alright Alright...

In a bid to prove once and for all, we are not Anti 'Jace The Mind Sculptor'
Here's one situation that screams for Jace's special talents

Click here

Speculating and Accumulating

Ok, so one way to get good cards is to get them cheap.. While this is nowhere near a perfect science cheap cards can't really go down much so if you don't 'win win' you can usually 'draw draw'...

Cards that are going to go up for sure

Voltiac Key - With another set or two of artifacts still to come and the rise of the Mimic Vat these uncommons are going to go up like hot air ballons with rockets on...

And of course what goes up must come down... So cheap artifact removal will go the same way...

Green has Nature's claim and white has Revoke Existence and Solemn offering, for red its easy there's so many ways to deal with artifacts its not funny...

Black will mainly just duress the mimic vats out of your hand and Blue players will just continue to spend stupid money on Jaces

Enchantments however may be a little bit trickier and so to my next must have card...

Liquimetal Coating - That enchantment/manland/planeswalker/mahousive green fattie bothering you? Tick... tap... Boom!  Simply add any of the above spells or in red's case creatures to this little nugget and no more problems... Get em while you can...

Ok In my opinion the rares worth watching are ...

My bet's are on...

Lux Canon (seriously! why is no one playing this???)

Mindslaver (Oh you wanted a Primeval titan under your Mimic Vat? I'm so sorry I let it go for this memnite... Oh that was your ratchet bomb?}

Prototype Portal (because you can never have too many atrifacts, particularily Mimic Vats and Volataic Keys)

Of the plainswalkers I'd say...

Elspeth Tirel, because the Portal makes tokens too and this set is shy of wraths.

Of the Titans?

Well this one is easy...Infact get as many as you can... Beacause the Mimic Vat can bring ALL The Titans back, but only one Titan can bring back the Mimic Vat...

Get your Sun Titans now and don't let them out of your sight...

Oh and I'm planning a deck aroound Semblence Anvil next, I reckon there's something in it and I'm just looking for it's home...

Practical Magic

Ok, So we had a little fun Jace Bashing earlier, but in all seriousness there are some good practical applications for the card...


So here's the First 

or try here if you get errors...

Deck 2 : Wall or Nothing

Fog, as we previously discussed no one really plays this card and I’m hard pushed to say why... So we’ve teamed it up with a few other playable, yet under used, misfits and built a deck that is both competitive and inexpensive...

For this deck you will need...

4 Fog

4 Safe passage

4 Leyline of Vitality

3 Wall of Vines

3 Perimeter Captain

3 Stalwart Shield Bearers

4 Warmongers Chariot

3 Roc Egg

4 Asceticism

4 Heavy Arbalest

1 Elixir of Immortality

3 Gargoyle Sentinel

20 land - A mix of plains and forests ( this deck has a very cheap mana curve, but experiment with up to 24 land until you find it works for you. You could add overgrown battlements in place of the walls of vines and add some big green fatties if you feel you need them...)

Ok, so this deck uses a few rares. Asceticism and Leylines of Vitality, but oh my lord they're cheap and strangely the leyline is the only one of the set playable in multiples. If you think about it, the others all have very useful effects, but the vitality is the only one that has more than one effect, with two in play creatures get an extra +0 +2 and you gain two life every time you have a creature enter the battlefield.  So this deck is simple, it’s all about digging in, sitting back and gaining as much life as you can before returning fire with tricksy tappers or suicidal walls...

With this deck the mana curve is so shallow that you can afford to go to 5 or even 4 cards in search of the all important leyline, although getting a second one is amazing...   As soon as you find it you’re off...

Turn one you’re looking for a leyline, a couple of lands and one of the one drop walls, the vines or the captain.  

What’s clever about this deck is that as soon as you have the leyline, all of your creatures will come in with toughness of 4 or more and therefore out of the range of burn and of course you can add more leylines and stalwarts later in the game and extend the toughness even further.  Basically the idea is really really easy The Walls of Vines have reach and should come in at 0/4, the stalwart will pump them to 0/6 the captains will net you 2 life every time you block. 

When you are ready to swing in, use the Gargoyle Sentinels and equip the warmonger’s chariots on the Roc Eggs and swing them to their doom and don’t forget the arbalests, your creatures may be defenders, but it doesn’t mean they can’t cause damage, just remember to un-equip them before the next turn. There’s no way your opponent is going to waste doom blades, or mana leaks on one mana walls, at least not in the first game, so you’ll have to be careful when you play  asceticism, because he’ll likely have a handful ready. If the worst does happen and you lose your walls make sure you play the Elixir at the right time and simply start again...

  

Asceticism will save you from tapping, bouncing and stealing effects, which really only leaves you vulnerable to mass removal.  Sideboard  natures spiral and cheap umbras like snake umbra, hyena umbra and spider umbra against day of judgement and ratchet bomb, use fog early game and safe passage later for fireball, burn and seemingly suicidal rushes and remember you still get the 2 life gain from blocking defenders if you play fog...

Here's how quickly it gets going...

I have a feeling that The leylines are going to go up in value soon.  All it will take is a need for extra toughness or turn one and all the decks will be running them... Obviously card values fluctuate so it’s a good idea to look ahead and try to get them cheap while you can... I remember when Frost Titans were £4 and Grave Titans were £30... 

So we’re going to have some punts in the next article please feel free to add your own ideas...
Today’s pick is Mimic Vat, get them while you can. Currently they go for £3/4, but I predict they are going to be at least double that soon.