The third installment to the Tarkir block is right around the corner. Prereleases, launches and Game Days at Local gaming stores (LGS) all around the world will be packing up with followers of different broods of Dragons. Tons of Dragons of Tarkir promos will be given away at LGS everywhere. We’ve seen some of the Dragonlords and Regents the new dragon cycles in Dragons of Tarkir spoiler gallery. Now let’s take a look at all the promos.
[still waiting on alternate art]
Hello again fellow looters! It’s me Roy, back for another article this week. Now before we delve into our topic, I have to explain something. If you have been reading my past articles, you know that I promised that my next article would be a data-centric analysis of the new format One Fate Reforged Pack and Two Khans of Tarkir Packs. (Also that I would have an article once a week.) Well, as it turns out, watching 300+ games of magic is a ferociously difficult task for a full time college student who also works. I know that I just need to bolster myself with some coffee and sit down one day and maybe then I will have the prowess to just knock it out. Until then, I have some other ideas for articles including the topic for this week which is all about Modern on a budget. So before you raid my house, just know that I will try to dash out the article ASAP. Until then, let’s talk Modern! Also, Outlast! (See what I did there?)
Moving on, Modern is a format that has been around for a while, however, it has grown a lot in recent months. My local game store’s (LGS) Modern event now has just as many players as the standard events, On top of this, Star City and even Wizards have started embracing modern events more openly. The most recent Pro Tour was even modern which makes the format fresh in the magic community’s mind. Well, everyone else is doing this new thing the kids call “Modern” now, why shouldn’t I? I am hip right? Well, the problem lies in the cost of most modern decks. Some decks in this format can run as much as 500 to 800 dollars for a finished deck. That can be a lot especially because most of us either: love standard and spend the money on that format, spend all our money on drafting, or just don’t have any money. Have no fear! I can solve every problem for you except for the last one. I can even solve that one too if you change the word none to some! How will I do that? Well, with a budget deck of course!
Now, I scoured the internet and found five decks that I feel are good budget modern decks that still remain relatively competitive. I even included a stock list with each archetype I post and this should be easily traded for. (Some of the cards may even be on this website! )
Disclaimer! The deck will not be perfect. There will always be some card that can make the deck inches better. That is not the goal with budget deck building. The goal here is to make the best deck with a limited budget that can go toe to toe with some of the real decks in the format without feeling like you are using a wet noodle in a sword fight. Also this is going to have a focus on having a bit of fun. These are decks you may not take to a Pro-Tour Qualifier (PTQ), however, they may do alright in your local store.
Without further ado, here is the top five decent/fun Budget Modern Decks!
There is always some red deck that keeps all the other decks on the format on their toes. These decks tend to be really good because they can pick up wins just by having their opponent stumble for even one turn. This is due to this deck being very fast, however, there comes a point in every game where, if you haven’t won yet, you most likely won’t. Now, even the most competitive version of this deck is less than 100 which is much better than most Modern decks, but we can do better than that!
Now, as you can see this deck is designed to throw damage at your opponent and hope you can finish him off with Shrine or a top deck burn spell. You can even sideboard some Skullcrack’s in order to prevent decks with sources of life gain. Either way, this deck should be fun enough to play and win you enough games to warrant spending the 25 dollars or less the deck will cost.
For those who are new to Modern, you may not be familiar with this deck. The premise is simple, get the set of Urza lands (Urza’s Mine, Urza’s Tower, and Urza’s Power Plant) into play and play big stuff and expensive spells. Now, there are many ways you can play this deck. You can play: Artifact, Mono-Blue, Mono-Red, Red/Green, and I am sure many other ways. However, for the sake of cost, I feel like Mono Blue Tron may have a cheap list for us. Now, when I say cheap, I mean for Modern’s budget. This deck unfortunately has some cards that are harder to forego that may cost a pretty penny. We will see what we can do.
This deck is all about quickly assembling the pieces of your land combo and start dropping big spells. Spine of Ish Sah, Wurmcoil Engine, and all your other spells become very easy to cast. Treasure Mage can help you find the creatures. Now this version took some hits to be extremely budget, however, if you like this deck you can slowly add in some of the more expensive powerful artifacts and combos. The most popular is Mindslaver and Academy Ruins. The reason that it is not in this deck is due to cost, however, I still left in a fun Spine of Ish Sah and Phyrexia’s Core interaction that is budget enough for us.
Now this is a deck most people will tell you to play when you ask for budget modern decks, or at least they did when I asked. This deck is a mono white life gain deck that has some fun combos hidden in it. It gets its name from Soul Warden and Soul’s Attendant which both have you gain a life when a creature enters the battlefield. Couple that interaction with four Chalice of Life and four Ajani’s Pridemate, you have yourselves an interesting budget deck. Here is a fairly budget list I came across.
This deck is actually the easiest to play out of the decks mentioned so far. It requires very little to understand how to get this deck going. This deck is very susceptible to removal, although, I bet you could make certain changes to improve its odds in the long run. It would also be a smart idea to eventually include some form of white removal in your deck to stop from being walked all over. That is down the road after you decide if you enjoy modern enough.
Think of Affinity as a sort of artifact with a blue base aggro. This deck has been very successful and always remains a strong deck in the format. It even undergoes changes that allow for more variance. I have personally seen white affinity variants do very well in tournaments from time to time. For the sake of this exercise, we will be using a very stock mono-blue list I found with a lot of the expensive cards chopped out.
The main idea with this deck is to flood the board with as many artifacts as you can. Master of Etherium can get the job done nicely. Cranial Plating is another nice and clean way to win along with a Ghostfire Blade as a new budget alternative (Credit to Nighthawk 101). Signal pest can even turn an army of Ornithopters into a few 1/2 fliers. Another fun interaction is Ensoul Artifact with a Darksteel Citadel. Who doesn’t like indestructible beaters? Maybe your opponent…. Either way, this deck will be a very good budget deck to take to an FNM or local Modern tournament and get a fairly good placement and hopefully cash out.
Last but not least…..
Why did this deck make number one? Well, that may have something to do with it being the deck that I actually build to get into Modern, but that just means I know it all the better! Now, mixing this deck with blue is seen as a more effective deck overall. It gives you access to an unblockable infect creature as well as some other ways to give your current creatures evasion. This comes at the cost of duel lands which as we know can be expensive. I have taken the list I am going to give you to multiple modern events. Now, Infect has gotten more popular in recent years. Tom Ross and many other professionals have adopted the deck and this means it is under more player’s radar.
So here is the budget list I use whenever I want to play in a modern tournament.
This deck has gone through many evolutions. When I first started playing this deck, Modern was just a fever dream of a few of my friends and I didn’t know what a real infect deck looked like. I had this idea of a deck with a possible upside of killing on turn two which sounded awesome. Slowly the tech got more improvements and this is the current form. Now, even just being mono green it could obviously be better. A play set of Blinkmoth Nexus would improve this deck. Might of Old Krosa may even be better than Giant Growth but, as I said earlier, this deck is the spirit of budget modern decks.
So I hope you all enjoyed my list! If you guys decide to play any of these decks, feel free to leave a comment or let me know via social media how it went. If you think there is a better budget option or I missed something, let me know! I treat my articles as a way to share information with you. Hopefully you chose to share some information back. Before, I let you go for this week, I have one more thing for you. An honorable mention!
Yes that’s right, it’s time to randomly plug a Modern deck I enjoy playing but is really bad! Wait, did I mention it was a budget ?!?!?!? WELL WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?!?!
So many people may be looking at this and wondering how to play this weird deck? Well, I will tell you. First, you mulligan until you get a hand with a Treasure Hunt. Does it matter which other cards you have in your hand? Not with this deck! Next, any hand disruption kills you right away. Then, once you have a land and a Reliquary Tower or two lands and turn three then we can begin. Treasure Hunt until you hit a Zombie Infestation. Play it, pitch your hand of now 30 to 40 cards, and then enjoy.
By Roy Anderson
@Sockymans on Twitter
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
Welcome back! Another busy MTG day for all you readers out there so let’s not waste any time. Let’s crack open that pack and see what we would take pick 1 pack 1 in a draft. Here we go.
Let’s start with the Rare. Flamerush Rider is pretty solid and from a quick look around, it looks like the strongest card in this pack. I’m not in love with the card and by no means am I in love with Red in this set, but it is a strong card that makes combat very difficult for your opponent. I would certainly be pulling this one to the front of the pack and seriously looking at this first.
The uncommons are all a little underwhelming. Fearsome Awakening is interesting, but by no means good. It is certainly not good enough to first pick. I might look at that once I have a dragon or two in my deck just to see if I can make it work for me, but otherwise I might just leave this one to wheel around the table until the very end.
Reality Shift is a decent card and can be a useful removal type spell in Blue, but I’m not keen on leaving behind the Manifested creature. That extra 2/2 could be just about anything and that’s usually an unpleasant surprise when it is something that is good for your opponent. Also, it doesn’t really clear the road the way most removal does and you still need to work around the Manifest on the battlefield as you rumble in for combat. I wouldn’t be grabbing this first, but I’m interested in the card and figure it could be pretty interesting to take if I’m in Blue later in the round.
Humble Defector is another interesting card that can be abused pretty easily. There are a number of cute plays you can make with this guy to abuse the activation followed by the loss of control of the card, but it isn’t a first pick. I like a good laugh when you get to go off with this one, but I would rather do something a little more powerful than this.
The only real card that I like from among the commons here is Aven Surveyor. Yes, he’s expensive, but the bounce effect is extremely potent and well worth the cost of playing this one. I’d be pulling this one to the front for a close look as well.
Typhoid Rats are nice. I like those guys. I wouldn’t take them first pick, but if I was to be in black 2 or 3 picks in I would happily grab them.
Cunning Strike does a number of things, but it does them all modestly well. It deals some damage, but maybe not enough to kill something. It “shocks” your opponent for a pair of damage which may be relevant. It draws you a card to replace itself. All of this for the bargain cost of 5 mana. I know, I know. That’s 3 effects for 5 mana. That’s not so bad. And it even triggers Prowess. But I’m not in love with the card and would rather keep moving.
Frontier Mastodon could be a 4/3 for 3 mana…which is a steal. That’s a sizeable upgrade in toughness on an Alpine Grizzly because now it doesn’t die to Cunning Strike, Douse in Gloom, Wild Slash or one of the other many two damage spells floating around. However, it could just as easily be a 3/2 for 3 in which case you are highly underwhelmed. This is likely a late pick up and might not make the cut for you 22 or 23 card deck.
Alesha’s Vanguard is a card I’ve discussed earlier in my review of commons and uncommons, but to sum up it is a Hill Giant that dodges sorcery speed removal but burdens your board state if you choose to Dash it because you will have not developed your board any further. It’s a fine card, but I’m not excited.
Gore Swine is another fine vanilla creature. It’s not an early pick up, but it’s fine to help fill out your creature package.
Abzan Advantage is card that people keep talking about as a playable trick. I’m not excited, but the ability to remove their Siege AND Bolster one of my creatures seems good. Even if they don’t have an enchantment to sacrifice, the Bolster is quite nice. It’s by no means a first pick, but it has improved its chances of being played in recent weeks by just being an effective card that has some reasonable upside.
Arashin Cleric is very low on my list of priorities here. It just doesn’t do enough to warrant a mid round pick. This might get forced at the end of the pack and will rarely make your deck unless your creature count is very low.
Sibsig Host is another reasonable creature, but I’m not jumping up and down for it. It does block reasonably well and helps fuel a little Delve, but let’s not go overboard here. It is a fine card for a deck playing Black but it is not a high pick.
For me the first pick is Flamerush Rider because I feel like it has more upside and a higher overall power level than the rest of the pack. I’m not in love with red and if the following packs didn’t have strong commons/uncommons to support the Flamerush Rider I am more than prepared to move colours and ditch the Rider altogether. I could make a really good case for the Aven Surveyor because it is an outstanding common and if you grab a couple of them then you are well and truly set to make life miserable for your opponent. Typhoid Rats is just a very solid creature because nobody is really keen to trade with it. The Rats just about always manage to get you good value by taking out a more expensive creature and that means I want to grab it sooner rather than later. Further down the list I get to the 5th card and I am unsure if I would rather take the Humble Defector or Cunning Strike. I decided the Humble Defector was likely the pick on the grounds that it is a mono-coloured card rather than a gold card like Cunning Strike.
On the whole, the strength of this pack is pretty weak. The rare is just ok, the uncommons are not particularly good, and the commons start off quite strong but trail off quite significantly. I feel like that is one of the traits of the set and this represents a fairly average pack. I’ve tried enough drafts on MTGO and watched enough other people draft that this seems to be the trend. It is good to know for those rare times that you find a bonkers pack to keep it in mind that this is not the norm.
Thanks for taking the time to stop in and read today and good luck in your next draft.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
If you do well on Friday nights in May you may receive an Abzan Beastmaster FNM promo, an uncommon from the newest set Fate Reforged. I personally love this card in Limited, it can easily get you card advantage and quick if your playing creatures early like Disowned Ancestor or Archer’s parapet. If anything it’s good removal bait as opponents better get rid of it before you start drawing. It’s a good creature that may see more play in Standard, but this shiny foil has a place in many EDH decks seeing as G/x is one of the most played colors. I suggest you pick up as many as you can, save them over summer than trade them to EDH players. Overall, i’m happier with Abzan Beastmaster FNM then the last couple of promos.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
We witnessed how the Abzan submitted to Dromoka and her brood and accepted fealty to the giant dragon. That’s a mighty tough pill to swallow, but given the fact that the dragons appear to be growing in size and strength, you can see the logic behind this. However, once one Legendary Dragons gets a host of followers, it only stands to reason that the others want the same. I hear Dragons can get a tad jealous. So, you get the scenes that unfolded in this week’s Uncharted Realms and the assaults on the ancient Khans of Tarkir.
This is an interesting development and slightly unique to this sort of fantasy writing. There are LOTS of fantasy novels that have worlds where dragons and humans co-exist, but those universes usually make it such that the humans are the dominant power. In some the dragons are sub-servient beasts that carry knights like steeds. In others, the Dragons have gone into hiding and hoard treasure while avoiding contact with humans. However, in the world of Tarkir the humans are NOT the dominant power. They are prey, the play thing, the sub-servient being to the dragons. That is a new twist and that’s going to likely impact the sort of cards we see in the final story of this Block.
What interests me about this is how the humans are going to fit into this new arrangement. It will be unlike anything we have seen in terms of story, but that should hardly be a surprise at this point. We have already seen that many of the Dragons on Tarkir exhibit a much different series of traits than what is considered to be the “norm” for this genre. Dragons are often seen as being simple, but vicious primitive forces. On occasion they exhibit intelligence and cunning, but usually to serve their own greater good. On Tarkir the dragons of each brood have their own “social order” of sorts and live within those norms…and potentially meaning the humans have no place in that social order. IF they have a place, will it be as an equals to the dragons? Doubtful. Humans are FAR more fragile than the enormously powerful dragons so it is hard to conceive of them being equals. Slaves? Far more likely. But as slaves, what exactly does that mean?
I’m not prepared to speculate on the various social orders fostered by each of the broods, but it will likely give each dragon/clan alliance the chance to renew hostilities against each other because of the lack of a “common” enemy that they previously shared: the humans. It will mean that there will be some pretty exciting Dragon on Dragon crime and some very obviously pushed powerful effects coming up. It will also mean a larger number of dragons that are going to appear in the set going forward.
A few words on Sarkhan and “the Timeline”. I have heard people critique the fact that Sarkhan has effectively altered the timeline, no longer triggering his own spark, and potentially having a cascading effect beyond the plane on Tarkir. I would love to start back tracking through the story and play the “what if” game at each juncture where Sarkhan has played a major role in the events of the Multiverse, but that doesn’t feel productive. It feels like a fun activity, but ultimately the number of parallel planes and timelines that may be created as a result of these changes is pretty immense. I feel like the easiest explanation is likely to be that some alternate planeswalker we haven’t met yet will follow in the footsteps of Sarkhan Vol to maintain the basic structure of the multiverse. From a writing perspective, it is the easiest solution if not the most elegant. All of us who read and enjoy the weekly articles will be decidedly disappointed because it feels like a bit of a cop out. However, from the standpoint of having to totally backtrack and revisit a number of planes this is perhaps the easiest mechanism. However, IF you wanted to go back to all those planes (because they were awesome!) this would present the ideal opportunity to go back and revisit the altered timeline.
Lastly, the death of Elspeth and the removal of Sarkhan from the Planeswalker batting line up is starting to take its toll. Don’t forget, Garruk has gone nuts, Elspeth and Venser are dead, and now Sarkhan just doesn’t exist (at least in theory). Sure, we got Ashiok, Kiora, Ugin and even Xenagos, but the death/removal of some of the more established walkers hurts a little bit. They are kind of like old friends that you can turn to and latch on to…or awesome spells to cast in the middle of the game to push you over the top. Regardless of how you look at them they are powerful characters in the stories of Magic and losing them stings. It might be nice for a change to NOT have a tragic demise to all our favorite walkers…a story with a happy ending usually sells pretty well too.
Thanks for reading…and I hope you have an awesome MTG day.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
I have an admission. I have recently decided that I would dust off my old MTGO account and resurrect it. The intent behind me opening up my MTGO account again was ostensibly to get some more repetition at drafting. I’ve gone and started a few drafts and have fared reasonably well and opened up some very sweet cards. However, by the time I convert any rares into tickets the pool of residual cards is too poor to take on the Standard decks running around these days. However, they are perfect for building a perfectly reasonable Standard Pauper deck and that is exactly what I have done.
In the drafts I have played I seem to usually end up playing G/X meaning that my card pool has a fair amount of Green. That suits me just fine. So, I was browsing through my collection online and noticed I had a pretty reasonable U/G deck. The deck reminded me of a U/G Flash deck I built from RTR/Theros standard that I really liked to play and so I pieced it together. I have been running it against other home brews and decks that lack some of the firepower of full on Standard decks and have been faring reasonably well. It suggests the deck has a certain amount of play that can have it hang around with more robust builds and grab a win. Here’s the deck list.
This deck doesn’t really want to play on its own turn, like any Flash deck, but the reality is that the creature pool generally lacks a variety of common Flash creatures apart from the Cloaked Siren. The way this usually plays out is that you cast your creatures on your turn, and then at Instant speed bounce their stuff or get their critters when they block by pumping your creature. It can do some pretty mean things and set your opponent back with some sizable Tempo plays quite easily giving you an edge to resolve your threats, load them up, and smash face.
The creature package should really have MORE War-Wing Siren as they are just about the best card in this deck. The 1/3 flier with Heroic does an awful lot of work and can get very big very quickly. It becomes a 5/5 if you Bestow the Nyxborn Wolf on it. That’s a full on Dragon. It’s a 4/6 if you cast a Feral Invocation. There are plenty of ways to target this creature, meaning it can get out of control super quickly and really turn up the heat on your opposition.
The other piece that I wish I more of is the Pheres-Band Tromper. This guy is an all-star if you can give him flying with a Stratus Walk because every time he untaps he just gets bigger. Connect a few times with him and you will quickly erase any deficit.
The Asp, the Siege Wurm, and the Benthic Giant are just general all-purpose fatties that plug up the ground and can go on the offensive once you’ve bludgeoned them and need to finish them off.
Of the rest, the Centaur Courser are lacking in punch and other abilities, but in a deck where you need some fodder or just to keep some more pressure up, these guys make for good pals. Sedge Scorpion is the ideal first turn drop and trades with almost anything acting as a real deterrent. I really like the Scry on the Sigiled Starfish to help smooth out those rough patches. The last guy I want to talk about is the Nyxborn Wolf which is probably my favorite common from Born of the Gods. This innocuous Bestow creature really packs a mean punch at +3/+1. Suit up anything with this guy and you have an instant threat. I would happily trade the pair of Coursers for a pair of these guys to round out the deck, but I’m not quite there yet.
On the whole, the deck performs quite well against decks that are of a similar power level, which seems to make it an ideal casual brew where the focus is more on having fun than on winning every single time. There is no doubt this deck suffers from some inconsistency because of the lack of play sets and the relative high variance, but considering it is made up of spare parts it seems to overcome that. And of course, since we all like to win, even if we’re playing around the kitchen table, the fact that this can just about steal a win out of nowhere is also a nice treat.
If this is something that catches your fancy give it a try and let me know what you think. I think it’s fun and surprisingly tricky to balance out the need to go aggressive with the need to hold up your mana for tricks. There is no doubt this sort of strategy is not a full on aggro assault and so patient players are more likely to come out ahead. However, it is fun, interactive, cheap, and deceivingly powerful. Give it a whirl. I doubt you’ll be disappointed.
Thanks for reading and until next time keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters
@bgray8791 on Twitter
The latest of the FtV series has been announced, as From the Vault Angels. We can assume a plethora of all the best Angels ever created in Magic. Personally i’m a little disappointed, nothing new here just another FTV Dragons style special edition. However the cards are high quality foils and there is always at least a couple that would look good in your EDH / Commander deck. These From the Vault angels and other FTV make great gifts for any MTG fans, other than that I’d suggest keeping a sealed copy although I don’t think they will get great value like the FTV Exiled and FTV Relics, it will be more like FTV Dragons which is not as much.
