Being a budget brewer is usually a tough proposition. The mana base for most decks is usually so prohibitively expensive that it is very difficult to make a deck for a reasonable cost. However, the beauty part with Khans of Tarkir is the inclusion of the Refuge Lands. These inexpensive, common lands are super important to helping to keep the cost of your deck in line. Since they are also in all 10 colour pairs, it makes for an opportunity to really build some interesting decks without breaking the bank.
One of the most interesting mechanics that came out of Khans has been Delve. It has allowed Treasure Cruise and Dig Through Time to see play in virtually every format because the reduction in cost created by the Delve mechanic is hilarious and disgusting all at once. I wanted to take my own stab at a Sultai deck powered by Delve and the common cycle of Refuge lands to provide a budget conscious deck that is capable of some ridiculous game states and power. Let’s see what I’ve got cooking.
The lands cover off your bases as well as possible. Opulent Palace ensures access to all three colours and run about a $1 a card. The other Refuge lands are all pretty inexpensive additions as well and the basics fill out the land requirements for this deck relatively effectively and cheaply. Nice deal. This land base runs you under $10 bucks but still gives you access to the colours you need!
The creature package isn’t as large as I usually run, but the ones that I do run are important.
Let’s start with the 3 Satyr Wayfinders in this list. These little guys are ridiculously useful because they fill your yard for your Delve spells and fetch you land. The best part with the Wayfinder is that if you hit ANY land card you can pick it, not just basics. In a deck running so few basics and so many dual and tri coloured land that distinction is huge. At roughly a dime a card these are cheap, effective, and very useful.
Nyx Weaver is a vital part of the deck because it also helps to fill your yard, and by consequence power out those Delve spells even faster. However, sac this little guy and regrow that important resource you just milled away. Nothing is funnier than recasting that Villainous Wealth you just burned, getting your Kiora or Jace back, or finding that blocker you need to try and stem the tide. Also, at a mere $0.40 a card they are a bargain for something so useful.
Sagu Mauler: Why not? He’s huge, hard to handle, and requires an immediate answer or you die to the ridiculous 6/6 trampler with Hexproof. Also, at $0.50 a card he’s a steal.
Chasm Skulker: This is legitimately an experiment. I feel like this card could be very good, particularly with the amount of cards I can draw off things like Treasure Cruise, Dig and Interpret the Signs. He produces value if he gets killed and is otherwise just a growing bomb to dismantle your opponent. He’s also very cheap, meaning he also helps keep the cost of the deck down.
Rakshasa Vizier: Honestly, a pair of feels fine in this deck to reap the ridiculous benefits of Delving away loads of cards and making a huge behemoth. Also, a 4/4 for 5 is just fine base stats anyway. Oh, and it’s cheap…so…Budget Brew away.
Necropolis Fiend: This is the big finisher in this deck. A 4/5 with Flying is pretty awesome…but the ability to repeatedly take care of creatures with its tap ability is huge. The casting cost has no real bearing because of the ridiculous Delve potential with this deck meaning it can hit the table without much trouble and at $0.30 a card you can’t go wrong.
With all the budget cards we’ve played in the lands and creatures there is lots of room to splash around with fancy spells.
Jace, the Living Guildpact: Did anyone notice that Jace’s new first ability jives with Delve incredibly well? I haven’t seen him in any lists at all so far and I’m wondering why not? His second ability is very relevant as well and totally protects you or him if used properly. Yes, his ultimate might curtail your plan somewhat, but wrecking your opponent’s hand and you drawing 7 is ridiculous. This could be the best $4 card in the deck.
Kiora, The Crashing Wave: Wow, has the value of Kiora plummeted recently. What was once a $20 card is now $8.50…and she’s amazing for this deck. Her first ability is very useful because she nullifies their best creature every turn. The second ability is amazing to draw yet MORE cards and then dump extra land to ramp to Dig, Villainous Wealth, or Necropolis Fiend. Her ultimate is an inevitable win condition. She’s pretty sweet.
Villainous Wealth: I want a full playset of these guys because I think this card could be the real deal. It’s an absolute game breaking spell. Yes, it’s greedy, yes it’s expensive…but you only need to hit one and the game just about ends on the spot because it attacks them on an axis that they likely aren’t expecting. Look at the deck…it looks like it wants to beat down with the Vizier, the Mauler, or the Fiends, but one of these for 6 or 7 totally changes the perception of the game. Add in the fact that it is about $0.50 a card as well and you have a budget all-star.
Throttle: Cheapest removal going. Murderous Cut would be better…but there are only so many cards in the yard to Delve away…so Throttle seems just fine in the interim.
Dig Through Time: Well, this let’s you assemble EXACTLY that piece you were missing. What more needs to be said. It is an awesome card. It is not cheap at $7.50 to $15 a card…but it is well worth it.
Treasure Cruise: Don’t have a Dig but need to refill your grip of cards? Yup. Lean on everyone’s favorite busted Blue common. Need I really say more?
Interpret the Signs: I have to admit, I stumbled across this and love it. With all the very high casting costs in this deck you can hit this for 6, 7, 8 or even 9 cards without much trouble! That’s bonkers. And at a mere $0.15 a card is just perfect mass card draw for this sort of deck.
Sultai Charm: Ummm…Removal. Nuff said.
Scout the Borders: This acts as card filtering AND as a ritual type effect because it dumps itself and 4 more cards in your yard…meaning that you are most of the way to casting Treasure Cruise by turn 3 and turning things up to high gear. You don’t need too many of them, but a pair seems like the right number.
Substitutions
If you are really keen on playing this deck it would be mighty easy to get a few more pricey treats for this deck. Currently the price tag for this deck is running somewhere shy of $75…but there are lots of pricey treats to sub in that will drive the price tag way up.
The obvious place to start is with 4 Polluted Delta. That’s $80 in Delta’s. Sure, they thin your deck, feed your Delve and are generally pretty useful, they are hardly key lynch pins in the strategy. That said, I would love to have a playset of these guys to rock in the deck.
Yavimaya Coast and some more Scry Temples might also be considerations for this deck help improve the mana situation. I’m less convinced on these guys, but the added value of the free scry or more untapped lands might be really helpful.
I would be prepared to entertain a discussion about NOT running the Dig Through Time, not because it is a bad card, but because Interpret the Signs might be the better spell. This deck is usually looking for just mass card draw and Interpret the Signs is a sleeper pickup that could be insane. I would need to test both options.
I could TOTALLY make a case to sub out the Viziers for a pair of Sidisi…and with her bring in a couple of Whip of Erebos as well and emulate the Sidisi Whip decks out there. There is no doubt that it would be a powered down version, because it lacks the Hornet Queen or the Soul of Innistrad, but it could be pretty potent.
There are a number of treats from Fate Reforged that I might be prepared to try out in this deck but there aren’t an over-abundance of them. I would be willing to splash around with Temporal Trespass because any time you can grab an extra turn it seems busted. Also, Torrent Elemental can totally be game breaking because of its ridiculous ability AND the fact that it can be cast from exile if you Delved it away. While the rest of the Sultai cards look interesting they don’t really do what this deck wants to do and so these will be about the only things I would be looking to experiment with.
You can’t afford to be too cautious with this deck. As much as this deck wants to get to the later stages of the game to try and use more of its resources, you are in a race, not with your opponent, but with yourself. The fact remains that you could be in real danger of decking yourself without much effort, so once you get a foothold and can leverage out some heavy hitters you need to make good and close out the game. Your graveyard is absolutely a resource that is there to be utilized so don’t hesitate, but you need to be mindful of how quickly you burn through your cards. Otherwise, the deck is super fun and able to do some truly ridiculous things and accelerate to get to some mighty powerful spells.
So, if you are looking for something pretty fringe to try at a FNM, or just kicking around with your buddies around the Kitchen table, this sort of Budget Sultai brew might be right down your alley.
Thanks for reading…and as always keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
By Bruce Gray – Casual Encounters @bgray8791 on Twitter
1st at SCG Indianapolis Standard Open on Sep 27th 2014
And so we have the winner from that other SCG Open happening in Indianapolis. As it wasn’t broadcasting live it would seem that some of the hype was lost in the shuffle, especially with the Jeskai Tempo deck causing financial ripples in the secondary market. But this is not a deck to dismiss as it placed 11 similar decks between both top 32, including the second place at this tournament, and Midrange strategies added another 7 to pull just over 28% of the field. This could be the dawning of the Age of Midrange, or just anomalous opening weekend numbers. Regardless you can be sure that this is a deck you’ll need to beat if you want to be victorious of the next few months at least.
Eric J Seltzer @ejseltzer on Twitter Email: ejseltzer@hotmail.com
by Bruce Gray -Casual Encounters Welcome back to another installment of Crack a Pack with Bruce. In the past few weeks we’ve cracked a pack of Theros and Born of the Gods meaning that today we have a terrific opportunity to complete the cycle and open up a pack of Journey Into Nyx. The interesting thing with the Draft format for the full block of Theros (1 pack of Journey, 1 pack of Born of the Gods, 1 pack of Theros) is that it sort of got cut short in terms of a draft format because everyone was side tracked by the installation of Conspiracy. Full block Theros draft is really the default draft format at the moment as Theros is the current block this year but it is also less drafted than some of the other formats because it has been supplanted by Conspiracy as the preferred draft format of players heading out to the shops. That said, full block Theros draft is very lively and very versatile and well worth a look. Let’s go see what we crack out of this pack!
On the whole, this pack is quite strong. There is no obvious first choice, but there are a number of very strong cards that will get my attention. Based on the quality of the cards there is a very real opportunity for something really solid to wheel around and come back to me, which is also a nice possibility. Let’s examine the cards available to us in this pack. If you’re like me, the first place to start is your rare. This card holds the potential of having the most upside and being extremely powerful and today is no different. Prophetic Flamespeaker is exactly that sort of card…lots of potential power. However, there are some rares that can also be duds just as quickly…and sadly Flamespeaker also falls into that category as well. A 1/3 with double strike and trample for 3 mana AND the ability to gain you card advantage is nothing to sniff at and it makes this cards very appealing. However, here’s the drawback with this card. For 3 mana you are getting a relatively underpowered creature meaning that you absolutely need to upgrade this with an aura or some sort of other effect to really reap the benefit of this creature. If you don’t believe me, think about all the creatures in the THIS PACK that block Flamespeaker and cost 3 mana…Harvestguard Alseids, Returned Reveler, Nyx Weaver…not to mention things like Nessian Courser, Scholar of Athreos, Grim Guardian and the list goes on and on. No, for this card to be good it needs to be augmented by something and THEN you may be able to really gain some advantage. We call this the set up cost of this card and they are relatively high. The other piece is the ability to exile a card and have you play it. This is totally contingent on you having enough mana to cast the spell. Let’s imagine you Flamespeaker on turn 3 because you hit your land drops. Next turn you play your fourth land and cast, for arguments sake because it is this pack, Aspect of Gorgon which costs 3. Now you’ve augmented the Flamespeaker and can swing. Now you can see 1 or 2 cards (based on if your opponent blocked or not) but you only have 1 mana available to cast anything you exile. The chances are pretty slim you’ll be able to pull that trigger this turn…and you lose your cards. I hate losing cards, particularly because I can’t cast them. By turn 5 you may in a position to actually start benefitting from Flamespeaker, but there might have been other things you’d rather do with your mana. Before it sounds like it is all doom and gloom on this guy, the potential power level of this guy is very high. Double Strike and Trample make this very appealing and the card advantage is still card advantage. Also, draft is a place where you can come to table and try out some of the more flashy rare cards in the format and really see how they play. Even with you first pick is a Flamespeaker, you could totally recover if you decide to not play Red, so the real cost to you of picking this card first is lower than people might like to admit. It might be worth the roll of the dice and grabbing this first and seeing where that takes you. Another card that grabs my attention is Golden Hind. A simple 2/1 for 2 mana that ramps you up. This helps you go from 2 mana to 4 mana and that’s a big deal. Also, looking in this pack there are a number of other quality green and black cards that I would be looking at and by taking Golden Hind I would be opening the door to playing a B/G strategy that I like. Nyx Weaver, Spiteful Blow, Market Festival, Aspect of Gorgon, and Returner Reveler would all be cards that would interest me and might wheel. So, I would seriously be looking at taking the Hind and eyeing B/G as an option based on the choices that might come back my way later this round. Magma Spray is just solid, inexpensive removal and the best part is that it exiles the creature robbing them of the graveyard synergy if they want it. This really isn’t a flashy pick but is safe and reliable. Spiteful Blow is another one that would certainly get my attention mostly because of the fact that it does not have a limitation imposed on the removal. It doesn’t limit itself to enchantments, a certain colour, size, or mana cost…it just kills stuff dead. On top of that you get to destroy a land setting your opponent back a turn which is nice additional value. The fact that it cost 6 is less ideal, but in a draft 6 mana removal can be useful, just ask Sip of Hemlock. The last card that gets me excited is Nyx Weaver and really motivates me to go down the B/G graveyard deck. A 2/3 with reach for 3 mana is a solid creature and the ability to fill your yard is huge to give you increased access to your resources. The fact that this can basically regrow you the most powerful card in your graveyard is extremely powerful and can’t be overlooked. The issue with this guy is the Black AND Green in the mana cost meaning you likely need to play both colours in order to be able to play this guy. Other quality playable cards are Pin to the Earth which is a solid removal-type spell for Blue decks to run. Countermand is a pricey 4 mana counter, but in a format with few counterspells this one isn’t bad and it hits the top of their library too. Harvestguard Alseids is a very serviceable 2/3 for 3 mana that can play a role in a Constellation deck. Mortal Obstinacy and Aspect of Gorgon are both reasonable auras although hardly exciting. Market Festival can be a cute ramp spell for a green deck and can really help push the tempo. Towards the end of this pack, Font of Ire is not high on my list. Sure it acts a little like a time delayed Lava Axe but I’m not a huge fan of any of the Fonts and this one is no exception. Returned Reveler is a useful body at 1/3 for 2 mana, but the symmetrical mill effect is not my style. Lastly, Solidarity of Heroes is basically an unplayable card. In order to reap any benefit off of the spell you need to spend so much time and energy that it hardly makes sense. No, it would likely be something picked right at the very end, if not forced on someone.
There would seriously be 3 cards that I would weigh very carefully. The Flamespeaker is a little underpowered in terms of raw stats but could have some super explosive abilities with some augmentation. The potential upside for this card is extremely appealing and would be tempting to say the least. The fact that there are so many creatures that block it readily is an issue, but not dire. Golden Hind is just simply a terrific creature to ramp up with. Acceleration in any format is key and often determines who wins by helping you to get a turn or two ahead of your opponent. Think about it, if you’re playing 6 drops and they’re playing 4 drops, who’s coming out ahead most of the time? You are…I assure you. Lastly, Magma Spray would get a look because cheap removal is always at a premium. In the end I would select Golden Hind. The ramp ability is a sure thing, unlike with Flamespeaker where I need to work to set up the benefit from the Exiling ability, and there are a number of other cards, namely Nyx Weaver, that might wheel if I start in Green and leave myself open to being G/B. I would be also very conscious that to my left is now someone who will be playing Red because I’m sending along a Flamespeaker and a Magma Spray and both are potential first pickable cards. It feels weird admitting that I’d take the common over the mythic in this pack, but I’d rather have the less powerful card that is a sure thing than the flashy card that could prove to be a dud if I can’t connect. Well, there we have it for another week. What would you have done? Would you have gone with the Flamespeaker? The Magma Spray? Something else all together? I’d love to hear what you think, so shoot me a tweet and let me know what you would do. Thanks for reading and until next time…keep it fun, keep it safe…keep it casual.
by Bruce Gray @bgray8791
There were some more cards spoiled overnight giving us just about a full complement of cards and a pretty good idea of what the whole set will look like. Let’s take a look.
Banishing Light- Let’s not kid ourselves…this is really Oblivion Ring. They’ve cleaned up the language so that it matches Banisher Priest, but this is Nyx Weaver-. There’s nothing wrong with Banishing light, and in fact it is actually very good. It’s quality removal in White, it will see play in all sorts of formats and is just a quality staple to have around. I, for one, am glad that it is back and ready to go back and do good work again.
Brain Maggot- This is nice card for limited, but I’ll hold off on other formats. For a black and a colourless, you get a 1/1 enchantment creature insect that when it enters play your opponent reveals their hand and you may exile a target card from their hand until Brain Maggot leaves the Battlefield. So, if you don’t have a Thoughtseize and you need info about their hand…and to slow them down by making them lose a card…this discard spell on a stick is just what you want. They I read the card is that when Brain Maggot leaves play, the card is no longer exiled and they get it back, but if you need to derail their plan or remove a quality piece from their hand then this guy will do the trick. There isn’t much attacking in this guys future, but he’s still a valuable piece of disruption.
Deicide- Ok, no doubt, this is my favorite card revealed today. For 2 mana (1 white, 1 colourless) you get to exile target enchantment and if the enchantment exiled is a God you may go through their hand, graveyard and deck and exile all copies of the card. This is going to premium enchantment destruction, of that there is no doubt and will be premium sideboard tech for any deck running White in Constructed. The mana cost is the same as Disenchant (for those who used to play with it), it is still at instant speed, and the ability to eliminate pesky Gods…well…wow…that’s a thing. Bye Thassa! See ya later Big P (Purphorous)! Catch you later Xenagos, God of Revels! Oh, and in case you haven’t checked out the art, that’s totally Elsbeth stabbing Xenagos with her sword. That’s AWESOME!
Dictate of Erebos- The final piece of the Dictate cycle. For 5 mana (2 black, 3 colourless) you get an enchantment with Flash that says whenever a creature you control dies, your opponents must sacrifice a creature. I actually like this, but not for limited or constructed play, but I like this card for multiplayer games where this could just be abused and have hilarious consequences. EDH players, enjoy!
Nyx Weaver- a 3 mana (1 black, 1 green, 1 colourless) Enchantment creature spider with reach. Right there you have a playable card, however, the cherry on top is that for a black, a green and a colourless and sacrifice it, you can return target card from you graveyard to your hand. Notice, not target creature card…ANY card. So, this is Regrowth on a creature…just a little more expensive. Dredge style decks won’t care about the extra cost, but they will be interested in getting their resources back! This is sweet card, not bonkers by any means, but a sweet card that is very functional. We’ll see where this one ends up.
Renowned Weaver- Wow, this is super flavourful and another salute to classic mythology. For 1 mana you get a 1/1 green creature that you can use to pay 1 green and 1 colourless and sacrifice it to put a 1/3 green Spider Enchantment Creature token with reach onto the battlefield. Honestly, the card is fine, but it likely won’t see much play unless someone out there is making a spider tribal deck. It just doesn’t do enough to take up a slot in a deck. So, it’s fun and flavourful but people aren’t likely to sleeve it up too often.
