The Casual Gamer

One of my favorite challenges is to build a competitive deck that is cheap. A few weeks ago I was talking with Hunter Mayes, one of our regular FNM players. He mostly plays red with either a side of black or green. He wanted to test out blue. I figured why not whip up a deck idea that costs less than ten dollars to build. Then he could try it out and it would cost him less than an intro deck to put it together. Probably less since most of the cards are probably in a junk pile. 

This deck will be a good taste of what it is like to play blue. When I started playing Magic The Gathering in 1994 I was a blue player. I always liked that blue was all about tricks. It's a color made to play on your opponents turn and a color that can shift the entire board drastically with a simple combo. Both of which I wanted feature in this deck.

When Journey Into Nyx was announced I knew I wanted to make a Battlefield Thaumaturge deck. His ability to make a spell one less mana for each creature it targets has some interesting possibilities. My favorite card to use with it is Curse of the Swine. It becomes a two casting cost card that turns every creature you want into a 2/2 boar. That's strong.

Even stronger is all those boar tokens have a converted mana cost of 0. That means you can cast a Ratchet Bomb and sac it to remove every token on the board. That leaves the battlefield open for attacks. This is why I used cards that gave draw from damage to refill my hand with more fun spells. 

Below is the deck list and in the end the cost was less than $10.00 on TCGplayer.com. Again most of these cards are in people's junk boxes. The Ratchet Bombs and Thaumaturge might be the only cards not in there.

Pig Bomb

Creatures: 19

3 Vortex Elemental
4 Battlefield Thaumaturge
4 Scroll Thief
2 Stealer of Secrets
4 Thassa's Emissary
2 Mnemonic Wall

Spells:18

4 Gridlock
4 Curse of the Swine
4 Ratchet Bomb
4 Frost Breath
2 Pull from the Deep

Lands:23

23 Island

The deck looks fun to play. It accomplishes what I wanted for a blue tester deck. It can play heavy on the opponents turn with cards like Gridlock and Frost Breath. Plus it has a quirky combo to drastically shift the game. 

It also spawned a more expensive deck idea that I've named Boar Bomb. This one I am really excited about. If I was playing this deck I'd build pig bomb first and learn to play that. Then upgrade to this deck.

Boar Bomb

Creatures:18
4 Lagonna-Band Trailblazer
4 Battlefield Thaumaturge
4 Nyx-Fleece Ram
4 Scroll Thief
2 Thassa's Emissary

Spells:21

4 Glimpse the Sun God
4 Gridlock
4 Launch the Fleet
4 Curse of the Swine
3 Ratchet Bomb
2 Pull from the Deep

Lands:21

4 Hallowed Fountain
11 Island
6 Plains

This deck is set up to handle a lot more and be more effective when the board is in your favor. A little less draw but cards like the Ram and Trailblazer can handle a lot of early game rush. Plus they can block boars, which makes Swine an even stronger spell. Fleet is a kill spell when the board is open to spawn an army. The rest stays the same.

We've got a lot going on this week for Magic. Monday we kick off our Commander Mondays. We'll have casual commander play going on with sign up at 3:30 and matches at 4:00 PM. This event will run until 7:00 PM each Monday. Then Thursday we have booster draft with sign up at 6:30 PM and the draft at 7:00 PM.

Friday is our first double FNM with 19 and Under Friday Night Magic having sign up at 3:30 PM and matches at 4:00 PM. This will be three rounds and wrapping up around 6:30. We will then have sign up for our all ages FNM with matches for that beginning at 7:00 PM. Entry for both events is $5.

Finally on Sunday we have our 8th Edition charity draft. There are twelve open spots. If we have more than twelve interested there will be a drawing for the spots. Each person in the draft will pay a $20 entry fee. All entry fees will be donated to the Hospice House of Mid-Michigan at Sparrow in the memory of Suzanne Bonjour. We will also include any other donations that people wish to give. 

Hope to see everyone this week for at least one of our events.