The Casual Gamer

Budget Black

The new standard season is upon us. It also happens to be holiday shopping time. The worst time to be a casual gamer. Your already tight gaming budget is squeezed even more. 

Once you're done with the holiday shopping hopefully you've got forty dollars left in your pocket for fun money. If so then don't fret because you can still rock a fun deck and not bust your budget.

For fans of this blog, this very sporadically updated blog, you know my passion is budget Magic. Yes the best decks in any format cost a few hundred bucks. Look at mono-black. Just four Thoughtseize and four Hero's Downfall, two staples of any black deck, eat up nearly $150. Not exactly budget friendly for eight cards. 

Yet there are replacements like Despise & Murderous Cut. Not as strong as the staples but they do cost just over $4, or 2.7% of what the staples cost, for playsets. That is pure budget Magic. 

The first rule of budget is mono-color decks are best. The answer is simple: land. If you are playing mono-colored then you don't need anything more than basics. That's like $3 in cost for your mana base leaving you $37 for the rest of your deck.

The second rule is to find a theme or a card to build around. For my budget black deck I picked Waste Not. For one it is the card designed by the entire Magic Community during voting last year. Second, I like the mechanic of the card. It's a discard engine meaning it's fueled by discard. So I found my card and my theme in one spot, Mono-black discard!

The third rule is fitting the deck to the budget. With no huge commitment to land base and Waste Not being less than $10 for a play set, I've got $27 dollars to work with. That's like a salary cap for a pro sports team. Here is what I came up with:

Trigger Happy

Creatures (12)

Master of the Feast x4
Disciple of Phenax x2
Fate Unraveler x4
Gray Merchant of Asphodel x2

Spells (25)

Despise x3
Bile Blight x3
Sign in Blood x4
Waste Not x4
Mind Rot x4
Rakshasa's Secret x2
Tormented Thoughts x2
Murderous Cut x3

Lands (23)

Swamp x23

Sideboard (15)

Tormod's Crypt x2
Dark Betrayal x4
Viper's Kiss x3
Extinguish All Hope x2
Necropolis Fiend x2
Dead Drop x2

There is my mono-black discard deck. Not bad for less than a tank of gas (even when prices are low).

The largest problem discard runs into is your opponent running out of cards. You can't target an empty hand. That is where Sign in Blood & Master of the Feast come into play. They both are cards that help restock your opponent's hand so that you have more fuel for Waste Not. This turns a drawback for the Master into an advantage. It also can make Sign In Blood a very dangerous card come late game.

Fate Unraveler turns the screws even harder. You're putting cards into your opponents hand, might as well make them pay for it. Even having one of these guys out makes cards like Sign & Master into bigger threats.

This deck is a true mid-range deck. It sets the table in the first three turns and looks to crank up the pressure beginning on turn 4. Your first turn most of the time will be a land drop. If you have a Despise in hand then cast that but otherwise you're on drop & pass duty.

Turn two opens the deck up a little with hopefully a Waste Not but you can also use a Sign or Blight if the situation calls for it. The best play is always the turn two Waste Not. It brings your deck online.

Turn three brings most of the deck into play. You should be getting land drops for the first three turns. At this point you have to decide what the best action is. I like Mind Rot to start the discard but a Master of the Feast can really put pressure on early while keeping your opponent's hand stocked. My play would be to always choose discard first.

Once Waste Not gets going you should be drawing cards and dropping zombies. Tormented Thoughts on a Master turn 4 is crazy good. It usually drops your opponent's entire hand and you end up with a flood of cards & zombies. As you keep drawing you'll keep dropping more Waste Not and the quicksand gets thicker for your opponent.

Here is the price list for the deck from TCGplayer Mid:

That is "Trigger Happy", my Magic on a budget deck for the holiday season. You can still get Mom a copy of Lethal Weapon and play competitive magic. It's a holiday miracle. 

The Casual Gamer

The Booster Box Challenge

It's finally here, rotation. 

Goodbye Ravnica block. 

Goodbye Core 2014. 

Hello Khans of Tarkir. You sexy beast you!

The biggest challenge to rotation is finding a deck you enjoy in Standard. Most people just lost half, if not more, of their current Standard deck. That either means trying to fill the holes with a new set or scrapping the old for something brand spanking new. 

You spent two years playing Esper control, why not try Temur Aggro?

That is why most people budget bigger for the post rotation set. It's got the cards that will be the foundation for Standard for the next 18 months. You'll need more than a couple of cards to begin rebuilding or starting a new. Hardcore Magic players will buy a case of boxes (6), while the casual gamer will grab a booster box. 

So I'll ask, is it better to spend that budget on the box or on the deck? 

Me, I personally think buying a box is smarter. It gives you a good base of commons and uncommons to build from over the next 18 months, plus it gives you great trade bait to pick up the cards you want, and maybe a few extras for down the road. Sure buying an entire deck in singles gives you the deck you want but then there is no flexibility and no trade bait, outside of your money cards, to pick up some versatility. 

Yet it made me wonder, "What kind of current Standard deck could I put together for 109.99?". That's a larger budget than I usually use for a deck, but if I'm willing to drop 109.99 on a box of Khans then 109.99 isn't out of the ballpark for a deck I'll play with for over a year. 

Here is the deck I came up with:

Waiting 2 Exile

Creatures (7)

Generator Servant x4

Narset, Enlightened Master x3

Spells (30)

Deflecting Palm x2

Lightning Strike x4

Magma Jet x4

Anger of the Gods x1

Howl of the Horde x3

Arc Lightning x4

Chandra, Pyromaster x2

Jace, The Living Guildpact x2

Stoke the Flames x4

Cone of Flames x1

Elspeth, Sun's Champion x1

Dig Through Time x2

Land (23)

Temple of Epiphany x1

Temple of Triumph x1

Battlefield Forge x2

Evolving Wilds x2

Island x2

Plans x2

Shivan Reef x2

Mystic Monastary x4

Mountain x7

Sideboard (15)

Erase x2

Magma Spray x3

Reprisal x2

Negate x3

Banishing Light x2

Winterflame x2

End Hostilities x1

And that is what I'll be playing for the next few months until the new set in January.

The deck I guess would fall into the category of Tempo. It can be a burn deck or a control deck. To me it is a Narset deck. When she was spoiled about a month ago, I lost my mind. She was everything I wanted in a card and more. So I built this entire deck around her.

The mana base was most import to figure out. For budget purposes I avoided fetch lands. I feel evolving wilds are just as useful and I'll take the "tappped" disadvantage so that my fetch can grab me one of my three basic land types instead of two. 

The other big money land choice would have have been Mana Confluence but I took four Mystic Monastary instead. It gives all three mana and at end game I don't have to worry about choosing between one life and casting a spell. Confluence is great for speed decks that don't care about life totals. This deck works well with tapped lands because it is flexible in play style. 

Once the mana base was taken care of I began working on my main deck. Generator Servants are a no brainer. He pushes out Narset on turn four with haste. That puts a lot of pressure on a deck to answer. Plus he helps bring out Planeswalkers earlier or cast a Dig Through Time for 3 cheaper (2 mana, delve the servant).

The rest of the deck was just finding the optimal instants and sorceries. Howl of the Horde is a game ender. Narset triggers the raid ability plus usually provides an burn spell to copy. Nothing more fun than turn four Narset then getting double Howls plus a burn spell for the win. 

The sideboard is put together to adjust for situational match ups. Negates are more protection than control. There is only a handful of spells that can remove Narset from the field. Negate counters those. The rest of the sideboard is pretty straight forward.

Now the important part, the price:

That's a full deck and a sideboard for less than a box of Khans. I'm excited to keep tinkering with this deck but after play testing this weekend, and spending the past three weeks putting the deck together, I am confident this deck would be FNM ready for Standard this Friday.

What would you play if you had to take the booster box challenge? Aggro Mono-Black? Mardu Midrange? Delver?

No matter what you play, it's going to be a fun time. We're past rotation and that feels like a new day. 

A day full of free burn spells!!!