MTG Salvation

$15 Merieke Ri Berit Deck - No really!

I've been playing EDH for a few years now and I'm always trying to get others to join the game. The #1 excuse I always hear for not learning the game is the money. People don't want to shell out $40+ for something they're not sure they're going to like.

With this in mind, I'm setting out to build an extremely budgeted deck. This is going to be a deck I will actually buy/build and set aside for my friends to use. That said, I don't want this to be a newbie deck; it should still be able to win at least some of the games at our table. I want to be able to show them you can get into the game for just 15 dollars, no catch.

I've created some guidelines to go by. I really like the extreme budget decks posted by users like shinbatsu and others (props to you guys), except for one thing. You can call your deck a $5 deck using tcgplayer low if you want to, but that doesn't mean you could actually buy all of those cards from one vendor at their low price and get free shipping to boot. So, what price will this deck really cost at the end of the day? That's my goal - to say you could buy all 100 cards in this deck and have it shipped to you for under $15.

The way I'm guaranteeing this is by using tcgplayer's mass entry tool and cart optimizer, selecting non-foils in near mint, lightly played, or moderately played condition, with estimated shipping sent in the U.S. (DISCLAIMER: I'm using tcgplayer.com as a reference and am in no way affiliated with or soliciting business for tcgplayer.com).

A SUMMARY OF THE GUIDELINES
-$15 total budget for ALL 100 cards using tcgplayer.com's optimizer INCLUDING estimated shipping
-Deck should be semi-competitive (as competitive as a $15 deck can be)
-Every update will be time stamped to account for price fluctuations

Here's the deck so far (#'s are CMC):


Average CMC: 3.06
Date: 10/28/12
Price WITH Est. Shipping: 14.61

The reason I chose Merieke is her cost effectiveness both as a card and as her colors. She costs only 3 to play, and her ability can be pretty powerful when used correctly. In addition, she has access to blue and black, which are possibly the best colors for building on a budget.

The idea is pretty straightforward. Try to steal other players' (more expensive) cards and use it against them, with plenty of counterspells, defense, and disruption to keep me in the game.

As you can see, I'm over budget. I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve this deck while also trimming it under the $15 goal mark.

Last thing, if you'd like to see the price for yourself, below is a text-based list that can be easily copied and pasted into the mass card entry tool.


Thanks for your suggestions!

Some cars to consider that are quite cheap in paper-

Abduction
Mind stone
Ertai's meddling might still be cheap- it can really screw up game plans and it is a hard counter for any other counter at 1U.

Also to consider- dreamstone hedron and minds eye

Quote from Zombie Shakespeare

What is the fascination with building super budget decks under a certain dollar amount like this? I'm honestly curious. Surely you could get some of these cards for free from friends at your LGS if you don't have them already.

It's just a fun challenge to see how much I can optimize a deck under certain guidelines, similar to your pauper deck. I took a look at that deck, by the way, and got some nice ideas.

Here's what I changed:
+Grim Harvest
+Abduction

-Fool's Demise
-Haunted Crossroads

Total comes to 15.25, so I managed to cut $0.40 (thanks for the suggestions) but am still over budget. Looking to cut one or two pricier cards, but not sure what...

If I select heavily played cards too, i was able to get it a quarter over $12.

I found this, and thought you might like it:

Pemmin's Aura

Ashes to Ashes is pretty awesome. Also should be very cheap since it's been printed 3 times and is criminally underplayed.

Edit: Just checked tcgplayer. It's actually cheapest from The Dark (maybe because it's common there?) with an average cost of 18 cents.

Just noticed you have Revoke Existence in your list of cards (for TCGPlayer mass entry), but that card is not found in your build.

Edit: also just noticed Disenchant is on the mast list but not the buy list.

Quote from Raszero

I'm also making this deck in a similar way (because I have less money more than anything else) and I see you dont have Cerulean Wisps - its like $.05-$.15 cents, and it can give a free Merieke for one mana if ye got nothing else, cantrip makes it cool...

seen that before, but I believe the theme in the deck was for more constant untap/tap nonstop combos.

Quote from Zombie Shakespeare

What is the fascination with building super budget decks under a certain dollar amount like this? I'm honestly curious. Surely you could get some of these cards for free from friends at your LGS if you don't have them already.

I started building these kinds of decks when a friend of mine in another state said that he couldn't get his local shop to try EDH because they feared the prices of both older cards and obscure cards that they wouldn't use in any other format.

This sort of thing happens all the time with Legacy - people take one look at the price tag on something like Force of Will and don't even try to consider anything else. Similar theories apply to EDH - people see 100 card decks instead of 60, including duals and fetches and super old stuff, and think that they need to invest $100s in the format in order to be competitive.

Quote from ajprokos

Just noticed you have Revoke Existence in your list of cards (for TCGPlayer mass entry), but that card is not found in your build.

Edit: also just noticed Disenchant is on the mast list but not the buy list.

Thanks for catching that. I had intended to add Revoke Existence but forgot to remove Disenchant from the other list. In the end I decided to stay with Disenchant.

Made some more changes:
- Abduction
- Pongify

+Fool's Demise
+Ashes to Ashes

Abduction seemed nice, but it's really only useful if I'm using it to untap/protect Merieke, and I've already got plenty of both. Pongify is also nice but not worth the $0.49 optimized price. Ashes to ashes was much cheaper and still a great spot removal card.

Total now comes to $14.61, so I successfully met the budget goal! Thanks to everyone for their suggestions.

Quote from Alf

Made some more changes:
- Abduction
- Pongify

+Fool's Demise
+Ashes to Ashes

Lol so funny. I made the same changes to my deck. Abduction helps opponents sometimes after board clears (if I took their creature) and pongify seems very lack-luster.

Fool's demise looks good, going to try that. Ashes to ashes could get rid of problematic lands, enchants or creatures. I will not be adding it tho.

it is actually worth like 53 dollars now.

Just got this through optimizer at sub $20

worth a shot i suppose

Yeah for anyone who looks at this thread and wonders if the price is still accurate, I was able to get all of the cards minus basic lands for about $24, so it's still a great budget list