My friends decks all revolve around playing a lot of creatures early. Some of his decks go for using auras and swarming, and others go for preventing attacks through creature abilities and enchantments, and chipping away with flyers. Flying and/or auras seem to be his win conditions. I have gone with decks more based on card advantage and bigger creatures, but he just locks me out and kills me with his flyers or suited up weenies.
I'd like to use Blue and/or Red, because I have a lot of decks with Green/White/Black in them, and not a lot of instant/sorcery focused decks, mostly decks based around permanents.
How casual are you guys? Are y'all building really tuned decks or are they more kitchen table-y? Standard only or older cards too?
Red has access to some damage based sweepers. Anger of the Gods and Pyroclasm are great at wiping out small swarms of creatures. Blue has counterspells to disrupt the opponent. Both colors kind of fall short at dealing with resolved enchantments though.
We basically play a really low budget modern. I would say all our decks range from 20 to 60 dollars. My friends throws some older cards in, because he's been playing for ages, but we have no hard rules.
I saw that there are some blue spells that bounce non-land permanents, but I don't like main decking strictly enchantment hate cards, because if you aren't playing against them it's useless.
If possible I would like to play some kind of red/blue control, but I don't really know how to build control on a budget. The problem for me is win conditions. It seems as most control decks use planeswalkers to take over/finish the game, but they aren't generally within my budget.
Blue offers great control on budget for these types of decks, one of my favorite old blue harassment ploys was devestation tide/Archaomancer. Aetherize is pretty good, Aetherspouts, Cyclonic Rift (value maybe higher in that one). blue offers some good value beaters for win cons as well, the best of which arguably is Delver of Secrets. Blues abilities rarely focus on winning games as much as forever keeping the game in your favor. I've won blue matches on the back of a lone Invisible Stalker, and all the other blue harassment you can give your opponents nightmares over.
Keranos, God of Storms is a good, resilient finisher. $10 is probably a little pricey for you. Talrand, Sky Summoner is a good budget finisher too. Especially if you've got lots of cantrips and other spells. And the tokens it creates are great against creature swarms.
Basically, you run a bunch of efficient diverse answers. You don't have to run specific anti-enchantment cards because stuff like Stubborn Denial, Into the Roil and Izzet Charm can hit many types of cards. You can beat flyers with your own flyers or cheap removal.
Stubborn Denial has a nice interaction with Kiln Fiend/Nivix. They trigger to get +3/+0 before the spell resolves, so you will always have Ferocious.
Temur Battle Rage let's you alpha strike for the win with a big, double striking, trampling Fiend. Until then you just try to hold to the fort and pick some damage away in the air.
In a control deck, it doesn't really matter, what your finsiher is. Of course, a more powerful card will likely achieve victory earlier or will be harder to stop. But if you have obtained control of the game, an otherwise vanilla 5/5 flyer is as viable as a 4/4 unblockable hexproof critter or some token generating planeswalker. I once witnessed a depressingly slow control deck that went for victory by hitting the opponent dead with a Ninja of the Deep Hours. The key for winning with control is estabishing and keeping control until the game is over, not using the most powerful win con there is.
For bouncing permanents try using cards like Aether Adept or Aether Wall. These cards are useful even if the opponent doesn't use auras, but are especially powerful if he does.
Blue has a variety of powerful removal spells like Pongify. Red has lots of burn, and if you can create large amounts of card advantage, then even cheap ones that do a lot of damage in exchage for losing cards like Lightning Axe are viable. Repeated tapping of creatures with cards like Icy Manipulator, Trip Noose, or Puppeteer can really punish an opponent relying of beefing up creature with auras or equipment. Pseudo removal like Encrust or Claustrophobia can also be found aplenty in blue. While 4 mana may seem a bit expensive, Mystic Restraints is surprisingly effective. A useful red mass burn spell is Rough // Tumble. Use it to burn away early swarms of groundpounders, or to blow swarms of dragons out of the sky later.
I'd like to use Blue and/or Red, because I have a lot of decks with Green/White/Black in them, and not a lot of instant/sorcery focused decks, mostly decks based around permanents.
Thanks for any help!
Red has access to some damage based sweepers. Anger of the Gods and Pyroclasm are great at wiping out small swarms of creatures. Blue has counterspells to disrupt the opponent. Both colors kind of fall short at dealing with resolved enchantments though.
I saw that there are some blue spells that bounce non-land permanents, but I don't like main decking strictly enchantment hate cards, because if you aren't playing against them it's useless.
If possible I would like to play some kind of red/blue control, but I don't really know how to build control on a budget. The problem for me is win conditions. It seems as most control decks use planeswalkers to take over/finish the game, but they aren't generally within my budget.
Try something like this:
4 Delver of Secrets
4 Kiln Fiend
4 Nivix Cyclops
2 Spellheart Chimera
//Spells: 28
4 Gitaxian Probe
4 Serum Visions
4 Stubborn Denial
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Temur Battle Rage
3 Izzet Charm
3 Into the Roil
3 Anger of the Gods
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Shivan Reef
6 Island
4 Mountain
Basically, you run a bunch of efficient diverse answers. You don't have to run specific anti-enchantment cards because stuff like Stubborn Denial, Into the Roil and Izzet Charm can hit many types of cards. You can beat flyers with your own flyers or cheap removal.
Stubborn Denial has a nice interaction with Kiln Fiend/Nivix. They trigger to get +3/+0 before the spell resolves, so you will always have Ferocious.
Temur Battle Rage let's you alpha strike for the win with a big, double striking, trampling Fiend. Until then you just try to hold to the fort and pick some damage away in the air.
Specific cards to run depend on the types of decks your opponents play. Other fun budget options are Clutch of Currents, Distortion Strike, Electrolyze, Brutal Expulsion, Think Twice, Guttersnipe, Whelming Wave, Volcanic Fallout, Repeal, Arc Trail, Mana Leak.
For bouncing permanents try using cards like Aether Adept or Aether Wall. These cards are useful even if the opponent doesn't use auras, but are especially powerful if he does.
Blue has a variety of powerful removal spells like Pongify. Red has lots of burn, and if you can create large amounts of card advantage, then even cheap ones that do a lot of damage in exchage for losing cards like Lightning Axe are viable. Repeated tapping of creatures with cards like Icy Manipulator, Trip Noose, or Puppeteer can really punish an opponent relying of beefing up creature with auras or equipment. Pseudo removal like Encrust or Claustrophobia can also be found aplenty in blue. While 4 mana may seem a bit expensive, Mystic Restraints is surprisingly effective. A useful red mass burn spell is Rough // Tumble. Use it to burn away early swarms of groundpounders, or to blow swarms of dragons out of the sky later.
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