Myself and a few other people I know just started playing magic recently due to a friend getting us into it. But him and his friends that we play vs sometimes have been playing for years and years and have optimized decklists (one of them ran the omniscience combo with the laboratory maniac, another of them has a relentless rats deck that won fairly quickly etc).
So I'm just looking to find some decklists that are competitive on their own, that I can slowly upgrade to better decklists too - I've been looking through a lot of decks and a lot of them are fairly expensive (300+ for everything), but I did find and build a black/blue Waste Not deck that worked really well last night, although they hated it quite a bit.
Outside of that, I have a Boros Doublestrike deck that's white and red, but it doesn't really seem suited for a multiplayer game... So I'm looking for some other decks I can build that will do well in a 4-6 player game on a budget. Thank you.
Also I'm sure you'll look at this since you're a big poster here in regards to Prid3 - I really like a lot of your decklists, just curious if you have a comprehensive list of them anywhere?
This forum has color guides stickied at the top, done by Prid3 himself. Most threads have decklists to varying degrees in them.
Decide what you style you like playing and what you think will be successful in your meta and then search and see if someone else has posted a recent decklist and you can peruse that for ideas.
Last but not least, look at his set reviews as well for ideas and pseudo decklists there to help you out
How fair/competitive is your group? Do you see the same decks almost every game or is there some variety ? (Hopefully)
What color(s) would you like to work with? Or particular theme? I won't pretend I am as knowlegable as Prid3 or some of the others on this board but multiplayer is my format of choice and I know a fair amount.
Hmm I don't know the lists everyone is using quite yet. 3 of the more experienced players have like 10~ decks between them and rotate them out every game.
One of those players has a stuffy doll deck as my friend calls it, an omniscience deck that wins off of laboratory maniac, a relentless rats deck - I'm not really sure what the other 2 have overall. My one friend that plays with us most of the time has a prophet of kruphix combo that lets him essentially play a whole turn on every other players turn, that was pretty nutty. He also runs an Izzet burn type deck, and a multicolor deck that wins off of Door to Nothingness and a few other things.
Among the less experienced players, my fiance has just a random blue/white deck she's been tinkering with, my good friend has a dragon deck that he spent like 300$ on, and a dino deck i think? the dragon deck seems pretty powerful if it builds up at all.
And his little brother has been running an Izzet burn deck as well thats pretty irritating.
Yeah, I definitely don't want to just run a Waste Not deck all the time, but the other deck I built that I thought would be good doesn't really seem to function well in multiplayer.
In terms of colors etc. I'd like to run about anything - I'd like to be able to build up to have 5+ decks so I can cycle through decks every game too, but I don't really want to break the budget.
I was looking into the challenger decks from last year and this year but not sure if it's worth.
Looking through all the stickied color guides, most of the sample decks in there are relatively expensive to what I want to spend to start with per deck - The only ones that seemed pretty cheap were most of the red deck lists I looked at.
Thanks for any help I appreciate it, it's been great getting into Magic for the first time, we've been playing nonstop lately. Just want to be able to hold my own without having to rely on one deck haha.
Budget is always a decider. What kind of deck are chasing?
I've been playing standard lately (I know I know), and one deck caught my attention for a few reasons.
This deck is dead cheap (minus Krasis, Breeding Pool & Clarion), it's draws a tonne of cards, fields large creatures, and runs sweepers that don't kill sheep.
Okay, so the deck is focused towards duels and the standard format, so it's not optimal, but you could easily change a few cards to make it cheaper & better for multiplayer. The cards I would sub out for multiplayer (and replace with budget alternatives);
- Pool, Krasis, Banefire, Manipulation.
+ 1-2 Forest, +2 Mob Rule or Mass Mutiny types, +2 Control Magic.
All my decks do that more or less. My group plays with a $200 budget so new players don't get completely annihilated or feel like they need fetches to compete.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I got my friend to update me on what him and his friends that have been playing for awhile have for decks.
'I have one of every 2 color combination and then the rainbow one, A has a zombie deck, a vampire, a populate, a devour, and a merfolk deck. then T has the blue, rat, red and black burn, stuffy doll, bears, samurai, treefolk, and giantsand all of us have an izzet red and blue'
So that's the all the decks I am/would be playing vs including the ones above. Thanks guys.
Thanks for all the responses so far. I got my friend to update me on what him and his friends that have been playing for awhile have for decks.
'I have one of every 2 color combination and then the rainbow one, A has a zombie deck, a vampire, a populate, a devour, and a merfolk deck. then T has the blue, rat, red and black burn, stuffy doll, bears, samurai, treefolk, and giantsand all of us have an izzet red and blue'
So that's the all the decks I am/would be playing vs including the ones above. Thanks guys.
It's impossible to really know what those decks are like without knowing their actual deck lists, but I'm going to speculate a bit here. I think your play group sounds similar to mine in terms of deck power. If your friends are playing and ostensibly winning with weak tribal decks like Samurai or with decks based on gimicky, underpowered block mechanics like Devour, then most of the decks that Prid3 would post or put in the color guides would probably be too strong--which it sounds like was your experience with the Waste Not deck.
The great thing about this though is that it really frees up your options for deck building. Power/competitiveness of a card in multiplayer isn't necessarily tied to price. Some of the most powerful multiplayer cards like Sylvan Primordial or Gray Merchant of Asphodel only cost a few cents. As such, I can build almost any type of deck that's competitive (relative to my play group) and keep the budget in the $20 range--sometimes as low as the teens.
Here's an example of what I mean that I've posted in the forum before:
So instead of asking what decks are competitive on a budget it would probably be better to approach it from the angle of "what type of deck would I like to play?" I have about 50 different multiplayer decks of all different color combinations and strategy types--all around the same power level and almost all from a budget under $30 (at the time the cards were purchased). If you say what you're looking for in terms of themes or archetypes the other forum posters and I could probably name some easy suggestions.
Yeah okay so their decks really aren't that great at the end of the day is what it sounds like.
What you're saying sounds wonderful, I really just want a ton of different decks to play, and cheaper is better. I don't want to sit here and build nothing but tryhard decks that crush everyone and make the game unfun for others.
On that note, I still never really got an answer from anyone - Based on the info that's here, are the challenger decks worth buying for me? I've been highly considering spending the 80~ or whatever it is on all 4 from last year and this year coming up.
I don't want you to just blow up this thread with builds unless you really want to, but if you have a centralized list of decks you have, or would be willing to list a lot of them that would be awesome of you.
Once again I appreciate the help from everyone thank you all!
If you want to play them they're worth buying. If you're looking for a low-effort premade deck to play, you could also pick up one of the premade commander decks and just play them as normal 100 card decks. Plenty of people in my group do that. Just swap out any cards that specifically reference a "commander".
So I'm just looking to find some decklists that are competitive on their own, that I can slowly upgrade to better decklists too - I've been looking through a lot of decks and a lot of them are fairly expensive (300+ for everything), but I did find and build a black/blue Waste Not deck that worked really well last night, although they hated it quite a bit.
Outside of that, I have a Boros Doublestrike deck that's white and red, but it doesn't really seem suited for a multiplayer game... So I'm looking for some other decks I can build that will do well in a 4-6 player game on a budget. Thank you.
Also I'm sure you'll look at this since you're a big poster here in regards to Prid3 - I really like a lot of your decklists, just curious if you have a comprehensive list of them anywhere?
Thanks guys.
Guilds of Ravnica - Commander 2018 - Core 2019 - Battlebond - Dominaria - Rivals of Ixalan - Ixalan - Commander 2017 - Hour of Devastation - Amonket - Aether Revolt - Commander 2016 - Kaladesh - Conspiracy 2 - Eldritch Moon - Shadows Over Innistrad - Oath of the Gatewatch - Commander 2015 - Battle for Zendikar - Magic Origins - Dragons of Tarkir
Green - Blue - Red - White - Gold
Decide what you style you like playing and what you think will be successful in your meta and then search and see if someone else has posted a recent decklist and you can peruse that for ideas.
Last but not least, look at his set reviews as well for ideas and pseudo decklists there to help you out
What color(s) would you like to work with? Or particular theme? I won't pretend I am as knowlegable as Prid3 or some of the others on this board but multiplayer is my format of choice and I know a fair amount.
Can you give us a few more examples of decks you routinely face? If so, we can probably help you find a deck(s) with similar power levels.
Mono-black devotion decks tend to do quite well https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/casual-multiplayer-formats/multiplayer/733532-monoblack-devotion-shells link to Prid3s various lists
One of those players has a stuffy doll deck as my friend calls it, an omniscience deck that wins off of laboratory maniac, a relentless rats deck - I'm not really sure what the other 2 have overall. My one friend that plays with us most of the time has a prophet of kruphix combo that lets him essentially play a whole turn on every other players turn, that was pretty nutty. He also runs an Izzet burn type deck, and a multicolor deck that wins off of Door to Nothingness and a few other things.
Among the less experienced players, my fiance has just a random blue/white deck she's been tinkering with, my good friend has a dragon deck that he spent like 300$ on, and a dino deck i think? the dragon deck seems pretty powerful if it builds up at all.
And his little brother has been running an Izzet burn deck as well thats pretty irritating.
Yeah, I definitely don't want to just run a Waste Not deck all the time, but the other deck I built that I thought would be good doesn't really seem to function well in multiplayer.
In terms of colors etc. I'd like to run about anything - I'd like to be able to build up to have 5+ decks so I can cycle through decks every game too, but I don't really want to break the budget.
I was looking into the challenger decks from last year and this year but not sure if it's worth.
Looking through all the stickied color guides, most of the sample decks in there are relatively expensive to what I want to spend to start with per deck - The only ones that seemed pretty cheap were most of the red deck lists I looked at.
Thanks for any help I appreciate it, it's been great getting into Magic for the first time, we've been playing nonstop lately. Just want to be able to hold my own without having to rely on one deck haha.
I've been playing standard lately (I know I know), and one deck caught my attention for a few reasons.
This deck is dead cheap (minus Krasis, Breeding Pool & Clarion), it's draws a tonne of cards, fields large creatures, and runs sweepers that don't kill sheep.
4 Gatebreaker Ram
4 Gate Colossus
3 Archway Angel
1 Banefire
4 Growth Spiral
2 Deafening Clarion
4 Gates Ablaze
4 Circuitous Route
2 Mass Manipulation
2 Breeding Pool
1 Gateway Plaza
4 Plaza of Harmony
4 Gruul Guildgate
4 Izzet Guildgate
4 Simic Guildgate
4 Azorius Guildgate
2 Selesnya Guildgate
Okay, so the deck is focused towards duels and the standard format, so it's not optimal, but you could easily change a few cards to make it cheaper & better for multiplayer. The cards I would sub out for multiplayer (and replace with budget alternatives);
- Pool, Krasis, Banefire, Manipulation.
+ 1-2 Forest, +2 Mob Rule or Mass Mutiny types, +2 Control Magic.
My decks are The Scarab God, Prossh, Skyraider of Kher, Chainer, Dementia Master and Karlov of the Ghost Council I have others too but those are the most "competitive".
BChainer, Dementia Master(Big Mana/Reanimator)
BRRakdos, The Showstopper (Mass Life Loss/Ramp)
BUThe Scarab God (Zombie Tribal/Control)
BWKarlov of the Ghost Council (Life Gain)
BGJarad, Golgari Lich Lord (Stompy/Dredge)
BRGProssh, Skyraider of Kher (Tokens/Non-infinite Combo)
'I have one of every 2 color combination and then the rainbow one, A has a zombie deck, a vampire, a populate, a devour, and a merfolk deck. then T has the blue, rat, red and black burn, stuffy doll, bears, samurai, treefolk, and giantsand all of us have an izzet red and blue'
So that's the all the decks I am/would be playing vs including the ones above. Thanks guys.
It's impossible to really know what those decks are like without knowing their actual deck lists, but I'm going to speculate a bit here. I think your play group sounds similar to mine in terms of deck power. If your friends are playing and ostensibly winning with weak tribal decks like Samurai or with decks based on gimicky, underpowered block mechanics like Devour, then most of the decks that Prid3 would post or put in the color guides would probably be too strong--which it sounds like was your experience with the Waste Not deck.
The great thing about this though is that it really frees up your options for deck building. Power/competitiveness of a card in multiplayer isn't necessarily tied to price. Some of the most powerful multiplayer cards like Sylvan Primordial or Gray Merchant of Asphodel only cost a few cents. As such, I can build almost any type of deck that's competitive (relative to my play group) and keep the budget in the $20 range--sometimes as low as the teens.
Here's an example of what I mean that I've posted in the forum before:
22 Stuff
Creatures
4 Agent of the Fates
4 Tormented Hero
2 Artisan of Forms
2 Ashiok's Adept
4 Triton Fortune Hunter
2 Nighthowler
2 Phyrexian Reclamation
Auras
4 Shimmering Wings
2 Sleeper's Robe
Tricks
4 Mizzium Skin
2 Triton Tactics
2 Virulent Swipe
2 Profane Command
2 Hidden Strings
So instead of asking what decks are competitive on a budget it would probably be better to approach it from the angle of "what type of deck would I like to play?" I have about 50 different multiplayer decks of all different color combinations and strategy types--all around the same power level and almost all from a budget under $30 (at the time the cards were purchased). If you say what you're looking for in terms of themes or archetypes the other forum posters and I could probably name some easy suggestions.
What you're saying sounds wonderful, I really just want a ton of different decks to play, and cheaper is better. I don't want to sit here and build nothing but tryhard decks that crush everyone and make the game unfun for others.
On that note, I still never really got an answer from anyone - Based on the info that's here, are the challenger decks worth buying for me? I've been highly considering spending the 80~ or whatever it is on all 4 from last year and this year coming up.
I don't want you to just blow up this thread with builds unless you really want to, but if you have a centralized list of decks you have, or would be willing to list a lot of them that would be awesome of you.
Once again I appreciate the help from everyone thank you all!
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.