MTG Salvation

Hello,

I find myself seriously outgunned most of the time. We have a commander league at the FLGS so it's kinda on the competitive side. I generally run budget decks in commander like Xenagos, God of Revels or Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest and Narset, Enlightened Master. Just seems like in 3-4 player games I never win and rarely even eliminate players. I mostly get locked out by prison decks or combo decks go off.

Are there are any budget decks that can combat these two issues?

What is your list? Pick the deck that is best, and let's work on it.

When you say prison decks, what do you mean?
Pillowfort decks that put up a lot of enchantments that make it impossible for you to attack?
Or stax decks that prevent you from untapping or make your spells to expensive to cast?

Combo decks are hard to deal with on a budget, since the best way to beat them is to either beat them first or lock them out of the game with stax.

The thing is, if you are playing against very powerful top tier decks, you cannot beat them with fair decks.

In any case, we need more info if we are going to try to help you.

Link to deck @ TappedOut.net

You might want to look into cards that can help shortcut out some of those high costing creatures. Selvala's Stampede, See the Unwritten, Eldritch Evolution.

I also see you're running basic lands only. Traverse the Outlands, Borderland Explorer, Boundless Realms, Collective Voyage, Explosive Vegetation, Far Wanderings, Peregrination

Wave of Vitriol to clear the field.

Seems your lands need some upgrades. Won't be that costly honestly.

• Terramorphic Expanse
  
• Mountain Valley
  
• Evolving Wilds
  
• Gruul Turf
  
• Command Tower
  
• Karplusan Forest
  
• Skarrg, the Rage Pits
  
• Rootbound Crag
  

EDIT: Your mana production could also use a little boost.

• Sol Ring
  
• Gruul Signet
  
• Gruul Keyrune
  
• Gruul Cluestone
  
• Hour of Promise

I don't like Chaos imps. Atarka, World Render is usually played with Xenagos since it hits for 24 after Xenagos' pump.
You could definitely find room for more double strike -Savageborn Hydra for example.

You also should be running Scavenging Ooze and probably some other graveyard hate. Chaos Warp and Beast Within can help you stop a combo from deploying or can get rid of a key prison piece.
Bane of Progress and Reclamation Sage should also be good at disrupting your opponents.

Do the two avatars ever get played at their discounted prices? I have never seen them get played in EDH and I do not really see the upside.

Finally, I would play Savage Ventmaw. Really good with Hellkite Charger.

Voyaging Satyr is better than Blossom Dryad. Both are better if you find a way to play Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx in your deck.

Just as a suggestion, I would make your deck helmed by Ruric Thar. While he is a removal magnet, I've noticed in a few of the cutthroat metas I've played in that he tends to stop the game for noncreature heavy decks because no one wants to take it to the dome for getting rid of him. Might be worth trying.

Prowling Serpopard is only a buck and could help if you're seeing your stuff get countered a lot.

Dragonlair Spider gives you some incremental advantage against your opponents.

Krosan Drover is a great cost reducer.

Decimator of the Provinces can be a decent budget option for Craterhoof.

Quote from calamity_unbound »

Krosan Drover is a great cost reducer.

I'll second Ruric Thar as being a certified pain in the ass. Even just removing him has an awful cost, so if anyone doesn't have immediate removal, he shuts them out.

But following Calamity's suggestion, If you'd consider Krosan Drover, I don't know why you wouldn't consider Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma.

Thanks for the suggestions. I have some of the cards suggested already so I'll try them out first. Krosan Drover and the Goreclaw are definitely on my want list now.

After experiences over the weekend against a Saskia build, I can seriously say Selvala's Stampede is totally nuts. In a super aggro build (and what Saskia isnt?) it does crazy work.

Also, from first hand experience, Wave of Vitriol can be absolutely crushing. I run it in my Nissa build. It's fairly common for 3+ colour builds with expensive mana bases to just sweep after it resolves. It's non basic land hate, but it's land hate at its most fair, so no one can really complain, but that doesn't make it any less brutal.

I'll also second Ruric as a right pain in the ass. A good build can really leave bruises. He's in the right colours to still get some decent abilities attached to creatures, so you don't miss out on ramp, artifact and enchantment removal, pump and such forth. But obviously it's the punishment that makes him a solid commander - getting rid of him is costly, and there are a ton of ways to protect him. A lot of people just run him with tons of high impact creatures and Primal Surge, but he's easy enough to build on somewhat of a budget too.

Quote from Grimoire »

But following Calamity's suggestion, If you'd consider Krosan Drover, I don't know why you wouldn't consider Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma.

Good call, totally forgot about that guy and he's super cheap to boot at only $1.

Not to be a buzzkill, but I don't see a ruric thar list having any chance against remotely competitive decks. And creating a good control deck is usually expensive. Probably the actual best option is a cheap combo deck like arcum or yisan.

Quote from DirkGently »

Not to be a buzzkill, but I don't see a ruric thar list having any chance against remotely competitive decks. And creating a good control deck is usually expensive. Probably the actual best option is a cheap combo deck like arcum or yisan.

I have seen Ruric Thar take down tier one turn 3 combo metas. If a turn 3 combo deck is 25% to win a 4 player game, Ruric Thar is probably more around 10-15%, but absolutely viable.
You play stax cards, Possibility Storm, and ramp into Ruric Thar with a way to protect him. Many combo decks cannot beat this.
Here is an example http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/ruric-thar-competitive-your-heart-is-a-muscle/.
The thing is, if you are playing a lot of artifact hate, Blood Moon effects, and a Kikki Jikki combo, you will have a chance against pretty much any tier 1 deck. Stax can always beat combo, and Ruric Thar is well positioned against some other stax decks.

I did look at that exact list before posting lol.

Firstly, it's not budget. Stax is generally pricey. Second, I'm dubious about the win rate. He's already playing gr beat down with Xenagod and it's not good enough. Theoretically anything CAN win a combo meta if the combo decks disrupt each other but I don't think that's a good plan.

My preferred suggestion is political control phelddagrif, but honestly it's kind of a drag blocking everyone else's combos.

No, definitely not a budget deck.

It's definitely got a lot stacked against it, but the idea to play disruption (Stax) and combo out with Kikki Jikki is viable. I just think it's more like 1/10 games that you can win vs. 1/4.

Sure, but I think the vibe I'm getting from previous posters is "just put a bunch of ramp and fatties in there and it will work out", which I think is nonsense. I don't see anyone else suggesting stax pieces or more than a couple removal spells (which probably won't even be effective if you're generally tapping out playing expensive creatures). I don't know exactly how competitive his meta is, but these suggestions look very weak in a highly competitive meta, imo. But if it's actually pretty mid-tier it might be fine - but then, so would xenagod, and that's not working for him. So either his xenagos list sucks or he needs to bring out some bigger guns. And I don't think Ruric is a significantly bigger gun.

He also titled the thread "Budget Options", so the sense I (and I'm assuming the others) had was that he was looking for some small upgrades to his current deck list without spending a ton of money to give him a fighting chance in his meta. Even building a completely budget deck from scratch can run between $50-$100, and not everyone has that laying around that they can immediately throw at a deck. Small upgrades to what he has now can continue letting him have fun and other budget ideas can give him things to build towards over time. I don't think anyone promised him that he'd suddenly start winning if he sat down with Ruric Thar at the helm, just that he might get better results short term.

I should have included it before, but my suggestion for a deck to start building towards would be Animar. Even a budget version can be competitive and fun to play, and with the RG base you have you already some solid inclusions. When I get to an actual computer, I'll post a deck list that should be cheap enough to put together through trades and rifling through the .25 cent bin at your lgs.