As the title says my budget atm is ~$500-$600. My meta currently has Dredge, Maverick, High Tide, Affinity, Reanimator, Pox, and Sneak/Show from what I can tell. I'm trying to avoid Dredge and Reanimator as there is a lot of graveyard hate right now. I was thinking of doing combo elves but cradles are ultra expensive. Any suggestions?
How about merfolk? Force of will and wasteland are expensive, but everything else is fairly cheap. I'd skip the wastelands before the forces in that meta. The countermagic is good against combo (high tide, reanimator, sneak/show), the vials and 1-color manabase are good vs. pox. Dredge is bad game 1, but that's true of basically every deck. Maverick is a bad matchup period, but not a terrible one.
How about merfolk? Force of will and wasteland are expensive, but everything else is fairly cheap. I'd skip the wastelands before the forces in that meta. The countermagic is good against combo (high tide, reanimator, sneak/show), the vials and 1-color manabase are good vs. pox. Dredge is bad game 1, but that's true of basically every deck. Maverick is a bad matchup period, but not a terrible one.
Merfolk goes a little over $800 for the full deck. I suppose I could wait for another paycheck and pay the extra $200 but that's somewhat over budget.
Merfolk goes a little over $800 for the full deck. I suppose I could wait for another paycheck and pay the extra $200 but that's somewhat over budget.
Bro, you don't have to pay full scg price on the forces and wastelands. Check eBay, the buy and sell thread, and other forums. Trust me, it will save you some dough. Investing on merfolk m or should I say a deck that has fow and wasteland is always a great idea. 50%of the decks in legacy uses either of them.
In your meta, sneak and show, affinity maverick, I know that merfolk would be insta-competitive. Your favored against combo, you have game against the air decks since ou have jitte and tnn, plus phantasmagoric image copying a lord or a tnn. Merfolk is my second deck in legacy after affinity. It's a good investment
Fetchlands and Duals are pretty much out of the question with a budget that low, so you can't really play a deck with Brainstorm.
Therefore,
Merfolk
Mono Blue Delver
UR Delver
Burn
OopsAllSpells
Maverick
Goblins
Dark Depths
UR Painter
Sacland Tendrils
Dragon Stompy or other Stompy variant (Soldier Stompy, Werewolf Stompy, Angel Stompy)
MUD
Mono green Elves! might be right around the ballpark, not 100% sure. The Deathrite Shaman versions splashing black and often white as well are definitely more expensive with the fetchlands and duals, but in the mono green version the only real big ticket card is Gaea's Cradle. Might depend on finding a good deal on Cradle.
Merfolk can be built to be more budget friendly. Lists replacing Wasteland with Cavern of Souls have had a good deal of success, even in SCG Opens. Even Tomohiro Saito who's always been considered among the best Merfolk pilots in Legacy, even taking them to a GP win a couple years back, made that switch at GP DC. Although most non-budget Merfolk players will tell you they hate the change, when a master of the deck makes the change it's got to be at least worth something.
Mono red Goblins sits right around your budget, though as much as I love Goblins myself, it's definitely one of those decks that you play because it's a pet deck. It's not the most well positioned deck because of its combo matchups, though there are plenty of pilots who have repeat success with it despite this.
LED Dredge is around this budget too, if not straight up under the budget, depends on if you find a good deal on LED but that's basically the only price tag in the deck. Though it certainly takes a very special type of person to play Dredge...
Mono black Pox can be pretty easy on the budget too, sitting right around your range. Prison deck that focuses on absolute resource denial. Again a pretty unique flavor, and it can be pretty grueling to pilot, but it's definitely an under the radar deck that's damn good with an experienced pilot.
MUD and Dragon Stompy share a similar position. Inconsistent, but has hands that are just absolutely unbeatable regardless of what deck you are up against.
Bro, you don't have to pay full scg price on the forces and wastelands. Check eBay, the buy and sell thread, and other forums. Trust me, it will save you some dough. Investing on merfolk m or should I say a deck that has fow and wasteland is always a great idea. 50%of the decks in legacy uses either of them.
In your meta, sneak and show, affinity maverick, I know that merfolk would be insta-competitive. Your favored against combo, you have game against the air decks since ou have jitte and tnn, plus phantasmagoric image copying a lord or a tnn. Merfolk is my second deck in legacy after affinity. It's a good investment
Hmmm, I've played a few merfolk games on cockatrice since you posted and I'm really liking it. I think I'll try to do what you said and look around for better deals on forces and wastelands. I already have mutas so that's no problem and the rest of the deck is fairly cheap.
well from what I have seen, for about $750, you could do combo Elves. Cut the fetchlands and buy the promo Emrakul instead of the original. You could do your first choice of deck for less than Merfolk, and you could definitely trade for most of it here, aside from Cradles, and the fetches I see no reason for, none of it costs all that much. I personally use Worldspine Wurm instead of Emrakul, it fits in much better for less mana. Zenith and Natural Order get it. just my thoughts
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Project Booster Fun makes it less fun to open a booster.
Merfolk actually sounds like a pretty good idea. 800$ is actually a pretty fair price for it though, even if you use ebay. You might be able to get to for closer to 600/700$ if you score ebay a lot, and dont mind picking up played stuff.
Imperial painter is also easily buildable for around 700$ if you get the judge foil painters. But thats more a meta game deck. Merfolk is always a fairly good deck, and the expensive cards (FoW and waste) can be used in many other decks, the same cant be said for recuiters.
Beyond Ebay, I think the very best place you can get cards is TCGPlayer.com. They use a plethora of different card stores form around the country and give you the best deals from each one. The "lowest" price that they give for a card is actually very realistic. Their pricing system is also the one that Magiccards.info uses.
I'd probably build mono green elves with only one or 2 craddles, and crop rotation instead. Money can be an issue, and you can win with a deck that is not exactly THE 75 that "pros" are playing.
You can add fetches, duals, deathrite shamans and more craddles afterwards
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The interesting thing about us legacy players is that we consider Force of Will, Dark Ritual, Blood Moon, Tarmogoyf and Swords to Plowshare to be fair.
With so few FoWs in that meta, I would vote ANT. I know you couldn't get the duals on that budget, but you would wipe the floor if all you had to do each week was race other combo decks and Slaughter Pact an Ethersworn Canonist.
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Merfolk goes a little over $800 for the full deck. I suppose I could wait for another paycheck and pay the extra $200 but that's somewhat over budget.
Bro, you don't have to pay full scg price on the forces and wastelands. Check eBay, the buy and sell thread, and other forums. Trust me, it will save you some dough. Investing on merfolk m or should I say a deck that has fow and wasteland is always a great idea. 50%of the decks in legacy uses either of them.
In your meta, sneak and show, affinity maverick, I know that merfolk would be insta-competitive. Your favored against combo, you have game against the air decks since ou have jitte and tnn, plus phantasmagoric image copying a lord or a tnn. Merfolk is my second deck in legacy after affinity. It's a good investment
Therefore,
Merfolk
Mono Blue Delver
UR Delver
Burn
OopsAllSpells
Maverick
Goblins
Dark Depths
UR Painter
Sacland Tendrils
Dragon Stompy or other Stompy variant (Soldier Stompy, Werewolf Stompy, Angel Stompy)
MUD
Just a couple ideas
Legacy:
GRISELBRAND
Merfolk can be built to be more budget friendly. Lists replacing Wasteland with Cavern of Souls have had a good deal of success, even in SCG Opens. Even Tomohiro Saito who's always been considered among the best Merfolk pilots in Legacy, even taking them to a GP win a couple years back, made that switch at GP DC. Although most non-budget Merfolk players will tell you they hate the change, when a master of the deck makes the change it's got to be at least worth something.
Mono red Goblins sits right around your budget, though as much as I love Goblins myself, it's definitely one of those decks that you play because it's a pet deck. It's not the most well positioned deck because of its combo matchups, though there are plenty of pilots who have repeat success with it despite this.
LED Dredge is around this budget too, if not straight up under the budget, depends on if you find a good deal on LED but that's basically the only price tag in the deck. Though it certainly takes a very special type of person to play Dredge...
Mono black Pox can be pretty easy on the budget too, sitting right around your range. Prison deck that focuses on absolute resource denial. Again a pretty unique flavor, and it can be pretty grueling to pilot, but it's definitely an under the radar deck that's damn good with an experienced pilot.
MUD and Dragon Stompy share a similar position. Inconsistent, but has hands that are just absolutely unbeatable regardless of what deck you are up against.
Hmmm, I've played a few merfolk games on cockatrice since you posted and I'm really liking it. I think I'll try to do what you said and look around for better deals on forces and wastelands. I already have mutas so that's no problem and the rest of the deck is fairly cheap.
Imperial painter is also easily buildable for around 700$ if you get the judge foil painters. But thats more a meta game deck. Merfolk is always a fairly good deck, and the expensive cards (FoW and waste) can be used in many other decks, the same cant be said for recuiters.
Here is a list that has a low of less than $800 if you straight up bought it from the site. (and this price includes all sideboard cards)
http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1169895
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Getting Started in Legacy and Legacy Budget Primer 5!
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You can add fetches, duals, deathrite shamans and more craddles afterwards
Modern Warp / UR Control / UR Storm / Naya Breachshift / ElectroBalance
Solidarity / Lands / Sneak and Show / Grixis Delver / Reanimator / Belcher / Storm / Dredge