Nihilith is a good beater with synergy in the deck, but you'd prefer not to have creatures on the field unless you're about to win, and Tezzert and Ajani both offer much better utility to the deck. Tezzert is card advantage (more borderposts) or damage every turn, and the ultimate is generally a deal closer. Ajani keeps tapped problematic artifacts like Vials or lands that escaped a Balance and his minus abilities can buy time and serve as a secondary replacement Balance if necessary.
Strategy Differences
- Same basic game plan. Suspend, Cascade into Balance.
- Tezzeret should +1 until you have at least 5-6 borderposts out, then -4 for the 20+ swing in life. Don't -2 unless you really need a blocker.
- Ajani should generally +1 a troublesome artifact, creature, or land, until you can -7. -2 if needed, to buy a turn to hit another Restore Balance.
Final potential upgrades
The only thing I might do further with this deck is to replace the Reminisces with Loaming Shaman. He offers a body and control over what goes back, at the downside of leaving another potential body around that needs to be sac'd to get best utility of out of Balance. Liliana of the Veil could possibly replace Ajani Vengeant, but thus far I've found Ajani useful enough that I'm not terribly tempted. Liliana's utility meshes well with the deck, but the double B can make her hard to play if you don't get the right combo of borderposts and lands.
how would you feel about finding room for wildfire..good or waste of time?
how would you feel about finding room for wildfire..good or waste of time?
Generally too expensive to cast. By the time you can play it, you'll need to have hit your balance, and under ideal conditions that means they won't have any lands to destroy or creatures to hit. A decent aggro deck in modern is going to kill you on turn 4; 3 if they get a really good draw. Likewise combo decks. You need to be able to wipe their boards quickly. So hitting Restore Balance is your number 1 priority. Which means anything which replicates what it does either needs to be faster or run off the same engine. Boom//Bust is possibly worth it. Wildfire probably isn't.
Between the banning of BBE and finding a few other awesome interesting decks, I've not really figured out how to retool this deck. The easiest thing to do is probably to just replace BBE with Captured Sunlight. Same CMC, even cheaper money-wise. Downside is that it doesn't move you towards a win (though it does help stave off aggro decks until you can balance).
As far as possible updates from Rav block, I haven't looked too much, but the Keyrunes are somewhat interesting as a way to have a wincondition that evades Balance. Balancing them against the Borderposts is not easy, though, as you need to be getting your lands off the table and hitting 3 mana. A hand full of keyrunes with no posts leaves you dead in the water. Beyond that, Aetherize seems like a decent budget option that acts like a board clear (especially if you can follow with a balance, as they'll probably have to discard some or all of the creatures returned). Unexpected Results can hit Restore Balance, your cascade cards, your mana ramp, etc. It might also be a good replacement for BBE.
Decided to work on making a green sligh deck based on the alternative build from the previous mono green aggro, I've been testing this online and love it. It's partially based on the old "hasty green" deck from timespiral. Nobody expects the speed from a green deck, or the constant size threats its able to crank out.
How to Play: Lay hasty dudes, turn sideways with a stick. This deck is quite explosive. Common plays include turn 1-elves, turn 2, grafted wargear, turn 3 uktabi + groundbreaker for 11 pts of damage. Or if you landed a forcemage, make that 14pts....ON TURN 3!!!!! The deck offers some built in resiliency with the gheists and the equipements/rancors to turn anything you really want to into a threat- suit up a lanowar elves with a rancor and wargear to turn him into the 6/3 trampling beat stick he always wanted to be. Turn your lowly flying shock of an uktabi you saved from echoey death into a 4/3 scourge of the skies with a morning star. Stuck with a primal forcemage but no hasty beats? SUIT HIM UP!!! I won a game with a rancored, double wargeared, morning star toting Primal forcemagenaut colossus on mtgO. It twas teh sexy.
Strategy:
Control the game, against creature-light decks, use Duress/Mana leak; against aggro use removal
Eventually land a Notion Thief EOT, follow it up with a puzzle box, then win the game usually.
Alternatively, play the puzzle box to dig for Notion Thief, then Hopefully, play notion thief and Duress/Leak to protect it.
I've tested the deck on cockatrice, and its actually not bad. I beat Esper Control and Storm already.
How to Play:
This is all about swinging with exalted bonuses, then putting trample and lifelink on your beater for the win. And if it gets killed, who cares? It's exalted, your next attacker will get those bonuses too! When that's coupled with the Knotvine's +1/+1 bonus for untapped creatures, it gets potent fast. Use the Glare to ruin their plans, Rhox doubles your lifelink, the Pridemage helps with artifact/enchantment removal, and the Mentor is there for card advantage (since every creature has power 2 or less). Most games end with a life amount around 50-80.
Non-budget Upgrades: More dual lands, and some Noble Hierarchs instead of the Pilgrims would make this deck truly potent.
Strategy:
Control the game, against creature-light decks, use Duress/Mana leak; against aggro use removal
Eventually land a Notion Thief EOT, follow it up with a puzzle box, then win the game usually.
Alternatively, play the puzzle box to dig for Notion Thief, then Hopefully, play notion thief and Duress/Leak to protect it.
I've tested the deck on cockatrice, and its actually not bad. I beat Esper Control and Storm already.
I don't get how the deck wins, via beating with Notion Thief? Maybe Creeping Tarpit for upgrades? I like this a lot though, wanna maybe build this.
"If fetch lands are reprinted I really believe they will be in allied colors (aka Onslaught fetches). If the fetch lands are reprinted you better believe that we'll all be fetching up basics. This would lead me to believe that the set after THS may have a reprint as the temples can't be fetched but it's pure speculation." - posted 03/22/2014 proved correct during Khans spoiler season.
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
So, I have really enjoyed watching this thread for a while now, and as it appears to have died down in popularity, I thought it would be my turn to give back with some of the more amusing budget decklists I know of.
Key Interactions:
trading post + precursor golem/thopter foundry = recur a lot of artifacts with one artifact
trading post + wellspring = draw a lot of cards
trading post + spine of ish sah = repeated permanent removal.
This deck abuses trading post as a card engine, as well as allowing you to recur artifact creatures to use enter the battlefield effects. It was designed for use in multiplayer modern games as that is what I play mostly. hence, the large quantities of mass removal and lack of spot removal. the Main non-budget upgrades would be Solemn Simulacrum, batterskull, and mox opal and/or a splash of black/white for hand disruption/noncreature removal respectively.
Creatures
4x Knight of New Alara 3,80
4x Qasali Ambusher 1,20
4x Centaur Healer 0,60
4x Bant Sureblade 0,64
4x Naya Hushblade 0,64
Removal
4x Afterlife 0,68
4x Cribswap 1,92
Shields
4x Shield of the Oversoul 3,92
Artifacts
4x Horizon Spellbomb 0,44
Lands
12x Forest 0,00
12x Plains 0,00
Battleplan: Play dudes. Tap dudes to deal damage. Any blade + Knight of New Alara becomes a 6/5 for 2 mana, which is not a bad investment. Every single creature in your deck (except Naya Hushblade) benefits from Shield of the Oversoul. Again, Knight of New Alara + the Shield is the goal, and gives you a 6/6 indestructable flier which pumps all your other creatures for at least +2/+2.
If I Had the Money: ... I wouldn't be playing this deck. But I suppose that if you really wanted to improve this, it would be better removal such as Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile. The manabase could use some tweaking but funnily enough it rarely finds itself missing a colourl.
This deck plays a removal-heavy BR beatdown that can go infinite with the Heartless Summoning/Myr Retriever combo. It can win with big flying Demons, or durdle around and win with the combo. More likely, it will lose to a faster deck, but for the price, it's hard to go wrong in a casual setting.
Key cards:Faithless Looting for finding the combo pieces (and you don't mind discarding a Myr)
Shred Memory to tutor for all three combo pieces (Myr, Grapeshot, Heartless)
Bloodgift Demon as a flying Phyrexian Arena.
For those who don't know the combo, you need Heartless Summoning out and two Myr Retrievers. (One can be in the graveyard.) You can cast the Myr for free, but it dies instantly; when it dies, you grab another Myr from the graveyard, and repeat. You can now win with an infinite-storm Grapeshot, or win if you have a Falkenrath Noble or Deathbringer Thoctar on the board. Yep, it's not at all consistent, but it is fun to play in a deck like this. And heck, you might live the dream and have a turn three kill!
EDIT: Right now you can get this shipped for $12.16 from tcgplayer, including shipping. Much cheaper if you don't include the shipping costs...
If your Devoted Druid gets killed then you can use the Evolution Charm, it also lets you thin your deck if you find yourself needing to do something on turn 2.
This deck adds up to $4.88, which gets it in the under $5. It could be competitive with other under $5 decks... (you have to get creative with some sets to get the costs down, like Wood Elves from 8th and Lead the Stampede from MBS)
Put this together a few days ago, so pardon me time stamping a few days back. The prices shouldn't have changed by much, if at all. Honestly, I'm not even sure how competitive this deck would be, but against other~$10 decks it should hold its own. So without further ado, here's Mono-R Human Aggro:
Comes out to $7.30 on 1/4/14. Like I said, I can't see it being hugely competitive, but it's got good creatures, good burn, and a decent curve. Could be a good jumping off point to get into the format at least.
Mono green stompy. T2 superion into turn 3 deus is pretty good, but nowhere near as much fun as digging for eternal witness with lead the stampede so you can recur it.
how would you feel about finding room for wildfire..good or waste of time?
WDeath and TaxesW
RWGBurnGWR
Generally too expensive to cast. By the time you can play it, you'll need to have hit your balance, and under ideal conditions that means they won't have any lands to destroy or creatures to hit. A decent aggro deck in modern is going to kill you on turn 4; 3 if they get a really good draw. Likewise combo decks. You need to be able to wipe their boards quickly. So hitting Restore Balance is your number 1 priority. Which means anything which replicates what it does either needs to be faster or run off the same engine. Boom//Bust is possibly worth it. Wildfire probably isn't.
Between the banning of BBE and finding a few other awesome interesting decks, I've not really figured out how to retool this deck. The easiest thing to do is probably to just replace BBE with Captured Sunlight. Same CMC, even cheaper money-wise. Downside is that it doesn't move you towards a win (though it does help stave off aggro decks until you can balance).
As far as possible updates from Rav block, I haven't looked too much, but the Keyrunes are somewhat interesting as a way to have a wincondition that evades Balance. Balancing them against the Borderposts is not easy, though, as you need to be getting your lands off the table and hitting 3 mana. A hand full of keyrunes with no posts leaves you dead in the water. Beyond that, Aetherize seems like a decent budget option that acts like a board clear (especially if you can follow with a balance, as they'll probably have to discard some or all of the creatures returned). Unexpected Results can hit Restore Balance, your cascade cards, your mana ramp, etc. It might also be a good replacement for BBE.
Built this deck on MTGO with warhammer instead of morningstar, it is INSANELY cheap and pretty effective!
WDeath and TaxesW
RWGBurnGWR
4 Notion Thief
Artifacts:
4 Teferi's Puzzle Box
4 Howling Mine
4 Dimir Signet
Instants:
4 Mana Leak
3 Mystical Teachings
3 Smother
2 Doom Blade
1 Go for the Throat
1 Consume the Meek
1 Hideous Laughter
4 Duress
1 Infest
Lands:
4 Darkslick Shores
4 Dimir Guildgate
8 Swamp
5 Island
3 Ghost Quarter
1 Stoic Rebuttal
2 Countersquall
1 Darkblast
1 Annul
2 Disfigure
1 Steel Sabotage
1 Nihil Spellbomb
2 Crypt Incursion
1 Dispel
1 Ravenous Trap
2 Rain of Tears
Type: Budget (<$20)
Mainboard ($18.45)
Notion Thief: 1.88
Howling Mine: 4.76
Dimir Signet: .80
Teferi's Puzzle Box: 1.96
Mana Leak: .56
Mystical Teachings: .44
Smother: .12
Go for the Throat .86
Doom Blade: .10
Consume the Meek: .24
Hideous Laughter: .06
Duress: .12
Infest: .05
Darkslick Shores: 6.00
Dimir Guildgato: .20
Ghost Quarter: .30
Sideboard ($1.68):
Nihil Spellbomb: .05
Annul: .05
Countersquall: .78
Crypt Incursion: .08
Darkblast: .26
Disfigure: .10
Dispel: .03
Ravenous Trap: .04
Steel Sabotage: .02
Stoic Rebuttal: .03
Rain of Tears: .20
Next Non-Budget Upgrades:
Inqusition of Kozilek, Jace Beleren, Remand, Cryptic Command, Shock/Fetch manabase
Strategy:
Control the game, against creature-light decks, use Duress/Mana leak; against aggro use removal
Eventually land a Notion Thief EOT, follow it up with a puzzle box, then win the game usually.
Alternatively, play the puzzle box to dig for Notion Thief, then Hopefully, play notion thief and Duress/Leak to protect it.
I've tested the deck on cockatrice, and its actually not bad. I beat Esper Control and Storm already.
Thanks to Rivenor for the signature and XenoNinja for the Avi!
Quotes:
4 Akrasan Squire
4 Avacyn's Pilgrim
4 Qasali Pridemage
4 Aven Squire
3 Court Archers
3 Rhox Faithmender
4 Knotvine Paladin
2 Mentor of the Meek
4 Behemoth Sledge
2 Whispersilk Cloak
3 Glare of Subdual
2 Prey Upon
Lands
8 Plains
5 Forest
4 Cathedral of War
4 Razorverge Thicket
Type: Budget
Cost: $17.89
TIMESTAMP: 08/12/13
How to Play:
This is all about swinging with exalted bonuses, then putting trample and lifelink on your beater for the win. And if it gets killed, who cares? It's exalted, your next attacker will get those bonuses too! When that's coupled with the Knotvine's +1/+1 bonus for untapped creatures, it gets potent fast. Use the Glare to ruin their plans, Rhox doubles your lifelink, the Pridemage helps with artifact/enchantment removal, and the Mentor is there for card advantage (since every creature has power 2 or less). Most games end with a life amount around 50-80.
Non-budget Upgrades: More dual lands, and some Noble Hierarchs instead of the Pilgrims would make this deck truly potent.
I don't get how the deck wins, via beating with Notion Thief? Maybe Creeping Tarpit for upgrades? I like this a lot though, wanna maybe build this.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Dimir Keyrune could take the Signet's place and provide an unblockable beater. (granted a 10 turn beater)
"The set releases for fall 2015 (Blood, Sweat and Tears) and fall 2016 (Lock, Stock and Barrel). One or both of those 2 blocks (I'm betting) are going to contain either Fetch reprints or (more likely) Filter reprints. Filter lands still need a reprint. They are getting pretty high up there and it's been longer than ZEN so it makes a little more sense that Filter lands would see print earlier that fetches." - posted 03/22/2014 proved incorrect about filters coming earlier than fetches, still pending on filters in Origins block.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Aren't you in serious danger of decking yourself before you are able to win with this deck without more threats?
2x Blasphemous Act
4x Slagstorm
4x Whipflare
Utility Artifacts
4x Chromatic Star
3x Semblance Anvil
2x mycosynth wellspring
3x Spine of Ish Sah
4x Trading Post
4x Ichor Wellspring
4x Precursor Golem
3x Thopter Assembly
3x Steel Hellkite
10x Mountain
4x Phyrexia's Core
2x Springjack Pasture
4x Buried Ruin
Key Interactions:
trading post + precursor golem/thopter foundry = recur a lot of artifacts with one artifact
trading post + wellspring = draw a lot of cards
trading post + spine of ish sah = repeated permanent removal.
This deck abuses trading post as a card engine, as well as allowing you to recur artifact creatures to use enter the battlefield effects. It was designed for use in multiplayer modern games as that is what I play mostly. hence, the large quantities of mass removal and lack of spot removal. the Main non-budget upgrades would be Solemn Simulacrum, batterskull, and mox opal and/or a splash of black/white for hand disruption/noncreature removal respectively.
I have considered trying out a kuldotha forgemaster, lightning greaves, platinum angel package too but haven't done it yet.
Other budget options are myr battlesphere, lightning bolt,
Afterlife isn't Modern legal. Condemn is solid budget removal as is Oblivion Ring. That being said, I really like this deck. Horizon Spellbomb is alright, but I like Wall of Omens more. Watchwolf should replace Naya Hushblade. Fleecemane Lion would be an obvious choice for this deck, but it's not budget friendly, I expect it to drop in value eventually though,.
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
UBRKess, Dissident MageUBR - Controlling Dissidents
GRhonas the IndomitableG - Indomitable Four Drops
WUBOloro, Ageless AsceticWUB - Loot & Renanimate
Timestamp:10/28/12
2 Grim Lavamancer
4 Hellspark Elemental
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Lightning Bolt
4 Rift Bolt
4 Searing Blaze
2 searing Spear
4 Shard Volley
4 Skullcrack
20 mountain
Side note: You could probably tweak this to make it over budget by about 10 bucks and still competitive.
2x Deathbringer Thoctar
1x Demonlord of Ashmouth
2x Falkenrath Noble
4x Myr Retriever
1x Rune-Scarred Demon
3x Skinrender
1x Terminate
3x Doom Blade
4x Shred Memory
2x Grapeshot
4x Faithless Looting
9x Mountain
14x Swamp
This deck plays a removal-heavy BR beatdown that can go infinite with the Heartless Summoning/Myr Retriever combo. It can win with big flying Demons, or durdle around and win with the combo. More likely, it will lose to a faster deck, but for the price, it's hard to go wrong in a casual setting.
Key cards:Faithless Looting for finding the combo pieces (and you don't mind discarding a Myr)
Shred Memory to tutor for all three combo pieces (Myr, Grapeshot, Heartless)
Bloodgift Demon as a flying Phyrexian Arena.
For those who don't know the combo, you need Heartless Summoning out and two Myr Retrievers. (One can be in the graveyard.) You can cast the Myr for free, but it dies instantly; when it dies, you grab another Myr from the graveyard, and repeat. You can now win with an infinite-storm Grapeshot, or win if you have a Falkenrath Noble or Deathbringer Thoctar on the board. Yep, it's not at all consistent, but it is fun to play in a deck like this. And heck, you might live the dream and have a turn three kill!
EDIT: Right now you can get this shipped for $12.16 from tcgplayer, including shipping. Much cheaper if you don't include the shipping costs...
My $40 MTGO cube
Draft my cube at Cubetutor!
4 Devoted druid
4 Quillspike
4 Ivy Lane Denizen
4 Elvish Visionary
4 Llanowar Elves
4 Wood Elves
4 Ursapine
4 Flourishing Defenses
4 Presence of Gond
Spells
4 Lead the Stampede
4 Evolution Charm
16 Forest
So this deck has 4ish combos:
Devoted Druid + Quillspike
Devoted Druid + Ivy Lane Denizen + Flourishing Defenses
Devoted Druid + Ivy Lane Denizen + Presence of Gond
Devoted Druid + Ursapine + Flourishing Defenses
The other cards are mainly to find yourself a Devoted Druid:
Elvish Visionary
Lead the Stampede
There are some mana accelerants:
Wood Elves
Llanowar Elves
If your Devoted Druid gets killed then you can use the Evolution Charm, it also lets you thin your deck if you find yourself needing to do something on turn 2.
This deck adds up to $4.88, which gets it in the under $5. It could be competitive with other under $5 decks... (you have to get creative with some sets to get the costs down, like Wood Elves from 8th and Lead the Stampede from MBS)
Cards for sale: Check them out!
4 Stonewright
4 Burning-Tree Emmisary
4 Keldon Marauders
4 Lightning Mauler
4 Gore House Chainwalker
4 Kessig Malcontents
2 Riot Ringleader
4 Lightning Bolt
3 Pillar of Flame
3 Incinerate
2 Arc Trail
2 Teetering Peaks
20 Mountain
Comes out to $7.30 on 1/4/14. Like I said, I can't see it being hugely competitive, but it's got good creatures, good burn, and a decent curve. Could be a good jumping off point to get into the format at least.
4 Joraga Treespeaker
4 Burning-Tree Emissary
4 Devoted Druid
4 Myr Superion
4 Eternal Witness
4 Leatherback Baloth
4 Obstinate Baloth
4 Deus of Calamity
1 Thragtusk
4 Lead the Stampede
Land:
23 Forest
Cost $17.92