Deadguy Ale is typically a black/white midrange deck with lots of early disruption. Thankfully, there are quite a few cards that work on a budget that can be carried over while building a more expensive deck. While Legacy versions of the deck also focus on land destruction, this version doesn't have access to cards like Sinkhole. Thus, the focus on hand disruption is instead supported by attempting to out-value the opponent with combinations of cards like Tidehollow Sculler & Wasteland Strangler, Relic of Progenitus & Eternal Scourge, and plenty of other valuable interactions.
Why Play Deadguy Ale?
As mentioned above, this is a deck that is relatively inexpensive to build, but still very competitive. After building it, a player might slowly transform the deck into known tier decks, like Eldrazi and Taxes or Death and Taxes. The deck plays very much like a midrange deck, for those that enjoy that sort of playstyle.
Card Choices: Maindeck
Inquisition of Kozilek/DuressThoughtseize - These cards allow for the early disruption needed to achieve the stage of the game in which combination of the rest of the cards might out-value what the opponent might topdeck. It would be best to find some combination that allows for around six of the above cards in the main. Starting off, 4 Inquisition of Kozilek and 2 Duress should work fine. As investments into the deck can be made, replacing the Duress with Thoughtseize would be very beneficial.
Relic of Progenitus - An outstanding card for disruption against many graveyard-oriented decks in the format, this card pulls double- and triple-duty when combined with Wasteland Strangler and Eternal Scourge. In an emergency, it can be used as a cantrip to dig for answers.
Tidehollow Sculler - Acting as additional hand disruption, but with a decent and on-curve body to go with it. This card is particularly useful when combined with Wasteland Strangler, making it so that the opponent won't get their card back if they kill it. Sculler is also great with Eldrazi Displacer and/or Restoration Angel, "blinking" it during an opponent's draw step to pick a non-instant card out of their hand before they can play it.
Wasteland Strangler - As mentioned above, works great with Tidehollow Sculler to remove a card from the opponent's hand and act as removal for creatures. The additional blink effects of Eldrazi Displacer, Flickerwisp, and Restoration Angel allows it to be used as repeatable creature removal. This card can also have it's niche uses in answering cards with suspend, like Ancestral Vision, Rift Bolt, and Search for Tomorrow. Relic of Progenitus assists in ensuring that the opponent has cards in exile to process.
Eldrazi Displacer - A key piece to the road to valuetown. This card is effective at instant-speed discard effects with Tidehollow Sculler, creating additional Clue tokens as a draw-engine, repeatable creature removal with Wasteland Strangler, saving our own creatures by blinking them, tapping down attackers, and removing blockers. Additionally, it can be used to blink Flickerwisp during an endstep to exile an opponent's permanent, following it up with blinking Wasteland Strangler to put the exiled card into their library. Another very useful interaction is to blink Tidehollow Sculler with it's enter-the-battlefield trigger on the stack, so as to permanently exile a card. If there is 4CC available, it's possible to blink a Sculler, and then blink it again with the enter-the-battlefield trigger on the stack to exile a card from the opponent's hand every single turn.
Flickerwisp - A one-time flicker effect to get the additional value out of our other creatures. It can also help answer troublesome permanents that the opponent might have, and is a great beater with evasion.
Restoration Angel - Another one-time flicker effect, but at instant speed. Also a great beater with evasion, but with more toughness.
Eternal Scourge - A second ticket to valuetown, Scourge works as a great way to apply constant pressure or provide a constant blocker against larger creatures when combined with Relic of Progenitus (tapping it to target ourselves if our Scourge enters the graveyard).
Gonti, Lord of Luxery - Great for getting an opponent to share some of their more expensive and/or powerful cards with us. Gonti is also great at being a wall against large creatures like Tarmogoyf, dissuading an opponent from attacking with it before finding removal, as well as smaller creatures. The exiled card becomes a surprise that cannot be affected by discard, which is very good for us. The dream is to be able to constantly blink Gonti for additional cards.
Path to Exile - A rather pricy card for a budget deck, but very helpful in allowing us to keep pace with other powerful creature decks.
Concealed Courtyard - A relatively budget land that taps for both black and white, and allows for the early discard when necessary.
Caves of Koilos - A land that taps for all "three" of our colors - black, white, and colorless. Also helpful that it doesn't enter the battlefield tapped. The pain drawback can be played around when necessary.
Evolving Wilds - While most more expensive decks would prefer to run Marsh Flats, the benefit of Evolving Wilds is that it can be used to fetch the single Wastes to set up Eldrazi Displacer shenanigans.
Vault of the Archangel - Another land that taps for colorless for Eldrazi Displacer's ability, but is great for creating very difficult attacking and blocking scenarios for the opponent and for gaining quite a bit of tempo due to the lifegain.
Card Choices: Sideboard
Cards chosen for the sideboard are going to be heavily dependant on each player's local or expected metagame. Some examples of great budget cards are:
Lingering Souls - An great card for additional value when necessary. This card helps gain some percentage points against decks that might also be trying to find their way to valuetown.
Fragmentize,Disenchant, etc - As most decks should, these provide the necessary artifact and enchantment removal to combat problematic cards in the metagame. It would probably be best to find some mix with different converted mana costs and speeds (instant and sorcery) so that a single Chalice of the Void doesn't stop all of our answers, yet we still have answers low on the curve when we need them. If the opponent sideboards in a Torpor Orb, then we're definitely going to need some way to remove it.
Lost Legacy - Great for disrupting decks like Storm, or neutering other combo decks.
Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker - Allows for shutting down decks that are going to rely on activated abilities. Revoker is particularly useful in being able to stop cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks while possibly getting in some damage. Revoker can also be blinked by Displacer if we need to name a different card.
Aegis of the Gods - Acts as a budget Leyline of Sanctity, but one that can be saved from removal thanks to Displacer and Restoration Angel. Also potentially gets in for some damage when necessary.
Rest in Peace - A more expensive card among the options available, but works great for us. This makes it so that we no longer need Relic to combat the opponent's graveyard, nor to put our Scourge into exile to recast.
Auriok Champion, Kor Firewalker - Helps shore up aggressive Burn matchups. Auriok Champion is the better of the two, but is slightly more expensive. Fortunately, it's dropped in price considerably thanks to the recent reprinting.
Kambal, Consul of Allocation - An outstanding sideboard card for matchups like Storm and Lantern, while having definite possible uses against Burn as well.
Mirran Crusader - One of the truly more powerful creatures available on curve, this card does a large amount of work against BGx decks in particular.
This list currently comes in at $131.88 on TCGPlayer (as of 10 December 2017), and works very well in my meta that consists of Dredge, Burn, Storm, Grixis Death's Shadow, UW Control, Monogreen Ramp, and other random showings. I hope this helps!
Deadguy Ale is typically a black/white midrange deck with lots of early disruption. Thankfully, there are quite a few cards that work on a budget that can be carried over while building a more expensive deck. While Legacy versions of the deck also focus on land destruction, this version doesn't have access to cards like Sinkhole. Thus, the focus on hand disruption is instead supported by attempting to out-value the opponent with combinations of cards like Tidehollow Sculler & Wasteland Strangler, Relic of Progenitus & Eternal Scourge, and plenty of other valuable interactions.
As mentioned above, this is a deck that is relatively inexpensive to build, but still very competitive. After building it, a player might slowly transform the deck into known tier decks, like Eldrazi and Taxes or Death and Taxes. The deck plays very much like a midrange deck, for those that enjoy that sort of playstyle.
Inquisition of Kozilek/DuressThoughtseize - These cards allow for the early disruption needed to achieve the stage of the game in which combination of the rest of the cards might out-value what the opponent might topdeck. It would be best to find some combination that allows for around six of the above cards in the main. Starting off, 4 Inquisition of Kozilek and 2 Duress should work fine. As investments into the deck can be made, replacing the Duress with Thoughtseize would be very beneficial.
Relic of Progenitus - An outstanding card for disruption against many graveyard-oriented decks in the format, this card pulls double- and triple-duty when combined with Wasteland Strangler and Eternal Scourge. In an emergency, it can be used as a cantrip to dig for answers.
Thraben Inspector - Rounding out the one-drops, this allows for possibilities to dig into the deck with the blink effects provided by Eldrazi Displacer, Flickerwisp, and Restoration Angel. I'd originally tested Wall of Omens in this slot, but switched to this after finding room for two Vault of the Archangel, as it actually deals damage and therefore has more synergy.
Tidehollow Sculler - Acting as additional hand disruption, but with a decent and on-curve body to go with it. This card is particularly useful when combined with Wasteland Strangler, making it so that the opponent won't get their card back if they kill it. Sculler is also great with Eldrazi Displacer and/or Restoration Angel, "blinking" it during an opponent's draw step to pick a non-instant card out of their hand before they can play it.
Wasteland Strangler - As mentioned above, works great with Tidehollow Sculler to remove a card from the opponent's hand and act as removal for creatures. The additional blink effects of Eldrazi Displacer, Flickerwisp, and Restoration Angel allows it to be used as repeatable creature removal. This card can also have it's niche uses in answering cards with suspend, like Ancestral Vision, Rift Bolt, and Search for Tomorrow. Relic of Progenitus assists in ensuring that the opponent has cards in exile to process.
Eldrazi Displacer - A key piece to the road to valuetown. This card is effective at instant-speed discard effects with Tidehollow Sculler, creating additional Clue tokens as a draw-engine, repeatable creature removal with Wasteland Strangler, saving our own creatures by blinking them, tapping down attackers, and removing blockers. Additionally, it can be used to blink Flickerwisp during an endstep to exile an opponent's permanent, following it up with blinking Wasteland Strangler to put the exiled card into their library. Another very useful interaction is to blink Tidehollow Sculler with it's enter-the-battlefield trigger on the stack, so as to permanently exile a card. If there is 4CC available, it's possible to blink a Sculler, and then blink it again with the enter-the-battlefield trigger on the stack to exile a card from the opponent's hand every single turn.
Flickerwisp - A one-time flicker effect to get the additional value out of our other creatures. It can also help answer troublesome permanents that the opponent might have, and is a great beater with evasion.
Restoration Angel - Another one-time flicker effect, but at instant speed. Also a great beater with evasion, but with more toughness.
Eternal Scourge - A second ticket to valuetown, Scourge works as a great way to apply constant pressure or provide a constant blocker against larger creatures when combined with Relic of Progenitus (tapping it to target ourselves if our Scourge enters the graveyard).
Gonti, Lord of Luxery - Great for getting an opponent to share some of their more expensive and/or powerful cards with us. Gonti is also great at being a wall against large creatures like Tarmogoyf, dissuading an opponent from attacking with it before finding removal, as well as smaller creatures. The exiled card becomes a surprise that cannot be affected by discard, which is very good for us. The dream is to be able to constantly blink Gonti for additional cards.
Path to Exile - A rather pricy card for a budget deck, but very helpful in allowing us to keep pace with other powerful creature decks.
Concealed Courtyard - A relatively budget land that taps for both black and white, and allows for the early discard when necessary.
Caves of Koilos - A land that taps for all "three" of our colors - black, white, and colorless. Also helpful that it doesn't enter the battlefield tapped. The pain drawback can be played around when necessary.
Evolving Wilds - While most more expensive decks would prefer to run Marsh Flats, the benefit of Evolving Wilds is that it can be used to fetch the single Wastes to set up Eldrazi Displacer shenanigans.
Vault of the Archangel - Another land that taps for colorless for Eldrazi Displacer's ability, but is great for creating very difficult attacking and blocking scenarios for the opponent and for gaining quite a bit of tempo due to the lifegain.
Cards chosen for the sideboard are going to be heavily dependant on each player's local or expected metagame. Some examples of great budget cards are:
Lingering Souls - An great card for additional value when necessary. This card helps gain some percentage points against decks that might also be trying to find their way to valuetown.
Fragmentize,Disenchant, etc - As most decks should, these provide the necessary artifact and enchantment removal to combat problematic cards in the metagame. It would probably be best to find some mix with different converted mana costs and speeds (instant and sorcery) so that a single Chalice of the Void doesn't stop all of our answers, yet we still have answers low on the curve when we need them. If the opponent sideboards in a Torpor Orb, then we're definitely going to need some way to remove it.
Lost Legacy - Great for disrupting decks like Storm, or neutering other combo decks.
Pithing Needle, Phyrexian Revoker - Allows for shutting down decks that are going to rely on activated abilities. Revoker is particularly useful in being able to stop cards like Krark-Clan Ironworks while possibly getting in some damage. Revoker can also be blinked by Displacer if we need to name a different card.
Aegis of the Gods - Acts as a budget Leyline of Sanctity, but one that can be saved from removal thanks to Displacer and Restoration Angel. Also potentially gets in for some damage when necessary.
Grafdigger's Cage - A relatively budget answer to decks like Dredge, Storm, and Grishoalbrand, as well as decks that are looking to get value out of Collected Company and Chord of Calling.
Rest in Peace - A more expensive card among the options available, but works great for us. This makes it so that we no longer need Relic to combat the opponent's graveyard, nor to put our Scourge into exile to recast.
Auriok Champion, Kor Firewalker - Helps shore up aggressive Burn matchups. Auriok Champion is the better of the two, but is slightly more expensive. Fortunately, it's dropped in price considerably thanks to the recent reprinting.
Kambal, Consul of Allocation - An outstanding sideboard card for matchups like Storm and Lantern, while having definite possible uses against Burn as well.
Mirran Crusader - One of the truly more powerful creatures available on curve, this card does a large amount of work against BGx decks in particular.
The list that I'm currently playing is below:
4 Concealed Courtyard
4 Caves of Koilos
3 Vault of the Archangel
4 Evolving Wilds
4 Plains
4 Swamp
1 Wastes
Creatures (26):
4 Thraben Inspector
4 Tidehollow Sculler
3 Wasteland Strangler
3 Eldrazi Displacer
4 Flickerwisp
3 Eternal Scourge
3 Restoration Angel
2 Gonti, Lord of Luxery
2 Thoughtseize (Or Duress, for budget)
4 Relic of Progenitus
2 Path to Exile
2 Fragmentize
2 Disenchant
1 Pithing Needle
2 Aegis of the Gods
1 Grafdigger's Cage
3 Mirran Crusader
2 Lost Legacy
2 Auriok Champion
This list currently comes in at $131.88 on TCGPlayer (as of 10 December 2017), and works very well in my meta that consists of Dredge, Burn, Storm, Grixis Death's Shadow, UW Control, Monogreen Ramp, and other random showings. I hope this helps!
Lantern Control
(with videos)
Uc Tron
Netdecking explained
Netdecking explained, Part 2
On speculators and counterfeits
On Interaction
Every single competitive deck in existence is designed to limit the opponent's ability to interact in a meaningful way.
Record number of exclamation points on SCG homepage: 71 (6 January, 2018)
"I don't want to believe, I want to know."
-Carl Sagan