MTG Salvation

When Tatyova, Benthic Druid was spoiled, I thought her ability was amazing. I told my friends her card advantage was good enough to run ultra-low budget against normal decks, and I built it to prove the point. The first game was a huge success, killing off all three opponents (largely thanks to Sylvan Awakening), and now I want to tune it up while keeping the budget low.

I haven't set any hard and fast rules for the budget, nor have I even totalled up this list, but it was built with mostly commons and uncommons I already had and rares worth less than a dollar. I'm considering adding my Burgeoning because it's so amazing with Tatyova, but that pumps the deck's value quite a bit, and I'd like to keep it under the price of a precon. What are some good budget wincons you'd suggest?

Considering:

Skyshroud Claim seems decent as it is essentially a 2 mana ramp, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life spell. It is effectively 2 mana since the lands come into play untapped. I am also running Harrow in my deck for a similar reason. Essentially the same as Claim except 1 mana less, Instant timing, and needing to sac a land (not a big deal in this type of deck).

Myriad Landscape is probably better than Warped Landscape but both seem reasonable.

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar and Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer can be huge beaters that can end games since they have Trample. Avenger of Zendikar might not be bad, though it is a bit more than a budget option. Liege of the Tangle might be alright as well though you do need to watch for wraths since you can't attack with the lands until next turn.

It always warms my heart to see Song of Titania in a deck, such a surprise hoser card sometimes. Cards I'd recommend (I'm helping a friend build a very obnoxious version of this deck);

Manabond: Especially great with Library of Leng, but all-in-all it's pretty great on its own here.

Mana Breach, Overburden: Both great for slowing opponents down and letting you recycle.

Storm Cauldron: Definitely obnoxious to play against when you don't have any extra land drops beyond it. This and the previous two are exceptionally great when you are running Burgeoning.

Sakura-Tribe Scout, Skyshroud Ranger, Budoka Gardener: These are solid (I saw you had the atlas and the scout already) letting you get extra lands out and combo'ing a bit with some cards. Retreat to Coralhelm is the obvious plug in here. Budoka Gardener is trickier to use, but he is a wincon in himself sometimes.

Words of Wind: Pretty straight forward, especially if you have the above combo going on. Play a land, respond to trigger by paying 1 to skip the draw and make everyone pick up a permanent (which for you will be the land you just played most likely, but could also be eternal witness or something), rinse and repeat. The magic begins when you start doing it multiple times each turn.

Wayward Swordtooth: More land plays are good. For other less budget-friendly options there's Exploration, Azusa, Lost but Seeking and Oracle of Mul Daya



Nice thing here is that most of these are pretty budget options.

Quote from WizardMN »

Skyshroud Claim seems decent as it is essentially a 2 mana ramp, draw 2 cards, gain 2 life spell. It is effectively 2 mana since the lands come into play untapped. I am also running Harrow in my deck for a similar reason. Essentially the same as Claim except 1 mana less, Instant timing, and needing to sac a land (not a big deal in this type of deck).

Myriad Landscape is probably better than Warped Landscape but both seem reasonable.

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar and Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer can be huge beaters that can end games since they have Trample. Avenger of Zendikar might not be bad, though it is a bit more than a budget option. Liege of the Tangle might be alright as well though you do need to watch for wraths since you can't attack with the lands until next turn.

I skipped over Skyshroud Claim because of the mana cost, so I didn't notice they enter untapped. At this point, though, I almost feel like I have too many land fetch spells and not enough wincons - I got every basic out of my deck, killed two players and then struggled to kill the last one, although I eventually got there. Multani and Molimo will both go on my consideration list for just that reason. I think Multani will probably make it in, as he's self-recurring and returns lands to my hand to retrigger Tatyova. And Myriad Landscape was just worth more than Warped Landscape, and I really want to keep the value down - it's so much more satisfying to win with a deck worth a fraction of any others at the table.

Quote from Lumovanis »

It always warms my heart to see Song of Titania in a deck, such a surprise hoser card sometimes. Cards I'd recommend (I'm helping a friend build a very obnoxious version of this deck);

I've had a copy for a while and never found the right deck to put it in. With this being low-budget, needing to compete against decks running Swords of X & Y, and drawing enough cards that one or two occasionally dead cards don't matter, it seemed like the perfect deck.

Quote from Lumovanis »

Mana Breach, Overburden: Both great for slowing opponents down and letting you recycle.

I have Mana Breach in my consideration pile, but the low-budget build lacks some of the better ways to replay multiple lands (like Azusa).

Quote from Lumovanis »

Storm Cauldron: Definitely obnoxious to play against when you don't have any extra land drops beyond it. This and the previous two are exceptionally great when you are running Burgeoning.

Yeah, that could be interesting. I'll add it to my considerations. I really need to total up the deck to see if I can justify putting in Burgeoning - know anywhere I can just paste the list to get the cheapest total rather than having to look up each card individually?

Quote from Lumovanis »

Sakura-Tribe Scout, Skyshroud Ranger, Budoka Gardener: These are solid (I saw you had the atlas and the scout already) letting you get extra lands out and combo'ing a bit with some cards. Retreat to Coralhelm is the obvious plug in here. Budoka Gardener is trickier to use, but he is a wincon in himself sometimes.

I need to get some of these, especially the one-drops. And I was iffy about Retreat to Coralhelm until I actually got Scryb Ranger and Walking Atlas on the board with Tatyova - that was awesome, drawing a card on each player's turn. My opponents shut it down, but it was good while it lasted. Retreat gives some redundancy.

Quote from Lumovanis »

Words of Wind: Pretty straight forward, especially if you have the above combo going on. Play a land, respond to trigger by paying 1 to skip the draw and make everyone pick up a permanent (which for you will be the land you just played most likely, but could also be eternal witness or something), rinse and repeat. The magic begins when you start doing it multiple times each turn.

I like this! It's worth a bit more than I'd like, but I'm pretty sure I have a copy somewhere.

I probably ought to build a full-blown powered version of Tatyova, too, but I'm afraid that would make my playgroup fear the budget version disproportionately. I'll stick with a cheaper build for a while, and it'll be a great loaner deck for newer players, too.

Words of Wind spiked pretty high with the bant precon, but I still managed to pick up a couple copies for $1.50 each; unfortunately, it throws off the value calculation by quite a bit, but I want to try it out.

I'm also looking for a copy of Uyo, Silent Prophet for the deck. I could have sworn I had one, but I just can't seem to find it.

How about going bigger on the mass bounce and then throwing in some wheels? Distorting Wake/Turbulent Dreams (or Cyclonic Rift for non-budget) into Windfall does a pretty good impression of mass removal in blue, plus you get bonus draw for whatever you returned to your opponents' hands.

Made a few changes, trying out Abundance, Mana Breach, and Kefnet the Mindful.

Quote from thomeyis »

How about going bigger on the mass bounce and then throwing in some wheels? Distorting Wake/Turbulent Dreams (or Cyclonic Rift for non-budget) into Windfall does a pretty good impression of mass removal in blue, plus you get bonus draw for whatever you returned to your opponents' hands.

Sorry i missed when you posted. Wheels are interesting with bounce, but I'm not sure how they work with the rest of the deck. As for mass bounce, I am definitely looking for more options there, especially at instant speed.

Swapped out a sorcery sweeper for an instant one.
Also considering Slab Hammer, but I have no idea what I would replace with it.

Rarely do I add a card and then get immediate results. Often, I put a card in a deck and then don't see it for months (partially because I rotate through dozens of decks, and partially because of the singleton nature). Not so with Aetherspouts and Uyo, Silent Prophet (which I see I forgot to mention in my changes).

Aetherspouts and Uyo probably won me the game last night, in both their first inclusions and appearances.

We had a RG deck alpha-strike with Neheb on the board. Even though he wasn't attacking me, I couldn't afford to let him connect because Neheb would then give him massive burn mana. But I also knew he had Guttural Response in hand because turns before, he had attempted to use it on an illegal spell. So, I had stockpiled cards and left lots of mana open. I cast Aetherize to bait out the counter. I then cast Aetherspouts, and his board crumbled. He never recovered; cards to the library is so much meaner than to hand.

Then Animar got all scary with Kiki-Jiki and Craterhoof Behemoth. I could have killed him (he was at 10, while I had Artisan of Kozilek and Rogue's Passage), but then I'd be left wide open to the five color sliver deck. Slivers told me they could kill him, as long as Animar couldn't counter anything. So I said I'd help and passed. Sliver Overlord tutored Shifting Sliver and cast it, but Animar had counter magic. Then Uyo stepped up to the plate, copying the counterspell and clearing the way for unblockable slivers.

Once Animar was out of the way, I found myself facing down indestructible lifelink doublestrike pumped slivers. Curse of the Swine slowed things down, and later Uyo copied Reality Shift multiple times and then even later Rapid Hybridization to keep newly summoned slivers at bay. Reclaim returned Aetherspouts, which bought me time until I could finally seal the game.

Considering the budget limitations, I'm pretty proud of this deck for going toe-to-toe with all those others and winning through shear brute force (there was also an Artisan of Kozilek swinging for 30 damage, annihilator 2 at one point, thanks to Blackblade Reforged). It's done fairly well thanks to crazy ramp and card draw, and the life buffer is nice, too. I highly recommend playing Tatyova, regardless of budget. I might eventually build a monster version with Azusa and Crucible and Burgeoning and all those other cards that didn't fit this specific build's requirements, but then again, I may not - this is fun and powerful while still presenting a challenge to pilot.

A couple weeks ago, I added budget Eternal Witness for recursion and cut Wretched Gryff because the card draw is frankly inferior to the rest of the deck.

I've got around a dozen creatures with either ETBs or other abilities that could benefit from being reset and going to hand, so I'm wondering about more self-bounce (currently only have a couple). Something like Temur Sabertooth. Not sure.

I also decided that rather than entertaining any more ideas of building a no-holds barred non-budget version of Tatyova, I'd keep her budget and build another land deck with her, Gitrog, and Omnath as the secret commanders (link here). That's been a lot of fun, and the very first game, Tatyova led the charge, drawing me into the other two and everything I needed to win.

I'm still playing this and having a blast with it. I also loan it out on occasion, and that prompted one guy to build his own version.

A few weeks ago, I added Summer Bloom, which led to an amazing game.

T1: Land
T2: Land, Summer Bloom, Land, Land, Land, Words of Wind
T3: Tatyova, Land, trigger

I probably could have sealed it by just using Words of Wind after turn two, but I didn't want to play stax, especially with no way to actually close the game. Instead, I got an explosive start and started drawing off Tatyova on turn 3. She died a couple times, but I was able to out-value my other opponents and did quite impressively. Needless to say, Summer Bloom is here to stay. I've also played it late game with only one land in hand, but Tatyova has drawn me into more to keep dropping.


Several months ago, I built a non-budget version with all the things (Azusa, Exploration, Crucible of Worlds, Ramunap Excavator, fetch lands, Burgeoning, Lotus Cobra, Cyclonic Rift, etc) and played it a few times. Then promptly switched back to the budget version because the budget version is just more fun. Sure, the budget restrictions sometimes make it harder to close the game, but the non-budget version was just too easy; there wasn't a challenge. Also, it feels amazing to beat decks many times the price of this one.

I just bought a Lotus Cobra for $1.20! I never thought that would make it in the budget build, but here we are. Man, I love reprints.

Also, A month or two ago, I added Ghost Town and then played it with Retreat to Carlhelm and Walking Atlas - that gives Tatyova a ridiculous amount of draw.