MTG Salvation

My local casual community is really competetive, the are no bans and no restrictions, but deck has to be below 70$ and it can't be combo.
So the question is, what is the strongest deck I could make below the price gap?

it all comes down to your play style and what you like. You dont want to go building something within that gap and then not liking it or it doesnt work for you and you losing out on that cash. Also what is your meta like? Does your group usually play the same kinds of decks? maybe we can brain storm and come up with something.

I enjoy playing everything so this is not a problem, I just want something really strong.
There is always someone playing infect, burn, elves, most of the decks are aggro. There are also some midranges like abzan but almost no one plays control.

Maybe you could go for a control themed deck something mono like black it can be cheap and powerful. Swing over to the multiplayer section of casual look at the top for "Multiplayer Strategies Guides by Color" then check out "Black Multiplayer Cards and Strategies - Guide by Prid3". Prid3 has the best of the best for black there and most of it's on the cheap side. I myself love black and i think you'll have a blast with one of those types of control deck's and you'll probably make your friends mad haha.

burn, Burn, BURN!

Black is not efficient enough to beat burn and infect, maybe if I would play Fatal Push but it is quite expensive for a standard uncommon.
Maybe something involving blue, with counterspells, gush, daze, brainstorm, dig through time?

Without combo, control becomes weaker and midrange becomes stronger.

This thread might give you some ideas: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/modern/budget-modern/601023-50-shinbatsus-budget-modern-challenge-more-deck?page=5

Bogles, for sure. All you have to do is make a budget manabase.

My playgroup has a $40 legacy format ($15 sideboard). I run an 8-rack deck and it has been the deck to beat so far. With an extra $30 you could improve the deck by adding things like Inquisition of Kozilek, Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, Sinkhole, and since you have no banned list Strip Mine.


The list crushes infect, is 55/45 with reanimator, has a decent match-ups against affinity and, depending on the build, mid-range and tempo decks. You can tune it more anti-aggro if necessary. Pox, wrench mind, and necroplasm are meta slots.

Alternatively with no banned list you could just run 4x mind twist 4x sol ring and some rituals.

Bogles are cool, but too unpredictable and they are weak against infect with all those invigorates flying around.

CoolLink19, maybe I could add Waste Not and cards that discard the entire hand and draw another cards? Would it be a combo?

Is this for 1v1 or multiplayer? Waste not only really works in multiplayer and at that point is an oppressive combo deck. I think someone tried to make a waste not storm deck for 1v1, but again that's a combo deck. The rack tends to work well as a finisher in more control oriented discard decks since they are still useful if you draw them after your opponent's hand is empty.

I'm sure there are other options too if you aren't into the slow grindy pox deck.
If you are more of a fan of tempo, threshold is an option.


With a slightly higher budget, the mana base could be greatly improved.

Isn't it better to play a deck like this but with red instead of green? And then use Monastery Swiftspear, Young Pyromancer and Lightning Bolt?

That's certainly another option. It leaves less in the budget to improve the mana base, but may work for you.

I have a mono-U aggro deck that is off-beat from the usual blue but is super fun and pretty budget. I leave it to you to decide if it's your cup of tea, but should still be under $70 since the Efreets and Psi-blasts have seen reprints.



I recently decided to limit the frenetic activity and limit 2-for-1 losses, taking out the Brainstorms and Unstable Mutations to add:
4 Wash Out
4 Boomerang

I would like to play something like this but the meta is too harsh.
Right now I am thinking about:
1. Bogles
2. R/U Delver, Pyromancer
3. Pure burn
4. Elves
5. Threshold

No worries, I also like playing red burn. My mono-R deck below is made for dueling in a creature-heavy meta, so it can definitely use some tuning against other deck archetypes. That being said, here it is.



It's not optimized or current, largely because it shreds every other deck in my meta pretty badly and changes have not been needed. But, I did get feedback from someone on a different site that showed their infect deck (as optimized as they can get) regularly beat mine. So, if you like the base, maybe some of the other guys here can tear this apart for some more optimized choices since you have a pretty harsh meta. But, it's still a pretty good place to start.

I generally don't care that they have a choice of which modes to choose on three of the cards, I'm just focusing on damage. If I realize I'll need to sweep, however, then I'll race ahead on damage from spells to permit me to Breaking Point and Browbeat to reload. Or, sometimes I'm sitting on a bunch of damage spells already and I Breaking Point or Browbeat with the intention of them choosing the damage to shorten the damage needs. Flamebreak usually sweeps most of the creature threats, so I have some flexibility in how I play the rest of it.

Edit: Wow, the Vexing Devil's a lot more expensive than when I put this together! The deck might not fit cleanly under the $70 mark as is.

Again, this burn deck isn't good enough for my meta, there are plenty of better burn spells out there.
Yesterday when I was going to bed I've came across a brilliant idea! Since my meta is burn heavy I didn't want to play another burn, so I decided to play a Boros Burn!!
This is my list, feel free to share your opinion!

Hmm, if that red deck isn't even in the playing field (since it is actually pretty vicious in a "casual" meta) then I'm going to bow out. I don't play in uber-optimized metas, so that kind of game is not my forte. Cheers.

Steel Necro !

Quote from Steel_Necro_Setness »

Steel Necro !

List please?

What about Classic Black Control?

You might have to remove 1 or two things, but ever card is under $5 and are extremely powerful.

This black control is cool, I will change something and soon test it out.
Finally, Ive decided to build 4 decks!
1. Tempo Treshold
2. Boros Burn
3. Red Burn
4. UR Delver

I also realized skullclamp affinity would fit here, I will post a deck tonorrow.

I really recommend monoblack control in that price range. Pestilence/life gain variants have excellent matchups against creature based decks. Boggles and infect die to diabolic intent and similar. At this budget you don't really have to worry about inkmoth nexus, so burn variants are your worst matchups.

Yes Skullclamp is really powerful, I was testing it with Blood Artist:


Later I will try to make my own mono black list.