As the title says, I am a budget player who wants to play modern. I have most of the pieces for gds but can’t spend 240$ on twelve pieces of cardboard. I was thinking that the painlands might fit the role quite nicely but I want to know if that’s even a good idea.
The fetch lands are such a huge part of GDS, I'm not sure that's realistic. You could do the horizon lands / pain lands and lose a lot of the strength / explosiveness GDS has but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. Fetches happen to fill the graveyard for Angler too. You'd have to make some significant changes and if I had to build a budget Shadow list without fetches it'd probably do Abzan / Jund. Something with a heavier creature count that doesn't necessarily rely on Shadow to put in most of the work.
I'm going to start be saying I'm not trying to be a jerk. The short answer is there just isn't. Fetchlands are really necessary and essential for success in a large percentage of decks in Modern. Unless you have a good reason not to play them that is. If nothing else you will find yourself flooding out to opponents playing them as they thin lands from your deck and leave you with more relevant draws in the late game. There are alternative strategies that don't use them that might be cheaper. There are decks that are more likely to win without them that might be cheaper. Deaths Shadow is definitely not one of them. Unless you are ok with losing a lot and are just playing for fun. If it helps try not thinking about them as pieces of cardboard but tools or game pieces. Unfortunately for newer players looking to get into Modern it is not cheap! I have seen a lot (I mean a lot!) of people try to skimp on investment and get frustrated when they can't win and just quit playing magic all together. If the price is too steep I would suggest Pauper or Pioneer. Pauper will let you use older cards like brainstorm and lighting bolt. Pioneer uses newer cards but explicitly bans fetchlands. Again I'm not trying to be mean but I am only being honest.
There are a few mono colored decks that dont need them but yes, overall its a better idea to save up to trade or buy the ones you need. I would STRONGLY recommend buying the Khans ones first since they will be overall cheaper to acquire and should give you enough deck flex before you try and buy the zendikar enemy ones as needed.
As a new Modern player, I will say...I tried without fetches and I was always behind. Eventually I found someone who sold me a good amount of fetches for a decent price.
I recently finished putting together my take on Jeskai Snap Control and it wasn't cheap. Spent somewhere around 400 for the land base alone. Picked up a couple of JaceTMS for 60 a piece. Now I look for good deals on modern staples and buy them up when I can.
Honestly the options are to play them or play decks that don't require them. You can play mono color decks pretty well and can play a good bit of 2 color decks but going 2 with a 3rd splash is quite difficult. Fetch lands allow you to play shocks that you have 1 or 2 of that can be fetched with 8 or so lands. That gives you about 10 sources of the splash. No other option comes close.
That said the best option you have are going for a painland Mana base. One with City of brass and the superior city as a decent, but not nearly as good option.
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I recently finished putting together my take on Jeskai Snap Control and it wasn't cheap. Spent somewhere around 400 for the land base alone. Picked up a couple of JaceTMS for 60 a piece. Now I look for good deals on modern staples and buy them up when I can.
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That said the best option you have are going for a painland Mana base. One with City of brass and the superior city as a decent, but not nearly as good option.