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So despite my earlier post about sticking strictly budget and only using commons, uncommons and buying bulk rares when sets rotate out, I got into Standard.

I ended up grabbing the cards for a budget version of Sligh (mono red, but no rabblemaster), the UW Heroic deck and the extra cards needed to combine them into either Jeskai Heroic Combo or Jeskai Burn. The only thing that's weak in the Jeskai decks is the mana base. I just can't afford rare lands. I think they'll be fine for the more casual FNM, but not for any real event. If I want to play in a real event, I'll have to use UW Heroic or Sligh.

I've been cranking out games on MTGO learning the decks and once my cards arrive I'll be playing at FNMs as well.

It's a very different experience than my constant cubing and commander.

What does the Sligh deck run if it doesn't run rabblemasters? I know there's some good stuff outside of goblin tribal in mono red, but what specifically do you run?

Akroan Crusader - buff it and pop out tokens
Firedrinker Satyr - 1 drop with 2 power
Foundry Street Denizen - gets bigger for the turn when other red creatures enter it
Monastery Swiftspear - haste creature
Satyr Hoplite - one drop that gets +1/+1 counters when you buff it
Frenzied Goblin - attack, 1 red and something can't block
Arena Athlete - buff it and something can't block

Basically you want to prevent blockers with the Frenzied Goblin, Arena Athlete and Hammer Hands, while boosting up damage output with Foundry Street Denizen and then other red creatures entering the battlefield and pump spells. Stoke the Flames is a pricey card, but it's the prime finisher in the deck. The side board is full of minor burn spells as when you're on the draw they can make the difference.

I had an excellent time in Modern yesterday even though I went 2-2. This is the deck I based mine off of: http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/i-hate-you-die-in-a-fire/

The only differences being that Volcanic Hammer is replaced by Spite of Mogis and my sideboard has 2 Boil, 2 Echoing Ruin, 2 Roiling Terrain, 2 Anger of the Gods, 2 Sowing Salt, and 3 Peak Eruption (so my sideboard is basically incomplete). Lots of fun though. Lost to Infect (went 1-2) and U/R Delver (0-2 but it was close).

What did you win against? I would figure you would do well against infect. What happened- sorcery speed screw you?

That deck sounds hilarious and awesome. I know I've played too much commander when I see that much land destruction and think "no one should do that!" In a normal competitive event though, all is fair.

Gah, I'm NEVER going to be able to put together an Owling Mine list.

Modern doesn't have redundancy for Ebony Owl Netsuke (Deal 4 damage to any opponent with 7+ Cards at the beginning of their upkeep), and Black Vise (Cards in hand -4 for damage) is banned in Legacy.

Howling Mine (everyone draws an extra card) is of course redundant EVERYWHERE.

Everyone who plays magic needs to watch the newest south park episode!

 Slarg232 wrote:
Gah, I'm NEVER going to be able to put together an Owling Mine list.

Modern doesn't have redundancy for Ebony Owl Netsuke (Deal 4 damage to any opponent with 7+ Cards at the beginning of their upkeep), and Black Vise (Cards in hand -4 for damage) is banned in Legacy.

Howling Mine (everyone draws an extra card) is of course redundant EVERYWHERE.

Have you considered Forced Fruition?

Also doubles as one of the best mill cards ever made.

Sasori wrote:Everyone who plays magic needs to watch the newest south park episode!

Randy is the best character in the show.

It was a really great episode.

Wow. Forced fruition would be great for my draw deck.

 Sasori wrote:
Everyone who plays magic needs to watch the newest south park episode!

My wife laughed a little too loud at the liquid nitrogen bit for my liking.

 Sinful Hero wrote:
What did you win against? I would figure you would do well against infect. What happened- sorcery speed screw you?

I didn't pull enough burn spells. I won that night against a dude's mill thing he was trying out with grindclock and voltaic key and against a standard deck.

Tonight however was hilarious.

I went 2-2 again, lost against Boggles (my worst match up) and Burn. Went 2-1 on another mostly standard deck, but I'm very satisfied at having 2-0'd Splinter Twin.

Here's how it went down. Game 1, I drop some Stone Rains, he naturally Remands them. His problem? He just couldn't draw lands. He got like three lands out before he ran out of counters and I finished him off with Magnivore. Game 2 I sided in my 2 Boils.



The game goes more smoothly for him at first, he counters all my destruction until I end up having 6 Mountains to his 2 Steam Vents, 1 Island, and 1 Desolate Lighthouse. I pass turn totally untapped, he flashes in Snapcaster to a Lightning Bolt. I have a Boil in hand and respond with it considering that he probably didn't side in Dispel since most of my deck (i.e. the rest of it) is Sorcery speed.

"Is that a card?"

"Yes it is."

It resolves.

And he looked like he was about ready to rage. His board state on the top of his turn was the Lighthouse and the Snapcaster. Didn't draw a land. Back to me, Seismic Spike the Lighthouse to Pyroclasm the Snapcaster. Following turn, Magnivore goes out. He scoops after he didn't like his draw from Gitaxian Probe. Now Splinter Twin is not a cheap deck and it lost to one that cost less than $40 which I also believe kept him from placing. I was unable to keep the smug grin and chuckling contained. I didn't place either, but instances like this make me not care. This is what I had in mind when I first looked up this deck.

 Wilytank wrote:

I don't know what they were thinking when they designed that card. There's very little fun about game elements that basically say "don't actually play the game we both sat down to play." I don't think it should have been printed back in 8th, but after hearing your story, I'm glad it was.



These counted as Islands too! That's priceless.

Now Splinter Twin is not a cheap deck and it lost to one that cost less than $40 which I also believe kept him from placing. I was unable to keep the smug grin and chuckling contained. I didn't place either, but instances like this make me not care. This is what I had in mind when I first looked up this deck.

I love it when super expensive decks lose to budget ones and their owners get all mad and go on tilt. I had someone rage out and quit in the semi finals of a local event last week when my budget aggro deck ran over his super expensive abzan planeswalkers deck after it had a slow start. "Those are all ****ing commons and uncommons!? WTF?!" I didn't even have to play the second game of the match as he walked out of the store. I lost in the finals to Jeskai heroic combo, which is also a relatively affordable deck.

I've been trying out budget decks on MTGO and it's amazing what the rogue factor can accomplish. It's funny when someone thinks they can buy victory and they lose to a $40 deck despite their deck costing more than a mortgage payment.

---

Either the one that destroys Plains or Forests was reprinted in 8th as well. Choke is a green Island strangler that can aggravate people too. I always loved playing land destruction- they had the coolest sounding and looking cards. Obliterate, Decree of Annihilation, Akroma's Judgement... I must be That Guy.

This is Modern legal. I think I'll track down two for the sideboard.

Are there lots of decks in modern that play plains? I took a look at some of the decks that top8ed recent events and I know people tend to net deck off of those and saw some. Locally do you hit enough plains and plains-like-objects ( ) that you can destroy to make it worth it for the board?

 Wilytank wrote:
This is Modern legal. I think I'll track down two for the sideboard.

That's the one I was talking about! I think the sorcery speed Boil was in 9th too right?

Plains aren't really as heavily played as islands, which is why Boil can make it's way into a sideboard. Plus the instant speed. Heck, even Affinity runs one island usually.

I'm getting more and more into budget standard. It's hilarious what build you can make with commons, uncommons and some bulk rares. And then you play them and the guys with $500 Abzan w/ Planeswalkers decks are like "wtf are you playing?" and then you win and they get all mad.

The best thing is the Jeskai ascendancy combo can be added to so many decks. I have an Izzet Artifacts deck where I just subbed in 4 Jeskai taplands and between that and my springleaf drum, I can splash for the ascendancy. Everything else in my deck pretty much stays the same (retraction helix was already in the deck). Killing a guy in a single turn with Shrapnel blast after partially comboing off and hitting him with a couple 8/10 ornithopters is fantastic.

I also played a UB Control and the guy mind seized, saw the ascendency and thought I was doing to the typical Jeskai deck, so he boarded in tons of destroy target creature type spells which don't work on indestructible ensouled Darksteel Citadels.

I ended up losing to an interesting deck which was basically 4 colour base green with splashes for the three Jeskai colours. Basically the normal green ramp + big creatures + Jeskai combo package. It was rough.

Standard is in a really, really strange place right now in terms of the viability of rogue decks. People need to be able to deal with Abzan and Mardu Midrange, but at the same time survive the aggro decks and now control is being figured out. So people's sideboarding is stretched to the max, so you can get there with budget decks with sufficient synergy.

If I were to make a non budget deck, it'd be Temur Aggro, but the mana base is just too expensive. You need to reliably cast three colours spells on turn three and having the majority of your lands be multicoloured rares is just nuts. If I wanted to spend that kind of money, I'd get 5 or 6 budget decks instead.

Budget standard has helped me greatly, and its a great way to save money! Here is a link to some great post rotation decks built on a budget!

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/standard-type-2/budget-forum-standard/66279-yakusokus-budget-guide-to-standard

Or, you can/should also look at Northernwarlord's decks on MTGVault, he has a great selection and variety of budget decks from, modern, EDH, and standard

Awesome links and suggestions. Thank you so much!

Northern Warlord is very, very prolific:
http://www.mtgvault.com/northernwarlord/

Though lots of his stuff looks like he came up with the idea but then never tested them. They are great jumping off points, but I find a few matches against common archetypes on MTGO really gives clarity in terms of tuning the deck (especially the side board).

What I really like though is how ridiculously cheap some of his brews are. When it's $10-20 (with some lower) for the whole deck, I think anyone will have the budget for some cards after testing for tuning.

On MTGO I'm using the MTGO Bazaar bot family and find it way, way too easy to add another budget deck to my collection to try out. Especially when existing decks already have lots of the cards. Like how having UW Heroic and Sligh means Jeskai is only a few cards away. Then I have a mono Blue deck and going Simic Kruphix is only a few green cards away. Izzet Robot Burn also took only a few cards to add. I've decided that I'll stick with these for now and see if I want to make paper versions of more than the three I have.

I think I'll actually replace my Wildfires for Obliterates.



Sure it's even more expensive, but it also kills creatures and artifacts. Plus I won't have to sac any darksteel citadels. I also like the word obliterate.

But can't be countered is probably the big thing. With what's going on on the cover art, I can just think of this happening: http://youtu.be/7VG2aJyIFrA?t=1m57s

That shouldn't be something you can just Remand away.

Are the games going long enough that you can actually cast an 8 CMC spell in modern?

Sometimes they do, otherwise you can just use mana ramp, etc to cast it faster.

What ramp is there in this land destruction deck? Seismic Spike adds 2 red mana to your mana pool but costs 4 to cast.

If you have a bunch of 4 cmc or lower cards and then have a stretch up to 6 cmc for wild fire and lots of the cards also necessitate sacrificing your own lands, how reliably are you ever getting to 8 mana in this deck?

There will be games where things go long and you'll get 8 land out and love the idea of casting this, but for every other game that doesn't get there, it's a dead card in the opening hand and a dead draw along the way. Having 2 6 cost spells when your curve reliably goes to 4 is stretching enough without adding 8 cost spells as well.

It looks like a big cool land destruction effect but with no ramp and the rest of the deck being cheaper spells and sacrificing land, I'm not sure it fits. Seems to be it'll be a dead card in most games you see it.

Unless I don't have a citadel when I pop a boom, I'm not sacrificing lands. And this deck is supposed to drag the game out by blowing up lands and burning things until I get my win con out. There's plenty of games where I haven't drawn it and had to wait a while for Magnivore to show up. By then, my opponent is back on their feet. I feel that Obliterate makes for a better dead man's trigger than Wildfire.

So it is there for when the games go really long. That's cool. It just seemed like 8 cmc was a big ask. I don't know modern well enough to know whether or not that's something you can expect to get to with any regularity. If it helps you get there, great. You'll know through playing how often it ends up being a dead card or not.

Well.........you cold make it r/g.........or something like that.......or r/u/g, or 'temur' as it is now called, with khans, but if you go temur, you could play red land destruction, with the green mana ramping it all, with the creatures, and the blue to add in the extra power to counter stuff, etc, or........however you wanna do it

You don't usually want to go more than two colors with a deck like LD- blowing up your only source of a certain color to stop your opponent can still lose you the game, and you don't want to lose too much life because your wincon is much slower usually.

Yeah, that also, so maybe red blue or red green land destruction would be best