Current price on Card Kingdom: ~$107
Current super-high cost cards include:
Patron Wizard
,
Umezawa's Jitte
,
Mutavault
,
Throat Slitter
. These each provide an impressive amount of power and have heavy synergy with the rest of the deck; I don't think they are replaceable.
Note to reader: The below is bound to have some inaccuracies as I playtest and attempt to improve the deck over time. Changelogs can be located at the bottom of the description. Once I feel comfortable with where the deck is at, I'll ensure all of the below is correct.
Mini-Primer
31 creatures in UB? Are you insane? No, but some of the included wizards might be.
A coalition of wizards, thieves, and other generally crafty bastards coming together to overthrow the rich and redistribute their wealth (to themselves). Their code of honor: "no board wipes".
An array of combat damage effects, wizards with more utility than your best toolbox, and my personal favorite floating friend,
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker
. All for a little over $100 -- even has a few ways to go infinite!
This build revolves around spells from the 2 to 5 mana range. Many creatures and pieces of equipment get their effects effects when inflicting combat damage, and much of the deck aims to aid in enabling unhindered attacks. When able, key creatures have but 1 attack. This allows Shiro to work and create unique recursion scenarios. We'll get into him more in a moment; for now, I'd like to explain how this budget build attempts to assemble any sort of consistency in its game plan.
Fuel
There are five ways the deck attempts to find fuel.
-
Disciple of Deceit
with
Hidden Strings
or other forms of tap manipulation; discards from this can be used again multiple times later on
- Transmutation:
Dimir Infiltrator
,
Muddle the Mixture
,
Vedalken AEthermage
,
Perplex
,
Brainspoil
(2-5 cost cards are generally our most important combo pieces)
-
Dimir Doppelganger
,
Necrotic Ooze
for graveyard toolbox stuff
- Draw/discard/graveyard population via
Whispering Madness
and
Windfall
, as well as raw draw power through
Azami, Lady of Scrolls
,
Bident of Thassa
,
Mystic Remora
- Using it's opponents cards via an early
Thief of Sanity
, card:Nightmare Specter or
Kheru Mind-Eater
, later in the game via
Fallen Shinobi
and
Silent-Blade Oni
.
Shirei
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker
is a sort of toolbox for our deck, and enables a lot of unique synergies to come to fruition. Sacrifice a wizard to fuel
Voidmage Prodigy
? Shirei can continue to provide resources.
Thalakos Deceiver
? Shirei doesn't discriminate.
Stern Proctor
given the boot? Shirei brings him back and lets em give another lecture. The impregnable
Spiny Starfish
unforgivingly scorched to nothing a crisp? Shirei'll bring em back, allons-y.
Win Conditions
-
Quietus Spike
,
Duskmantle Guildmage
,
Mindcrank
-- you know.
-
Quietus Spike
+
Mindcrank
or punch the other guy in his pompous DICK.
-
Illusionist's Bracers
+
Aphetto Alchemist
for infinite mana, or infinite pings with
Prodigal Sorcerer
. Honestly, there's a lot that works with this, even when it doesn't go infinite.
- Soft lockdown on 1-3 opponents with
Hope of Ghirapur
(granted they can attack) +
Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker
Update: I believe this only works on 1 opponent as of now, as I've removed
Body Double
from the list for the time being.
- Give em' the ol' unblockable 1-2 with ya boy
Guiltfeeder
Enablers
Sneaky fellas who we want to be attacking early to enable things like cypher, or fellas who make other fellas sneaky.
Attackers
Stuff we want to inflict combat damage.
Any creature for:
-
Fallen Shinobi
,
Silent-Blade Oni
(
Dauthi Trapper
is able to assist with punching through whenever our commander,
Vela the Night-Clad
, is unavailable)
On their own:
Protection
Outside of our array of counterspells, we have some unique forms of protection.
Recursion
Lost one of your key cards? There's plenty of graveyard manipulation to go around here.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
and
Apprentice Necromancer
can help ya.
When all else fails,
Necrotic Ooze
is there to fall back on.
Feedback
Feedback is greatly appreciated. Do I need more counters? More ways to enable combat damage? More draw power? I'd love feedback -- but please keep it budget friendly!
Update Log
8/23/2019
Swapped out a few cards to aid with ramp, budget, overall synergy. Deadeye Quartermaster was overkill on search power... I think.
-
Deadeye Quartermaster
>>>
Apprentice Wizard
-
Rootwater Thief
>>>
Dreamscape Artist
-
Riptide Shapeshifter
>>
Traumatize
// Might undo this later. Riptide is wonderful, just not sure if I have the mana for them, or if they're required due to the rest of the tutors available.
-
Wrexial, the Risen Deep
>>>
Inkfathom Witch
// I think there's enough late-game, and with Riptide being swapped out, there's little reason for me to keep Wrex here as well outside of preference.
- various land changes. added
Mutavault
to aid with wizard synergy, much to the disappointment of the budget. there's just too many upsides to running the card, including being able to copy it for some ramp.
- added
Safe Haven
as a super budget option for saving key creatures. added
Coral Atoll
to attempt to smooth out land plays. added
Halimar Depths
for early consistency.
- removed
Mimic Vat
. unsure if i'm able to pay the cost for this consistently enough, or if there's even a point with how many copies the deck runs.
-
Memory Lapse
>>>
Sage's Dousing
-
Aether Gale
>>>
Dimir Signet
-
Prodigal Sorcerer
>>>
Zuran Spellcaster
(better price)
-
Dimir Signet
>>>
Deranged Assistant
(i want to keep the signet, but i'm unsure what to remove)
-
Magus of the Will
>>>
Apprentice Necromancer
(necro can be used earlier, and can go be looped with Shirei)
- numerous changes i forgot about in the moment.
Lazav, Dimir Mastermind
and
Body Double
were removed.
- added
Thief of Sanity
//
Nightveil Specter
//
Curiosity
//
Mystic Remora
for early game consistency.
- added
Stinkweed Imp
to try and aid with graveyard population as well as defense.
- added
Minamo Sightbender
due to most things we want attacking are 0-2 attack. going to test does for mana efficiency and curve in contrast to other cards like thessa. also crazy good budget-wise.
- added
Keeper of the Mind
; draw engine, wizard fuel, 1 attack, budget af.
-
Apprentice Necromancer
>>
Riptide Entrancer
8/24/2019
Additional land changes to aid in being able to get out the specific mana requiring early game creatures.
Need to figure out if I want to push more early game control via counters or not, and what to remove in that case while not gutting my end game plans. I don't think I need much in terms of late game, since my early game creatures can be used late as well. I may reintroduce apprentice necro.
Various changes
Mulligans are looking fairly solid here. Looking into ways to reintroduce
Lazav, the Multifarious
Going to hold off on any more drastic changes for now unless some glaring problems appear. I believe I'm a tad short on early game defense, and I don't have much against massive boards, but budget is budget.
Update: Did a crapton of playtesting. Found some strengths and weaknesses. Even won a game in there.
COMMANDER CHANGE:
Vela the Night-Clad
>>
Lazav, the Multifarious
// this should aid with setting up Shirei combos as well as general wizardry.
added:
-
Swiftfoot Boots
-
Wharf Infiltrator
// better early game consistency, cipher enabler, graveyard pop
-
AEtherize
// trying to patch in some defense.
-
Choked Estuary
(not sure why i didn't already have this)
-
Throat Slitter
much to the dismay of my budget...
added
Reanimate
to aquirelist.
8/25/2019 (midnight lol)
numerous integral changes to try and heighten safety, as well as comfortably settling into a theme of smol.
added:
removed:
-
Mutavault
(budget reasons. felt like the best of the expensive cards to get the boot for now)
- a lot of other stuff i can't remember
