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Legacy BG (Golgari) Budget Combo Enchant

Balaam__

Sorcery (16)

• 4x Adventurous Impulse
• 4x Charge of the Forever-Beast
• 4x Commune with Spirits
• 4x Inquisition of Kozilek

Enchantment (8)

• 4x Ragged Veins
• 4x Spiteful Shadows

Creature (12)

• 2x Earthquake Dragon
• 4x Fierce Empath
• 4x Fyndhorn Elves
• 2x Krosan Cloudscraper

Land (24)

• 10x Forest
• 4x Llanowar Wastes
• 4x Nurturing Peatland
• 6x Swamp

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Sideboard

Instant (8)

• 4x Dismember
• 4x Tainted Strike

Artifact (5)

• 2x Nihil Spellbomb
• 3x Ratchet Bomb

Land (2)

• 2x Bojuka Bog

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Maybeboard

Creature (1)

• 1x Stuffy Doll

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A user by the name of Gandolfini posted a wonderful Pioneer format deck, Wicker Man (Stung By Bees). It’s multi-faceted with multiple paths to victory, and is definitely worth a look.

Prior to this I had not seen the card Charge of the Forever-Beast and I began to wonder how it might be used if played in a format with a much larger card pool. The main combo in the Pioneer deck revolves around Hornet Nest (which is brilliant), so I wanted to avoid a retread out of respect. This is a stripped down and simplified variation and a perfect introduction to Legacy as a format, being extremely budget conscious but with many upgrade paths.

The Mana Base

This is probably the portion of the deck that sees the largest sacrifices made in the name of reducing the overall budget. I think I’ve struck a fine balance between playability and the exceedingly grandiose expense that comes with a perfectly sculpted mana base.

•A play set of Nurturing Peatland is about the closest we can get to a proper dual land without breaking the bank. On the plus side, the deck plays relatively fast and so there’s little risk of ping damage. The draw potential is also a bonus. In lieu of the far, far pricier options the $8-10 price tag isn’t anything to get overly excited about, and consistency trumps tap lands.

•Llanowar Wastes is another great stopgap, ensuring we have reliable access to {B} without sacrificing our precious, precious {G}. Again, the majority of games will be over one way or another long before ping damage becomes a concern.

•A handful of basic Forests and Swamps fill out the remainder of the mana pool and are a safeguard against Blood Moon and similar effects.

Obvious Omissions Show

These are strictly better upgrades, so if you happen to own them there’s no reason not to reconfigure the deck to include them. But for entry level play at local matches, the expense is too great to warrant designing around them.

•Bayou commands a King’s ransom and is thus completely unsuitable for this modestly priced deck. I suppose if you’re one of those individuals who lives in a dump, wears thrift store clothing, but has solid gold rims on your whip you might find room for a play set.

•Overgrown Tomb would be a nice replacement for the Pathway lands, but unless you already happen to own a set it’s just too much additional cost to justify.

•Verdant Catacombs is another no brainer, but it’s about as expensive as the shockland and so it’s a no go.

Right Back At You

Two Enchantments—Spiteful Shadows and Ragged Veins—are pivotal to pulling off our overall strategy.

While technically different, in our deck they more or less function the same. We run two full play sets, with Ragged Veins being arguably the better overall card as it can be flashed in on the opponent’s turn. Four copies of Commune with Spirits is a safeguard in the unusual situation we haven’t yet drawn one, permitting us to check the top 4 cards to see if they’re hiding from us. Also useful in a pinch to grab a land if we’re a little light.

Department of (In)human Resources

•As Director of (In)human Resources, Fierce Empath’s sole job is to seek out new hires. If successfully cast, we earn the opportunity to scour our library for a creature with a high casting cost—and, more importantly, a high power rating—and tutor it directly to hand.

•Should our HR rep be running late (i.e. we haven’t drawn him yet), we simply hang the Help Wanted sign in the window old-school style and wait for walk ins. Adventurous Impulse plays that role nicely, allowing us to dig for a Creature or Land card.

Chaaaaaaaaaarge!

Once we’ve assembled the prerequisite pieces of our combo, it’s time to sound the bugle and sally forth into battle.

•Charge of the Forever-Beast is a nifty little spell just begging for abuse. {2}{G} gets us the opportunity to reveal whichever musclebound monster we have in hand, and transubstantiate that card’s power into direct damage. When that excessive force is blasted at an opponent’s creature chafing under our yoke of oppression, it will subsequently be redirected back at our opponent—smashing through their health pool.

TL;DR

•Locate Ragged Veins or Spiteful Shadows using Commune with Spirits if necessary, then cast either Enchantment targeting one of the opponent’s creatures.

•Acquire Earthquake Dragon or Krosan Cloudscraper, with the aid of Fierce Empath or Adventurous Impulse.

•Cast Charge of the Forever-Beast, revealing one of the high powered creatures in hand and targeting the enchanted creature as the recipient of an absurd amount of damage—which will promptly be redirected at the opponent’s face.

The Sideboard

I wanted to get this deck out there instead of agonizing over fine tuning another Legacy sideboard, so I threw together some very generic options for games two and three. Open to suggestions!

•Nihil Spellbomb and Bojuka Bog thwart strategies reliant on the graveyard and one offer a bonus draw.

•Ratchet Bomb can hit a lot of targets with minimal planning and effort.

•Dismember is top notch creature removal.

•Aside from the usual hate/anti-hate cards, you’ll notice a play set of Tainted Strike. This was left over from an earlier draft focusing on cashing in on Spiteful Shadows’ specific wording to plop 10+ poison counters on an opponent all at once. I’m showcasing this as an example of another direction to take the build, as Ragged Veins, Binding Agony or other similar cards are mostly incompatible with Tainted Strike. A more focused approach to be sure, but one Charge of the Forever-Beast and it’s game over for your opponent.

Regarding Other Formats

Shrewd observers will note that the only cards which make this deck illegal in Modern are Earthquake Dragon and Fyndhorn Elves.

Having seen enough Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystics to last a lifetime, I went with Fyndhorn Elves simply for variety. If you fancy another format, just replace it with one of the aforementioned palette swaps.

I included the dragon for two reasons; the built in recursion in the event it’s discarded, as well as simply because I’m a big fan of the Legacy card pool and thought this low budget build would be a nice entry point for those wishing to try out the format.

The dragon is by no means a necessity and can be easily replaced by any one of a dozen Modern legal creatures with a similarly high power rating. It That Betrays or Worldspine Wurm come to mind, and there are numerous others. The point is this is a deck easily modified to be playable in a handful of formats, Pioneer being another as mentioned at the outset.

”It paws the ground in the valley and exults mightily; It charges into the battle.”

Top Ranked	Achieved #2 position overall 1 year ago
Date added	1 year
Last updated	6 months
Legality	This deck is Legacy legal.
Rarity (main - side)	12 - 3 Rares 12 - 0 Uncommons 20 - 8 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.94
Tokens	Morph 2/2 C
Folders	Legacy