This is my budget EDH deck. The goal was to construct a deck that was under $30 on mtggoldfish. I'm quite happy with the end result. For such a cheap deck, it is quite powerful and quite fun to play.
Taking a look at Noyan Dar, the game plan is pretty simple: cast a bunch of instant and sorcery spells (most of which cantrip to get the most use out of his ability), animate a bunch of lands, then attack. Note that we can either go wide and animate a bunch of 3/3 lands, or we can stockpile the counters on one powerful land. We will probably want to do somewhere in between.
There are a few drawbacks to Noyan Dar's strategy though. First, by animating lands and attacking with them, we are depriving ourselves of mana. Ideally, we would want to both cast spells AND attack, but the more lands we animate, the less powerful spells we will be able to cast. Brave the Sands is good for this, since it allows us to both attack AND leave mana open for us to cast spells on either our second main phase, or on our opponents' turns.
The second drawback is that since we are turning our lands into creatures, we are opening up our mana base to creature-targetted removal. We are particularly susceptible to wrath effects. We really don't want to run short on mana in the long game.
Terra Eternal
overcomes this by making our lands indestructible. If we decide to beef up one land at a time rather than go wide, Darksteel Citadel is a particularly good target for Noyan Dar's ability. There is also the very weird
Darksteel Garrison
; it's a sort of equipment for lands. Note that when the fortified land attacks and taps, it also gets a +1/+1 boost to its P/T.
Here is some more tech for the deck:
Abzan Falconer and Abzan Battle Priest give flying and lifelink, respectively, to our lands.
Halimar Tidecaller
also gives our land creatures evasion. She also has the added bonus of letting us buyback a spell. We have a few of the BFZ Awaken cards since they are all on theme and they all contribute to our overall strategy.
Scatter to the Winds
and
Planar Outburst
are the best ones, but I think
Coastal Discovery
,
Encircling Fissure
, and
Sheer Drop
are all playable too.
Since our lands are actually 0/0 creatures with counters, Mirrorweave can target another creature on the table and give our lands a huge boost--a sort-of Overrun effect.
Mana ramp is particularly important in this deck, so Burnished Hart and Wayfarer's Bauble are here to help out. Alternative mana sources such as Azorius Keyrune and
Azorius Cluestone
also help provide us more mana so that we don't come up short when we swing in for damage with our lands.
Noyan Dar costs 5 mana, which isn't too bad, but it also means we won't be able to cast him too many times after he dies. For this reason, we have alternative win conditions, but they all revolve around the instant and sorcery casting theme: Talrand, Sky Summoner, Niblis of Frost, and Docent of Perfection
. Curious Homunculus
is a good mana dork for spells, but can easily flip into a powerful Prowess creature that gives us a discount on our spells. Swiftfoot Boots offers some protection for any of the aforementioned important creatures.
Noyan Dar is actually a sizable general at 4/4, and given that we'll be casting many instants and sorceries over the course of the game,
Runechanter's Pike
is pretty good here.
A lot of the instant and sorcery spells we cast replace themselves in hand: Impulse,
Telling Time
, Anticipate, Think Twice,
Azorius Charm
, Dismiss,
Dream Fracture
, etc.
To Arms! and
Unity of Purpose
allow us to untap our lands. They are more effective if we decide to go wide with Noyan Dar's ability, but they are still ok.
There is a lot of countermagic in the deck, but this isn't too surprising given that we want to be casting a lot of instant and sorceries and that we're in UW. This means we kinda want to play a reactive game. It's important that we have a way to interact with other decks at the table, and since our deck doesn't appear to be very frightening most of the time, we are generally safe to counter spells at will!
We also have a lot of good removal in Swords to Plowshares, Rapid Hybridization, Oblation, Condemn, Oblivion Ring, and Detention Sphere.
Drownyard Temple is a good target for Noyan Dar's ability since we can always get it back into play.
Wrath effects hurt us, but many of them are beneficial to us. Planar Cleansing is worded so that we can keep our creature-lands. Evacuation effects such as Devastation Tide, Displacement Wave and the new Coastal Breach also keep them in play.
Finally, we are able to fit in some generally good utility cards to help us out. Future Sight needs no introduction, and Isochron Scepter (the most expensive card in the deck) is absolutely extraordinary. It's likely to get removed from play since it freaks out a lot of people at the table, but imprinting a card like Impulse makes it less scary.
Fact or Fiction has been reprinted a lot recently, so it is still quite cheap.
Brain in a Jar
is a card I have been wanting to try out in EDH, but could never find the place for it. It isn't too terrible, and this seems to be the deck for it.
Trail of Evidence
, also from SOI, is a good budget spellslinging utility card.
Cards that I tried out but are lackluster:
Sacred Ground
can protect our powerful land from targeted removal, but we still lose the counters and the spell doesn't work against damage or P/T reductions. It was basically a dead card every time I drew it.
Hindering Light
is pretty bad despite the cantrip effect. It is a highly conditional counterspell with slightly awkward mana.
