Magic is quite an expensive game, let's all agree. So here's an extremely budget-friendly deck for all of you who can't afford those $1000 Modern decks.
On top of that, it's just quite a simple and fun deck to play.
I think we should start with how we managed to make a consistent three-color manabase on such a cheap budget.
And that starts with the fact that our deck can play taplands without much of a consequence. Seaside Citadel is a great card to see in our opening hand since we aren't in a hurry to play anything on turn one anyway, except sometimes Attune with Aether, which is another reason our mana is so good. Attune not only grabs us any basic land, but the two energy it provides are crucial for another important land: Aether Hub. It's one-shot mana-fixing is very good in our deck because almost none of our cards require two or more colored mana to cast (other than Tempered Steel). And if we've cast an Attune with Aether in the early game, it basically becomes a better Gemstone Mine. We also have Unclaimed Territory because all the splicers are Human Artificers. City of Brass is just plain good mana, though it's a little expensive and the damage is annoying. Our basic lands consist of mostly Plains with two Forests and one Island just so we can Attune for any color that we need.
For further fixing and ramp (due to a lot of our big stuff costing four mana) we have Selesnya Signet and Sylvan Caryatid (we can't afford Noble Walletsmasher or even Birds of Paradise).
The splicer package of ours is very simple. A full set of Blade Splicers, Master Splicers, and Vital Splicers and three Wing Splicers. All of these cards offer great value for their CMC.
The golems that the splicers make can take advantage of artifact and token synergies, and thus we have Intangible Virtue and Tempered Steel in our deck. Tempered Steel can be an insane topdeck, but because it's too easy to get color-screwed due to double-white mana, we can only play two copies of the enchantment.
Eerie Interlude is pretty cool in our deck. We can dodge any board wipe with it, and it can flicker all of our splicers to generate another squad of golems. Considering how many anthem effects we have, this could very well add eight to ten power to our board! Meanwhile, Cloudshift is a cheaper, single-target version of the card for more early game utility.
Condemn is our budget removal spell. It's not necessarily a bad card, but you should still change it to Path to Exile at once if you can afford to. Then we have one Chart a Course since a loot/draw effect is always nice to have in your deck. We also have one copy of Oblivion Ring to have an out to everything.
The sideboards of my decks, especially this one since it's designed to be ultra budget-friendly, are very straightforward. Damping Sphere 'cause we hate both Storm and Tron, Tormod's Crypt 'cause we loathe graveyards, Oxidize to fight artifacts, Repeal to have a temporary answer for anything, Thalia (which is actually the most expensive card in our deck) against both control and combo, and Demystify to blow up enchantments... Though I can't think of any important enchantment that we absolutely have to destroy. And there's Mirror Mockery as a fun defensive card against big creatures that also synergizes with the splicers' ETB triggers.
At the end of the day, I advise you to give this deck a try. It's very budget-friendly and is pretty fun to play, too. It's a legit casual Modern option!
