Help with fleshing out my pre-release deck?

Standard Deck Help forum

Posted on Jan. 16, 2017, 11:39 p.m. by lordnova42

I used to play magic back in high school, but quit shortly after, and haven't played in 14 years, until this weekend.
I went to the midnight pre-release, made a R/G deck, but didn't do that good, 16 out of 28. The Sunday pre-release I made a B/R deck, and took 2nd out of 8th (barely had enough players to hold the tournament).
Some of the guys I was playing with invited me to the Tuesday night standard games they play there, so I need to flesh out my deck.
Here's what I made for my second tournament:
7 Mountain
1 Spire of Industry
9 Swamp
1 Aether Poisoner
2 Alley Strangler
1 Consulate Skygate
1 Consulate Turret
1 Daring Demolition
1 Embraal Bruiser
1 Foundry Hornet
1 Frontline Rebel
1 Gonti's Machinations
1 Hijack
1 Irontread Crusher
1 Lathnu Sailback
1 Night Market Lookout
1 Ornithopter
1 Perilous Predicament
1 Prophetic Prism
1 Quicksmith Rebel
1 Salivating Gremlins
2 Shock
1 Spontaneous Artist
1 Thriving Rats
1 Yahenni, Undying Partisan

Here is my entire inventory of magic cards:
Using just the cards I already have, what cards would you recommend adding, or swapping out, to make this a 60 card casually competitive deck?
I do plan on increasing my collection, but I have a very limited disposable income at this time, so can't go out and buy expensive cards, so I'm probably going to stick to picking up a few booster packs each payday.
Thanks!

Boza says... #2

Rather than buying booster packs and hoping you get the rare you want for your deck, flesh it out with 4 copies of key commons and uncommons and cheap rares.

RB has a great artifact subtheme and you have a lot of it going on here. Start with acquiring 4 Unlicensed Disintegration, 4 Servo Schematic, 4 Ravenous Intruder, 4 Key to the City. These should cost about a booster pack for all 16 and give you a solid start to your deck.

Next, add in 4 Weaponcraft Enthusiast, 4 Bomat Courier, 4Reckless Fireweaver, 4 Shock (you already have 2). These should also cost you at your local game store about a booster.

Finally, add in 2 Sly Requisitioner, 1 Yahenni that you already have and the Quicksmith rebel. Scrapheap Scrounger is a very good tool for this type of deck, so you should add 2-3 of those as well. That will leave you with 22 lands to add (remeber to add the spire as well) and you have a quite functional deck.

For the low price of about 3 boosters.

January 17, 2017 3:34 a.m.

I second Boza's suggestions, most importantly, DON'T buy boosters expecting to get cards from them. Buy singles. It's far cheaper when you're trying to build a deck.

January 17, 2017 8:16 a.m.

lordnova42 says... #4

Thanks for the advice. I think this is the first time someone has recommended singles that weren't ridiculously priced.

I was able to pick up most of what you suggested, can't wait to try it out.

January 19, 2017 6:05 p.m.

Boza says... #5

I made that up on the spot, it will certainly required tuning, but you will have a functioning deck at least very quickly, compared to boosters. Deck is easily modifiable to be more aggressive and more vehicle-based, with lots of room for improvement, should be deece for starting out.

January 24, 2017 3:47 a.m.

This discussion has been closed