Competitive Budget Aether Storm

Standard* Artifact Budget Combo Mono-Blue Storm

13_Aces

Artifact (14)

• 2x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 4x Inspiring Statuary
• 4x Navigator's Compass
• 4x Prophetic Prism

Sorcery (6)

• 2x Baral's Expertise
• 4x Reverse Engineer

Creature (14)

• 4x Foundry Inspector
• 4x Glint-Nest Crane
• 2x Hope of Ghirapur
• 4x Ornithopter

Land (18)

• 18x Island

Instant (8)

• 2x Metallic Rebuke
• 4x Paradoxical Outcome
• 2x Pull from Tomorrow

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Sideboard

Artifact (5)

• 2x Silent Gravestone
• 3x Sorcerous Spyglass

Enchantment (4)

• 4x The Antiquities War

Instant (2)

• 2x Metallic Rebuke

Sorcery (4)

• 4x River's Rebuke

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Welcome to the Comprehensive Guide to Competitive Budget Aether Storm!

You read that right, the words competitive and budget in the same name, and it's no lie. This deck has gotten me quite a few wins, all for ~$25-30. Anyways, this deck is relatively complicated, so let's get into the specifics.

What does the deck do? Show

The goal of this deck is to play as many cards as we can in one turn, and use Aetherflux Reservoir's ability to deal 50 damage to the opponent (90% of the time this kills them). This deck achieves its goal through by cheating in as many spells as possible in a turn and profiting off of it with Aetherflux Reservoir. Pretty simple concept, right?

How does it do it? (What does each card do?) Show

Creatures

Ornithopter

A zero mana spell to cast during our combo. Additionally, it can tap for improvise costs with Inspiring Statuary, and makes for a good blocker when needed.

Hope of Ghirapur

A solid 1 mana artifact that can be cast for free with Foundry Inspector. It can also help immensely against control, where sacrificing it can keep our turn clear of interruptions while trying to end the game.

Glint-Nest Crane

A good turn two play when we don't have a Prophetic Prism in hand. Looking 4 cards deep for a sometimes essential artifact we need can be a very valuable resource.

Foundry Inspector

Technically not essential to the combo, but it helps a hell of a lot by making Navigator's Compass and Hope of Ghirapur free, as well as making our more costly artifacts slightly less taxing on our landbase.

Instants & Sorceries

Pull from Tomorrow

Drawing cards is very, very important for this deck, and while the double blue casting cost can slow us down some, we usually won't have to pay for any more of it with our lands, since this ends up being a really good use of idle artifacts when we have an Inspiring Statuary out.

Metallic Rebuke

Mana Leak for one blue mana and two tapped artifacts? So nice!

Paradoxical Outcome

This is an essential card when wanting to storm off and end the game, as it lets us return all of our cheap or free artifacts and draw that many cards, hopefully drawing us more artifacts, resulting in some crazy 20 card hand dumps.

Baral's Expertise

At first I didn't run this card, but after trying it out some, it's soooo useful. Being able to bounce either ours or our opponent's creatures is crucial, plus the free 4 mana spell covers a ton of essential cards in our deck (Aetherflux Reservoir, Paradoxical Outcome).

Reverse Engineer

Essential early game draw spell, plus the improvise makes this super nice

Artifacts

Navigator's Compass

The 3 life we get off this is worth a lot against aggro decks, plus it can speed up our Aetherflux Reservoir ability a lot when we blink it enough.

Prophetic Prism

Really, this is our ideal turn 2 play. The card draw is really nice, plus it being an artifact sets us up for turn 3 Reverse Engineers and other efficiant plays nicely.

Inspiring Statuary

Giving cards like Paradoxical Outcome and Baral's Expertise improvise makes everything so much faster and easier, not to mention that since improvise doesn't care about summoning sickness, any cards we blink with Paradoxical Outcome can tap for improvise costs as soon as they are played, so useful!

Aetherflux Reservoir

The win-con. This is the card that makes playing 2 billion cards in one turn actually worth it, and since it can target both creatures and players, this can target and destroy creatures that are keeping us from winning the game such as Exquisite Angel.

Sideboard

Metallic Rebuke

More Counterspells for when we need to fight back against super controlling control decks.

River's Rebuke

A board wipe that covers every nonland permanant? that we can play for cheap? that only targets one person?? what's not to like?

Silent Gravestone

Totally shuts down The Scarab God decks, as well as God-Pharoah's Gift, if anyone in your meta is actually playing that anymore.

Sorcerous Spyglass

Stops annoying cards like Walking Ballista, and can be useful against control decks running The Scarab God.

The Antiquities War

An alternate win-con just in case Aetherflux Reservoir just isn't working, or if you have a strong feeling your opponent is going to Dispossess you.

Matchups Show

Control Variants

Approach Decks

So, game one against this deck is a double-edged sword. On one hand, they aren't going to be hitting you or really caring about your life total, so you'll have to gain less life in order to make 50. On the other, they don't care about your life total- so you can't out-lifegain them. Your strategy against this deck game one should be to take your time & build up so that you can sacrifice a Hope of Ghirapur and pull off your combo in one turn to avoid counterspell storms. Game 2 (& hopefully not 3) Your strategy should be to side in The Antiquities War to avoid your opponent's Sorcerous Spyglass if you think they have one, plus more Metallic Rebukes- and try to save them for either stuff targeting your important pieces, or an Approach of the Second Sun. Do keep in mind that this is close to our worst matchup due to the number of counterspells that can hit our key cards instead of just creatures.

Scarab God Decks

This should almost always be a pretty easy matchup, on game one, at least. Since we really don't have many valuable creatures for The Scarab God to steal, they have to rely on their own stuff to power their engine, which is handy if they don't have any real fuel of their own. Beware the amount of creature hate in these decks though, it can make keeping a Foundry Inspector near impossible. Anyways, for game 2 you're probably gonna want to swap out Aetherflux Reservoir for The Antiquities War, as most of these decs have Dispossess in the sideboard, and taking out our Aetherflux Reservoirs is a good way to make almost our entire deck unusable. Also, as with almost every control matchup, try to do all the things you need in one massive turn while covered by a Hope of Ghirapur, as well as side in more Metallic Rebukes to fight counterspells.

Grixis

Not done yet!

Midrange Variants

Energy

Not done yet!

Knights

Not done yet!

God-Pharoah's Gift

Not done yet!

Constrictor

Not done yet!

Aggro Variants

Red Deck Wins

Not done yet!

Elves

Not done yet!

Merfolk

Not done yet!

FAQ Show

Why should I play this deck?

This deck is super fun to play and combo off with, as well as being a relatively competitive deck for a very cheap price, and, as I know from experience, it's nice to be able to play a competitive deck without spending hundreds of dollars you just don't have.

Where is Mox Amber?

Despite one copy costing as much as the entire rest of the deck, this card is surprisingly not unincluded because of budget reasons. The fact of the matter is, the card is just too slow. I know that sounds dumb for a 0 mana artifact, but hear me out. In a solid 70% of the games we win, we will have one or more Foundry Inspectors in play, so why would we run a 0 cost mana rock that has no way to do it's actual job in our deck over a card such as Navigator's Compass, that we'll most likely be playing for free anyways, and speeds up our progression towards 50 life.

Are there any upgrades to add if I can afford it?

Not without changing the deck relatively severely. Obviously, you could run a playset of Mox Amber and rework the Navigator's Compass/Foundry Inspector/Prophetic Prism part of the deck, but really I think the deck works fine as is, plus the budget factor is nice to have.

More?

This deck is still relatively new, and I'd love to help answer questions about it as well as I can, so ask away in the comments! BTW sorry if I don't reply super quickly, as finals are soon, and as a high schooler, those are kinda important. Thank you.

Hey! This took/is taking me a lot of time to do so I'd really appreciate an upvote or comment if you can, also, keep in mind this description isn't done yet, so if you care, make sure to check back, as I'll be updating this as often as as I can until it's finished. Thanks, -Ace

Top Ranked	Achieved #43 position overall 5 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	4 years
Legality	This deck is not Standard legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 13 Rares 16 - 0 Uncommons 10 - 2 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	2.62