Looking for a fun budget casual build-around card
The Kitchen Table forum
Posted on Jan. 21, 2021, 5:41 p.m. by libraryjoy
I build a lot of budget decks. My playgroup plays mostly 60-card casual multiplayer. I'm looking for ideas of interesting build-around cards, especially from sets in the last couple of years (I started 7-8 years ago, and have not paid as close attention to recent sets). Some cards I have used in the past are Angelic Accord, Sephara, Sky's Blade, Armament Master, Hoofprints of the Stag, Blackblade Reforged, Nova Chaser, Faerie Swarm, Enduring Scalelord, Tolsimir, Friend to Wolves, Swans of Bryn Argoll, and Rimefeather Owl among others (especially elf decks). Today I started to build Crested Sunmare, only to find out they're $7 each! I had a similar problem when I started building around Behemoth's Herald and Godsire and then realized how much the price had jumped. I'm looking for cards that average less than $1 and provide an interesting building space. I do not play black but am open to any other color or combination of colors. I lean most heavily to Selesnya generally but also enjoy exploring other spaces. Deck lists are welcome, but mainly looking for card suggestions.
Blood Seeker\Trespasser's Curse Find ways to give your opponents creatures and drain them.
Awakening of Vitu-Ghazi Maybe use it as a finisher with outlast things like Abzan Falconer
Kangee, Sky Warden\Kangee, Aerie Keeper Low cmc UW aggro flyers
January 21, 2021 8:56 p.m.
How about deathtouch tribal and fight effects. There's a new legendary creature Fynn that makes deathtouch creatures poisonous, and there's an uncommon Vraska for deathtouch tribal.
Fight effects or lure are an instant kill on opponents creatures. You could definitely do this on a budget
January 21, 2021 9:32 p.m.
Xianling69 says... #6
kpres "tribal" refers to creature type.
libraryjoy: personally i think limiting yourself to $1 per card is far too strict. idk what your budget is like, but i think its gonna suck the fun out of your games when you're limited to inefficient cards like that. your best bet for having a cohesive deck that doesn't sacrifice efficiency (or at least not as much) is to ask your group if they can play the pauper format. you can build selesnya aura hexproof (a very powerful deck in that format) for about $30 from tcgplayer.
January 21, 2021 11:27 p.m.
Last_Laugh says... #7
Pestilence w/ lots of protection from black creatures and ways to protect your own life like Pariah slapped on one of those creatures.
January 22, 2021 12:23 a.m.
Xianling69 says... #8
Last_Laugh: Pariah on Stuffy Doll is the simpler version
January 22, 2021 1:11 a.m.
Last_Laugh says... #9
Stuffy Doll does nothing to clear your opponents board of creatures. With Pestilence you fill it with Mirran Crusader and Paladin en-Vec type creatures who live through Pestilence to deal combat damage. Last Laugh also put in some work with Pestilence... a single black mana will easily snowball out of control and kill your opponent. It's a really fun casual deck (especially if you ever do multiplayer with 60 card decks).
January 22, 2021 2:24 a.m.
Xianling69 says... #10
Last_Laugh ok? that seems convoluted and inefficient. Pestilence deals damage to the user as well, unless you want to waste even more deck space figuring a way around that as well. if you're already running Pariah anyway, it seems silly to not also include Stuffy Doll. at that point it becomes entirely worthless to attack the Stuffy Doll player, as they'll simply not block and the active player is just attacking themself. Stuffy Doll is good by itself, Pestilence is not. especially when the opponent just blows up your pro-black creatures and you're forced to sacrifice it. as for taking out creatures, just use simple removal spells like Fatal Push and Path to Exile. pestilence can't give you free damage like Stuffy Doll can. instead you have to keep pumping mana into it. you won't "snowball" the effect with only 1 black mana. with pestilence, 1 mana is 1 damage. and every game is multiplayer.
January 22, 2021 2:35 a.m.
libraryjoy says... #12
Thanks for the ideas. I don't play black (except in like 5 color strategies). As for budget, I don't have a lot of funds to sink into Magic right now. I have a pretty large collection, with plenty of pricier cards, but I'm just looking for a little variety I can throw a few dollars at. Last night I started fiddling with a Kaheera, the Orphanguard deck, using it as a companion (Gruul with a lot of beasts). Our power level at a group is fairly low, including teenagers, new players, and other people with limited $. Building on a budget like this helps me to not annihilate everyone and still have fun. It's also a mental exercise - not every deck I build I actually buy.
I forgot to mention another fun deck I built a few weeks back, including Jegantha, the Wellspring as companion. Mono-green, focused on large 5 color creatures with support from Knight of New Alara and Civic Saber, with an Elemental subtheme. I really enjoy playing it, but it kinda wrecked the table a bit the first time and so now everybody targets it early.
I've found a few ideas in here. Skill Borrower looks fun! It's been a while since I tried building a Land/creature deck, so that's an idea, too. I've actually got Kangee, Aerie Keeper, and that might be an option once I tear apart the Sephara, Sky's Blade deck. Keep the ideas coming!
January 22, 2021 11:51 a.m.
Xianling69 says... #14
btw how is a deck with 5 color creatures considered mono green?
January 22, 2021 noon
libraryjoy says... #15
Funny you should mention Quartzwood Crasher. He's the star of the Kaheera deck I'm working on.
As for Mono-green 5 color, I don't know how else to say it, and that's how one of my friends described it. It has an all-green mana base and uses Jegantha, the Wellspring, Orochi Leafcaller, and mana dorks to cast the 5 color creatures. Taste the Rainbow - $25 Budget Casual if you're interested.
January 22, 2021 12:18 p.m.
Xianling69 says... #16
quartzood crasher doesn't really belong in a kaheera deck. you want all your creatures to innately have trample for the crasher. also, the color of a deck is decided by its spells, not its mana base. a mono green mana base trying to cast 5 color spells is just not a smart move. anyone with creature removal can basically just lock you out of the game entirely by simply removing a mana dork or 2.
January 22, 2021 12:24 p.m.
libraryjoy says... #17
Xianling69 I think you're expecting a bit more competitive playgroup than ours. There is some fragility built into my decks intentionally so I don't annihilate everyone every time. These are long, drawn out, multiplayer games. While taking out the creatures does hamper me some, there's enough redundancy with Maelstrom Archangel, Jegantha, and Orochi, that they can't stop me for long, and have to contend with the rest of the table. They can't run enough creature removal to take out all my stuff and not let someone else get out of hand. My decks are budget, casual, and fun to play and to play against. And we have a house rule that occasional board wipes are ok, repeated board wipes are not. Kaheera will work well in the Quartzwood Crasher deck because it gives my creatures vigilance. I'm in a multiplayer environment. If I want to attack every turn, I have to be very careful about leaving myself vulnerable to crack back - because there are at least 3 others that can attack me. I'm not running a full playset of Kaheera, but I have it in the side as companion and one in the main deck for now, although the maindeck one may get dropped. I'm considering Garruk's Uprising in the deck, too, maybe as a 1 or 2 of. It would help with Keeper of Fables for card draw, although I've got a couple of copies of Garruk's Companion, so in flux on that part of the package. It's still a work in progress for sure, and may change quite a bit before it's finished. I probably need to come up with some form of lifegain and artifact/enchantment removal, and still finalizing the ramp package. We have a bit of Torpor Orb and similar effects running around our meta right now, so I try to avoid depending on too many enter the battlefield effects.
January 22, 2021 12:55 p.m.
Xianling69 says... #19
every game is multiplayer, and kaheera does not synergize with quartzwood. regardless of how casual your group is, there should be at least "some" removal. without jegantha, you need 4 mana dorks to cast anything. thats too many. if that rainbow deck is capable of winning, you should focus more on helping people raise the power level of their decks, rather than lowering the power level of yours. the argument that "they can't run enough creature removal to take out all my stuff" is flawed for 2 reasons. the first is that they really only need answer jegantha to slow you down immensely, and the 2nd is that you have multiple opponents who can use removal against you. a single opponent by themself won't need to use all their removal against you, because the other players can help them out. so on average, you're actually having just as much removal thrown your way as you would in a 1v1 game.
overall, if your opponents can't beat a deck that doesn't attack until turn 6 at earliest and doesn't have removal, then it probably doesn't matter what you use and you'll win anyway. a pauper (commons only) aura hexproof deck could win against your rainbow deck on turn 4
January 22, 2021 1:28 p.m.
libraryjoy says... #20
That Budget Aura Hexproof deck - I have it. In a box gathering dust in my closet because no one wants to play against it. We've tried more competitive nights. I have 2 modern legal competitive decks. It doesn't work for us. Only about 3 of us can afford to build competitive decks, and the play becomes very repetitive. We choose the kind of fun we have. And for us, the fun is building off-the-wall decks with unusual strategies and playing 3 very different games in one night. It's teaching kids and adults how to play Magic and setting them up with a first deck. It's making silly jokes while we play, doing crazy, out of control things on the battlefield and then telling stories about it later. It's letting everyone have a turn to win on a regular basis. We have a Hedron Alignment deck and a Barren Glory deck in our meta as well as 2 Maze's End decks. So thank you for your advice, but I think I'll stick with what works for us. I'm just looking for card ideas outside of the ones I often use. Expanding my horizons a bit, maybe bring something no one in our group has seen before to the table. Because win or lose, that would be fun!
January 22, 2021 1:58 p.m.
Xianling69 says... #21
i'm not saying your group should be super competitive playing tier 1 decks, but i don't think it should be complete opposite end of the spectrum as well where everyone is running super slow stuff with no removal. what happens when someone builds a budget deck thats even a little bit aggro?
January 22, 2021 2:04 p.m.
How about red cards tribal?
There are a few red or white creatures with protection from Red, and you can play starstorm, flamebreak, and inferno.
Also there's the Wanderer who prevents noncombat damage from being dealt to you and creatures you control.
Swans of Brynn Argol is a great build around card. Lighting bolt becomes ancestral recall. Meanwhile you're clearing the board of little threats.
Who's that monk that gives lifelink to your spells? That guy too would be good here.
Another cool build around could be Hamza and modular creatures
January 22, 2021 2:54 p.m.
libraryjoy says... #23
kpres Thanks, those are some really fun ideas! My brain is spinning. I know I have several copies of Disciple of Law. Time to start digging through my boxes! Rubs hands together in anticipation
January 22, 2021 4:04 p.m.
FormOverFunction says... #24
Can we add middle names to our accounts? I think “Fragility” should be my middle name here. Check out my theme decks if your group is as relaxed as it seems. My favorite “sit back and enjoy the company of you fellow nerds” deck is still Natural Disasters!.
January 22, 2021 4:48 p.m.
I mostly play Commander, but my previous suggestion comes from my deck Kykar Swiss Army Knife (Budget). Look there for card suggestions.
Soulfire Grand Master was the card I was thinking of that gives lifelink to spells. He also lets you repeatedly cast your Lightning Bolt every turn targeting your Swans of Bryn Argoll. The cool thing about your spells having lifelink is that Blasphemous Act gives you 13 life for each creature on the battlefield.
January 22, 2021 4:50 p.m.
I had a really cool Proteus Staff deck back in the day. If you read the card carefully, it says that you put the revealed cards on the bottom of the deck "in any order". I had stuff that makes tokens, and man-lands, and just one Darksteel Colossus.
The turn after I got the colossus out, I would attack, then target the colossus again and re-arrange my entire library, putting lands on the bottom with a mountain first, and then Goblin Charbelcher.
The deck was really good, but it got boring because it was a combo deck.
January 22, 2021 4:59 p.m.
DeinoReborn says... #28
How about Marauding Raptor? I've had a lot of fun with that recently.
January 22, 2021 11:57 p.m.
I think there is a lot of fun to be had with Zirda, the Dawnwaker, there are a lot of cards that are affected by his ability.
Also maybe something with the processor cards from BFZ? Cryptic Cruiser and the likes.
Also
I hate being that kinda guy, but maybe you want to look at this list i made some time ago listing older cards with interesting or unique effects that go mostly unnoticed: List of Interesting cards some may have forgotten
January 26, 2021 1:33 p.m.
libraryjoy says... #31
Thanks! Actually I have wanted to build a Dragonshift Deck before, but forgot about it lol. Zirda IS a ton of fun and currently running in 2 of my decks right now, particularly with cycling. Thanks for the list; I'm sure I'll refer to it when I'm looking for something. Off to work on a Dragonshift deck and check out some from FormOverFunction
January 26, 2021 1:42 p.m.
libraryjoy says... #33
Ooooh, that's diabolical. I'm thinking of combining it with Prototype Portal . Maybe some damage doublers? And forced draw for the whole table? Hmmmmm. Mwahahahaha!
February 22, 2021 4:22 p.m.
Brash Taunter over Stuffy Doll and give him a Fatal Attraction or make something like a Bellowing Aegisaur attractive instead.
March 1, 2022 9:55 p.m.
Make a banding deck. I'm not even joking. I've beaten people with a banding deck in Casual before.
FormOverFunction says... #2
I’ve considered refining my The Briny Deep deck down into a 60 card deck. I think being able to have multiple copies of some of those cards would be fun. Maybe you build around something weird in that deck? Like Homarid Spawning Bed? No one ever expects The Homarid Inquisition.
January 21, 2021 5:57 p.m.