How low can you go?

You want budget? How about an entire main deck that you can purchase for under $70? That's right, we're talking Manaless Dredge!

One of the most quirky decks around, Manaless Dredge enjoys the distinction of possibly being the least expensive existing archetypes in Legacy. This is due, in no small part, to the fact that it has literally no lands, or mana sources of any kind - no Lotus Petals, No Spirit Guides, nothing. Traditionally Manaless Dredge has been a pure combo deck, winning with a combo finish, but I've seen a second variation recently (linked below) which is more of a Zombie beatdown deck.

Manaless Dredge is high, high variance, and not for the faint of heart. When you lose, it can feel like you had no control over anything. When you win, though, you win in spectacular fashion. So how does it work? 

Regardless of which variant you run, you're always going to want to start on the draw. If you've been playing Magic for a while, this can seem weird, since the vast majority of decks want you to be on the play. So you take your first draw step. Don't take any actions on your first turn, because you can't. Then discard down to seven cards. This is where the fun begins.

Optimally, you'll want to discard Phantasmagorian. 

Then on your opponent's end step, discard cards to return the Phantasmagorian back to your hand. Optimally (again) you'll have a second Phantasmagorian to drop into the bin, and you'll be able to discard three again to mostly empty your hand. 

Whether or not you have a Phantasmagorian to power up, you'll want to dump at least one dredger like our old pal Stinkweed Imp. 

Once you have Balustrade Spy, Dread Return, and Bridge from Below in your graveyard, get the Spy onto the Battlefield with Dread Return, which will mill out your entire deck. Then use another Dread Return to get back one of your win cons. In this build, I'm running Thassa's Emissary for the combo finish. 

There's another version, which I'll link to at the end of this post, which is more of a zombie beatdown deck, and doesn't rely on a combo kill.

In either case, Manaless Dredge has an Achilles' Heel. Graveyard hate. 

Which brings us to the sideboard, which is where this deck gets expensive. You simply cannot win through an opening Leyline.  RIP and Cage are also backbreaking. Prior to Modern Horizons, there was no answer to any of these cards. Now we have access to Force of Vigor, which can answer all of these.

Rest in Peace is still going to do some damage, because it exiles graveyards when it enters the battlefield, so you're going to have to try to rebuild. Leyline only exiles after it's on the battlefield, and Graffdigger's Cage doesn't exile the graveyard at all, so it's easy enough to get rolling after removing it. Force of Vigor is around $15, depending on the printing (some are cheaper), but it's the only answer to cards that absolutely kill your deck, so I consider it an essential component of the deck.

Other pricey sideboard options include Unmask for hand attack and, of course, Force of Will. 

Well, thanks for taking the time to read all this! There's a ton more budget Legacy decks to talk about, so stay tuned.

Have fun, and be kind to one another. 

 

Here's the more beat down version, with a great primer on playing the deck.

 

Infectious Fun

Love it or hate it, Poison has been with Magic since Legends. Infect is a deck to be reckoned with!

It's a well known story that Mark Rosewater was trying to get the Poison mechanic into a Standard expansion for years, to no avail. When the Scars of Mirrodin block rolled around, he finally found his opportunity. And so the beloved and despised Infect mechanic was born.

I was thinking for a while about what deck I wanted to cover first for this series, and I'm as surprised as anyone that I settled on Infect. It's really not one of my favorite decks or archetypes, but I think it's a great entry point into Legacy from both a gameplay and cost/availability perspective. Let's talk about why.

Infect's game plan is straightforward and easy to grasp. You attack with your evasive Infect creatures, and pump the crap out of them until your opponent is nothing but a disease-ridden corpse. So understanding how the deck works is simple. Superficially, it looks like an aggro/stompy deck, but it very much has combo aspects in the way it operates.

It's a deck that rewards good situational awareness, understanding what the other decks in the format do, and reading whether your opponent might be holding a piece of disruption or removal. Finding just the right time to go for the win is a key element to success. It's the classic "a minute to learn, and a lifetime to master" scenario. It also rewards being able to calculate the math of the cards you have in your hand, and finding lines like Crop Rotating away a land, to load up your Graveyard, to Delve out Become Immense. So player skill is an integral part of winning, and new-to-the-format players will gain a sense of accomplishment as they progress and gain experience.

Infect is one of the decks which isn't going to be particularly hurt by substituting shock lands in place of OG dual lands. You're looking to win with a single attack, by turn 3-4 so the loss of life, where you have to take it, is unlikely to be relevant in most situations. Fetch lands are more relevant than Duals, since you're looking to Delve, and to shuffle unwanted cards away after Brainstorm. While there's some Bant versions, you can build a well-tuned version in GU. So there's some cost savings available in the mana base.

The core of the deck is these two creatures...

... this land...

... and a pile of pump spells. 

Once you get the Glistener Elf, Blighted Agent, and Inkmoth Nexus (around $130 for all of these at the time of writing), you have the functional core of the deck. There are optimal selections of pump spells to use, and an optimal mana base but the deck will run with just about anything that makes your dudes bigger. So it's possible to assemble the core cards, and then still play and get experience with the deck while you work toward optimizing. This will allow you to spread the costs over time.

Most of the actual pump spells you're going to need are commons or uncommons, and fairly inexpensive. Become Immense, Invigorate, and Vines of Vastwood are all under or around $1. Berserk (of which you need only 2 copies) is around $20. You could easily substitute a pair of Rancor to get started. It's not optimal, but it'll get the job done.

Other cost savings can be found in some of the ancillary spells - most notably, Force of Will. While most of the lists I see run a set of four (which jumps the deck cost from the $200 range to well over $600), I honestly feel that Pact of Negation - at 1/10th the price - will serve equally well, since your primary use-case is to protect against disruption on the turn you're trying to win.

Infect is one of those decks like Burn and Merfolk that shares a huge number of cards across Modern and Legacy. So as you build, you'll be building for two formats at once. 

Well, thanks for taking the time to read all this! There's a ton more budget Legacy decks to talk about, so stay tuned.

Have fun, and be kind to one another. 

Typical Deck List

 

Budget Friendly Deck List

 

Legacy on a Budget

I love Legacy! 

It is far and away the greatest constructed format in Magic! It's challenging, diverse, and skill-testing. Best of all, you get to play with cards from throughout Magic's long history!

Now, some folks will try to tell you that it's "expensive".

Well, let me tell you... they're mostly right. Buying into a top tier deck is going to cost at least 2-3 thousand dollars. And with the 2020 spike of secondary market prices, especially among reserve list cards, just a mana base could cost upwards of ten thousand dollars.

But here's a few things to keep in mind.

First, not everyone at a Legacy event is going to be playing a finely tuned, top tier deck. In fact, at large events there's going to be lots of people playing all sorts of jank and homebrews. Let us never forget the fellow who showed up to SCG Columbus in 2014 playing tribal bears, wearing a bear costume. 

(https://twitter.com/BasicMountain/status/531608883882909696?s=20)

Second, there are actually some more affordable decks out there. Ones you can buy into, in some cases, for less than a Modern, or even Standard deck might cost. And far less than many competitive Commander decks.

Third, once you have a Legacy deck, you have it. It's never going to rotate, so you're never going to not be able to play it (although very occasional bannings happen, but that's true of every format). Moreover, there are some decks, like Merfolk and Burn that share something like 80-90% of cards across Legacy and Modern. So you're building the core of decks for two formats at once.

And so the purpose of this series is to introduce and maintain a reference guide to more affordable Legacy decks. Because I want as many people playing Legacy as possible, and I don't want anyone avoiding the format for fear of cost.

I'm going to use a cost-tier system for ranking the different decks. For reference, the dollar value I'm using is what it would cost, at the time of writing, if you loaded this entire deck into your cart on TCG player. It is quite possible if you shop around and trade into some of what you need, that you can get in for even less. 

• Copper: These are decks under $200. Yes, there are plenty of decks in this bracket. Even well-tuned mono-Red Burn decks can be had for around $200 or less. And there are established decks for even less than that.

• Silver: These decks are between $200-$500. Some Reanimator builds fall into this bracket.

• Gold: These decks are between $500-$1000. Oops All Spells, and Death & Taxes are some of the decks which will fall into this category, although D&T saw a spike recently with the printing of Kaldra Compleat, and the subsequent increase on Stone Forge Mystic.

I'm not going to cover anything over $1000, because even that's pushing the idea of what I think is reasonable to consider "budget".

I'm also going to have a few categories of decks. With each deck, I'll share a list, talk about how it works, and give suggestions for more budget options (for example, substituting Shock Lands for OG Dual Lands), or more expensive upgrades. BIG disclaimer here - I am not a professional-level player or highly skilled brewer, so take all of my advice about substitutions and play strategies with more than a grain of salt.

Existing Archetypes: These are known decks, which is to say they've seen play for a number of years, and it's something you can reasonably expect a number of people to be playing. I'll look at the "optimized" builds, and some possible budget substitutions. 

Blast from the Past: These are older or outdated versions of existing decks, or decks that used to be more popular, but have fallen from favor, or been outclassed by the high tier builds. The deck that inspired this category is Affinity. The current "optimal" build includes Urza's Saga, and other pricey cards. However, if we look back 5-10 years, there's older variants which are much less expensive, but still totally playable.

Foreign Imports: There are some decks which shine in other formats, like Standard and Modern, which I think might actually be able to make a go at Legacy. For example, Mill Rogues is popular in Standard and Historic (on Arena). Could it be make to run in Legacy? We'll take a look at that. Fun fact, playing in a Legacy GP once with Burn, I got my face totally stomped in by someone running a Standard (at the time) Life Gain deck. 

Strange Brews: Well, just what the name says. If I find an interesting brew, or think up one of my own that actually seems functional, I'll post about it. Where the other categories contain decks which are more or less known quantities, these are most decidedly experimental, so I can't guarantee how well they'll run.

While it's true that none of the decks in this series are likely to get you to GP Top 8, they will still enable you to have hours of fun playing the greatest format in Magic.

Thanks for taking the time to read through this. I'm looking forward to exploring as many decks as I can, and hopefully getting some folks into the format who might never have thought to try it! 

On the Pioneer Trail

Since the release of Arena, Magic players have been clamoring for Modern, and even Legacy to be added to the platform. I disagreed, and still do. I think Wizards has sound reasons for not adding older, non-rotating formats, and calling for those formats to be added suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of Arena’s purpose as a platform - which is, and always has been primarily to enter the esports market. The Historic format was Wizards’ compromise, non-rotating format solution for allowing players to still have some value to their collections after rotation. They have even stated that a curated selection of older cards will be added to the format. Seemed like a reasonable offering.

Then Pioneer was announced, and everything changed.

The interest in Historic has been lackluster, right from the start. It’s not well supported by Wizards, and we haven’t even gotten our curated cards for it yet – granted, they’ve been delayed because more work was being done on sorely needed client optimization, and that was a great and necessary choice of prioritization on Wizards’ part. Nevertheless, I haven’t played a single Historic game on Arena, and I haven’t brewed a single deck. Until the new cards get added, it’s really just Standard Plus, which was old Extended, which was a dumpster fire of a format for good reasons. Remember how much you hated that Control/Combo/Aggro deck that just rotated? Well, guess what, now it’s not gone!

Compare to that, however, how Pioneer has been received. The Magic community at large is on fire for it. Multiple tabletop events were scheduled immediately, Pioneer communities sprang up overnight, card prices have skyrocketed, and even Star City Games has ditched Legacy as a regular part of their Tour circuit and replaced it with Pioneer. Moreover, Wizards is taking an active role in promoting and curating the format, to the point where they’re doing a banned announcement weekly.

In short, Pioneer is a runaway success. It is a better format than Historic by every conceivable metric, and Wizards would do well to ditch Historic at this point.

Adding Pioneer to Arena is much more doable than Modern. For starters, the card pool is substantially smaller. Modern includes cards starting with 8th Edition, which was released in July of 2003, that’s over 16 years ago. Pioneer, by comparison, starts with Return to Ravnica, which was released in October of 2012, just 6 years ago. That’s a total of 31 sets in Pioneer, compared to the 68 sets in Modern. Kaladesh and Amonkhet have already largely been coded for Arena, although they may take some updating and revision to bring them up to spec.

I’m not suggesting that Wizards dump all of Pioneer on Arena in a matter of weeks or months. Not only would that be prohibitively expensive and problematic in programming costs and challenges, but it’s not a financially responsible course of action from a revenue consideration. If they space it out a bit, then they’ll be able to run more events, and generate more revenue. I would suggest a three pronged approach to introducing the format.

First, sell the Challenger Decks on Arena – both sets that have been printed so far. There’s a reasonable foundation for the Arclight Phoenix deck in the most recent set, all of the decks in the first run were reasonably competitive, needing only a few upgrades to bring them up to a high competitive level, and they are composed of cards which have already been coded for Arena, many of which may be viable for Pioneer.

Second, run annual or biannual “Masters” drafts. Construct a draft set which contains around 4 decks which are performing well in Arena. Include all of the necessary cards to construct a competitive version of that particular deck. This will ensure getting the most important cards into Arena in a reasonable time frame.

Third, run regular “flashback” drafts, even if it’s only once a year. Start with Amonkhet/Hour of Devastation, and then move backward one or two sets a year, as might make sense from an available resource/programming perspective.

Even if it takes a while to get a sizable selection of the most important Pioneer decks onto Arena, that’s fine. MTGO ran for years with a very limited Legacy pool. That didn’t hurt the popularity or viability of the client. If you code it, they will come.

I know that Wizards has good financial reasons for prioritizing Standard and Limited on Arena, and I’ve defended those reasons in a previous blog post. But people aren’t going to abandon Standard play, just because you give them another option. It didn’t happen on MTGO, and it won’t happen in Arena. New players to the platform will still need to run Standard, at least for a while. New players to Magic through Arena will want to stick to Standard until they get up to speed. People playing in competitive events will focus on Standard for testing when it’s relevant, and Wizards has full control over formats in the Mythic Championships.

Limited play has always been a big part of Arena, and of Magic as a whole. Pioneer won't change that. It’s a great way to build a collection, and many people just enjoy it more, and actively will play it over any constructed format – although, Wizards needs, needs, NEEDS to get pvp drafting up and running. If Eldraine has taught us anything, it’s that some problems with the bot-draft solution can’t be solved. I love the set, but even with adjustments, ridiculous Mill decks are still quite easy to assemble, and we face them far, FAR too often. In the modern age of online play, bot drafts, and League-style drafts, Wizards can’t make Limited Mill strategies this effective or easy to assemble. But I digress...

If Wizards brings Pioneer to Arena, in the long run, it won’t hurt Standard Play. It will result in more people playing on Arena, and that benefits everyone.

Here kitty, kitty, kitty...

When I was a kid we had cats, because no one ever owns just one cat. We did have this one, though, that would assault the electric can opener every time you tried to use it, because it had been Pavloved into thinking that sound meant it was going to get fed. I could have been opening a can of paint, and the infernal monster would still be trying to stick its head in.

Cat Food may not be exactly Tier 1, but it amuses me endlessly, and I really enjoy playing it – so much so, that I’m brewing a Black Devotion deck for Pioneer that includes the Cat Food combo. I mean, I get to play with COMBO in STANDARD! Who doesn’t love that?

16 Swamp (ANA) 58

3 Midnight Reaper (GRN) 77

3 Priest of Forgotten Gods (RNA) 83

4 Gutterbones (RNA) 76

4 Knight of the Ebon Legion (M20) 105

3 Lazotep Reaver (WAR) 96

4 Footlight Fiend (RNA) 216

4 Witch's Oven (ELD) 237

4 Ayara, First of Locthwain (ELD) 75

4 Cauldron Familiar (ELD) 81

4 Murderous Rider (ELD) 97

4 Castle Locthwain (ELD) 241

2 Witch's Cottage (ELD) 249

1 Syr Konrad, the Grim (ELD) 107 

As is my wont, I’ve gone with basic Black. There are definitely merits to including Red – notably for Mayhem Devil, or White – notably for Cruel Celebrant. However, I really enjoy the smooth operation of a mono-colored build. Trying to run multiple colors in the current Standard meta also has the potential to greatly slow down your board development, as the majority of available dual lands enter tapped.

One great aspect of this deck is that it operates super low to the ground. You can do most of your set up before your opponent has counterspell mana available. It can easily recover from board wipes, and it doesn’t actually need to attack to win. Because of this, I’ve actually found the deck to have a decent match up against Oko/Food. You can also dodge some spot removal with your sac outlets, and occasionally goozle a Murderous Rider, sending it to the bin, instead of on an Adventure.

In your first turn or two, you typically want to play to maximize your combat damage. So if you have a Gutterbones and a Knight of the Ebon Legion in your opening hand, you’ll want to run out the Gutterbones first. After that, look to maximize your combo situations. A great turn 2 play is Priest of Forgotten Gods, because you’ll be able to run out 1-2 more creatures on turn 3, and sac them immediately for value, making your opponent sac a creature, and giving you more mana to develop your board further.

Keep an eye on synergistic plays. For example, the Knight of the Ebon Legion will get pumped off any type of damage done, as long as it amounts to at least 4, so it’s possible to trigger it just off combo damage, even if you don’t have a profitable attack with it.

Be very judicial with your use of Murderous Rider. There’s precious little removal in this deck, and you’re going to want to hold those up for threats which can get around or above your wall of chump blockers.

Don’t be shy with your Castle Locthwain activations, but be smart with them. If you’re going to activate it on your turn, consider doing it before your draw step, so you’ll have fewer cards in hand. Of course, be sure to play out everything you can before firing it off.

I’ve mostly been playing this in Bo1 ranked play, and it’s done fairly well there. I’m not sure at this time how I’d construct a sideboard. Duress and The Elder Spell would certainly be potential inclusions.

Thanks for hanging out. I hope you have a great time tossing cats at your opponents’ faces.

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. As always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod. 

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another. 

Building a Better Lucksack

Here’s the situation. Throne of Eldraine draft. I’m at 16 life, my opponent is at 7. They have one card in hand, I have none. On their side of the board, Redcap Rider, Raging Redcap, (each with enough +1/+1 counters to make them 4 power) and a Venerable Knight with Summoning Sickness. On my side, brave Syr Konrad, the Grim standing alone against the forces of evil, and four Food Tokens, that’s all. I have 7 mana available.

My opponent attacks with both Goblins.

I have a critical decision here. I could block with Konrad, hoping to trade with Redcap Rider. If they have On Alert (the Adventure half of Silverflame Squire), then I’ll lose Konrad, and they’ll keep their entire board. That would be disastrous for me. A quick calculation shows this attack is not for lethal damage (4 + 4 double strike = 12). If oppo has a pump spell it’ll be for either +2/+2 or +3/+0. Either way, the most they’ll add is 6 points, and I can snack some food in response and still not die.

So what do you do?

Magic is full of critical decision points like this. Are you the aggressor or the defender? What is the best way to use your limited resources? Go for the win this turn, or wait for more information? Learning to navigate these decisions is part of what’s going to really elevate your game. It can be very difficult to parse these situations. 

In this example, my chances of winning this game are very small. The best I can do is nudge them a little one way or another. My opponent has a clear advantage,  despite my substantial life total. If I trade Konrad off here – assuming that is successful – then I’m still taking a whopping amount of damage, and I’ll be playing entirely off the top of my deck. Knowing what removal is available to me here is also important, and I don’t think I have a copy of Bake Into A Pie left in my deck. Even if I do, there's a very small chance that I'll draw it, since there's only one or two copies total in my deck.  So at this point there’s very little I can do about the double striking Goblin, except continue to chump him. 

I choose to not block. My opponent casts no pump spells, and I fall to 4 life. Now is the second critical decision point. Do I snack food and gain 9 life, or do I activate Konrad and attempt do burn my opponent out? The difference here is between playing to win the game, or playing to not lose the game. It’s important to understand that taking the more offensive line is not always the correct decision. It can very much be the case that gaining the life will buy you the time to make one or two additional card draws, which is what you need to lock your opponent out.

In this situation, gaining the additional life felt like it was only prolonging the inevitable. Regardless of what the top of my deck produces, I would be in essentially the same position on their next turn. Slightly worse, actually, since I’d be going in at 13 life instead of 16, and with only 1 Food Token, instead of 4. I would be expending resources for no real gain. It would not improve my slim chances at victory, and I’d be priced into chumping the double-striker on their next attack, losing my Konrad for absolutely no value.

So I activate Konrad three times, and hit two creatures (including my Clackbridge Troll), putting them to 5 life. Go to my turn.

I top deck a Tempting Witch. This isn’t a particularly impactful card. I could cast it, and get another food token, but that’s not really going to leave me in a better place for their next attack. I’d have to chump with the Witch, and probably will still have to use Konrad to block the 4 power goblin. At this point, I am committed. I’m either going to win off Konrad, or lose, that’s just how it is.

I attack Konrad into their Knight. Why? Because they’re at 5 life, and when it’s reasonable, you should give your opponent the opportunity to screw up. They might have mis-clicked and failed to block. They might have lost track of their life total, or spaced on Konrad’s power. I realize that the chances of any of these are pretty small, but it’s a low risk attack since I can activate Konrad's ability at instant speed, and I wasn’t expecting to win that way in any case. They throw their knight in front of Konrad’s heroic assault, and then SURPRISE! On Alert! They had it after all. If I’d blocked with Konrad the turn before, I’d be completely sunk now.

Well, it’s do or die time. In response to the pump spell, I go for the win.

Activate Konrad once.

Two creatures hit the yard. Oppo goes to 3. 

Activate Konrad a second time.

One creature hits the yard. Oppo goes to 2.

This is it, I need to hit 2 creatures here, or I’ve lost the game.

Activate Konrad a third, and final time…..





















BAM! Got there! Two creatures hit the bin, oppo goes to 0, and Syr Konrad and I ride off into the sunset, victorious.

This brings me to what ultimately prompted this post. Some people will dismissively call me lucky here. You see it all the time, where someone rips a sweet top deck, and gets exactly what they need to win the game. Angry cries of “lucksack” echo across the land.

It’s true that variance broke in my direction this time. but the point here, and in most of these cases, is that I put myself in a position to benefit from that luck. If I had played to “not lose” then I would never have had enough mana to activate Konrad enough times to win. I would have drawn into essentially dead cards, and my chances to win that game would have gone from slim to none.

It’s also true that if my opponent had cast the pump spell on their double striker, I would have had to snack a food to not die, leaving me short on mana for the win. But I believe that they correctly assessed that they were in the winning position and didn’t need to overextend. Also, this particular pump spell untaps a creature, so if I’d drawn into a removal spell, it gave them a surprise blocker to protect against Konrad attacking back. Not going for those 4 extra points there seems like the correct line on their part.

There’s more to luck in Magic then just having variance break your way. Your turn by turn decisions through the game can put you in a position to benefit when things do go your way, and also to recover when they don’t. Variance is a huge part of this game. It keeps things fresh, different, and exciting. But it doesn’t eliminate the power and importance of your decisions.

Magic isn’t solved. Unlike some games, it’s not entirely luck, or entirely skill, but a blend of the two. In the end, your objective isn’t really to win. It’s to increase your odds of winning as much as possible.

I’m Tweeting now @23rdPlayable. As always, you can find me on Facebook in the MTG Arena Players group, where I’m a mod.

Have fun, Play on, and Be kind to one another.