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!