Magic: The Gathering,GO TEAM MS!

[InflatablePie]

Spoiler: Orzhov Champion

Tajic smiled as if expecting Teysa's request all along. "You want me to help you run the maze and steal the prize from the insatiable claws of Niv-Mizzet? My pleasure."

"No," Teysa said. "I want you to help me destroy the Obzedat."

Spoiler: Gatekeepers

[Shanba]

There are a couple of "top tier" pauper decks, namely stompy and affinity that cost I'd guess around 40 or so tix each - more for affinity if you shell out for sideboard cards like gorilla shaman, hydroblast and pyroblast. Both of those are super competitive and dont cost an arm and a leg. Slightly less competitive but still winning a lot of events is the goblins deck which has been undergoing a resurgence lately.

I have a few standard bearers you could borrow, but honestly they're sideboard cards almost exclusively for the stompy matchup these days, since infect got banned out, and that matchup is already pretty decent for WW, so you can get by without them. The issue with WW is a mediocre matchup against a lot of the rest of the field, particularly post decks and temporal fissure decks. If you're trying to pick up standard bearers yourself they actually go for quite a lot. Must be from a set that hasn't been drafted much online or something, I guess.

120+ tix for a deck means you're playing mono blue, and not just mono-blue but the most expensive version of mono blue you can find with multiple dazes, cloud of faeries etc. Of the expensive cards in the deck, only cloud of faeries is an auto include. I honestly think daze is pretty poorly positioned and wouldnt be running it in my delver deck, but that's personal preference.


Orzhov guild champion seems overcosted to my admittedly untrained eye.

[InflatablePie]

Yeah, she does. Most of the guild champs seem to be for EDH. Also:

Spoiler: Rakdos Champion

Spoiler: Azorius Champion

[xRECKONERx]

The Rakdos champion seems just about right (though I'm not sure how useful the counters-have-haste ability will be on T4).

@Shanba: White Weenies just seemed like an easy enough entry point. Though, now that I'm looking around, I'm seeing that it's a pain in the ass to play. The daily events still cost 6tix, and if I'm just gonna get stomped by expensive pauper decks (lol) then screw it. I wish there was a way to play MTGO at a low price point without having to spend tons of tickets and still get a shot at winning prizes.

[InflatablePie]

t5 splatter thug, unleash, swing 7+ with two first strike

I can see it being okay in RB aggro, especially after rotation when we lose Aristocrat and Hellrider.

[xRECKONERx]

"swing 7+ with first strike" on Turn 5 in a redsmash deck really isn't incredible though

[hasdgfas]

I was hoping for a better UW commander for EDH than that for my guild EDH project. Might have to use Isperia

[Fate]

dat anti rdw champion

[UberNinja]

Those are some badass pictures on those cards.

[InflatablePie]

"swing 7+ with first strike" on Turn 5 in a redsmash deck really isn't incredible though

Random example:
t1 cackler, t2 chainwalker (2 damage), t3 thug (5), t4 rakdos champ (12), t5 thug and chainwalker (18)

Not factoring removal, obv.

[Thestatusquo]

it's not that you will "get stomped by more expensive decks," it's just that WW is very very bad. There are plenty of decks you could have made that are quite good in the same price range. You just happened to choose a shitty one.

[xRECKONERx]

Such as? I'm new to this format, enlighten me.

[Thestatusquo]

Stompy and affinity both seem like solid choices to me, and they wouldn't break the bank. I don't think you're going to find a deck for under 10 tix that is competitive, but if you're willing to jump up to like 30-40 tix which isn't really a lot, there are a whole lot of good options. Mono Black control is also viable and not that expensive.

[xRECKONERx]

Hmm. I mean, couldn't I just build Standard RDW for like the same price? XD

I'll check out Stompy & Affinity. See if I can't dump some old commons/uncommons/shit rares for more tix somewhere.

[Shanba]

If you really want a cheap deck, affinity's core is a lot cheaper than stompy's core - the money cards in affinity are the hydroblast and pyroblasts in the sideboard which aren't strictly speaking necessary (and checking results, there are plenty of affinity decks that have 4-0ed and 3-1ed without these cards.) Stompy's core, on the other hand, is the expensive part - the money cards (quirion ranger and nettle sentinel, thank you legacy elves) are both vital to the functioning of the deck and a version without them would be significantly weaker.

In other words, if you want a true budget deck, affinity is probably the way to go, and it would run at something like 90-95% of the pimped out version for roughly a third or less of the cost. The pimped out affinity and pimped out stompy would be roughly the same price, but budget affinity is much cheaper.

Word of warning - there are card selling bots out there that market themselves as "pauper" bots - these things, by and large, engage in massive price gouging and should be avoided (particularly PorkysPauper I think its called).

Also I'd be surprised if you can get a standard deck, even mono red, for less than 100 tix. The very budgetest of standard decks brushes up against the most expensive of pauper decks in price range.

[Sudo_Nym]

You can build cheap mono red, assuming you don't want hellrider or ash zealot or thundermaw.

[Thestatusquo]

Well, you can build cheap anything, provided you don't want any of the good cards...

The thing is that a budget (read: without blast) affinity deck is perfectly capable of 4-0ing a daily event. A budget mono red standard deck is probably not.

I forgot about the nettle sentinals... Poop.

[Thestatusquo]

Shanba, I've encountered those pauper bots before, and they're miserable. Actually, finding a good place to find pauper stuff is pretty miserable in general. Can you recommend some bots?

[bv310]

I've found MTGOCardSelling and the ManaBot sets to be pretty good price-wise, especially on older stuff.

[Klazam]

I was hoping for a better UW commander for EDH than that for my guild EDH project. Might have to use Isperia

Rasputin Dreamweaver in a blink style deck. SO GOOD

Related: THAT CHAMPION GOES IN THAT DECK. lolol. Perma-detain EVERYTHING FOREVER

[Sudo_Nym]

It's probably been mentioned before, but if you want to build a good budget deck, you start from the bottom, not the top. You build a deck that runs on cheap card, not start with a top deck and cut expensive stuff. You can't say "I'm building budget UW, so take a list and cut Snapcaster and Geist." That just gives you a clunky mess. You start by choosing a deck that doesn't need the expensive cards in the first place.

[Thestatusquo]

That is the smartest thing that has been said in the entirety of the thread. Pretty sure. The reason why affinity is a good budget deck is that all the expensive cards are just tangential to its main strategy. they're sb cards that you can find matchup specific replacements to.

[hasdgfas]

I was hoping for a better UW commander for EDH than that for my guild EDH project. Might have to use Isperia

Rasputin Dreamweaver in a blink style deck. SO GOOD

Related: THAT CHAMPION GOES IN THAT DECK. lolol. Perma-detain EVERYTHING FOREVER

Nope. It's a

guild

EDH project, not a project to build EDH decks in the guild colors.

[Nuwen]

scumhaus, can I borrow a pair of syncopates tonight?

[xRECKONERx]

if you can find them scattered between brock & gammas car sure