A friend of mine has been playing scrubby decks for a while, and I'd like to get him started on some decks with some real teeth. Unfortunately, though, his budget only goes up to roughly $75, and he's opposed to proxies- although i certainly would like to convince him otherwise. Regardless, what deck would you suggest? I've heard that GAT is playable on a budget, and of course there's Ichorid, although that's not really an option here, mainly because he doesn't want to be playing the same deck as me. It doesn't have to be a format breaking, super-powered deck- just something that can win him some matches on a fairly low budget.

Thanks!

Against most archetypes, those Tangle Wires, considering your manabase, will probably be fairly meaningless, and definitely inferior to Black Vise. Storm combo won't care, at all. Something like Flash can just play the two mana it needs to win. Ichorid might be concerned for a bit, although it really won't matter in the end- the most it could do would be tap a Bazaar for 1-2 turns, which isn't at all game-wrecking. The Vise is a lot better here, although it doesn't impact the combo matchup.

I've got to ask why you're not running Wasteland. It may not provide green mana, but it's a very strong tempo play and your best non-Leyline way to stop Ichorid.

What do you plan to do if your Dread Return gets hit by Extirpate? It doesn't really seem like you have to much of a response to it right now, since all of your disruption is sorcery-speed. Even with Duress and Therapy, there is always that chacne. A Krosan Reclamation and a Reanimate might help that, though.

Hi, I'm just getting back into Vintge after a decently long hiatus- I stopped right around the beginning of Ravniva- and I'm trying to build a deck. I've always loved Long, what with its quick wins and total unallowance of mistakes, and I found this budgeted version. Some of the picks seem dubious, particularly the Helm of Awakening, and it really doesn't have anything from the last few sets, so help would be appreciated.

By PipOC and ShadyPhoenix

// Lands
4  City of Brass
4  Gemstone Mine
1  Forbidden Orchard
1  Tolarian Academy

// Spells
1  Lotus Petal
1  Tendrils of Agony
1  Sol Ring
1  Grim Monolith
1  Lion's Eye Diamond
1  Chrome Mox
1  Mox Diamond
1 Mana Vault
1  Mana Crypt
1  Memory Jar
1  Demonic Tutor
4  Helm of Awakening
4  Chromatic Sphere
1  Mystical Tutor
1  Vampiric Tutor
1  Chain of Vapor
1  Burning Wish
4  Death Wish
1  Wheel of Fortune
1  Tinker
1  Mind's Desire
4  Duress
2  Cabal Therapy
1  Necropotence
1  Yawgmoth's Bargain
1  Demonic Consultation
4  Brainstorm
4  Dark Ritual
3  Cabal Ritual

// Sideboard
SB: 1  Tendrils of Agony
SB: 1  Yawgmoth's Will
SB: 1  Ill-Gotten Gains
SB: 1  Hull Breach
SB: 1  Oxidize
SB: 1  Balance
SB: 4  Xantid Swarm
SB: 1  Regrowth
SB: 1  Diminishing Returns
SB: 1  Windfall
SB: 1  Rebuild
SB: 1  Hurkyl's Recall

Of course, I was also thinking about running Ichorid with proxied Bazaars, but I don't know how good that would be on this kind of budget. Still, it is an option.

Thanks!

So you know, Bayou isn't a basic land. Otherwise, however, the combo could work, but you may want to consider the Angry Ghoul approach, which uses [card]Sutured Ghoul[/card], several large creatures, a reanimation spell and [card]Dragon Breath[/card] to create a massive creature with haste and trample and swing for the wind. As it stands, your combo simply takes up too much space in the deck, space that could be better used for more disruption, tutoring and acceleration. Also, why the Mesmeric Fiends instead of Duresses?

A player looses when they have to draw a card, but are unable to. If it were the case that you automatically lost when ou had no library, cards like Leveler would be completely and utterly pointless.

I'd think that either Iridescent Angel or Pristine Angel would work much better than Morphling, as neither of the angels require mana to activate their abilites.

Rome: Total War.

Pros: Everybody loves taking over Europe with through diplomacy and massive battles. Plus crippling amounts of replay value.
Cons: Can be slightly confusing, but that's about it.

Best Modern Guitar Player: Dave Navarro (Jane's Addiction)

In a few months, I'll be moving to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and I was wondering if there were any TMDers/ type 1 tournaments in the area.

Any other Industrial fans out there? If so, what are your favorite bands/albums, and why?

Personally, I love Skinny Puppy, Ministry, and Foetus. Each of them makes inventive, abrasive (not always), and overall good music.

Since you're running Accumulated Knowledge, why not Intuition? Without Intuition, AK is a slow, inconsistent draw engine that can even help your opponent if they're playing AK as well. Personally, I think that Skeletal Scrying would work much better, considering that you get just as many or more cards for less mana, and your opponent can't benefit from it.

Also, why Mox Diamond/Lotus Petal/Chrome Mox? Is it so that you can drop a first-turn Oath? If so, I'd think that those slots would be better utilized as Wastelands, as a first-turn Oath is usually only good with Forbidden Orchard, and that's not exactly reliabe.

Anyway, good luck with the deck!

To get the second animate, you Bazaar your library into your graveyard, float a lot of mana with Dragon, then have the animate target Eternal Witness, returning an animate to your hand with her ability.

I agree with Slay. Considering that Spoils can easily remove combo pieces, running just 1 combo win condition could have serious problems. I'd say drop a Sunering Titan from the maindeck and put an Ambassador in its place.

Unfortunately, I have little playtesting experience with this deck. However, I have done some testing against Oath, and your main plan is to race them. Xantid Swarms do wonders in the matchup, even if they do help the Oath itself. Your main cards in this matchup are Duplicant, Xantid, Sundering Titan and, at times, Platinum Angel. As long as you can get an engine going, which is difficult with their counters and Stip/Wastes, you have a good chance of winning.

Genesis may be slow, but the matchups it's best in are against control, which can last quite a while. Plus, I'd rather be able to recur countered creatures than just loose to them.

Actually, you are incorrect in saying that I have no protection against counters. The deck runs four Xantid Swarms maindeck, as well as Genesis to recur countered Welders. There are even four Defense Grids sideboard.

However, you are right about the vulnerability to graveyard hate and spot removal. Getting Welder removed from the game hurts; that's why I'm considering Sylvan Safekeeper sideboard. As for the graveyard hate, you really can't do much against it. However, since you run both Bazaar and Survival as engines, you aren't completely wrecked if one of either is destroyed.

As for the combo matchup, I realize that this deck can't do much. Sphere of RResistance is mainly there to stall until you can do something more substantial, but combo can often get rid of it. Hence the sideboard slots for Pyrostatic Pillar or Null Rod. However, a solution that may work could be Root Maze, considering that 8 of my mana sources are completely unaffected by it and the deck only runs four fetches.

Also, much of my ideas for this deck came from Cerebral Assassin, and I have looked thoroughly through the thread.

Earlier this year, there was a thread about a TnT-esque deck that opperated off the philosophy that eliminating Mishra's Workshop would smooth out the deck's mana base and improve it in general. Towards the end of the discussion, some builds with Bazaar of Baghdad, which is an amazing inclusion to the deck, were showing up. Without further ado, my decklist:

Shopless Survival: Slightly Revised
Mana Sources:
2 Mountain
4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Birds of Paradise
Cards that win/allow you to win:
4 Goblin Welder
1 Shield Sphere
1 Platinum Angel
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
Disruption:
1 Viridian Zealot
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Genesis
The engine:
1 Anger
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Survival of the Fittest

First, for some card choices:
Bazaar of Baghdad/Survival of the Fittest/Goblin Welder: These cards are integral to the deck. Without these, this deck would be impossible.

Squee: Fairly straightforward. He provides card advantage with both Bazaar and Survival, and is an auto-include as such.

Sphere of Resistance: This card helps your combo matchup, while simply slowing your opponent down and upping the artifact count.

Xantid Swarm: This, obviously, is for the control matchup. As a small bonus, it's also pitchable to Survival.

Viridian Zealot: This destroys both artifacts and enchantments, is usable the turn it comes into play, and is recurrable with Genesis. At this point, I find it to be a very useful answer.

Genesis: This card recurs many of your utility creatures, most importantly Goblin Welder, as the deck relies on it. Genesis also recurs Xantids when they get countered, and can act as an expensive Squee in dire situations.

Anger: It makes your Welders come on line a turn earlier, essentially makes Birds of Paradise free, and just speeds the deck up in general.

Duplicant: This card is mainly for destroying random creatures, especially Oath's. However, I may just end up replacing this with another Triskelion and putting it on the sideboard.

Triskelion: This card is simply useful, destroying oppsing Welders and other numerous threats.

Sundering Titan: This card is very powerful, as a 7/10 that annhilates mana bases is nothing to scough at. However, it will end up destroying some of your lands and isn't as powerful today as it once was.

Platinum Angel: This is here mainly to shore up your combo matchup, which is very lacking.

Shield Sphere: Obviously, this is simply in the deck as tutorable Welder-fodder. With Genesis recursion, this card can allow you to make better use of Welder than would have been made otherwise.

Birds of Paradise: They provide fast mana, and can be pitched to Survival. However, although they are useful, I often find them to be lacking.

Elvish Spirit Guide: Once again, a card that provides fast mana and is pitchable to Survival. However, this has the advantage of not having summoning sickness, not being a spell, and not requiring a mana investment.

Darksteel Citadel: Obviously, this is nothing but Welder fodder. I chose this over other artifact lands due to it's indestructibility, which comes in useful in many situations.

Here's my sideboard. Currently, it's quite variable, but one thing that has to be concentrated on is combo.
4 Tormod's Crypt
4 Null Rod/ Pyrostatic Pillar (I don't know which yet)
4 Tormod's Crypt
1 Platinum Angel
1 Triskelion
1 Pentavus/ Sylvan Safekeeper (Once again, I don't know which)

Anyway, critism is welcome, as long as it has grounding. Thank you, in advance, for your help.

Unfortunately, traditional TnT decks aren't exactly viable anymore, primarily due to metagame shifts and the recent restriction of Trinisphere. However, if you're looking for something similar to TnT, you could try a Type 1 variant of Welder-Survival. Here's a list I've been working on. It's five proxy, so it doesn't run power, but it does have decent matchups.

2 Mountain
4 Forest
4 Taiga
4 Wooded Foothills
2 Darksteel Citadel
4 Elvish Spirit Guide
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
4 Birds of Paradise
4 Goblin Welder
1 Viridian Zealot
1 Shield Sphere
1 Platinum Angel
2 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
1 Duplicant
4 Sphere of Resistance
4 Xantid Swarm
1 Genesis
1 Anger
4 Squee, Goblin Nabob
4 Bazaar of Baghdad
4 Survival of the Fittest

As you can see, this is a Survival deck rather then a Workshop/Survival deck. It has some disadvantages over TnT, such as it's lower artifact count, but it has much more draw, faster access to green mana for Survival, and it's five proxy.
Some questionable choices-
Sphere of Resistance- Ups the artifact count, helps the game against combo, and doesn't affect you that much.
Xantid Swarm- Protection against control, both pitchable and tutorable with Survival, and is recurable with Genesis.
Genesis- Recurs Welders, Xantids, Viridian Zealot, and any other creature you may need to use. It can even be used as an expensive Squee in a pinch.
Birds of Paradise- Provides decent mana acceleration, pitchable to Survival.
Viridian Zealot- Destorys both artifacts and enchantments, can be used the turn it comes into play, recurable with Genesis.
Darksteel Citadel- Ups artifact count, indestructible.
Shield Sphere- Primarily used in situations where you have Survival but no artifacts in play.

I hope this helps, and good luck finding the deck you're looking for!

Covetous: I like your list. Disrupting Shoal hadn't occured to me. Also, you're right about Bazaar; it was mainly in the list as another discard outlet, and that's not really necessary.

Garlick: If you live in an area where proxies aren't alowed, this is not the deck for you. The artifact count would be too low to support the rest of the deck.

Although you do bring up some good ideas, such as replacing Bazaars with AKs (I'll test this later to see how it works), running the single mountain wouldn't do much good, considering that I use blue fetches. The Crucible/Strip Mine lock could work, and could make Intuition even more game breaking. However, I don't much like the idea of replacing one Titan with a Mindslaver, primarily because the lower artifact count of this deck prevents from re-using Mindslaver to it's full potential. By the way, what would you plan on cutting for Strip Mine? And what do you mean "add the Darksteel Citadel"? I don't see much of a benefit in running just one. Furthermore, I still don't like the idea of cutting Gamble; the deck just looses consistency without it.

Cutting the Bazaars take care of that, since the use of moxen allows for the cutting of artifact lands. Regardless, I agree with you that adding black would strain the fragile mana base.

Covetous: I like your list. You bring up a lot of good ideas, like replacing the Bazaars with moxen. However, I'm a little skeptical about the black splash. Black adds only four cards to the maindeck and, although those cards are incredibly powerful, they force you to cut Gamble, which I have found to be very important to the deck. This deck is more of a combo deck than anything else, focusing on getting a Welder in play and welding in some gamebreaking artifact. Your build seems to be more focused on a control aspect.

Against Fish. this deck could have problems. However, Fish is hardly as prevalent as it used to be, and getting a Titan, Platinum Angel, or Pentavus in play would probably be game.

As for the Bazaars, I was possibly thinking of replacing them with more disruption; Cunning Wish, most likely. However, Lightning Greaves could work. The noly problem with it is that it's dead until you Weld something into play, but that's usually game anyway.

The idea for the following deck, although very Slaver-based, was originally an alteration of one of the Green/Red Survival-Welder decks here a few months ago. However, the Survival-Welder builds had problems- without Survival in play, you lost. Against combo, you lost. Against counters, you lost. But there were a few advantages: for one, the deck was very, very cheap to build. Also, once it got it's engine going, it just won. Looking at recent Goth and Workshop Slaver lists, I realized that running blue instead of green shored up most all of the deck's problems, and still allowed it to retain a budget price tag. Without further ado, the decklist:

Welder-Intuition (Or budget Quasi-Slaver)
//Mana
4 Polluted Delta
1 Flooded Strand
4 Volcanic Island
1 Island
2 Ancient Tomb
3 Seat of the Synod
3 Great Furnace
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus (Proxy)
//Disruption
4 Mana Leak
4 Force of Will
//Weldable Fat
1 Pentavus
1 Triskelion
1 Platinum Angel
2 Sundering Titan
1 Mindslaver
//Search/Draw/Discard
4 Bazaar of Baghdad (Proxy)
4 Brainstorm
4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Gamble
1 Tinker
4 Intuition
//The winner
4 Goblin Welder

Card choices (Besides the obvious):
Mana Leak: Due to the fact that you need to resolve Welder in order to win, the deck needed more disruption than just FOW. For now, Mana Leak seems to be the best disruption here, considering it's cost and it's effectiveness.
Seat of the Synod/Great Furnace: The deck needed low cc artifacts besides Lotus, Sol Ring and Mana Crypt, and these seemed to work best. As a small bonus, they're immune to Titan.
Ancient Tomb: It's simply an effective way to speed up the deck slightly, usually for Intuition and Thirst for Knowledge.
Bazaar of Baghdad: This is mainly used as another discard outlet, but I'm close to cutting it considering all of the discard outlets already in the deck.
Gamble: A cheap, effective way to get whatever card you may need. However, the random discard can be a blessing or a curse. I was using Gifts Ungiven in this spot, but I decided that it was to slow in the end.
Intuition: It's the main method for getting fat into the graveyard. Usually cast by turn 2 or 3, it's gamebreaking,

Thank you for your help.

Considering all of this decks weaknesses, 4 Duress simply doesn't seem like adequate disruption. A control deck may well be able to draw into two disruptive cards, and then there's always the omnipresent Trinisphere from Workshop decks. Even other combo decks have more disruption than you. The decks succeptability to disruption, I think, is it's biggest weakness, and one that needs to be shored up.

You may have extra creatures, but these creatures require mana to animate every time that you want to use them. Also, adding so many "comes into play tapped" lands would slow your deck down immensly- that's the main reason that many Fish builds are using less Faerie Conclaves.

You say shopless, yet you have a Shop in the sideboard as a target for your lone Living Wish. Besides that, how can you hope to win if Survival or Welder gets countered? Other builds ran Eternal Witness for that very reason. Also, you have no card drawing and only 1 tutor. Considering that, it would seem that your late game would be very weak. Furthermore, why on Earth do yo run 2 Squees? The only time that you'd be able to use Squee would be with Survival, and then there would be no reson to have more than one. Also, why don't you have Sundering Titan, Platinum Angel, Duplicant or Triskelion maindeck or sideboard? The only reason not to run Workshop in TnT would be opening up more green mana to use Survival to get them in play. Finally, why the Basking Rootwallas? Wouldn't those slots work better with something like Eternal Witnesses or Sundering Titan, Platinum Angel, Duplicant or Triskelion?

What do you mean by Crucible of the Void? Do you mean Crucible or Chalice?

[card]Tainted Pact[/card]

Although it has been used a bit, I'm surprised that no one has managed to make effective use of it. It's, to me, like a more reliable Spoils/Consultation.

BTW, Sytupal, don't be hypocritical.

[card]Gamble[/card]

At one mana, this is essentially red's Demonic Tutor. The discard can be avoided, to an extent, by running this in a welder deck. Plus, they're cheap.

EDIT: Forgot to use the [card] tag.