The Roscoe...On a budget

[Zeke]

Alright, let me explain first the reasoning behind building this deck.

I recently moved to the Panhandle of Florida, so instead of having wonderful 10-proxy tournaments every sunday...I am now left with *shudder* Sanctioned Type 1 tournaments.  This wouldn't be so bad, except for the fact that I am currently lacking the funds to get Power, Drains, and/or Workshops.  Therefor, I have to work with what I possess, which is pretty much everything else (duals, FoW, Welders, Artifact goodness...)

I also know that I don't have to deal with other people with power, or high-quality decks for that matter.  For example, I know a person who is playing Cognivore Oath, and a person running the High Tide - Palinchrone combo.

Working off what I know I posses (or can easily get) I brainstormed on a "budget" version of The Roscoe.

For reference, here is a list of Roscoe (at least, the list that I ran with proxies that I grew to know and love).

latinum Angel
1 Sundering Titan
1 Triskelion
4 Goblin Welder
4 Su-Chi

1 Crucible of Worlds
1 Mindslaver
1 Memory jar

4 thirst for Knowledge
1 Ancestral Recall
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker
1 Mystical Tutor
4 Brainstorm
2 Fire/Ice

1 Grim Monolith
1 Mox Ruby
1 Mox Emerald
1 Mox Jet
1 Mox Saphire
1 Mana Crypt
1 Black Lotus
1 Sol Ring
1 Manavault
2 Gilded Lotus

4 Volcanic Island
3 Island
1 Mountain
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Strip Mine
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Mishra's Workshop
3 Flooded Strand

Bolded are the "power cards" that I don't posses, or have a way of getting.  Taking these losses into account, here is my first version of Budget Roscoe

Cleveland Steamer V.1 (name pending)

4 Su-Chi
2 Triskelion
1 Sundering Titan
1 Platinum Angel
1 Pentavus

2 Goblin Welder
4 Transmute Artifact
1 Tinker

4 Thirst for Knowledge
4 Brainstorm
1 Yawgmoth's Will

1 Demonic Tutor
1 Crucible of the Worlds
1 Memory Jar
1 Jester's Cap

4 Dark Ritual
1 Lotus Petal
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Mana Crypt
3 Gilded Lotus
4 Ancient Tomb
3 Volcanic Island
3 Underground Sea
1 Tolarian Academy
3 Polluted Delta
3 Island
1 Swamp
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Stripmine

I wanted to go for a more straight artifact-beatdown route with the deck, hence the added number of creatures.  I really really have fallen in love with Triskelion, which is why it gets the nod over other creatures to increase the count of.  Platinum Angel is a given, as is Sundering Titan, though he does have a higher risk of blowing up more lands since I am running a third color.  The Pentavus has been added to at least give me some fodder to use with my Goblin Welder, seeing as how I don't have a vomit of Mox to use at my disposal anymore.

The reduced Goblin Welder amount is solely because I don't except a lot of artifact hate, plus the fact that I can't abuse it as easily with the budget concerns. 

The next thing to address is the addition of black.  Since I don't have an abundant amount of Moxen nor Mishra's Workshop to use to my full advantage, I decided to try out the one-shot Workshop that is Dark Ritual.  Ideally, a turn 1 land, turn 2 land + dark rit -> Su-Chi, which will allow for me to use Su-Chi.  After adding in Black, the next obvious two cards would obviously be Yawgmoth's Win, as well as Demonic Tutor (to replace the Mystical Tutor that I originally had.

The Jester's Cap may seem random, but I don't know if there is any combo in the meta, plus if I can get it out quickly against Oath it seems like it would be easy to win. 

The mana base is the only thing I am really shaky on.  I wanted to make sure I got plenty of colored mana, and I didn't want to be totally screwed against Wasteland.dec(s), since I am not completely sure what is going to be played at any of the tournaments.  I was able to retain my 4 basic lands from the original list, and Ancient Tomb can hopefully help out where Mishra's Workshop used to be.

Any comments, suggestions, and questions are appreciated.

Thanks,
Zeke

[NWI Team_Zilla]

I think my first question is why didn't you keep the Mindslaver in the Deck?  It seems to me, that since you're playing in a budget environment, you should keep the Mindslaver in.  With the Transmute Artifact/Su-Chi, you should be able to get it out there fairly quickly.  Most budget decks that have been mindslaved, have almost no way of recovering, because they can't draw the broken stuff that a powered equivalent would be able to.
Also, have you thought about adding Duress to the MD, something like 2 or 3? I figure that you have some troubles with control decks, even budget ones.
And you may want to move this thread to the newbie forum before the admin does, they usually don't like budget decks in here for some reason... Just some suggestions.

[Zeke]

After doing some preliminary testing, I've discovered that the loss of Mishra's Workshop only hurts the speed because of the loss of an easier turn 1 Su-Chi.  Unless I had Workshop + Mox Sapphire, it would be turn 3 Until I would get a chance to Transmute.

However, with my current mana set-up...I can get a turn 2 Su-Chi with...

2 lands + Dark Ritual
2 Lands + Sol Ring
2 Lands + Mana Crypt
1 Land + Mana Vault
Ancient Tomb + Sol Ring
Ancient Tomb + Mana Crypt (Turn 1!)
Land + Lotus Petal + Dark Ritual

As well as getting the turn 2 suchi turn 3 transmute...

Turn 1 Land, turn 2 Ancient Tomb + Dark Rit -> Gilded Lotus
Turn 1 Land, Sol Ringl.  Turn 2 Dark rit -> Gilded Lotus.

Both of these plays pretty much assure that I'll have enough mana for the rest of game (barring removal).

The only problem I have run into so far is the 20 counterspell.dec BBS ripoff that someone is playing.  Since I don't have the explosiveness that the Moxen provide me outside of the Suchi Combo (Lotus + Shop -> Triskelion), I can't sneak things in under countermagic (though, if I am on the play, turn 2 Su-Chi could go all the way since he doesn't run FoW, yay budget to the extreme!).  Therefore, defense grid is definately going to be in the sideboard.  It can come out with...

turn 1:
Ancient Tomb
Land + Sol Ring
Mana Crypt
Land + Mana Vault/Dark Ritual (I'll take a mana burn to stop his entire deck).

Turn 2 is just obvious, and if I am first on the play, I can drop it before they get counter mana open, outside of a random Daze/Force Spike or a Lotus Petal or something.