As of January 1st budget Long.dec ceases to exist. Being ...

[Necrologia]

As of January 1st budget Long.dec ceases to exist. Being a combo player at heart, I'm not exactly overjoyed with what happened, but so it goes; the gravy train wasn't going to last forever.

My main question is what's the best budget combo deck today? Would it be Bazaar-less Dragon, or a U/B Trix build, perhaps with a Red splash.

U/B Trix is faily redundant thanks to Spoils of the Vault and nearly impossible to hate out. The Red splash gives it amazing SB options as well, but makes it more vulnerable to Wasteland which might hurt it in the control matchup.

Dragon is the other option for budget combo, but I don't know much about it. I've seen some mono B builds with Jalum Tomb floating around, as well as some U/B builds with Intuition. I guess what I'd like to know is what are the strengths and weakness of each build, and how they stack up against Trix. Thoughts anyone?

[bebe]

Budget Dragon just is too slow without Bazaars. This is non-negotiable despite the frequent lists appearing without them.
Rector/Trix suffers without Moxen. It also can be problematic. Unfortunately, combo decks rely on speed tobe successfull. Granting your opponent an extra two turns can be fatal.
If I was to play a combo deck without power or bazaars, I would seriously investigate Hermit Druid builds of Sutured Ghoul. These are quite capable of third turn kills and sometimes turn two kills.
The other option is to play a deck with more control elements that can stave off other combo and at least compete with control until you have the pieces for their own combo win. These decks can have a difficult time with WMud and Stax but fare better against Dragon, aggro and control.\n\n

[Crater Hellion]

Trix is unbelievable with 4 spoils, I can say that from testing. However, my list also sported multiple Chrome Moxen.. but I trust it will still be a quality deck.

[IdiotSavant]

I'm working on a budget black/green right now, its NOT funk.  If it works I will let you know with a build... Gimme time to test.

[Necrologia]

Quote Budget Dragon just is too slow without Bazaars. This is non-negotiable despite the frequent lists appearing without them.

That was the feel I got from my extremely limited play with Dragon. I thought I might have just been too used to Long, however. I suppose I can always cash in some of my power for a playset of Bazaars. With my luck though they'll be restricted come March.

Quote Rector/Trix suffers without Moxen. It also can be problematic. Unfortunately, combo decks rely on speed to be successful. Granting your opponent an extra two turns can be fatal.

I'm well aware that Rector Trix struggles without Power. Being able to pull the Bargain and win in the same turn is what made the deck such a threat. When I said Trix though, I meant Spoils Trix rather than Rector, hence U/B, and not U/B/w. There's a list for it in the Budget Player's Gauntlet.

I suppose what I'm left with now is partially powered U/B Trix or Dragon with Bazaars. Looks like Wednesday's gonna be time for some serious play testing.

[BreathWeapon]

Dragon has the biggest Bull's Eye possible on its head right now, a budget version is just begging to be slaughtered.

If I had to play a combo deck in Proxy five, Spoils Mask seems like the way to go ... I think its combo  

U/B Spoils Trix, its a solid budget deck that has all sorts of random mana accelerants to abuse. I might even try Elvish Spirit Guide. It dodges a lot of hate for a combo deck.

[thefram]

If i had to choose a combo deck i would play TPS. in a 5 proxy environment you could get away with it on a budget, though it would be kinda hard.

The thing about TPS is that its basically the resticted list and 4 rituals 4 forces and 4 brainstorms. It has no GY based engine really other than will, never ran LED, only runs 1 burning wish for conditional draw 7's and sb hate, and is still very fast.

So its not effected by dragon hate, nor is it effected by restrictions.

If you proxy TPS you need the following (non budget) cards

4-5 Moxen
Lotus
1 ancestral
1 timetwister

so if you can borrow 2-3 of these, or build a list omitting 3 moxen or something of the like, you can play TPS in 5 proxy.

[BreathWeapon]

Does anyone have an updated TPS list sitting around? I imagine people are going to be pulling it out of their arse now that the metagame can fully focus on Dragon.

[Desert Fox]

I used to play Diceman's "Speed Build" of Dragon unpowered and still managed to get turn 2 kills fairly regularly. This was before the restriction of Entomb, but I still feel you can make a speedy unpowered Dragon.

Now will be easily taken out by hate? Probably. Boarding Verdant Force helps me out in games two and three, though.

You might also want to note I play in a relatively unpowered metagame with no proxies, so it's a bit easier for me.

[Necrologia]

I too would like to see an up to date TPS listing. For all I've heard about it I haven't seen a deck list in ages.

I am partially powered by the way. No proxies around here but I've got Twister, and some Moxen. The reason I asked for budget listings is that it's easier to add power to decks than take it out, and I'd also like to help Centroles update his Budget deck gauntlet.

Between PMs and some scrounging in the Tourney report forum I've got a few different decks I want to try out now. Thanks for all the help.

[centroles]

Thanks for the offer Necrologia, I would certainly appreciate help updating the lists before Jan 1 rolls around. I'm currently considering just replacing the three missing chrome mox with elvish spirit guide and possibly mox diamond in budget trix and all other decks that use the card.

I'll probably remove the budget madness and long builds completely from the thread though as I see little chance of a budget build that lost both lion's eye diamond and chrome mox being viable in any form.