Unrestricted Tinker-> Colossus deck

[Skankhair]

I made this deck because I wanted a "powerful" deck, but didn't want to spend the money for 4cC or something like that. I thought the best way to make a powerful deck for cheap would be to use multiple copies of the cheaper restricted cards. Plus, none of my playgroups care about B/R lists in casual. We are limited by our budgets, so we won't see any old Academy popping up, and since it's casual we can sort of "temp-ban" a deck from a matchup if it's too good (i.e. we only use decks that are about as good as each other to keep things fun).

I know FCG and Fish are cheap to make and are probably better than this deck but I already have a Gobvantage deck (not as good as FCG, but it's similar enough that I don't want to make FCG) and I have a very crappy version of Fish already. I just wanted something different and I really like the idea of this deck.

Anyways, here it is:

Color: White/Black/Blue
Theme: Tinker/Colossus
Cards: 60 (20 are land)

Land (20):
Tolarian Academy
Tundra (2)
Underground Sea (2)
Ancient Den (3)
Vault of Whispers (3)
Seat of the Synod (3)
Polluted Delta (3)
Flooded Strand (3)

Creatures (3):
Darksteel Colossus (2)
Platinum Angel

Other Spells (37):
Swords to Plowshares (3)
Enlightened Tutor (2)
Balance
Demonic Tutor (4)
Diabolic Edict (2)
Tinker (4)
Force of Will (3)
Brainstorm (3)
Impulse (3)
Mystical Tutor (3)
Counterspell (2)
Echoing Truth
Chill
Isochron Scepter
Black Vise
Lightning Greaves
Null Rod
Sol Ring

Some card choice explanations:

Chill- I play against a lot of Sligh

Null Rod- I play against a TON of Raffinity

Lightning Greaves- As protection against control. I play the Greaves ASAP and then wait until I can win a counter war with Tutor'd FoWs before I Tinker. Then they are countered-out or tapped out, I play Tinker and out the Greaves on the Colossus so I get to attack a turn early and protect him from bounce.

Platinum Angel- To protect me from combo decks that don't run any creature removal. And of course the Greaves can help protect as well.

Echoing Truth- To deal with decks that make a ton of (or infinite) tokens.

I know this deck isn't anything like 4cC nor near as good, but I wanted that same kind of theme. Lots of tutoring power and a lot of silver bullets. I don't like to use sideboards, which is why some SB type cards are MD'd.

I'm willing to add a piece of Power of two it. The deck needs more speed, so would some on-color Moxen and a Black Lotus be the best? Or should Acestral Recall be the first Power I buy and then worry about the acceleration later?

So what Power cards should I get first? Do you think I need Mana Drain? I know how great it is, but I rarely find myself with an outlet of colorless mana, so I'm scarred it will only serve as a Counterspell that mana burns me. But if I want more speed, do you think it's worth it?

I'm also thinking about Duress, but I would want 4 and what would I cut? Would another FoW be good enough for protection, making me not need Duress?

My meta is mostly aggro with some control and some very crappy combo, so I don't want ways to make my deck better against T1 decks, but rather, just better in general, especially against aggro and control.

I'm open to anything though, so suggest whatever.

Also, do you think this deck is good for the money? For what the deck cost, could I have made something better? If so, what?

Thanks in advance.

[xrizzo]

If you don't care about B/R, then I would recommend playing a simple necro deck.  Necro, with hand control (duress, hymm) and a bunch of cheap creatures.  With demonic consultation, this deck is cheap to build ($25) and fun to play.

Another option is to play 4 balance, and a lot of artifacts.  Very broken, but you might not have any friends after.

Anyway, best of luck.

[weyker]

If you can get someone to play multiple necro, consult, and a couple mana artifacts (non power), then necro storm combo is pretty decent.

Try something like
4 of Necro, Ritual, Tendrils, Duress, Cabal Therapy, Shield Sphere
3 Consult, Spellbook, Chain of Vapor, Mox Diamond, Chrome Mox
1 vamp tutor, and demonic tutor, sol ring, Yawg Will, LED, Ivory Tower
fill out with a few more 0 or 1cc spells and maybe a few B/U fake duals from Torment and any Underground Seas you've got.

If you can convince someone to let you play 4 Burning Wish too (or instead of the consults), you can cut some tendrils, put the will and a tendrils in the side, and make something pretty strong.

But even low budget mono black versions will have some game. Just pack SB Nausea to buy time vs. quick small critter decks like goblins or fish.

[Skankhair]

Thanks guys. I didn't know a powerful mono-Black deck would be that powerful for that cheap. 25 bucks for a strong deck? Count me in. Right now I'm used to paying 30-70 bucks for Affinity, Elves, Psychatog, and Gobvantage decks which are solid (not amazing, but solid). So if Necro will offer me the same power or more for 25 bucks, that's a good deal.

I have actually wanted to make some sort of Black deck with Necro in it for a while, I just didn't know how good it would be or exactly what to do with it. I was of course thinking something MBC-ish, but was also thinking about combo. I'll probably use your ideas for my next deck, I'll just have to decide whether to go aggro/control, control or the Tendrils route.

I was also thinking about a budget Dragon deck. It would come out to about 100 bucks. Here's the list I have planned:

Mana (24):
10 Swamp
4 Tainted Isle
6 Island
4 Dark Ritual

Creatures (5):
3 Worldgorger Dragon
2 Ambassador Laquatus

Other Spells (31):
Tutor/Draw: 15
4 Careful Study
4 Compulsion
4 Buried Alive
1 Demonic Consultation
2 Lim-Dul's Vault
Control: 8
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Chainer's Edict
Combo: 8
4 Animate Dead
4 Dance of the Dead

Would a Black Necro deck be better than this? Can I make a U/B Trix deck (with Necro) for about 100 bucks that would be better than this? Or if I just want a lot of power for the money is a Black control-ish deck with Necro still the best option?

So if these are my 4 options:

Dragon (100 bucks)
Trix (100 bucks(
MBC with Necro (25-50 bucks)
Necro/Storm (25-50 bucks)
 
Which deck will be the best? Will the two cheaper decks be so close to the power of the more expensive ones that I should just buy them and save the money (that is, of course, assuming they won't be even better than the more expensive ones).

In terms of this deck, one of the things I would like to do is add Moxen, maybe another Academy and run more Balance making Balance a bigger part of my game plan. Once I have the money to buy a piece of Power or two I'll make some proxies to see if Moxen and more Balance is best, or if I should just go for pure speed with Black Lotus and some Moxen.

Thanks again for the ideas guys.

[Skankhair]

How does this look for MBC with Necro?:

Land (20):
18 Swamp
2 Barren Moor

Creatures (6):
4 Hypnotic Specter
2 Visara the Dreadful

Other Spells (34):
2 Yawgmoth's Bargain
4 Necropotence
4 Dark Ritual
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Duress
4 Chainer's Edict
4 Diabolic Edict
4 Devour in Shadow
4 Ivory Tower

Would this be better than my Tinker/Colossus deck? Better than the budget Dragon decklist I posted above?

Thanks.

[LoA]

If you can't get 4 Yawgmoth's Bargain (about $10 a shot on-line, but I'm sure you could do better on ebay), then free spell necro would be a good, cheap deck.  Here's Brian Davis' list:

2x Nevinyrral's Disk
4x Contagion
4x Corrupt
4x Duress
4x Dark Ritual
3x Demonic Consultation
4x Drain Life
4x Necropotence
2x Skittering Skirge
3x Spinning Darkness
4x Unmask
18x Swamp
4x Wasteland

Obviously some card choices can be tweaked, but the general skeleton is solid.

[Skankhair]

Thanks for the decklist.

That decklist comes out to about 100 bucks (I could make it less by making some slight budget changes).

I'm not very familiar with that deck so it's hard for me to judge it. Would it be better than the 100 dollar Dragon deck I posted above? Will it be about as good as I will do for the money (100 bucks)? Or could I make a better deck for less?

Sorry to ask so many questions... I have 13 decks and have always been a deck-a-holic and now I want to start being more selective about the decks I make/buy, so I want to make sure the deck I am making is about as good as I could do for whatever budget the deck is.

I guess I can't go wrong with any of the ideas suggested in this thread so far, but I'm not sure which would be the best, and which would be the best for the money.

The free spell Necro decklist looks cool, and I might go with that one. So it's a solid competitive decklist for the money? What are it good matches? It's bad ones?