Budget deck for a new vintage player

[frontier]

Hello,
I`m glad to found this forum, so I`d like to get a piece of advice. Don`t get me wrong: I`ve been playing MTG since year 2000, but it`s 95% Standart or Extended. I read articles about vintage, I know main archetypes, but I have very little experience in VIntage, so now I want to gain more of it. My local metagame consists of horde of goblins/food chain goblins, some oaths, some stormy decks (TPS and so on), various random beats (suicide black, madness, stompy), U/R Fish, BWU Junk, Landstill (No Stax or Slaver. At least didn`t see). The proxies are not allowed, and P9 is a very rare thing (1 or 2 loti, 1 ancestral recall and so on). I`ve been thinking about budget competetive deck to start playing vintage. Last time I tried to play WB control-discard, it was fun deck to play, but rather inconsistant one (record was 4-3 afair).

So these are decks, I consider (keep in mind, FoW is budget item, mihsra`s workshop not)

Dragon - even a VERY budget version can kill on turn one (swamp, ritual, ritual, buried alive, animate dead), but without moxen and bazaar of baghdad deck loses tempo, which is essential to a combo deck. It is very good against random beats, but struggles against heavy control decks or faster combo.

Oath - a viable choice in such environment, can stand against various decks.

Tog - control heavy deck, but I don`t think it`s good without support of alexandria library, a recall, time walk and some other things. Personally, I hate dr. Teeth since it was Standart-legal, but I`m thinking about this deck.

Rector Tendrils - a budget version is also strong, but it`s easy to disrupt and is less consistant compared to a dragon, but can be more verastile, filled with hand disruption and tutoring with academy rector (I loved Sexy Rector when it was ext legal)

Food chain goblins - I have this deck since it was Ext legal, but:
a) It is the most popular deck, so it is the most outhated deck
b) I don`t want to play the most popular deck

Any suggestions would be very wellcome. Thanks

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Welcome to Vintage and the manadrain. We will do what we can to help you out, but the mod's are going to move this to the Improvement forum really quick. It's not a slight at all, that just the appropriate forum for post like this.

Of the decks you listed i would suggest Oath simply because it's harder to hate out and is better on a budget then most of the rest of them, considering you don't want to play Gobbo's. After this deck gets moved other people that have more to say about budget decks will help you. I play in 10+ proxy environment, and I have a few piece of Power, so i don't spend alot of time thinking about Budget decks...however there are other that do.

[Harlequin]

Oath is a good budget deck.
Fish is a great budget deck, but it looses to Goblins (so dont play fish).

I would say for decks on a budget, that also have to beat goblins.  Perhapse Threshold?  I dont have a deck list for you but, but here is the basic Idea:
Generally U,G,W

Draw tutor -> Thirst for knowledge, Careful Study, Frantic Seach (restricted), Intuition for ->
Life from the Loam, Cephilid Colosieum, wild mongrel (or Golgari Grave troll?) -> build threshold.
Take names with Wearbear, Nimble Mongoose (you can aslo include Genesis for recursion), Grave Troll.
Also Packs Force of will, Swords to plowshares, Disenchant, and utility lands like Maze of Ith, Bosieju, some cycleing lands, Possibly Quicksand.  Run Fastbond, Crop Rotation, and regrowth if you decide to go with utility lands.

Its a silly deck, and can definately win.  Best off all aside from Force, Inutions, + Duels, alot of the cards in the deck are relativly cheap.

[Lightning Dolt]

Yeah, Fish would be a great starter deck. I would reccomend U/R Fish though because it CAN beat Goblins. Either use pyroclasm after they have over extended their deck, or simply use Grim Lavamancer to kill all of their important goblins. Oath it also good, but Dragon is faster so I don't recommend it. Hope that helps!

[sa17dk]

Yeah, Fish would be a great starter deck. I would reccomend U/R Fish though because it CAN beat Goblins. Either use pyroclasm after they have over extended their deck, or simply use Grim Lavamancer to kill all of their important goblins. Oath it also good, but Dragon is faster so I don't recommend it. Hope that helps!

Dude, 2/3 of your posts bumped an old thread, and in all of them all you did was recommend Dragon as a deck or talked about it. Dragons been dead for wayyyyy long now (yes, even the powered version).

Secondly, if he's on a budget, I fail to see how unpowered Dragon is faster than Oath. Just because it can do the double ritual Buried Alive + Animate crap doesnt mean its gonna work consistently against permission. I would suggest that the deck that is still playable without power would be Oath. Tog is too slow without Drains, and I'm not sure about Rector Tendrils without moxen. If you really want to play a Rector deck though, Trix would be the best thing to use it with...

[sundering jerk]

I'm sorry to say, unfortunately if you want to play vintage seriously it's gunna cost you at least a hundred dollars. Their are some rogue decks or tendrills(which you'll need to practice with) that you MIGHT get lucky with. Or if you're playing in a nonpowerd environment you could go with just black.

I think welders may go down in price because of pithing needle, gifts being so good, and a loss of general momentum. Welder is a fun deck that you can abuse the hell out of. Take advantage of 15 proxies for the drains and power. That's the first deck I used. 


All Dolt was saying was that Oath loses to Dragon. You should relax killer.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

Oath is a good budget deck.
Fish is a great budget deck, but it looses to Goblins (so dont play fish).

I would say for decks on a budget, that also have to beat goblins.  Perhapse Threshold?  I dont have a deck list for you but, but here is the basic Idea:
Generally U,G,W

Draw tutor -> Thirst for knowledge, Careful Study, Frantic Seach (restricted), Intuition for ->
Life from the Loam, Cephilid Colosieum, wild mongrel (or Golgari Grave troll?) -> build threshold.
Take names with Wearbear, Nimble Mongoose (you can aslo include Genesis for recursion), Grave Troll.
Also Packs Force of will, Swords to plowshares, Disenchant, and utility lands like Maze of Ith, Bosieju, some cycleing lands, Possibly Quicksand.  Run Fastbond, Crop Rotation, and regrowth if you decide to go with utility lands.

Its a silly deck, and can definately win.  Best off all aside from Force, Inutions, + Duels, alot of the cards in the deck are relativly cheap.

As a 0 proxy deck threshold is actually rather good, it has pretty good game against Goblins, and there was one hovering around the top tables at the last waterbury.

Dragon is virtually dead these days as a powered deck, and the budget versions are even more unstable then the old Egg Tendrils decks or even the Kobold-Glimpse decks. In another words, it's not even worth thinking about.

I'm sorry to say, unfortunately if you want to play vintage seriously it's gunna cost you at least a hundred dollars. Their are some rogue decks or tendrills(which you'll need to practice with) that you MIGHT get lucky with. Or if you're playing in a nonpowerd environment you could go with just black.

I think welders may go down in price because of pithing needle, gifts being so good, and a loss of general momentum. Welder is a fun deck that you can abuse the hell out of. Take advantage of 15 proxies for the drains and power. That's the first deck I used. 


All Dolt was saying was that Oath loses to Dragon. You should relax killer.

The young gentleman stated in his original post that he plays in a 0 proxy environment, so it would be impossible for him to take advantage of 15 proxies. Young Mr. Dolt got two warning out of his first 3 posts, and then suggested U/R fish in a environment full of Food Chain. Pyroclasm does almost nothing against even unpowered food chain simply because even if you kill a beast or two early, they would just stack their deck using recruiter, and then use warchief and kill the fish player before they got another turn. Lavamancer is also ineffective because at best it might kill 2 creatures, the you get overrun by a swarm of hasty goblins.

I stand by my original statement. Of the decks you originally posted, Your best bet would be Oath. If you want to add Threshold, it could very well be a good choice. One other thing I could recommend is to use the search function and type in budget, and see what you find.

[The Chosen One]

What about a deck such as U/W landstill? The most expensive cards are the Force of Wills and the dual lands, but you could easily trade for cards such as Decree of Justice and the man lands you need. I play a legacy format landstill deck that is VERY good against unpowered decks. If you are interested in a decklist PM me.

[wraith985]

Goblins is the most prevalant deck in your metagame. Goblins is a creature-based strategy. Oath smashes creature-based strategies.

Play Oath.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

What about a deck such as U/W landstill? The most expensive cards are the Force of Wills and the dual lands, but you could easily trade for cards such as Decree of Justice and the man lands you need. I play a legacy format landstill deck that is VERY good against unpowered decks. If you are interested in a decklist PM me.

Like he said in his original post, there are alot of Goblins running around in his meta, and Legacy Goblins and Vintage Goblins are different animals. Food Chain is much faster, and runs all over Vintage Landstill. Whatever deck he decides to play absolutely must be able to beat Food Chain, or he might as well just play FCG's himself.

[orgcandman]

What about a deck such as U/W landstill? The most expensive cards are the Force of Wills and the dual lands, but you could easily trade for cards such as Decree of Justice and the man lands you need. I play a legacy format landstill deck that is VERY good against unpowered decks. If you are interested in a decklist PM me.

Like he said in his original post, there are alot of Goblins running around in his meta, and Legacy Goblins and Vintage Goblins are different animals. Food Chain is much faster, and runs all over Vintage Landstill. Whatever deck he decides to play absolutely must be able to beat Food Chain, or he might as well just play FCG's himself.

Actually mike, U/R Landstill (ala 2002-2004) pretty much wrecked fcg, goblin sligh, and a number of others thanks to the awesome power of Fire/Ice.

In a metagame where you know that you're facing round after round of aggressive gobbos, even something terrible like [card]powerstone minefield[/card] becomes an insane threat. Just pack yourself full of solid answers. Things like [card]snuff out[/card], [card]swords to plowshares[/card], [card]pyroclasm[/card], [card]massacre[/card], [card]breath of darigaaz[/card].... the list goes on and on.

[LouGodKingofDustBunnys]

I know that Aaron, but he was talking about U/W, which doesn't. Now U/R is a different animal, but like I said up top, I'm not a budget player so I didn't even think of it. How's about you toss in a link or a list to help him out, cause i can't think of a list that don't include power...gives me hives just writing this, without even trying to think up a list.

[frontier]

Thanks a lot for help. It was a pleasant surprise to find a very friendly and willing to help community You`re super.

Yea, Oath is good even in a budget version (there`s a thread nearby "unpowered oath"), but I want to ask one question: does and Oath have a back-up plan? I mean, alternative victory? Maze of Ith or random StP can be very unpleasant. Earlier I saw builds with academy rectors (techy ones), maybe someone could provide me more information?

As far as UR Fish is concerned, I like this deck. I was playing for some time with U-fish in Ext (merfolk version). It was very funny to play and it was quit strong deck, although it lacked late-game-power. I managed to pull it on the 3rd place in a FNM. In a vintage I`m more aknowledge with older version (mono U Fish, played online for some time), bus  I consider U/R Fish to be a viable deck. It loses to ordinary goblins, that`s true. But FCG is more comdo deck then aggro (but it can easily be swithed...). I suppose we`ve got the same situation with suicide black and other beats (even stompy)

UW landstill is a very slow deck, but it has its game against combo based decks (TPS, Oath), but also I feel (maybe I`m wrong) this deck would lose to beatdown decks.

More over, we`ve got some viables strange-control decks and super-fast combos, I see all the decks mentioned above also stands against them.

[MarkPharaoh]

Playing budget Landstill is like standing with your legs spread out and having a 6 year old continuously kick you in the nuts--it's not fun.  If you don't have access to Drains don't bother playing Landstill in T1.  Unpowered Oath will more then likely do well for you against Goblins, but you will lose the Oath mirrors and any other powered deck like TPS will be pretty hard to beat.  If you want hyper budget go for SRB (Stupid Red Burn).

[pyr0ma5ta]

Dragon - even a VERY budget version can kill on turn one (swamp, ritual, ritual, buried alive, animate dead), but without moxen and bazaar of baghdad deck loses tempo, which is essential to a combo deck. It is very good against random beats, but struggles against heavy control decks or faster combo.

By that you mean drawing the game on turn 1, right?  Since if you pull that play against me, I laugh as you realize you don't win.  Dragon.dec doesn't work without bazaars.  I'd suggest something fishy, aggro'y, or oathish.  Oath is probably the best deck in a no proxy environment without power, as it is one of the decks that can best utilize poopy moxes (diamond, chrome), and randomly wins even in powered vintage and doesn't lose a whole lot without power.

[sixth]

He was talking about Buried Alive. Up to three creatures. 1 Dragon 2 Win Conditions, like Caller or Ambassador, you can generate Mana with that single Swamp so you are able to kill. You probably thought of Buried Alive as an Entomb or sth.

[AmbivalentDuck]

If the main deck you're facing is FCG, BW, BWu, and BU fish are all solid.  (Maindeck) Engineered Plague powered out by Ritual eats FCG.  Black-based Fish sees little tournament play because it loses horribly to Stax (wthout Rebuild/Kataki/Energy Flux backup), a deck you're very unlikely to see.  It has no other weaknesses.

[nataz]

It's a shame you can't get ahold of a playset of bazaar, mono-black dragon sounds pretty good in your situation. That being said I suppose it would be possible to try a dredge-based dragon deck.

Figure core cards would be

Combo:
4x Dark Ritual
4x Burried A
4x Dragon
2x Kill (Laq and Sliver Queen?)
8x Animate Spells

Dredge:
4x Troll

Draw/Discard
4 Careful Study
4 Compulsion

//
34 cards

Disruption:
4 Duress
3 E-plauge

Search:
1 Demonic
1 Vamp
1 Demonic Consultation

//
44 Cards

Mana Base:
4 Polluted Delta
4 Bayou
4 Underground
1 Lotus Petal
1 Chrome Mox
1 Swamp
1 Island

eww,
maybe on second though you should just play Oath

[pyr0ma5ta]

If the main deck you're facing is FCG, BW, BWu, and BU fish are all solid.  (Maindeck) Engineered Plague powered out by Ritual eats FCG.  Black-based Fish sees little tournament play because it loses horribly to Stax (wthout Rebuild/Kataki/Energy Flux backup), a deck you're very unlikely to see.  It has no other weaknesses.

That is patently false.  My current iteration of BU fish absolutely crushes Stax.  It unfortuantely has 0 game against Gifts, unless turn 1 Null Rod resolves.  If you're interested, the list runs Carnophage, Sarcomancy, Bob Maher, Withered Wretch, and Daze in addition to the obvious things.

[frontier]

OK. thanks very much, I will try to begin testing oath - if this not works, I`ll be looking for other solutions. Maybe someone can PM me a list of power Oath (I`ll try to make it cheaper), or maybe unpowered Oath (I looked through thread "Unpowered Oath", but I saw Pernious Deed main deck, so....) and give some tips. Personally it`s hard to decide which colors to chose (green and blue are obvious):
White adds StP, enlightened tutor and maybe Balance....
Red offers, ughm.......?
Black - vampiric tutor, demonic tutor, demonic consultation (If I remember correctly card`s name), that UB impulse with life loss (forgot the name)

I`d appreciate a PM containing some detailed info. Thanks