Budget Stax

[Ciberon]

I'm planning on building this, but I'd like some opinions from the community on the card choises and if it's actually worth it.
I also suspect the vintage scene here isn't very developped, but I have to dig further yet.

Lands
1 Strip Mine
4 Mishra's Factory
4 Ancient Tomb
1 Tolarian Academy
4 Island
4 Ghost Quarter
1 Gods' Eye, Gate to the Reikai

Creatures
1 Karn, Silver Golem
4 Lodestone Golem
1 Solemn Simulacrum
1 Inkwell Leviathan

Spells
2 Sensei's Divining Top
3 Voltaic Key
3 Sky Diamond
4 Thorn of Amethyst
1 Trinisphere
4 Tangle Wire
2 Crucible of Worlds
4 Smokestack
1 Windfall
1 Memory Jar
4 Grim Monolith
1 Mana Vault
1 Sol Ring
1 Lotus Petal
1 Mana Crypt
1 Tinker

Sideboard
3 Tormod's Crypt
3 Bottled Cloister
1 Zuran Orb
1 Tezzeret the Seeker
3 Ensnaring Bridge
2 Hurkyl's Recall
2 Duplicant

[Delha]

I'd suggest cutting blue. You don't have the mana to consistently support it anyway.

-4 Island
+4 Wasteland
If you save the Strips/Ghost Quarters for Islands, you could potentially run them out of basics. This also makes you absolutely brutal against decks with purely nonbasic manabases.

-3 Sky Diamond
+3 Mind Stone
Having some potential draw when you've got plenty of mana is nice. Coming in untapped is good too.

-1 Solemn Simulacrum
-1 Inkwell Leviathan
-1 Windfall
-1 Tinker
+4 Chalice of the Void
I don't think Chalice needs much explanation.

[TheBrassMan]

I'm with Delha here, blue is giving you very little, and Wasteland would give you a whole lot.

I'd also strongly consider cutting Thorns for Spheres, and some number of Sky Diamond/Grim Monolith/Mind Stone for more lands, maybe City of Traitors

I know it takes you away from where you started the deck, but if you expect to play any upper-tier decks, you'd be a lot better off with null rods where you have the Key + Key tricks.  Consider that with with all of those lands, once Null Rod hits you're affected much less than the other player... but that would require a bit of restructuring, which you may not be interested in doing.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I agree with Delha's suggestions.  If you choose not to follow them, Sky Diamond seems strictly worse than Coldsteel Heart.

Windfall seems like a particularly questionable inclusion since an underpowered meta will likely be predominantly burn/zoo/ad nauseam since even Dredge requires a $800+ investment in a zero proxy meta.  With the price of Tropical Islands, the Oath decks that usually emerge as the meta "matures" may even remain outside of most players' price range.  I'd strongly consider running more answers to the fact that zoo and similar decks can easily win the permanent count race.  Triskelion and Duplicant are strong options, but the new Scars of Mirrodin pre-release card appears best suited to that sort of meta.

[TheShop]

before I start- a few responses- if you don't expect to play against null rod, there is no reason not to run grim monolith and keys over marble diamond and coldstone heart...these suck.  If you wanna run a colored source, run coalition relic and if you want colorless, you have a unique budget opportunity to run multiple keys and monoliths.  Why make a tapped artifact that taps for 1 when you can explode?????

I have played similar decks relying in ancient tomb for years...as a matter of fact, if I suck at everything else, I can say that figuring out a way to rig up this deck without power maybe the one thing I have most tested.

Choices that greatly effect your ability to win when you have a slow start.

This is issue number one since you will not be able to throw down locks nearly as quickly as the real deck.  That being said, the versitile toolbox is far better here than attempting to rely on a suboptimal mana base that returns the lola to their symetrical state.  My mana base evolved over the years from basics, to duals, to MUD, back to basics(mud wasn't bad, but you can lose because you are at least 3 times as likely as the real deck to lock youself out)...I finally settled on the 5color base because it puts the game-ending and powerful spells back within your mana constraints.  My mana base ended up-

4 ancient tomb
4 wasteland
1 tolarian academy
1 strip mine
4 city of brass
4 gemstone mine
2 city of traiors
20 lands total

1 sol ring
1 mana vault
1 mana crypt
1 grim monolith
1 voltaic key
1 lotus petal(you need this even though it blows)

I don't run metalworker because he doesn't consistently come down on turn one and he dies VERY often to scrubs expecting to play against creatures.

Point 2:  some cards are too good to leave out given the constraint of your mana.

1 tinker- this wins the damn game...it is worth runnig blue sources just to get this.
4 goblin welder- tinker and welders are the closest thing you get to cheating stuff into play
1 demo-finds tinker, trinisphere, and strip
1 vamp-same
1 cropper-you need strip mine in an undeveloped meta because the scrubs play basics
1 balance- I wouldn't run this in other builds, but undeveloped metas tend to be aggro filled.  This will save your ass.

Consider-
more cropper
swords to plowshares
powder keg/seal of cleansing- a single seal isnusually good here because of oath and the lack of moxen

Point 3- locks
1 trinisphere
3 crucible
4 tangle
3 smokestack(-1 due to costs)
4 loadstone(worth the costs just because if they aren't running power they lose to him on turn 1)
4 chalice
2 sphere


End the game-
1 karn
1 sundering Titan
1 duplicant
1 trike

I no longer play the budget build and haven't messed with it in a while, but a few final points-

tinker=not losing to scrubby kids ever
2 mana is what you can expect on turn 1, so you pack a lot of low mana locks(chalice=win vs elves and sligh)
crucible + strip nearly always beats an unpowered opponent, so I like finding strip and running colors
 best of luck man, this takes me back(minus the loadstone)
you suck against oath- board heavy there as their budget build is a lot more dangerous than yours.  They can sneakthe oath in before you get established as you are 1-2 turns slower without shops and moxen