Budget Human Caverns

[Guli]

Some people want to win that price for best budget deck in a tourney. Or there is simply no means to get hand on power.

Here is a working shell of a Cavern build with humans. I already talked about how this deck operates in other threads.

4 Surgical Extraction
3 Null Rod

4 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben
4 Dark Confidant
4 Mayor of Avabruck
4 Noble Hierarch
4 Stun Sniper
4 Shardless Agent
3 Phyrexian Revoker
1 Tandem Lookout

4 Elvish Spirit Guide
3 Simian Spirit Guide
4 City of Brass
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Wasteland
1 Strip Mine
2 Ancient Ziggurat
3 Ghost Quarter

SB: 4 Ancient Grudge
SB: 4 Yixlid Jailer
SB: 1 Ghost Quarter
SB: 4 War Priest of Thune
SB: 2 Grafdigger's Cage

The meta that this deck wants to be in is Dredge, Blue and Shop. Oath is good after game 2 but still not great. Stun Sniper is a card that I have learned to appreciate. It turns out that the card is even great against dredge once you take out those bridges. It can also TAKE out bridges by the way. The card is an answer to Delver, especially when it is active before Delver flips. It taps Wurmcoil, Tinkerbot, Griselbrand, Tarmogoyf... and kills a lot of things.

War Priest of Thune is mainly for Oath, but you also bring it in against decks that use/need Leyline.

Thalia is a bad card against Workshop, you side it out to bring in 4 Grudges. You also bring in 4th Quarter and maybe even Cage. Thalia is strongest against Dredge in my opinion. That deck has no way to build up mana. Blue is also affected a lot by Thalia because it also hits moxes. But blue can play around it, hence there are 3 Rod and 3 Revoker in this deck. A split because Revoker can come down with Zigurat and hit other things than artifacts (Jace, Noble, SFM, ...)

4 Surgical Maindeck is in my opinion better than 4 Misstep, because it hits Dredge, Blue AND Workshop. Crucible shenanigans are common these days. Especially if your plan is to aggressively start a mana denial strip war, you don't want them to recover by a simple Crucible.

If you are looking for a budget beat down deck with strong cards and acceleration+draw engine, this is the deck to play!

[xouman]

Hi Guli,

nice original approach. Inusual cards, but strong in your shell. However I find it prone to card disadvantage with those 7 one shot mana critters. I suppose you focus on mana screwing: 8 strip lands, 4 surgicals, 4 thalia, 3 null rod, 3 revoker. but what if they have enough basic lands? or if they drain a hate card and have the extra mana? Can you win a game when the opponent has no mana problems?

on the other hand, cavern makes humans easier to get into the battlefield, so thalia and confidant (being the strongest imho) must be killed instead of countered. Sniper seems a nightmare to snapcasters, revokers, confidants, welders... Just feel a bit dependant to confidant

are you playing this deck in competitive environments?

[Guli]

Hi Guli,

nice original approach. Inusual cards, but strong in your shell. However I find it prone to card disadvantage with those 7 one shot mana critters. I suppose you focus on mana screwing: 8 strip lands, 4 surgicals, 4 thalia, 3 null rod, 3 revoker. but what if they have enough basic lands? or if they drain a hate card and have the extra mana? Can you win a game when the opponent has no mana problems?

on the other hand, cavern makes humans easier to get into the battlefield, so thalia and confidant (being the strongest imho) must be killed instead of countered. Sniper seems a nightmare to snapcasters, revokers, confidants, welders... Just feel a bit dependant to confidant

are you playing this deck in competitive environments?

No, someone asked me some help regarding a budget deck in the current metagame. So I started working on a budget version of my Human Cavern deck and this was the result.

Note that there are also Shardless Agents and A Tandem Lookout next to Dark Confidant to get board presence and tempo. The spirits are only one shots but there are 9 cards that generate card advantage. Not to mention the virtual card advantage Thalia, Sniper, Mayor and Revoker can generate.