Budget deck for sanctioned.

[vaughnbros]

if you don't mind getting randomly rolled by resolved null rod sometimes you could always rock affinity.  the new legend rules make mox opal much better for you, and the deck is cheap and powerful enough to compete with just about anything as long as you don't hit null rod....and you can always luck into tolarian or cradle when they play null rod.

This is asking about budget though and that deck would be far from it.  8 of the power 9 would probably want to be in that deck along with a number of $30+ cards.

Lotus is an important card in every deck that casts spells. Don't kid yourself.

A good card yes, but definitely not important unless you are playing a deck that can tutor for it.

[Pokey]

Dredge is probably the "best" budget deck, but I would personally rather play merfolk.  You can splurge on Acall, and maybe Sapphire too, if there's some wiggle room in the budget.

[Protoaddict]

Really I guess the question is are you willing to play a sub optimal list.

you could play dredge and have a tier one tourney list with optimal cards
or
you could play Merfolk/white trash/Dark times/TMWA and have a deck you know could be better


And on what earth is affinity anywhere near budget? Of all lists you would actually be dumb to play that in vintage without Moxen? One could make the argument that if you load up on frogmites and myr enforcers and other free cards you could skirt lotus but the moxen are the deck, along with the fact that thoughtcast is a bad substitue for ancestral recall. It wouldn't be unpowered it would be UNDER powered.

There are some decks where the power is too integral to the operation of the deck to risk playing the list without it and affinity would be one of those lists. One could build white trash or TMWA and at least make the argument that the replacement for the mox and lotus (2 simian spirit guides for instance) are at least situationally better because they work against trinisphere and are turned off by your own hate, which are 2 more common situations, but I cant ever think of a situations where not running real moxen in affinity would not be better.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Really I guess the question is are you willing to play a sub optimal list.

you could play dredge and have a tier one tourney list with optimal cards
or
you could play Merfolk/white trash/Dark times/TMWA and have a deck you know could be better

I concur. If you intend to pay mana to cast spells, but don't include Lotus in your deck, you have a suboptimal deck.

[psyburat]

I concur. If you intend to pay mana to cast spells, but don't include Lotus in your deck, you have a suboptimal deck.

I semi-agree.  Espresso Stax is a spell-casting deck that doesn't want Black Lotus, but generally a set of Mishra's Workshop will run you more than a Black Lotus will.  However, on the scale of affordable decks, Workshop archetypes are most likely second only to Minus Six in terms of unaffordability.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Really I guess the question is are you willing to play a sub optimal list.

you could play dredge and have a tier one tourney list with optimal cards
or
you could play Merfolk/white trash/Dark times/TMWA and have a deck you know could be better


And on what earth is affinity anywhere near budget? Of all lists you would actually be dumb to play that in vintage without Moxen? One could make the argument that if you load up on frogmites and myr enforcers and other free cards you could skirt lotus but the moxen are the deck, along with the fact that thoughtcast is a bad substitue for ancestral recall. It wouldn't be unpowered it would be UNDER powered.

There are some decks where the power is too integral to the operation of the deck to risk playing the list without it and affinity would be one of those lists. One could build white trash or TMWA and at least make the argument that the replacement for the mox and lotus (2 simian spirit guides for instance) are at least situationally better because they work against trinisphere and are turned off by your own hate, which are 2 more common situations, but I cant ever think of a situations where not running real moxen in affinity would not be better.

I don't understand why dredge is being held higher than a deck like dark times, nor why DT needs lotus.  Yes, you get BBB instead of BB net off lotus over ritual for the 1 card investment, but considering the optimal play is duress-hexmage for 3 mana, I don't see the big issue.  I also don't understand why dredge is being touted as superior to dark times.  Yes, it can be more explosive consistently, but it's not like DT can't win on turn 2/3 fairly easily. Also, DT is well suited against every matchup and doesn't roll to hate (and has equal trouble as dredge against wasteland).  DT doesn't even need to sb anti-hate...it just plays its game with disruption and comboing.  Now with stage, it is even more resistant to spheres and counterspells.  I think for the similar budget and the ease of piloting and sbing, dark times is actually BETTER than dredge.  I think it does well with jet, but it can do fine without lotus and adding max rituals. I think DT is a best pick on par with dredge at the least, and the others are a notch below.  While TMWA, WT, etc have the resilience of DT, they don't have the speed/explosiveness of dredge.  Only DT offers the level of power as dredge while remaining versatile and resilient.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Because 5 Rituals are better than 4.

[psyburat]

@TheWhiteDragon:  I'm going to get really upset if I have to explain why Black Lotus is better than Dark Ritual.  Please rethink your logic.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yes, black lotus is better than dark ritual, and 5 is better than 4...

But at the same time, dark times sans lotus is not that much worse than with.  It goes from 100% to like 95%.  There are many games I win on turn 3 and never see a lotus.  Its one card of 60 that the deck doesn't crutch on and it has 4 minilotuses already.  You guys all make it sound like with lotus, DT is worse than dredge, and without lotus DT is worse than goblins of the flarg.dec!

DT is very good even without lotus, and I'd say on par with dredge. With lotus, I'd wager better than dredge.  If you're really jonesing for the ability to turn 1 hexmage/depths with duress lead, run lotus petal instead of lotus and hope u have one of 4 rituals with it.  Obviously 95% of decks are better with lotus, but a deck like DT perhaps suffers least of any deck for not having it.  It shouldn'nt be placed next to 60 forests.dec because it doesn't have lotus.

[Grand Inquisitor]

I think the options are even wider than are being represented here.

JJones is no slouch and this could easily be modified to be even cheaper:

http://morphling.de/printview.php?c=1753&d=6

...I'd say this is a great metagame to go rogue in.  Whether it's faeries, elves, or even a modified noble fish list, I think you could metagame effectively and perform well.

You'll never replace the oomph of P9, but this is an especially ripe time to play good cards outside big blue.

[Prospero]

Guys, please keep things civil.

[Bibendum]

@Duck

Again, you are wrong in regards to about 25-30% of shop lists. Continue to say that while tera-nova and certain builds of espresso put up results without lotus.

Edit: 1. You continue to deal in absolutes and we know what kind of people only deal in absolutes. 2. I used the wrong quote so shame on me

[AmbivalentDuck]

@Duck

Again, you are wrong in regards to about 25-30% of shop lists. Continue to say that while tera-nova and certain builds of espresso put up results without lotus.

Edit: 1. You continue to deal in absolutes and we know what kind of people only deal in absolutes. 2. I used the wrong quote so shame on me

This is a VERY old discussion on TMD. How many games does it take to see the difference between Imperial Seal and Vampiric Tutor empirically? The answer is many, probably even a few hundred. The information contained in a Workshop build placing without Lotus is actually minimal since you only see the slot in 1-in-3 games and a tourney evidences only 20-30 total games.

[personalbackfire]

While I don't think I will be attending vintage worlds I did think about what I would play since a) it is in my backyard and b) I don't own power.
Here are some of the thoughts that wen't through my head:

Use Lotus Petal & maybe mana crypt.

Ask Josh P if UR Landstill is viable w/o power.
My inclination would be yes as it runs limited power and has access to 4 recalls in the form of Standstill.

Run a fish style deck that either uses 4 Deathrite or 4 Noble Hierarch.

Play dark times w/ no power.

Hope this has helped a little.

[TheWhiteDragon]

While I don't think I will be attending vintage worlds I did think about what I would play since a) it is in my backyard and b) I don't own power.
Here are some of the thoughts that wen't through my head:

Use Lotus Petal & maybe mana crypt.

Ask Josh P if UR Landstill is viable w/o power.
My inclination would be yes as it runs limited power and has access to 4 recalls in the form of Standstill.

Run a fish style deck that either uses 4 Deathrite or 4 Noble Hierarch.

Play dark times w/ no power.

Hope this has helped a little.

While these all seem reasonable, it's not necessary to run DT with NO power.  He said he has 1K to spend, so he can run jet and petal instead of jet and lotus.  The rest of the 58 cards would be just like a fully powered DT list, including null rods (which is the antipower card).

[Protoaddict]

Yes, black lotus is better than dark ritual, and 5 is better than 4...

But at the same time, dark times sans lotus is not that much worse than with.  It goes from 100% to like 95%.  There are many games I win on turn 3 and never see a lotus.  Its one card of 60 that the deck doesn't crutch on and it has 4 minilotuses already.  You guys all make it sound like with lotus, DT is worse than dredge, and without lotus DT is worse than goblins of the flarg.dec!

DT is very good even without lotus, and I'd say on par with dredge. With lotus, I'd wager better than dredge.  If you're really jonesing for the ability to turn 1 hexmage/depths with duress lead, run lotus petal instead of lotus and hope u have one of 4 rituals with it.  Obviously 95% of decks are better with lotus, but a deck like DT perhaps suffers least of any deck for not having it.  It shouldn'nt be placed next to 60 forests.dec because it doesn't have lotus.

Lotuses value cannot be overstated in Dark times, possibly more so than some lists. It is a deck that can chain tutors into a yawgs will into more tutors into a Tendrils as a wincon. Lotus is not only better than ritual in this situation, it is also better against spheres (common in the format), Mental Misstep (common in the format), Wastelands and stripmine turn one (Common cards, uncommon situation), and Flusterstorm (common but corner case). It also enables a turn one 20/20 against soft hands or deep mulligans (Dark depths, Hexmage, Lotus, Thoughtsizes for countermagic), where are dark ritual requires a mox jet to give you a turn one. Having a good 5 rituals is also stupid important if you go for the storm win and Cabal ritual is not one of them. I would go as far as saying that Lotus is MORE important to Dark times than it is to Shops, White Trash, TMWA or Merfolk.

And why is dredge considered better than DT? Because Dredge puts up tourney results pure and simple. How many wins has dark times had in the last year compared to dredge? How many of those wins were lotus free.

Vintage (and legacy) is all about cards that are just slightly superior to other cards. Those slight advantages are what often determine a match. If someone wanted to play a deck that required 4 tundras and they only had 4 hallowed fountains, I don't think my inclination would be to tell them to play that deck.

[AmbivalentDuck]

While these all seem reasonable, it's not necessary to run DT with NO power.  He said he has 1K to spend, so he can run jet and petal instead of jet and lotus.  The rest of the 58 cards would be just like a fully powered DT list, including null rods (which is the antipower card).

Lotus seems markedly better than Jet.

[Protoaddict]

Rereading the initial ask of this thread, I say run white trash if you don't want to run dredge.
In your main deck run 3 kataki and 4 stony silence. Run fewer copies of Relic warder, if not 0 copies.
Where you would have artifact mana, run Elvish spirit guides, and then make sure your running a full compliment of Dryad Militants to make sure you can use that green mana as green mana sometimes.

I think if you have enough hate in the deck and you can get yourself away from white mana requirements, it actually does make sense to not run lotus and pearl. How that deck fares against the field is another question all together, but at least in and of itself its not "compromising". It may not be the proper list for the meta your in, but it may be the proper list for a meta somewhere (beltcher heavy maybe?) as opposed to just being a weaker version of a deck that could be better.

[TheWhiteDragon]

Yes, black lotus is better than dark ritual, and 5 is better than 4...

But at the same time, dark times sans lotus is not that much worse than with.  It goes from 100% to like 95%.  There are many games I win on turn 3 and never see a lotus.  Its one card of 60 that the deck doesn't crutch on and it has 4 minilotuses already.  You guys all make it sound like with lotus, DT is worse than dredge, and without lotus DT is worse than goblins of the flarg.dec!

DT is very good even without lotus, and I'd say on par with dredge. With lotus, I'd wager better than dredge.  If you're really jonesing for the ability to turn 1 hexmage/depths with duress lead, run lotus petal instead of lotus and hope u have one of 4 rituals with it.  Obviously 95% of decks are better with lotus, but a deck like DT perhaps suffers least of any deck for not having it.  It shouldn'nt be placed next to 60 forests.dec because it doesn't have lotus.

Lotuses value cannot be overstated in Dark times, possibly more so than some lists. It is a deck that can chain tutors into a yawgs will into more tutors into a Tendrils as a wincon. Lotus is not only better than ritual in this situation, it is also better against spheres (common in the format), Mental Misstep (common in the format), Wastelands and stripmine turn one (Common cards, uncommon situation), and Flusterstorm (common but corner case). It also enables a turn one 20/20 against soft hands or deep mulligans (Dark depths, Hexmage, Lotus, Thoughtsizes for countermagic), where are dark ritual requires a mox jet to give you a turn one. Having a good 5 rituals is also stupid important if you go for the storm win and Cabal ritual is not one of them. I would go as far as saying that Lotus is MORE important to Dark times than it is to Shops, White Trash, TMWA or Merfolk.

And why is dredge considered better than DT? Because Dredge puts up tourney results pure and simple. How many wins has dark times had in the last year compared to dredge? How many of those wins were lotus free.

Vintage (and legacy) is all about cards that are just slightly superior to other cards. Those slight advantages are what often determine a match. If someone wanted to play a deck that required 4 tundras and they only had 4 hallowed fountains, I don't think my inclination would be to tell them to play that deck.

My dark times decks tend to look markedly different than traditional lists.  I don't use tendrils or yawg will in my list, so lotus is much less valuable.  I also don't run crucible with wastes.  It is a more aggro version and more dedicated to protecting the primary combo.  It doesn't fall back onto a secondary combo.

That's probably the main difference in our thinking on lotus.  Your experience probably leads into lotus-will-tendrils wins, where mine wins with aggro (or the combo). I think the new legend rule makes the inclusion of stage cause DT to care even less about counters or shops.  I was really confused when you said DT would care about flusterstorm until I realized you were thinking of versions that were crutching on a subpar tendrils plan.

As far as tourney results, you really can't bank on that.  Yes, dredge has won some tourneys, but it is played by several players at just about every tourney.  Most tourneys don't even have 1 DT deck, let alone a winner.  That's not evidence that dredge is better, but more evidence that many players think of dredge as the "mull to bazaar = win deck" which it certainly is not in a prepared field.  Just cause a deck is unrepresented, doesn't mean it is necessarily worse.  Many players can play therre favorite decks or what is perceived as the easy win (dredge) and not look at other, sometimes better, options.

There are times I even feel my DT list is better than whatever deck it is that I choose to play, but run the other deck because I think its a better meta call or just more fun to play and I think I'll win regardless.

[TheWhiteDragon]

While these all seem reasonable, it's not necessary to run DT with NO power.  He said he has 1K to spend, so he can run jet and petal instead of jet and lotus.  The rest of the 58 cards would be just like a fully powered DT list, including null rods (which is the antipower card).

Lotus seems markedly better than Jet.

Yes, but a lotus kills about $850 of his budget, whereas jet is only $350 if that

[Protoaddict]

Yes, black lotus is better than dark ritual, and 5 is better than 4...

But at the same time, dark times sans lotus is not that much worse than with.  It goes from 100% to like 95%.  There are many games I win on turn 3 and never see a lotus.  Its one card of 60 that the deck doesn't crutch on and it has 4 minilotuses already.  You guys all make it sound like with lotus, DT is worse than dredge, and without lotus DT is worse than goblins of the flarg.dec!

DT is very good even without lotus, and I'd say on par with dredge. With lotus, I'd wager better than dredge.  If you're really jonesing for the ability to turn 1 hexmage/depths with duress lead, run lotus petal instead of lotus and hope u have one of 4 rituals with it.  Obviously 95% of decks are better with lotus, but a deck like DT perhaps suffers least of any deck for not having it.  It shouldn'nt be placed next to 60 forests.dec because it doesn't have lotus.

Lotuses value cannot be overstated in Dark times, possibly more so than some lists. It is a deck that can chain tutors into a yawgs will into more tutors into a Tendrils as a wincon. Lotus is not only better than ritual in this situation, it is also better against spheres (common in the format), Mental Misstep (common in the format), Wastelands and stripmine turn one (Common cards, uncommon situation), and Flusterstorm (common but corner case). It also enables a turn one 20/20 against soft hands or deep mulligans (Dark depths, Hexmage, Lotus, Thoughtsizes for countermagic), where are dark ritual requires a mox jet to give you a turn one. Having a good 5 rituals is also stupid important if you go for the storm win and Cabal ritual is not one of them. I would go as far as saying that Lotus is MORE important to Dark times than it is to Shops, White Trash, TMWA or Merfolk.

And why is dredge considered better than DT? Because Dredge puts up tourney results pure and simple. How many wins has dark times had in the last year compared to dredge? How many of those wins were lotus free.

Vintage (and legacy) is all about cards that are just slightly superior to other cards. Those slight advantages are what often determine a match. If someone wanted to play a deck that required 4 tundras and they only had 4 hallowed fountains, I don't think my inclination would be to tell them to play that deck.

My dark times decks tend to look markedly different than traditional lists.  I don't use tendrils or yawg will in my list, so lotus is much less valuable.  I also don't run crucible with wastes.  It is a more aggro version and more dedicated to protecting the primary combo.  It doesn't fall back onto a secondary combo.

That's probably the main difference in our thinking on lotus.  Your experience probably leads into lotus-will-tendrils wins, where mine wins with aggro (or the combo). I think the new legend rule makes the inclusion of stage cause DT to care even less about counters or shops.  I was really confused when you said DT would care about flusterstorm until I realized you were thinking of versions that were crutching on a subpar tendrils plan.

As far as tourney results, you really can't bank on that.  Yes, dredge has won some tourneys, but it is played by several players at just about every tourney.  Most tourneys don't even have 1 DT deck, let alone a winner.  That's not evidence that dredge is better, but more evidence that many players think of dredge as the "mull to bazaar = win deck" which it certainly is not in a prepared field.  Just cause a deck is unrepresented, doesn't mean it is necessarily worse.  Many players can play therre favorite decks or what is perceived as the easy win (dredge) and not look at other, sometimes better, options.

There are times I even feel my DT list is better than whatever deck it is that I choose to play, but run the other deck because I think its a better meta call or just more fun to play and I think I'll win regardless.

While DT could be a better deck to play, we don't have a sample size large enough to qualify it. All we have is the data in front of us which says that dredge wins more events than DT, and probably we can determine percentage of wins VS appearances. I would wager Dredge is higher than DT as far as percentage goes, but our sample size for DT is not large enough to show any real statistical confidence.

But consider this, since we are talking about SANCTIONED event, meaning no proxy. These are almost exclusively competitive events and people tend to play not what they think will be fun but what they think will win. If DT is that good and resilient as you say, don't you think more people would pilot it?

And lastly, I hardly think the tendrils plan is counter intuitive or sub-par. If anything its the difference between 1 card in most deck, and that's the inclusion of tendrils. I would argue you see more dark times decks running that than not, so it's not outlandish to assume people would play that. And since the legend rule only just changed, it's kinda hard to say just how good the deck is now with Stage than it was before, etc. I would guess most people have not even played a real game with the new rules yet to know.

Budget in my eyes should not equate to subpar. In the scope of vintage dredge is Budget (and cheaper now than ever with modern masters I'm guessing) and dark times without lotus or mox jet or imperial seal is most likely a non optimal list.

[nataz]

pick up bazaars and play dredge for this one event. It's easily going to be the strongest deck you can put together with that amount of money.

Then, flip your bazaars end of day 2 for blue power cards and begin your climb to full power/other deck/whatever.

Bazaars should be pretty fungible, and you have plenty of time to practice sb games. It's not like buying bazaars is equivalent to throwing your money away, and the rest of the deck is crazy dirt cheap.

If you really don't want to do that, can always play white trash.

I'm not sure about all the love for DT. I was never super impressed, but YMMV.  

[Protoaddict]

Keep in mind as well, Bazaar is playable in commander and is not at all a bad card there. It's use is not exclusively limited to vintage which keeps it's price tag stable.

[A.-1.]

Regarding the OP: I'd play Merfolk. While Dredge is very strong, I wouldn't play it if you don't have the time to test post-board games. Merfolk also gives you a lot of wiggle room in a $1,000 budget. You don't absolutely need Black Lotus, Sapphire, A Call, or Walk to play it.

[AmbivalentDuck]

Um. You should test your deck, including post-board games, regardless of your deck choice.

[A.-1.]

I don't wan't to play dredge if I can help it mainly because I have no experience post board and getting that in will be difficult.

[AmbivalentDuck]

I don't wan't to play dredge if I can help it mainly because I have no experience post board and getting that in will be difficult.

Um. You should test your deck, including post-board games, regardless of your deck choice.

No matter what he chooses, he needs to test it thoroughly. Otherwise, he's just wasting his money on the entry fee.

[A.-1.]

Because playing Vintage is all about making your money back, right?

[psyburat]

I don't wan't to play dredge if I can help it mainly because I have no experience post board and getting that in will be difficult.

Um. You should test your deck, including post-board games, regardless of your deck choice.

No matter what he chooses, he needs to test it thoroughly. Otherwise, he's just wasting his money on the entry fee.

I played a Rogue Hermit list that Onslaught shipped me at an event once to prove a point.  Paid $25 plus gas and tolls that day.  I certainly wasn't in it to win it.

[joshuaclayton]

John, powerless Noble Fish is pretty good and (assuming you have some of the staples) should be relatively cheap to construct. Here's a sample list pulled from http://www.mtgtop8.com/event?e=4702&d=227161:

4 Wasteland
4 Misty Rainforest
3 Tundra
3 Tropical Island
3 Flooded Strand
1 Strip Mine
1 Forest
1 Island
4 Tarmogoyf
4 Noble Hierarch
3 Delver of Secrets
3 Qasali Pridemage
2 Kataki, War's Wage
2 Aven Mindcensor
1 Trygon Predator
4 Force of Will
4 Preordain
4 Spell Pierce
3 Flusterstorm
2 Swords to Plowshares
1 Brainstorm
3 Stony Silence
SB: 2 Swords to Plowshares
SB: 3 Tormod's Crypt
SB: 2 Serenity
SB: 4 Nature's Claim
SB: 4 Grafdigger's Cage

It runs about $2500, but the costs are due to FoW, Wasteland, duals/fetches, and Goyfs. If you have the duals/fetches and Forces, it's just under $1,000 to build based on prices from deckstats.net (which tend to lean a little high end since it takes mid or high price from TCGPlayer).

If you do decide to acquire power for it later on, it tends to fit in seamlessly and doesn't require it all at once (a Mox here, a Recall there). The other benefit of investing in this sort of deck is that a large majority of it will transfer as you build your collection (Forces in anything blue, Wastes in Shops, etc.)