Hmm none of the good KBC are really cheap... I think the closest one is MBA which has Yukora, the Prisoner's and Sickening Shoal's to go with the Umezawa's Jitte's. Still that isn't what I'd call cheap...
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
It's true, though, that this block requires a lot of rare cards to make a competitive deck in most cases, and the decks you can make without rares or with only a few rares are just not competitive. It's unfortunate, but if you're going to play this format with an intention of winning, you're going to have to shell out some bucks for the key rares.
This is somewhat rough as I'm unused to building budget decks... If you can get your hands on some of the money cards it will greatly improve the deck.
Cards to try and aquire:
1) Umezawa's Jitte
2) Sickening Shoal
3) Yukora, the Prisoner
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Those who fear the darkness have never seen what the light can do.
That list has Ink Eyes, which are 5-8 depending on your area and Jitte which goes from 10 to 20. However, this build is pretty strong. While there are a bunch of options, there are the two most expensive rares in the block (well aside from needle).
My friend did quite well at a recent Block FNM with RDW, and it had no jitte's either. If i can find the list, then I will post it.
It was something like 4 Rays, Spikes, Flames of the Blood Hand, Hearth Kami, Frostling, Yamabushi's Flame, Ronin Houndmaster, 3 Path of Angers Flame, and some other stuffs.
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3 damage for 2 mana; it’s like playing 8 Lightning Helixes, except 4 of them have AIDS.
My MBA was really cheap, because I don't run KOKOs or 4 jittes (only 1 atm).
As far as maximized competative decks go, I would go with Ire which is mainly common/uncommon splicers and arcanes that everyone has way too many of.
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"But then are we most in order when we are most out of order."-Jack Cade
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
You can get away with not running jittes if you run manriki-gusari. But if you're looking to invest in 1 expensive card, this is pretty much it. Jitte works in a lot of decks, is a pretty much guaranteed win if he cant do something fast to respond to it, and as an artifact is splashable with all your colours.
But as people have stated the most competitive you can get for cheap is MBA... Ire is probably a pretty distant second.
After that there are some neat decks you can make for cheap, such as a version of G/B spiritcraft using devouring greedhana kamithief of hope and a bunch of zuberas. But they won't really be competitive vs the top of the line netdecks.
If you want to play in a PTQ and you can't get any Jittes, Ire is very very good. Like if you practice with it, then you will be able to have very high win percentages in every match up. Against Black Hand I get 65% wins, WW 70%, Paddletron 75%, and Gifts 50%. No losing match up? Yes, and this is without the element of surprise that you get at a PTQ. My buddies and I have been testing it and the deck just wins.
Believe it or not, with Hisoka's Defiance and solid playing, you can out race their successful extraction. The key is to just keep playing spells even without splice. Like you don't worry about getting the most our of your Reaches and Peers and just do them straight. The goals is make a quick fat Ire. That is what Ideas Unbound is for. Helps so much.
Note about MBA:
You can pick up Yukoras as low as $4 each from vendors if you look hard enough. Keep in mind, they were in a precon in Betrayers (Dark Devotion; actually was a really good precon that got buried by Rat's Jitte). Foil Yukoras sell for ridiculous amounts, though, they're actually the 4th-highest foil I've seen from this block (Jitte, Needle, F. Judgment ahead of it), reaching over $20.
Sickening Shoal can be a pain, but people that have it and don't use it tend to trade it a little lower than it may actually be worth. I got a few good deals when picking up my 4. They can vend for $8-10, but you can usually get traders down to $6-7 value on them, if you have something they need.
Jitte...well...I got one for $10 from a vendor and proceeded to dance. Not many ways around that one. Although, I almost slapped a kid at FNM. He traded TWO Jittes for 2 TOSHIRO UMEZAWAS.
KP: No doubt, I would've have slapped that kid. Seems stupid to think in that case that the master is better than his items.
Oh well, I'm doing MBA now, and the only Rare it has is 4 Yukora, since a close shop from my house replenished their stocks of all Kamigawa Precons (although quite strange though when they said that Rat's Nest is gone since it sold out in a day and a half, since news spread quickly), so I'll pick up 4, not to mention a friend needs Heartless Hidetsugu, and those Overblaze so I could probably pick up from him some Shoals. I don't want do do any deck that's blue, I tend to find that I have NEVER won using blue.
But then, my friend told me to do Enduring Ideal instead, stupid answer........
So how does Ire win if they get Extracted for Ire? I can see the whole Glacial Ray plan, but it's a tad bit slower...
Me and my friend saw that problem arise during our playtesting with Ire against anything that has Extraction in their deck.
Ire deals a lot of damage, but if the Ire player has anything of a brain they will simply laugh evily and then win. I play meloku in my ire occasionally so I did not count my own build as super budget.
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"But then are we most in order when we are most out of order."-Jack Cade
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
KP: No doubt, I would've have slapped that kid. Seems stupid to think in that case that the master is better than his items.
Oh well, I'm doing MBA now, and the only Rare it has is 4 Yukora, since a close shop from my house replenished their stocks of all Kamigawa Precons (although quite strange though when they said that Rat's Nest is gone since it sold out in a day and a half, since news spread quickly), so I'll pick up 4, not to mention a friend needs Heartless Hidetsugu, and those Overblaze so I could probably pick up from him some Shoals. I don't want do do any deck that's blue, I tend to find that I have NEVER won using blue.
But then, my friend told me to do Enduring Ideal instead, stupid answer........
Honestly, Ideal is the exact opposite of budget. Looking at the normal Ideal deck, you're goign to need 4 Tendo Ice Bridges ($7-8 a pop), 4 Final Judgments (another $7-8 a pop), Meishin, Reverence, and Genju (cheap but still rares), not to mention Ideal itself, which I have a feeling will start going up in value, perhaps to $5-6 each, along with random other tech like Night of Souls' Betrayal and such. I think that, ignoring Jittes, Ideal.dec could be the most expensive deck in this format behind Gifts.
I read this thread and decided to build an Arcane Deck. Using ZERO rares. It's R/U/G. So far I've played 5 matches. 3 of them against gift style decks. I've gone 5-0. I don't have illusions of grandjeur here, I'm just stating the facts so far. As for the Cranial Extraction goes. Whoopdee doo. I've been extracted in all 3 of the gifts matchups. I will post the decklist.
Which leaves the door slightly ajar for:
A NEW DECK!!!!
Yay!
But there's one problem? Which deck?
Can you help me?
H/W List ABOVE
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It's true, though, that this block requires a lot of rare cards to make a competitive deck in most cases, and the decks you can make without rares or with only a few rares are just not competitive. It's unfortunate, but if you're going to play this format with an intention of winning, you're going to have to shell out some bucks for the key rares.
I think I hav some of the few MBA key cards in my binder........
As for U/R, it's going to be a pain, I only have Ire......
Can anyone show me a decklist of either of the two?
20x Swamp
1x Shizo, Death's Storehouse
1x Tomb of Urami
1x Miren, the Moaning Well
Non-Creature Spells (12)
4x Kiku's Shadow
4x O-Naginata
4x Manriki-Gusari
4x Nexumi Graverobber
4x Hand of Cruelty
4x Raving Oni-Slave
4x Takenuma Bleeder
4x Ogre Marauder
4x Razorjaw Oni
1x Ink-Eyes, Servant of Oni
4x Distress
4x Mark of the Oni
4x Nexumi Cutthroat
3x Hideous Laughter
This is somewhat rough as I'm unused to building budget decks... If you can get your hands on some of the money cards it will greatly improve the deck.
Cards to try and aquire:
1) Umezawa's Jitte
2) Sickening Shoal
3) Yukora, the Prisoner
2 Tomb of Urami
1 Shizo, Death's Storehouse
4 Kiku's Shadow
4 Distress
4 Manriki-Gusari
4 Umezawa's Jitte
4 Hand of Cruelty
4 Takenuma Bleeder
4 Ogre Marauder
4 Ink-Eyes, Servant of the Oni
4 Psychic Spear
4 Sickening Shoal
3 Cranial Extraction
4 Meta Dependent
That list has Ink Eyes, which are 5-8 depending on your area and Jitte which goes from 10 to 20. However, this build is pretty strong. While there are a bunch of options, there are the two most expensive rares in the block (well aside from needle).
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
It was something like 4 Rays, Spikes, Flames of the Blood Hand, Hearth Kami, Frostling, Yamabushi's Flame, Ronin Houndmaster, 3 Path of Angers Flame, and some other stuffs.
As far as maximized competative decks go, I would go with Ire which is mainly common/uncommon splicers and arcanes that everyone has way too many of.
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
But as people have stated the most competitive you can get for cheap is MBA... Ire is probably a pretty distant second.
After that there are some neat decks you can make for cheap, such as a version of G/B spiritcraft using devouring greed hana kami thief of hope and a bunch of zuberas. But they won't really be competitive vs the top of the line netdecks.
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
Me and my friend saw that problem arise during our playtesting with Ire against anything that has Extraction in their deck.
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
You can pick up Yukoras as low as $4 each from vendors if you look hard enough. Keep in mind, they were in a precon in Betrayers (Dark Devotion; actually was a really good precon that got buried by Rat's Jitte). Foil Yukoras sell for ridiculous amounts, though, they're actually the 4th-highest foil I've seen from this block (Jitte, Needle, F. Judgment ahead of it), reaching over $20.
Sickening Shoal can be a pain, but people that have it and don't use it tend to trade it a little lower than it may actually be worth. I got a few good deals when picking up my 4. They can vend for $8-10, but you can usually get traders down to $6-7 value on them, if you have something they need.
Jitte...well...I got one for $10 from a vendor and proceeded to dance. Not many ways around that one. Although, I almost slapped a kid at FNM. He traded TWO Jittes for 2 TOSHIRO UMEZAWAS.
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
Oh well, I'm doing MBA now, and the only Rare it has is 4 Yukora, since a close shop from my house replenished their stocks of all Kamigawa Precons (although quite strange though when they said that Rat's Nest is gone since it sold out in a day and a half, since news spread quickly), so I'll pick up 4, not to mention a friend needs Heartless Hidetsugu, and those Overblaze so I could probably pick up from him some Shoals. I don't want do do any deck that's blue, I tend to find that I have NEVER won using blue.
But then, my friend told me to do Enduring Ideal instead, stupid answer........
"That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die."
- H.P. Lovecraft
The Real Best Legacy Poster of 2005 poll
Honestly, Ideal is the exact opposite of budget. Looking at the normal Ideal deck, you're goign to need 4 Tendo Ice Bridges ($7-8 a pop), 4 Final Judgments (another $7-8 a pop), Meishin, Reverence, and Genju (cheap but still rares), not to mention Ideal itself, which I have a feeling will start going up in value, perhaps to $5-6 each, along with random other tech like Night of Souls' Betrayal and such. I think that, ignoring Jittes, Ideal.dec could be the most expensive deck in this format behind Gifts.
4 Hana Kami
4 Sakura-Tribe Elder
4 Kodama's Reach
2 Wear Away
4 Lava Spike
4 Glacial Ray
4 Ire of Kaminari
4 Peer through Depths
4 Reach through Mists
7 Island
7 Mountain
5 Forest
4 Pinecrest Ridge
2 Wear Away
4 Stream of Consciousness
3 Consuming Vortex
2 Psychic Puppetry
http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showthread.php?t=519290