MTG Salvation

Only movement that I can think of is a reprinting of Faith's Reward and possibly finding room for Painful Truths.

I dont think you should replace the abundant growths, but you really do need sprawl in there. Its another 1 mana aura, and it gives you more mana, color mana at that. It needs to be in the deck. It is strictly better than Fertile Ground, so at the very least you can do an even swap. I don't think you need 4 green sun's zeniths, so maybe play with those numbers so you can get 1-2 Fertile Ground to stay in the deck?

Rofellos's Gift is key to keep the engine going. it combos with Gaea's Touch for additional land drops on the turn you combo off, and grants you large sums of mana as well.

Utopia Sprawl is indeed a must. I would also suggest Eladamri's Vineyard.

This is a little dated, but it was made for players like you.

http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/legacy-type-1-5/572047-getting-started-in-legacy-and-legacy-budget-primer

feel free to ask about any of the decks. If you want updated lists just let me know.

That's awesome. I've been playing a mono blue version of this with great success. they never see the switch coming!

Here's my list. Buried Alive is just way too good not to use in this deck. Dimir Machinations can tutor it up, while Shred Memory find Zombie Infestation (you can also use its exile ability to make sure your Krovikan Horrors come back). Each can also grab Contaminated Ground or Tainted Well respectively, which makes Filth in your graveyard very good.

Trade Routes and its creature cousin Oboro Breezecaller are great with landfall triggers when you combine them with creature cards like Walking Atlas. Even better with Retreat to Coralhelm, which allows you to go infinite. Here is a deck list that I play with that uses the concept.

http://magic.tcgplayer.com/db/deck.asp?deck_id=1241292

it doesn't have the woodcrasher in it, but you could easily fit the beast in.

Budget Legacy is my specialty, so I'll help as much as I can.

Goblins-
Unfortunately, you don't have a lot to work with as far as cards go that port to Legacy well here. On the bright side, however, a lot of what you don't have is relatively cheap to pick up. Playing legacy goblins without the Wastelands and ports is obviously not ideal, but the deck is still a powerhouse, and can be super explosive. You just have to model it with more aggression in mind to replace the midrange/control elements that you can't afford with the mana base. The most expensive card you want to pick up (it also goes in merfolk, so you will have to get it either way) is Aether Vial. coupled with Goblin Lackey, this is the card that allows you to be as fast as you can be. Keep the Piledrivers, Rabblemasters, Goblin Chieftains, and War Marshals. Everything will probably have to go. This is a typical budget Legacy Goblins list. Take a look at how it is constructed, and try to work from there. You can try to start things off without Vial, but I wmuld get them as soon as you can, considering they were not included in Eternal Masters.

Merfolk
Merfolk is a bit tougher to crack because almost every piece is at least semi-expensive. Bright side, however, is that most lists don't run wasteland anymore. Not so bright side, is that Cavern of Souls is run nowadays, and it has a decently high price tag. You do have a ton of great merfolk already, though, so that's another plus. All of your lords can stay in, as well as Mutavault and Silvergill Adept. Take out Dismember, Trickster (some lists run him) and master of waves. Consider adding cards like Cursecatcher, True-Name Nemesis, Phantasmal Image, and, again, Aether Vial (I don't think I would play this deck without it. Goblins have Lackey, Merfolk do not). You also want to try and find some counter magic. Daze is a cheap and free Counterspell that can catch people off guard. It's no Force of Will, but its a start. A decent list for you might look like this...

Stompy
Stompy is barely viable as an archetype at all in legacy, but it does have its strong match ups. First thing you need to do is grab a play set of Green Sun's Zenith. Lose Surrak, and Dismember. Try to find room for green sun silver bullet targets, like Thrun, the Last Troll for control decks and Reclamation Sage for decks that run equipment. Speaking of, you will probably want some equipment of your own, but it will be a while before you can afford them, methinks. Dryad Militant and Yavimaya Hollow and both pretty good as well. This is a list that I threw together a while ago. Again, green aggro decks are not too good in legacy, and this is magnified by the fact that you are on a budget, but you gotta work with what you can.


Tokens
This is actually not very far from what I would actually run. Lose Dismember for Disfigure, Swords to Plowshares, and/or Go For The Throat, and try to find yourself some Cabal Therapy, which are very strong in token lists. Don't play Ghost Quarter, and try to fit in some Isolated Chapel.

Pox
Pox is a tough sell without Liliana, but you can probably make it work. I don't like running a full set of Pox, and would prefer 1-2 only, with another slot being filled by Nether Spirit. Sinkhole is getting reprinted, and should work great for you. Even more budget than that, which you might consider, is Blight. Innocent Blood should replace Wrench Mind, and you probably want to go down to 4-6 rack cards instead of the full 8. Consider a sweeper like Mutilate, or targeted removal, like Victim of Night. If you are looking to cut more cards, going down to only 2-3 copies of Pit should be fine.

There ya go! Of course you don't have to accept all of these ideas, but hopefully they at least helped. You are right in thinking that goblins is probably your best bet to start off. I would concentrate on that, and see how far it can take you. Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions!

Hey there! thinkign on Spirit of the night and Akroma, I hadn't considered that they have protection from black. I do remember seeing them in old school reanimator lists, but it must be because those lists also ran Exhume.

To link cards in the forum you have to use a card tag. Then typing your message, you can highlight the name of the card, then, use the card tag button at the top of the reply window. It's shown as a picture of a single magic card. You can also just wrap the card name in card tags yoruself. Just put an opening bracket [ then type "card", then a closing bracket ]. finally, write the cards name, then type an opening bracket [ then a slash / then type "card", and close the bracket again ]. In the end, it will look like this, only without the spaces: [ card]Dark Ritual[ /card].

You have a pretty good start here, just a few quick nit-picks.

You want your protection spells to be able to also serve as discard outlets. Duress is a great card, but in a bind it wont pitch a fatty for you. I would suggest Unmask, or Funeral Charm instead. The charm doesn't let you pick which card your opponent loses, but you can use it to kill small creatures, or to target yourself and bin a fatty.

I think you can find some better fatties. At the very least, you want to spread the love a bit, and give yourself more options. Avatar Of Woe is a great card that should be included, as is Akroma, Angel of Wrath. Others to consider are Crater Hellion, Petradon, Spirit of the Night, and Verdant Force. Old school reanimator decks used to run a mix of most, if not all of, these creatures, as well as the Nishoba that you already have.

Finally, I think you have too many reanimate spells? I wouldn't play more than 10, personally. You can take 2 out and add in 2 more discard outlets. Hidden Horror is fun, but there's also more Unmask style cards.

Okay, well that changes things! A lot of what I said still stands, though. You want to bring some focus to your deck. You can try to focus on infect creatures, but that might be difficult, considering there are only 2, and you have both of them listed. I think, personally, that a deathtouch approach would be more viable and fun. I remember a long time ago looking at the combo of Venom and Taunting Elf. Such a combo might be fun to build around. The cousin to this would be Lure + Lowland Basilisk. Thoughts?

I think you might be confused as to what the Legacy format is? Legacy is an eternal format in which you can play any card, from any set, as long as it is not banned. This means you can play anything from Alpha, all the way to the current set. Were you limiting yourself to unlimited-7th as a fun limitation, or because you thought you had to? Either way, deathouch was around in older sets, it just wasn't called deathtouch. Lowland Basilisk is an example, but it looks like you alreayd knew about him and similar cards.

I guess before I go throwing ideas out I'll see what you say about your unlimited-7th limitation. I may have misunderstood your original post and what kind of deck you are trying to make.

Okay, it sounds like there are a lot of things you want your deck to do. The first step to making it better would be to focus it down. Narrow your strategy to one thing. Do you want to use poison counters? Do you want cheap, evasive creatures combined with pump spells? DO you want to take advantage of deathtouch? Figure out which specific direction you want to take and we can move from there. I can already tell you, however, that there are many cards (very cheap cards) that do everything you are trying to do, but better. What this means is that unless you specifically don't want to stop using the cards you have shown us, whatever strategy you decide to focus on will be using a list of almost entirely different cards. Whether or not you are okay with that, lets at least decide on what to focus on, and we can move on from there.

Do you want this deck to be competitive, or would you just be playing it casually?

Lavamancer is not worth it without fetches, no. I would never play Faithless looting, ever. It doesn't do damage, so it doesn't belong.