dknight27

Gotcha. I see a couple budget cards that are worth considering, even if its a super casual build

Trophy mage
Treasure mage
Trinket mage
Tribute mage
Omen of the sea
Time wipe
Heliod's intervention
Saheeli's artistry
Mind stone
Nihil spellbomb
Bident of thassa

You could probably pick up all those cards for 5 bucks. Just my quick thoughts

Are we going for casual, budget EDH?

As long as you don't go mint on every card, it should be within you budget. If you need to trim, cut Arcades from 3 to 2 and add 1 high alert to keep the win condition count at 5. That'll shave off about 5 bucks. Another cost saver would be to cut scattered groves and/or 1 irrigated farmland and sub in 1 or 2 terramorphic expanse. Keeps the color count high and helps thin the deck so you don't topdeck as many useless lands. Not as good as the cycle lands, but a good budget substitute.

Here's how I would build this deck under your parameters:

https://www.mtgvault.com/dknight27/decks/casualbudgetarcades-defender/



Meaning no offense, but your current build falls victim to many of the problems new players build into their decks. The curve is waaaaaaay off. As is, its far too slow. You won't be playing anything till turn 3 (if you hit all 3 land drops), and after that you'll be stuck at 1 card per turn for a long time. Any deck with even semi-decent speed is gunna cruise right past it before you can set up a defense and start grinding. You've also got a lot of cards that are off-strategy, or are unnecessary support. The deck's mechanics are pretty simple and don't really require support, which is why the concept works well. You lay down defenders (retaining card advantage) and keep opponent at bay long enough to field one of your "uses toughness as power" win conditions, then overrun in 2 turns or so. So, the only support cards you need are the aforementioned win conditions. So, beyond the defenders and win conditions, you need cards that either protect you from control, buy time, or move through your deck quickly and cheaply to get you whatever you need. Since this is for casual, you can take advantage of some of the fantastic cards that are illegal in anything but legacy and up, such as ponder and swords to plowshares.

Builds like this are hyper-vulnerable to decks that don't try for combat damage, so the sideboard is fitted to deal with that. Teyo protects against burn, mill, and storm, so it's sideboard gold. You could probably run 1 or 2 mainboarded even. Other than that the deck/sideboard is pretty self-explanatory.

I hope this helps.

Are we going for a budget casual build here?

Are you looking for this to be competitive? Also, what's the budget looking like?

Honestly I think that would go a long way over hierarch. This deck wants to hit with as many critters as it can, so the exalted probably won't be much of a factor unless you get down to topdecking or are in a super attrition lock, which this deck wants to avoid anyway.

Looks solid. I'm still wary of the 4x mantis raider because of the hyper specific mana cost coupled with hierarch not being able to pump red. Perhaps drop it to 3x and try a 1-drop fast critter to gain some tempo?

Unless there's an unbanning being planned that I'm unaware of, Deathrite shaman is illegal in legacy unfortunately

Perhaps some 1-drops could help cut the curve and speed things up a bit. Opt, righteous gift, and sky tether come to mind.

I also like maxing out fabled passage to clear out some of the useless topdecks you're going to get.

What's our budget and level of competition in here?

18 lands and mind twist don't mix. I would consider kicking the land count up to 20 anyway. Your curve is low, which is good, but this deck really wants to hit the turn 2 land drop into one of the 2-drop discard cards. Plus you can ditch lands to raven's crime, so they aren't useless top decks.

Let me know how it works out

I'm not a huge fan of dragon mantle and flamekin brawler in here. They are completely useless early game, and with 17 lands it's quite possible you will be stuck with them for a while before they are worth the slot. In addition, adding in the wonderful berserkers, there are 10 pumpers in this build, and any more than 1 on the field at a time is borderline a waste.

Bomat courier is a consideration in here, if for no other reason than that he has haste. I assume swiftspear is out of the budget, or I would say that is a definite.

I like thought scour over merfolk secretkeeper in this build. Fewer cards milled, but retains tempo and card advantage, and a 0/4 that doesn't trigger amalgam or help with gravecrawler isn't going to help much. Yes it helps with vengevine, but thought scour's material retention allows for vengevine help (for only U).

At least that's the way I look at it.

I also like 4 dream twist over gnaw to the bone, but that's me.

Even with 24 lands, this build looks too top heavy. You've got a serious 3-drop clog going on that's going to cause problems getting developed and dealing with anything fast. And even after you hit your third land, you're going to be at 1 card per turn for quite a while.

I've been mulling this one over for a while, and I like canyon slough and sheltered thicket in a build like this over 3 copies of raging ravine. Ravine is an excellent endgame clock, but it's no good until you have many lands available, and fetching it with Wrenn takes 2 turns to be effective. The cycle lands are fetchable and produce material the same turn, and aren't bad top decks if you need tempo, whereas Ravine is a bad topdeck when thinking about tempo.

Just my current theory. Thoughts?

Are you going for semi-competitive, semi-budget modern here?

I actually kinds like gearhulk in here. 1 copy means you will almost always topdeck it, and with 24 lands it's not gunna be a horrible dead draw forever if you draw it early. On top of this, there are only 6 cards in this deck that cost more than 2, so even if you get it in the opening hand you are gunna have ammo ready.

Just my opinion, I know the general magic community doesn't value gearhulk as highly as I do.

This looks mighty tight. Personally I like 4 kozileks over 2 and 2 thought erasure, but that's me. The surveil is nice, but turn 1 kozilek is too tempting. Four fetches seems a bit light to me, you could probably trim the island down to 4 and add 1 flooded strand.

Other than that this looks excellent. Good work.