kmk888

12:00 tonight. as in 1 hour 27 minutes from now. dailymtg.com

Just in case anybody doesn't know, the first spoilers of JiN come out tonight at 12:00 and it's very possible a new god will be among them. They'll be on dailymtg.com. GET HYPE

Yeah Keranos got like maybe hands down the best art. Soooo sweet.

Athreos.

It's not like there aren't ways to get around it anyways. Remove the thrumming stone, use detention spheres, play boardwipes, play burn/mill

That means if you accept that your opponent knows what your hand looks like, you can mulligan forever... needs a cap.

well that is significantly more difficult. It might be close to fixed now.

rabbigta, that's even better than the third option but not necessarily too overpowered in my opinion. It does let you sculpt your hand a hell of a lot though. There's always going to be two cards you like less than the rest. The scrying doesn't actually let you change your current hand, just adapt the top of your deck to it.

Logazor, Partial Parises are pretty good when you start with 7 cards and a 100 card deck, but since you only start with 5 you would have to discard 40% of your hand to draw a card that you don't know for sure will fix the rest of the hand's problems. It also gives players a better chance of finding one specific card in their deck and keeping it around, and when there is a single rare in the deck (that could be a dark confidant or planeswalker) I don't like that ability. Since one of those cases is pretty harsh and the other isn't very fair, I actually think Partial Paris is pretty bad compared to the other options.

Ryudhyn, I like the mechanic of putting cards back and then reshuffling a little better than rabbitga's solution of putting them on the bottom, but 3 free mulligans is too much for my taste. This discussion is pretty great though!

I don't know if I like that as a replacement. The problem with what you suggested is that it punishes people who try to play mill or lifegain or (probably not) Azor's Elecutors or something. Plus it gives you just as much access to resources as starting with a larger hand... with the added bonus of being abusable. People can play burn decks and only run 13-15 lands with the knowledge that they'll get another if they need it for free. No the reason I like scry or the first option is that it doesn't give you access to more resources than Simicmartin originally wanted, but allows people to sculpt their hand a little more so they won't just fail because they gambled on a keep.

So after building 2 Microdecks and trying practice draws and stuff, I like the format far more than I thought I would (it's like mini-commander!). But there is one big issue that I've noticed: mulligans. Since you only start with 5 cards, hands are much more likely to be a gamble, and with a format like this, stumbling for a few turns may very well prove fatal. Plus, players will not want to mulligan since a single mulligan starts the game at 20% fewer cards than their opponent(s). It adds up to put far more emphasis on luck than a normal game, something that I hate. If you want to fix this, you'll need a custom mulligan system. Here are some I've thought about:

1) A new 5 card hand, no penalty, once per game

2) Up to 3 new 5 card hands costing 2, 3, and then 4 life. (this one is unfair to opponents who try and win without damage, so I don't like it)

3) Before you decide whether or not to mulligan, you get to scry 2. This is my favorite option. It's like the foresight of a 7 card hand with the limited resources you're going for here.

That was my second choice. But I've updated it with Recurring Nightmare, which ekes the most value out so far. TBH it's still all about Skullclamp.

For example, City of Brass was an uncommon in Arabian Nights. But although this format is intended to be budget, if it were made popular that already $60 card would be made even more valuable and sought after.

BTW here is a semi-competitive microdeck based on everybody's favorite card banned in modern. http://www.mtgvault.com/kmk888/decks/skullclamp-microdeck/. It uses your most updated rules, but is not really that budget friendly (at least compared to the ones that have been posted).

EDIT: Holy crap I forgot it was an uncommon. Need to find a new rare. Maybe Birthing Pod?

I understand what you're trying to do with that rule, but it doesn't work. You have to set hard and fast rules on the budget if you want people to keep their decks budget. Just include it in the format that it has to be less than say $30 or one card can't cost more than $15, or people will push the limit of what is budget to be as competitive as possible. Like for me, I don't like budget rules. Since I'm not building the deck in real life, I want to put every great card that's available in the deck and then try to break the format. You have to stop people like me, or we'll make the format less fun.

How far back does the format go? You said no ban list and commons/uncommons, can I use Counterspell? Red Elemental blast? or does it have a Modern-like sets limitation?

This format is an interesting idea. But the problem I see with it is that since you can only play one of each card it's going to hugely deemphasize a certain two card synergy. Like you can make a tribal deck or one light on synergy, but you can't make a real combo deck. And the lack of consistency will make Spike players hate it.

Also because of your decisions pertaining to deck size and life total, the meta will probably be slanted towards burn and mill.

It does seem fun to play though, so people that are focused on play skill and enjoying themselves would probably play it

Why? Prophet is best, in my opinion, in a shell with creatures and instants that has some draw power and not too much mana ramp. There it can excel as something to power out lots of creatures and instants far faster than they should ever be played, while retaining a surprise factor for the instants. But here there are only 2 instants to work with. And there is so much mana ramp already that it just seems redundant. Between Nykthos, Voyaging Satyr, Elvish Mystic, and Sylvan Caryatid, he already dumps his hand pretty much as fast as possible. The main thing that holds him back is the constant issue of running out of cards to dump. That's why monogreen normally uses curvetoppers like Garruk and (in this version) Prime Speaker Zegana. They shore up the weakness to board wipes and ensures that monogreen will win the game if boardwipes do not appear. But Prophet doesn't help draw cards and if you've already dumped your hand it's basically a dead draw. So I would actually do my best to avoid Prophet, honestly

Yeah Rakdos Cackler and Tormented Hero are kind of the weak points of the deck IMO, but he wants ways to be aggressive that won't kill him a la Pain Seer. But using a removal spell on your own weenie? Ehhhh. I would look elsewhere for cheap aggression. I suggest Rakdos's Return, maybe Madcap skills (so your Pain Seer doesn't get blocked so easily) or going green for Scavenging Ooze and Deathrite Shaman like SystemSCSnake suggested. Green would also let you use Abrupt Decay, Golgari Charm, Dreg Mangler and/or Lotleth Troll if you wanted to.

Oh okay I did not realize you were planning on decking them. That explains it a bit better. And I see your reasoning now for the Blind Obedience Meekstone combo. Well cool deck man! Always a fan of Surgical Extraction and Cabal Therapy, and the rest of the list seems to work well too.

Devour Flesh is always a good addition with Duskmantle and Pain Seer. Desecration Demon also may be worth hitting yourself for 4, particularly with Whip of Erebos and the addition of Devour Flesh.

I understand extraction decks, and like this a lot, but I'm actually having trouble finding a win con. Running Ensnaring Bridge but trying to attack with Bloodghast is okay if you want to keep two cards in hand, but it functions better when you just run yourself out of cards completely. You gonna shock them with Deathrite? Or bleed it out with Blind Obedience? I just feel like it could be a little faster.

I'm also not sure about running Entomb just for Bloodghast. If you're going to run it, I feel like you may want more options