Building on a Budget: Bouncing Shenanigans!
Theme of the deck: Bouncing Permanents
Technically, most creaturs, planeswalkers and removal spells cost a lot these days, especially in our country, Philippines. Baneslayer Angel and Jace, the Mind Sculptor costs around 10-20 dollars (500 -1000 pesos) average, while Sphinx of Jwar Island, Archive Trap and our usual standard mass removal spells up around 5 - 10 dollars range. Since I don't want to go Jund, and I don't want to imitate the "budget meal" (mill) decks, I decided to use the gatherer search engine to create a control deck which focuses on denying the opponent the opportunity to cast spells indefinitely: by bouncing off their lands.
Of course, the problem lies with reloading my hand with spells to continue bouncing their lands, plus I needed to protect my only win condition: Luminarch Ascension. I also am aware of the possibility of running against aggressive non-jund decks such as Boss Naya and Allies-Bant. therefore, much of the secondary win conditions revolves around these two cards: Ardent Plea and Deny Reality.
The Cascade Mechanic allows me to utilize the entire deck to continue "denying" the enemy of his/her lands and creatures. However, having the deck focused on bounce-effects from cards, it is also expected to get weaker and become counter-productive against counter-spells, namely spell pierce. In this case, the vast array of bounce spells included in the deck ensures that we have plenty of ammunition to completely deny the opponent the opportunity to at least cast game breaking spells long enough to disrupt their meta-game regardless of counter magic.
To guarantee the reliability of the said bounce spells, Ardent Plea serves to cascade Into the Roil as chief defense plus mid-game to late-game card advantage against creatures, Treasure Hunt to generate a pseudo-mind spring effect, Spreading Seas to disrupt the opponent's land and to draw a card; the possibility of cascading into Luminarch Ascension means that we can afford to run two copies instead of four, creating space for Quest of Ancient Secrets to be cascaded or cast into play as defense against mill decks and chief reloading system for more permanent bouncing. The Deft Duelists are here to protect and to attack if need be, against aggressive decks or Planeswalkers which we are unable to bounce or allowed to remain in play. The Ardent Plea also serves as a pseudo-glorious anthem for more damage.
In case the opponent goes first and are given opportunities to generate more lands than you can bounce, Tectonic Edge serves to guarantee a fall-back position and also act as our chief defense against man-lands. Halimar Depths in conjunction with an expected Treasure Hunt or Cascade fixes our deck for more consistency.
To consistently cascade into the deck, Aether Tradewinds allows us to bounce the opponent's land and the Ardent Plea, creating more opportunities for cascading into our two-drop spells. Resounding Wave acts as the bread and butter bounce (and cycle it if the opportunity arises) while hindering light serves to protect us against casual spells such as blighting and archive trap targeted and generate card advantage to increase the consistency of bouncing the opponent into submission. Deny reality serves as the late-game bounce and also another way to cascade into Ardent Plea and other Bouncing spells. Eventually the Quest for the Ancient Secrets will trigger, and refresh our deck towards bouncing more of the opponent's permanents.
Ultimately, given more budget I would include the Sphinx of Jwar Isle, or even any copy of Jace, especially the m10 Jace. But having been inspired by Nate Heiss since reading his BoaB articles, I continue to stood by creating budget decks with total awareness of the current meta-game because it makes me happy, but at the same time naive to the reality that budget decks in the long run are inefficient against Top-decks. My only happiness stems out from the fact that the artistry of deck building is preserved for the future players of Magic to come and enjoy, as we all did.
Comments are welcome, as also criticisms. Sideboard suggestions are very needed.