Puschkin

Okay, that explains alot, also the necessity to play Modern. I tend to forget how good it is for a Magic player to live in a country that picked up Magic early and has it's own cards, language wise. In fact, german was the first (or tied first with french I think) language Magic was translated to.

Anyways, I have to say it's exhilarating that we collaborate on Magic decks even though we are from so many different places, races and cultures! You are the first african Magic player I know! I do have Magic friends in Denmark, Netherlands, Finland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and the States, all of which I've met personally.

Isn't there something better out there? Especially considering his when-I-die-ability which isn't a may effect, you risk having to put another dredge guy on top of your lib if you run the Thug.

I'd rather go with the Darkmore Salvages and add more ways to discard stuff - Faithless Looting, Strongarm Tactics, something like that.

Hm, that must suck. I am so glad to have group of players with card pools of all expensions, ever. Where do you live, BTW? Because you are talking of exchange rates.

Whats the Golgari Thug for?

Why Modern? You miss Elvish Farmer, Spore Flower and Fungal Bloom. I mean, this ain't be tournament material anyway.

You are also missing one of the best Thallids ever printed: Psychotrope Thallid! With him you can find key cards easily and you'll never run out of shrooms! He would even smooth out the mana curve if you replace some of the redundant cc-1-Thallids and/or Sprout Swarm, which, at some point, will only give you more of what you have plenty of either way.

No Reap?

And if you want to mill someone in a Painter deck, the fastest way would be Grindstone.

Traproot Kami is a great card but not for this budget version of the deck (without duallands I simply haven't got enough Forests).
Worldsoul: Yes but then I would be withgout style ;)

It's actually not supposed to be budget, I just trimmed it down intentionally because otherwise people don't look at your decks.
What I would like to teach MTGVault users is to check out other people's decks that aren't already in Hot Page - look at Unloved or New, bookmark authors you like and check their lists, use deck search and go for tags etc. And, most importantly, don't look at the deck's price! Check out the deck and if you like what it does and really want to build something similar IRL but can't afford it ... then try make it budget yourself! In most cases it's sufficient to fiddle with the mana base and for many cards there are compareably cheap alternatives! Even if there aren't you can still learn from what you see and/or get ideas for variations of the theme.

This is more of a shoutout to anyone reading this, not just Taishi - there are many good ideas out here and you miss them if you restrict yourself to budget decks. 1 year ago I would have posted this deck with the cards you see in the sideboard, but then it would cost hundreds of dollars and nobody would have replied. But as you can see, the core of the deck isn't that expensive. Yet MTGVaulters seem to be unable to mentally replace duallands with basic lands and to cut the other expensive cards in favour of more cheap cards that support the core of the deck.

There are roughly 15000 different Magic cards out there ... you cannot imagine how many possible combinations and interactions that means.

My ass is 40 years old. Fortunately nobody believes that so when someone asks and I say "30", nobody blinks an eye :) Started out Magic with Revised/Fallen Empires.

http://magiccards.info/uh/en/106.html

Death Grip !!!

And in order to get that mana you need to tap your lands for mana, which is an activated ability. I explained that in the deck description and How to Play section. Here are the official rulings for City of Solitude (the last one is the crucial one):

10/4/2004: City of Solitude can affect abilities of cards that are not on the battlefield because it prevents players from activating those abilities.
10/4/2004: City of Solitude does not stop triggered abilities from being put on the stack. They are never "activated".
10/1/2009: This stops players from activating mana abilities.

But it's the half that zero of my cards work with.

Spiketail Hatchling and Co don't work, it's still activated abilities. Dosan is not not a fifth City of Solitude because he only works on spells, not abilities, so all of my tricks don't work, opponents can still pay mana.

However, the Spiketails + Dosan work nice together, you can counter things with them while Dosan is in play, however, it doesn't fit here. Would probably be good as it's own deck.

Deckidea:
Cyclone + Circle of Protection: Green

Would probably include other green cards that damage all players, too.

It surely smoothes out the mana curve, but what to cut? For now I remove a Liege (which is just for style anyway) and a Fade Away (because the more creatures I have myself the less useful it becomes). But I am clueless what else to cut. Maybe a Brigand, now that I have a new blocker with reach?

Wow, that was fast, thx!
Seems like those darn "likes" are worth more than comments regarding the hot page ...
So, if you want me to check any pet decks of yours, let me know.

Would be careful - this isn't exactly tournament caliber, casual or not. It's easily disrupted once the opponents know what it does and if you win a few rounds, word will spread. It also isn't the fastest. I recommend checking the sideboard which currently holds cards I would play in a non-budget version. Especially the lands and the Mystic Snakes. You can't use Mystic Snakes when City is in play, however, in a tournament you have less time and the problem is to actually get it in play. The snakes will help you staying alive until you have a City online. The evil thing is you can bounce them with your Shards/Portals, too.

Yeah, that's the thing with this deck, after playing it you will get no so subtle hints that you should switch deck asap :)

Nice deck! So glad to see someone else fiddling around with old school cards in casual.

I do run a similar deck based around Shroud and Abyss but I explore this theme more instead of coupling it with land destruction. You may want to check it out. And we might trade some comments on other decks we made because I sense a similar style.

BTW, you listed Beta Bayous. You might want to change them to Revised edition which would reduce this deck's cost by about 1000%. It seems like this doesn't matter and I would agree if it wasn't for the average MTGVault user that is obsessed with budget and if they see a 7000$ deck then it doesn't matter how well made it is, they won't even bother reading the description or checking out the cards. Sad but true.

Published a new deck. Wanted to pull the "post a garbage budget deck and claim it is the shiat" stunt but I just cannot ... so, it's a budget yet original deck that I bet nobody here on Vault has ever seen. If you still have Magic buddies that play with you that you want to get rid of - this is the deck for you :P
http://www.mtgvault.com/puschkin/decks/budget-deck-of-solitude/

Please comment a bit on it on the weekend, I want to see if the mob here (not you, the average joes that flock to the hot page like blowflies) can wrap their brain around something that isn't about tribes and block mechanics and hasn't been in circulation since the dawn of time.