So this is a project I wanted to engage in- To make a set of 10+ super-budget 60-card decks that are simple, relatively easy to play, relatively easy to understand, and bring across the fundamentals of how Magic Works. We've since gone way past 10, with tons more in the works, and I've really enjoyed the challenge of trying to make these decks easy to play and understand, fun, and all under a $15 budget, sideboard included.
The main goal here is that you could easily build these deck for a low cost and use them as an easy introduction to how magic works, to teach a group of new players both how to play, and give them a sense of Why, a sense of what fun things they're getting into. These decks aren't gonna be particularly good, or even legal in any particular format if it stops me from including a card I think is good for the deck, but they should be fun and interesting without being too hard to get into. They should be an easily-accessible example of how fun Magic: The Gathering can be.
This is one of the more advanced decks- Not really the first decks you want people learning with, but a sweet, budget deck you can use once new players are already on their feet to really knock their socks off and get them to think about something you can do in Magic that they might not have otherwise realized.
As it turns out, a combo has to be A) Pretty freakin' sweet, and B) not have any/many replaceable parts for those combo pieces to stay pricey after it leaves standard. As a result, since they've printed like, 4 different functional reprints of the thing, Aristocrats is a deck I can afford, and it's freaking sweet. And yes, I specifically used Vampire Aristocrat just because that's how the deck got its name.
As for budget: Maindeck cost is currently at ~$10.40 (according to the middle blue numbers on this very site under estimated value), sideboard at about ~$3.15, so we're nicely under the $15 budget.
So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:
Our stars of the show are Vampire Aristocrat, Zulaport cutthroat, and Pious Evangel once it gets flipped and becomes an extra cutthroat. You get a bunch of little tokens, sac 'em real fast in huge numbers, drain your opponent for a bunch, and then slap them silly with an 8/8 aristocrat. Fun times!
To aid in this venture- Doomed Traveler and Myr Sire both replace themselves upon death, Gather the Townsfolk is 2 mana for 2 1/1s that can become 5 if you're loosing badly, and weaponcraft enthusiast is 3 sac-able bodies for 3 mana, which is solid.
Your enchantments let you make sacrifices for mana when the aristocrat isn't around, and get you sweet value off of them- each copy of hidden salvage gives you at least 1 servo token every turn, and Vampiric rites lets you turn your victims into card advantage. Definitely worth debating replacing this with Altar's Reap, to get 2 cards for less mana once rather than going for the repeatable effect, but I like it as-is.
Bone Splinters is a great removal spell in any deck where your creatures are this expendable, and Tragic Slip is stupidly powerful in a deck that intends to murder all its creatures all the time.
Manabase is meant to be a touch lacking, but also super-budget. I'll be doing the same for all of them.
As for the sideboard, this IS supposed to be a sideboard they learn how to use, to make their deck perform better in the right matchups, or just in general to customize their decks within constraints.
Revoke Existence is one of my sideboard staples- cheap, solid, easy to understand, exactly the kind of card new players should learn how to use sideboards with. Not that this isn't clearly one of the more advanced decks of the series- by the time you drop aristocrats on them, they should already have played a good couple of games with other decks- but it's also just good.
Harm's Way is a sweet value spell against aggressive decks that you can use to redirect a shock or most of a searing spear back at your opponent's creatures, which is sweet, raise the alarm is for if you want to raise your token density, sheltering light is an acknowledgement that you need to keep those vampire aristocrats alive. You could put Blood Barin in this slot instead, as copies 5-7 of Aristocrat, which would probably be a better deck, but I feel like this forces some weirder but more interesting gameplay from players, and is a good "Ah-ha!" moment when they realize what the card is for.
Smothering Abomination is when you just need to give the deck some serious value, and boy does it do that. Draw a card every time I sac a token? And my aristocrat can do that for no mana, at instant speed, whenever I want? Let's make it rain some card advantage here guys.
And Sylvok Lifestaff, which is a weird choice at first glance, and I'm glad I stumbled across it. When you can sacrifice creatures for free, that equip ability reads "pay 1 generic mana, gain 3 life, only use this ability any time you could cast a sorcery". It's a fantastic anti-agro sideboard card that makes your sacrifice engine much nastier for your opponents.