Want to play something absurdly powerful while spending as little money as possible? Ignore the price tag to the side of this window; it tells lies. I have the deck for you.
This deck is made of cheap cards, many of which you probably already have lying around! And if you don't, you can probably find them somewhere easily. This guide will explain the choices behind the cards, and also some advice for new players looking to acquire these cards on the cheap.
Villainous Wealth is the "win condition" of choice here. It is the silliest card ever printed and an incredible source of mana and card advantage. Is your opponent playing something cool and interesting? Do you want to explore the synergies behind their deck without buying it? Cast a huge Villainous Wealth and now you can play THEIR deck, too!
Large Villainous Wealths feel great, and can net you some really weird cards. If you somehow manage to resolve one against a combo deck, you might find yourself resolving their whole combo, like Splinter Twin on a Pestermite, or several Soul Sisters and a Serra Ascendant for massive life gain and a sudden beater, or even just a lot of burn! There's so much potential!
UrzaTron (
is an incredibly powerful mana-producing engine and is incredibly easy to assemble with the right support.Ancient Stirrings and Expedition Map help you dig for the remaining pieces of your engine. Ancient Stirrings costs 2 dollars each on TCGPlayer, but its well worth it. Expedition Map was just reprinted in Modern Masters, so the price has dropped significantly from since when I first made this deck. In my experience, people are hoarding this card, so it is hard to get people to give it to you for free, or even trade for it. Luckily its cheap online.
Prophetic Prism helps you permanently fix your mana to cast Wealth, while also helping you cycle through your deck to find Tron Pieces.
Chromatic Star and Chromatic Sphere are "eggs" you can "crack" for a one time dose of colored mana, and a replacement card if you're cycling through your deck. These make the rest of your cards a lot easier to cast, but can also be used to simply dig for answers. If you're cracking an egg just to dig for answers, remember to name the color of mana that you're hoping to find; green if you hope to hit Ancient Stirrings, blue for Mulldrifter, or black for a removal spell. Star is a little pricey at 2 dollars each, but sphere can be found for 10 cents online!
Black Sun's Zenith is a cheap wrath that, during your time cycling through your deck, you may end up casting many times through a game. Thanks to various reprints, this card only costs $1.50 on TCGplayer! Yes please!
The removal suite is made of a bunch of random black removal spells. You should tailor these according to your metagame and whatever you happen to have lying around! My girlfriend likes playing Bogles, so I have a maindeck Devour Flesh so I have a chance against her, for example. Many players at your local game store will have random copies of Murderous Cut and Ultimate Price laying around because they're in standard right now. And Ultimate Price was just in Ravnica Block, too! You should be able to pick up a bunch of removal spells for free. Doom Blade and his brothers will help you buy time against agro decks.
The Creatures in this deck are inspired by RUG Pauper decks.Fangren Marauder can gain you a ton of life while cycling through Spheres, Stars, and Maps. He's also a big body to help you stabilize while you pray for Villainous Wealth to show up. He's about 10 cents a pop on TCGPlayer.
Ulamog's Crusher and Mulldrifter were just reprinted in MM2015, and you might be able to find spare copies lying around your local game shop. If you cannot, you can also buy them for cheap online. They're also pretty strong win conditions for how cheap they are!
Steel Hellkite is my budget Wurmcoil Engine. The reprint in the Commander Product has these below a dollar! Meanwhile, its an evasive pumpable threat you can use as a mana sink, while controlling the opponent's board! Swing once against agro and annihilate the Zoo player's army of Wild Nacatls, or destroy a problematic enchantment! If your opponent lets you sneak by their tokens (or if they don't have flying), you can obliterate them all for free!If he should die in combat, remember that he triggers Fangren Marauder!
Condescend is the only counterspell I'm running in this deck. Its almost always a hard counter, whether you have Tron assembled or not. The true beauty of Condescend is actually in the Scry 2 ability, which triggers regardless of whether the spell was countered.
Urza's Power Plant,
Urza's Mine
, and Urza's Tower have been printed many times, but it is unlikely they will ever be printed again. I recommend you pick these up while you can! The best ones come from a set called Chronicles. A pro player might value having matching Urza Lands, but in Chronicles, four versions of each of the lands were printed, which means you could have 12 Urza lands all with different art; one of each. This is too cool to pass up! With a little effort, you can get one of each of these Chronicles Urza Lands into a TCGPlayer Cart for about 6 dollars total.
Sideboarding:I like to have spare copies of win conditions / creatures that are good in certain matchups; Fangren Marauder vs Agro, Ulamog's Crusher vs Control, for example. The removal suite is also flexible, and tailoring removal to your opponent will probably be critical to winning. Make that Bogles player cry with sacrifice effects!
I'm having a little trouble winning through hate like Ghost Quarter, though, so some suggestions on that front would be much appreciated.
