$50 budget test.
My regular pod is brewing $50 budget decks and here is what I came up with. I just took apart my goblins deck and find myself without anything aggressive and wizard beatdown tribal seemed like the most me version of aggro.
We have 3 paths to victory. First, we have wizard beatdown. We are just going to get in with wizards that are pumped by our cantrips thanks to Adeliz. Second, is Voltron. Adeliz runs essentially the same package to beatdown as he does for Voltron. And our last way to win is to storm out with aetherflux reservoir or guttersnipe.
Gameplan: this is a pseudo storm deck that plays many different styles of win condition. We are going to use the myriad of cantrips to filter our way to our win cons while fueling the main win condition of adeliz beat down. The deck doesnt truest get off the ground until you have 3-4 mana. Adeliz has haste so try to avoid just playing her out without at least one cantrip to pump her with. With around 35 cards that cantrip or better the deck runs very similarly every game.
Board States:Due to the cantrips nature of this deck you need to be careful about how you play out your threats. Board wipes can be back breaking. To combat this we will only be playing out one threat, a draw engine, and Adeliz at a maximum. This threat can be a tall threat like Wee Dragonauts or wide like young pyromancer or a true storm style win with guttersnipe or Aetherflux.
Threats:
Token producers: we are playing nearly everything in our colors that makes tokens off of instant and sorceries so that triggering Adeliz also nets us tokens. The best of these is Doccent of Perfection which creates wizard tokens which can be pumped by Adeliz. We skipped over lullmage mentor since we run very few counter spells.
Tall Wizards: there are 4 wizards that pump themselves off of instant and sorceries we are playing the two that have built in evasion.
Storm: Aetherflux is a loaded gun pointed at the entire table as long as you have 50 or more life and is a must answer for your opponents. Guttersnipe is a ton of damage very quickly.
Tutoring:
Vedalken AEthermage: I want this tutor to be a toolbox-y as possible. It will probably get one of the three draw engines it can grab (Azami, Jori, Ludevic) but it can also grab staticaster to ruin a token players day, or our Talrand so we can start making tokens.
Trinket mage: This has a few really good hits. Ramp in the form of Sol Ring and Wayfarer's Bauble, Tormod's Crypt for graveyard decks, Skullclamp to turn our tokens into more draw, and Great Furnace in case we are missing a red source. (Great furnace pulled due to budget restrictions)
Muddle the Mixture: muddle is a decent counterspell and can be used that way but the main purpose of this card is to transmute it for Haze of Rage. With a mild board state and a decent amount of mana haze can kill an entire table. We run our ritual effects for this spell.
Long term plans: this card is great in our deck since we have so many cantrips digging 3 deep is fairly trivial. We only use it for a few cards and the board state dictates which you get. Either half of the haze of rage mana geyser combo or a large draw spell to refuel.
Draw: This category covers the spells that draw you more than one card.
Engines: Azami, Jori, and Ludevic are extra cards turn after turn and best of all you can tutor them with Wizard cycling.
Big Draw: The X spells are there to refuel you and get you back in the game. Were also running the most efficient draw we can afford in this budget build. Treasure cruise very easily costs just one in our deck and Deep Analysis is 2 cards twice.
Hey Thats Not Draw: The Mirari Conjecture, past in flames, and Metallurgic Summonings are just so much gas in this deck. When casting cantrips with Past in Flames you net cards for the next turn. The Mirari Conjecture is slow but it is 2 cards for 5 mana which is only 1 over the standard rate and that third counter can be insane value plus its just really fun.
Our removal package is unfortunately quite small and a lot of the staples of the format are out of our budget. Gelectrode can take over the board if left unmolested and if the board is clear it is just extra damage. I was running izzet staticaster but my meta doesnt have that many token decks and it was a dead draw too often. My meta is full of graveyard decks but there are so few cards that are budget, in my colors, and dont hurt the deck just as bad. Im playing just a single Tormods Crypt right now.
Ramp:
We are fairly limited in this category due to budget and color restrictions. I think Sol ring is worth the $3 hit. 3 mana ramp is super awkward in the deck due to our commander costing three I decided to play unstable obelisk since our colors have large issues with certain permanent types.
