The EpiPen® is Mightier than the Sword

Legacy BRG (Jund) Budget Combo Creature Cheat Midrange Ramp Tokens

Balaam__

Creature (24)

• 4x Arbor Elf
• 3x Crashing Drawbridge
• 3x Essence Warden
• 4x Hornet Nest
• 4x Ignoble Hierarch
• 4x Spellskite
• 2x Volcano Hellion

Instant (9)

• 4x Fire Covenant
• 1x Life Goes On
• 4x Lightning Bolt

Land (17)

• 17x Forest

Enchantment (8)

• 4x Abundant Growth
• 4x Utopia Sprawl

Sorcery (2)

• 2x Green Sun's Zenith

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Sideboard

Artifact (6)

• 2x Nihil Spellbomb
• 4x Pithing Needle

Instant (6)

• 3x Apostle's Blessing
• 3x Fog

Enchantment (3)

• 3x Bequeathal

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Maybeboard

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Blasphemous Act
• 1x Burst of Speed
• 1x Eldritch Evolution

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Basically:

The Mana Base

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This deck was designed around a very modest budget (by Legacy standards), roughly half to a third of what a decently competitive Modern deck runs nowadays. As such, we forego the pricey lands in favor of plain old basic forests—17 to be precise. The count may seem slightly low, but we have a plethora of ways to squeeze every last drop of mana from our deck; so not to worry.

There is, of course, an obvious upgrade path for the mana base more than anything else. A playset of Taiga and a playset of Stomping Ground along with an Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth will ensure you always have the appropriate color on hand, if you can afford the cover charge.

If you wanted to get even more creative, run Savannah and Temple Garden along with Pariah and Shielded by Faith for a Selesnya variation of this deck.

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In addition to lands, ramp plays a key role in accelerating our gameplan. Fortunately these cards are comparatively far cheaper, and can open up some surprise plays.

•Utopia Sprawl will attach itself to any of our basic forests and will facilitate the other two thirds of our shard.

•Abundant Growth loses the two-for-one aspect that makes the previous card so helpful, but it adds an immediate replacement draw. Very, very handy in a fast deck that can turn a forest into a mountain, draw into a lightning bolt, then untap and cast it to zap a flashed in 3/3.

•Arbor Elf should come as no surprise in a deck loaded with forests and utopia sprawls. Generate oodles of mana, driving our strategy forward.

•Ignoble Hierarch is knee deep in Junditude. His Exalted keyword ability is wasted in a deck with intentions like ours, but we really only want him for guaranteed access to and .

Control and Removal

We’re relatively quick, considering the budgetary restrictions, but sometimes you just want a little extra insurance. Adding a bit of control and removal felt appropriate, helping us ward off cataclysmic failure long enough to play all our key cards.

•Lightning Bolt will fry many early game threats, and loses no value over time. Cheap and effective.

•Spellskite requires only generic mana, so we’ll never be color locked. Once afield it acts as a living umbrella, sheltering us from otherwise intimidating spells thrown our way. A tactical tradeoff to save a mana dork we need to pay for victory next turn is worth the 2 point hit, and our valiant artifact horror will have its name indelibly etched in the Wall of Heroism for its sacrifice.

•It may be stretching the concept of control, but I’m going to cite Life Goes On here too. Stabilizing our life total after an unpleasant surprise isn’t without merit, and even if all is going well it is absolutely prudent for us to have the highest life total possible for when things begin to fall into place. It isn’t logical to lean too heavily into true life gain as an archetype, but a little extra HP in the bank can only help us. Best held in reserve for the inevitable offing of one of our mana dorks, or to recoup our losses after our strategy comes to fruition.

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Anaphylaxis

Casting Hornet Nest is easy enough; locating it as early as possible without breaking the bank is the tricky part. Since speed is of the essence I’ve foregone one mana tutors like Worldly Tutor in favor of a solution that not only acquires the card we want, but immediately puts it in play. Green Sun's Zenith is one of the priciest cards in the deck, but we really can’t afford not to run at least a couple copies of it. Besides, with the amount of ramp at our disposal we ought to have no issues paying a total of on Turn 2-3.

Once in play, our immediate focus is to find a way to inflict a tremendous amount of damage all at once and directly targeting the hive. Fortunately, there exists the precise card we’re looking for in the form of Fire Covenant. Simply target the Hornet Nest, dumping as much life into the casting cost as we can afford to. This will jostle the hive, spitting out a large number of angry bees and creating a world of hurt for our opponent.

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Another way to induce anaphylaxis is through Volcano Hellion. It has the potential to be slightly difficult to cast, but has essentially the same key characteristics that make Fire Covenant a perfect fit.

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User mlequesne suggested Essence Warden to offset the life loss incurred through our main combo, which is absolutely brilliant. Getting her into play is incredibly easy, either through natural draws and her piddly mana cost, or through Green Sun's Zenith if necessary. With her in play, when it comes time to siphon off our life total and dump it into Fire Covenant, we’ll essentially gain it all back right away. Only the briefest window for the opponent to do anything presents itself. I’ve dropped Life Goes On down to a single copy (as it has its place) and included 3x Essence Warden.

With our army of stinging soldiers ready for battle, lower the drawbridge and let our buzzing battalion charge into battle the very turn they left the hive!

TL;DR

•Ramp early, replenishing your hand with draws from Abundant Growth (or Bequeathal).

•Maintain control with a bit of removal as you redirect anything too severe away from yourself or key cards. Regain lost health if necessary.

•Locate and cast Hornet Nest and Crashing Drawbridge in preparation for the final step.

•Using Fire Covenant or Volcano Hellion, pay as much life as is reasonably safe to do and dump it directly into damaging Hornet Nest and then immediately recover said life as the bees hit the battlefield, thanks to Essence Warden. Crashing Drawbridge to gift the swarm Haste, and then all that’s left to do is to bring on The Pain!

The Sideboard

•Bequeathal is excellent at reloading your hand, and Spellskite makes a perfect target.

•Fog excels at drawing out what could potentially be a short and aggressive game. Buy time to set up for the big payoff.

•Apostle's Blessing is another means by which to stall for time. Instead of our beehive taking lethal damage from an errant bolt and spitting out a pathetic 3 bees, grant our Hymenoptera’s home a righteous paling to ward off evil.

•Since there are only about a billion activated abilities in Legacy that you need to watch out for, Pithing Needle felt wise to include.

•Nihil Spellbomb is a less expensive ($) card than Relic of Progenitus and thus finds its way into the sideboard to attempt to shut down graveyard-centric decks.

”O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?”

Top Ranked	Achieved #1 position overall 3 years ago
Date added	3 years
Last updated	3 years
Legality	This deck is Legacy legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 4 Rares 8 - 0 Uncommons 19 - 11 Commons
Cards	60
Avg. CMC	1.67
Tokens	Insect 1/1 G w/ Flying, Deathtouch
Folders	Legacy, Deck Inspiration, Legacy Decks, Legacy decks I like, Made by others, interesting stuff