Because I am a budget player, this deck was constructed for the Modern format with the condition that its total value could not exceed $20.00, sideboard included. The value of each these cards was based on the Medium price rating for each card on TCGPlayer.com, in order to avoid inaccurately high or low prices. I hope that this decklist can be of use to other budget players, or simply any player looking for a fun casual deck that can be easily assembled. Enjoy!
Although this is a Midrange deck, its use of the Infect mechanic makes it somewhat faster paced than a traditional Midrange build. This deck is interesting because it will often go several turns playing quite meekly, and then suddenly snap out a major spell and swing for lethal. Most of the cards in this deck are either Infect creatures, or cards designed to buff those creatures in some way.
The bottom of the creature curve is occupied by Glistener Elf, Plague Myr,
Necropede
, and
Blight Mamba
. Each of these creatures has certain characteristics which make them unique, but the major focus here is to get an infect creature onto the battlefield within the first two turns of the game.
In the middle of the curve we have
Razor Swine
and
Rot Wolf
. While Rot Wolf is clearly a solid creature and a potential source of card advantage, understanding the merits of Razor Swine can be a little trickier. First Strike is a very powerful mechanic, especially when combined with things such as Infect, Trample, or stat buffing effects. This deck features all of these things, and Razor Swine will often be one of the most solid creatures in this deck as a result.
At the top of our curve we have
Corpse Cur
and
Putrefax
. The Cur is a solid infect creature, but more importantly, it provides the deck with graveyard recursion and card advantage. Putrefax is a huge threat that can often end the game in a single attack, but quickly ends up in the graveyard due to its end-of-turn effect. This creates a fantastic synergy between these two cards, as the Cur can be used to recycle the Putrefax for another game-shaking attack.
As stated earlier, small package of noncreature spells appears in this deck to round out the manacurve and provide support for the creaturebase here.
Mass Hysteria
is an extremely cheap way to give a permanent Haste buff to your creatures, and the fact that the enemy's creatures also receive the buff is of little importance here. After all, if the enemy's swinging in with their creatures, then they're not blocking with their creatures, and as the beatdown deck, that's good news for you!
Savage Summoning might seem like a bit of a narrow card to be running maindeck, but the ability to flash in an Infect creature cannot be underestimated, especially when that creature comes into play with an extra +1/+1 counter on it. This is a great card to combine with Razor Swine or Rot Wolf to surprise an enemy attacker and gain some board presence.
Mizzium Mortars is the only hard removal spell in this deck, but it plays double-duty as a board wipe in case the battlefield becomes congested with chump blockers lategame. However, you should never be afraid to use a Mortars earlygame in order to take out a blocker and deal some Infect damage; the deck features four copies and time is of the essence.
Lead the Stampede and Armed / Dangerous round out the deck. With 24 creatures in the deck, casting a Lead the Stampede is approximately equal to casting a Divination, except that the cards you draw are guaranteed to be creatures. Meanwhile, Armed // Dangerous is just one more explosive possibility, threatening to end the game at any moment. Double Strike and Infect make one of the most brutal combinations in all of MTG; casting Armed on even your smallest creatures will result in four poison counters from one attack alone.
The landbase in this deck provides some very important support to our creaturebase.
Teetering Peaks
functions as an uncounterable pump spell, while Kessig Wolf Run does the exact same thing, except that it's scalable and repeatable. With a Wolf Run out, every single one of your creatures is like a supercharged burn spell. No creature is too small to threaten lethal damage.
The sideboard aims to provide a little versatility for what can be a pretty linear deck. Parts of it are devoted to handling noncreature permanents, while others are simply there to expand upon the components already present in the maindeck. If you have any questions about this deck, feel free to ask in the comments below.
This particular deck has good matchups against my WU Control and GW Midrange decks. It has poor matchups against my UB Control and BR Aggro decks. You can find the exact price listings for all of the cards in this deck at the link below.
http://pastebin.com/LvmLz3Zm
- (Note that these prices may have fluctuated since this deck was created)
