My attempt to make an affordable Standard Exalted deck...in other words, one without Sublime Archangel. The most expensive cards here aren't even ones critical for this deck to work, though they do make it better: Silverblade Paladin gives your big exalted champion double strike and Isolated Chapel is obviously a big boost to any W/B deck.
But you could scrap all of them and be left with a deck of cards that are all $2 or less (aside from the understandably $5 Cathedral of War on the open market, and still have a powerful deck. Your regular ol' M13 Exalted goodies are in here: Nefarox, Overlord of Grixis is still the best champion, and you've got his Servants, the white and black Knights, and the often-overlooked Duty-Bound Dead providing the Exalted boosts. (In my opinion, DbD is EXCELLENT in a deck like this, providing nice defense either early thanks to its toughness or late due to regeneration, and Exalted from the very start.) Regular addition Tormented Soul is here too, as he's very nasty as an early (or even late) Exalted target. But you've got other options, too. Vampire Nighthawk is in many of these decks, and for good reason: evasion, deathtouch, AND lifelink? And with Exalted boosts? Yes, please! While everyone notices the Nighthawk, nobody seems to ever use Niblis of the Urn...myself included. I've always seen potential there but never really been able to exploit it. Here, though, it has the chance to shine, with evasion and the ability to slap a key blocker aside if you want to send it in as an Exalted champion. You can also sideboard in Crusader of Odric, which can get quite big with all the creatures here and make for a nice defender...or just gets stupidly massive as an attacker when you factor in all the Exalted potential. For more defense, I splashed in Builder's Blessing for late game defense; normally not a great card, and probably a tad expensive for what it does, but it makes a good use for leftover mana later since all creatures but your exalted champion should be untapped and able to hang back and defend. Or you can sideboard in Devout Chaplain and tap some of those untapped creatures to zap troublesome support cards on the opponent's side of the board.
Perhaps one of he best things about this deck, aside from how easy it is to build? It's all Standard legal for the next year, so there's plenty of time to tweak it. How's the first cut look?
