Overview:
Do you like knights? Honor? Using creature focused decks? Chivalrously punching your opponents to death? Then this deck can help with all of that and more. The idea came from my casual Samurai Deck but this is executed better. The idea here is to use Sunbond or Light of Promise on your creatures (most of whom have lifelink) so every time they attack, they not only net you life, they get stronger too. With a few enchantments on the field to give them indestructible, your knights will quickly become a problem for your enemies. Odric, Lunarch Marshal helps share the love of knightliness and aura buffs amongst all of your creatures, and Danitha Capashen, Paragon helps you get those auras out faster (Remeber to keep the Legendary rule in mind for these two). Knight Exemplar is truly a wonderful card, though a tad expensive. If you're looking to trim the cost of the deck, sub her out for one of the other options in the Maybe-Board. As a result, if you end up including her, you can sub out some of the Indestructibilitys for other cards, but for the sake of keeping this simple, I left them in. In the mid-to-late game, we have the Nykthos Paragon to help ramp up the rest of your creatures who are buffed by the aforementioned auras, making all of your creatures put the fear of the gods into your enemies.
Since this is a creature and enchantment focused deck, it is probably the "slowest" deck of the series. It's less gimmick-y than the red, black, and blue decks at any rate. However, I will say it is quite satisfying when you get everything working and swing with all of your indestructible knights for the win. But if you're looking for a "quick-win" deck, this ain't it.
Why is this "Budget"?
This deck is classified as "budget" because you can get the whole thing (with the 2 Knight Exemplars) excluding the side-board for about $50. Take out the Exemplar and you're looking at about $35. If you want to include the side-board, you really only should include Elspeth, since the rest are just suggestions.
Side Board:
Farewell and Brilliant Restoration are some of my new favorite cards and since you are casting a lot of enchantments, Brilliant Restoration is quite helpful for retrieving them from the graveyard if they're countered. They live in the sideboard though because these cards are expensive to drop and you'll only ever use them in longer games. So for multi-player go for it, otherwise, meh. As for Farewell, I've moved out to maybe, because it's not really necessary here.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant is the perfect Planeswalker for this knight-themed deck. She's relatively cheap to cast, an absolute babe in armor, can and will crush you, and her buffs are so good that the Pope has her in his deck (maybe).
Maybe Board:
Ok so obviously this deck can get much stronger, but that requires spending some money. Grand Abolisher is completely broken and if you really wanted to have the strongest version of this deck, it would include 4 of them. But that's $100 for 4 cards and I didn't think that was realistic so he lives in "maybe board" limbo. I've included several other knightly substitutes as well if you feel like changing anything up.
As an update, I recently pulled Guardian of Faith from a pack and I think it's a great card to include in the maybe board. It fixes the potential problem of boardwipes and kill cards that can really set you back and cause you to lose the game. Best of all it's cheap to cast, targets any number of creatures you control and they all come back with their perspective auras and equipment. Very strong card and I'm thinking about which knight I would sub it out for...
As always, feel free to leave suggestions!
Mono-Colored Budget Deck Series:
- Come On Baby Light My Fire
- A Modern Mono Mill of Maddening Magnitude
- Hi, It's Knight to Yeet You
- That Time You Got Reincarnated as an Ooze
- Getting Down with the Sickness
