one of the coolest decks ive seen on this site. also I love the alter. thanks so much for the links regarding the proxies.

I know this was mentioned earlier or at least addressed earlier, but if you could mix the two decks, ie budget and balls out deck keeping the price under say $200. What could replace what? I have this budget version and love it. But would like something a little larger and maybe more consistent?

Any substitutes for Culling the Weak? I'm having trouble finding anything from my primary sellers.

HydraCord: Sol Ring of course! It's a few dollars but it's easily the BEST EDH card for its price.

DasTree: Yeah, I get asked to customize decklists for people for every budget imaginable. $30,40,50,60,80,100,150,180,200 etc. I'm going to have to sit down and make a comprehensive upgrade list / guide! It will be done eventually. Mostly I'd try replacing the sub-par manarocks in this deck with efficient draw, ramp and tutors. Like Necropotence, Cabal Coffers, Demonic Tutor, Sol Ring etc. Basically the best but still reasonably cheap alternatives! Also Blasting Station...

Noremac815: Liliana is definitely good here. Tell me when you find her for $0.2 though! Thoughtseize is amazing in 1v1, but in multiplayer it is sub-par. You are essentially throwing away card advantage. 4 players, you lose one card, opponent loses one (good) card, two more opponents lose none. Essentially, you are down 2/3rds of a card in average. Really bad news for you! As for Butcher of Malakir, it was in the decklist when it was completely new. However I quickly cut it as I never saw the point of playing a 7 drop when you could just play Triskelion at 6... Or Carnifex Demon as another curve-topper

AlphaHawken: Se my reply to DasTree. Tutors, draw, ramp! If you're wondering which cards, look at my non-budget version and pick out the tastiest but still reasonably priced ones. Also Puppeteer Clique is amazing!

legion_ai: This is actually fairly easy to recommend improvements for, because the "maybeboard" of this deck is essentially cards I have had to remove as their price went up. Add cards from the maybeboard! Blasting Station, Sol Ring, Contamination, Blood Artist, Zulaport Cutthroat, Infernal Darkness etc. Maybe some better removal like Go for the Throat instead of the extreme budget versions I run now.

Man, that was a lot of comments about potential improvements. I guess I really should make that improvement list... I'm glad to see so many people having made the deck though!

Yeah, those are all good points, I was just addressing the people who wanted to make more expensive versions of this deck, what kind of recommendations do you have for the people on a budget of between 100 to 200 dollars?

Noremac815: Ah, that makes sense. Yes, Liliana works great then.

Also, the decklist just beat TWO new milestones at the same time!

First off: The deck score is 1300!

Second: OVER 200,000 VIEWS!

I really didn't expect to reach these two milestones before 2016, but somehow it looks like it happened!

Also, a mostly philosophical question I have had for some time.
How much more expensive has the deck become as a result of its popularity?
Price is decided by supply and demand, I'm certain this decklist has sold a lot of cards that have pretty much never seen any demand before this point (hence being cheap enough to see play in it).
Many of these cards are very old and thus there aren't that many of them for sale.
Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if the deck is making itself worse the more popular it becomes? Not because people are countering it or know how it works, but because cards have to be replaced due to going up in price...
Probably hasn't had the biggest impact, but one can wonder.

Something im curious about, would Mikaeus' ability make Whip of Erebos basically an reusable reanimation mechanic?

I'd recommend more evasion for cards like Blood Bairn, Rogue's Passage is a nice start, though something as simple as flying could turn an easily chump-blocked creature into an airborne bringer of doom. Consecrated by Blood works well for only 4 mana, costs 4 cents, and has synergy with its regeneration ability.

jonspal: No, because Whip says "If it would leave play". A card needs to die for undying to trigger. Whip replaces "dying" with "exile".

ThoAlmighty: Rogue's Passage is already in the decklist. There are multiple problems with finding cards good enough to run that give evasion. Honestly I believe I have tried them all out.

Basically, it MUST give at least 2 out of 3 of the following: Evasion, Haste or Protection.
Additionally it should be cheap to equip/cast, so that I can manage to cast the creature in question and equip it the same turn, to lower risk of sorcery speed removal.

Currently, there's one card that fits the above requirements that I don't play and is fairly cheap: Whispersilk Cloak. I've also tried Dauthi Embrace. Only evasion here actually, but it sticks on the board well. Both have been in and out of the deck at various points, and mostly do the same thing.
Whispersilk might go back in though, the reason I removed it was it spiking up to $3 overnight for no reason. It's gone down a bit more, but not enough.

Now if you have a better budget, Hall of the Bandit Lord, Helm of Kaldra and Lightning Greaves also work.

How does Pith Driller work if mike gives him a counter already? He can only remove on of the +1/+1 given to him so the undying wouldn't work with him right?

Paul_Soup: Pith Driller is in play. You sacrifice it, undying triggers, and it enters the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. Pith Driller's ETB triggers, it targets itself and gets a -1/-1 counter. These two counters remove each other as a state-based action and the end result is zero counters on Pith Driller. Then you sacrifice it again, undying triggers, since it has no +1/+1 counters on it undying triggers, repeat.

Sleazebag: It only just occurred to me that when you have infinite power, trample is even better. Also, because shadow is so rare, Dauthi Embrace is quite good. I had not realized you already had Rogue's Passage, my bad. I still think Consecrated by Blood works well, though with your infinitely sacrificable creatures would you be able to sacrifice the same creature twice for the regeneration ability? I'm not quite sure how that would work. Also, Puppeteer Clique (The Modern Masters reprint) is pretty cheap, about 25 cents. The persist is what really makes it work, though the steal-a-creature can help temporarily remove blockers.

Hold on, I misread Puppeteer Clique. I had thought it stole an opponent's creature, but it just reanimates them.

ThoAlmighty: Unfortunately you can't sacrifice them to the same activation. Which means I need two combo creatures I can sac in play for its ability to be good. It also requires 4 additional mana on top of the casting cost of a creature, it's a bit too cost intensive.

Clique is easily one of the best persist creatures you can run in this deck though. The reason it wasn't in previously was only because of the price (It is in the non budget version). I'll have to see if I can fit it in.

Sleazebag: Sword of Vengeance and Loxodon Warhammer might be a bit more reliable. They both give trample, and the haste and first strike also granted by Sword of Vengeance makes a nice combo. Loxodon Warhammer's lifelink grants you infinite life after killing a player, ensuring that another player can't kill you before your next turn. The 2015 Commander Sword of Vengeance is 24 cents, and the Loxodon Warhammer also from the 2015 Commander is 30 cents.

+1

Devious! Can't though argue when someone makes budget work, kudos.

Reached 100 comments, so time to do a reset!

The irony is that the page is still so long due to it showing Folders...

Why'd you drop blasting station? I'm just curious because I thought it was one of the best ways to do the combo, at least according to the description.

Blasting Station is $2.5, so he moved it to maybeboard.

Heartless Summoning is starting to spike, maybe move it to the maybeboard?

TheGrayMerchant: Low price is $0.14 still, but I'll keep it in mind to see if it creeps up more. Having to remove Heartless Summoning would be really sad, it enables some of the fastest wins. :P

Minelia5 what ThoAlmighty said is right. Blasting Station is one of the best combo pieces in Mikaeus, but since I can't have it in the deck I moved it to the maybeboard so people can easily see it!

@Sleazebag: How did you get that awesome Mikaeus art? Did you make that yourself?

ThoAlmighty: Not quite. Guy who takes requests to do custom cards did it, photoshopped an image from deviantart to make it fit the theme (Mono black necromancer) then added the card borders, text box etc.

The art is done by Saryth Chareonpanichkul (saryth.deviantart.com).

So basically, I just found a cool picture on the internet and used it, with a few additional steps in between.

Sleazebag, I'm sorry I have to do this, but do you have any event records? If you don't, I have to move your deck to the Untested deck folder.

• Atony1400, leader of discussion of the committee for The Cheap Deck Club.

If I were to add all the cards in the maybe board to the deck, what would I take out for them? I have a little more than 20 dollars to spend, but I can't afford your no-holds barred version quite yet :).