Brilliant. Fight the power buddy! I'm not sure how effective it will be, but I've always been fond of Ice Cage...depends against which opponents, but against some decks the only cards they will have that target their own creatures are the likes of Doom Blade, which is just freakin' hilarious.

Avoid Artful Dodge IMO. Instead of sneaking through with your board, you're better off using Unsummon to get rid of theirs. Fits your theme better.

If you did Unsummon, why not Vapor Snag instead?

This deck is awesome. I've made it myself irl, just with a few changes, which makes it not a pauper deck, but still very cheap. In 1v1 it owns everytime.

My additions are (for the chance of a bit lategame if everything fails) and Curiosity for carddrawal.The Pike with Vault Skirge is just great!

Against more than one player it lacks control though.

+1. What about Headless Skaab and Mist Raven?

Made a similar deck after seeing this. Amazing doesn't cut it. My mates were ready to kill me. +1

Can someone explain what makes this deck so good? I get the low budget aspect, but what is the win condition?

The win con is quality creatures paired with some countermagic. Wins games.

Only 56 cards on the mainboard? And then 19 on the sideboard... maybe 4 cards got switched? Btw awesome deck +1!

not really $20 anymore :S

Hey Windraider! I really like this deck. I've built it, and as a new-ish player, playing it has taught me more about tempo than anything else.

I was wondering what changes you might make if you were to make this deck non-pauper and modern legal (but still budget!).

So far I've toyed around with several replacements:

Ponder is banned, and Serum Visions would work if it wasn't so expensive, so I've tried to substitute Telling Time .

Thought Scour is decent as far as cantrips go, but I think Peek or more Gitaxian Probe s might be a good switch.

Spined Thopter is switched for Sage Owl (or maybe Augury Owl ?), to make up for the lost Ponders when trying to flip Delver. Thopter might be the better card here. I also switched out two Islands for Halimar Depths .

Maybe switch Stormbound Geist for Errant Ephemeron ?