Sedraxis Specter is certainly budget, but I don't think he's very good. I don't want to play too many creatures or too heavily on the graveyard theme, but I'll playtest it. The discard is really good early, but pretty hard to trigger when they have cards in hand (meaning they probably have an answer).

I just really like ashiok as a card. It doesn't see much play but is really practical in delver decks these days, yet underplayed. It doesn't immediately affect the field, but it costst 1/10 of liliana and can still close the game if left unanswered. I might drop it for Liliana, Heretical Healer  ^Flip if I can get my hands on them, but who knows.

Thanks for your help! I've been having good luck with this list so far playtesting and I hope to make it semi-competitive.

Mana needs fixed.

How so? I haven't had too many problems with it. It has a higher land count, so it is likely to see multiple lands in the opening hand and among them, because of how many cards filter through, if i can plan ahead, i never have mana problems. I only need access to 1 red source throughout the game, so im fine with a lower red land count. It is a pretty painful list though, but burn is a good matchup regardless so I dont think i need to worry too much.

The red source is good, it's the blue source that worries me. Half of the deck is black, and the smallest portion of it is blue, but blue and black have an equal mana source. If it has gone well in tests, then it should be fine, I just immediately saw it when I clicked on the deck.

It isn't as good, but a budget alternative to Terminate is Smother.

May I ask what your max budget is? Because this could still be competitive and cut the price down to $100. It would just mean being okay with the budget alternatives and not having the best of the best.

Aah, yes. This deck is barely blue in cards yet super blue in mana, but that's buy design. I actually want to have double blue available becuase of tasigurs ability, for one, but also because in midrange I actually sift through a lot of cards through faithless looting, tasigur, and serum visions, so i like casting multiple blue spells each turn. In general, i shoot to have access to triple black, double blue, and single red by turn 5-6. Also, my sideboard is very blue.

As for my budget, i am only adding to my previous deck, Self Denial so almost anything in there is fair game and I actually only plan on building this deck if stuff gets reprinted in battle for zendikar. That means if man lands dont see a reprint, i wont play them. If IoK doesnt get reprinted, i wont get it. If bloodghast doesnt get reprinted then i will probably still get it through trade, because he is pretty key to this deck.

There are some cards in here that i will only play with if i can trade for, such as batterskull. Because my lgs isnt too competitive (i can get 3 packs without batterskull, spellskite, or IoK using Self Denial) i open a fair amount of stuff so i am able to trade for most stuff.

Vampire Nighthawk is a pretty good card, but it seems a bit out of place here. I would definitely cut it for Thought Scours to fill up the 'yard and fuel Tasigur.

Speaking of Tasigur, he doesn't really make much sense here. He's a good card, but his ability is generally irrelevant, since getting to 4 mana is difficult. I would cut him for Gurmag Angler, especially if you play the Thought Scours.

You might also try Zombie Infestation+Squee, Goblin Nabob for lots of zombies to give you a bit of inevitability.

Also, Batterskull in the sideboard is a bad card here. This is basically an aggro deck. With 21 lands, you won't be able to cast a Batterskull 90% of the time, and even if you do, it'll be too late to make an impact. I would cut it for some Stubborn Denials or Spell Pierces depending on how many Anglers/Tasigurs to decide to play.

This does look like a pretty fun deck. +1 from me, and good luck moving forward!

Thanks for the comment and criticizm; criticizm is the only way to improve a deck, so i appreciate all forms of it.

Vampire nighthawk raises eyebrows but wins games. Its kind of a pet card for me, so i cant build without it, but you're right, it is not as competitive as young pyromancer or the like. That said, i have an awesome burn matchup thanks to him. He does, surprisingly, win games despite being awkward at 3 mana.

As for tasigur, i actually use him quite a bit. In the grindier games, he is fantastic because i can use him to get card advantage and then flashback a faithless looting to discard the crap they gave me to loot for a good card. Its a little confusing, but works wonders as the game goes on.

4 mana is nothing because i see a lot of cards with my cantrips, and because every time i play a land in midrange, i get a 2/1 creature from bloodghast. I sometimes get to 6, even 7 lands and thats just fine because as the game gets longer, the better drawing lands gets, for landfall triggers and allowing me more tasigur activations, man lands, and faithless looting flashbacks.

Im not so sure about zombie infeststion in here, but ill try it.

I play thought scour in my delver deck, but i dont want it in here because faithless looting gives me plenty of delve targets. I also dont want gurmag angler because although a 5/5 body is nice, its too heavy on the delve; that 1 mana is relevant in the first 3 turns or so.

Casting batterskull is never an issue. I sift through stupid amounts of cards, so i have no worries about hitting 5 lamds in a row, but you are right that batterskull doesnt belong. Batterskull is only there at all because it was in my old deck. I think this deck has plenty of midrange plays to drop it without caring, thanks for bringing that up! I might actually play 2 angler in its place, but probably not. Maybe sowing salt for abzan and tron? I dont know, but im open to suggestions! I dont think i need more countermagic, as nighthawk gives me lifegain and i have 7 counters already, but perhaps more is the answer.

Sowing Salt is pretty good against Tron, and it seems like your Tron matchup wouldn't be great, so that could work.

Sowing salt looks good, but i also need something to punish abzan and jund. BGx and tron are probably my 2 worst matchups, and because of how similar they are, id like to find something that can punish them both.

Im gonna brainstorm some ideas here.

They both are midrange decks that play big things, but take time to get going. That says that some form of faster aggro is the best, but this is locked as midrange, so thats not an option. Next i see that they both need the right lands to get going, but thats much more effective of a strategy against tron than BGx. I also see that they both try to play big things, so i could try to go bigger, but that wont work against tron as they make eldrazis and stuff.

I think the land route would be the best against both of them, but ive tried that in the past without any luck as it is a passive play, and i have always found proactive and reactive cards better than passive ones. They have a more immediate effect that stops the game cold, and playing land destruction against BGx would only annoy them. Blood moon is out of budget, so salt is the only option for land hate.

BGx in particular is bad for this deck because their creatures outclass my threats too quickly for me to make a dent on the game. They also have access to fantastic removal, both for my board and hand. I simply cant do anything against them. I guess increasing my removal spells would work pretty well against BGx, but not tron.

So i think the best choice is to add 2 sowing salt and 2 more removal spells to the deck to make it complete. How about 2 Dismember? It will work well enough against abzan and also has use against infect. I will just have to dig for salt in the tron matchup. Thats doable and tron is not a super popular deck, so that should work fine. I can accept a few bad matchups.

Double Negative for cascade opponents?

Hmmm. It's a good card, but I prefer Counterflux.

The only cascade decks I can think of are Living End and Restore Balance decks, which are tier 3 fringe played at best, but I have seen both at my LGS on occasion.

Jund midrange is my only heavily played problem deck at the moment, and I can't figure that deck out.

BGx decks are really hard to hate on, because they're not really focused on any one line of play. To out-perform them, you really just need to jam a ton of value. Vendilion Clique, Snapcaster Mage, Kolaghan's Command, Batterskull, and some others are really good at this; however, there's also a giant price tag on most of those. The best way to punish fair midrange decks is to play Tron - they have a 50-55 percent win rate against almost everything else.

Honestly, your best plan against these decks is to have lots of big, AD-proof threats (Batterskull, Tasigur, the Golden Fang, and Gurmag Angler come to mind) and hope that they can't match the size on those. Besides that, they just play better cards, and that's hard to beat.

Okay, thanks guys!

I'd like to add some big stuff to the sideboard, but I have no idea what specifically to add. Against Abzan I already win a considerable amount of the time and against Tron I have Sowing Salt.

My biggest concern with adding some large things to the sideboard is their uselessness in most other matchups. Other than BGx, when is a Keranos, God of Storms or a Batterskull useful? I am willing to accept a few bad matchups, but Jund is not one I would like to unconditionally lose to. I also prefer a versatile sideboard, so I don's want to make the Jund matchup perfect in the bag, but if I can bring it to 50% in game 3, I'd be happy. I guess the Sowing Salt is pretty conditional as well though, are there are any good cards that hate on Jund and Tron? If I can find something to side in against Jund and Tron, then I'd be happy. I'm willing to get some pretty strong cards, just nothing like Snapcaster Mage. I guess my budget is $15/card.

I don't think the cards you are considering will help against a combo deck as they are slow to come out. Of the three I love Keranos, God of Storms the most. I would also consider two more Spellskite if having trouble with combos. I like your sideboard choice of Sowing Salt. +1'ed

Batterskull and Keranos, God of Storms are also pretty good against Twin (They won't be combo-centric because of your high removal count), and in general are pretty good in any midrange/control battle.

The problem is, you can't hate on Jund. The deck is specifically constructed to be a powerful fair deck, which means that "hate" cards don't exist. Instead, you beat them with powerful, resilient threats (Preferably 5/5 or bigger to beat their top-end cards). If you're trying to hate on Jund, then you're playing the matchup wrong.

Keranos, God of Storms would probably be a good sideboard card vs Jund, but don't expect it to win every match you cast it in. That's not how Jund works.

Okay, thanks. At the moment Jund isn't impossibe, but they win more than their fair share against me. My biggest issue is the lack of Snapcaster Mage. If I had him this matchup would be really easy, but because I have a budget, snappies aren't going to happen.

I'll play around with the various cards, but I think I'm going to play 1 of each because Batterskull has great synergy with Bloodghast because I have a constant supply of things to equip. Keranos, God of Storms, on the other hand, is less immediate, but the card draw is great because I like landfall triggers and it gives me more cards to discard to Faithless Looting. I may also just play 2 Gurmag Angler or Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius because I have them and they are still big duds. I also like the angler because it helps me beatdown faster against decks I need to race.

So I've been playtesting all day and it turns out that big beaters are unnecessary - I can win the Jund matchup through the persistent Bloodghast recursion and on the back of a ton of removal spells. So no Keranos, no Batterskull, no Gurmag Angler, and no other beaters are needed. I can get by with Tasigur as my biggest creature and by keeping their board clean with a ton of removal options. It's about 50% win rate, which is a victory for me because their deck costs over 4x as much as mine, so I can accept a few losses.

So I guess the last few problem decks I can think of are Merfolk, Elves, and Collected Company decks. I have 3 Pyroclasm in the sideboard specifically for those matchups but it also gets sided in against infect, burn, affinity, pyromancer delver, bogles, zoo, and any other small creature aggro, so the sweeper slot has to be fast enough for Infect, but impactive enough for Merfolk, which won't happen. Ideally I'd drop the 2 Dismember sideboarded for 2 Damnation and be ready for literally anything, but this deck is already too expensive.

I could try Anger of the Gods, but that only works on Merfolk, Company, and Elves, and misses all the smaller faster cards, mostly because of the RR casing cost. Anger also kills my Nighthawks, which is very bad because my reason for playing Pyroclasm is because my nighthawks live to defend my life the next turn. Damnation is the only real option, as Languish misses Siege Rhino, most Tarmogoyf, and Tasigur, the Golden Fang, which makes it unplayable for me.

I guess I can accept a bad matchup because if I cut Sowing Salt then tron would be unwinnable and I at least have a chance against Merfolk, Company, and Elves at the moment. I don't know. I'd like to find a more versatile option against Tron, especially because it is a top deck right now, but other than screwing its mana base, I have no options against it, and Blood Moon is too expensive. If both Blood Moon and Damnation get reprinted, or if I stumble across some for dirt cheap, then I'll pick them up and replace Sowing Salt and Dismember for a truly unbeatable deck. If anyone else knows a better plan, please speak up because I'm all ears for improving this deck.

Cool deck and idea! +1

Thanks, but the idea wasn't mine. TheAlexGnan gets all credit for the deck idea. I'll take credit for making it affordable though. Thanks!

I don't play Modern but this deck looks like it probably going in a good direction

Thanks! It certainly feels like I'm getting close with it.

Self denial seems to have found its midrange nature. I like it.

Honestly I wouldn't run mb Languish. It kills most of your creatures and can't hit rhinos or goyfs, which can cause major problems for you. Honestly, it's possible that you might need more than one mb Dismember, in addition to the terminates. And I see that you have keranos on your maybe list. It's a great card that will take over if left undealt with, and it fits the midrange theme nicely.

Is there any particular reason why Remand isn't on the list?

As for the sideboard, I'd suggest both Spreading Seas and Electrolyze. Spreading commits crimes against humanity in the tron and bloom matchups. It also replaces itself so it isn't a terrible late game topdeck, and it punishes burn for trying to splash so many colors. If you can take out their Sacred Foundry you've stopped their helixes and boros charms, which is huge.

Overall, this is a really solid deck. Nicely done!

Thanks a lot for the comment!

I intended Languish for the sideboard - it has absolutely no place in the mainboard but perhaps in the side, although I doubt it. It doesn't feel right.

Keranos has me completely puzzled. I love its potential and synergies. Additional lightning bolts are always nice and can help in a midrange game of attrition, but his draw power is even better because it allows me landfalls, more gas, and more fodder for Faithless Looting. But my only problem is that he feels excessive - if I can get going I don't need a Keranos to help me out in midrange because I'm already going to win if the game takes enough turns and at 5 mana he isn't fast enough for the fast decks. I also question him because he is never a creature and without Cryptic Command and friends I need the body on the board that he lacks.

I honestly don't think Remand belongs. In traditional delver? Of course. But this isn't much of a tempo deck and it doesn't make tempo plays. I would love to drop delver altogether for Snapcaster Mage, but budget. Remand builds great tempo that I can't use. They just shrug their shoulders and recast it and all I've done is cantripped for 2 mana. I am alone in this view, but I am stubbornly and stupidly convinced.

I forgot about Spreading Seas. That's a card I could get behind, but I like Sowing Salt. That said, it is undoubtedly much more versatile as it can realistically help against burn and BGx as it is a cantrip. Of course, I just got my salts tonight, but they're tradeable. Unfortunately 1 copy of seas doesn't hurt tron too much, but it is a pain for them. I will have to playtest it for quite awhile to know for sure if it is playable.

Thanks for the help! I'm definitely going to revisit those cards.

These are the most difficult colors in dealing with enchantments. Black and red have almost no worthy enchantment removal. Blue can be the thing that removes the BM, but it mainly only postpones it. There are ways to get rid of it, but in colorless that I can think of atm. Engineered Explosives is great because it can wipe all 3 cost permanents, but that includes yours too. Same goes for Ratchet Bomb, but I feel like that's too slow.

Idk, you'll probably have to splash either white/green just for the removal of the BM. You'll feel relieved if you do.

.......

XD

Well, the problem with Engineered Explosives is that I need to have Red, Black, and Blue mana to get it to 3 counters, which means the moon is likely irrelevant anyway. Oh well. Splashing another color is probably a bad idea, so I'll just bank on basics and hand removal, although sub-optimal.