What do you consider "Budget?"
Economics forum
Posted on Nov. 12, 2016, 2:10 p.m. by mintyfreshmana
I was curious what you all considered to be a budget deck or budget card. What is the price threshold for you that makes a card expensive, and what is your selection process on investing in and using such cards? Do you try to use cards in the same budgetary range as your play group?
Cheers!
mintyfreshmana,
Here on T/O, I'll tag a deck "Budget" if it's <$100 for Standard and <$200 for EDH.
November 12, 2016 2:34 p.m.
PhotogenicParasympathetic says... #4
A deck built with a defined limit to the funds available to it. My decks, although I have a finite amount of resources available, are not budget, because I don't go "Here's the cap to what I'm going to put into this deck." Someone who decides consciously "This deck won't cost more than X dollars," or "This deck won't have any cards that cost more than X dollars," is building a budget deck.
Obviously this definition breaks down when pushed to an extreme - someone who decides their deck won't be worth more than $10,000 is not building a budget deck.
But then again, when has anyone ever made that decision?
November 12, 2016 3:02 p.m.
For the most part I consider budget to be a decently functioning home brew (maybe semi-FNM competitive) or a conscious effort to make a more expensive deck accessible to more players, that is less than $100 or at least significantly lower cost than a normal deck list.
November 12, 2016 3:08 p.m.
Less than $200 generally, but it'd take some real consideration for anything over $120, personally.
November 12, 2016 10:53 p.m.
joshuaizac says... #7
In addition to the words of wisdom above, budget can apply to specific card choices such as putting a Cultivator of Blades, Pathbreaker Ibex and not using Craterhoof Behemoth for example.
Also any given deck listed as budget, while I'm sure fits someone's budget... may be budget for its creator as a number of the budget card choices are cards that person doesn't already own, whereas they may already own 3/4's of the cards listed.
November 13, 2016 12:50 a.m.
shinobigarth says... #8
for modern, below $140-150 is what i consider budget.
November 13, 2016 2 a.m.
JonathanSamurai says... #9
$50 is budget to me which most my decks fall between $50-$100 range and are all Modern/Casual. Even some of the decks that exceed $100 are "budget" because while the cards may be valued over, I didn't actually end up investing that much into them. I build tribal decks and typically the only expensive cards I run are the staple cards for the shell. I personally consider $10+ cards expensive and decks $150+ expensive. I'm also not one who buys a lot of boxes or has played so long they've accumulated a valuable collection, so I buy my decks in singles. Standard is too expensive to stay competitive in in my opinion if you are not regularly playing (and winning) FNM. 99% of those cards will lose all value once they rotate, though I understand that's how Wizard makes their money.
November 13, 2016 3:03 a.m. Edited.
I tag things with the budget hub here if they were under $100 when I built them. I don't always watch the changes in value over time.
I do think that it has broader meaning than that but when using it here I decided on a precise definition. As we see here, the interpretation of the word varies ALOT. However, sometimes people become critical and indignant about interpreting hubs correctly and just generally any opinion different than their own and under 100 seems widely accepted (even if I do agree that broader interpretations make sense too).
legendofa says... #2
Depends on the format, mostly. This mostly applies to Constructed, since Limited is determined more by chance. I would say a budget casual deck is $50 or below, modern is $275 or below, and I don't play enough of the other formats to have a real idea. In casual, an expensive card is $10, and modern I would consider a $25 card expensive.
I'm one of the cheaper players in my group, though, so I probably skew low.
November 12, 2016 2:25 p.m.