Aggro Braids with a budget : x

[emanvillarreal]

So haven't played magic in years. some friends have been wanting me to make a deck for casual play. Basically trying to avoid expensive cards i priced what I got here so far and it's about $50 or so. Trying to keep it within that range. Basically no dark confident for me : /. Trying to avoid paying 20 dollars for a play set of a card.


Creatures 20

4 nantuko shade
4 mesmeric fiend
4 gatekeeper of malakir
4 vampire nighthawk
4 braids, cabal minion

Spells 20

4 duress
4 hymn to tourach
4 diabolic edict
4 rain of tears
3 phyrexian arena
1 loxodon warhammer


Lands 20 swamp

I'm not exactly trying to create some sort of lock down combo with braids just keep the pressure up and not get too slow.

I looked through the gate threads for ideas on creatures and such. The loxodon warhammer is something I just randomly put in there. Not going to be able to afford jittes so I figured I could maybe use the life leach later on. I'm pretty open on what to do with that last spot though.

One card I was originally going to put in the deck was dark ritual but the deck didn't seem to need it. I would really like another turn 1 spell though besides duress ,but can't seem to figure one out.

Some have told me to put rats over fiend ,but I think fiend is just more useful so I can take out an early threat and not just see what they decide to do for rats.


Appreciate any advice on this. Thanks for reading

[Admiral_Arzar]

Put Dark Ritual back in and play Hypnotic Specter. That combination is pretty awesome. You may also want to consider Bloodghast although that may be a bit too expensive.

[emanvillarreal]

If I were to run ritual I think I would probably go with something like this


creatures 16

4 nantuko shade
4 gatekeeper of malakir
4 hypnotic specter
4 braids, cabal minion

spells 19

4 dark ritual
4 duress
4 hymn to tourach
4 diabolic edict
4 rain of tears
3 phyrexian arena

1 basilisk collar

20 swamp lands

Any suggestions on a different version or anything I should swap out? I found out about basilisk collar i figured that would be way better then that hammer. I could always take that out and put in some random big black creature lol .

I ended up taking out the mesmeric fiends and the vampire nighthawks for the rituals and the specters.

[Admiral_Arzar]

If I were to run ritual I think I would probably go with something like this


creatures 16

4 nantuko shade
4 gatekeeper of malakir
4 hypnotic specter
4 braids, cabal minion

spells 19

4 dark ritual
4 duress
4 hymn to tourach
4 diabolic edict
4 rain of tears
3 phyrexian arena

1 basilisk collar

20 swamp lands

Any suggestions on a different version or anything I should swap out? I found out about basilisk collar i figured that would be way better then that hammer. I could always take that out and put in some random big black creature lol .

I ended up taking out the mesmeric fiends and the vampire nighthawks for the rituals and the specters.

I'm personally not sure you need Rain of Tears, I might just play more discard (Inquisition of Kozilek) or more removal (Snuff Out or Go for the Throat) instead. That's up to you though, as it's quite synergistic with Braids. Also, this deck wants Tombstalker really badly (especially since you don't have Dark Confidant, those two are bad together), but it's not particularly budget. See if you can pick a couple up in trades or something.

[emanvillarreal]

So this is what I have been running so far...

Creatures 20

4 mesmeric fiend
4 gatekeeper of malakir
4 hypnotic specter
4 vampire nighthawk
4 braids, cabal minion

spells 20

4 dark ritual
4 duress
4 go for the throat
4 hymn to tourach
4 phyrexian arena

20 swamp

Took the shades out and replaced with vampire hawks and I've been liking it a lot more. I never really have the mana to pump the shade anyway and his life leach is more useful with arena down.

I took your advice and got rid of the land destruction and edicts and put cut for throat and for the discard i put in mesmeric fiend. not the best but it's really nice to have another permanent for braids to eat.

Haven't been able to get a hold of the tombstalkers yet and i'm not sure what I would swap in place of them. I would probably add 2 of them so maybe 1 arena and something else.

The deck is pretty cheap now though and is pretty much bunch of black wheenies lol. works well with what i'm playing but im not playing elite competition exactly.

Next thing I wanted to get together was the side board.

3 relic of progenitus ( general cheap graveyard hate. some reanimate decks and graveyard abusers )
4 engineered plague ( everyone seems to like playing tribal decks lol )
4 diabolic edicts ( something easy to swap out for duress against creature heavy. probably can find something better. not sure if it is really needed either. Maybe better off with some control hate. Thorn of Amethyst perhaps? don't have much experience but it would probably work well if i can manager to get a braids in with it )

4 phyrexian crusader ( sooo. my deck is basically a bunch of 2/2 bears and i'm really afraid of having them all burned to the ground. I can't think of anything else that has protection from red and is black. I'm not sure if he is worth it though. getting a set of them would be like half the cost of my deck lol. I would really appreciate some advice on this slot. maybe another creature that has some sort of regenerating ability that can withstand red and burn? )


thanks again for reading and appreciate any advice

[Admiral_Arzar]

Personally I would drop Mesmeric Fiend. It doesn't really do enough for a two-drop, and when you sacrifice it to Braids they just get their card back. I recommend just putting Nantuko Shade back in its place. Sure its a mana sink, but it will also win you the game in short order if unanswered.

Your sideboard looks decent, I would make sure it has some additional discard - I'm thinking Cabal Therapy (Thoughtseize is too expensive unfortunately). Inquisition of Kozilek would also work. In fact, you may want to maindeck Inquisition/Therapy and sideboard Duress, as it's more narrow. If there's a lot of green in your meta, I would recommend Perish (one of my favorite black sideboard cards). If you're worried about combo/control more discard and maybe Thorn would be good.

[emanvillarreal]

Put the shades back in. deck has been running great. without them the deck just takes forever to get the win with just a bunch of 2/2 wheenies

thanks again for the advice!

[emanvillarreal]

Just realized how long it's been since i posted this.

Deck list has gotten better and I don't have the dirt cheap budget on it anymore.


Creatures 18

4 bloodghast
4 vampire nighthawk
4 gatekeeper of malakir
4 braids, cabal minion
2 tombstalker

spells 16

4 hymn to tourach
4 smallpox
4 smother
4 phyrexian arena

mana 26

4 dark ritual
22 swamp

at this point im trying to figure out if i should stick with braids in the deck or just try to make it to more of a standard midrange black aggro deck.

Does anyone have any decklist that doesn't include dark confidant? i'm figuring i could just up the tombstalker count to 4 and use arena in place of the confidant. maybe add some phyrexian revokers and ratchet bombs or something.

any advice would be appreciated

[4eak]

Honestly, I think Braids is a bad card. I see how it takes care of problematic permanents that you can't otherwise answer in black, and I see how it works with BG and Arena feeding permanents to you. It still is a bad card. Likewise, Smallpox is a bad card in this deck. You need to build around Pox and Braids if you play them at all. This deck isn't doing what it takes.

I've also moved away from Dark Ritual (which becomes less important when you aren't playing a bad card like Braids). Even with good t1 plays like DRit->Arena or DRit->1ccDiscard+Hymn, there are way too many times where the card is bad (useless).

At least for now, the card disadvantage of Dark Ritual is not worth the tempo in Black Aggro and Aggro-Control decks. Cards like Hymn and Gatekeeper, which offer clean 2-for-1's, are the bread and butter of this archetype. Dark Ritual belongs in a suicide deck, not a midgame deck, which is what you should be going for in mono black.

I think you should start here (and, yes, MM is badass in this deck):

// Lands - 21
21 Swamp

// Dudes - 12
4 Gatekeeper of Malakir
4 Vampire Nighthawk
4 Phyrexian Revoker

// Hand/Stack Control - 12
4 Hymn to Tourach
4 Inquisition of Kozilek
4 Mental Misstep

// Board Control - 4
4 Doom Blade (or whatever 1-for-1 removal you prefer here)

So far, that is very budget. We are missing 11 cards. I suggest making some of those your money cards (since you seem to be relaxing your budget). Obviously, Confidant, Wasteland, BB, and the various equipment that are good in Legacy are all really expensive. I think some can be cut, and others can't.

I do like having a draw engine, and Arena seems fine, but you'll also want good equipment to counteract lifeloss, and not just '1' equipment, but at least 2, if not 3 or 4.

+4 Phyrexian Arena
(7 cards to go)

Batterskull is actually quite good in this deck as well. This is a midgame deck that can easily get to 5 lands, especially with a draw engine. I'd have one of him in the deck (and if you ever go Deadguy with this deck, you'll already have it). Jitte, at least one, is worth it. I think, for the money, the 2nd Jitte is also worth it in this deck.

+1 Batterskull
+2 Jitte
(4 cards to go)

We're low on creatures. If we ran 8-10 fetches, I think Tombstalker would fit perfectly. Without fetches, it just doesn't play nicely enough in the deck. Bloodghast suffers from lacking fetches as well. I think Bitterblossom is the clear best card for the slot - it does a lot of work for you in this deck. But, again that's a budget question.

I'm not a huge fan of Shade or Hyppie anymore. These last 4 creature slots are difficult to fill on a budget. I'll have to think about this one. Mesmeric fiend, Phyrexian Crusader, Stillmoon Cavalier? I'm not sure.



peace,
4eak