Cheap deck for someone looking to break into legacy?

[Jenni]

Hi all, I'm just curious if anyone can reccomend me a legacy deck that is somewhat competative (just needs to hold up at FNM and such, it won't be going to GPs or anything of the sort), cheap and easy to play?
I'm trying help get a friend of mine break into legacy, and she needs a deck, of course, to be able to play, but her budget for cards is a bit tight... as in, around 60-75$ for the entire deck, tight. beyond that, she's new to legacy, having only played standard and casual games before, and some EDH I think, so something that's fairly intuitive would be nice, to ease the transition a bit. I don't want to leave her with some home-brew, or a budget list that doesn't quite keep up with the "real" legacy decks, but the "real" decks seem to be out of her price range.

Any reccomendations?

For a bit of reference, the decks it will see most are probably Burn, High Tide combo, Elf combo, a couple dredge decks, and some reanimator. There is some variance from week to week, but those seem to be the dominant decks.

Thanks in advance for any advice you may have! :) Sorry if this has been asked before, I couldn't find anything, really, outside of the casual/budget sub-forum, but I don't really know how competative any deck I could find there would be in practice.

[LeePerry]

Elves (without Gaea's Cradles) are probably one of the cheapest top tier Legacy decks available. And a dredge deck without LED isn't too expensive as well. But if you want to stay at the 60/75 dollar mark for the entire deck, the cheapest solution, but not really top tier, might be just a simple burn deck. There are available lists here on the forums.

Elves combo deck (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?17168-Deck-Elves-Combo)

Dredge (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?23432-DTB-Dredge)

Burn.dec (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?7811-Deck-Burn)


Once you're interested in spending a little bit more, there's a very useful thread detailing the acquisition costs of the latest versions of 40+ different archetypes.
I can't seem to locate the thread at the moment though...

[Ozymandias]

65-70 is a really harsh cutoff. Does she own any cards at all to work with? If not, Burn is about the best deck she can build on that budget. On the bright side, Pyroblast/REB are cheap, as is GY hate. Probably maindeck Searing Blaze and Lavamancer to fight elves.

[lochlan]

...if you want to stay at the 60/75 dollar mark for the entire deck, the cheapest solution, but not really top tier, might be just a simple burn deck

More like the ONLY solution. Dredge and Elves are really cheap, but still in the hundreds-of-dollars range. Mono green no-cradle elves are probably cheap, you are right about that--but the 4x Glimpse of Natures you need (and you do need them) are $60 alone.

@Jenni: My advice for your friend is to play proxy decks at the kitchen table to see if the format is interesting, figure out what deck is fun for her to play, and then--assuming she likes the format enough--save her pennies and buy her favorite deck one card at a time.

If she's insistent on jumping in and buying a deck she can always buy Burn and then slowly buy into UR Delver (which has a lot of the same cards as Burn)--which contains FoW and Volcanic Island, two of the most playable cards in the format. It's also a top deck and is definitely capable of taking down a tournament.


...there's a very useful thread detailing the acquisition costs of the latest versions of 40+ different archetypes.
I can't seem to locate the thread at the moment though...

It's in this very sub-forum :) Link! (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24023-40-Tier-Legacy-Decks-Lists-Singles-Prices-etc.-To-be-updated-regularly(started-2012))

[Jenni]

Thanks for the fast replies.


65-70 is a really harsh cutoff. Does she own any cards at all to work with?

As for cards she does own, she started playing magic near the end of Scars of mirrodin set, so anything before then is unlikely to be in her collection.

Regarding burn... That is starting to seem like the best (only?) option, given the budget.
I know it's cheap to build, but I was under the impression that burn isn't really a "deck" in legacy, though... sort of in the same camp as mono-black control in standard, where people build it, and try to make it work, but the results are pretty poor. Even the Burn decks that show up in the metagame tend to do very poorly, frequently running out of steam before they get to lethal, or just auto-losing to a reanimated or Dread Returned Iona.


@Jenni: My advice for your friend is to play proxy decks at the kitchen table to see if the format is interesting, figure out what deck is fun for her to play, and then--assuming she likes the format enough--save her pennies and buy her favorite deck one card at a time.

This seems like the only way to get her a competative deck, at this point.
I've let her play with my decks a couple times in casual legacy games, so she has a very general idea what playing in the format can be like, which sparked her interest in finding a deck.

I think I'll send her to the burn forum post, and let her see if that's something she would be interested in. If not, I guess it's back to loaning out my deck until she saves up a bit more (or she decides to sell some of the cards she insists on keeping, but never plans to use... that playset of sublime archangels alone could double her budget! lol)



It's in this very sub-forum :) Link!

Oh, thanks for the link, that's a rather handy post!

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

Food Chain Elves is somewhat cheaper than Glimpse-Elves, even sans cradle. Here's my most recent list;


12 Forest
3 Elvish Spirit Guide
4 Fyndhorn Elves
3 Llanowar Elves
4 Wirewood Symbiote
4 Quirion Ranger
4 Priest of Titania
3 Elvish Archdruid

4 Food Chain

4 Elvish Visionary
2 Multani's Acolyte
4 Fierce Empath
4 Sylvan Messenger
1 Llanowar Empath

1 Emrakul, the Aeons Torn
1 Kozilek, Butcher of Truth
1 Regal Force
1 Tangle Golem

[Jenni]

TheInfamousBearAssassin, how much is that list? it looks like it might actually be in her price range (or at least close)

Also, the golem of the tangle seems a little out of place.. From the look of it, you just ramp up to rediculous amounts of mana very quicly, then drop a giant eldrazi, using the card draw to keep your hand full so you can keep ramping into more, until eventually you drop emrakul and/or kozilek and swing for victory.
So, wouldn't the golem be better off as a 2nd regal force, giving you more card draw, while still being a 7-cost creature to food-chain into 8 mana? It doesn't seem like you would really want to get to the point where you have enough forests for the golem's affinity to be very important.
Or am I just missing something? I've never actually played with food chain elves.

[claudio.r]

I was checking a thread on N&D that you might want to check too:

Is infect playable in Legacy? (http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?24328-Is-Infect-playable-in-Legacy&p=661645#post661645)

It has some decklists that are pretty cheap and is definetely a deck that can steal a good amount of games.

[Jander78]

Check out 4eak's budget thread:
http://www.mtgthesource.com/forums/showthread.php?20587-Budget-Decks-My-Attempts

And Spooky does a very good budget series (Squandered Resources) on MTGSalvation:
http://mtgsalvation.com/articles/writer/spooky.html

[Esper3k]

Affinity is pretty inexpensive as well?

[Jenni]

Thanks for all the replies, I sent her links to some of the foum posts you've mentioned, and to the "Super budget" things from Squandered resources, + to a related topic on the MTGsalvation forum I stumbled across, so she may find something she is interested in for a fairly low price. :) (Also, got a few ideas for decks I want to try out, now... some of these budget decks look fun to play.)

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

TheInfamousBearAssassin, how much is that list? it looks like it might actually be in her price range (or at least close)

Also, the golem of the tangle seems a little out of place.. From the look of it, you just ramp up to rediculous amounts of mana very quicly, then drop a giant eldrazi, using the card draw to keep your hand full so you can keep ramping into more, until eventually you drop emrakul and/or kozilek and swing for victory.
So, wouldn't the golem be better off as a 2nd regal force, giving you more card draw, while still being a 7-cost creature to food-chain into 8 mana? It doesn't seem like you would really want to get to the point where you have enough forests for the golem's affinity to be very important.
Or am I just missing something? I've never actually played with food chain elves.

Tangle Golem is mana acceleration. Because it costs 2-4 mana less than the sticker price it gives you extra mana when you Food Chain it out.

[woremak]

Food Chain elves is a surprisingly good deck, but something to consider when entering a new format is if you want to ever play more than one deck. I think the burn deck is a good suggestion because eventually you can evolve it into U/R Delver (as someone else said) whereas Food Chain Elves, Dredge, Infect and Affinity all use cards that are particular to their archetype. It might be a good idea to pick up Burn, even if it's a little lower on the power level, just so that later on getting a second deck/'better' deck is easier.