Some days ago, I visited friends of mine in their new flat. It is not really that new, they lived there for quite some time now, but the way life goes I had not had the chance of visiting them for a while, so we met up to change that. One of them actually still has quite a few Magic the Gathering cards from back in the day when we all were more actively involved in the game, but since he knows that I sell cards online, he asked if I could help him sift through those for potential treasure. He does not want to sell all of them though: I mentioned that some of my friends wanted to build some decks to put aside and use for the occasional round. He is one of those, so to be able to attend a casual Magic evening or two, he wants to keep some of the cards and build a few decks. So, to get to the point of this article, while I was sifting through his decks, I found a mono-blue one that he first dismissed as barely functional but that he had much nostalgia for. I said that I could see what I can do to make it work and here we are with my next article on budget deckbuilding in Magic the Gathering.
I emphasize the “budget”, since Magic the Gathering has grown into a game that can eat up your wallet even if all you wanted to have is a functional casual deck. I am mainly into Yugioh at this point in time, and while there are many issues with that game aswell, one thing that it wins out on is the price point, since it is fairly easy to make a fun casual deck for way less than 20€. Nonetheless, the deck I have to build has to follow certain themes and restrictions that I want to talk about. So, here we go:
Number 1: Scry: The first theme my friend wanted me to build his deck around was Scry. Scry as a Keyword is immensely helpful as a mechanic on some cards in your deck, as it gives you a certain amount of control of what you draw into and therefore stops you from only drawing lands at some point in time when you really need to have something else. That being said, Scry is not really a Keyword that you would normally build a deck around. There is no card that states: “Whenever you Scry, do X.” in the style of “Astral Slide” or other Keyword-focussed cards. Furthermore, Wizards of the Coast seem to be acutely aware of how easy it is to find out what exactly the top card of your library is, since there is also no card that gives you a direct advantage from naming whatever card lingers on top. I read that there was the idea of Scrycast for Magic Origins, which allows you to cast a card directly from your deck for its Scrycast cost, but I sincerely believe that the Keyword is going to stay in the R&D department. There are obviously other Keywords like Clash or Ripple which both work with with the top part of your deck, but Ripple is seriously underrepresented in the game and the only number that Ripple supports is Ripple 4, which is to much for Scry to control but to little to actively matter. Clash on the other hand is always random, since even the deck with the biggest creatures will have a long list of lands to draw into. Back to topic, Scry is rather weird as a deck-building focus.
Number 2: Islandwalk: In all honesty, I personally think that this one is even worse. It is a deckbuild challenge, so why would anyone give me easy things to work with, but in a color like blue there are many other ways of evasion that are overall superior to Islandwalk. Flying is really good and printed on about what feels like 50% of all blue creatures. While certainly more uncommon, I can also give creatures Shadow and work with that to run straight through. Lastly, the fact that most Unblockable creatures are blue makes Islandwalk even more underwhelming. It isn’t even featured on that many cards and most of them are either to expensive to be contenders for the deck or flatout suck. Worse even, there are almost no non-creature cards that give Islandwalk, with “Fishliver Oil“, “Part Water” and “Piracy Charm” being the only cards in existence to give it to creatures that might profit from it. There is also the fantastic “Chasm Skulker“, but he is no candidate either due to rule three.
Part 3: The Budget: The third and final caviat is the aforementioned budget. No card should cost more than 1€, preferably way less than that. I can totally understand this restriction, since Magic the Gathering (as mentioned before) has evolved into a seriously expensive hobby and paying more than 50€ for a deck that will only see the occasional casual play is way too overpriced. However, this disqualifies a number of cards right away and makes the deck building just that bit harder. A Merfolk deck is out of question, since a lot of the useful cards are over the 1€ limit, so is the aforementioned “Chasm Skulker“. On the Scry front, cards like “Serum Visions” or “Preordain” are also out of question.
So, as you can see, this is going to be rather complicated. But maybe I can get some pointers from the deck list that my friend himself build to get some inspiration:
Creatures (12):
2x Merfolk Spy (U)
2x Sage of Epityr (U)
4x Augury Owl (1U)
1x Conundrum Sphinx (2UU)
1x Harbor Serpent (4UU)
2x Stormtide Leviathan (5UUU)
Spells (24):
3x Elixir of Immortality (1)
1x Preordain (U)
2x Condescend (XU)
2x Kraken’s Eye (2)
3x Negate (1U)
3x Cancel (1UU)
2x Shielding Plax (2U/G)
3x Foresee (3U)
2x Sleep (2UU)
3x Jace’s Ingenuity (3UU)
Lands (24):
21x Island
3x Soaring Seacliff
Well, he did say to me that the deck had problems getting started and when the playmakers actually made it to the field that they were normally taken care off quite swiftly. I can totally see why. First off, the deck obviously tried to counter everything the opponent tried to do, but the notion of countering everything is quite wrong from the start. You cannot hope to keep your opponent in check for the entire game by annuling all their plays, since they will still manage to build a board eventually when you ran out of counter options and/or mana. Furthermore, the deck already shows what is wrong with the Islandwalk idea, since it includes suboptimal cards like “Harbor Serpent” or “Merfolk Spy“. With creatures like those, it is reasonable to think that all removal was kept for real threats to hit the field and when the “Stormtide Leviathan” finally emerged, it was shot at from all directions.
However, after looking at the list of cards with Scry and Islandwalk respectively, I can see the use of some of those cards. First off, “Stormtide Leviathan” is an absolute beast and should definitely stay in the deck. Yes, the thing is quite pricey mana-wise for 8 mana, but it allows any creature with Islandwalk safe passage into the opponent’s face by transforming every land on the field into “Islands” (in addition to other Land Types). The “Stormtide Leviathan” itself also has Islandwalk and is therefore an unblockable 8/8 beater as long as it stays on the field. And finally, it even has defensive capabilities by disallowing any non-Flying or non-Islandwalking creature to attack. Flying is quite common and could therefore still be present on the opposing board, but good luck finding any worthwhile Islandwalk cards in the opposing deck.
At the time of writing Scryfall had 48 search results for cards with Islandwalk, 36 out of them containing the color blue. With cards like “Chasm Skulker“, “Lord of Atlantis“, “Master of the Pearl Trident” and “Thada Adel, Acquisitor” being out of reach and the list including cards like “Merfolk Assassin“, “Mystic Decree” and “Undertow” which are counters to Islandwalk cards instead of support, the options grow thinner by the minute. And even within the rest that is affordable and does not do anything it is not supposed to do, we probably end up with the best creatures being “Grayscaled Gharial” for flatout doing what it is supposed to do but with the drawback of needing a power buff in form of card to be worthwhile, “Enclave Elite” for bringing said power buff but only for immense amounts of mana and “Merfolk Seastalkers” for the added tap effect.
But if all of the other creatures suck, why not make your own Islandwalk creatures? While “Fishliver Oil” and “Part Water” are both as subpar as the creatures you would have to choose from otherwise, “Piracy Charm” actually has some uses. It only costs one blue mana, being pretty unexpensive. It gives Islandwalk to a creature, which was the point of this entire exercise, but it does even more. If necessary, you canuse it to give a creature +2/-1, which doubles as either a boost to one of your creatures or works as a removal against something with only one toughness. Lastly, if you have no other use for “Piracy Charm“, you can decide to let the opponent discard one card, giving both players and equal loss of resources for only one blue mana. Definitely a solid choice for the deck.
Islandwalk obviously needs an Island on the opposing side of the field to even work. We have the “Stormtide Leviathan”, but I for one do not want to completely rely on the biggest creature in the deck to make certain cards work. But we can also be pretty sure that only a relatively small part of the playerbase will use Islands in their deck, other colors and even colorless decks being a thing. So, let us take that issue into our own hands and transform some of the opponent’s lands. The choice here is rather easy: “Sea’s Claim” is the cheap one, “Lingering Mirage” also comes with Cycle but costs one more and “Aquitect’s Will” is a Merfolk tribal with card draw under the right circumstances but only making the land an Island in addition to other types. We choose “Spreading Seas” though, since it doubles as card draw and as an effect blocker for an otherwise useful land.
The other “boss monster” (sorry for the Yugioh lingo, but the term is fitting) the old deck featured was “Conundrum Sphinx“. Thematically, this is the part of the deck that works with the Scry idea, since you will normally know what card you have put on top and therefore draw one for the attack, while your opponent loses a potentially useful card to the bottom of their deck. The card, while gimmicky, is certainly useable since it at the very least is a 4/4 Flyer for 4 mana, which is standard. As a Flyer “Conundrum Sphinx” also works in conjuction with “Stormtide Leviathan’s” “no-attack-policy”. In case of being swamped with lands on the top of your deck, you could even deliberately name a wrong card to remove whatever you do not want to draw into from the top of your deck.
At this point in time, I looked up the Scry cards in existence and it slowly dawned on me that I will not be able to keep the deck mono-blue. However, I do not see a problem with that, since there are ample opportunities to at least make use of being able to manipulate the top card of the deck. An example of a card that gets more interesting depending what is on top of your deck is “Coiling Oracle“. Normally, you simply play this guy and gain a bonus out of it whatever the card, but in a deck with a focus on Scry, you can manipulate whether you want to have more lands in play or later in the game simply go for the draw. As a cheap two-drop, “Coiling Oracle” can obviously further help your mana curve in early stages of the game, since it gives you the land untapped and therefore directly gifting you one additional mana for the turn.
The MTG wiki states on its Scry page that Scry is an evergreen Keyword that all colors have access to, but that only certain colors also have access to higher numbers with blue using the highest ones. This is clearly not true anymore, as I found “Nissa’s Revelation” from Magic Origins. A dream for anyone using Scry as a theme, this card features Scry 5 to give you some life points, but more importantly a huge number of cards to work with. “Nissa’s Revelation” could turn out to be an awesome card for the deck, with “Stormtide Leviathan” being a candidate that heals for eight life points and then lets you draw eight cards. And you might already know some of the cards you draw into, since you had control over five of them when you sifted through the top of your deck via Scry. The card seems definitely worth a spin.
Another card that should work fairly well with the entire deck is “Sphinx of Foresight“. With exactly the same mana cost and stats as “Conundrum Sphinx“, it primarily works as an average flyer and therefore as a damage dealer. But while “Conundrum Sphinx” allows for further card draw if the player is aware of what the top card of the deck is, “Sphinx of Foresight” allows you to manipulate the draw even earlier during the turn. With an automatic Scry 1 during each upkeep, you have a little bit more control of what you are going to draw into. And as an additional argument for playing him, you can reveal him in your starting hand to start the game with Scry 3. Your hand is otherwise full of lands? Just Scry away any lands you would draw for the next three turns, ensuring that you will draw into playable cards.
Neither a Scry nor a Islandwalk card, but still incredibly useful is “Garruk’s Horde“. For seven mana, it is a 7/7 Trample creature and therefore further fighting power for the deck. But obviously, that is not all “Garruk’s Horde” is doing. It also “forces” you to play with the top card of your library revealed, which makes triggering “Conundrum Sphinx” incredibly easy and furthermore, you can play the top card of your library directly from there if it is a creature card that rests on top. This makes “Garruk’s Horde” a hard-hitting “Future Sight” in the color Green. And the synergy does not end there: “Nissa’s Revelation” is very happy about any more big creatures to really rack up some life gain/card draw and “Piracy Charm” works well by giving the “Horde” Islandwalk to waltz right over the opposing life point counter.
For a solid options in the otherwise bleak mid-range creature-wise, I put some cards in the deck that are cheap and cheerful, while still doing some task for the deck’s strategy or taking care of some blind-spots. “Chainweb Aracnir” costs virtually nothing mana- and money-wise, but proves to be a solid blocker against small flyers like fairies, even potentially killing one outright due to his effect. The new Escape mechanic that is featured on “Chainweb Aracnir” is also useful to get further mileage out of the monster using the cards that linger in the graveyard as a resource. On his second arrival, he is even bigger while shooting four damage at a flying target of your choice. “Trygon Predator” is an inexpensive creature that is flying and also doubles as artifact and enchantment removal, while fitting well into the overall theme. “Mystic Snake” is supposed to give at least a little bit of counter potential; the deck is not made to focus on countering stuff, but with some counter options thrown in I reckon it will be way more effective in certain situations, since the opponent will not expect it. Finally, “Yavimaya Elder” provides further land searches and card draw while also having the creature bonus of being a blocker.
On the spell front, I tried to include more cards that give control over the board. Improving the own board position, we have cards like “Growth Spiral“, which is pretty much both effects of “Coiling Oracle” but leaving the creature-bit out of the equation. “Opt” and “Deep Analysis” allow you to draw through your deck faster while “Baral’s Expertise” is a multi-tool that can bounce creatures that would otherwise cause you problems, is able to reuse “Coiling Oracle” and similar creatures by bouncing them and simply playing them again and brings another card with it for even further mileage.
Creatures (16):
1x Skarrg Goliath (7GG)
2x Stormtide Leviathan (5UUU)
1x Garruk’s Horde (5GG)
2x Conundrum Sphinx (2UU)
1x Sphinx of Foresight (2UU)
1x Mystic Snake (1UGG)
2x Yavimaya Elder (1GG)
1x Trygon Predator (1UG)
4x Coiling Oracle (UG)
1x Chainweb Aracnir (G)
Spells (20):
1x Nissa’s Revelation (5GG)
2x Baral’s Expertise (3UU)
4x Deep Analysis (3U)
1x Lifecrafter’s Bestiary (3)
2x Simic Signet (2)
2x Spreading Seas (1U)
4x Growth Spiral (UG)
2x Piracy Charm (U)
2x Opt (U)
Lands (24):
8x Island
7x Forest
4x Temple of Mystery
4x Terramorphic Expanse
1x Blighted Cataract
Now for the budget part: The following cards were already there: 4x “Terramorphic Expanse“, 8x “Island“, 7x “Forest“, 1x “Opt“, 2x “Simic Signet“, 2x “Coiling Oracle“, 1x “Mystic Snake“, 2x “Yavimaya Elder“, 2x “Stormtide Leviathan” and 1x “Conundrum Sphinx“. Those cards sure are worth something, but since they were already there from the start, I will not enter them into the equation. Which leaves us with the following cards:
4x Temple of Mystery: 0,39€, 0,39€, 0,39€, 0,39€
1x Blighted Cataract: 0,05€
1x Lifecrafter’s Bestiary: 0,59€
1x Opt: 0,07€
1x Nissa’s Revelation: 0,12€
4x Growth Spiral: 0,15€, 0,15€, 0,15€, 0,15€
2x Piracy Charm: 0,04€, 0,04€
2x Baral’s Expertise: 0,15€, 0,15€
2x Spreading Seas: 0,24€, 0,32€
4x Deep Analysis: 0,05€, 0,05€, 0,05€, 0,05€
2x Coiling Oracle: 0,09€, 0,09€
1x Conundrum Sphinx: 0,10€
1x Sphinx of Foresight: 0,29€
1x Garruk’s Horde: 0,14€
1x Trygon Predator: 0,14€
1x Skarrg Goliath: 0,10€
1x Chainweb Aracnir: 0,05€
The total price of all cards I bought for the deck is therefore 5,13€. This is certainly a budget price if you ask me. True, the deck only really works in a Casual environment against a similarly slow deck, but in all honesty I suspected nothing less when building a Scry/Islandwalk deck. My friend was happy about the changes I made; true, he had his doubts about the inclusion of the color Green, but the deck works and make him relive some nostalgia while still being able to rack up a pretty solid board.
That is all for this time in the budget deckbuilding, but I am sure I will come up with some other ideas. In fact, I already have something I might post next in this column. Until then and stay creative.
Cubic Creativity 
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