2010)

Ever wonder why right here on Cardshark you can find Terra Stompers for $0.25? Probably because of Rampaging Baloths and Thornlings, but come on! Six mana for an 8/8 trampler that can’t be countered? And what about Blade of the Bloodchief? I’d rather have a Vampire Nighthawk with +2/+2 and counting than a $4 Bloodwitch. Throw some Fleshbags and Goblin Assaults in the mix and you got yourself a deck. I hope I’m not the only one who tries making decks that are simultaneously cheap and effective. Then again, my cheap cards will stay cheaper if you don’t join me in making 10 different decks that beat Naya Lightsaber for the price of their Baneslayers. Heck, even their lands alone can pay for one of my budget decks.

I’ve designed a particular deck that seems to be pwning way too much compared to its price. In fact, it cost about $22 to buy it from here. I’ll give you a run-down of how I came to the deck.

My friend, who just recently started playing Magic, asked me to build him a mono black deck because he fell in love with one of my own. Mine ran all of those sweet black/blue hybrids from Shadowmoor along with a playset of Lieges, Infests, Doom Blades, and Tendrils of Corruption. Good stuff. Anyways, he wanted a Type 2 deck, so I went looking at all the black cards in the M10, Zendikar, and Worldwake spoilers, trying to find cheap cards that are crazy good.

The first card that I found was Quest for the Nihil Stone. For those of you who don’t know:

Quest for the Nihil Stone B
Enchantment (R)
Whenever an opponent discards a card, you may put a quest counter on Quest for the Nihil Stone. At the beginning of each opponent's upkeep, if that player has no cards in hand and Quest for the Nihil Stone has two or more quest counters on it, you may have that player lose 5 life.

WOW! One black mana for 5 recurring damage? This is just begging to be built on. At $0.25, what do I have to lose?

At this point, a playset of Duress, Mind Rot, and Mire’s Toll are already in my shopping cart. I considered Mind Sludge, but by turn five the Mind Sludge is unlikely to hit enough cards with all the discarding this deck should do before then. Duress cost me $0.60 a piece, and the others are just a nickel. I love commons.

The second card I found was Quest for the Gravelord. Basically, one black mana, and when three creatures have died I can sacrifice it for a 5/5 zombie giant. Assuming we can get to late game, this seems pretty ridiculous. Better include those awesome Fleshbag Marauders and Gatekeepers of Malakir to make sure we’re throwing creatures in the ‘yard. These three also fit really well to make sure that we can deal with the creatures that actually do hit table. Gatekeeper is a $0.50 uncommon, the others are like $0.15.

The third card I came upon was Guul Draz Specter – another super-cheap rare with some sweet effects. This will be my third win condition. I know that you elitists are thinking “man he is way too vulnerable to be a win con”, and in many ways, you’re right. But there are two factors with this deck that make it care a lot less that it's vulnerable: 1) Most of their removal is often discarded, and 2) If I’m trading a card for a card, I figure that means this deck is winning right? It depends on the matchup, but I think quite often this will be the case. Besides, at worst he’s a 2/2 chump blocker, at best he’s a 2/2 that takes out their last card or two and becomes a 5/5 flying beater. He costs $0.25 too.

Discard stuff:
4x Quest for the Nihil Stone
4x Duress
4x Mire's Toll
4x Mind Rot

Creature stuff
4x Quest for the Gravelord
4x Fleshbag Marauder
4x Gatekeeper of Malakir
4x Guul Draz Specter

So Aggro Doesn’t Eat Us Alive and Forced Sacrifice Hits Relevant Guys stuff:
4x Infest (Marsh Casualties?)
Total: 36 cards, with 12 creatures that stay in play and 12 discard spells.
24 Swamps (could probably go 23)

Make sure to put Doom Blades or Deathmarks in the sideboard and we should be good to go.

Some cards that were considered and we’ve been messing around with are:
Cunning Lethemancer
Sign in Blood (helps get the Nihil Stones going if they play everything they top deck, and of course we can target ourselves with it)
Hypnotic Specter (Oh no a $2 card that dies to our Infest, still pretty awesome though)
Bojuka Bog/Relic of Progenitus (unearth from Grixis and RDW won’t be fun to face)
Tendrils of Corruption (This is basically a staple now)

You know what sounds really fun to me? Duressing Blightnings! And Infesting mana-dorks followed by forcing a Baneslayer to be sacrificed. Oh and good luck playing your 6 drop Broodmate Dragon without top decking it. So there’s a mono black budget deck. I hope you like it, and I hope it inspires you to make your own budget decks.
I decided to make a small list of cheap, Type 2 cards I consider crazy good, some of which I mentioned at the beginning of the article. If this article goes over well, I might write another one and use some of these cards. Let me know what you think.

Terra Stomper, Lurking Predators, Leatherback Baloth, Ant Queen, Howl of the Nightpack, Turntimber Ranger, Wolfbriar Elemental, Beastmaster Ascension, Deadly Recluse, Harabaz Druid (along with pretty much all of the non-common allies), Might of Oaks, Perimeter Captain, Journey to Nowhere, Harm’s Way, Guardian Seraph, Veteran Swordsmith/Armorsmith, Akrasan Squire, Knight-Captain of Eos, Searing Blaze, Hellkite Charger, Pyroclasm/Volcanic Fallout, Slavering Nulls, Cumber Stone, Sleep, Fabricate, Fatestitcher, and Blade of the Bloodchief.

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