I have something planned in advance to talk about this week :).
But first, it seems the 1/1 one ring has been found, so hopefully now we can all stop talking about it :).
So in a couple of weeks there is an Undy Hundy event in Invercargill that I am super looking forward to :). For those who are unfamiliar with this format, it's basically building a competitive EDH deck for less than $100 USD total going by TCG players market price. There's usually a date set before the event to finalize your deck with proof of value, so for this event, that's the 11th of July.
While I know I will be too busy working to be able to play, my mind jumps around the place thinking of various decks and I want to share some of them today.
Now, to be fair, most of the deck ideas I tend to come up with involve one $50USD or so card that no-one possibly expects you to bring, and then builds a $50 deck around it.
The first deck, and probably the one I would have played if I wasn't working is Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.
The idea of this deck is to play Sheoldred as your commander (which currently has a market price of $60.56). Then include ramp for Sheolred, like Sol Ring and Dark Ritual, and then play a ton of everyone discards to keep your opponents low on resources while your Sheoldred kills them.
Burglar Rats, Elderfang Disciple, Elvish Doomsayer, Delirium Skeins, Cunning Lethemancer are the sorts of cards I'd play here. Along side these I like to play all sorts of Phyrexian Rager effects. Skullclamp is as low as $3.51USD at the moment and would fit in the deck amazingly well. Transmogrant's crown I also really like.
And finally if you really want to go hard mode on most of the deck being super budget, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician works really well here (it's currently $12ish USD).
Before I go on to my second deck idea, I just want to mention you can play any version of any card, but just use the price of the cheapest version currently.
My next idea is Drafna, Founder of Lat-Nam.
This deck is a lot less thought out, but basically I want to play The One Ring. Tutor for it as fast as possible, bounce it and recast it with Drafna every turn to keep your self protected from everything and see how long it takes your opponents to scoop. You want to back that up with a ton (probably 10-15 cards) of cheap, but quality counterspells. Think Dispel, Negate, Disdainful Stroke, Annul, Mana Leak, etc.. etc...
My last idea is actually my most competitive. Urza, Lord High Artificer's cheapest version is currently $14.28 USD and to combo with it, Krark-Clan Ironworks is only $22.62. If you'd tried playing these cards in last years event, the price of the 2 of them together would go past your $100USD budget.
From there, you can fit in a number of quality cards without completely breaking the bank. Fabricate, Whir of Invention, Displacer Kitten, Sai, Emry, Vedalken Archmage, Laboratory Maniac, Mystic Forge and work on a cheerios build where you play a lot of cheap, interactive or can-tripping artifacts and dig your way through your deck.
Alternatively if you don't feel like playing Ironworks. Then something more expensive, but also probably doable is Urza's Stax.
I think this format is super cool and keep thinking up deck ideas. Even if you don't play the format, I think building ideas for it is super fun.
Anyways, that's all I have this week, see you all next week :)
- Rose Willis
