Hello all and welcome to this weeks Budget Brews! Winning is nice, but it isn't our main goal here at Budget Brews, instead we just try and have some fun! We tackle a few different ways to build here at Budget Brews, we either look at trying to make the more competitive decks cheaper on the wallet, or we just come up with something new that's easy on the wallet!
This week we're jumping back into my favourite format, playing my favourite colours. We're going to take a look a U/W Turbo Fog in Modern. It's a deck that I think, with all of the aggro creature decks running around, can actually be an alright contender. I know that at my LGS is mostly creature decks (besides that one Storm player) it's mainly winning through creature damage. And since I'm always looking to 1-up the Meta, I think something where I blank my opponent's attacks might be pretty good.
When I was looking at the articles I've done before for MTGCanada.com, I was surprised I hadn't written anything on the deck before since it's something I like to play around with from time to time when I'm looking to have some fun and try to stress my opponent out. Plus, Dimir Mill was my first deck (it was combo too!). Mill is always going to have a place close to my heart, even if I don't ever really play it anymore.
All told the deck should run you about $130CAN ($100US) if you buy it through WizardTower.com, or around $50CAN in Tix if you're looking to play something on MTGO.
Turbo Fog is a Mill/Control deck that seeks to prevent the damage your opponent wishes to win through while milling them out. The game plan is simple: Survive. You have exactly zero traditional win-cons.
What you do have? Well you have a mill card so busted that if it didn't have the words “nonland” on it, it could have taken the legacy Painter combo decks to Tier 1 status.
Seriously, the brewer in me loves this card almost as much as I love Jeskai Ascendancy. This card is how you win the game. With the eight Howling Mines this card can turn into a house that'll make the mono-coloured player in your shop cry when he flips his library over into the graveyard.
The eight Mines also prove to be great card advantage. I've been in many spots where I was worried I was going to lose on my opponent's next turn when, thanks to drawing an extra card or two, I was able to draw my much needed next fog. This deck also has the added benefit of playing Supreme Verdict to wipe away your opponent's field and helping you reset the clock.
With an outstanding 16 Fog-effects, it's going to be tough for your opponent to be doing any damage. Then there's Pollen Lullaby that can be a two-for-one Fog which does nothing to buy you much needed time to further deplete their library.
Then if you happen to be getting low on life or fog effects, there's always Elixir of Immortality to shuffle your graveyard back into your library.
What are we good against?
Anything aggro. Seriously, it's funny how good this $100 budget deck is versus linear based creature decks.
What are we bad against?
Well, sadly... everything else. Control is a nightmare, and Combo is even worse. Our 12 fog effects don't blank non-combat damage, and control can just counter the spells anyway.
Combo will just laugh at us while we try to do our thing and they go off uninterrupted.
How can we make the deck better?
Archive Trap is a card that comes front and centre quickly. Milling 13 for free is a huge number in our favour, and making it free is icing on the cake. Pair this with Ghost Quarter and watch their misery.
Leyline of Sanctity, of course, would warrant a slot in the sideboard. Burn is going to be a hard match-up since they can just throw their Lightning Bolts into your face, it'll also help against any decks running around still playing Thoughtseize where they can just rip your fogs from your hand.
Some other cards I've played around with would be some of the same things that mono-blue turns plays. Gigadrowse and Exhaustion just as a way to tap their creatures down and buy you another turn.
Cryptic Command deserves a slot as well. Countering a spell and either drawing a card or tapping their team depending on game state is all value.
All around the deck makes for a great FNM deck, especially in an aggro filled meta.
Thanks for joining me while I untap the multiverse, and I look forward to brewing up something for next week!
Have an idea for something you'd like me to brew up? Give me a shout in the comments! You can also follow me on Twitter, @maibuddha, Reddit /u/maibuddha, or you can join my Facebook group!
