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 I want to take a look at this guy...
He's been the star of R/u Budget Burn decks for a while now, so there's nothing new there. What I'm going to look at is a different colored splash: Black. Thanks to some powerful cards from Kaladesh, I believe R/b may be the new way to go.
I got the idea from a co-worker of mine who said he built a $30 standard R/b burn deck that can win pretty quickly if the opponent doesn't know what's going on, and can prey on a stumbled start from the opposition.
We come way under our $100 budget with this deck list. It only sits around $57 TCG buylist prices, and quite frankly it's a list that just looking at I kind of giggle and hope it's going to be as fun playing as it looks.
Reach
These three cards have the distinctness of being “burn” spells without any actual burn. They're all 3 mana, and they all not only make our opponent lose life, but they give us some life we're probably going to need.
Alms of the Vein on the surface may be 3 mana, but with the fantastic enabler like Tormenting Voice it brings the 3 mana cost down to 1, and puts another card in your hand. This is what we call “value.”
Collective Brutality is a card that's gotten enough press as it is in other decks and even in the Modern format. It helped turned on Dredge and it definitely helped the Grixis version of Goryo's Vengence Reanimator. This card also has the great advantage of being a mana sink in the later turns so we can get some added value out of the card.
Prying Questions is a card that we can't make any cheaper, but it does Lava Axe the opponent and takes a card from their hand, delaying their next actual draw.
Continuing the Assault
Thermo-Alchemist, the main card of our brew is going to be great for pinging our opponent and his untap trigger is only going to help bring on the pain.
Dynavolt Tower is an interesting new addition. When MaRo first revealed the new Energy mechanic, I have to admit – I wasn't thrilled. First the whole wastes mana, and now this? Despite my initial reaction, the card does have a place in the deck. It gives you some energy to start, and since our deck is mostly spells it's only going to keep pumping energy into our reserves to Lava Axe the opponent a little more.
Draw the Cards
Tormenting Voice is obviously a pretty decent draw spell in the current format, and being a Madness enabler only makes it more valuable. We may only be playing one Madness spell in our deck, but it's a must have. The card also helps protect us from the much dreaded mana flood.
Bedlam Reveler is a card that hasn't seen much play in Standard, that I've seen, yet. It has however had brewers playing around with it in Delver of Secrets shells, and it has become it's own little deck in Grixis Reveler. It can be a cheap costing mana investment and it will give you some more gas when you need it.
This is a deck that I can't wait to finally make the first video's for for my YouTube channel later, and should be all up at the time of this article goes live.
With me currently making plans to travel and play at GP Providence, I'm in a bit of a scramble to figure out what to play and how exactly to get the cards. This deck, might not be the deck for the first GP after PT Kaladesh, but it may just be the deck I take to my local Game Day and try to get a playmat.
Thanks for joining me while I try to Untap the Multiverse!
As another little thing, I'm going to start a Youtube Channel where I host video's of my brews and playing the decks over Xmage (and maybe Cockatrice depending on how Xmage is acting).
Have an idea for something you'd like me to brew up? Give me a shout in the comments!
Or in the usual social media ways -
Twitter - @maibuddha
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCii1H4HLwrHDWT4JGVlVajQ
Personal Blog - Untapping the Multiverse (https://untapthemultiverse.wordpress.com/)
