Ever since getting introduced to serious Magic play back in Norwood, NY, one of the most positive comments that I have received about my skills is my ability to build amazing decks out of almost no rares and kick some real teeth in with them. This was not just from local scrub players who tried to emulate some of my creativity, unsuccessfully; this was from some of the best players in the area, some who could easily have gone onto Pro Tours and so fourth. Many times they were also netdeckers who dropped far, far too much money on their decks... only to get defeated by me and my budget buids fairly often.

At first, these amazing decks were nothing too amazing - perhaps a simple pre-con deck with some rares tossed in. For example, a rather effective medium aggro* build involving Benalish Heralds, Benalish Lancer, and Crusade. Sure, it didn't win nearly as fast as better decks, but damned if it didn't annoy the heck out of opponents by the time it did. That 2/2 for 2W wasn't that great at first, but as a 5/5 first striker for 4WW it had a real habit of winning, and quickly. Perhaps my most successful budget build was a U/R deck involving Phantom Warrior, Suq'ata Lancer, Earthquake, and Nevinyrral's Disk. Developed completely independently of the internet, the same way decks originally were, it was still around years later before it was reluctantly pulled apart.

In that vein, my recent forays to the Shadowmoor prerelease, where I did stupendously well (6-1-1 by matches, 13-2-1 by games), have led to another budget build that I think may just do well come June's Regionals and Block Constructed tournaments. Here's my current decklist:

Hungry Hungry Spriggans (HugS)

4 Bramblewood Paragon

3 Elvish Warrior

3 Tattermunge Witch

4 Hungry Spriggan

3 Imperious Perfect

2 Boggart Ram-Gang

2 Boartusk Liege

3 Nath's Elite

4 Lash Out

3 Obsidian Battle-Axe

2 Firespout

4 Giantbaiting

3 Mosswort Bridge

3 Fire-Lit Thicket

2 Shimmering Grotto

5 Mountain

10 Forest

SB:

4 Puncture Bolt

3 Gleeful Sabotage

3 Lignify

2 Spitebellows

1 Firespout

2 Wild Ricochet

Goblins! Elves! Mortal enemies to be sure, they even had duel decks printed to slay eachother in cold, cardboard blood! Yet here they are together, for the first time, in a great big green, hungry family! Or black, arguably. In any case, quite the Odd Couple. If you've never seen the show of the same name, either on stage or on film, I recommend it - it's good comedy worth your money.

This budget build G/R Warrior - with the possible exception of Fire-Lit Thickets, which are hot and annoyingly hard to trade for in my area - is quite cheap to put together and one of the easiest on my pocketbook for some time. Despite being a Block deck as currently built, I've found that it loses very little compared to Standard builds with the possible exception of Treetop Village; Mutavault could easily fill those voids, if you've got playsets. As for testing, it can be quite effective against a large percentage of the field that I expect to see at Regionals.

Like any Warrior build, it plays guys and attacks; such builds have been successful at previous tournaments this T2 season, though more often than not they were G/b Elf builds that happened to run a few Obsidian Battle-Axes and a great deal of ego. While the black-splashing builds most often did it for some combination of Nameless Inversion, Profane Commnand, and Shriekmaw, it lacks much of the juice that Shadowmoor brings G/R builds of the same deck, the biggest thing being reach. Sure, you could randomly hit a player with a 2-of Profane Command in mid-game to force through creatures, but that's nothing compared to the terrifying amount of burn that a red build can put out. In that sense, G/R Warriors is something like Gruul 2.0. The differnce is that this year, unlike last year, I actually plan to be piloting the deck rather than piloting against it.

Hungry Hungry Spriggans (HUGS) has a fairly straightforward maindeck. For the 2-drops, Bramblewood Paragon is a very normal 4-of, while Elvish Warrior is a strong replacement for Wren's Run Vanquisher in a deck with too few elves; while it happily eats Nom-Noms for breakfast, Tattermunge Witch can push through an impressive amount of trample damage. For 3-drops, Imperious Perfects are kept at a 3-of due being rather slow and the general lackof elves in the deck. Boggart Ram-Gang, despite being a hasty 3/3, is run at a 2-of over the 4-of Hungry Spriggan for one very simple reason: trample. Sure, the Ram-Gang gets in there quickly and is good against decks like Doran the Explorer, but against rival aggro builds it is nearly wortheless in comparison to the Spriggan's 4/4 or larger trampling power. Lieges need no explanation, but perhaps Nath's Elites do. Sure, it's big and slow, and on the surface rather weak, but the real value of it comes from it's Lure effects; put on a high power creature - I've had it as big as 8-power at times - it can really tear apart rival Lords, Lieges, and Witches. When it's not doing this, it actuas as a Doran killer while assuring a free board to attack into.

The non-creature spells are somewhat more straightforward. Lash Out is a decent Incinerate replacement, and since I run so little burn, the fact that it can't go to a player's head is largely irrelevant. The Clash can be quite helpful too, whether or not you win it. 2-of Firespout maindeck is a partially a sideboarding decision - a deck full of 4-of's can be annoyingly hard to sideboard. It's great against things like Revilark, Merfolk, Elves, and Faeries, but starts to be much less useful as you run 3 or 4 in the maindeck.

Probably the oddest new card HUGS plays is Giantbaiting. While this may look like a clumsy, conspiring spell that makes you lose some offense, it isn't. First off, being able to throw expendable attackers at your opponent, especially attackers in the 4/4 to 6/5 range, mean that they either lose some of their best creatures or take a huge amount of damage to their face. This blocking conundrum only gets worse when they're given trample by the Paragon or Witch. Nor do you necessarily need to conspire the spell to get maximum benefit - if you have, say, an Elvish Warrior and Boartusk Liege out, it's often better to simply cast it as is and attack for 12. Don't try this sort of thing against token-heavy decks, however; it's less than impressive.

Enough MWS testing has shown what decks are most problematic, and thus what sideboard is required. Usually, one or more of the following are sided out: Giantbaiting, Obsidan Battle-Axe, Firespout, Boggart Ram-Gang, or Nath's Elite. This choice is largely dependant on what sort of build you're playing against - do you need to start playing control to take down beasts like Doran / Chameleon Collossus / Tarmogoyf, or would you rather just toss in a few utility cards and go with the maindeck? I can't say I've entirely worked out this equation myself, but let me present my testing results all the same.

G/W Persist: Perhaps the most dangerous opponent of a removal-light build, this deck comes in a great variety of flavors, all powerful enough to warrarnt a WTFDWTT?!?** from me. Sure, those B/R Wither builds might be able to pull it down, but between the great variety of persistant creatures - the lion's share of them in G/W, along with the ever-popular Epocrasite - and a suite of white removal and green pumps, it becomes very rude to play against. Perhaps the most hated build of it that I've encoutered so far is the one running a pile of already very efficient, very hard to remove W/G creatures and four 4-toughness lieges, often supplmiented by Glittering Wish, Primal Command, or Shield of the Overoul. For the purposes of sideboarding, the Lieges are your main target in this deck, followed by Persist creatures:

-2 Firespout, -3 Obsidian Battle-Axe, -4 Giantbaiting/Lash Out

+2 Spitebellows, +3 Lignify, +4 Puncture Bolt

Red Deck Wins / RDW: While not necessarily the most powerful deck, this is at the top of decks that I have no desire, ever, to play against. The retarted amount of burn in this deck, often backed by Sygg, River Cutthroat, makes me want to quit the game and stick with a more combat-friendly, removal-light one like Vs. System instead (no, it's not dead). Builds of this vary, but in general you don't need to sideboard much if at all; perhaps Spitebellows would come in.

Doran / Rock : Again, like RDW, these builds vary tremendoulsy, but in general seem to be Good Stuff builds made to maximize Tarmogofy and play the most expensive cards in the format. While the best counter to this would be a white control build, Giantbaiting is extremely powerful in this match as it pulls down their fatties without risking yours. Watch out for back-breaking Primal Commands here. Nath's Elite*** can also be helpful, but in order to deal with Bitterblossom, the following sideboarding seems to be the most useful:

-2 Firespout, -3 Obisidian Battle-Axe, -3 Nath's Elite

+2 Spitebellows / Wild Ricochet, +3 Lignify, +3 Gleeful Sabotage

Elves!: This is solid aggro matchup for you, one that you can often win due to trample, Giantbaiting, and burn; Obsidian Battle-Axe is distinctly less useful due to the number of tokens Elves can generate, not to mention death-touchers, so make sure your tramplers survive and simply attack until they're dead. Watch out out for the Commands they like to pack. Barring the occasional Colossus that may give you hiccups, this seems like the strongest sideboard:

-2 Boggart Ram-Gang, -3 Obsidian Battle-Axe

+2 Wild Ricochet, +1 Firespout, +2 Spitebellows

Faeries / Rogues: Haven't been able to test this matchup with this deck, but I have plenty of experience with other decks. This deck, in fact, was designed to be able to more easily run over such an evasive build. This seems like the best sideboard plan, in light of the number of chump blockers you're likely to come across:

-2 Boggart Ram-Gang, -4 Giantbaiting

+2 Gleeful Sabotage, +1 Firespout, +3 Puncture Bolt

That's about all i've got for testing results; there's sure to be more coming as Regionals and the Berlin PTQ's approach. I think the deck works, and recent negative testing results are in large part due to a mixture of terrible MWS shuffling and three weeks of fighting off colds / being behind on my sleep. If you take nothing else from this article, however, take this: not all winning decks are expensive. HUGS may cost $35 tops to build, and while it could be improved with various standard power-cards, it really doesn't need it. In that sense, it's somewhat like U/G Madness, and hopefully will have as much success as that deck did. Don't take my word for it, though.

Ciao,

Zachary Thorp

*for reference on what Medium Aggro means, read some of my past article series on this site and Starcity Games, entitled "Redefining a Moniker". Perhaps someone will actually start cleaning up their language with these!

**WTFDWTT - Why the f@#$ didn't Wizards test this [And make it weaker]?

***For those who just hate Nath's Elite, you may drop one for another Boartusk Liege, keeping in mind that the deck runs few r/g hybrid creatures to take advantage of him. Don't forget about Nath's Elite, though - he wins game against creature matches.

Tags: Regionals Block Constructed

Related to: Magic: the Gathering

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