I am gearing up towards FNM tomorrow. Will it be another series of losses? I guess I’ll find out tommorow after watching the new Dark Knight movie.

I picked up some last minute cards over at Magic Inferno, but will be playing elsewhere owing to my transportation problems. I used to order from them by mail, but now they are in the same area as I am. It is hard for me to get over there as my bicycle has not arrived. The moving company has delayed the delivery for a while now.

I’ve been working on some budget decks. A few decks I really like right now are my blue Unreal TE and my Red Faction. Red Faction grew out of the ideas that went into Overdue as well as another artifact based deck. Unreal TE is a product of some of my recent trades that I made for Invisible Stalker.

Let’s begin with the blue deck.

Unreal TE

23 Island

2 Elixir of Immortality

2 Phantasmal Bear

2 Ponder

3 Silent Departure

4 Blighted Agent

4 Invisible Stalker

4 Lord of the Unreal

4 Spectral Flight

3 Aether Adept

3 Elgaud Shieldmate

4 Phantasmal Dragon

4 Viral Drake

Sideboard:

2 Phantasmal Bear

1 Vapor Snag

1 Disperse

2 Turn to Frog

1 Aether Adept

1 Encrust

4 Niblis of the Breath

1 Elgaud Shieldmate

2 Corrupted Conscience

The deck is based upon illusions. This keeps many of the casting costs down. Illusions can be fairly fragile though, so I’ve put in staples like Elixir of Immortality. I also have two Ponders which will soon be unplayable in most formats. I picked up each of my Ponders for a nickle! Some shops apparently understand Ponder’s looming fate. I opted to go with Silent Departure because of the Flashback ability over both Unsummon and Vapor Snag. Next we have the unblockables. Blighted Agent is a real threat early on, but is fairly vulnerable to spells. Invisible Stalker is not so vulnerable. Both can benefit from the Spectral Flights included. Aether Adept is a great way to bounce an opponent’s creature cards and makes an okay chump blocker. Viral Drake offers a decent flying blocker and has a proliferate ability. The illusion creatures should work well with Lord of the Unreal. Lord of the Unreal, however, is vulnerable and I’ve included Elguad Shieldmate to help provide LOTU some protection.

The side deck is pretty straightforward. Only disperse is really worth mentioning as it allows me to bounce planeswalkers if need be. Niblis would probably substitute for Aether Adept. Corrupted Conscience can work well, but the high casting costs relegated it to the side-deck and it would be difficult to integrate for that reason. It would probably be necessary to replace Viral Drake with them.

While I feel the deck is fairly well thought out and designed from a budget perspective, I am not sure how this would work at an FNM against the current established decks, like Delver.

The next deck is Red and understandably seems to go in the exact opposite direction of the blue deck.

Red Faction

24 Mountain

2 Elixir of Immortality

2 Pillar of Flame

4 Iron Myr

4 Act of Treason

3 Pristine Talisman

3 Rakish Heir

2 Traitorous Blood

1 Demonmail Hauberk

4 Heirs of Stromkirk

3 Conjurer’s Closet

3 Charmbreaker Devils

4 Steel Hellkite

3 Thopter Assembly

Sideboard:

1 Rakish Heir

2 Act of Aggression

3 Creepy Doll

2 Invader Parasite

3 Darksteel Sentinel

4 Blasphemous Act

Red Faction has a very high mana curve. I’ve tried to include some cards, like Iron Myr and Pristine Talisman to help compensate for the mana demands of the deck.

Rakish Heir should work well with the Heirs of Stromkirk and they provide some of the earliest offense.

The overall idea is fairly simple- use Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood to steal the opponent’s creatures and either sacrifice them with Demonmail Hauberk or keep them with Conjurer’s Closet. (The artwork for both cards is by Jason Felix who I met at the SLC GP). Charmbreaker Devils should be able to call back the spells. Initially, I did not want to use any spells other than Act of Treason/Traitorous Blood, but eventually I concluded I needed some removal spells. I opted for Pillar of Flame over Incinerate and I’ll just have to see how that works out. The deck includes a lot of heavy hitters like Steel Hellkite and Thopter Assembly.

The side deck is mainly designed to substitute board wiping cards like Blasphemous Act with indestructible cards- Creepy Doll and Darksteel Sentinel. The possible interaction between Invader Parasite and Conjurer’s closet was enough for me to consider the inclusion of those cards, though that seems to take everything in a very different direction. Perhaps that combination is best left to another deck.

So those are two budget decks I am working on right now. One emphasizes speed and the other power, leaving me to wonder which one should I try first?

Update: Preliminary testing shows that the red deck is better than the blue.