If you like this deck and want to check out the rest of the ever-expanding Ultra-Budget series, you can view them all in this folder here!

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I also built a more competitive version of this deck if you don't care quite as much about budget. This version transforms the deck into a Delver/Tempo deck Budget: The Delver in the Ice.

Hello everyone! This is yet another entry in my Ultra-Budget series and the second one since I've been back (my first being Ultra-Budget: Teenage Mutant Ninja Wizards if you want to help with that one too!). This one comes right in at the $25 mark with lands included!

If you like this deck, please remember to upvote (by clicking this link, for example)!

The goal of this deck is very simple. Try to control the board with your smaller creatures, instants, and equipment while you maneuver to get your two big beaters transformed as quickly as possible! And with a perfect draw, you can actually combo Hex Parasite turn one into a turn two Thing in the Ice , then when you hit 4 mana, pop the Parasite's ability, remove all the Ice tokens, and have your Awoken Horror ready to go, possibly even with Grafted Wargear equipped! With 2 Clockspinnings, you can even have your Awoken Horror on the field by turn 3!

There's also a little Horror tribal theme to the deck that helps make sure your creatures stick around after the Thing wipes the board.

Let's dive in and see how it works!

(Pictured: The Thing in the Ice... not in the Ice anymore.)

Creatures

Hex Parasite: This little guy at the one drop isn't the most impressive creature on his own. But, he has quite the interaction with the Thing in the Ice. If you're able to get him down turn 1 and then the Thing in the Ice down turn 2, you can pop this guy's ability as soon as you hit 4 mana, take all the counters off, and transform the Thing immediately!

Thrummingbird: This little fella's purpose is two-fold. First, bring a little evasion with flying, which combos well with the Wargear. And second, his proliferate ability has excellent synergy with the Test Subject, allowing you to rush his transformation along more quickly!

Ingenious Skaab: Nothing special about this guy. He's here to apply some pressure while you work on getting your big beaters transformed. He enjoys the Wargear and doesn't die when the Thing board wipes! Abuse prowess with your cantrips and counters, and remember that if he's wearing the Wargear, you can pop his power boost a couple extra times if you have the mana!

Ludevic's Test Subject : One of the two big scaries in this deck! He can come down fairly early and serve as a blocker while you control the tempo of the game with your spells and creatures, and with some good land drops combined with proliferates and Clockspinning, he can transform as early as turn 5! He's also able to survive the Thing's board wipe once he's transformed! (Not to mention, the transformed creature has some of the best flavor text ever)

Thing in the Ice : As I described above, you can get this guy transformed very early with Hex Parasite! But since his transformation comes with a board wipe, sometimes you can hold off an extra turn or two to let your opponent get some of their key creatures down. And if you don't get lucky with the Hex Parasite, you can still transform him very quickly with Clockspinning! A secondary benefit to this guy's board sweep that I've noticed in recent playtests is that if you time it right so that your opponent has a good number of creatures on the board and still a good chunk of cards in their hand, you can potentially pop this off at the end of their turn and force them to discard down to 7.

Forgotten Creation: This guy's primary function is to act as a card draw engine to make sure you've got the right cards in hand if the game goes long. He also provides a little evasion, does well with the Wargear, and survives the Thing's board wipe!

Spells

Dissolve: Not much to explain here. You play blue, you run counter magic! This is one of the best for cheap. This slot could be swapped for whatever kind of counter you like, including Fuel for the Cause if you want to get some extra proliferates! But the Scry on Dissolve helps keep the deck's consistency up, so I went with that.

Clockspinning: This card is cheap and fast. It allows you to add and remove counters as necessary to pop both of your transforms as fast as possible! And of course just casting it helps transform the Thing. If you get the Thing down turn 2 and have two of these in your hand for turn 3, pop them both and have your Awoken Horror turn 3!

Vapor Snag: This spell helps you maintain board control and control the tempo of the game while you work on getting your beaters transformed. The extra damage it deals is just gravy. And again, just casting it helps transform the Thing! And don't forget, in a pinch, you can use it to save your own creatures from removal.

Opt: With it being reprinted for Ixalan, Opt is now low-mana, instant, AND inexpensive option to improve consistency. In this deck in particular, yet another cantrip also means more consistently transforming your Thing, ideally at the end of your opponent's turn. Note: if you don't care about the $25 budget, you can replace this card with 4 copies of Serum Visions and still get the deck for less than $30 without the lands. And if you don't care about Modern legality, you could even swap it for Preordain to even further improve the consistency.

Equipment

Grafted Wargear: This is here to allow some of your weaker creatures to swing a little harder a little faster while you're working on your transforms. The benefit of equipment is that it survives the Thing's board wipe, which means you can equip it to the Awoken Horror for free after the wipe, giving you a potential 10/10 on turn 4!

Cards In Testing

Wharf Infiltrator: I've found that Thrummingbird and his proliferate really don't make a huge impact on this deck. If you manage to get the Test Subject down, you're usually just transforming him with mana. I've also noticed that the Test Subject is much more of a secondary wincon, the Thing and his board control being the primary. To that end, I'm testing playing this guy instead of the Thrummingbird. He can't attack through a 1/1, but both of his abilities are relevant to this deck. Seeing more of your deck in a deck that hinges on certain creature and spell combos is invaluable, and being able to occasionally pump out 3/2s that survive the Thing's board wipe could be a big deal. So we'll see how he does.

Spellweaver Eternal: This is another option I'm considering replacing Thrummingbird with. Prowess is pretty solid in this deck and getting an early lead on life in addition to this deck's tempo/control makes a big difference. This guy could prove to be an early game menace while you're using your spells to control the board and set up the sweep.

Niblis of Frost: Again, prowess is good in this deck and some extra board control to stall until your wincon is ready could help. As mentioned above, I think the Test Subject is a secondary wincon to the Thing, so a 4-of might not be necessary for him. I'm testing scaling him back to 2 copies and including 2 copies of this guy. he doesn't survive the Thing's board wipe, but prowess and his tap ability are relevant in a deck full of cantrips.

And that's it! Another simple budget beater deck to add to the series. I'm not super familiar with blue, so I am super open to suggestions. Please feel free to comment and we'll get this baby tightened up together! And of course, if you like the deck, comment and upvote!