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This thread is for discussion of this week's Building on a Budget, which goes live Wednesday morning on magicthegathering.com.
This seems like a pretty solid idea. I knew there was something I liked about thrummingbird.
I was considering building a mono-red vampire deck that ran Curse of Stalked Prey as well as all the slith vampires. I almost pre-ordered the cards for it, back when Stromkirk Noble
Anyway, splashing blue for the option to cast Tezzeret's Gambit 
Point the first - this is a very exciting deck idea, I just might have another deck to build for this Standard, which is turning out to be the most fun I've had deckbuilding since Llorwyn. Point the second - It's time to start a drinking game every time a card is described as being "real" or "very real". It would be a very real drinking game.
I like the deck concept a lot, but I find his sample playtests quite disheartening. He has one fight that works, albeit slightly slowly. Then his second match consists of a lot of chump-blocking and relying on the shrines for the kill, which is, after all, just a sideboard card and not really part of the deck concept. Then, the second match was complete fail. It's an honest report, but a more descriptive match might have been better.
Do I drink when you describe your drinking game as "very real" or not? 
This deck is freakin' awesome. Some tweaking of the numbers and I might build it.
The current lack of defense against enchantments that is mentioned in the article, and the existence of many powerful enchantments such as nevermore and oblivion ring, leads me to post this suggestion for an enchantment deck:
U/W enchantment deck: Lands: 4 glacial fortress 4 seacrome coast 9 plain 6 island 23 lands Creatures: 4 Mesa Enchantress 4 Auramancer 8 creatures Other: 4 gitaxis probe 4 negate 4 bonds of faith 4 forced worship 4 nevermore 4 oblivion ring 2 angelic destiny 3 Volition reins Notes: Using negate instead of the more common mana leak makes it possible to nevermore manaleak. The win condition can be any of the creatures + either bonds of faith (both creatures are human) or angelic destiny, or maybe the opponent plays a card that can be taken with volition reins. Consider Day of Judgment in the sideboard against aggro and token strategies. A more fun, but probably less playable variant is the W/R variant using curse of the pierced heart as a slow win condition, and/or using the combo personal sanctuary + manabarbs to stall the opponent.
I ran a build similar to this last week at FNM, trying to decide if it was worthy to play at states. Some big differences: Stromkirks instead of Neonite. 2 Heroes of Oxid Ridge instead of Neurok Commando. Also added inkmoth nexus to lands (made for good win conditions at some points). Didn't have any control (counterspell magic) in main, that was for board. Tez Gam and Volt charge were good, but I had think twice as well. The deck was ok. Went 2-2. Lost to poison and sculpted steel which showed that the deck needed to handle bigger dudes. That is the decks weak spot. All the creatures except falkenrath and heroes are 1/1, so if there's a bigger blocker out, you sit and do nothing. I've made some adjustments with this in mind and enjoy playing the deck, but not sure that it will ever be a tier deck. I will say, that adding Hero often had me putting my opponent at 3 on turn 4. Volt charge for the win!
An honest match report that shows most of what will happen with this deck. That is at least better than what we have had previously, and i quite like the deck idea too.
I liked the deck idea. I had been building a Vampire deck after drawing a lot of good vamps out of my fat pack. It's super fast, especially against control and ramp decks that can't/don't do a lot in the first few turns. If you can get a Noble or a Neonate out early and unblocked, your opponent is in a bad position. The problem with the deck is that if your opponent has lots of early removal or can chump block in turns 2-3, you're in trouble.
The U/R idea gives the deck some more survivability and does away with the problem of removal, but it's still overly reliant on certain cards to win. If you can't get a Stalked Prey out you're in trouble. The deck needs some more powerful later draws. Marauders is nice, but I've found that often you'll hit for 2 and then it will get removed on the next turn, which makes it essentially an expensive Shock 
Take out the Tezz's Gambit and side the Negates for 4 copies of Forbidden Alchemy?
Just feel like the deck needs more selective digging since it really requires the curse to make the opponent worry a lot. Not sure if there is anything else outside of that and Ponder, sadly.
Seems like he has a strong preference for UR. Just about every deck he has posted has Lightning Bolt and Ponder in it, or whatever the best red burn and best 1cc blue dig there is in standard at the time. He also seems to put a lot of counters into blue decks that don't seem to really rely on counters. Not a criticism, merely an observation. Perhaps that's a testament to the fact that burn, counters, and draw are some of the best things you can do with commons. A simple budget counterburn deck may be nice in the future.
Onto this specific deck...I would have like it more with Rakish Heir
I actually have a red-black vamp deck set up right now. I do like the synergy between the stalker and the curse tho, mainly becaues I've been dying to do something with the stalker and 1) I don't want to waste money on swords 2) ancient grudge. Haven't had much luck.
Stormkirk is NOT a "deck on a budget" card imo, being like $10 +. I don't mind seeing decks that suggest using it, but it isn't cheap. (Although I bought 3 o_O) Although my vamp deck is RB, the only real reason I have Black is Lord of Lineage. (Can't remember the face up name...) It could fairly easily change to mono-red or R-something with a bit of effort. Also, in my opinion, curiosity > commando. Throw it on the stalker and you get a hexproof unblockable 1/1 that draws a card every time it deals damage. Lastly, Devil's Play is awesome. Can make a good finisher for enough Mana. I'm no expert but I'd rather play it over Giestflame. X damage VS instant speed.
I honestly think the deck may work better if it's more offensive.. Possibly some panic spellbombs, ruthless invasions or Nightbird's clutches instead of mana leaks and ponders since the neonates can get +1/+1's anyway.. That and add some rakish Heirs... Hell, pretty much mono red.. Thoughts?
No matter how you run it, the deck needs to be better against aggro matchups. Without any way to deal with an aggro hoard, the deck is sluggish at best.
i was trying this deck out with some vault skirges. turn 1 skirge with the turn two curse seems nice.
i was trying this deck out with some vault skirges. turn 1 skirge with the turn 2 curse seems nice.
Stormblood Berserker
4 x Stromkirk Noble 4 x Stormblood Berserker 4 x Invisible Stalker 4 x Thrummingbird 4 x Curse of the Stalked Prey 3 x Tezzeret's Gambit 2 x Divination 4 x Mana Leak 3 x Volt Charge 2 x Treasure Mage 1 x Contagion Engine 4 x Inkmoth Nexus 4 x Sulfur Falls 8 x Island 9 x Mountain A singleton Koth could be pretty good here too. 
Additional threats. It creates a threat they have to answer, or else. And they will probably have used their point removal on other items. It is effectively a metagame decision.
Would be interesting to use blighted agent instead of / as well as invisible stalker. 4 turn clock instead of 6. And then there's the poliferation.
And steady progress which is has more synergy with the deck than divination. 
Agent doesn't have the Hexproof going for it though, which is a big deal. Most of the damage in the deck is, well, damage, not infect. And you don't want to rely on having a Curse in play.
As to Steady Progress vs Divination, I'd say neither. Gambit can be cast for 3, just like Div, and gets you proliferate. But what you'd probably want is Forbidden Alchemy. The best of 4 cards is most likely more useful than drawing two. Instant speed, so you can hold back counter or Volt Charge mana. And it will be much more effective at helping you find a Curse. 
Ok there is my version.
Creature:16 4x Stromkirk Noble 4x Stormblood Berserker 4x Thrummingbird 4x Invisible Stalker Spell:18 4x Shock 4x Volt Charge 4x Mana Leak 4x Ponder 2x Negate or Dissipate(that your choice) Enchant:4 4x Curse of Stalked Prey Land:22 4x Sulfur Falls 4x Inkmoth Nexus 7x Island 7xMountain That the decklist what he should have show without inkmoth nexus. you can have the deck for less then 40 tix online if your enough lucky, i try it and he work pretty well. Tezzeret's gambit was just a garbage in that deck due to his hude mana cost and lose of life. Neurok Commando pretty strong threat if your oppenent play slow. Most of the time gambit and commando slowed me such that i wasn't able to kill my oppenent. Why shock then geist pretty simple you can kill every thing at 2 power and less , like the white human deck or rdw. that my 2 cent's
Just put the deck together and played some test hands. If you don't have a CoSP the deck has no gas. About two thirds of the time my starting hand was garbage, I had to mulligan down to five before I got something even remotely playable. I think the deck needs more Vampires so it doesn't rely so much on CoSP.
Stromkirk Noble Bloodcrazed Neonate Thrummingbird Rakish Heir Falkenrath Marauders 18 creatures Curse of Stalked Prey Mana Lea Ponder Volt Charge Frost Breath 23 lands
my problem with this deck is that the vampires are really weak. i ran the deck with the Stromkirk Noble
Another commenter posted that the Stormblood Berserkers Also, I have won the game without ever having the Curse of Stalked Prey The problem for me, most games, was this was a really fast deck and I could get my oppenent down to 5 or less life every time...I just didn't have a good enough end game. I typically had too few creatures out, so even though I was set to always win on the next turn, I'd lose huge chunks of life the turn prior (usually cuz my few creatures out were swinging every turn) and lose. Anywho, I've tweaked the deck quite a few times (i.e. it's gone through many permutations). Here's the latest (it's at 62 cards): Sulfur Falls Inkmoth Nexus Mountain Island 21 lands Hero of Oxid Ridge Stormblood Berserker Invisible Stalker Thrummingbird 13 creatures Curse of Stalked Prey Volt Charge Incinerate Curiosity Ponder Tezzeret's Gambit Steady Progress Mana Leak Dissipate Psychic Barrier 27 instansts/sorceries/enchantments So, I think I definitely need more creatures; I just am not sure what to cut from the other spells to make room (and what to add). Thoughts? and Thanks!
Some thoughts I've had after reading through this, and having gotten some Standard games in (though not with this deck).
1) I think this deck will do better if it tries to err on a quicker side of the build. I.e., more one-to-three drops, fewer above four. 2) As a result, and as a benefit, the deck will need less land. That means drawing more action cards. 3) Given the number of instants this deck wants to play, I don't entirely understand Tezzeret's Gambit 4) Given how much flashback there is in Standard, I definitely prefer Dissipate 5) Geistflame Here's what I'm loooking at right now. It's not my ideal build, but they're the cards I have: 1x Stromkirk Noble 4x Bloodcrazed Neonate 4x Invisible Stalker 4x Thrummingbird 3x Rakish Heir 1x Ludevic's Test Subject 17 creatures 4x Ponder 4x Curse of Stalked Prey 2x Incinerate 3x Mana Leak 3x Dissipate 2x Steady Progress 4x Volt Charge 22 Ench/Instant/Sorcery 11 Island 10 Mountain 21 Land Hopefully I'll get a chance to test this out in a couple of days. I don't normally get a chance to play Standard, but this deck idea really intrigues me. Sadly, based on how little there is posted here, it doesn't sound like it intrigues too many others.
I really do quite like the concept of the Stormblood Berserker
One card that I haven't seen brought up here at all, that I think is a pretty awesome pick for this deck, is Mindshrieker
Mindshrieker
As constructed, this deck is marginally competitive. I played it online a bit and my primary issue is it starts strong and fizzles out. There isn't a closer in the deck. The Marauders are intended to be, but by the time I'm getting them on the board, my opponents usually had a way to lock them down after a turn or two. I'd often get someone down to 8 life, 4 life, and then stall. They'd establish board position and mount a comeback. That happened against a variety of decks.
Depending on the draw, this deck can start very strong, but can't bring it home. I'm going to try some of the suggestions here and tweak it a bit to see if I can get some wins.
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