XamIllustration wrote: ↑4 years ago
Hi all.
I have been reading and following since the MTGSalvation forum of this primer. I have been planning on what I have and don't, plus I have been outsourcing which online/LGS shops I would buy at the cheapest rate ($1 equals R15,
Yawgmoth's Will cost R4435
). I can only at the moment do the budget version and then slowly build up to the proper version of the deck...
There are a few cards that I am hard pressed to source it (and its expensive to try outsource from US to South Africa due to shipping cost).
Would what be the best alternatives for the
Angel of Serenity,
Sidisi, Undead Vizier,
Krav, the Unredeemed,
Sheoldred, Whispering One,
Nim Deathmantle and
Increasing Ambition?
Any other suggestions would be great. I will try go in LGS' binders (some LGS shops don't do online shopping through their binders as others would) and see if I can get them. My aunt just recently moved to San Diego, so maybe she can receive my MTG orders and then bring them down to SA(South Africa) at some point.
Oh, and silly question, What about
Urborg Skeleton instead of
Reassembling Skeleton? Cheaper mana cost...
Hey there Xam! Thanks for posting and following all this time! Sadly a lot of cards like
Yawgmoth's Will have jumped significantly in recent year. When I got my copy a few years back it was only $15 USD. I think the grand total of the deck was around $350, but the costs have rocketed since then. I'll go down the list you have here and try to offer some suggestions:
Angel of Serenity - Here we have both a big beater, graveyard protection, and creature removal all in one. There isn't a good equivalent, but we can hit some notes of what it does with other creatures.
Sunblast Angel can hose aggressors with a semi-board wipe;
Archfiend of Depravity can serve as another semi-board wipe;
Duplicant can exile tons of creatures very easily by continuously reanimating it; and ditto with
Meteor Golem.
Sidisi, Undead Vizier - This is another card that is hard to replace, but there are a few options!
Thalia's Lancers has the same CMC and can tutor a Legendary card. There are quite a few important cards in the deck that are Legendary where this can serve as a repeatable tutor, so I think this will be your best budget option!
Krav, the Unredeemed - I'm actually going to be updating the list to replace Krav with
Yawgmoth, Thran Physician, but that doesn't help the budget limitations, huh? There's plenty of sac outlets out there attached to Creatures.
Disciple of Griselbrand and
Bontu the Glorified are two of my go-to budget sac outlets when building budget decks. Although bontu costs
1B to activate, she has the benefit of being Indestructible.
Sheoldred, Whispering One - There are a few options here. You could replace her with another reanimation effect like
Unburial Rites. I do like
Liliana, Death's Majesty quite a bit.
Phyrexian Reclamation is a quite amazing card for protecting against graveyard hate.
Magus of the Abyss can serve the attrition front that Sheoldred does so well.
Nim Deathmantle - There definitely isn't a good replacement for Nim Deathmantle as it's a key combo piece. What you can do is add another combo piece for
Sun Titan + a sac outlet, that being
Kaya's Ghostform.
Increasing Ambition - Well, I don't think there's a tutor other than
Diabolic Tutor that is cheaper than this. Increasing Ambition is less than $1 USD. There's also
Mausoleum Secrets if you can get enough Creatures into your graveyard. Given the budget limitations, it could be good to do a more heavy reanimation angle and run cards like
Buried Alive and more reanimation effects like
Living Death,
Animate Dead,
Victimize and so on where Mausoleum Secrets would shine.
Yawgmoth's Will - There's only one truly similar card, that being
Magus of the Will. Given how slow Magus is, though, I would just run
Vilis, Broker of Blood in it's stead. He's another big flying beater that can draw you a lot of cards and remove creatures at the same time.
Lastly, regarding
Urborg Skeleton - It sadly doesn't hold up. The Regenerate effect doesn't work when being sacrificed, so it wouldn't stay on the field. Regeneration only works on lethal combat damage or an effect that would destroy it, and being sacrificed is neither of those.
I hope I've been able to help you a bit here