This is a budget deck upgrade for Dungeon Delving, the Orzhov (B/W) Starter deck on MTG Arena unlocked through the Color Challenge.
This Deck Upgrade costs: 2 Common WC's || 10 Uncommon WC's || 0 Rare & Mythic WC's
All other cards in the deck, including the rares and mythics, are obtained for free from the other Arena Starter Decks.
This precon deck is built around the Dungeon/Venture theme from AFR and has a small Party sub-theme. One of the issues for a budget build focused on venturing, however, is that all the best venture cards are rare and the more common options leave quite a bit to be desired. Another issue this deck runs into is that the early threats for venture decks (Dungeon Crawler,Triumphant Adventurer are x/1's that are really weak against the meta at the moment - Shambling Ghast in particular. So, we've got to improvise a bit. We put less of our eggs in the venturing basket and fleshed out our party theme a little bit more for the purpses of this budget build. At the core, this is an aggro deck that has a few value plays thanks to the venture and party mechanics.
Usher of the Fallen is our Warrior of choice for the Party mechanic, as well as our aggressive 1-drop. 2/1 for 1 is a solid rate and it has the ability to Boast for another warrior token for our party if we have some leftover mana. It's a staple in all white-based aggro decks at the moment and it performs well here. Thunderous Orator is our party's Wizard. He's nothing special, but he's a decent budget option that fills in our party slot. Occasionally he'll get flying or deathtouch from our other creatures and that's not bad. Acquisitions Expert is our main Rogue play and one of our party pay-offs. It's a 1/2 body that contributes to our party count while also giving us a discard effect that gets stronger depending on the size of our party. Decent against everyone but particularly shines in our control matchups. Malakir Blood-Priest is one of our Clerics and our other main party pay-off. The drain effect is solid for helping us close out games or stabilize against aggro, and it's a solid reanimate target for some of our other cards. Shepherd of the Cosmos Speaking of reanimate, Shepherd is our endgame value play. It's also a warrior, so if we reanimate a Blood-Priest or Expert it has the added bonus of boosting the their party effects as they come into play as well.
Most of these are the 1-of rares that come stock in the deck. Unfortunately we can't add any more copies of them, but if you want to go into a heavier dungeon theme deck these would be good crafts. It's possible that Acererak the Archlich should be cut from this budget version since it lacks aggressive venture cards like Triumphant Adventurer and Nadaar, Selfless Paladin. Since it's a 1-of I didn't draw it often for the sake of playtesting, but it can be easily replaced by a 4th Bloodchief's Thirst. Yuan-Ti Fang-Blade was the only stock venture card we left in the deck besides Barrowin. I wasn't impressed by Cloister Gargoyle or Precipitous Drop - for an aggro deck they were just too slow for the turns they were played. The Fang-Blade at least is conducive to attacking, is occasionally a repeatable venture effect, and contributes to our party count. As a slight added bonus it can give our Thunderous Orator deathtouch as well. Barrowin of Clan Undurr is our strongest value play, even though it is a little slow. Our main targets for reanimation are often going to be either of our party pay-offs or Nadaar, Selfless Paladin. And it's a Cleric, so that's nice.
We're not running a whole lot of removal in favor of playing lots of creatures, but the ones we do have are functional. We run 3 Copies of Bloodchief's Thirst to deal with the key 1-2 drops in aggressive decks like Werewolf Pack Leader and Clarion Spirit while also being able to hit higher mana value creatures and planeswalkers if we play it kicked. We kept 1 copy each of Vanishing Verse and Silverquill Command in the deck since they were our stock removal pieces and they're both decent.
While Orzhov does have a tier deck in Standard at the moment, it's a midrange built around Kaya the Inexorable, Lolth, Spider Queen and Blood on the Snow, rather than the Dungeon mechanic. However, if you're looking to upgrade, these are some cards to consider. As always, it is generally best to start with the land base.
You could also consider moving into Green to gain access to cards such as Varis, Silverymoon Ranger and Ellywick Tumblestrum
I hope you enjoy this deck and that it serves you well. There's a deck tech video on youtube attached to this guide and I stream on Twitch here so don't hesitate to reach out :) I'd love to hear your experience with the deck. Good luck and have fun!
1 comments
Creature (30) | |||
---|---|---|---|
$4.70 | |||
$0.75 | |||
$0.49 | |||
$0.20€0.090.03 | |||
$0.18€0.120.03 | |||
$0.15€0.060.03 | |||
$0.40 | |||
$0.15€0.040.03 | |||
$0.15€0.070.03 | |||
$1.28 | |||
$0.20€0.170.03 | |||
$0.20 | |||
$1.75 | |||
Instant, Sorcery, Enchantment, Artifact (6) | |||
$1.85 | |||
$0.49 | |||
$0.23€0.180.03 | |||
$0.30€0.200.02 | |||
Land (24) | |||
11
Plains
|
$0.33€0.180.04 | ||
12
Swamp
|
$0.98€0.490.04 | ||
$3.370.09 |
Please log in to be able to store your favorite decks for easy access under My Decks in the main menu.
7 | 20 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
---|---|---|---|---|
0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |