Standard: 7 Budget Decks for the Bloomburrow Season

The new Standard season is here, and Bloomburrow has already shown its first impacts on the format and the way rotation has changed some of the main archetypes of the current Metagame, with the rise of Orzhov Midrange as the main attrition strategy while Boros Convoke and Gruul Prowess stand out as the main Aggro and Artifact-based Control lists starts to show-up.

New formats always bring that desire to play, to get to know the scenario, pick up a deck and enjoy some matches, as happened with Modern and Timeless after the release of Modern Horizons 3. And with the 2024-2025 Standard season, we can expect the same reception - but what about when a player doesn't have a good collection and/or doesn't even have a Magic Arena account?

These players are looking for cheap options that allow them to have fun and even win some matches, being able to improve their collections over time and on top of the minimum possible investment. In this article, we aim to present budget options for free to play Magic Arena players, with a low investment of Rare and Mythic wildcards!

The lists below were built and tested on Magic Arena and can also be migrated to tabletop Standard. However, the fluctuation of market values and the spikes that a new season brings can make the lists less “budget” than desired by some players and/or communities.

Mono Blue Terror - 4 Rares

Mono Blue Tempo retains an important portion of its cards with the rotation, despite having lost Consider and Delver of Secrets.

Its plan is to use cheap spells to reduce the cost of creatures early and/or increase the power of Haughty Djinn, our only rare that is worth investing in due to its interaction with spells like Curate and Spellgyre, as well as establishing a one or two turn clock on its own.

Eddymurk Crab is a new addition from Bloomburrow that fits well into our game plan: we can use it on the opponent's turn, clear blockers and/or delay their turn, and still have a 5/5 on the way back to pressure or stop attacks on subsequent turns. Its cost reduction and flexibility make it a staple for this type of strategy.

To speed up our plan, we have a Surveil package in our spells both to increase the number of cards in our graveyard and to find our threats, since we have a relatively low amount of them.

Spellgyre is another card that stood out well in my tests in several lists, being a Counterspell when necessary while offering top manipulation and card advantage if the game goes on.

Our other cards basically serve to hold the game until our creatures take over theboard or protect them from interaction, with cheap counterspells and bounces.

The problem with this strategy is how much value our opponent can extract from ETB effects like Archangel of Wrath and Atraxa, Grand Unifier and lands like Cavern of Souls. Our best response is to answer with lands like Demolition Field to hold the game, but we can't have too many of them in the list, as this compromises our access to blue.

Upgrades include Three Steps Ahead as another flexible counterspell that fits into the theme, Tishana’s Tidebinder to answer troublesome permanents, and Kitsa, Otterball Elite as a threat that can also allow for some interactions with bounces or Spellgyre to generate a lot of value with your spells if the game goes on too long.

Splashes and/or two-color variants are also an option, with Azorius with Monastery Mentor and Izzet with the Otter-based deck that has been popping up in Magic Online Leagues likely to work.

Mono Red Prowess - 8 Rares

Mono Red is a Magic: The Gathering classic and is always present in some way in the Standard Metagame. In this version, we seek to replicate the Prowess variants of the format that have appeared in Gruul and Rakdos .

Our game plan is simple: play creatures, cast spells, grow their power and attack the opponent. Preferably with some evasion and/or using removal to get blockers out of the way.

The rares, Emberheart Challenger and Slickshot Show-Off have proven to be staples and generate a lot of pressure on the opponent, forcing unfavorable trades or carrying games where they aren't immediately dealt with.

Our spells are divided between pumps and damage, with Might of the Meek and Blazing Crescendo offering an extra card in addition to their effects, while Monstrous Rage guarantees a huge power boost and permanent evasion.

Our burn package is the classic standard of the archetype, with Shock and Lightning Strike to remove blockers or guarantee more range in the game. Blooming Blast is replaceable with Demonic Ruckus to have more pumps, but I like the concept of ten removals and a Searing Blood can make a big difference in the outcome of the game, and I've used this card more than once to trigger Emberheart Challenger's Valiant to "draw" a card and trigger Prowess of all attacking creatures when there was no legal target on the opponent's board.

Upgrades in the Mono Red version include Fugitive Codebreaker to improve the Prowess package if the player wants to keep that theme, while Squee, Dubious Monarch provides more atttrition in interactive games. Mishra’s Foundry can be included as a 2-of to provide another threat against sweepers, despite its high activation cost.

Other options include playing Gruul Prowess, which has been one of the best Aggro decks in the current Metagame, or migrating to the Rakdos version, which can be a bit more interactive or explosive, depending on the matchup. Of these, Gruul seems to be the best option today and a natural path, even for the Mono Red variant upgrades.

Boros Convoke - 8 Rares

Boros Convoke remains in the format after rotation and has been the best “go wide Aggro” deck in the Metagame in these first weeks. Fortunately, its card base is cheap enough to start building from eight rares, or even four if you want to compromise your speed.

The plan for the deck is still the same as last season: use cards that spawn more than one creature on the board and/or have interactions with Gleeful Demolition to fill the battlefield early and cast Knight-Errant of Eos, which will ideally find Imodane’s Recruiter for a lethal attack the following turn.

In this cheap version, Warden of the Inner Sky is replaced by Seasoned Warrenguard, which can easily be a 3/2 for one mana given the high amount of tokens we have in the list, while Case of the Gateway Express remains as a massive pump and interaction alongside Charge of the Mites, which offers two tokens or a creature removal to deal with blockers.

Yotian Frontliner has been competing with Charming Scoundrel in the improved Convoke lists. Here, the soldier from Brothers’ War stands out for being a common that serves both as a sacrifice fodder for Gleeful Demolition and as a reanimation in a lethal attack turn with Imodane’s Recruiter.

Mana is the core of Boros Convoke. We can certainly use more basic lands or more tapped duals to reduce the cost of rares, but this comes at the cost of heavy tradeoffs in consistency and speed. Therefore, we invested in Battlefield Forge as part of the rares.

Inspiring Vantage is better if you want to have a long-term investment and/or if you prefer better staples for Pioneer or Timeless, but Convoke needs the least conditional lands possible and for Standard, Battlefield Forge is that land.

Improvements to the list basically require what has been used in the optimized versions: Warleader’s Call and Sanguine Evangelist offer collective pumps, while Warden of the Inner Sky grows rapidly and guarantees top filtering.

The lands add more consistency to the deck’s plan, with Mirrex generating creatures in longer games and Cavern of Souls ensuring that our key pieces resolve against Control.

Azorius Toxic - 8 Rares

Toxic is an archetype that had some results last season and is an excellent meta call for when players are betting a lot on life gain to hold Aggro. Although most lists were Bant and ran Venerated Rotpriest, in favor of a budget mana and a more interactive list, we bet on the Azorius version.

Our game plan is a Tempo strategy with cheap creatures that put poison counters on the opponent when they deal combat damage, looking to protect them with counterspells and combat tricks, in addition to Skrelv, Defector Mite to get blockers out of the way.

Jawbone Duelist is our main clock because of the double strike and the way Toxic can be stacked in multiple instances. For example, if a creature gains Toxic, and it already has the ability, the opponent will gain two poison counters when it deals combat damage. With it, we can include an activation of Skrelv or Aspirant’s Ascent to give four counters with a single attack.

Our interaction package includes Aspirant’s Ascent to increase the clock while removing our creatures from the reach of cards like Cut Down and Lightning Helix, while Loran’s Escape protects them from removal like Go for the Throat or sweepers that destroy instead of exile.

Serum Snare can be used to get blockers out of the way, but returning one of our creatures to the hand and protecting it from removal while proliferating counters is another use of the card.

Bring the Ending easily becomes a Counterspell in this list and makes up our interaction against the opponent along with Annex Sentry and Charge of the Mites, both serving both to have more bodies on the board and to deal with some threat.

I'm not sure about Toxic's viability in the current format because the deck lost March of Swirling Mist, which had a combo-kill along with Venerated Rotpriest, but it's likely that the most important card of the old archetype is still necessary to maintain our reach and punish the opponent's removals, consequently leading to versions with green and the investment in more duals.

Azorius Control - 4 Rares, 4 Mythics

Azorius Control still needs to show more results in Challenges to consolidate itself and has suffered considerable losses with the rotation, but the common and uncommon base of the current format, added to the fact that Control lists are better accustomed to lands that come into play tapped, make the archetype a viable option for Budget lists.

A number of typical Control cards are in lower rarity slots today, with Spellgyre being the closest to Memory Deluge in the current scenario while acting as an efficient counterspell, complementing No More Lies and Phantom Interference while Quick Study and Deduce are two-for-one Instant-Speed ​​draws.

The same goes for removal: Get Lost is in the rare slot, but Ossification makes a good impression of the card and complements Elspeth’s Smite against Aggro and Seal from Existence against Planeswalkers.

Our rare slots are limited to sweepers, the only essential part of a Control that isn't available at lower rarities - Sunfall also serves as one of the win conditions, where we use it to clear the battlefield and create a token that will clock as high as the number of creatures in play.

There are a few win condition options for the deck, with Beza, the Bounding Spring being perhaps one of the most interesting. Here, I opted for Jace, the Perfected Mind for the convenience of already having the card in my collection and for the way it fits with the lack of a more proactive and fast clock against life totals.

Jace proved to be worth his slot: he holds the Aggro decks, generates card advantage as the game goes on, is a real attack magnet in Best of One and, when sequenced, can dry up the opponent's deck in a few turns.

There are several improvements that can be made to Azorius Control, and many of them depend on how the Metagame solidifies, but safe choices include Three Steps Ahead, Get Lost, Beza, the Bounding Spring, and dual lands, as well as Temporary Lockdown if Convoke and other archetypes with plenty of small creatures remain popular.

Golgari Midrange - 8 Rares, 4 Mythics

There are several ways to build a Black-Based Midrange in Standard today, and it's probably the best color in the format this season. Of all of them, Golgari seemed like the most interesting way to build a budget list because of the wildcard limitations I propose (no more than 8 rares and 4 mythics).

The distribution of rares varies depending on the player's intention: for a more Mono Black variant or the intention of migrating to Orzhov , the combination of Caustic Bronco and Preacher of the Schism seems more likely because it allows you to better use the wild cards, but Mosswood Dreadknight and Glissa Sunslayer are two important cards for the Golgari version, so they are options if you prefer to go the route.

Liliana of the Veil and Aclazotz, Deepest Betrayal are staples of black decks. Sheoldred, the Apocalypse is another option in the mythic slots and can replace either of the two in Mono Black or Orzhov versions. In Golgari, Obstinate Baloth serves as an uncommon four-drop that is good enough against Aggro and in the mirror, so we went with that distribution.

Vinereap Mentor replaces Mosswood Dreadknight as a three-power two-drop to saddle Caustic Bronco, and its ETB and LTB ability is great against Aggro.

The rest of the list consists of the format’s major removals and can be tweaked to suit the player’s tastes. Shoot the Sheriff is an option, but the amount of Rakdos Lizards in best-of-one creates a failure rate, as does Go for the Throat if any artifact Aggro shows up in the future.

Upgrades will depend on which route the player intends to take. In the case of Mono Black, Evolved Sleeper and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse have priority and will be the first of a few upgrades the list requires. In the Orzhov variants, Zoraline, Cosmos Caller and Beza, the Bounding Spring are the first steps that also include some removals and improvements to the mana base, just like the Golgari version, where duals will complement Mosswood Dreadknight and Glissa Sunslayer.

Orzhov Viper - 8 Rares, 4 Mythics

One of the novelties of the first round of Standard Challenges, the Orzhov Viper aims to put permanents into play to feed Rottenmouth Viper and demand an immediate answer.

Its plan is, basically, to accumulate permanents in play. Novice Inspector creates a token when it enters, Spiteful Hexmage creates an aura, Carrot Cake and The Witch’s Vanity put other permanents into play with their abilities, and Nurturing Pixie replicates a Kor Skyfisher in this list that makes any player feel like they’re in a Pauper game.

Once you have enough permanents, Rottenmouth Viper will enter play and start to deplete your opponent’s resources and/or pressure their life. Cards like Bandit's Talent help to discard cards from your opponent’s hand, and the interaction between your permanents and Braids, Arisen Nightmare can generate value and card advantage.

A notable advantage of the Orzhov Viper is that it is relatively cheap, with most of the upgrades being in the mana base, which is generally never a bad investment. In addition to Hostile Investigator to generate more value with our discards, other options include Sheoldred, the Apocalypse or even Beza, the Bounding Spring as well as removals like Legions to Ashes.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment.

Thanks for reading!