Standard: 5 Budget Decks with Foundations

Foundations, the new Magic: The Gathering core set that will be legal in Standard until 2029, is basically designed to introduce new players to the card game with some simple-to-understand mechanics and interactions between its own cards.

As a gateway to both tabletop Magic and MTGArena, it is expected that beginners will find this set the ideal moment to explore the TCG, and along the way, they may become interested in building their own decks.

In this article, I present five Budget lists for Standard, focusing on Magic Arena's Best of One, but all of them can be adapted for Best of Three or for tabletop games. The cards included also consider the values ​​on paper, but it is worth mentioning that prices can be regionalized and, therefore, the “budget” factor is quite subjective when we talk about tabletop Magic.

Mono White Lifegain - 4 Rares

Lifegain is a recurring theme in Magic and is fundamentally supported by white in Foundations. Cards like Hinterland Sanctifier and Ajani’s Pridemate, combined with Cat Collector, create a solid base to explore a deck with this theme.

In addition to these, we look for Lifecreed Duo and Essence Channeler in Bloomburoow to complement the game plan, giving more consistency to a list that seeks, through the interaction between its creatures, to create an unbeatable board position while holding the game with Joust Through and Case of the Gateway Express.

This is a deck that stacks up very well against some of the more popular Best-of-One strategies, and its synergies open up a lot of potential future additions. A splash into black provides you with access to Amalia Benavides Aguirre and Elas Il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim, while sticking with Mono White opens up space for Enduring Innocence and Exemplar of Light for card advantage.

Mono Blue Flash - 2 Rares

Mono Blue Flash features the main characteristic of blue in Magic: delaying your opponent's plans while advancing yours, countering spells and returning creatures to its owner's hand. Here, we want to combine cheap creatures with answers that we can use on the opponent's turn to take over the game for long enough.

Other expansions bring cards like Combat Research to keep the flow of cards going, as well as Fae Flight to protect our creatures and turn Brineborn Cutthroat into an evasive threat, and Enduring Curiosity to generate card advantage.

Improvements to this list would require the addition of for removal and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares, which would make this plan more consistent, as well as Faerie Mastermind to punish opponents' extra draws.

Mono Black Demons - 8 Rares

This list is an early iteration of the Mono Black Demons that is doing well in Standard events today. Here, we use Unholy Annex // Ritual Chamber alongside Archfiend of the Dross to extract maximum value from the enchantment while controlling the game with cheap removal and discard.

Foundations brought some classic Midrange cards from the past, but which are cheap to acquire and work well in Best of One, such as Gatekeeper of Malakir and Vampire Nighthawk, as well as Deep-Cavern Bat from Lost Caverns of Ixalan to obtain information about the opponent's resources.

A few more rare and mythic cards put this list on par with more competitive lists: Unstoppable Slasher and its combo with Bloodletter of Aclazotz are very satisfying in this deck: Slasher makes the opponent lose half of their life when dealing damage, while Bloodletter of Aclazotz makes the opponent lose twice as much life as they normally would, culminating in an instant win.

Soulstone Sanctuary and Sunken Citadel complement each other to increase consistency with Unholy Annex.

Mono Red Prowess - 4 Rares

If there's Magic, there's Mono Red. It's very hard for "red aggro" not to appear in some format - and luckily, the current Standard is one where Prowess are among the top contenders in the Metagame and are easy to build in a budget version.

Monastery Swiftspear and Slickshot Show-Off are at the top of the power level for this color and carry games on their own with the right spell sequencing. Heartfire Hero and Cacophony Scamp complement this with the high number of efficient pumps in the list, such as Turn Inside Out and Monstrous Rage.

These are complemented by burn spells, which can be used directly on the opponent to reduce their life, or to remove unwanted blockers from the path. Boltwave is a Foundations addition that basically made this plan more viable, being one of the best damage spells ever released.

Improvements include, with some certainty, Emberheart Challenger for any variant, and with it, Manifold Mouse becomes more important in the list. But the other slots can depend on what the player prefers: a splash for white provides access to Boros Charm and Lightning Helix, while green grants Snakeskin Veil for protection and Innkeeper’s Talent for more interactions with Valiant.

Staying in red may require the inclusion of Screaming Nemesis and a more proactive plan with Hired Claw.

Mono Green Elves - 8 Rares

Building a “Mono Green” deck is a challenge because the color doesn’t stand on its own these days in any of the things it usually excels at. However, new players always have an appreciation for lists with synergy between one type of creature, and Elves gained a lot of support with Foundations.

With Imperious Perfect and Elvish Archdruid, in addition to Dwynen’s Elite, a list already has several interactions between its creatures, so it’s up to us to decide how we want to capitalize on them.

One option would be to bet even more on them and include Leaf-Crowned Visionary, but since the archetype may require longevity to remain relevant as new elves enter in future expansions, Genesis Wave becomes our way to win the game.

Wildheart Invoker is not the best option to use Elvish Archdruid's mana, perhaps Tyvar, the Pummeler is an option if you want to invest mythic wildcards, but to complement it, we have Overrun, a classic in Elves from other times that returned in Foundations.

Improvements for Elves require looking at other formats. Magic Arena has other modes besides Standard and there are many good elves in some of them, such as Shaman of the Pack and Elvish Mystic, as well as Collected Company.

Lands like Cavern of Souls are also welcome and will make a difference in Standard if we have elves of other colors in the coming years.

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!