Oh Mono Blue, I Can’t Quit You: Budget Big Blue in Old Schoo 93/94

A long, long time ago, in a state far far away from my home of Maryland, I put together a deck in the format known at the time as Type 1.5, that simply wanted to do this every single game: Because the dumbest use I could think of for a playset of Mana Drain was

Everyone Had the Same Bad Idea: Faeries at the Dice City Games Sarpadia Series (record: sad trombone)

There are times where you have a fae-rly lousy but fun idea and roll with it, only to see someone else wearing the same dress to the ball. For the second Sarpadian Summer Series (Sarpadia Rises), I played a deck with … well, almost no Sarpadian cards. Here’s FaerieQuake: I picked Faeries in part because

Building Rainbow’s Edge in 93/94 Old School — With and Without a Budget

This is another deck in my battlebox, a collection of reasonably well-balanced budget decks for people to pick up and play at group meetings. Before we get to the meat of this deck, let’s talk Bolts, because they haven’t appeared in a battlebox list yet. Bolts are the quintessenial aggro-control card: A card that as

Building Green Skies/Transmogrant Stompy in 93/94 Old School — With and … okay, just with a Budget

This not, as far as I know, a historical deck, but man is it a blast to play. And sure it’s underpowered — it’s a green deck in Old School — but it also has some genuine, surprising intricacies, and with skillful piloting it can take matches even against some powerful decks. As with the

Building The B/G Machine in 93/94 Old School — With and Without a Budget

The Machine is a wildly fun deck revolving around Hell’s Caretaker and dancing robots. It’s a little less well-known than some other archetypes I’ve put together. And while it’s not a great deck by any means, usually fun trumps effectiveness, and it’s quite capable of holding its own against decks that aren’t overloaded with creature

Building Titania’s Orb Prison in 93/94 Old School — With and Without a Budget

I knew I wanted a control deck in the battle box, but budget concerns (and fairness concerns) make building most of the classic control decks nigh-impossible. However, I eventually settled on an Old School version of a deck I played in various forms in the Old Extended format long before “Modern”: Artifact Prison. Note: Because

Building Merfolk/Fish in 93/94 Old School — With and Without a Budget

This is another deck in my battlebox, a collection of reasonably well-balanced decks for people to pick up and play at group meetings. It turns out that blue is sill powerful even when sticking to a budget in old school. And the little fish are surprisingly resilient even with only a single lord. Living close

Building White Weenie in 93/94 Old School — With and Without a Budget

Updated 5/30: To address some points made on Reddit (by RichardArschmann), I’ve clarified some things in the article, particularly to distinquish between some card choices for my battle box list and for common choices made in tournament decks. Changes are in italics. White Weenie is a venerable archetype, and likely the most budget-friendly deck in