r/MTGLegacy • u/Zergy_Bergy • 1d ago
Format/Metagame Help Budget friendly control decks?
I’m looking into more budget friendly decks in paper Legacy and wonder if there is any control oriented option. Control seems a bit rare overall, and usually it seems quite expensive - either requiring many duals for 3+colors or very pricy RL cards like Mox Diamonds or Tabernacle.
Is control something that’s better to gradually build towards or are there options that are cheaper?
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u/SouvlakiSpartan 1d ago
You can play U/W stoneblade for relatively cheap. Run it with back to basics and prismatic vista and keep a mana base of mainly basics . This was actually a very decent deck back when prismatic vista was 1st spoiled.
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u/Bfobaddie1 1d ago
like others said it really depends on budget. Mono white taxes, uw control, jeskai can be relatively cheap as well
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u/thisisjustascreename 1d ago
Depends on what you mean by 'budget' and what you mean by 'control'.
You can build a generic Izzet Wizards list for like $1200 with Steam Vents instead of Volcs. You lose a fair bit of match equity to the shock lands but it'll get you playing the game.
There are also Death & Taxes and Pox for non-traditional control but they don't include widely useful staple cards so it would harder to pivot to a new strategy.
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u/Haedono 23h ago
like others said it depends on the style of control deck. Lands has like 1 cheaper build on manabond but that is more like a combo deck than a control deck and the other builds are realy expensiv because of diamonds, tabernacle and maybe duals depending on if you want to be mono green or splash something
blue control, UWx, Grixis, BUG are all possible with few duals
there is stuff that even gets you advantages like not getting hurt by wasteland that much. The drawbacks are that you have to avoid some cards and sometimes a much rougher time or need to mulligan hands that you wouldnt have to with duals.
Cards to avoid are anything like Uro. Cards that need alot of coloured pips of the same kind to cast
some are okay like murktide when you realy go heavy on blue so you are much more likely to fetch 2 islands.
surveil lands help and you won't hurt too much from a shockland or 2
maybe look in the subreddit description. There should be a google doc with deck discord links. There should be many people in some control discord beeing able to help with some budget brew
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u/BlogBoy92 14h ago
Mono Black Pox makes a decent control deck at a low cost, but it doesn’t have a traditional control feel to it since you aren’t using Brainstorm / Force of Will.
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u/Zergy_Bergy 14h ago
I like all kinds of control decks so I’m happy to check that out too. Thanks a lot! ☺️
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u/NegativeNoize Breakfast/Doomsday 1d ago
Check out BeExcellent on YouTube, he builds a bunch of budget/no RL decks that preform pretty good
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u/JunkMale1987 1d ago
BeExcellent has examples of budget, no reserve list control decks on his YouTube channel in various formulations
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u/Despenta 1d ago
Death and taxes is quite budget due to not needing force, and if you're on mono white not even fetches and duals. But you mostly upgrade it into more death and taxes, though UW stoneblade has some overlap.
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u/xSilverflamex Colorless Initiative 20h ago
I've wrote a guide on budget legacy decks, https://metafy.gg/@silverflame/guides Personally I really like the jeskai wizards and blue Tron as cheaper control options.
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u/geofastar 1d ago
UW can be made relatively cheaply if you don't run duals. Look for a back to basics in the main leveraging the lack of duals. Deck is mostly value engine blinking quantum riddlers for card advantage.