Want to flashback to classic Modern gameplay? Check out Birthing Pod vs Splinter Twin on Shuffle Up And Play here: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/m7OTfciQu725lok.html

Instructions unclear, foiled out my Pauper deck instead

Now we only need a Modern Guide to playing Pauper!

Cant believe the “cheap” category was $400-600 💀 I really like Magic, but at that point there are lots of ways to have more fun haha

Prof: these decks cost roughly what youd spend on a new commander deck Me spending $150 max on my commander decks: wat

Don't forget, if your playgroup allows it, proxy cards. Wizards has already shown they're happy to sell proxies, so make your own for considerably less

This type of video which focuses on accessible play and methods to get towards something is a really good watch. Thanks for the really cool realistic look at it.

The "cheap" category decks cost about 2 average salaries here in Brazil... Considering that food, rent and other bills are kinda optional, I guess in 2 months I can start playing Modern 🤡

What we all gotta remember is that once you have a solid landbase, every deck you build is gonna be unbelievably cheaper because you can just swap them in and out when playing localy. I remember myself having dual lands of many color combinations and keeping a decklist with me to not forget putting them in if one was missing ^^

I really appreciate videos like these Prof! You really do care about Magic as a game FIRST. You just want people to play this great game and I love and appreciate you for that man 🤘

As someone who has been working on building into modern, this video definitely made me feel better about how I was going about it. Taking my time, picking up pieces when I can

"Don't" *video ends*

Ngl, as a YuGiOh player these prices are still insane to me. Considering that at points we had metas where you could legitametely just buy 3 $10 Pre-Cons and have a Tier 1 competitive deck ready to go, like with the Dino strructure, Monarch Structure and Salamangreat Structure

Such a good and necessary video! Absolutely love this type of content and it's perfectly timed so I can teach my friend who's getting into mtg now that they can join me at fnm on a budget!

I'd absolutely love to see a similar video but focused on Pioneer! Pioneer encompasses all of the sets that have come out since I started playing the game so it has a special place in my heart

I was trying to get into Modern at my LGS but the price tag always scared me. Thank you Prof for making this guide. Would love to see a budget Pioneer version of this.

Great video! Building your deck can be like a project. Also searching for budget replacement improves your gameplay significantly, because you learn to see what your deck needs and what card can help you with that.

Prof. I went to my first Paper event at my LGS store right before Christmas. They only play Modern so this video could not have been timed any better. Love the general rule of thumb for Modern. I found that extremely helpful.

Ive looked for videos on building modern budget decks. You showing how to find good replacements is really useful and what ive been wanting to see for a long time!

I've enjoyed many, many of your videos, but for some reason this video made me, ecstatic.. it's wonderful to see budget options not being offered as lesser than, but good in their own right. Thanks Prof!

exactly the day i decide i'm gonna try and get in to modern on a budget, this video releases. Amazing, awesome video prof!

The true way to play modern on a budget is to get a printer. Cheaper than a deck

Thank you for this video/content! I have only been playing MTG for 2 months and you hit the nail on the head! I am really enjoying the cards, art, and most of all spending more time with friends playing a game together! I feel like I need 2-3 decks so I don't get bored playing the same one all the time. This video certainly helps and I hope we can see more of this type of video (series maybe?). Especially before an eventual MH3 drops lol. Take care Prof! Also, your words of caution to really think about what you can afford and what you want out of this experience is amazing. Appreciate that.

Playing a modern event on a budget is usually a bad time

Really love the video and many disclaimers throughout about responsible spending. Would love something similar for Pioneer.

loved this guide, thanks!

Never thought of a budget version of Modern. Thanks for the video! Always very informative and useful.

The thumbnail says it all hahaha awesome job professor! I hope you had a great holiday season with your family and a great new years too!! 😌

I can confirm that buying a deck slowly is extremely rewarding. I started with a budget Belcher list and kept on going to my LGS slowly replacing the weaker cards with staples and now I have an “optimized” list and I was even able to spend my winnings on needed cards so I saved some money in the end :) also having friends at the lgs that let you borrow decks/cards will help a LOT.

I can’t thank you enough for making this video!!! I always thought that I didn’t have a chance playing modern because all of the competitive decks are so expensive.

“$400-$600 for a single deck” why is this game so expensive I love playing it but I just straight up cant play unless im willing to spend more money than a modern game console on a single deck to play it with💀

Great Video! A bit surprised not to hear one of your favorite Archetypes Merfolk mentioned. It‘s really strong right now and quite affordable (with the exception of FoN and Cavern of Souls).

Modern is my favorite format, and this is exactly the process I used to buy into my ur murktide deck. Love this video!!❤️

Nice content like always Professor. I am waiting for a video building Pioneer competitive decks. There is a huge number of events related this year!. Keep up the good work!

Building towards decks over time, especially while traveling, is one of my favorite things to do. If there's downtime on a trip I'm definitely making a stop at an LGS to try and find something for my deck. Every time I play my Urborg I remember the shop in Canada I got it from, etc. etc.

Great video. Thanks, Prof

Thanks for this. I'll probably still proxy, outside Pre-release, but if I'm ever near a store again, I'll enjoy modern and pauper.

I think we needed a video like this.

Glad to seem Mill getting some rep! Super fun deck and I have a ton of fun with my Grixis variant

Oooo haven’t even watched and I am INTRIGUED!!!

This is quite a nice guide. In my city I can only play pioneer and modern as there is not much of a player base to sustain other formats. I might be able to do it following these tips. Thanks a lot prof!

love these budget guide videos. (:

I have a mono red burn build that runs "Chandra's Incinerator." *Thanks for the Content & Happy New Year* !

Very clear video presentation, masterful video bravo. prof.

Hello professor I been watching you since I think February when I first got into magic when I picked up my vampire commander deck and saw your video on it afterwords and since then I pretty much just plunged into mtg headfirst just can’t get enough of it and I’m always tuning in to watch your videos I literally just built a modern and a pauper rakdos vampire deck a bit ago and one thing that’s funny is the first thing I did on my own was get the play sets of bloodstained mire and blood krypts lol

Thanks for the helpful tips professor.

Funny timing, I’ve been looking to build a pauper deck battle box

I started my journey into Modern about a year ago and did exactly this at my lgs. Made a budget boros deck that ran me maybe $200 and from there I fell in love with the modern format. Fast forward to now, after making 2 more very fun budget decks, I've been working my way up to Izzet Murktide following the same rules mentioned here!! So worth it- only really need to save up for Ragavans.

This just reminds me of why I only play commander, great video as always though Professor :)

This video has made me realize modern isn't for me. I can hardly justify a $100 stack of cardboard. But "budget" is 400-600 for a stack of cardboard? I need new hobbies

I built a budget Mono-Red Burn for Modern and I have played it for about a year. I am currently in the process of making the deck Gruul to have enchantment removal in my sideboard, and I really wanna try out Atarka’s Command. The deck will eventually be Boros, but I am working my way toward that.

One of the best things about force of will was that the ratios in the set were as such that if you bought three booster boxes you had a play set of almost every card in the set.

Modern is so popular at my LGS that they have it Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. I've recently picked up a budget Hollow One list because I've been getting a little bored w/ EDH. Thanks for the vid Prof!

A pioneer version of this would be great

as a long time player of the modern format, this video is excellent and without any real faults or bias, once again proving that the prof is the best MTG journalist out there, even if I disagree with his takes on proxies and the commander format.

ive been using the dominaria united painlands, strixhaven reveal lands and lots of basics in my suuper budget murktide and hammertime! my stripped down lists are about 100 dollars each. basics are great

I really love the ultimate format: proxy the printering

What do you think of mono U tron? It's another control option and it's kinda budget. That said, I haven't been playing modern for some time. Has it been powercrept out of the format?

rewatching this just after the fury ban... shame you missed that call lol

you've gotta be really rich if you consider a deck over 100 euros/dollars as "budget"

I stopped playing magic for about 5 years now and videos like this make me happy I did, I loved the game a lot but after I saw that everyone at the lgs was playing 1k+ decks my love for the game quickly dissappeared because if your deck is under 300 you pretty much play a starter deck compared to everyone else, I switched to Legends of Runeterra recently and its honestly so much more enjoyable for me gameplaywise even tho I miss the "in person" thing magic had. My problem with magic is lets say you get your 1k deck, so you own exactly one deck you are able to play at a resonable level and you are "stuck" with it unless you have another 1k just casually sitting there and waiting to be transformed into another deck. Thank you professor for your content and even tho the game couldnt keep me interested in it(I still enjoy watching gameplay tho), you certainly introduced me to it and it was a lot of fun.

Prof is the best MTG source in on the internet

My favorite decks to play in Modern are "4-color blink and reanimate Siege Rhino a bunch" and various Gruul land destruction decks (some creature based, some spell based).

I love Modern so dearly. Been my favorite format for a decade.

I mainly play Commander but sometimes I cannot find enough players in my LGS. Then I started building Affinity as my first Modern deck. At least I can still play a few games when there aren't any tables for Commander. Now I love the deck very much.

amazing video

I haven’t played MTG in years and am just now starting to get back into the hobby. I bought the Modern Event Deck several years ago and throughout the 2-3 years after that I made several investments in improving it (Thoughtseize, Bitterblossom, Hero of Bladehold, Sorin Solemn Visitor, Brimaz King of Oreskos, etc). Outside of not having Marsh Flats yet, do y’all think this would be a viable Modern build for FNM? Or has the meta changed so much over the past 3-4 years or so that I would get blasted by all of these tier 2 options even if I don’t have any aspirations of ever playing at the tournament level? Thanks in advance for the insight! 😊

I thought that this was a guide for Pauper format. It would be nice to have Pauper at Eternal Weekend.

It's surreal watching this video while it's relevant. I've been binging old Professor videos, so my head is between like 3 different rotations. I have wanted 4 Scalding Tarn and 4 Snapcaster Mages for many years...

Saw pauper and got excited lol

Modern is great, happy to see it get some love. With a lot of cards hitting their floors, now is a good time to buy into a Modern deck if you’re interested.

ive always ran cheaper/slower versions of a card that has the effect im after, and upgrade to faster/lower cmc versions as i have money and as i start to refine the deck. i want to understand the deck's concept and how it plays before i sink alot of money into a build. i also learned to build my deck idea with the cards i already own and see if theres potential in the deck and if i actually enjoy playing it before i spend any cash on new cards

I just recently got into the format and built a deck for under $100.... yes, I got pwned at the RCQ but I mainly wanted the experience of a tournament so I could tune my own deck in the future. Don't let the pricey tier 1 decks dissuade you from patching your own concept together. I even managed to beat Omnath once(out of 3). I walked away though with my gears turning on how to improve my deck and I sure gleaned a lot of insight just by facing those tier 1 and 2 decks.

101% agree. The first deck I built was “8 whack”, and ended up winning a couple of FNM’s at my local game store. Needless to say budget decks can win at LGS’s. After the few wins with Modern, Pauper was away that helped me to gain more store credit. In a years time I had a good selection of modern staples from the credit I gained from winnings. It’s all about the bump and grind!

Thanks prof

Thank god I love playing aggro and won't get tired of playing my "rundvelt whack" / "12 Whack" deck! :D

I have only played a few Modern tournaments, but each time I ran homebrews (homemade deck lists) and I came in the top three each time. If you are interested in Modern just go try it! Sometimes playing a strategy no expects is the best technique. Most recently I played Soulfire grandmaster with deflecting palm and lightning helix, and archangel of thune

Maybe the first step is to check your own card pool. I started modern with the basic mono blue Tron after watching Professor’s video. Because I had Karn, wurmcoil, and those draws and counterspell, the cards I needed were the playset of Tron lands and remands.

Personally I sold about 2 dozen cards from my collection to Card Kingdom and used the store credit option to build my Breach deck. (this was about $400 worth of cards both ways).

A group of friends once got me a pretty neat version of coco for 250 bucks so i was able to play their main format with them instead of just commander over and over again, and since it is nice to break the habit every once in a while and also the deck can be temporarily stripped for edh pieces (fetch lands, birds of paradise and walking balista just to name a few) it really has no negatives for me, if you ever have a similar chance take it

love the ref to MTGRemy's video Modern Monday

A video like this on legacy would be radical!

Hey Prof thank you for all your hard work and great content. I've never played MTG before but I'm very interested so I picked up Game Night 2022. Is that a good start or introduction to playing MTG?

I remember I started Modern on a budget. I made mono green Elves then a budget mono blue Affinity and I ended up fully upgrading the decks in a year or 2 while still having fun at FNM

It it helps to encourage the extreme budgetors. My friend helped me make a 20 dollar izzet blitz deck. Yea, it might not be the creame of the crop, but at the least it can still hold itself and with grapeshot as a final push, there has been games where spells has been countered but my opponent casted enough spells where grapeshot stormed enough to defeat them. A rule of thumb i noticed, the cheaper the deck, the sooner you want to win, as i noticed my deck wants to win before turn 5, and afterwords it loses steam, but can trudge with the right hand.

I am a returning Player and I have a bunch of old cards for 2013 and 2015 deckbuilders as well as 2015 and Dragons of Tarkir fatpack. I have made a few decks and want to use them in a format that they are legal in. Should I do that or would it not be a very good thing to do. I asked a group on reddit about making a Standard deck, and some people basically told me that it wasn't a good idea. I really don't want to spend a fortune to be able to play a game I love again and let my old cards go to waste.

oh man I'd love to see a version of this for Pioneer... That's not already thing is it?

this applies to legacy as well but eventually you would have to bite the bullet for dual lands

The PROGRESSION aspect of deckbuilding is really important to advocate for when defending MTG. People look at the meta lists and think that they have to copy it perfectly, but the fact is that there are changes that will cut huge costs and only slightly de-optimize function. Stepping into that perfect list card-by-card is a great strategy to spreading the cost of a deck over time, while still making it something you can still shuffle up and play

what about the premade commander decks and just getting boosters here and there? for a casual player.

While I love the overall message of this video, I really was hoping "Pauper Modern" was some new variant of the format where only commons were legal...

My hollow ones deck was about £250 but I started with the version that Pleasant Kenobi played on his channel a while back that is very fun as well and only cost me £40 to build

I started out playing modern (for local FNM fun) with an 8-whack goblins deck, and I had fun doing so. I've been in hiatus from playing MTG for a few years now, so idk if my deck would still be feasible. But yeah, modern is still expensive as heck

Yeah professor, i get it. Time tô build my zubera storm in modern.

One time, I beat a sweat lord in a local shop tournament with a Standard Grixis Eldrazi deck I slapped together with some little common Eldrazi and artifacts (it was day 4 or so off the set release). One game, he opened with a Thoughtseize while I had only a few common buggers in my hand, and it ended up filling my graveyard so I could cast a Treasure Cruise later. In the meantime, Mist Intruders and Benthic Infiltrators kept chewing his deck away with Ingest, managing to pull his other Thoughtseize and counterspells. I was even able to get a Ghostfire Blade going, so I was doing upwards of 3 damage per turn :P

Not gonna lie prof, I thought I clicked on a pauper video, it wasnt lol Seeing these decks just makes me want to play pauper more

I actually just built my first modern deck, merfolk! between using store credit and trading Commander staples I got the price down to $5-600 over the course of 5 months

MTG jest coraz droższe. Takie filmy są bardzo potrzebne.

Bans and power creep made me hesitant to keep buying into the new Tier 1 decks. But I’ve finally upgraded into UR Murky and UW Contol. Can’t wait to put them in the Academic boxes when they ship! *Looks sadly at my dusty Jund, Robots, Tron, and ETron builds that are snoozing in their lovely REP steel boxes*

This is that guy from that one team APS episode!