Standard: Budget Decks with Tarkir: Dragonstorm for Magic Arena

The new expansion, Tarkir: Dragonstorm, has already made its presence felt in Standard. Cards like Cori-Steel Cutter, Sunpearl Kirin have become staples of established archetypes, while other spells like Shiko, Paragon of the Way and Jeskai Revelation have given rise to the new Jeskai Control.

With so many options and an appealing theme around clans and dragons, it's natural that Tarkir will spark the interest of new and old Magic players, with many of them starting their journey through Magic Arena, whose wildcard system for crafting cards can be quite restrictive without a large investment of time or money.

We've put together some budget decklists for MTGArena in this article for those players, with strategies that utilize some of the expansion's main new features in already established strategies and at an affordable price for free to play players.

Orzhov Kirin - 12 Rares

Orzhov Bounce became more popular during the Aetherdrift season, and Tarkir: Dragonstorm gave a major uncommon upgrade for budget players with Sunpearl Kirin, whose mana value is lower than Mischievous Pup and grants more interactions with Temporary Lockdown and other enchantments.

This is a synergistic Midrange deck that aims to use the come-into-play effects of its enchantments in combination with creatures that return permanents to their owner's hand. In this list, Temporary Lockdown doubles as a sweeper for Aggro and bounce mirror decks while, by exiling many of our enchantments, it can be returned to the hand with one of the Bounce creatures to reuse all ETB effects of the enchantments exiled with it.

When they enter, each enchantment removes some resource from the opponent, whether it’s cards in hand with Bandit’s Talent and Hopeless Nightmare, creatures on the board with Nowhere to Run and Grim Bauble, or both with Momentum Breaker.

Once the game is under control, Unholy Annex grants card advantage and a win condition with a demon token — and we can reuse the enchantment with Bounce creatures to create more tokens. Additionally, leveling up Bandit’s Talent also works as a win condition.

Azorius Aggro - 12 Rares

The Nurturing Pixie and Sunpearl Kirin package can also be used with creatures. In this list, we take advantage of the interactions of both cards with ETB effects for a more aggressive list, expanding the potential of Novice Inspector and Spyglass Siren with Regal Bunnicorn and Warden of the Inner Sky to make creatures grow faster.

Kirin also turns tokens into potential extra draws without having to pay their additional mana, and the inclusion of Mockingbird also provides a reusable card to copy any creature on the board, be it a Regal Bunnicorn or even your opponent's Sheoldred, the Apocalypse.

In addition, it is also possible to reuse other permanents such as Shardmage's Rescue to protect our threats, or even return a Sheltered by Ghosts to enchant a larger creature on the board, or deal with an opponent's most troublesome permanent.

Mana is the biggest problem in this list, so it is recommended to invest primarily in untapped lands like Seachrome Coast and Adarkar Wastes as improvements. After all, we need speed and consistency in accessing colors to make the most optimized plays each turn, especially in a more aggressive archetype.

Izzet Terror - 12 Rares

Cori-Steel Cutter is already considered the most important card in Tarkir: Dragonstorm for competitive Magic after showing good results across all formats. The mix of cheap spells with a constant source of pressure on the board, which provides snowball effects every turn it remains in play, created the perfect home for the equipment to be one of the most powerful cards released so far this year.

In this list, we bet on the Turbo Xerox shell to extract value from the equipment, mixing cards inherent to the Prowess versions (which would use Monastery Swiftspear and Slickshot Show-Off) with cheap and high-power threats like Tolarian Terror, allowing us to attack from two fronts: start the game with the pressure of Stormchaser’s Talent to end it with Tolarian Terror or Hearth Elemental equipped with Cori-Steel Cutter and attacking with Trample and Haste.

The rest of the list follows the basic pattern of Tempo decks: plenty of cheap cantrips, some board interactions, and we give up cards like Spell Pierce to keep the proactive properties of the list as much as possible, but we can consider some slots to better protect our cards and use Opt in more windows to create tokens on the opponent's turn.

We also have the famous interaction of Stormchaser's Talent with This Town Ain't Big Enough to trigger Cori-Steel Cutter every turn, since we can use Level 2 to return This Town and play it to return Stormchaser's Talent to the hand, repeating the process.

Rakdos Reanimator - 10 Rares, 4 Mythics

Rakdos Reanimator has been around in Standard since last season, and it gained some crucial new uncommon tools with Foundations and Duskmourn — Zombify and Valgavoth’s Faithful. However, it was Tersa Lightshatter that put the archetype back on the radar and allowed for a more consistent version of the deck.

Since we are playing a budget version and in Best of One mode, we need to give up playing the Midrange “plan B” with Preacher of the Schism and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and focus entirely on a version that can consistently close the combo on turn four — we want to put one of our bombs in the graveyard and use Zombify or Valgavoth’s Faithful to put it on the battlefield, considerably hindering the opponent’s plans.

Each of our targets has a function: Atraxa, Grand Unifier is one of the most powerful creatures recently released in the game and was a Reanimator staple even in Legacy. In addition to its body and keyword soup, looking at ten cards from the top and putting up to six in your hand usually means you have the setup for another round of reanimation, ensuring that even if your opponent destroys her, Atraxa will return to the board.

Valgavoth, Terror Eater is the hardest creature to interact with in the format today, offering a two- or three-turn clock and allowing you to use your opponent's cards against them. Finally, Etali, Primal Conqueror has a relevant body and an ETB that punishes Bounce effects and can, with luck, bring another bomb straight to the battlefield.

The rest of the list is made up of a mix of discard and draw effects to put bombs in the graveyard, along with a dozen cheap interactions to hold the game until turn four, where any of the reanimated creatures can dominate the game.

Golgari Control - 12 Rares, 4 Mythics

The discussions surrounding banning Up the Beanstalk prove how powerful this card is in the right decks, and in this list, we take advantage of the new Rakshasa’s Bargain and Kin-Tree Severance to play Golgari Control using the enchantment and its interactions with high-mana-value spells and alternative costs.

Despite costing and , the new Tarkir spells have a mana value of six due to their alternate colorless cost, triggering Up the Beanstalk for just three mana — Dragonstorm also brought back the original Tri-Lands as uncommons, which makes it easier to build three-color or more decks in budget versions.

Overlord of the Hauntwoods is our main win condition along with Restless Cottage, but the slow damage of Preacher of the Schism can also be complemented by Obstinate Baloth — an uncommon that is well-positioned against both Red Aggro and Bounce in the current Metagame, and therefore deserves maindeck slots as a complementary threat.

In addition, to control the board and increase the number of triggers with Up the Beanstalk, Deadly Cover-Up and Gix’s Command keep the battlefield clear while fulfilling other functions in mixed matchups, complementing our package of cheap removals to hold the early game.

That’s all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!