Budget Standard Emerge-Aggro

I took this deck to Standard Showdown and went 2-0 in matches (also had a first round bye, and left before round 4). Opponents were URw Fevered Visions and WU Flash. This is nominally a $20 budget deck, but I own the Copters so I'm not going to leave them out. I would play 4 if I had 4.

The plan is to be aggressive on the curve and use Abundant Maw, Swarm Surge, or Key to the City as a finisher. Eternal Scourge and Scrapheap Scrounger give long term card advantage. The low mana curve means you can almost always be competitive if you're stuck on 2 or 3 lands for a few turns.

Reaver Drone is your only 1-drop creature. It isn't very good later in the game, but it can lead to fast starts. There are a ton of colorless creatures to negate its downside, and you can even crew Copter in response to its ability to avoid damage if desperate. Harsh Scrutiny helps make up for lack of 1-drops, and it does ok later in the game too.

Scrapheap and Copter are your best 2-drops. Both provide a lot of pressure. Carrier Thrall is less powerful but can clog up the board against more aggressive decks. Bearer of Silence is a flexible card that can play either aggression on turn 2 or tempo-control later.

Weaponcraft Enthusiast is the best 3-drop because it synergizes with Copter, Swarm Surge, and emerge. Eternal Scourge is a tricky creature that can mess with your opponent's interactions. Drana is very strong if the opponent can't trade removal for her, but 1 copy is enough.

The emerge creatures are your top end and your de facto 4-drops. The best case is to emerge from an Enthusiast, but any of the recurring creatures are fair game, and chaining Abundant Maws from each other can be very strong.

The four removal spells are straightforward.

Key to the City gives you a mana sink and a way to break board stalls.

The colorless lands are a luxury you can afford due to being mono black. Blighted Fen in particular gives you very strong insurance against mana flood. The low mana curve and easy casting costs make this deck very consistent.

Normally, your optimal curve is Reaver Drone -> Copter (or Scrapheap) -> Enthusiast -> emerge. If forced to choose between the two, play Copter first and then, unless you need it right away, discard Scrapheap to the loot ability for virtual card advantage.

Scrapheap forms a recursion combo with Eternal Scourge -- if you get both in the graveyard, you can bring them both back.

Enthusiast should almost always fabricate servos. This is so automatic that you usually don't have to consider the alternative.

You have artifact, devoid, and true colorless creatures - pay attention when colorless matters.

If you have Harsh Scrutiny later in the game, use it to avoid walking into counterspells or other blowouts.

Eternal Scourge has a lot of strange interactions that you need to be aware of. Note that it only triggers off opponent effects, so your Key will not exile it. The exile trigger goes on the stack above the ability that triggered it, so Scourge is exiled and those effects are countered if Scourge is the only target. For example, Reflector Mage won't stop you from casting Scourges the following turn, and Essence Extraction won't gain life.

Having played a few times, I might add 2 Dhund Operative to the sideboard (in place of Dead Weight) as an option to become more aggressive against control or Fevered Visions. Operative might also be the card you want mainboard if you don't have Copters.

Remember that you have removal in Blighted Fen and Bearer of Silence, so you can safely side out all of your straight removal against decks with very low creature counts -- all Eldrazi titans die to Blighted Fen, as do Sphinx and other resilient control finishers.

• Budget KLD Standard
• Black Aggro
• Black Emerge
• Scrapheap Scrounger
• Abundant Maw
• Eternal Scourge
• Colorless Matters
• Standard Showdown