Alternative Deck Name: "I ain't sayin' I'm a Gravedigger..."
So this is a project I wanted to engage in- To make a set of 10+ super-budget 60-card decks that are simple, relatively easy to play, relatively easy to understand, and bring across the fundamentals of how Magic Works.
The Idea being that you could easily build these deck for a low cost and use them as an easy introduction to how magic works, to teach a group of new players both how to play, and give them a sense of Why, a sense of what fun things they're getting into. These decks aren't gonna be particularly good, or even legal in any particular format if it stops me from including a card I think is good for the deck, but they should be fun and interesting without being too hard to get into.
This deck Really came together on my second pass through. My only regret is that Seasons Past is too expensive. So sometimes you just want to play a deck that can keep going FOREVER, with practically infinite value that they will never exhaust. That is what this deck turned into, and it is a glorious thing indeed. The Mainboard is pretty reasonably stacked, but if you want to board in the ability to draw the whole game's worth of destroyed creatures twice on a single card, you can do that. And it's pretty sweet.
Maindeck Cost ~$11 at time of writing (using the blue, average values offered by the site), plus ~$3.50 in the sideboard, so she just barely squeaks in under my $15 limit.
So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:
Jungle Creeper was one of the only 3-drops upgrades over a generic 3/3 for 2G that I could find with a reasonable price tag, and it fits the theme well enough. It dies, you pay a bunch of mana to bring it back, so worries.
Screeching bat probably should be something else, but I was having trouble finding a cheap 3-drop, and honestly, it's one of those sweet Innistrad top-down designs that's got a lot of appeal to a new player, even if the whole transform thing is a bit rough to learn on. It makes sense- pay mana, the vampire turns to human shape. Also, I never realized that that vampire side is a 5/5. That thing is a bit of a monster. Plus it's the only flying in the deck, which is useful.
I thought Abzan kin-guard was a cool inclusion simply because it'll get players to think about how their cards can combo together, which is nice, plus it and the Abattoir Ghoul do a good job securing the board and gaining back the life you lost in the first few turns against agro. Ghoul also is a good "This is what First Strike is and how it works" lesson.
I knew I needed to include Outland Colossus just because I wanted at least one big, stompy green creature to just Wow someone. It's a huge beater, and it gets Huger. It will kill your opponent in two hits 9 games out of 10, and that's appealing and wonderful.
Baloth Null is a sweet card that does Sweet things and makes your midrange deck have a serious 3-for-1 on its top end that helps you just keep going forever. And then you draw Creeping Resistance, wait for your opponent to wipe the board or whatever, and cackle like a monster as you refill your hand completely from the Graveyard. And you can pull in more copies from the Sideboard.
Putrefy serves as an all-purpose removal spell, and while I'm hesitant to include even a mention of regeneration in the intro decks, it'll be fine. Pounce is a sweet card in a midrange deck like this, and should serve as a powerful removal spell throughout the game. Occasionally you'll have to 2-for-1 yourself against something with a huge attack stat, but that's the cost of doing business, and you can board them out for Murder, Plummet and Ambush Viper from the sideboard.
Read the Bones combined with scries off of Reaper of the Wilds should provide the card filtering and card draw you need to get to your vital cards.
Manabase is meant to be a touch lacking, but also super-budget. I'll be doing the same for all of them.
Sideboard is meant to be a real sideboard that they get to and have to choose how they use, what cards they want to make apart of the deck, and when to switch them in.
Ambush Viper is a great learning card, and I should be trying to get it into more of these decks, but it serves as a solid sideboard option against agro here. Murder and Plummet fill out the rest of your removal spell options, with special mention going to the fact that a lot of the other value decks I'm making rely on big fliers as they winconditions. Serra Angels and Indulgent Tormentors and the like, which makes Plummet a lot more dangerous and a lot more powerful than it looks like.
As for the Hate, Hoo boy. Naturalize is normal, and alongside Putrefy will certainly give artifact decks a beating, but Back to Nature is the brutal one against any deck that runs a lot of enchantments. If I ever add Starfield of Nyx to the list of Teaching Decks, that's gonna be a disgusting blowout.
And finally, the value cards. There's an extra Altar's reap here mostly for if you're in a matchup where you need to side out the slower options entirely, but Creeping Renaisance is the star of the show here- Bring back the entire graveyard's worth of creatures, why not? Or, if you feel the need, the deck's removal is all instants, so you can bring back Instants instead and also get sick value that way. Or you can do one and then the other, because it's got flashback for some absurd reason. This thing is hilarious and Bonkers, and it means that this deck can outpace anything else I'm ever going to build for this project if the game goes long enough. Bonkers card, hilarious, love it to pieces.