Alternate deck name: "BALLS DEEP!"
Ahem.... 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. We've since gone way past 10, with tons more in the works, and I've really enjoyed the challenge of trying to make these decks easy to play and understand, fun, and all under a $15 budget, sideboard included..
The main goal here is 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. They should be an easily-accessible example of how fun Magic: The Gathering can be.
I knew I needed a few more out-and-out agro decks, so here's this one: A Rakdos Unleash shell. It's simple, it's fast, and it stings like a kick in the teeth.
For budget, this was an easy one- Maindeck cost is currently at ~$8.50 (according to the middle blue numbers on this very site under estimated value), sideboard at about ~$3.50, mostly from the Sin Prodders. If you wanted to, you could pay the almost $1 a piece for a playset of Terminate for the deck and probably come out under budget if you swap out the right cards, but it doesn't really seem worth it.
So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:
Unleash creatures raise a good question to players- "Am I going to commit to agro, or hedge my bets?" And it's an important lesson to realize that the answer is almost always the former. Cackler, Hellhole Flailer, and Bloodfray make the choice pretty obvious, but Thrill-kill assassin can do good work as a deathtouch blocker, if that's what you need. Flailer can also be an endgame wincondition, if you get your opponents low enough to burn 'em out with it. And of course, Bloodfray is a big powerful curve-topper compared to the other unleash creatures' 1, 2 and 3-drops.
Originally had Goblin Glory-Cleaver, because menace and renowned are both fun includes, but I cut it for Rigging Runner, because Raid fits this deck really well and the card just meshes. Same price, so feel free to swap it for Glory-Cleaver if you have a strong opinion, I could go either way.
Stormblood Berserker is great in an aggressive deck like this, since damage to the enemy makes it enter as a 3/3 Menace for 2, which is pretty great, but it also requires some setup and pre-planning, which is better.
Spike Jester rounds out the 2-drops as a plain 3/1 haste for 2. Nothing fancy, just face damage.
In the 3-drops, Ashenmoor Gouger gives the deck just one creature that will survive a Slagstorm or a Searing Spear, but still leaves the deck vulnerable to any boardwipe at all. Plus it leaves a hit for Reprisal, and is just generally a big, aggressive beater for 3.
For the spells- Shock and Searing Spear are auto-includes, and Altar's Reap is a sweet card for new players to realize how to use properly on creatures they're already about to loose, and generally is just a sweet card that leads to sweet gameplay.
Originally, this deck ran Last gasp, but that plays too much like Searing Spear, and I wanted something different. Plan B was Reave Soul, but I'm never really happy with that card, being sorcery speed and still a bit too conditional for my tastes. So I switched in Visions of Brutality, which I think Is a sweet and interesting Black Pacifism that you can use to neutralize an enemy creature as a blocker, and discourage attacks with.
While I've been working hard not to include anything with regeneration on it in these decks, just because of regeneration's deep-set and weird rules kerfuffles, I feel like Supernatural Stamina works as a streamlined version that does a pretty good job of explaining itself on the card- the creature dies, but then the spell brings it back, which is way more intuitive than regeneration.
Manabase is meant to be a touch lacking, but also super-budget. I'll be doing the same for all of them.
As for the sideboard, this IS supposed to be a sideboard they learn how to use, to make their deck perform better in the right matchups, or just in general to customize their decks within constraints.
Sin Prodder I originally want to include mainboard, but that reveal ability gave me enough pause that I decided to push it to the sideboard, so that anyone playing it is doing so on their own terms, by choice, and presumably read it in advance. The good news is that a 3/2 menace for 3 is strait-up something I was seriously considering throwing in the deck already because it plays well and fits into the deck perfectly, which is how I found Prodder, but that ability is a little bit daunting, so it's sitting on the bench instead of being cut entirely.
Magmatic Chasm is a good game-ender, and Rakdos Charm is the most barely-playable choice card I've ever seen, but I'd have thrown it in just for 'destroy target artifact', and it feels good to realize that your sideboard has such a versatile tool in it. If someone boards it in against the Golgari Midrange deck to deny them recursion value, that's pretty sweet. And if they manage to dome an opponent playing weanies with it for 8, that's even funnier.
I recently came back to this deck to add Needlebite trap- If your opponent boards in lifegain, you can Really get 'em for it with this card in brutal fashion, but it is stone-cold DEAD if your opponent doesn't gain life against it.
And the rest is extra copies of cards already in the deck, so players can customize a little, either as something matchup-dependant or just because they decide what spells they like more than others.