Alternative Deck Title: "Mr. Steal Yo Girl."
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.
You have no idea how glad I am I was able to re-do this once I got rid of the expensive basics. This deck was a nightmare to get playable early on, and but now that I had a reasonable budget open, I was able to make it really fun. There was a more expensive verson awhile back, but when it became redundant, since I was actually able to play the sweet cards like Soul Ransom and Vampire Nighthawk, I deleted it. Heck, now we're even playing Dead Man's Chest too.
Maindeck Cost ~$10.10 at time of writing (using the blue, average values offered by the site), plus ~$4.20-ish for the sideboard. The good news is that the price will go down once Dead Man's Chest leaves standard. Heck, you might be able to add Hostage Taker to the deck once it rotates out. That'll be hilarious.
So mostly this section is going to be notes on why I think these are good cards to learn from:
Starting with the removal and counter suite- Agony Warp, Murder, Cancel, and Essence Scatter should all be able to 1-for-1 trade against most any deck you go up against, and Distress is your new players' introduction to hand attack. It's simple, it's relatively powerful, and it's fair without having the critical density to feel oppressive on the other side.
Drown in Sorrow kinda really wishes it was Languish, but budget. It'll do, and the aggressive decks you most need to protect yourselves against will take it the hardest.
For card advantage, I went with a more scattered approach- Amass the Components, Heiroglyphic Ilumination, and Font of Fortunes all present very different ways to draw cards, and each is interesting in its own ways. I wanted to give players the chance to use the sideboard to choose which ones they like more, and play those, while boarding the rest in when they just need more card advantage.
As for the payoffs- Soul Ransom is one of my new favorite cards, because it's a 4cmc Mind control that taunts them with the chance to 4-for-1 themselves to get their creature back. There's an argument to be made that I should use normal Mind Control instead because it's simpler, but I really like Soul Ransom.
Past that, Evil Twin clones their best thing and murders it, which is sweet, and Nightveil Specter lets you steal their toys from the top of their deck and play them yourself. Edit: IF you have the right kinds of mana for it. I'm too used to cards that take card of that for you, and didn't realize it. Well that kinda sucks.
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.
As mentioned, there are a few more of each of the card draw spells, for customization, and bringing in in value matchups, some answer customization, including a few copies of Negate and Essence Extraction, extra drown in Sorrow, the only exciting card here is Vampire Nighthawk, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, which is just a sweet card that players can board in to beat up on aggressive decks.