by Johnny Cycles, February 15th, 2024

Welcome to another edition of Dragons in Modern! This month we’re building on a budget! Will our gameplan of 1-mana mana dork in to 3-mana Planeswalker in to 5-mana hasty dragon work on a budget of $100? Let’s find out!

You may be wondering which cards make our normal Gruul Dragons deck over $100, and I don’t blame you. Dragons are not played in any tier 1 deck in Modern short of Murktide Regent. My first thought when planning this article was that I would have to cut the fetch lands, at least, if not the shock lands, as well.

I was wrong.

With a single copy of Boseiju, Who Endures, three copies of Wrenn and Six, three copies of Force of Vigor, and the full playset of Endurance in the sideboard, our Gruul Dragons deck comes in at 207 tix ($190). Without these four cards, we’re at 96 tix. Note that both Endurance and Force of Vigor are in the sideboard. Also of interest is that the latter two cards along with Wrenn and Six are all from Modern Horizons sets.

I wrote an entire article on Modern Horizons 2 and its warping of Modern, but perhaps this single fact would have done the job for me and saved all of us a lot of time. Three cards from Modern Horizons 1 and 2 cost nearly the same amount of tix as the rest of my deck (92 to 96). And that’s after years of players opening packs. And that’s with the price of these three cards down considerably since they were first printed. Both Endurance and Wrenn and Six were at or over $100 a year after their printing, while Force of Vigor topped $60. Now all three have reached at or below $10.

Can we compete in Modern without MH1 and MH2 cards? Can a budget dragons deck win more games than it loses? We’re about to find out!

Decklist – Budget Gruul Dragons

by Johnny Cycles
Format: Modern

Creatures (21)

2 Arbor Elf
4 Delighted Halfling
3 Bonecrusher Giant
3 Questing Beast
4 Glorybringer
4 Stormbreath Dragon
1 Thundermaw Hellkite

Planeswalkers (8)

4 Domri, Anarch of Bolas
4 Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner

Spells (4)

4 Lightning Bolt

Enchantments (4)

4 Utopia Sprawl

Lands (23)

1 Bloodstained Mire
4 Field of Ruin
5 Forest
4 Mountain
4 Stomping Ground
1 Verdant Catacombs
4 Wooded Foothills

Sideboard (15)

4 Tormod’s Crypt
3 Veil of Summer
3 Blood Moon
2 Brotherhood’s End
3 Pulse of Murasa

In place of Wrenn and Six, I’ve added Bonecrusher Giant. Honestly, I’ve been underwhelmed with the 2-mana Planeswalker of late and was planning on making this change regardless of budget. Questing Druid is another option , but, as I discuss here, Seek the Beast is great, but Questing Druid is not at its best in our deck. The added removal in Stomp, coupled with Bonecrusher Giant‘s synergy with Kiora, Behemoth Beckoner are the chief reasons I’ve included the Giant.

In the sideboard, we get Tormod’s Crypt instead of Endurance. The OG free spell, Tormod’s Crypt lacks the surprise blowout potential of the Evoke Elemental, but at least we don’t go down a card to cast it. Replacing Force of Vigor is more challenging. Brotherhood’s End can be great in the right spot, though it can also be very slow. Ancient Grudge or Abrade may be the better option. I’ve been playing Pulse of Murasa in a lot of my sideboards because Burn is one of our worst match-ups. Even our fastest starts and best draws can’t keep up with Burn. In the past I’ve used Chalice of the Void as a hate card against the deck, but it is definitely over budget. Furthermore, a late-game Chalice is often a dead draw, while Pulse of Murasa is just as often what we’re hoping for in the same spot.

League 1 – Friendly

Match 1 – Izzet Murktide

Match 2 – Amulet Titan

Match 3 – Yawgmoth Combo

Match 4 – Abzan Burn

Match 5 – Abzan Lifegain

League Record: 2-3

Conclusion

Overall, we went 2-3 in our friendly league. More importantly, however, is that we were competitive in each of our matches. Our first match against Izzet Murktide could have (and maybe should have, had I played it differently) gone our way. Our second match against Amulet Titan saw us stick a Blood Moon with multiple Planeswalkers on the battlefield only to draw no finisher. Both of those matches felt a little like we got unlucky and/or made enough mistakes to cost us. Our third match against Yawgmoth was also a 1-2 loss. I know I made mistakes, but I think the biggest one I made was mulliganing in game 3. I ended up going to 4 and having next to no chance of winning, despite drawing pretty well. Obviously, there’s no predicting going to 6 and having a 1-land hand, or going to 5 and seeing a 0-land hand, but sometimes it’s okay to keep a slower 7. The two decks we beat were both closer to our end of the janky spectrum, but if we can’t beat jank, then what are we doing?

I really enjoy playing this deck and I highly recommend it for you if you’re on a budget (under $100), love this kind of ramp/aggressive strategy, or simply love dragons or Questing Beast. The deck has so many fun lines of play and so many sweet synergies. I highly recommend testing it out if you’ve enjoyed the gameplay. Sure, it’s unlikely you’ll go 5-0 or even 4-1, but you’ll have fun on the way to that 2-3 or 3-2 finish!

As always, thanks for reading and watching!