Budget Middle School Sligh Deck
This deck started as a red splash for a Tempest-period white weenie deck, inspired by Exodus’ White Heat precon, however the splash didn’t work as well as I first though due to the lack of good options for enemy color manabase.
Then when I discovered the Premodern and Middle School formats, I already had some of the cards needed to make a Sligh deck: Shock, Incinerate, Jackal Pup and Mogg Fanatic. Having a Middle School weekly tournament at my LGS, I decided to build a budget Sligh deck for the format.
I first checked various decklists on the Internet, for both formats, and decided to base myself on Iron_lungs’s Premodern Burn deck.
What I liked about their deck was:
- All burn spells are at instant speed
- The Phyrexian Furnace mainboard would help against graveyard shenanigan, while still having the option to draw
Being on a budget, some cards had to go:
Bloodstained Mire and Cursed Scroll have cheaper gold-bordered printings, but unfortunately I was not able to get any.
Removing Cursed Scroll
After checking a few options, I decided to replace Cursed Scroll by Seal of Fire. Seal of Fire can be played during the early game, and stay on the battlefield as a threat, until the 2 damages it provides are needed.
- 2 Cursed Scroll
+ 2 Seal of Fire
Removing the fetchlands
Bloodstained Mire and Wooded Foothills are used to fill the graveyard, and fuel both Grim Lavamancer and Barbarian Ring, so I decided to reduce the number of lavamancers to 2, adding 2 more Seal of Fire
- 4 Bloodstained Mire
- 4 Wooded Foothills
- 2 Grim Lavamancer
+ 8 Mountain
+ 2 Seal of Fire
The decklist
Creatures (14)
- 4 Ball Lightning
- 2 Grim Lavamancer
- 4 Jackal Pup
- 4 Mogg Fanatic
Instants (17)
- 4 Fireblast
- 4 Incinerate
- 1 Lava Dart
- 4 Lightning Bolt
- 4 Shock
Enchantments (6)
- 4 Seal of Fire
- 2 Sulfuric Vortex
Artifacts (3)
- 3 Phyrexian Furnace
Lands(20)
- 2 Barbarian Ring
- 18 Mountain
Sideboard Cards (15)
- 2 Browbeat
- 1 Flaring Pain
- 3 Lava Dart
- 1 Mogg Salvage
- 4 Price of Progress
- 4 Red Elemental Blast
Download in Magic Online format
Total cost: 6400 yens / 40 euros / 45 dollars
With the exception of one Sulfuric Vortex, all printings are from the Middle School period: from 4ED (1995) to SCG (2003).
I went 3-0 at my LGS with it, and had a very fun time. I’ll continue playing and improving this deck.