If you look at the current Modern metagame, most of the top decks are admittedly quite pricey. But recent reprints have helped bring down the cost of others by a lot. If you're willing to go down a tier and ditch the most expensive cards, you can still rock your local events on a budget, even in 2023!
Modern looks completely different from what it looked like just a few years ago. Yet the ongoing power spike makes one similarity between the two harder to notice: A top-tier deck would often happen to cost around a thousand euros then, and it still does so today!
Sure, and remain Magic's main money engines. Conversely, some used-to-be goldmines are finally affordable. The price tag of cards like and , which used to make Reid Duke's followers cry out in agony, plummeted due to reprints and a big enough decline in popularity.
In some cases it's surprisingly easy to lower a Modern deck's price in 2023. Just look for an archetype that's not too dependent on Modern Horizons 2's heaviest wallet hitters, and you'll be fine. Sometimes that's enough to push a deck's price to under 300 euros! At least that's what the Cardmarket Shopping Wizard tells me after ruthlessly spamming it to find the best Modern decks on the lowest budget. (And some say that careful manual search can yield even lower prices.) Here's what I ended up with.
Affinity
Although not quite powerful enough to appear at big tournaments much, I like to call Affinity the "FNM slayer." It's one of those decks whose losses mostly come via (which people don't always bring) or because the deck loses to itself. One of the more explosive Modern decks, Affinity can win on autopilot, but it has its own tough moments. It's a fun little strategy, and I think it may be a solid choice for someone new to the format. Just remember, all those free 2/2s and 4/4s aren't of much use if you don't have a win condition like lying around …
A deck of soaring highs and terrible lows, Affinity is greatly complimented by , which can fetch a , , or . However, a playset of Sagas is more expensive than the rest of the deck combined! If we were to remove them, as well as Shadowspear, we end up with a 75 that only costs around 120 euros. To fill the holes, we could complete playsets of and (to attach Cranial Plating more easily). While Saga would clearly be better, you can include multiple copies of and to substitute for huge Construct tokens.
Here's what I ended up with after leaving a well-performing list's sideboard intact:
| Budget Affinity, Modern |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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Izzet Prowess
Although far from the very top of the tier list, prowess (also known as Blitz) decks have enjoyed somewhat of a resurgence lately. The main culprit presumably is , which manages to get the archetype unexpectedly far. But the deck can also work just fine without it.
The price of , a card nearly as if not more important, fell tremendously thanks to its retro reprint in The Brothers' War. Coupled with the stabilization of prices for and , you should now be able to get the majority of the deck for around 270 euros. While you don't have to play a single fetch land either, I think these are crucial. Not only do they help unlock delirium, they're also highly synergistic with the finally affordable Bauble. Look at the top of your library, then decide if you want to avoid drawing it.
Sadly, costs more than , but at least you're playing a deck fully devoid of . Save for some land changes and the lack of Breach, the main deck mostly stays the same compared to nonbudget lists. You still get to create massive and pumped Channelers rather consistently!
In the sideboard I only replaced , even though it's the superior answer to . (Chalice doesn't counter replicated copies.) But you're saving nearly fifteen euros by going with a budget option such as .
| Budget Izzet Prowess, Modern |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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Merfolk
Throughout its long history Merfolk has had its share of ups and downs, but the deck seems to do pretty well now! Sadly, it's really good at utilizing expensive cards like and . Both of them have been reprinted fairly recently yet are still far from earning the budget-friendly title. But what if I told you that you don't need them, at least not in an FNM setting? Your win rate may drop without them, but not as much as it would if you never made use of the chance to play on turn one. Given how its Double Masters 2022 reprint came right at a time when it stopped being utmost relevant, its price expectedly fell to less than ten euros!
This leaves enough room in the budget to include and every single Merfolk that's played in full builds, even . Sure, the sideboard is not the same without the Forces, but it can still provide an answer to most popular archetypes. One big appeal of Merfolk is that the deck doesn't always have to go the single-minded aggro route. You can also turn many of your opponent's lands into Islands, which I find oddly satisfying. This is why I would include at least two in the main. also helps here, especially as a nice one-drop if you don't draw a Vial.
I have found that and are overperforming at the moment. But if you want to decrease the price even further, you can cut the Hearse, Otawara, and even . Otherwise, a list like the one below would approximately cost you 270 euros.
| Budget Merfolk, Modern |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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Burn
Much throughout Magic's history, Burn has been one of the cheapest tier decks around. Then came Pioneer and essentially doubled the price of . This is when we had to stop calling Burn a budget deck, not to mention was already around at this time too. The spiking of definitely didn't help either.
Fortunately, the Vantage fell back down a bit, and people realized that Eidolon was terrible against . Most Burn players don't play a single Spirit anymore, which leaves them divided on what to replace it with. The usual consensus is finishing up playsets of both and , as there are simply no better burn spells. I'm not going to try and reinvent the wheel with a single .
Just like with Prowess, besides being a nice investment, fetch lands are way too important for Burn. Other than thinning your deck, you're greatly increasing the power of , one of the cards with the highest potential. As for the Canyons, I'd just replace them with because it's also been reprinted recently, and because it's usually better than basic Mountain. This list costs around 270 euros (similar to Prowess), but if you want to trim it even further, I suppose you could run more Mountains. The next step would be going for Monored Burn, but you'd ultimately sacrifice too much power, especially in the sideboard.
| Budget Burn, Modern |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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Opinions expressed in this article are those of the author, not of Cardmarket.
