See, you say budget, but TCG is pricing it at 200 before Arcades is even factored in. I've got the same thing for around 50.

Buufreak Well for me 200$ is kinda budget. I think everybody has his own idea of the value to consider a deck "budget". You can take out Mana Drain as it is listed as ~68$ alone. Additionally the cards in the US seem way more expensive than in Europe. I've paid around 100€ for everything here which corresponds to about 116 $. Also cheaper decks often lack speed or consistency because the cards have either higher cmc or slower abilities.

And that's entirely true, it is a variance of milage. And I also understand that for a format like EDH, about 100 is considered a budget cost. I'm just a cheap bastard.

Add Pemmin's Aura for infinite Mana with Axebane Guardian.

Drift of Phantasms? It's a flying wall that can also tutor for other 3 drops

Would suggest Sylvan Reclamation instead of Disenchant since all the gods and indestructible stuff exists. Also it's a great mana fixer, and a better card than Return to Dust which was just about the top of artifact/enchantment removal before.

Storm525 Could be a good substitute for Wall of Air, but I haven't anything tutor worthy for 3 cmc, maybe Masako the Humorless. I'll see if i can get my hands on one, thank you!

wraya2 This is already mentioned under the "Other Cards" tab together with 2 other cards that do the same, but thank you anyways.

rewwer That's a good suggestion, as I recently encountered some of those gods like Xenagos. I'll try it, thank you!

ok please tell me why no wakestone gargoyle ? wakestone gargoyle has to be in this deck ? i am dead serious

Take what I say with a grain of salt because I haven't tested out my list irl. Going to throw Cloudstone Curio, Gatecreeper Vine, Wall of Roots, and Sacred Rites out there as potential considerations.

• Curio can get you some insane card draw/ETB value. Basically if you have enough mana at your disposal and no one is stopping you, you can pay 1-2 mana to play a wall, draw, bounce another wall, and repeat as often as you'd like. Your list has Shield Sphere, so things can get even more stupid.

• Vine looks fairly mediocre at first because the land it gets has to be a Gate and the body is just an 0/2, but at the same time there's very little risk in running it because it is bound to replace itself one way or another. Either it's early-game fixing, or mid-to-late game card advantage.

• Roots are just a good ramp option. At worst it's a Murmuring Phantasm (which you already run) that has a solid upside.

• Sacred Rites is just a gimmicky card that I'd love to try out. Much more risky than Bar the Door and Tower Defense, but my thought process is that you're likely going to be drawing a lot of cards anyways, and if you're swinging for lethal then there's a good chance that discarding 5-6 cards will be worth it. A CMC of 1 is always convenient too, unless your group happens to play Mental Misstep.

mikeb388For the same reason I cut Rolling Stones off the list. It isn't good enough on its own, because most defenders have 0 power and you have to have Assault Formation on the battlefield. But Assault Formation also gives your defenders the ability to attack, so most of the time it's a dead card, sadly.

Thank you very much for your suggestions InfinityMinusOne. Your cards gave me a lot of good ideas where to go with/evolve the deck. We could even develop this further by adding Panharmonicon and Laboratory Maniac as an alternative wincon. Be assured I will certainly try this. Furthermore I will add Wall of Roots as a substitute for Murmuring Phantasm when I get my hands on one. I really like the idea with Sacred Rites, it could also also be used together with Bar the Door etc. for that final blow. Would also be excellent with the suggestions above. I think I'm the only one I know playing Mental Misstep in my Azami deck. Never seen it anywhere else

InfinityMinusOne Just counted the defenders and 6 of them are artifact creatures including Shield Sphere. So it wont work with Cloudstone Curio and therefore it wouldn't be "that" efficient. Should be tested though, maybe it's enough to get a good flow.

K4m4r0 You're absolutely right. I forgot that Curio couldn't target artifact permanents, so it isn't quite as dumb as I thought it would be. That being said I still think it merits a spot and can get out of hand very easily.

Other cards I thought of for utility's sake are Mnemonic Wall and Ghostly Flicker. The former is fairly expensive mana-wise but grants you some much-needed recursion for instants and sorceries. the latter is just straight value in this deck. At worst it's going to be an instant-speed Divination and at best it's a card that protects Arcades from removal and can go infinite with Mnemonic Wall given the according amount of mana.

That's all I got for now. Glad I could help!

My first thought when I saw this was Colossus of Akros but that's way out of your cmc range. Awesome deck that would be interesting to both play and play against!

hey nice build with arcades, care to see mine? :D +1 Strategist's Defense

InfinityMinusOne I'll have some more games on friday and I will keep an eye focused on the new strategy and how to implement it. Maybe I'll recognize a few things I can easily swap for the necessery cards. First which come to my mind are Cultivate and Chromatic Lantern, since I have my Mana Base updated by then.

Coroner13 That's a really cool card, could even be an alternate wincon if Arcades gets too much hate. The downside, like you mentioned, the very high cmc :/

I know it would only help one creature at a time, but what about Slagwurm Armor?

Looking good! If you wanted some more (mostly) one-sided board wipes, you could consider Austere Command, Dusk and Slaughter the Strong. You can even deal with larger creatures on a somewhat permanent basis via Meekstone, Noetic Scales or Marble Titan. Ensnaring Bridge is probably the best at what it does, but it's hella expensive.

You could also get some more card draw from Abzan Beastmaster and/or Ulvenwald Observer, in case Arcades wasn't always enough. Reveillark would also be interesting since it can bring back basically any two creatures in the deck!

And by the way, are you sure Shield Wall is good enough? You might get more use, certainly in the long run, with Spidersilk Armor or even Ensouled Scimitar, which can increase a creature's damage capability by 5 or functionally be a 5/5 flyer itself!

MurrSheep Slagwurm Armor is a good card but it's a bit slow due its "cost of 4 mana". I don't see it in my list, sorry. But thank you for mentioning it!

ClockworkSwordfish Thank you for suggesting a lot of cards! Austere Command and Slaughter the Strong wouldn't work too well in my meta, beacause I play a lot against token decks which usually consits of creatures from 1/1 to 3/3. I am however looking for a spot to add Dusk!

Ensnaring Bridge looks like the best of the four you mentioned. I'll try to get my hands on one and test it for sure.

Abzan Beastmaster and Ulvenwald Observer are very interesting together with the suggestions InfinityMinusOne amde. Could be coupled with blink and a Laboratory Maniac combo. As I said earlier, I'll have some more games today and after that I'll decide in which way to go with the deck. Atleast I will try the other method!

You are somewhat right about Spidersilk Armor and I should get one. Whereas Shield Wall is more like a "wincon" Spidersilk Armor would give a boost the whole time.

Ensouled Scimitar is too expensive for me for 5 mana. Also it can't attack with its toughness like the other creatures because it doesn't have defender. It would sadly stay a 1/5 with flying.

I have a friend building this as well, thought it was coincidentally entertaining!