Budget Magic: $60 Kuja Black Mage Wizards (Final Fantasy Standard)
Hello everyone, and welcome to another edition of Budget Magic! Final Fantasy is here, and we're kicking off our budget exploration of the format with some Rakdos Spellslinger! The goal is to make as many 0/1 black Wizard tokens that ping our opponent whenever we cast a noncreature spell, hopefully find Kuja, Genome Sorcerer to make even more Wizards, eventually flip to double our Wizard damage, and then burn our opponent out of the game by casting a bunch of cheap card-draw, burn, and removal spells! Can Rakdos Spellslinger work on a budget? How good are Kuja and the black mage Wizard tokens? Let's get to the video and find out! Oh yeah, shout out to Wizards for letting me use a free account during early-access day.
Budget Magic: Kuja Black Mage Wizards
The Deck
Our deck today is built around Kuja, Genome Sorcerer and the Wizard tokens it makes. Alongside Kuja itself, we have a ton of cards that make Wizard tokens that ping our opponent whenever we cast a noncreature spell.
Apart from Coruscation Mage, which is super similar but a Bloomburrow Otter Wizard rather than a Final Fantasy black mage Wizard, we have a bunch of cards that not only make Wizard tokens but also are noncreature spells, so when we cast them, they'll trigger any of the black mage Wizards we already have on the battlefield. Black Mage's Rod turns anything into a pinging Wizard while making a Hero token when it enters. Cornered by Black Mages gives us an edict that makes a Wizard, and Circle of Power offers Wizard-making card draw and potentially some lifegain if we have a few Wizards on the battlefield. Using these cards and Kuja, our goal is to get enough Wizards on the battlefield to flip Kuja, Genome Sorcerer, which will then let all of our Wizards deal double damage. This means every spell we cast will deal a ton of damage, hopefully letting us kill our opponent in just a couple of turns.
The rest of the deck is cheap removal and card draw that trigger all of our Wizards, so once we build up a big board of black mage Wizard tokens, we should be able to sling enough spells to kill our opponent pretty quickly, while cards like Burst Lightning and Go for the Throat help keep our opponent's creatures off the battlefield.
Wrap-Up
Record-wise, we ended up just below a 50% win rate with the deck, although the record isn't especially relevant since we were playing during early access. Overall, the deck felt like a solid, if unspectacular, budget deck. The deck's biggest issue is that it's difficult to catch up if it falls behind early since most of our creatures are 0/1s. On the other hand, if we can get off on the front foot and start making Wizards tokens early, the deck can pour on a ton of damage and win out of nowhere! Sadly, the plan of flipping Kuja, Genome Sorcerer might not be super realistic. I don't think we did it more than once throughout all our games. Although even if Kuja doesn't flip, it's still solid enough thanks to the Wizard token it generates. Plus, it pressures our opponent in an odd way because if it does flip, there's a good chance they are dying on the spot! All in all, I think that Kuja Black Mage Wizards is probably in the middle in terms of how competitive it is for a budget deck, but it can certainly win plenty of games. And if you love black mages, Kuja, or just slinging spells, it's a fun, cheap option for our new Standard format.
Anyway, that's all for today. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, opinions, and suggestions in the comments, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
