Thirty Casual Decks under $20 for Magic: the Gathering Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Standard
This week marks the release of the newest Magic: the Gathering set, Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, which means it's time to look at a bunch of super-cheap decks that you can play on your kitchen table or on Magic Arena without spending much money or many wildcards!
This set release is special because, alongside the release of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, we get a Standard rotation. Throne of Eldraine, Theros: Beyond Death, Ikoria, and Core Set 2021 will leave Standard, which means that alongside Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, we'll have Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, Strixhaven, and Adventures in the Forgotten Realms available in Standard. Our decks today will focus on cards in those sets, along with some decks using only Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards that you should be able to put together easily if you buy a couple of booster boxes of the set.
For the Innistrad: Midnight Hunt–only decks specifically, none of the decks has more than one of each rare since those are the numbers you're likely to open if you crack a couple of boxes. These decks are appropriate for fun, casual play, both in paper and on Magic Arena, and for new players. If you're looking for higher-powered decks (more appropriate for FNM or ladder play on Magic Arena), we play budget decks every week on the Budget Magic series, with a typical budget of $100. If you want to go all-out, you can check out fully powered decks used in tournaments and by pro players.
Standard
First, we have Standard decks, which take advantage of all of the cards currently legal in Standard and will remain legal after September's rotation. The primary goal of these decks is to keep the price tag down under $20 in paper, which means (mostly) avoiding mythic cards altogether and minimizing the numbers of rare cards whenever possible. This has the added bonus of allowing players to build these decks on Magic Arena even if they don't have many wildcards. One note: a couple of decks are more than $20 because of snow-covered basic lands. In general, I tried to avoid using snow-covered basics because they increase the budget in tabletop Magic (although they are free on Magic Arena), but there were a couple of snow-themed decks that wouldn't function without them included in our list.
Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Only
Finally, we have some decks made only with Innistrad: Midnight Hunt cards. While limiting the decks to just one set makes them less powerful than Standard decks, the upside is that you should (on average) get all the cards you need to build all of these decks by opening a couple of booster boxes of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt for tabletop play. They are also perfect for casual play on Magic Arena, especially if you are just starting out and don't have many cards in your collection, because they don't require many rare (or any mythic) wildcards to build. Plus, over the next few months, most of the reward packs on Magic Arena will be of Innistrad: Midnight Hunt, so many of these cards naturally will show up in your collection soon, if they haven't already. These decks won't compete at the FNM level or on the competitive ladder on Magic Arena, but they are great starting points if you're looking for a way to stretch the amount of fun you get from your booster boxes or from free-to-playing Magic Arena casually! One last thing before we get to the decks: unlike the Standard decks, each rare will only show up as a one-of in the Innistrad decks, no matter how good it might be in the deck. This is partly to help keep the price of the decks down (both in paper and on Magic Arena) but also because if you open two booster boxes of Innistrad, you should end up with about one copy of each rare in the set. If you happen to open multiple copies of one of the rares in the decks, don't be afraid to upgrade by sticking it in over one of the less powerful lower-rarity cards!
Conclusion
Anyway, that's all for today. A quick reminder on the way out the door: all of the decks we talked about today are designed to be for casual play, like having fun with a friend on your kitchen table or for unranked play on Magic Arena, and they aren't really designed for competitive play. If you're looking for more powerful (but still budget-friendly) decks that are perfect for Friday Night Magic, make sure to check out our Budget Magic series. If you are looking for competitive tournament-worthy decks, you can find them on the metagame page. Hopefully, these super-cheap decklists for Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Standard will be helpful and fun! If you have any questions, make sure to let me know in the comments. As always, leave your thoughts, ideas, feelings, and suggestions, and you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
