[Editor's Note- There were some oddities with regards to punctuation when this was submitted, so I apologize for any inaccurate punctuation marks.]

Magic costs money, that's a fact. And I don't have that much money to spend on cards. This means that I can't afford to provide my decks with painlands, just to name something. (Duals are even out of my mind.) Also, I can sometimes use those great cards like Wrath of God, but certainly not in each deck I make. Second problem is, I'm always having some *great* ideas for decks, I have 8 decks running right now and I constantly want to make more... And my third problem, I live in Belgium, I have poor access to Magic shops, and the closer they are, the more expensive. (For example, there's one shop, pretty close, and they dare ask $4.40 there, for 1!; ONE!!!; booster, yes.)

To make this short: if I want to make a deck, I can't use BoPs, Calls, Rages,... My good cards are quickly named: I own exactly 2 Wraths and 2 Vindicates, that's it. (They're all in the same deck, I bought deck protectors for this one.)


Now, this is what I want to write about: making decks out of common and uncommon cards, and maybe some crap rares. A while ago I created this deck, a U/G Madness without rares, and it did surprisingly well against decks with better cards:

4x Wild Mongrel
4x Basking Rootwalla
4x Arrogant Wurm
4x Llanowar Elves
4x Roar of the Wurm
2x Obsessive Search
4x Deep Analysis
4x Aquamoeba
3x Careful Study
4x Circular Logic
2x Cephalid Colisseum
10x Island
11x Forest

Commons: 25
Uncommons: 14
Basic Lands: 21

One may think it sucks, but I tried it during some weeks on Apprentice, and it lost very rarely. I will certainly not say you would ever win a tournament with eh... this, but it's fun to play with, and people who, like me, can't spend all their money on Magic cards, maybe like this idea.

Some weeks ago, I was bored and I decided to take look through my cards and create a deck. Here's what I put together (after some changes due to playtesting of course):

4x Predict
4x Memory Lapse
3x Repel
2x Temporal Spring
2x Repulse
3x Gaea's Skyfolk
4x Ebony Treefolk
4x Urborg Elf
2x Anavolver
2x Skeletal Scrying
3x Life/Death
4x Consume Strength
3x Salt Marsh
9x Forest
6x Island
5x Swamp

22 Commons
16 Uncommons
2 Crap Rares
20 Basic Lands

At first sight this seems like a bunch of cards, thrown together, and called a deck. (OK then - that's what it is.) Still, that bunch of cards is sometimes able to beat other bunches of cards, that are usually considered stronger bunches of cards. First I throw some Sky- and/or Treefolk on the board. The Predict combo is obvious and can give me a huge advantage. The only goal is keeping the board clear (bounce, Consume Strength) and let those Folks beat at my opponent.

Enough written for today. (If you fell asleep, just go on.) I hope to see you around some day.