If you like to play combo decks, Legacy is amazing. You get to play with many cards that are banned in other formats like modern, and the combos are diverse, fast and consistent. There are many combos that are viable in Legacy, and a lot of them are accessible on a relatively low budget.
To name a few, here’s a list of combo decks that have had a consistent presence over the years:
- Storm (TES, ANT, Ruby, TEG, High Tide)
- Elves
- Show and Tell
- Dark Depths
- Aluren
- Doomsday
- Cephalid Breakfast
- Painter
- Cloudpost
- Dredge
- Food Chain
- Belcher
- Helm Combo
Unfortunately, not all of those accessible on a tight budget. We’ll go through the options of what you can build on a tighter budget, and expand on those decks so you can get inspired.
Budget combo decks in Legacy
Playing combo in Legacy is all about gaining an unfair advantage over your opponent. This is often achieved through gaining a mana advantage. ‘Cheating’ on mana and playing above the curve of the turn forces your opponent to answer your threat instead of developing your own. This puts you on the front foot and protecting your threat closes the game fast in many combo decks. The Achilles’ heel of many combo decks is consistency. You’re going to draw the wrong half of your deck on some occasions and it’s going to feel like your losses are not your fault. In some cases, they aren’t, but the London Mulligan rule is a match made in heaven for combo decks.
Let’s explore the options for playing combo on a budget.
Dark Depths
One of the format’s premier decks, Dark Depths is a combo that’s used in many decks. These decks use the combo of Dark Depths + Thespian’s Stage to get a 20/20 Flying Indestructible threat into play. Over the years, Dark Depths has always been present in many shapes. On a budget, there’s the obvious choice of Turbo Depths, also called Rainbow Depths or Sultai/BUG Depths. A BUG deck at its core, Turbo Depths has the sole purpose of getting Marit Lage in play as fast as possible. There is usually also a green-based grindy version of the deck in the format. These decks tend to grind first but they are also able to get a 20/20 out of nowhere. These decks have more of a Maverick/Lands like hybrid play style.
Reanimator
While BR Reanimator with a splash for the sideboard is one of the format’s premier combo decks, Reanimator can be built on a budget in mono black. The core of the ‘default’ deck is black, and the only card you’ll miss without the red splash is Faithless Looting and some sideboard cards, mainly Magus of the Moon and Wear//Tear. I’m not saying dropping Faithless Looting doesn’t matter, but there is a perfectly playable alternative to the deck with 3+ dual lands.
Sneak Attack
The most famous Sneak Attack deck in legacy is of course Sneak & Show, but there are versions that are in Mono Red. I have to warn about the mana base, there are usually 2 City of Traitors, but they can be replaced when on a budget. The mono red versions have the advantage of – obviously – not playing blue. This leaves Volcanic Island and Force of Will out of the equation, saving a lot of money. It’s a fringe deck, but it looks super cool and I have to try it out some time.
Oops! All Spells
Oops! All Spells is probably the best combo deck on a tight budget. It’s cheap, extremely fast and surprisingly consistent. There is a lot to learn when playing this deck. The combo is pretty obvious, but it has many lines and in order to win consistently, there are many small details to learn. Besides, you get to play Thassa’s Oracle, which allows you to register the deck as 4C Merfolk!
Helm of Obedience
There have been many decks in the past that adopted Helm of Obedience + Rest in Peace or Leyline of the Void. Currently, there’s a really strong deck in Mono Black that plays this combo. Essentially, this deck revolves around this combo while applying early pressure to your opponent with Dark Ritual + Rotting Regisaur, Sheoldred, Tourach or Dauthi Voidwalker. It disrupts your oppontent with Opposition Agent, Wasteland and discard spells. You also get to play Karn, the Great Creator!
Cloudpost
While Cloudpost is historically an insanely expensive colorless deck, for the past few years there has been a mono green variant that’s consistently performed well. The advantage of this variant is that you don’t have to play ridiculously expensive artifacts like Candelabra of Tawnos or Grim Monolith. There’s no City of Traitors either. The only thing with this deck is that it gets better if you can play the Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale. There are many who succesfully piloted the deck to top performing results without it though. If you forget about that card alltogether, you’re going to have a good time anyway and the deck is really strong in its current shape.