MTG Arena Budget Historic Decks for Beginners

If you’re new to MTG Arena, building a cheap budget competitive deck can be challenging, especially if you’re looking to spend as little real-world gold as you can! This can already be difficult if you’re breaking into Standard, but it can feel insurmountable if you’re looking to get into Historic! Magic’s myriad of different cards can be overwhelming, and Wildcards are a precious resource that you can’t always afford to waste on the wrong decks, no matter how enticing! Placing small bets on crafting and gradually opening cards until you find an expensive deck you’re sure you’ll love is the best way to go, at least while your resources are so limited.

In this guide, you’ll find our exclusive curated list of some fantastic budget Historic decks from various archetypes, with a brief explanation of the deck, an upgrade guide, and sample decklists for each one. Visit our Historic deck page if you’d like to see what some of the finished products look like. You can also go straight to the Budget deck section itself for the complete list, and for more ideas, be sure to visit our Historic Artisan section (a format where you are only allowed commons and uncommons).

If you need any help, you can always join the MTG Arena Zone Discord server, leave a question in the comments, or follow the site’s Twitter to catch up on any updates!

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Budget Deck Aims

Here’s a set of parameters we build our budget Historic decks around, to ensure they’re at their most useful to you:

• The base deck will aim to have as few rares as possible, but if one or two different cards are exceptionally important to the archetype and there’s no easy replacement, then you might see them. For each deck, we provide pathways or a link to upgrade into more competitive versions. Upgrades depend on your collection and Wildcard availability, so we’ll provide different options to tailor to your specific needs!

• Each deck is geared towards best-of-one, and players can now have up to seven cards in their sideboard.

• The Rare Dual Lands generally speaking will be pivotal in most Historic decks both now and moving forward.

Before I continue, I do want to address something that’s going to come up every single time a multicolored deck is brought up.

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When Do I Craft Lands?

Likely the largest inhibitor for most players getting into Historic is the manabases. With so many rare lands available, it’s hard to get them all for even one deck much less multiple. Despite that, lands will always be extremely helpful and that is what I would always recommend you craft first no matter what deck you’re looking to upgrade. So which ones should you craft first? In terms of color combinations, I would say whichever one has the most applications in other decks, the ones for the deck you enjoy the most, or the lands that would update your deck the most. With that, I also have an order to which types of dual lands you craft first as well.

1. Shocklands
2. Fastlands
3. Pathways
4. Checklands
5. Slowlands
6. Triomes

*NOTE*: This advice is for those who aren’t looking to follow the deck upgrade guide specifically. If you have a limited budget on what you can craft, then follow this list. If you’re looking to create the most competitive version of a deck, you should prioritize that deck’s lands first which will generally be Shocklands, Pathways, and Fastlands if they play them.

Shocklands

Shocklands are the hallmark land in Historic and you’ll also seem them in every 2+ color deck. For those unfamiliar on what shocklands are, I mean lands like Hallowed Fountain, Watery Grave, or Breeding Pool. Any land that can come into play untapped if you pay 2 life is a Shockland.

I would consider Shocks the best lands in Historic as if you look at the average mana base, you’ll pretty much always see full sets of Shocklands where the checklands can be a bit more sporadic. That being said, Shocklands don’t play as nicely in budget mana bases as check lands so it is still a bit of a toss up between these and checks.

Fast Lands

Fast lands recently got completed on Arena and are very powerful in the right decks. Fastlands are lands like Seachrome Coast or Inspiring Vantage, any land that comes into play untapped if it’s land 1-3. These lands are quite strong as long as your deck is relatively fast, but even midrange decks have been playing these recently. Furthermore, half of the fast land cycle will be Standard legal for quite awhile making them an even better craft

Pathways

Pathways are a very helpful land to have and have become staples in many Historic decks. Pathways are easy to recognize as they’ll all have pathway in the name like Needleverge Pathway or Brightclimb Pathway.

Checklands

Checklands used to be a vital part of Historic mana bases, but have more recently fallen in popularity. For those unaware on what checklands are, I mean ones like Glacial Fortress, Drowned Catacomb, or Hinterland Harbor. Any land that comes into play untapped if you have a land out of a certain type is a Checkland.

Checklands are excellent to craft early as they work really well in basic heavy mana bases, making them the perfect blend between budget and competitive. The only downside to crafting checklands is that they’re the most likely to be reprinted into Standard in the future, but they just rotated out a few years ago so it’s not terribly likely they’re coming back anytime soon.

Slowlands

If you’re not familiar with the lands I’m referring to, I’m talking about the ones from Innistrad like Haunted Ridge and Rockfall Vale. Although these are some of the weaker lands you have access to in Historic, the upside of crafting the is you can use them in Standard for over a year! When wildcards are short, you need to spend your resources wisely!

Triomes

Triomes are the tricolor cycle from Ikoria and Streets of New Capenna which are fantastic in 3+ color decks, but have no real utility otherwise. If you’re on a budget, I would generally steer clear of decks that are more than two colors, but if one really strikes your fancy, these will be a fine pickup. However, if you want to get more utility out of your wildcards, the new triome cycle from Streets of New Capenna would be a great craft as you’ll be able to use them in multiple formats.

Snarls

Snarls are so underwhelming they didn’t even make the list. I would not craft these for Explorer, but you can consider playing them if you already have them.

If you’re looking to craft the Rare lands and put them in these lists, cut the Uncommon tapped lands first, then cut the basics evenly for the amount of Rare lands you are adding. Furthermore, if you have to build the mana base piecemeal, don’t be afraid to substitute specific Rare lands out for others. If you’re a Standard player, crafting 4 Seachrome Coast before crafting Hallowed Fountain, despite it being slightly weaker, would be a more frugal investment of your wild cards.

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What Cards Do I Upgrade in My Deck First?

Realistically speaking, there’s no great way to go about this. You could look at overlapping cards to try and get the most bang for your buck for your crafts, but a lot of the time, most cards for specific decks are rarely going to overlap.

The best thing I could recommend is that if you really like a deck and want the best possible version, you just craft it all at once or dedicate yourself to crafting it piecemeal until it’s completed.

Unfortunately, frugal and Historic simply do not overlap, so unlike Standard budget decks, this has a lot more to do with your playing experience rather than expected value of a craft.

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Budget Historic Decks

Mono White Aggro

Mono White Aggro is a great archetype as it has an extremely fast curve, hard to kill creatures, and disruptive elements. While the budget version and competitive version look starkly different, the same basic strategy of overwhelm the opponent still applies!

Mono Blue Tempo

Considering the mana is the largest gatekeeper in Historic, playing a good monocolored deck is a great start into Historic. Although Mono Blue hasn’t been amazingly positioned recently, the power level of the deck is very hard to deny. Furthermore, the power you get from exclusively Commons and Uncommons is extremely high.

Mono Red Aggro

If you’re looking to break into a format, it’s hard to beat going for a solid Mono Red aggro deck! With a strong curve and a good amount of reach, this deck can provide a lot of a punch without even a single rare! A nice feature of Mono Red in Historic is that a lot of powerful cards are commons and uncommons anyway, so the base level of this deck is still quite high!

Mono Red Burn

Similar to Mono Red Aggro, we have one of my personal favorite archetypes: Mono Red Burn! Although there’s a high concentration of strong commons and uncommons, Burn has the unique advantage where most of their good cards are commons and uncommons! Along with Cycling, this is one of the stronger budget decks, but if you’re looking for a fully competitive version, I’d opt for Aggro.

Azorius Auras

Ok so this is the first decks that will require some amount of rares to be at all playable, but only 5 isn’t too bad! Auras is one of the best decks and will likely continue to be so for a long time which wouldn’t require much investment out of you in the future. If you like this archetype, just procuring the mana will be great to boost the power of this deck and branch you into other strategies like UW Control!

Boros Cycling

Cycling was an amazing budget option in Standard and Historic alike. With a proactive game plan that can be fast, grindy, and hard to interact with, this is a great option to break into the format. Out of all the budget lists, this is definitely one of the strongest right off the bat.

Boros Heroic

Boros Heroic combines the speed of Mono Red with the resilience of Mono White to make a really powerful deck. This base list will be rather strong inherently as many decks struggle with the blistering speed of the deck, but the fully upgraded list won’t be too hard on the wildcards either. However, like all the other decks, you want to prioritize the lands first to maximize the deck’s efficiency.

Dimir Rogues

So unfortunately, we have another deck that does require a few Rares to be viable. Thieves' Guild Enforcer is a pivotal piece of the Rogues engine as well as Lurrus of the Dream-Den to grind later into the game. On the bright side, Lurrus is a single Wildcard investment that sees play in a wide multitude of strategies. With that, there are still plenty of upgrades this deck can go through to become an extremely competitive deck, but this base version should still be quite strong!

Gruul Aggro

When you hear Gruul, most people hear aggro and for good reason. The budget version of this deck is relatively strong as it gets to leverage many of the powerful new uncommons to bolster the power level. Unfortunately, Gruul has fallen out of favor in the competitive environment, so if you want something close, I would recommend Mono Red.

Izzet Wizards

One of the best decks in Bo1 Historic, beyond the mana base, Wizards is mostly comprised of commons and uncommons for the vast majority of their cards! This is easily one of the best budget decks and conversions into a competitive deck due to the deck’s strength and relative low wild card budget.

Rakdos Anvil

Currently the newest form of sacrifice in Historic, similar to Golgari Food, a lot of the power of this deck is concentrated into Commons/Uncommons which makes this an excellent budget option! If you like game play puzzles, this will be an excellent choice for you!

Selesnya Lifegain

Being one of the most popular and powerful Bo1 strategies, Selesnya Lifegain is a ton of fun, power, and synergy all wrapped up into one neat package. While the budget iteration of the deck solely focuses on an aggressive game plan, the competitive one also has a combo element between a Soul Warden type creature, Scurry Oak, and Heliod, Sun-Crowned to gain infinite life, make infinite creatures, and gain infinite power!

Simic Flash

If you’re looking to give your opponents a constant headache with your deck choice, Simic Flash is the deck for you. You do need Nightpack Ambusher to make this deck viable as it is your main win condition, but the rest you can get away with just Commons and Uncommons. Like many of the other decks, you would first want to get your mana base upgraded (in this case: Breeding Pool, Hinterland Harbor, Barkchannel Pathway, and Botanical Sanctum).

Simic Merfolk

One of the few competitive tribes of Historic, Simic Merfolk manages to have a crux of the cards in Commons and Uncommons with only Master of the Pearl Trident being a necessary rare. While it’s not ideal for a budget deck to need rares, on the bright side, it doesn’t need too many more to be a completely competitive option!

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What About Best of Three?

These decks are optimized for Best of One play, but all of these decks can be ported into Best of 3 decks rather easily as well.

The easiest way is to find the base archetype these decks fall under on our page and take a look at what other players are doing.

There aren’t many ubiquitous sideboard cards so I would only worry about procuring those after you’ve optimized the main deck.

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Decklists in this Article

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