Magic on a Budget

There are two types of cards to keep an eye out for: staple and card-advantage cards. Staples are cards like Disenchant, Giant Growth, Shock, Stone Rain, Counterspell, Boomerang, Terror etc. Most of them have been around for a long time and have an ability that returns in some form or other in almost every set. If you want some red land destruction in your deck, you can pick from a lot of different ones, like Devastate, Implode, Rain of Salt or Flowstone Flood. Often, though, a simple Stone Rain will do just fine. As a bonus, these staple cards are generally common and reprinted so often that collectors will be glad to get rid of a few.

The second type of card, the card-advantage card, has the potential to swing the game in your favor. Card-advantage includes not just simple card drawers like Opportunity, but also a card like Rain of Salt, which destroys two lands for the price of just one card. Most card-advantage cards are rare and expensive, but there are some good cheap ones as well, like Yavimaya Elder, Probe, Dismantling Blow and Thran Dynamo.

The first three are pretty obvious. Yavimaya Elder can be sacrificed for a card and two basic lands. That's three cards for the price of one. Probe can give two cards advantage if the kicker cost is paid and your opponent has two or more cards in hand. Thran Dynamo is a bit less obvious, because it's just an artifact that can tap for 3 mana. That doesn't look like card-advantage, until you realize that most lands only give one mana when they are tapped. It's as if you suddenly have three more lands available.

When using these two types of cards, keep in mind that, generally speaking, staple cards are your answers and card-advantage cards are your questions. If your deck is vulnerable to big creatures, it's often a good idea to add Terrors or Giant Growths. If your deck tends to run out of steam, though, adding a few more staples won't help. A solution is to add a few card-advantage cards that will give your opponent problems, either by speeding your own deck up with extra mana or cards or by slowing your opponent down.