Good budget Modern deck?

[Neo Metal Sonic]

I want to enter the Modern scene, but I'm somewhat broke, so I'm looking for a good budget modern deck (something like 75$). Someone have some idea? I'm accepting all ideas. (well, I'm more of a Boros Mage, but anything will do).

Thanks in advance.

[rcwraspy]

What sort of card pool do you already have? Do you have fetches and shocks already?

[Neo Metal Sonic]

I just have 1 Shock, the boros one. No fetches too. I started with Innistrad.

[rcwraspy]

1 shock as in 1 copy or 1 playset? If only 1 copy, then $30 of that $75 will likely be in acquiring the other 3.

You could build a decent Boros colored aggro deck. I'm not going to post a specific deck, but instead a list of cards that would fit the theme. Some will be more expensive than others.

Here's a quick legend to what I'm about to post since you're on a budget:
Cheap - under $1
Fairly Cheap - $1-$5
Moderately Expensive - $5-$10
Expensive - Over $10

1 Drops
Goblin Guide - moderately expensive - the best 1 drop in the game (especially for red)
Grim Lavamancer - moderately expensive - best used with fetch lands and spell heavy decks
Steppe Lynx - cheap and is best with fetches for more landfall
Vexing Devil - moderately expensive and a very controversial card. Best in a burn focused, instead of
creature focused, deck.
Figure of Destiny - moderately expensive but one of the best 1 drops out there. If you have to invest in expensive creatures, I'd lean heavily toward this and Goblin Guide.
Student of Warfare - moderately expensive. The level up mechanic here is different from Figure's and can't be done at instant speed, so he's technically worse. He's still decent though.
Spark Elemental - cheap. some decent burst damage, but doesn't stick around. likely best suited for a burn deck, though it doesn't require fetches to be good.

2 drops
Ash Zealot - fairly cheap. One of the best 2-drops in red
Keldon Marauders - cheap cheap fun fun. Unless countered, will almost always net you at least 2 damage. Damage from it attacking is a bonus. Also one of the best 2-drops.
Plated Geopede - very good in landfall decks, but that leans on
fetches
Thalia, Guardian of Thraben - fairly cheap - 2 power first strike on turn 2 is decent, and she makes non-creature builds more expensive.
Hellspark Elemental - cheap. Unearth lets you get 2 uses out of him, and trample makes him relevant.
Jotun Grunt - fairly cheap - getting a 4/4 on T2 is good I hear. Cumulative Upkeep is tricky though.
Stormblood Berserker - cheap - one of my personal favorite pet cards. If your list packs 12+ instants and sorceries that can hit creatures and players, he's got great value.
Kargan Dragonlord - moderately expensive - more of a casual player's card, he's fun but oddly not amazing at what he does. Can be slow.
Stun Sniper - cheap - actually may be relevant with a very large number of X/1's in the format. I've never played with it though.

3 drops
Kitchen Finks - moderately
expensive. Persist and Enter the Battlefield effects are great. Not exactly an aggro deck's forte, though. He's great if you have a longer term gameplan.
Chandra's Phoenix - fairly cheap - another of my personal favorites. Like Berserker, she's best if you're running 12+ burn spells. But she can fit in a few red-based archetypes
Countryside Crusher - fairly cheap - I've never played with him, but if you're running 24+ land he can be valuable. He's likely best used with a landfall deck, which lean heavily on fetchlands.
Mirran Crusader - fairly cheap - pure value. Love this guy.
Silverblade Paladin - moderately expensive - pick him up after AVR rotates out of standard if you're looking to buy him. He can help you power through some things, but watch out for instant speed removal (which should be everywhere). Him getting removed during your attack step/before blcokers can turn what you
thought was a good attack ugly very quickly.
Boros Reckoner - expensive - a good card in Standard right now. I've no idea how he translates to formats with larger card pools. He's more of a defensive creature than offensive, though.

4-drops
Hero of Oxid Ridge - fairly cheap - a must-have if you're a creature based red or boros deck. Supreme value.
Hero of Bladehold - moderately expensive - also good value, but no haste
Hellrider - moderately expensive - great if you have lots of dudes in play. Not the best feeling if you topdeck him with an empty boardstate. But let's face it, if that's the case you're likely losing anyway.

Higher on the curve
Baneslayer Angel - expensive - very powerful, but the pro demons and pro dragons will likely not come up very often. Griselbrand is a card, though.
Thundermaw Hellkite -
expensive - it doesn't look like he's being reprinted in M14, so pick him up after he rotates. Very solid curve-topper.

Enchantments
Zektar Shrine Expedition - cheap - for landfall decks but great tempo if they fit your theme
Blood Moon - expensive - hoses so many other deck archetypes

Planeswalkers
Koth of the Hammer - fairly cheap - can be powerful in the right build
Ajani, Caller of the Pride - moderately expensive - his middle ability is the nuts

Instants/Sorceries
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Lightning Bolt
Get the point?
[c:
1m2y9576]Lightning Helix[/c] - fairly cheap - bolt + healing salve. Great value.
Path to Exile - moderately expensive - likely being reprinted in Modern Masters so the price might dip a bit.
Searing Blaze - cheap - you want landfall for this card, but if you have it then it's great.
Shard Volley - cheap - lightning bolt at the cost of sacrificing a land. Sac a tapped land please.
Magma Jet - fairly cheap - scrying and burning in one. A beautiful thing.
Pyroclasm - cheap - very underused in Modern right now, but positioned to do very well. Just watch out how you use it if you're a creature-heavy deck.
Forked Bolt - cheap - very efficient. Did I mention there are a LOT of X/1 creatures in Modern right now?
Dismember - fairly cheap - you'll be hitting yourself for 4 and tapping one, but it's great against
Tarmogoyf and a slew of other beaters.

Land
Flagstones of Trokair - expensive - for landfall decks, and likely nerfed a bit with the new legendary ruling that was announced today
Arid Mesa - expensive - the fetchland for the colors if you can build your collection
Sacred Foundry - expensive - the shock
Ghost Quarter - cheap - hoses other decks and enables landfall if you sac your own land, especially your own Flagstones.
Slayer's Stronghold - fairly cheap - great with a creature based deck
Teetering Peaks - cheap - ditto

[rcwraspy]

A quick note. You said you were open to anything, but that you were a Boros mage at heart. The cards I've listed are geared toward a mono-red or Boros colored deck.

There are likely a NUMBER of other decks you could create on a $75 budget. I just played to your stated interest.

[Neo Metal Sonic]

Thank you very much for the list, rcwraspy! This is awesome. The landfall mechanic really got my attention. I'll take your advice of buying some cards after rotation, it will give me some time to save money (I think I'll need to blow 150$ in a video card next month - using a 950 gma is really painful).

Well, if you have more ideas, bring it on. I'm open to learn to play anything, I'm not picky.

Again, thank you very much, loved the list and the deck ideas.

[Jack]

I'm not sure Boros is your best option on a $75 budget. The successful Modern Boros lists tend to be Landfall decks, which rely heavily on fetches. However, without fetches, which would cost at least twice your budget, building this is not possible. The deck tends to be a red deck at heart, with white splashed mostly for sideboard options and Path/Helix. On a $75 budget, I don't think you'd be able to sure up the mana base enough to make the benefits of adding white outweigh the complications. That being said, while the deck might not be the most powerful when you've only put $75 into it, if you continuously invest in it for a few months, it'll get there, and you'll still be playing something that you like until you get there.

[rcwraspy]

After rotation Clifftop Retreat will fall in price also. 3 more Sacred Foundry and a playset of the Retreat is a great beginning to a Boros aggro deck mana base. But as Freedom said, if you don't/can't pick up fetches then landfall is not a good choice. There are plenty other creature based aggro cards in that list though.

[Jack]

You also have many other options for getting into Modern. I was able to start out very cheaply with a mono green infect deck I had from Standard. During Standard season, I think I only put $20 into the deck. When my LGS announced that it would be running Modern FNMs, I spent another $20 on upgrades, and it's done fairly well so far. Sure, it could be much better if I put a few hundred dollars into fetches, shocks, and Hierarchs to make it BUG, but I'm not really interested in that. Instead, I'm accumulating store credit from FNM so I can build a deck that I would really want to play, like burn or RDW. You could build infect for cheap and use it to win cards for your "dream deck", then trade the cards away for r/w cards when you're close, or you could start with a simple version of what you want to build, since then you're already part of the way to completion when you start, and you'll have more practice
with the deck after you've built an optimized version. For you, I'd recommend building mono-red with only mountains, as many of the cards that it plays are either very cheap, so you won't care be losing much once you cut them for white cards; format staples, meaning that it'll be easy to trade them for upgrades; or cards that you'll also want in your Boros deck.

[Neo Metal Sonic]

Mono-Red and Infect are two decks I always wanted to play, but I don't know how to start. That's my problem, I don't know much about Magic (I'm a fairly new player), but I'm eager to learn.

[Jack]

Do you have Cockatrice? If not, download it, then load up a few decks and test with them. I used to do this all of the time, just spend some time reading a primer online, then throw together a list on Cockatrice and mess around with it for a few hours. For starters, here's my infect list:
http://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/dirty-pump-infect/
I think there's also a primer for RDW on this site, as well as on MTGS.