Welcome to the first installment of Casual Collections. Unlike other series you might see here on Magic Deck Vortex, this is a serial. Each month we'll be building on the last month, although we'll arrange it so following along or catching up won't be difficult. Throughout this series you will develop a Magic portfolio on a very casual budget, and that budget will be a meager $20 a month.

Each month, we'll add cards to our portfolio geared towards improving a specific tournament level deck, several pauper decks, and maybe even some bonus decks. All the while keeping track of our cards as their prices rise and fall. If you actually follow along and purchase the cards instead of merely reading, you'll have a powerful collection of staple cards and decks that can compete at tournaments and will be highly modular to your tastes. All for a mere $20 a month, or enough to feed an entire village of Africans for a week (What a bargain!).

To start out we need a good deck that is easy and cheap to build. We also want it to be modular. Red Deck Wins and Affinity being about the cheapest tournament decks out there, make them easy targets. However, even they contain cards (looking at you Magus of the Moon and Arcbound Ravager) that exceed our budget. The deck we're looking for is something far more portable and accepted by casual players. We're looking at Zoo, a very Goyf-less Zoo at that.

Now this month would be boring if I told you buy $20 worth of a land. I assume you have enough basic lands to make several decks, if not add a little extra to your cash pool or just bum from other players, as I will not be wasting $20 on basic lands when we have an entire deck to make!

This being the first month, it's going to be tricky. We have no cards (except our basic lands) and the budget is still based off the $20. Not only that, we're building a pauper deck along side our regular deck, so that's not one, but two decks that have to be made. I guess you're calling me psychotic right about now... you're right. Luckily many aspects of Zoo are commons (mainly the burn spells).

Now being that we're developing Zoo, we also have three colors to work with initially - Red, White, and Green. For simplicity this month one will be cut straight off, and it happens to be White. While White will later build the foundation of Zoo, this month we can't afford the cards that lie in White. We're going to rely on Green and Red to carry us through, and the best place to start is with creatures.

Creature #1 - Keldon Marauders (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
Currently at .19 this card is a bargain. It's a one turn 3/3 and it's an automatic two points to the dome. Only stopping it before it hits play really keeps that power in it's pants. I can't think of any card that not only deserves a much higher price, but also deserves to be in everyone's collection. This card will potentially be on any Red Deck Wins list until it's no longer viable as an Extended deck.

Creature #2 - Phantom Tiger (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
At .15, this a great pick for temporary inclusion in our main deck, and it's difficulty to kill will make it an all-star in pauper. The value of this card will probably not rise much ever, however the whole Phantom series is well worth the investment in terms of playability and retention of power level. We'll be picking up several more Phantom cards in later weeks.

Creature #3 - Krosan Tusker (4) (Pauper Deck)
I never understood why so many people played Tuskers until I played it myself. At .19 it's a great land fetcher and cantrip, or late game, a decent threat that might turn the tide. In Pauper, this card down right dominates, and I consider it a staple card for any collection.

Creature #4 - Spark Elemental (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
If played from the start this card is a quick three damage to the face, the closest we get to Lightning Bolt in Extended. We'll be replacing it later, but for now we're going to add four of it to our decks for .49 each. Like Keldon Mauraders this card will retain value for a long time thanks to Red Deck Wins and possibly gain value due to it's low casting cost and damage potential.

Creature #5 - Tin Street Hooligan (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
Another temporary main deck and all-star pauper card, this card serves as cheap beats and has the potential to knock an artifact off the board. This is great for improving survivability against Affinity and tackling decks that utilize Jitte. At it's worst, it'll kill signets and staves off Affinity decks in Pauper. At .15, this card is pretty much for our decks and not for money anyway.

Creature #6 - Martyr of Ashes (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
Are you kidding me? Pyroclasm is super expensive, yet this little sacrifical monster is a mere .19. This card should retain value and see sideboard inclusion for it's entire Extended run. Why it's never risen in value is beyond me.

Creature #7 - Silhana Ledgewalker (4) (Pauper)
.25 for a 1/1 for two mana that's merely evasive, what's the catch? Oh yeah, it also has one-sided shroud or Troll-shroud as some have coined it. This card has caused massive havoc on many players unable to stop it from coming over as it picks up toys and enchanments. Heck, I've seen the thing weilding dual Loxodon Warhammers and taking on players dropping down thousand dollar decks.

Money Spent On Creatures: 6.44. Not bad for 28 great creatures, sure they're all commons, but they're allstars in my book and all have excellent value retention. Now that we have a basis for an aggro deck, we need to look at spells to supplement it, primarily burn spells.

Spell #1 - Hull Breach (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
At it's worst, Hull Breach is a Naturalize and at it's best it's two Naturalizes. The Red-Green casting cost shouldn't be a problem in our decks. Hull Breach at .29 is a heck of a lot of power for very cheap and should retain value even when Invasion cycles out of Extended as it's helpful in stopping both Affinity and Armadillo Cloak in Pauper, and numerous cards in regular formats.

Spell #2 - Incinerate (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
For years this has been the replacement fix to Lightning Bolt. Even with an additional 1 to the casting cost, Incinerate has some decent power. Incinerate has pretty much been .99 since Ice Age when it came out and despite several reprintings has retained it's value. It's inclusion in 10th ensures it's value will go nowhere, if not up somewhat.

Spell #3 - Reckless Charge (4) (Pauper & Main Deck)
This spell is the equivalent of creature burn, it has all the beefiness of Giant Growth, but it is aggro-engineered for double usage (which simply means it doesn't give a crap about Toughness and is intended to be applied directly to the face). It's also a great choice in Pauper to throw away when facing Rat Attack decks. At a meager .19 each there's little value to lose when Odyssey block drops out of Extended.

Spell #4 - Lava Spike (4) (Pauper and Main Deck)
Another fixed Lightning Bolt. This one, just like Incinerate is going to run us .99 each, but it's cheap, fast, and very tidy. The Arcane touch means it can be used to set off shenanigans in an Arcane designed deck, but for now it's just burn to us. Lava Spike is bargain costed, and should remain a staple for some time to come.

Spell #5 - Molten Rain (4) (Pauper and Main Deck)
Stone Rain+1. It's the same cost and just a tad bit Redder, and it potentially carries a Shock effect on it. In Pauper there aren't many targets unless the player is packing Vivid, Artifact, or Cycle lands. Most others simply aren't played. However, since Four mana for many decks in Pauper is a powerful number, we're going to play it in hopes that we can stop that from happening for as long as possible. Molten Rain will probably see play for awhile and is a great pick up for a quarter. (.25)

So, we picked up 20 spells for 10.84. Again, I know they are all commons, but these are burn spells for the most part and they retain value very well. Luckily the base of our Pauper deck is now complete. It's also a highly portable base that we'll be able to easily and cheaply take into several directions over the next few installments. Let's look at what we have:

Well that leaves us at $17.28 and only the Pauper deck complete. So the question is, how the heck can we still make a decent non-pauper RG deck with only $2.72 left? Sadly, the answer is this: we aren't going to make many changes this go-around between the pauper and the non-pauper decks. We are going to merely pick up two Kird Apes for $2.50. That leaves us with .22 cents for the next outting. We'll continue to build additional card bases off of this one and try to start a branch out into White with our next $20.

Money Invested: $19.72

So, until next time, leave comments on the portfolio and your thoughts on what should be added. If you look at the Pauper deck you should be able to guess three more Pauper decks we can make using this base, although when and how they are created will be for another time.

Cashew

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Articles Spotlights from 2008:
A Fresh Perspective: Stasis - Part One.
The Apprentice Magician - Part Six.
Design on a Dime: The Lunch Meat Edition!
Fit the Flavor 2008 - FINALE!
The Games People Play - Market & EDH.
Sarpadian Empires, Vol VII: Foreword.
More Evil Than Evil.
Pauper Chronicles: Top O' the Morningtide to You!
Words from the Streetz: Uncommon and Common Magical Treasures.
The Writers Guild: The Inside Scoop.