A few weeks ago Dale Lovelace brought you a popular deck that costs a little less than fifty dollars, and the idea proved to be very popular! Last week I brought you the updates to my mono-black deck and the description of Michael Fortino's ally deck also proved to be very popular. If two ideas are popular separately then they must go together well, right?

With those ideas in place I set out to make a deck that was both budget and allies. Toward the end of the article I'll also add a few suggestions as to changes which could be made to put the deck in a higher income tax bracket.

In order to maximize our effectiveness and truly “ally” up the deck I think we need to be in all five colors. There simply aren't enough efficient allies to justify cutting one or two colors from our list. We also then get the added advantage of support cards drawn from across the spectrum, something which is highly necessary with such a linear strategy!

Though my usual go-to guy regarding five color generals is Progenitus I feel like he already does so much for me it might be a good time for a vacation. Instead the role of Progenitus will be played by whatever the hell kind of creature Cromat happens to be. Cromat also gives us the added advantage of being castable consistently without too much trouble.

With our general in place we now turn to our selection of allies. With the exception of Makindi Shieldmate I've included every ally. The shieldmate costs for too much and does far too little to be in our final hundred. Remember, if you're not attacking you're probably losing! Unfortunately for us, that means we only have twenty-nine allies. Fortunately for us, we have that wacky band of miscreants, changelings!

Unfortunately, the biggest and baddest changeling Chameleon Colossus is a little out of the price range for a budget deck, but a few of his friends are more than welcome to come along. Changeling Berserker, Champion, and Titan all serve double duty of being big with relevant abilities and letting us get an extra ally trigger off of whatever they championed when they die! Who could forget Mirror Entity as well, helping me win drafts I had no business winning since early Lorwyn block!

With a solid creature base it's now time to examine how we recover from the inevitable Wrath/Damnation/otherwise jerkface mass destruction that's coming. Fortunately when you have access to every card created there are gobs of mass reanimation effects to take utilize! I've added the most popular ones and they actually eat up a good portion of the budget, who knew Living Death was expensive?

Well, before I blather on any further let us get on with the list:

The deck has a few tricky interactions that I think it's important to go over. If there are a mass of allies entering the battlefield all at once they “see” one another and all trigger. This means Living Death typically has a ton of ally triggers going with it, same with Rite of Replication and Warp World! Another interaction is that of Dauntless Escort and any Allies that should enter the battlefield after his ability has been activated. Those allies will in fact be indestructible, even if the ability resolves before they are on the battlefield. This sets up a real beating of Chord of Calling in response to a wrath effect!

Another interesting interaction is that of Wild Pair with the allies. When the ally enters the battlefield if it has a triggered ability that adds counters (for example Freeblade) then you choose the order of the triggers from Wild Pair and Freeblade. Wild Pair checks P/T on resolution so you can tailor your search in some respects! It's also worth noting that if you clone a creature with counters on it the counters will not follow your clone, you get the copy without all the bells and whistles. You will however, trigger any enters the battlefield abilities the creature might have!

There are a few things that could be done to improve this deck if a little cash were involved. First and foremost the land base could be significantly stabilized with duals/fetches. Doing so also frees up more space from the land search section giving us more a higher threat density.

With regards to creatures Bloodbraid Elf and Chameleon Colossus would both love to join the party, if not for their high pricetags! If the deck permitted I would also be happy to run more clone effects, Vesuvan Shapeshifter, Sakashima the Imposter, and of course Vesuvan Doppleganger. All three serve double duty in copying our allies and sometimes allowing us to wasteland other generals. Speaking of improvements to threat density it's worth considering Brass Herald as a fantastic hybrid of pumping mechanism and pseudo tutor!

Finally, we have several general utility cards that would be of great assistance. Sol Ring and Sensei's Divining Top are essentially EDH staples and if the price permits should absolutely be included. For this particular instance I feel like Defense of the Heart would make another excellent addition, allowing us to cheat multiple allies into play and trigger multiple allies at once! Steely Resolve would also be excellent against any decks heavy on spot removal while still fitting into the overall theme. Finally, Aether Vial gives us another much needed instant speed ally triggering mechanism!

Well, this has been my take on allies on a budget. I've been able to locate the deck above for around fifty dollars online, though to purchase it through CoolStuff is a little higher (due to their policy of purchase one common, get three free). It's my firm belief that if one only purchased the rare cards and had the commons/uncommon from drafts/trading then this deck is exceptionally cheap and fairly effective overall. I urge you to give allies a shot and until next time this is Benjamin McDole giving you a hundred reasons to play magic!