Your First Premodern Deck: Five Decks for Beginners and What They Cost
The official Premodern rules recommend allowing reprints with the modern frame, so a first deck costs far less than old card prices suggest. These five decks are easy to pick up and still win tournaments, and each comes with a real list, its price and our full guide.
- $91 UG Madness with reprints, the cheapest of the five
- 3.9× what the five lists cost in original printings compared with reprints
- 65% of the cards in the five lists cost less than $1 with reprints
- 3 of 5 lists won their tournament, the other two made the Top 4
At a glance
- UG Madness, Deadguy Ale, Goblins, The Rock and Sligh are the five decks we would suggest for a first Premodern deck. All of them play creatures and removal, follow a plan you can learn in a few games, and won or made the Top 4 of a tournament in 2026 with the lists below.
- With reprints, which the official rules recommend allowing, most cards in these decks cost less than a dollar; the original printings from 1995 to 2003 cost several times as much.
- Combo decks, lock decks such as Stasis and control decks built on counterspells reward knowing the whole format, which is why we would save them for a second deck.
- Every list is a real 2026 tournament list from our budget page, which updates the prices every day and has 16 more decks.
How to pick your first deck
Premodern is played with the cards of the 29 sets from Fourth Edition (1995) to Scourge (2003), under today's Magic rules and with its own banlist. Our format page lists the legal sets. If you want to get into Premodern and already play Magic, the rules hold no surprises; what takes time is learning the decks you will play against. There are no starter decks or precons for the format, so a first deck is usually a tournament list like the five below.
The easiest way in is a deck whose plan fits in one sentence and that fights the opponent with creatures and removal. Aggro decks like Sligh and Goblins attack from the first turn and teach you to count damage. Midrange decks like Deadguy Ale and The Rock trade card for card, and their discard spells show you the opponent's hand, which is a quick way to learn what the other decks in the format play. UG Madness sits in between: it attacks, but it wins by playing at instant speed and getting extra value out of every card it discards.
Some strong decks are harder to start with. Combo decks such as Full English Breakfast or Aluren, lock decks such as Stasis, and control decks that lean on counterspells, like Landstill and Psychatog, ask you to know which card to answer in each matchup before you have seen most of them. Cards that make you name a card, such as Meddling Mage, are hard for the same reason. The Rock plays one of them, Cabal Therapy, but with Duress in the same deck you usually see the hand before you have to name anything.
Five decks to start with
Each deck comes with the list we price on our budget page, an unchanged list from a 2026 tournament, and our full guide with mulligans, matchups and sideboard plans.
UG Madness
Madness cards can be cast for a cheaper cost when you discard them, and this deck discards on purpose. Wild Mongrel lets you discard a card to give it +1/+1, Basking Rootwalla can then be cast for free, Arrogant Wurm arrives as a 4/4 trampler for three mana at instant speed, and Circular Logic, discarded, costs a single blue mana and counters a spell unless the opponent pays one for every card in your graveyard. Squee, Goblin Nabob can return from the graveyard to your hand at the start of each of your turns, so there is always something to discard, and one Wonder in the graveyard gives all your creatures flying as long as you control an Island.
No card in Brian Sheets' list, which made the Top 4 of the 64-player Bay Area Eternal 3K Open in San Carlos, California, in August, costs more than $20 or €10 with reprints. The habit to learn early is patience with Careful Study and Frantic Search: cast without a madness card or Wonder to discard, they cost you cards. Once you are comfortable with the deck, you can add Survival of the Fittest, which 17 of the 35 Madness lists on MTGTop8 since late July play: it turns Squee into a creature tutor every turn. Survival is on the Reserved List and costs more than this whole list.
UG Madness guide · prices card by card
Deadguy Ale
Deadguy Ale is black and white and wants long games. Duress takes a noncreature spell and shows you the whole hand, Gerrard's Verdict makes the opponent discard two more cards, and Hypnotic Specter, cast on the first turn with Dark Ritual, makes them discard at random every time it connects. Swords to Plowshares and Vindicate answer whatever reaches the table, and once both players are low on cards, Phyrexian Arena draws an extra card every turn and Exalted Angel gains as much life as it deals.
Tommaso Salvatori won the final of the La Contea league in Rolo, Italy, in July (32 players) with a build that runs four Exalted Angels plus Desolation Angel and Blinding Angel. It suits a first deck because nearly every card trades for one of the opponent's, so a single misplay is easier to recover from, and the discard spells teach you the format: after a few events you know what the common decks keep in hand. The card to be careful with is Gerrard's Verdict against UG Madness, Reanimator and Replenish, where putting cards into their graveyard helps them. Reprints save the most on Exalted Angel, which costs $2.40 a copy from Commander: Murders at Karlov Manor instead of $33 for the Onslaught printing.
Deadguy Ale guide · Salvatori's list · prices card by card
Goblins
Goblins is number 3 on our tier list, and unlike Sligh it has a plan for long games. Goblin Lackey costs one mana, and when it deals damage to a player you may put a Goblin from your hand onto the battlefield, often Goblin Piledriver, which gets +2/+0 for each other attacking Goblin and has protection from blue. Goblin Warchief makes the rest cheaper and gives them haste. When the first attack stalls, Goblin Matron searches for the Goblin you need and Goblin Ringleader puts every Goblin among the top four cards of your library into your hand.
Daniel Donko won the Croatian Nationals in Zagreb with this red-green build in June, adding Forest and Karplusan Forest for two main-deck Naturalize. Half of what the list costs is lands: Wooded Foothills, Wasteland and Rishadan Port. Port works best in the opponent's upkeep on the land they need most; Wasteland is best spent on a land that fixes their colors or makes extra mana, such as Serra's Sanctum or Gaea's Cradle.
Goblins guide · Donko's list · prices card by card
The Rock
The Rock is black and green and, like Deadguy Ale, built for long games. Duress and Cabal Therapy take the opponent's best spells, Wall of Blossoms blocks and draws a card, and Pernicious Deed, sacrificed for X, destroys every artifact, creature and enchantment with mana value X or less, yours included. Ravenous Baloth, Krosan Tusker and Treetop Village are the threats, and in littledarwin's list, third at a Magic Online Challenge in September, Graveborn Muse draws an extra card every upkeep for 1 life and Ravenous Rats takes one from the opponent's hand. Because Deed can wipe a board you are losing, the deck gives you time to recover from an early mistake.
Most of the price is two cards: one Deranged Hermit and one Recurring Nightmare, both on the Reserved List and without a cheaper printing, make up two thirds of the list's cost in dollars and half in euros. You can start without them: more than half of the Rock lists on MTGTop8 since late July play neither.
The Rock guide · littledarwin's list · prices card by card
Sligh
Sligh is mono-red burn and number 2 on our tier list. Nearly every spell costs one or two mana and can deal the last points: Lightning Bolt and Incinerate deal 3, Seal of Fire waits on the table to deal 2 whenever you want, Grim Lavamancer taps and exiles two cards from your graveyard to deal 2 for one red mana, and Fireblast deals 4 for two sacrificed Mountains instead of mana. The deck teaches you to count: add up the damage on the board and in your hand every turn, and once it is enough, stop fighting creatures and aim everything at the player.
Nick Moran won the 64-player BCDL Open 5 in Columbus, Ohio, in August with the build we price. It has only eight creatures, Grim Lavamancer and Mogg Fanatic, plus four Mishra's Factory, and adds Black Vise, which punishes the opponent for holding more than four cards, and Pyrostatic Pillar, which deals 2 to any player who casts a spell with mana value 3 or less, you included. The more common build plays Jackal Pup instead, and most of those lists also run Ball Lightning. In Moran's list two copies of Cursed Scroll, a Reserved List card, make up more than 40 percent of the price and the eight fetchlands about a third. Basic Mountains work while you save up: they are what Fireblast sacrifices anyway, and Grim Lavamancer and Barbarian Ring have a little less in the graveyard.
Sligh guide · Moran's list · prices card by card
The five side by side
| Deck | Style | Tier | Reprints | Originals |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UG Madness | Aggro | 14 | $91 €83 | $409 €330 |
| Deadguy Ale | Midrange | 18 | $110 €111 | $520 €440 |
| Goblins | Aggro | 3 | $247 €293 | $1,412 €1,082 |
| The Rock | Midrange | 15 | $261 €247 | $739 €619 |
| Sligh | Aggro | 2 | $420 €399 | $1,281 €913 |
Full 75-card lists including the sideboard. Reprints: the cheapest tournament-legal printing of every card on TCGplayer ($) and Cardmarket (€), as of 19 October 2026. Originals: the printing from Fourth Edition to Scourge that our card pages show. Tier: our tier list.
The gap is widest for Goblins, whose fetchlands, Rishadan Port and Goblin Piledriver have much cheaper reprints, and smallest for The Rock and Sligh, because their Reserved List cards cost the same either way.
Which printings you can play
The official Premodern rules recommend allowing all tournament-legal printings and reprints of cards from the legal sets. In practice that means a Yavimaya Coast from a recent Commander deck is as legal as the one from Apocalypse. Gold-bordered World Championship Decks cards and Collectors' Edition cards are not tournament legal; some events allow the gold-bordered ones anyway, and our article on gold-bordered cards covers where.
Some players like the old frame and replace their reprints with older printings over time; a reprint plays exactly like the original, so that is purely a matter of taste. Reserved List cards are the exception, because Wizards of the Coast does not reprint them. In the five lists here that means Cursed Scroll, Recurring Nightmare and Deranged Hermit, plus Survival of the Fittest if you upgrade UG Madness.
Proxies are not covered by the official rules, so each organizer decides. Check the event page or ask before you bring any; our tournament pages list the proxy policy of each event.
Where to play
In the last month MTGTop8 recorded paper events from weekly store leagues to national championships such as the Czech Nationals in Prague, and Italy and Brazil had the most of them. A good way to find a local group is the Premodern Discord and the community groups linked on the official site, and our tournament calendar lists upcoming events with entry fee and proxy policy.
Online, Premodern has been on Magic Online since December 2025, with leagues and Challenges; littledarwin's Rock list above comes from one of them, and others play over webcam, for example in the APAC Webcam seasons.
After you pick one
Each of the five has a full guide on our site, linked in its section above, with mulligan advice, sequencing, notes on every common matchup and a sideboard plan. On our deck pages, the Test hand button deals a sample opening hand, so you can practice keeps and mulligans before you buy a card. When you build the deck, the budget page lists the cheapest printing of every card in the list and what it costs.
How we picked them
We looked for decks with a straightforward plan, recent tournament results and a low price with reprints. That ruled out combo, lock and counterspell control, and decks that are almost never built without an expensive Reserved List card, such as Stiflenought with Phyrexian Dreadnought or Elves with Gaea's Cradle. The lists are the ones on our budget page, unchanged and with sideboards, and the prices are explained under the table above. Tier ranks are from our tier list as of 19 October 2026. Card shares in other lists count MTGTop8 decklists since 20 July 2026.
Questions
What is the best Premodern deck for beginners?
UG Madness is the cheapest of the five decks in this article and both attacks and counters spells. If you prefer to attack, look at Goblins or Sligh; if you prefer long games, at Deadguy Ale or The Rock. Our budget page has a current tournament list for each of them.
Can I use modern-frame reprints in Premodern?
Yes. The official Premodern rules recommend allowing all tournament-legal printings and reprints of cards from the legal sets, so a reprint with the new frame normally counts the same as the original. Gold-bordered cards are not tournament legal, and whether an event allows them depends on the organizer.
Are proxies allowed in Premodern?
That is up to each tournament organizer, because the official rules don't mention proxies. Look at the event page or ask the organizer.
How much does a Premodern deck cost?
Mostly it depends on the printings. With the cheapest legal reprints, the five beginner decks in this article cost from under $100 for UG Madness to about $420 for Sligh, all 75 cards; in original printings they cost several times as much. Reserved List cards such as Survival of the Fittest and Cursed Scroll have no reprints and stay expensive.
Is it too late to get into Premodern?
No. MTGTop8 recorded 127 paper Premodern events in the 30 days to 17 October 2026, the format has been on Magic Online since December 2025, and most of the cards these decks need have cheap reprints.
