Hello and welcome back to a special edition of Ultra Budget Brews, the column that celebrates Christmas super early because they want to get a head start on everyone else's Christmas-themed articles. It's also the column that builds entire EDH decks containing no card costing more than $1 American. In lieu of a normal poll, last time I asked you all to vote on which Christmas movie you'd like me to attempt to turn into an EDH deck. Here were the results:

• Home Alone - 20%
• Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang - 2%
• Die Hard - 43%
• Christmas Vacation - 12%
• The Nightmare Before Christmas - 23%

First off, y'all need to see Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang. (See that? Look what you made me do. You got me all worked up and my Missouri started to rear its ugly, redneck head. Nobody wants that.) The movie is a national treasure and a Christmas movie to boot. Other than that, the voting went about how I expected. If I'm honest with myself, I was hoping Home Alone or Christmas Vacation would win, as they would lend themselves to some pretty zany decks, but Die Hard is a great movie, so complaining would be a smidge foolish.

A Good Day to Die Hard

With our movie chosen, we need to figure out our deck's commander. I briefly toyed around with making a deck built around Hans Gruber and his gang of goons, but that felt like he'd likely be U/B and most of the budget U/B commanders don't lend themselves to his character. As a result, I ended up going the obvious direction and building the deck around John McClane, our protagonist who does not in fact "Die Hard" as the movie title suggests. Dying is not in his vocabulary. He's nigh-unkillable. Knowing this, my first thought was Mikaeus the Unhallowed. Sadly, he is a zombie, costs almost $30, and doesn't really fit thematically. As colors go, John McClane is definitely not mono-black. He's a cop, and I'd argue that most cops are at least some amount of white. They like law, order, justice, and making sure everyone else follows the rules, for better or worse. We're for sure looking at white. That leaves 4 two color combinations: W/U, W/B, W/R, AND W/G. Let's look at each in turn.

W/U (Azorius) - Really likes rules and enforcing said rules. They like to be in complete control of every situation, think they're smarter than you, even if they aren't. The undercover cop that gets caught when they accidentally refer to pot as 'weed cigarettes'.

W/B (Orzhov)- Dirty Cop. Probably involved with the mafia, racketeering, etc. They are often seen swearing to Batman in some grungy back alley.

W/R (Boros) - Anger issues. Alpha dog. Perpetually having a bad day. Dislikes hardened criminals and the person who gets pulled over for speeding equally, because they are both people, and people suck. Does way more Crossfit than you do.

W/G (Selesnya) - Became a cop to help people. Spends a significant amount of time high-fiving disadvantaged teens and connecting with 'the youths'. D.A.R.E. officer at the local elementary school.

Using the above, John McClane is definitely W/R. He dislikes himself and is an action hero. Sounds pretty W/R to me. Knowing that he is W/R, we are left with one real option: Tajic, Blade of the Legion.

Welcome to the Party, Pal

Pros

• Indestructible
• Fairly cheap to cast
• Battalion makes him huge
• Has a cape. Capes are awesome

Cons

• 2/2 is really small
• Boros colors are real bad
• Not well-liked (all of his buddies totally abandoned him in the art)
• Sword is definitely more flash than function

As mentioned before, our goal is to build a deck themed around the movie Die Hard. Theme decks can be tricky because everyone has a different idea about how to make it a reality. I'm of the idea that deckbuilding is more art form than science. Sure, there are some things that pretty much every deck needs to function (card draw, ramp, etc.), and numbers can help us breakdown decks and find strengths and weaknesses, but a lot of deckbuilding comes down to feel. If something feels off, it probably is.

This is probably even more true for theme decks. There is a balance you have to strike between form and function. If you have too much form (theme), your deck may not function correctly. Explosive Apparatus is thematically on point, but isn't a card that you are likely to want to put in a deck. It's just not impactful enough. If you build too much for function, you'll lose a lot of the flavor and theme you were going for, negating the entire point of the deck. I tried to strike a balance between the two.

[Commander]
*1 Tajic, Blade of the Legion
[/Commander]

[Artifacts]
*1 Argentum Armor
*1 Bonesplitter
*1 Boompile
*1 Boros Cluestone
*1 Boros Keyrune
*1 Boros Signet
*1 Commander's Sphere
*1 Darksteel Axe
*1 Darksteel Ingot
*1 Fireshrieker
*1 Hero's Blade
*1 Honed Khopesh
*1 Inquisitor's Flail
*1 Loxodon Warhammer
*1 Mask of Memory
*1 Mind Stone
*1 Shuko
*1 Spear of Heliod
*1 Sunforger
*1 Swiftfoot Boots
*1 Sword of Vengeance
*1 Tenza, Godo's Maul
*1 Trusty Machete
*1 Veteran's Armaments
*1 Whispersilk Cloak
*1 Worldslayer
[/artifacts]

[Enchantments]
*1 Banishing Light
*1 Oblivion Ring
*1 Pariah
*1 Unquestioned Authority
[/enchantments]

[Instants]
*1 Abolish
*1 Acrobatic Maneuver
*1 Aurelia's Fury
*1 Brute Force
*1 Defiant Strike
*1 Double Cleave
*1 Expose Evil
*1 Fight to the Death
*1 Glorious End
*1 Intimidation Bolt
*1 Leave / Chance
*1 Magnetic Theft
*1 Mana Tithe
*1 Master Warcraft
*1 Oblation
*1 Onward / Victory
*1 Orim's Thunder
*1 Phalanx Formation
*1 Pitfall Trap
*1 Psychotic Fury
*1 Retaliate
*1 Ride Down
*1 Swift Kick
*1 Temur Battle Rage
*1 Valorous Stance
[/instants]

[Sorceries]
*1 Crash Through
*1 Hour of Revelation
*1 Insult / Injury
*1 Open the Armory
*1 Open the Vaults
*1 Rout
*1 Sublime Exhalation
[/sorceries]

[creatures]
*1 Sram, Senior Edificer
[/creatures]

[Lands]
*1 Battlefield Forge
*1 Boros Garrison
*1 Boros Guildgate
*1 Command Tower
*1 Evolving Wilds
*1 Forgotten Cave
*1 Hanweir Battlements
*10 Mountain
*1 Needle Spires
*10 Plains
*1 Rogue's Passage
*1 Secluded Steppe
*1 Slayers' Stronghold
*1 Stone Quarry
*1 Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion
*1 Temple of the False God
*1 Terramorphic Expanse
*1 Wind-Scarred Crag< [/lands] [/deck]   Total Cost: $37.62 (CardKingdom.com)

There's a lot to unpack here, so I'm going to start with the section that is most likely to draw some confused looks: creatures. In this case, the lack thereof. Tajic's Battalion ability lends itself to a build that plays lots of creatures and goes wide. This is one of the places I definitely chose form over function. John McClane is basically completely on his own the entire movie. The cops are stuck outside and the only people in the building that aren't actively trying to kill him are a bunch of helpless hostages. This lends itself to a low creature count. In fact the only creature I'm running is Sram, Senior Edificer. He is representative of the only person helping McClane at all, Sgt. Al Powell.

The real MVP

Sure, he's only giving emotional support, but that counts for something. Knowing this, I wanted him to directly support what our deck is trying to do. Our decks main aim is to get a bunch of equipment on to the battlefield and put them on Tajic. He rewards you for doing so by drawing you cards, something that the Boros color combination is notoriously bad at.

Magic, for better or worse, doesn't really have guns. Sure, there are some cannons running around and a few other things like that, but there are no real guns. The problem is that guns are almost exclusively what John used in the movie. While swords, daggers, and the lot are not directly analogous, they're as close as we're going to get. This means that our plan is to get our lone wolf armed to the teeth with every dagger, sword, and axe available and send him careening into the red zone. We're going equipment voltron, baby.

Assemble!

We have tons have artifacts, more specifically, tons of equipment. 18 of our cards can be equipped to Tajic. Cards like Honed Khopesh and Shuko may not seem very strong, but they can get the job done, especially when they are paired up with other cards like Fireshrieker. We also have Worldslayer, because I'm not sure it's possible to build a Tajic deck without one.

We also have a copy of Sunforger. This card allows us to improvise a bit on the fly. It's important to have the right answer for the right situation. Sure, just bludgeoning your enemies to death will work some percentage of the time, but Sunforger is the perfect card for situations where that isn't an option. McClane always seemed to have the right tool for the job, so this card represents that.

All of our instants, with the lone exception of Aurelia's Fury, are able to be cast off of a Sunforger activation. Also, there are a lot of fun Die Hard themed cards here that wouldn't be if not for theme. Retaliate, Swift Kick, Expose Evil, and Pitfall Trap are all fine, serviceable cards, but probably don't get played in your average deck because there are better options. This is an example of where we choose form over function.