Montana, Junkz, Bangers

Hugo

Jackie
Oxen
Rubie
Nellie
Samantha / Lehane
Frankie Hi / Burt
Beetenka

An extremely easy deck to use and will pay itself off very quickly. I know it's boring Uppers but it's still one of the strongest decks out there and sometimes you can just play the pillz without worrying. However you could pick a different clan, 30k is a pretty big budget for DT

Also - if you don't want to go with the flow, pick a clan aside from Uppers or Montana (and maybe Rescue). They're what most people are playing (well used to be, now there's a lot of variety), you can score well with a lot of decks. I find Uppers to be the easiest though which is why I recommended them.

@visual: well, people sometimes use plashes, they are cards that are amazing in the clan and on their own, Lehane is one of the splashes, the most powerful actually, that's why there was a discrepancy between her and Samantha, you could keep to the spirit of Uppers and go with Samantha, or take up a chance of getting a 1/1/2 split and use Lehane. i suggest you go with Lehane, you'll find her more than worth the price you pay for her.

This gets me into the top 50 often enough: Hugo & The Pirates

Take out Smokey Cr and replace with Sting, Kristin, Katan... even Andsome could work.

A little trickier to run with when you don't draw Hugo, but they do take care of the nasty Uppers bonuses.

I use this from time to time, a few lucky draws and good prediction skills get you to top 50 with it Riches of pirates, may be Glenn to Dorian and Hawkins Noel to Hawkins and Jody to Nellie. that's inside the 30k "budget"

I think my current DT deck is right at 2500 Clintz total. (That's two thousand, five hundred, not a typo of twenty five thousand)Broken the top 50 many a day, top 20 a few times, but I can't get above 7th to save my life. I'm starting to think that timely evolutions is the keystroke that I'm missing.

Not sure yet.

Why not post the deck while you're at it? He is looking for a deck, not its reputation(although that still helps).