#budget commander

[melancholia-ennui]

So inspired by a Cardmarket video, my partner, our friend and I are attempting a more extreme ultrabudget Commander deck challenge than any we've done before:

2€ Commander Deck Challenge

A 100 card Commander deck, where the total value of the lowest reasonable prices of cards* in the deck comes to 2€ or less

"lowest reasonable prices": you need to be able to find several (~5+) sellers offering the card at the price point at which you're counting it against your budget; just one listing for that price isn't enough

Budget does not include basic lands, but does include everything else including any nonbasic lands and the commander

You do not need to actually buy/play the printing you found at the lowest price point (aesthetic variations are fine, so long as a printing exists at the price point you are budgeting that card as)

[sashasscrapyard]

Hey MTG tumblr!

I know Tumblr blacklists links in posts, so here's a promo without one! I brew budget EDH decks on the weekly, all aimed towards costing less than the average precon. I'm rather new to the MTG side of tumblr, so if folks could reblog this post, that'd be great! If you want to see examples of what I've done, my pinned post is a directory of everything published thus far- I've been publishing 2 decks every weekend I've been able to.

[edh-a-to-z]

Budget EDH - Tajic, Blade of the Legion

Check it out here: (deck link)

Hail planeswalker!

I had been working on a deck tech for Angus Mackenzie (the next in my series of alphabetical commanders, coming soon!) when I realized something.

It’s crazy prices - Angus alone is over 150. Crazy expensive manabase (for maximum effectiveness), and basically pricey overall.

So, I wanna see if I can make a deck out of spare parts. Spare parts and under $50 dollars. So, here we go!

Tajic is a straightforward commander - get some dudes on the board, smash in.

We need Voltron parts, Tokens to go wide (plus go-wide support), some utility cards, and a cheap mana base. Let’s get to it!

Voltron

Our plan is to get Tajic out, soup him up, and lay waste.

We want evasion, haste, and damage. Luckily, Tajic is indestructible, which makes him much stickier - we can get away with leaving him around.

We want Tajic to swing through without problems, so that means unblockable on trample, and we need to pile on the damage (we also want him swinging at +5/+5, but that’s a token problem).

For unblockability, we need Spectra Ward. Protection from all colors is functionally unblockable. Hot Soup doesn’t have a downside for us, Whispersilk Cloak is great, and Rogue’s Passage are great and cheap.

Inquisitor’s Flail has no downside and doubles it’s equipped creatures damage, and Sword of Vengeance gives us a boatload of buffs. Relic Seeker is a cheap option to fetch us equipment, and Thalia’s Lancers can fetch us any legendary including Tenza, Godo’s Maul which works great with Tajic. 

Open the Armory and Godo, Bandit Warlord are cheap tutors.

Tokens

Captain of the Watch; by Greg Staples

Sunhome Guildmage can pop out hastey tokens and buff the team. Captain of the Watch is one of my pet cards, as she’s a one-man army and buff. Myr Battlesphere can bring an army and clear blockers, Trading Post gives you options and very scary 0/1 goats (that can attack!), Chancellor of the Forge is a fatty with tokens, Darien King of Kjeldor just went down in price. Conqueror's Pledge, Nomad’s Assembly, and Increasing Devotion are one-card armies

Paying to make tokens with Master Trinketeer, Oketra the True, and Drogskol Cavalry are also options.

There’s also some options for tokens not involving creatures. Assemble the Legion, Mobilization are great. 

Utility

Cast Out, Banishing Light and Oblivion Ring are some great removal options.

While we wanna avoid board sweepers, as we’re so devoted to the board, we wanna try out a few - it’s not like Tajic will die! While OG Wrath is over budget, we can consider Rout and Sublime Exhalation. Solid choices both, and both budget.

Rapid fire:

Draw from Staff of Nin, Mentor of the Meek, Magus of the Wheel and Skullclamp is a must.

Firemane Angel and Frontline Medic are great Battalion creatures.

Forsake the Worldly, Oblation, Swords to Plowshares, Condemn, Darksteel Mutation, Duergar Hedge-Mage, 

Marshal’s Anthem and Cathar’s Crusade are THE anthems. 

Adriana Captain of the Guard wants you to hit everyone, and Nobilis of War and Veteran Swordsmith make sure your tokens hit hard. Bring in Phantom General and Intangible Virtue as well.

On the defense, use Pariah on Tajic (he can take it!), and Plea For Guidance to get that (and any other) enchantments.

Chandra, Flamecaller nets you cards and can spam out creatures.

Stonecloaker, Sun Titan, Archon of Justice, Boros Guildmage, Twilight Shepherd, Hellkite Charger and Hoard-Smelter Dragon I didn’t feel like sorting. But they’re fun.

Mana Base

This is gonna be interesting.

Take a look at all those dual lands. Rugged Prarie, Sacred Foundry, Plateau. Look at them and weep.

We’re a guildgate kinda deck.

Start with 15 Mountains and 15 Plains. Plus Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse. Then Needle Spires, Boros Guildgate and Garrison, Wind-Scarred Crag, Slayer’s Stronghold also help. Add some cycling lands and cheap utility lands as you see fit.

On the manarock side of things, we use Boros Keyrune and Cluestone, Darksteel Ingot, Commander’s Sphere and Mindstone for some light ramping. 

After Building the Deck

We want Tajic, our commander, to hit the ground turn 4, and by turn 5 be a swinging 7/7. With some help, he should be able to kill another player with commander damage in 2-3 good swings. We also need him activated. If that means we swing in with a 0/1 Goat and a 1/1 Solider, do it. Make tokens often and fast - swarming is our backup plans. Don’t worry about board wipes, we have so many bodies on the field it’s easy to come back.

Bargain with your opponents - especially one’s in White or Black who can exile or -X/-X Tajic. Our only real fear is that, or Pacifism. 

Diplomacy is quick and hard in EDH, and time your attacks to kill someone with another’s help. 

Once you go a couple rounds with this deck, take it apart and analyze what works for you. Add some better cards from your collection, or experiment with some bulk you have.

Tajic, Blade of the Legion; by James Ryman

So, there you have it. Under 50 bucks. Uses a lot of EDH staples that can be used later, and can easily be upgraded to a more token based strategy, or a better equipment package.

Well campers, that was fun. If you want me to feature another budget commander, let me know! Questions, comments, ideas, hit me with it, I’m always looking for stuff in my inbox!

[gryffnwing-blog]

Commander Challenge: Budget, yeah, budget.

So disclaimer. Normally i used to say that we would never count the price of the Commander, or basic lands. (This was something that I thought people had when looking at these articles.) I normally just looked at the budget for the deck. Well, I never took notice, but Tappedout puts the price of the commander in the overall price....we’ve been low on numerous occasions... “You’re an idiot!” Yes voice, yes I am. So fun fact, our budget for this deck was $50. The price for the Commander, an Uncommon Commander, well, she’s $12.10.  We came in under budget at $47.03.

She’s expensive! “Because she’s worth it.” Yes, yes she is.

“Ok, so what’s the gimmick this time?” Gimmick? “Yeah, you had us be an ‘assassin’, a ‘dreamer’. What now?” Hm, well, a peasant. “You can’t be serious!” But I am. You, with your meager budget, are up against kings.Your goal, to take down these tyrants. Show them that power does not come from wealth, or upbringing, but acquired through patience and skill. “Uhh....” Our commander is a single target fog. We can do that to save ourselves, or gain favor with one of the Royal’s. Get either the control player, or the mid-range player on your side. Use their pity, and take out the aggro players. Our goal is to take down Kings and Queens, and sometimes you use their help to get it. Majority of the deck is about resetting the field, or taking out problems one step at a time. Field resets;  False Prophet, Aetherspouts, Balancing act, Devastation Tide, Merciless Eviction, all do one thing. Reset the field. False Prophet can sometimes stop players from attacking you, or casting one sided board wipes. Balancing Act  makes them clean up their board, and for the blue player, discard their hand. “We run a Planeswalker? That doesn’t seem budget.” Well, he’s actually under $5, and if we get him early game, he can lock down a mana dork, or some other problematic early game creature, gaining life and drawing a card is amazing. If we get his ult off, we can win games. All of our enchantments play on combat, or locking out our opponent. Fight or Flight allows us to lessen the damage that can be dealt to us or others. Frozen Aether on the board shuts down combos, and lessens the impact of big hasty beaters. Now we have a pseudo win-con in mill, and have Sphinx’s tutelage and Mind’s Dilation, now early game we can get some steam going, and if we’re against a mono-colored deck, we can sing praise. “Why is Telepathy in the deck?” To cause paranoia among the players. You’re letting the control player know what to counter, the aggro player know that they're going to get countered. The combo player is now the main target. You’re safe, secure, and quiet. That’s how you win. If you can play a turn one or two Telepathy, you can laugh and sit back. “What do our creatures do?” We’re low on creatures, at 20. For us, it can be game breaking, but since we play so many board wipes, and “balancing cards”, we don’t lose out on much. Many of our creatures bounce other creatures/ Planeswalkers, etc. The rest  locks up the board, or makes the opponent lose a card. In the case of Notion thief, we tie down the control and combo player. Ayli, Eternal Pilgrim is in the deck, to be a wall, and be a sac outlet for Merieke.

Always player her when you can protect her. We have some counter magic, and some protection. Take the threats during combat, and sac to Ayli. Rinse, repeat. “How do we win?” Stay quiet, get political favors, and know that it’s an uphill battle. We’re a budget deck. So we lack some consistency with draw power and counter magic. We’re like a group hug deck, except we don’t get a single person gas. We just shield them. When they see that double rainbow, remind them that it was you who showed them. We can win off of the other players squabbling and perhaps off of mill.  “If you had a bigger budget, what would you add?” Land base could be fixed. I’d add a Maze of Ith, for more political fun. From there I’d and in a Jace Beleren. We could add things like Blue Sun’s Zenith, Elspeth, Sun’s Champion. If we’re talking higher budget. Supreme Verdict and Wrath of God are needed. The deck would become more of a “Draw and go” style of play, but to keep it like this, add Maze, fix the land base, add in a few walkers and some better fog effects. As always, thanks for reading. This weeks poll is Vampire Generals Here, so vote for your favorite one!  If you liked the article, please like and share. It helps my confidence, and lets me know there are people actually reading it.  If you have any questions, comments, thoughts, comment. I try to get back within 24 hours, or just note me about it.  Thank you all for reading, and your continued support. As always, I’ll see you in the next article. Gryffnwing~

[gryffnwing-blog]

Commander Challenge: Do Dragons dream of World Domination?

With the rise of power that Is Nicol Bolas. We must wonder. Do all Dragons dream of World Domination? “Well yeah! They’re big, strong, and can eat you!” I don’t believe that’s what they all want.

Some just want to be the best maid possible. (Seriously, watch Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. I’ll be doing a review on it....and Gundam: Iron-blooded Orphans). But what does our Commander, Intet dream of? She has the title of Dreamer.

Intet dreams of a the times right after a rain storm. The smell of wet grass and peaceful days....Nah mate, I’m kidding. She dreams of Chaos. Not to rule the world, but to see what the world does when faced with threats that may not even exist...yet. So if Intet deals combat damage to a player, we can pay 2 and a blue to exile the top card of our library. We can then cast it without paying its mana cost. Now we can cast it whenever we normally can as long as she is still on the battlefield. “So you mean if she dies, or we cannot cast her again. We’re screwed?” Uh, not exactly. Yes, our goal is to get Intet out early. Secondly most of our cards are meant to annoy our opponents. Remember that last deck I built? “You mean that annoying Mono-black deck?” Yes! This time our goal is to dream. We can day dream all we want. While everyone around us is building up huge armies, we’re thinking of a good story. Heck, maybe we’ll dream of casting the same spells as our opponent. “Ok, well how do we make dreams a reality?” Work hard, dedication...pfft yeah, no. We’re like an evil C.E.O, we step on the backs of others, give them chump change and make a profit.

Yeah, we’ll take your draw spells, we’ll look incredible. Now yes, it almost plays out as a one time play, but this also makes people waste a kill spell (Yup, we can just change the targets then). Or they hold off casting something. We have Curse of Echos, which makes combo players cry. Their tears taste delicious. With that we have both Molten Primordial and Diluvian Primordial. Take their hard earned creatures and make them yours.  “Sounds boring. Don’t we do anything but wait?” Well we do have this: 

We have thirteen cards in our deck that get double the flavor. Now imagine casting a Zealous Consrcipts and getting two things. Drawing four off of Mulldrifter...more cards from the Primordial’s.  Taking peoples dreams and making them our own. “That’s mean!” It is, but it is an evil we must do.

This as well as Knowledge Exploitation, Mass Mutiny, Gather Specimens, and Cultural Exchange can let us take things we need to survive.  “Well how are we supposed to attack? What if we top deck something useless with Intet’s abilty?”

This will let us get some damage in. As to the top decking aspect, we have eleven cards that scry or manipulate the top of our deck. “How do we play her?” Most likely we will be casting her on turn five or six, and attacking the turn after. Before we attack, we should always scry or attempt to manipulate the top of our deck and know what she can cast for us. At worst she gets us ramp, at best a field wipe from a Kederekt Leviathan. We’re chaotic neutral here. Yes, we might steal things, but we never want to get targeted. It’s hard for us to recover. Let’s talk about some big dream plays. We steal things through Molten Primordial, or through  Mass Mutiny. If we have mana open and Deadeye Navigator on the field. It’s ours until the end of the game. Next up, if we have a Chimera out, and cast a Progenitor Mimic. We get all the spells. They can have a token. For those of you that go against token decks, and against big dudes.dek, Cultural Exchange can make them some friends. Or in your case, save yourself and make a friend. Lastly our Planeswalkers all net us a form of draw. In the case of Kiora, some ramp. Also why Sarkahn Unbroken? Because I like him, and he draws a card. Our Budget was $100, we ended up at $96.36. “What would you add if you had a bigger budget? Our land base could use some work. Fetches can help us play around with scry. If we had shocks and filter lands, we would have an easier time to cast things. Big EDH staple, Sensei’s Divining Top will help us get Intet off. I would cut things like Divergent Transformations, Selval’s Stampede for mana doublers.  Over all Intet can be built in any fashion. From things like combo, to control, big dudes. I decided on a bit of Chaos, because it’s fun to dream big. You can find the full build here. Thanks as always for reading. If you have any suggestions or questions. Please feel free to ask and comment. Reblogs help me know people want this article to continue. Remember we have a weekly poll. This weeks challenge is $50 budgets and Uncommon Commanders. You can vote here. As always, thank you for your continued support. You all make this worth doing. Gryffnwing~

[gollumni]

Super excited that I've finally built a $30 commander deck to go up against my friends with!

Commander is Pramikon, Sky Rampart, and the theme is forcing attacks/pillow fort/politics.

Decklist here, and I also want to highlight some things that I can't wait to cast, but first I want to preface this with how this kind of thing came to be.

So, as a part of the regular Magic: the Gathering club at my school, I play a lot of commander. Now, with the nature of commander, power level varies a whole heck of a lot. You can't put a cobbled deck made from commons and uncommons, a precon, and a cEDH deck together in the same pod. It's going to suck getting stomped on, and it's going to suck stomping (if you're not a bully). So to remedy that, one of the people at the club decided to start making $20 decks. It hadn't really caught on with most of the club, and even today it's evolution (we bumped up the price, sue us) is pretty limited to me and my suitemates, but it's a way of making sure that the power of decks is significant in a way that doesn't screw people over. It's also worth mentioning that this isn't really $30 dollar commander, because we exclude the price of the commander as well as the price of basics, as well as using the lowest price for the card (on moxfield). Because of this, it's really easy to come up with a first draft of a deck, since you have $30 for roughly 64 cards (presuming you run 35 basics) and each card has to be around 47 cents.

But with that, let's go to some of the cards in the decklist!

First is Time Wipe, this 2-color five mana board wipe is a bit of an investment, but considering you're able to keep your commander from going back to the command zone, I'd say that it's worth it.

Second is Wall of Stolen Art Identity, usually a pretty decent way to try and copy a player's creature for yourself while keeping the original down, but if you copy Pramikon and choose the opposite direction, players can't swing with anything, and keeping the board locked turn 6 is very fine with me considering Approach of the Second Sun and Azor's Elocutors are also slotted in.

Finally we have Trove of Temptation, which is a card that I've been wanting to try and put in ever since I got it. I love it, but it's unfortunately a terrible card in commander, what with having three people attacking you instead of one. However, paired with Pramikon, you lower the number of swinging player's back down to one, or potentially less if your have enough Propaganda-style effects or the aforementioned Wall of Stolen Identity.

All in all, I can't wait to start playing with this, and hopefully my one suitemate's Negan doesn't enter with me in the crosshairs too often, haha!

[walkingatlas]

Low Market Alesha Cycling

Alesha, Who Smiles At Death art by Anastasia Ovchinnikova

The release of Amonkhet has given me plenty of new toys for one of my favorite decks, a deck I now share with you in Low Market budget format: it's Alesha Cycling!

[walkingatlas]

Low Market Sydri Aetherflux Storm

Aetherflux Reservoir art by Cliff Childs

This week's budget commander list brings together combo, artifacts, and evil death-lasers. What's not to like?