#budget edhatoz

[edh-a-to-z]

MtG Rotation Guide - Amonkhet

Just got back from vacation. Time to plop out another Rotation Guide.

Cycling Duallands

The Dual Cycle Lands have dropped in price to under a dollar, making them an attractive alternative to shocklands.

The land typing makes it nice to fetch by fetchlands if you have them, or by other ramp creatures that care about land types like Nature’s Lore. Cycling makes it nicer than the EDH-pre cons which usually have monocolor cycling lands. Solid choice, all.

Hazoret & Co.

These gods aren’t quite as good as the Theros ones in utility. Hazoret especially is hard to build around, an Bontu can be a pain to use regularly. but all of them work pretty well on the Battlefield. 

Liliana, Death’s Majesty

A solid walker. Light milling helps a res deck, and she protects herself. A second ability that resurrects your biggest and baddest creature (and Zombie types them) is great, and a one-sided board wipe as an Ult really shape it up.

She’s heavily board invested, and her abilities are defensive, and no removal or utility abilities reduced her versatility, but what she does, she does well.

Gideon of the Trials

Nominal usage in defanging scary Voltron or other buffed out creatures is nice. And of course the Tribal Gideon emblem is a nice consideration (a superfriends deck can field 6 of them now).

Not super stylish, but worth experimenting with.

Anointed Procession

The Doubling Season cousin, this is one of my favorite enchantments of the set - and it has the MaRo doubling seal of approval. Every serious token deck that can should pack one of these in.

As Foretold

Another great toy for EDH, the ability to abuse this on other players turns in a Multiplayer format is tremendous - by the time it’s back to your turn, you’ve had like 4-5 plays.

Check for more rules on As Foretold over here. Time for some naughty Sorcery-at-Instant fun!

Vizier of the Menagerie

Even though EDH asks a lot out of creatures, this Vizier helps smooth out any problem a creature based deck can have - more draw and mana fixing. 

Prowling Serpopard

The other part of the Amonkhet 1-2 creature punch, it also has nominally useful creature tribal tags, and preventing creatures from being countered makes them more reliably win-cons.

Lord of the Accursed

A rare Uncommon for my list, for being a Lord and more, this is an Auto-Require for any Zombie tribal deck.  

Also, it can give menace to your opponents Zombies, so that might be fun, politically speaking. (who am I kidding that’ll never come up)

The X Gods

While Scorpion God is still kinda lame, the ability to dodge the commander tax and have amazing Bodies and abilities, these Grixis pair gods are absolute monsters.

Especially The Scarab God. 

Bontu’s Last Reckoning

I’m always sweet on a non-damage based board wipe. I think that -X toughness is the best, as it can pin Indestructible, but I’ll take wipes any day.

Mono black doesn’t have as many as White, and a 1 mana discount on Wrath of God is phenomenal. The Defeat drawback of not getting a Land untap is not as bad in EDH with artifact and creature ramp being readily available.

The Rest

By Force - a nifty Artifact removal card, for those who think $10 is ridiculous to pay for Shattering Spree

Angel of Sanctions - I like removal, and I like removal I can use twice.

Approach of the Second Sun - Alt Win-Cons make me happy, and this one can be broken easily for EDH

Glorybringer - Nominally useful for Dragon tribal

Archfiend of Ilfnir - For all your Tribal cycling needs

Commit//Memory - Messing with spells, then refilling the hand (and messing with an enemy’s hand) can be pretty nifty

Aven Mindcensor - Always fun to mess with enemy Tutoring

Champion of Wits - Nominally interesting fill the yard and draw

The Commanders 

Going over the Legendary Creatures not mention earlier...

Hapatra  - Fun with interesting build-around strategies, and lets a lot of previously unusable -1/-1 counter cards have some time to play

Neheb 1.0 - Minotaur Tribal still to weak, but an important piece for the future.

Samut - Interesting for a Bant Voltron. Has a heck of a word salad. 5 CMC is a slow time to come down, but makes up for it with Flash/Haste, so all you need to bring is some protection

Temmet - worthless

Djeru - solid pick as 1 of the 99 for every Superfriends deck

Neheb 2.0 - amazing Burn commander.

Razaketh - Borderline ban in my group, but actually pretty fair. Paying life and Sacing dudes makes a great combo collector.

Unesh - Like Neheb 1.0, there’s not a lot of great Sphinx Tribal options, but this has an amazing effect, so it’s worth a Jank brew.

Working on a Halloween deck tech. See y’all real soon campers. Let me know whatcha think.

[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!