Budget Arbitrations....

Let's talk about Money.

Commander can become an expensive version of Magic to play. Fans of the format will spend £100s and £1000s of pounds on foil versions of rare cards for to complete their decks.

Wizards have done a fantastic job of creating pre-constructed Magic decks that don't cost the earth and are fairly playable out of the box. 

They are often less focused than they could be and can be customised as you play with and realise how you want the deck to work.

But what about if you're building a deck from scratch? 

I'm also aware that some play groups set a budget for a deck to level the playing field and make building the deck more challenging.

To that end, I too am going to try and build a budget deck. I'm hoping it'll force me to play some cards I might otherwise completely skip when looking to build the deck.

Here is my one and only rule.

1. With the exception of my commander no card shall be worth more than £3.00. 

To check my prices I'm using Magic Madhouse. They are one of the biggest single card sellers in the UK. Not the cheapest I might add but that makes my choice seem fairer.

I confess I did a search on Google for suggestions for budget build commanders and I ended up settling on Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

He'll cost me £4.99 or if I want to get him in foil he's £7.99. As we go through my chosen cards I'll show the price for each with the price for the foil, where available in brackets.

With that out of the way let's take a better look at him:

He has a CMC of 4 which isn't bad and means we should be able to get him on the board fairly early in the game.

 He is a Human Advisor. I confess I actually looked on the Gatherer to see just how many advisors there are. There are more than I expected. There's actually more than one in this deck it transpires.  There aren't enough to go tribal, though. Yes, I could choose to go Human tribal but Augustin isn't the card for that.

 His abilities are why I chose him. By making my spells cheaper and my opponents' spells more expensive he helps to speed me up and stall them.

He has a 2/3 body which is a little low for a 4cmc creature with no combat abilities but that's not why I am playing him. He is very much a passive commander in this deck.

So the first thing I want to do is add cards that increase the effect of either making my spells cheaper or my opponent's spells more expensive.

Sapphire Medallion - £2.99
Pearl Medallion - £1.99
Warden of Evos Isle - £0.10 (£0.35)

Jace's Sanctum - £0.50 (£2.49)
Stone Calendar - £1.99

Now I would be the first person to admit that there are better mana rocks available at lower casting costs than Stone Calendar. But I'm already playing some of those and this card is more part of the theme of the deck.

All of the cards here are self-explanatory, Warden of Evos Isle and Jace's Sanctum do lead me towards playing more flying creatures and plenty of instants and sorceries.

Aura of Silence - £0.75 (£7.99)
Monastery Seige - £.075 (£2.99)

Thalia, Heretic Cathar - £2.99 (£7.99)
Spelltithe Enforcer - £0.75 (£1.99)

Thalia, Guardian of Thraben would probably have made it into this deck but she's £9.99 due to being played in other formats.

So between these nine cards and my commander my spells should be cheaper to cast and their spells more expensive.

But that's not going to win me any games and it's going to make me unpopular as well.

So what I decided to do was find so alternative win cons and see If I could fit them into the deck.

Celestial Convergence - £0.75 (£2.49)
Felidar Sovereign - £0.50 (£1.49)
Azor's Elocutors - £0.40 (£1.49)

Sadly Test of Endurance, at £5.99, was outside of my budget. But these three will do even if I don't seem any of them in a game.

To keep me in the game for long enough to win, one way or another, I need to be able to protect myself...

Counterlash - £0.30 (£1.49)
Overwhelming Denial - £0.99 (£3.99)
Desertion  - £0.40 (£1.49)

Spelljack - £2.99 (£14.99)

Summary Dismissal - £1.49 (£3.99)
Swift Silence - £0.40 (£1.49)
I have to admit that making the choice of what counterspells to include gave me a lot to think about. Something to note; Summary Dismissal counters even uncounterable spells like Overwhelming denial. It also helps to ruin your opponents day when they go ultimate with a Planeswalker.

In addition to the above counter spells I've also chosen to run the following 4 instants.

Devouring Light - £0.20 (£1.25)
Fated Retribution - £0.40 (£1.49)
Ray of Distortion - £0.10 (£0.49)

Blessed Alliance - £0.75 (£2.49)
Banishing Stroke - £0.35 (£0.99)
Dismantling Blow - £0.35 (£2.99)

I think all of these are negotiable except Fated Retribution. An instant board wipe that gets rid of planeswalkers and can let you Scry 2 as well. Yes, it has a cost to match but this deck is built to make that cheaper. You may want to use blue instants that bounce cards to the hand, especially if your meta contains a lot of token-based decks.

In addition to these, I'm running three sorceries and a trio of Enchantments as well.

Descend upon the Sinful £1.49 (£4.99)
Inundate £1.25 (£2.49)
Fumigate £2.99 (£4.99)

Three sorceries, three ways of wiping creatures from the board. In addition to these and the earlier instant, Fated Retribution, I've also opted for at least one creature that will wipe the board for me as well.

Faith's Fetters £0.25 (£1.49)
Reparations £0.99
Imprisoned in the Moon £0.40 (£2.49)

Faith's Fetters was previously my favourite way to shut down my enemy's commander, Imprisoned in the Moon might just get close to matching it thought. Reparations is just a fun card that says; sure you can target me or my creatures but I'm going to get another card out of it.

Next, let's look at the artifacts I chose:

Azorius Cluestone £0.10 (£0.49)
Sol Ring £1.99 (£24.99)
Azorius Keystone £0.20 (£0.49)
Darksteel Ingot £0.35 (£2.49)
Seer's Lantern £0.10 (£0.25)

There's nothing too surprising here I don't think. I chose Seer's Lantern as I like the idea of being able to Scry if I've got unused mana.

Mask of Avacyn - £0.75 (£0.99)

Swiftfoot Boots - £0.49 (£4.99)

Crawlspace - £2.49 (£7.99)

Two cards to protect my commander. I would have liked more but the price budget wouldn't allow it as Lightning Greaves are £6.99. Crawlspace is just a great way to limit my opponents, especially those who want to attack with token armies.

Speaking of armies, here's the rota of creatures I chose for this deck...

Aerial Responder - £0.49 (£2.49)
Angel of Serenity - £1.25 (£7.99)
Angel of the Dire Hour - £2.99

Aerial Responder is one of many creatures I've picked that focus on Lifelink. I did have more selected but I chose to drop them if they didn't have flying as well. There were, alas, plenty of creatures I had to dismiss as they were way out of budget.

There's a lot of Angels in this deck, they tend to have quite powerful abilities and not be too expensive to purchase and the deck helps to lower their casting costs as well.

Angelic Arbiter - £0.99 (£1.99)
Angelic Skirmisher - £0.99 (£2.49)
Arbiter of the Ideal - £0.40 (£0.30)

It's worth noting that Angelic Skirmisher gives an ability at the beginning of every combat phase not just your own. Useful to give your creatures First Strike for example if you might end up being the defender.

I love Arbiter of the Ideal's ability so much so I've included another card to help make it work better.

Archon of the Triumvirate - £0.40 (£0.50)
Azorius Guildmage - £0.99 (£2.49)
Battlegrace Angel - £1.25 (£2.49)

Archon is alright but I think it would be better in a deck that can flicker it. Eldrazi displacer is currently £3.99 which is just out of reach of my budget. The Guildmage is just useful to have around and Battlegrace Angel is nice if you're just using a single attacker.

Cloudblazer - £0.35 (£1.49)
Dawnbringer Charioteers - £0.40 (£1.49)
Drogskol Reaver - £1.99 (£5.99)

Cloudblazer is just a cheap creature with a nice ETB effect - if I needed a slot in the deck it would probably be one of the first cards I'd consider dropping. The Charioteers are a decent flying Lifelink creature and Drogskol Reaver is just nuts.

Gustcloak Savior - £0.40 (£1.49)
Isperia, Supreme Judge - £1.49 (£3.99)
Medomai the Ageless - £1.49 (£2.49)

Gustcloak Savior I included because I love attacking and then watching my opponent work out all the match-ups which I can promptly back out of if they are not in my favour. He also works well with Arbiter of the Ideal.  Isperia punishes people for attacking me by letting me draw a card for each creature they attack with. While Medomai is just a useful creature to be able to play during a game.

Sky Hussar - £0.75 (£2.49)
Sphinx of Magosi - £0.30 (£1.49)
Sphinx of the Final Word - £1.49 (£4.99)

Sky Hussar I chose more because it's a nifty way of drawing cards and some of my favourite gotos are beyond my budget. Sphinx of Magosi, however, is not beyond my budget and has an excellent reusable ability.

Sphinx of the Final Word is there to help stop people countering my spells which, in turn, saves my counters for countering my opponent's spells.

Windbrisk Raptor - £0.99 (£1.49)
Windreader Sphinx - £1.49 (£2.99)
Curious Homunculus - £0.49 (£2.49)

Windbrisk Raptor, despite the horrible artwork, is a great way to give any of my attacking creatures Lifelink.

Windreader Sphinx is yet another great way for me to draw cards.

Curious Homunculus is alright but it's his flip side I'm really interested in:

Voracious Reader - really probably should have included this as part of the spells that marry up with my chosen commander but he ended up here, I think because I was focussed on his normal side and not his flip side.

Last up I guess, unusually for me, I should talk about lands as even they had to adhere to my budget. Therefore, a lot of the big money fetches, duals, filters etc aren't going to be seen in this deck.

Command Tower - £0.99 (£24.99)
Arcane Lighthouse - £2.49
Reliquary Tower - £2.49 (£3.99)

Hopefully, these are all self-explanatory.

Evolving Wilds - £0.10 (£1.49)
Terramorphic Expanse - £045 (£1.99)

Unfortunately, Myriad Landscape is outside of my budget so only these two could be included.

Lonely Sandbar - £0.10 (£3.49)

Drifting Meadow - £0.10

I have a fondness of the cycle lands, useful if you draw them late in the game. Here I've got one of each type to demonstrate the difference between taping for 1 blue or 2 colourless mana.

 

Halimar Depths - £0.99 (£3.99)

New Benalia - £0.20 (1.25)

If you are going to play lands that come into play tapped it is better that they do something useful and not something useless like let you gain 1 life. Theses two both let you look at the top card/s of your library - it's very useful to be able to sort out what your next draw will be.

Cloud Crest Lake - £0.35 (£1.25)
Glacial Fortress - £2.99 (£3.99)

Port Town - £2.99 (£3.99)

Prairies Stream - £2.49 (£4.99)

Shimmering Grotto - £0.20 (0.49)

Temple of Enlightenment - £2.00 (£6.99)


To finish off we have five variations on dual lands and Shimmering Grotto, which is probably more useful in a 3 or more colour deck but I included it here because it's cheap.

SUMMARY

What I've ended up with is a reasonably good deck that could do with more focus if more money could be spent on it.

As it is it came in at £82.06 including the cost of a non-foil version of my commander.  If I want to foil as many of the cards as possible then it'll set me back £241.30 not including foil basics and costs for buying other bling replacements for the cards where no foil is available.

Overall I'm quite happy with how the experiment went, however, it was very time consuming putting it all together and then writing it up as a blog.

Until next time may you only spend slightly more than you intended on cards.

Phil

Invent your tomorrow...today!

It's the Kaladesh pre-release this weekend so I thought I'd take a run through the set and see what cards I like for Commander/EDH

First up there's 4 planeswalkers (6 if you count the extra two but more about those later) to take a look at.  Two walkers we've never encountered before and two we have.

Meet Shaeeli Rai and Dovin Baan.

Saheeli lacks the ability to defend herself in anyway. Her -2 is strictly offensive not defensive. Unlike Dovin whose +1 is not only defensive but it's great for shutting down certain types of commander.

Being able to Sky is always nice and I can see people using Saheeli's +1 to scry until they get a large artifact creature to copy like one of the colossi (colosses) for example.

Both have decent ultimate abilities but the Emblem Dovin Baan gets will make you plenty of enemies in Commander, not that they'll be able to do much about it by that point.

Chandra and Nissa you should be already familiar with. Since the mistake Wizard's made with Jace, the Mind Sculpter they have stuck to Planeswalkers with 3 abilities.

All that changes with Chandra, Torch of Defiance. It's worth noting that you don't cast lands. So if you use Chandra's top +1 and draw a land you have to exile it and deal 2 damage to each opponent.

In mono red I can see Chandra's +1 being used to allow people to speed through their deck more easily in a colour that is starved for decent draw effects.

Her other +1 is self explanatory. Her -3 is very defensive and her ultimate is pretty nice.

Nissa, Vital Force is very much an archetypal planeswalker. Her +1 if for self defense, her -3 is nearly always going to be useful. Her ultimate is alright it's not exactly game breaking but it does give you plenty of extra cards.

So those are your Planeswalkers next up let's take a look at who you can use as a new commander, the legends of the set.

Oviya Pashiri, Sage Lifecrafter isn't too bad she's cheep to cast but her abilities are not. It's her second ability that I think will see most use as creating giant creatures that can then be doubled with Populate for 5 mana is far more efficient that creating 1/1s for 3 mana.

I'm not sure Dwarf tribal is a thing yet but you can see Wizard's trying to kickstart it with Depala, Pilot Exemplar.

There's a few nice dwarves in the set and we should get more in the second set in the series. But there's scarce few dwarves otherwise with a few exceptions like Dwarven Blastminer.

There are also some very nice Vehicles in the set as well, a couple of which I'll talk about later on in this article. So you might see someone try a Depala deck but I'm not sure it'll work just yet.

I don't expect to see Padeem, Consul of Innovation as a commander. For me she has support card written all over her. Yes she'll make it into the 99 of a lot of artifact focused decks but I think there are better choices of commander for those types of decks.

Gonti, Lord of Luxury could be a lot of fun. The trick is, once you have cast the card you found in your opponent's library, to flicker him into exile so you can do it all over again.

Kambal is very straight forward. I'm guessing he'll also end up being one of the 99 rather than a commander.

Rashmi on the other hand is awesome and I'm going to build a deck around her sooner rather than later. She's either free draw or free cards in play. If you scry enough you can engineer perfect situations for yourself before casting your first spell. Also note it's each turn not just your turn.

Pia Nalaar again I'm not sure we'll see Pia much being run as a commander rather than as part of the 99. Nothing about her, for me at least, seems to say she'd be an exciting commander.

The set also contains a Legendary Land:

I Inventor's fair this to be played in decks that are heavily littered with artifacts such as Deretti, Scrap Savant decks. The life gain is not but it's the tutor ability that makes this really useful.

We also have a Legendary Artifact - Vehicle

Vehicles are arifacts that become creatures when they are Crewed. This means that Skysovereign, Consul Flagship cannot be your commander. Still it's nice card to play especially in those that don't usually have access to direct damage.

Another Vehicle that really stands out from the list is Demolition Stomper.

A 10/7 that specifically can't be chump blocked for 6 mana is a nice card and I can see it showing up in plenty of decks.

If people will pay 3 for Commander's Sphere then they will pay 3 for Cultivator's Caravan. After all you get mana of any colour on a possibly 5/5 body for 3.

This leads me nicely into a look at the other choice Artifacts in the set, and there are some gems in this set that's for sure.

Let's be honest someone, somewhere is trying to work out how to use Aetherflux Reservoir by reversing the loss of life. I know I am certainly going to look into it.  It's also a great way to abuse infinite life gain. Once you've got the life you can just sac as much as it takes to kill your opponents.

Energy counters are new for this set and provide a new method of paying for effects. In the case of Aetherworks Marvel it lets you look at the top six cards of your library and cast one of them.  It helps that it produces Energy counters to fuel itself and I can see it being used in token sacrifice decks and graveyard reanimation decks.

I'm considering putting Animation Module into my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck. It'll go infinite for sure with the right cards and doesn't need Ghave to do so which is always helpful if your commander is unavailable.

Infinite mana and an infinitely large Juniper Order Ranger.

It also gives you extra energy counters or your opponent extra poison counters should you be playing infect.

Oh look an artifact creature lord, fairly simple but oh so useful if you're creating masses of thopters, myrs or servos.

Not much needs to be said about Deadlock Trap. However, you do really need another source of energy counters in order to keep tapping your opponent's Planeswalker or Commander.

Doubling gets out of hand very quickly. So while Electrostatic Pummeler may look like a very expensive 1/1 if he gets a boost of toughness and your opponent has enough energy counters beware.

With 1 spell, giving him +4/+4 and trample and nine energy counters he'll go from 1/1 to 40/40 in the blink of an eye!

I expect to see Foundry Inspector in any artifact focused deck. It's no coincidence that he goes nicely together with Chief of the Foundry.

There are 5 Puzzleknots but for my money this one, the blue one, is the best of the bunch. Getting to Scry 2, twice and getting 4 energy counters as well I think is the most useful out of the five.

He's is big, bad and maybe a lot cheaper to cast. Let's be honest mana rocks and equipment cards abound in EDH. It's a shame Metalwork Colossus doesn't have trample or menace but does bounce back from the graveyard fairly easily.

I think Panharmonicon caused a lot of confusion when it was revealed. To clarify it triggers for both Enter The Battlefield (ETB) effects and effects generated when an artifact or creature enters the battlefield.

As a simple example you have Arbound Crusher in play and cast Solumn Simulacrum. You will search your library for 2 basic lands and put two +1/+1 counters on the Crusher as both abilities will trigger an additional time.

This is incredibly powerful in Commander I expect to see it in an awful lot of decks.

Kaladesh also comes with it's own cycle of large creatures like the Titans before them. In this case they are Constructs and are known as the Gearhulks.

As you can see they have varying costs, P/T and abilities but I want to save them for another post another time so I'll talk more about them then.

Yes you need another way to generate energy, see the Puzzleknot above, but if you've got it sat there then Aethersquall Ancient is a threat just waiting for you to trigger it. It's a sorcery which is a downside. Your opponents discount it at their peril.

Choices, choices, we all love cards with choices. I certainly do and Insidious Will ticks all the right boxes for me. Why counter when I can copy, why copy when I can redirect, why redirect when I can counter. You get the idea.

This card is an artifact token generator that gets all those lovely spells from your graveyard back into your hand. My Nekusar deck will love this.

Choices again, this time what to copy. In a game full of large creatures with game changing effects Saheeli's Artistry is serious fun.

Refurbish's main strength is the phrase 'from your graveyard to the battlefield'. It doesn't matter how the artifact got to your graveyard in the first place now does it....

Angel of Invention is an oddity that I expect to see in swarm decks where lots of small creatures get generated with lots of lord like creatures and other spells pumping them.  Although you get the option to bring her into play as a 4/3 I think most people will got for the servos.

Nothing like making life harder for your opponents and this is exactly what Authority of the Consuls does and it's only 1 white mana!

This is so cool. You lock down an opponents creature and effectively prevent all yours from being the target of the next removal spell an opponent casts or if they cast any other Arrest enchantments like this. It won't last forever but it's cool none-the-less.

This is just Wrath of God with life gain but it can be oh so sweet against token decks.

I see this and I think Feldon of the third path. If I'm thinking that then so will plenty of other people. It's not that you are drawing cards it's that you get to choose what to discard.  Draw then discard would be better but this'll do.

Any time something deals damage to all creatures I can't help but think it's a token hoser. Even better Incendiary Sabotage is an instant! Oh you created 5 million tokens? Bye bye.....

This is one of those card people are going to build decks around, you need a way to mitigate the damage but this can go fetch you all sorts of creatures. Several of which are discussed earlier in this article.

Again made for Feldon, especially as he creates artifacts. There's probably other uses for it too but Quicksmith Genius along with Incendiary Sabotage and Cathartic Reunion make me want to design a Feldon deck. Watch this space as I'm sure it'll happen in a couple of weeks.

Gotta love a dragon. There are bigger and badder ones out there but Skyship Stalker isn't to bad for 4cmc.

Damage at instant speed is always useful. Welding Sparks has the downside of only being able to target a creature, but it can be an incredibly efficient way to deal a lot of damage in the right deck - one that generates lots of artifacts.

Again I get the feeling this'll make it into my Ghave, Guru of Spore deck. But I confess I haven't actually sat down and worked out if I can make it go infinite or not. I think Durable Handicraft's Sacrifice ability is over-costed but that's not the reason I've chosen it.

Nature's Way is without doubt the best creature removal spell I've ever seen in Green. Not that unlike Hunt the weak, which has been reprinted in Kaladesh, this doesn't fight another creature it just deals damage equal to it's power. So that's one creature removed. Then you get Trample, so you can attack and push the excess damage through to your opponent. Finally you also get Vigilance so your creature is ready to block next turn.

All you need is a big fat creature to cast it on and Green excels at those.

Fortuitous Find gives you choices, do one or the other or just do both. I suspect in EDH it'll be both every time.

A token hoser that lets you rummage through your opponents graveyards for a creature to control. What's not to like? Demon of Dark Schemes will even generate energy counts for you - keep an eye on that trigger!

Oh this is oh so sweet for token player or anyone that's in black with lots of cheep creatures.  Trading a rat for an angle or hydra or dragon. Oh you get the idea I'm sure.

We play lots of artifacts in Commander, especially mana rocks and equipment cards. So what's not to like about your opponents loosing 1 life and you gaining 1 life when this happens. It's also nice to have a threat on board to stop your opponents attacking you.

There has to be a away to make Night Market Lookout go infinite and win the game. I'll work on it and report back to you when I find it.

You must by now know that I'm a huge fan of Eldrazi Displacer. Both Blue and White are great at flickering cards and Cloudblazer is a greater target for such effects.

Scrying is always useful. Whether it's useful in Black and Blue, the two colours with the best draw packages I'm not sure, but we shall see.

Giving all your creatures vigilance seemed like a nice touch to me. I'm not entirely convinced by Engineered Might but it seemed just interesting enough to include here.

Destroying a creature and dealing damage not much else to say about Unlicensed Disintegration really.

So those are my picks but as I mentioned earlier there are two more Planeswalkers in Kaladesh. These come in special introductory packs and cannot be pulled in boosters.

I can see Nissa, with her pumped up Overrun ultimate being played. Chandra I'm not so sure about but she does deal plenty of damage.

So that's it. That's my take on Kaladesh. I'm disappointed with Green truth be told, there's some interesting cards in the colour but none really stood out for me especially not the creatures.

Other than that there's plenty here to be excited about and keep my creative juices flowing.

Until next time.

Phil