Better than a Booster Best Budget Buys May 2024

[@yoyoguy1st]

Important thing with kylox’s voltstrider is you don’t get to cast the spell for free like you mentioned. You still have to pay for the spell

[@thetrinketmage]

Oh yea oops I might be illiterate I’ll pin this comment to help people

[@casketbase7750]

MKM is actually a well made Standard set. Collect Evidence synergizes with Descend from the Ixalan set immediately before. As for EDH, sleepers, Wispdrinker Vampire gives WB Aristocrats another drain effect while her second ability allows you to make an aggro play with creatures you'd normally use for sacc fodder. Offbeat and interesting.

[@mave6602]

People forget one big part of stun counters regarding lost in the maze. . . Proliferating Stun counters each turn will lock specific creatures out of the game as attackers and blockers.

[@traviswest8644]

MKM is one of my favorite sets that've came out recently. solid cycle of duals, 3 mana land tutor in green that also can exile artifact/enchantment, a ton of Clue token support in the main set and the supplementary sets making clues open enough to do interesting things with now that aren't just lonis. if we're including the Clue supplemental product the Room Lands are great budget utility lands. 1 for every guild with 4 (t) : Investigate. Genuinely I don't understand why everyone was so not hype for MKM and I still don't understand the lack of interest in the set as a whole

[@thetrinketmage]

I love that they made all 10 of the duals! And yea idk why nobody seemed to like the set. After seeing the cards I was hyped

[@carbide4458]

MKM gave me my first dose of keyword/mechanic bloat. Cloaking cards is a great example: between morphs, foretell, manifests... did we really need another mechanic to flip cards down?

[@thetrinketmage]

Agreed cloak is pretty lame. That’s why none of the cloak cards made the list

[@ZaxploitationFilms]

Unsure how Cloaking is comparable to foretell. Its a buffed version of Morph, thats all

[@rosros7211]

Voltstrider actually doesn't let you cast the spell for free, it says that you can cast it, but you still have to pay for it. It's still pretty nice tbf And as always, great video

[@spacecanary8786]

Lost in the Maze is especially powerful for Zaxara and Magus Lucea Kane - it's an X spell that almost guarantees your commander will be hexproof!

[@Xoderfla]

Lost in the maze in azami, lady of scroll feels actually illegal

[@thetrinketmage]

I did not even think about Azami but you are right that’s a crazy good synergy

[@yoyoguy1st]

My favorite card from MKM is definitely Proft's Eidetic Memory. I’ve been having a bunch of fun with it in standard with ingenious prodigy, ledger shredder and steamcore scholar. I’d love to build something in commander around it unfortunately kinda difficult in commander.

[@jcstaff1007]

Hey perfect timing! I was looking for more scry/draw effects for my Lathril Voltron list and “Snarling Gorehound” is a perfect fit. Almost as good as “Season of Growth” but better than “Sylvan Anthem” that just barely misses the cut. (Im play a very budget list and low to the ground so 2 green is usually gonna be used for another elf or my commander). 😊

[@jlaw131985]

MKM is definitely a sleeper. There’s so many cards in it that are bonkers good. Insidious Roots was one I don’t think you hadn’t mentioned, but it’s a somewhat more limited Jaheira as an enchantment, which could do so many combos. And it’s an uncommon! There’s so much great stuff.

[@SwedeRacerDC]

Thanks for reminding me to pick up a crime novelist lol. That's a card I wanted. The forensic gadgeteer is great. I have him in my Vhal, Clan Crafter deck. Dang is it helpful. Doppelgang is cool too. I'm sure the other ones will be solid here. Love the video

[@pipdog9929]

Currently building Imskir who's coming out soon and crime novelist is actually crazy good for him, thanks for the recommendation!

[@terb3ar]

Consider playing the Voltstrider in a UR big spells deck as you described but with River Song as the commander so you can constantly recur the same spell.

[@thetrinketmage]

That’s spicy!

[@Kaishen021]

Lost in the Maze was an auto-include in my first and (extremely biased) favorite deck. Phenax, God of Deception - I am already tapping a lot of my creatures to do mill stuff and Lost basically is just two blue to give some of my cornerstones immunity to anything aside from boardwipes.

[@40Kfrog]

11:20 The plural of opus is opuses or opera (like the music)

[@michaeltodd343]

This limited format was so much fun!!! It was a flavor flop but it was a ton of fun to play at the prerelease and drafts.

[@ElmntFire]

This matches my experience with MKM. The detectives and the theming seemed all over the place and really off putting at first, but the singles coming out of this set have been some of the more interesting commander designs of late. My only hope for the set is that the team responsible for making commander precons really latches onto the surveil lands like they did with the temples and bi-cycling lands as fetchable enters tapped lands.

[@SolvableMattB]

deadly cover up is a card i run in my high power marchesa deck where i want more boardwipes then normal and its graveyard hate and it allows me to look at an opponents hand and it will let me hit decks that run slime against humanity or dragons approach or the others and if im against a self mill deck i run get rid of a fair amount of basic lands.

[@sayntfuu]

Forensic Gadgeteer is awesome with Academy Manufactor and World Walker Helm.

[@Bouillestfu]

Deadly Cover Up is fantastic vs thrumming stone decks or any deck that plays shadowborn apostles, rat colonies, etc. Which I play a few myself 😅

[@SomewhereInMiddleEarth]

Voltstrider would be sooo broken if it did what you said it would do. Thank god it doesn't work like that! 😅

[@TheCatHerder]

So I understand that being fetchable is a huge pro for the surveil lands, but how much better are they than temples for decks that don't have graveyard synergies?

[@thetrinketmage]

Without fetch lands and without graveyard synergies it’s mostly the same. But I’m willing to bet almost every deck you have has some form or graveyard synergy

[@SylvainSoliman]

The plural of opus is actually opera!

[@sozen3212]

Mkm was my first pre release event and at the time i don't think I realized just how much good shit I got out of that.

[@medisshehi9335]

Cool seeing doppelgang and lost in the maze, I use them in a recently builded zaxara budget deck and I'm having tons of fun, if you manage to cast doppelgang more than once in a game its almost always gg (playing casual)

[@thetrinketmage]

Lost in the maze seems really good in Zaxara!

[@paperwatt]

I don't know how much Locked hothouse and Undergrowth recon are, but they are doing serious work.

[@chaosredefined3834]

You mentioned that you are replacing Cultivate/Kodama's Reach with Archdruid's Charm in your green-heavy decks. You should try out Nissa's Pilgrimage as well. Strictly better in a mono-green deck.

[@thetrinketmage]

I like Nissa’s pilgrimage as well it’s very good

[@chaosredefined3834]

@@thetrinketmage In that case... I dunno if I really want all three of Cultivate/Kodama's Reach + Pilgrimage in mono-green, unless I am specifically running a 5mv commander. (Or a cheaper commander with an ability that I want to activate straight away, such that casting and activating is a total of 5 mana).

[@El_Chico_des_Galos]

Honestly if they just said that the setting was New Capena instead of Ravniva, this set would have flown off the shelves

[@noradi123]

Hot take: a return to ravnica w/o guild could be a good concept, mkm just didnt do that well

[@f.a.m1603]

Honestly, if the set is worth buying bc the cards are playable in commander then it is just those cards (singles) that are worth buying. The set itself is not worth buying, still.

[@LinksCow1]

Very underrated set.

[@brendans1983]

I'm still not sold on the Surveil lands. I wasn't a fan when they were spoiled, and i couldnt believe how quickly their value increased. Then cedh KZbinr's started praising them and their effectiveness. Which HALF made sense. So i caved and got one for one of my decks. I am yet to draw it in a game, but i have been devastated EVERY time i have drawn it whilst goldfishing! Turbo Naus Ob Nix needs that 1 mana too much i think 🤣🍻

[@sayntfuu]

Magmas Opus, like Attorneys General...

[@Raghetiel]

It is nice, but lost caverns of Ixalan is much better in my opinion

[@ScyllaCephalopod]

Apparently the plural is "magnum opera" ...or "magnum opuses" but that's less fun. tbh i was hoping it was "magnums opus"

[@eramesquita2315]

🎉

[@RawMenNudel]

I will not stand for this mkm propaganda

[@thetrinketmage]

Hated the set that much?