The Most Common Budget Commander Decks | EDHRECast 113

EDHREC has compiled the data for the most common commanders built on a budget, and it's time to review the results! Which commanders are built most often at a low price? More importantly, which STRATEGIES tend to be the most budget-friendly? Let's find out!
Follow the cast on Twitter:
@EDHRECast
@JosephMSchultz
@danaroach
@mathimus55
edhrec.com/
Special thanks to ‪@commandcast‬ for post-production work on the podcast, and for bringing it to a whole new level!
EDHREC is sponsored by CardKingdom and TCGPlayer.com. Use the price links on EDHREC or visit cardkingdom.com... to support the show!
Want to see the decks we play? Check them out here!
articles.edhre...
Question, comment, or data insight? Email us at:
[e-mail]
Music: "Crunk Knight" by Kevin Macleod licensed via Creative Commons:
• Kevin MacLeod ~ Crunk ...

[@EDHRECast]

We can't provide the whole list, but we wanted to give you a list of as many of the top budget commanders as we could. Enjoy! 1. Zada, Hedron Grinder 2. Grunn, the Lonely King 3. Mowu, Loyal Companion 4. Hallar, the Firefletcher 5. Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant 6. Isperia the Inscrutable 7. Anax and Cymede 8. Depala, Pilot Exemplar 9. Odric, Master Tactician 10. Ulrich of the Krallenhorde 11. Tolsimir Wolfblood 12. Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive 13. Yorvo, Lord of Garenbrig 14. Kazarov, Sengir Pureblood 15. Kangee, Aerie Keeper 16. Adeliz, the Cinder Wind 17. Tiana, Ship's Caretaker 18. Eutropia the Twice-Favored 19. Daghatar the Adamant 20. Valduk, Keeper of the Flame 21. Shanna, Sisay's Legacy 22. Tibor and Lumia 23. Odric, Lunarch Marshal 24. Daxos of Meletis 25. Temmet, Vizier of Naktamun

[@dragonballtalk8527]

Grunn is my king Kong green edh commander. I own mowu the dawg 2

[@EloquentTroll]

Isn't Feather pretty budget? I spent more drunkenly buying the Monastery Mentor than the rest of the deck (not counting the cards I already owned, but counting the cards I did own but bought because I couldn't find them). Heroic creatures from Theros block are cheap to buy, and a good way to payoff all of your combat tricks.

[@dragonballtalk8527]

@@EloquentTroll buy cheap foil promos under 1$ fnm promo prerelease promo game day promo sell what u bought for 5$ for twenty on another site a rare foil promo lot

[@codywilson4938]

Is there a list of the challenge the odds cars somewhere? I listen on the go and I forget some of the advice 😅

[@EDHRECast]

@@codywilson4938 We've recently launched a patreon (patreon.com/edhrecast) and a full list of Challenge the Stats picks is available at one of the patreon tiers :)

[@cooperaa]

I'm glad Dana didn't let Joey's "All the ding-dang time" comment slide.

[@kevinscott8437]

I think playing a strategy outside of its typical colors is a good budget option. My personal example is Brudiclad, as you avoid the expensive token staples in green while keeping plenty of options in Izzet

[@kevinscott8437]

I couple that I can think of is Raff Capashen artifacts in azorious, Wort the Raidmother spellslinger in gruul, Teshar for artifact/combo in mono W.

[@Adrianovaz2007]

​@@kevinscott8437 anything artifacts still need the expensive colorless staples tho

[@andras3665]

When you mentioned the expensive hydras I was kind of curious, because I built a Gargos deck a while ago because Hydras where my pet tribe when I was a kid, so I already had both Kalonian and Primordial hydra, so I went and checked the price of those two and my jaw dropped.

[@supermassivi1995]

I think Aristocrat decks are realy good to build on a budget, but I one thing that can be pushing up de average cost, more than especific card like Dictate of Erebos is that aristocrats decks are black and cards like Demonic anda Vampiric Tutor, Necropotence and other black staples

[@magicalpro]

Ironically grabbing a good deck with staples is budget... hear me out. You make a $50 deck. Get tired of it. Take it apart. It's just a pile of chaff... so you kinda throw away $50. Then another budget commander that does something similar comes along and you wanna build that. Another $50... rinse and repeat. Collection doesn't grow(except for chaff) . Equity is not built. Now if we'd built a decent deck and upgraded investing like $150-200 (over time instead of initially off course) then we're guaranteed to have some of staples that hold/grow in value. When that deck gets disassembled it's not just chaff. Example - when the card "Gamble" got reprinted a couple times a few years back the price tanked. Mana crept got reprinted, went down to $60, then a few months later rose back over $100. That $60 could have bought that at the time instead of a pile of chaff. Same with vampiric tutor, used to be $20 then, went up a lot, got reprinted, and went down to $20 again, then went up to $80. Moral of the story. Would you rather your $20 be a vampiric tutor or a pile of chaff that ends up lost in your collection? Make sure to pick up a $5 - $20 card once in a while. Edit : spelling

[@jackle978]

I guess its more personal preference. I have three budget commanders iv been playing for years but i also have a $250 that i keep for a higher level table.

[@sages10]

Like you guys mention in the video, I think there's a fairly good reason you don't see life-gain decks on a budget too frequently! As someone who was drawn to life-gain when they started playing EDH and did build a budget life-gain deck I can say that I found very quickly that life-gain by itself just isn't that great, it needs to work alongside other strategies to pay off. The thing about life-gain is that it is cheap because it doesn't actively win you the game on its own, paints a target on you in EDH where having a high life total gives people an excuse to swing at you to keep it under control, and doesn't really stop you from loosing as combos, alternate win-cons, and commander damage can be common. Because of this if you love life-gain strategies (like I do) you need to find a way to make it win the game for you which usually falls into one of two categories, those being using your life as a resource or using a high life total as an alternate win-con. You need your pay-off and that is not cheep unfortunately! What you find when you look at these two strategies is that they start to jack up the price, as to use your life as a resource you want to be running things like Necropotence which can make the deck a little pricey and to win with life based alternate win-cons like Test of Endourance you need to pillow-fort hard to protect it and yourself and cards like Greater Auramancy or No Mercy that are used in strategies like that aren't cheap either. Lastly some life-gain decks go combo and go for infinite life/just combo kill with something like the Blood-Bond combo but I find that these decks get more expensive, not necessarily because they need expensive cards (though Exquisite Blood has shot up recently...), but rather because casual playgroups often dislike combos so people tend to power up combo decks to be able to play them at higher power tables. At the end of the day a +1/+1 counter theme or a token theme, as you folks mentioned, can stay lower budget because they are a strategy that in and of themselves win you the game. With life-gain that just isn't really the case. You need your life-gain strategy and your win strategy (or payoff cards if you prefer) and while they can be related (very closely related even) I think that will always be more expensive than a strategy like +1/+1 counters where the payoff cards improve your strategy rather than having your strategy be impossible without them. Just my 2 cents, great video!

[@diggerdog9205]

Good points. I too play lifegain, it's my favorite deck. ( Karlov) It's also my most expensive. I've been foiling it out for over 2 years now but it's by far not my best deck.

[@CrabBaskets]

I was considering before you got to the list that voltron would be the most popular budget archetype. Loved the video guys, thank you for the amazing content!

[@wyattgrenstiner1709]

One of my fav budget commanders is borborygmos enraged. He has removal on the commander and if you play keen sense and a library of Lang you can go infinite.

[@gysahlgemuse7208]

I play Knollspine Dragon in Rakdos, Lord of Riots. Drop it in the second main for two red and draw 6 cards or more. If all your creature spells are that much cheaper, you tend to empty your hand pretty quick.

[@draconic367]

Budget is relative. That said mostly budget mostly isn't an issue till I start looking at the mana base. Usually I'd like to build another 5 color deck but I don't feel like buying the duals/fetches atm so I'll put it off for now.

[@ry7hym]

14:50 it’s funny because Kaseto, which I built from the precon cards, is probably my most expensive deck I own. But that’s mostly because of the mana base and my prerelease promo The Immortal Sun

[@couver2997]

One of the best things about the multiplayer aspect of commander is that you can build on a budget and still compete since you don't have to pour all your resources into dealing with everything at the table on your own. This was a great episode! I was surprised to see aggro and lifegain not at the top here. I think a lot of recent commanders (especially in W) fit those two archetypes and can be built on a budget. God-Eternal Oketra for instance is a great budget aggro commander as is Linden. The new Daxos is fantastic at the helm of a budget lifegani deck. Thanks for yet another great episode guys!

[@jays1de]

perhaps aggro is "hidden" in the tribal archetype; they primarily win by attacking/damage don't they?

[@GroundThing]

38:13 I'm actually surprised at aristocrats not being more common on a budget, for kind of this reason. It limits you to commanders containing Orzhov (but that's a pretty common color combo for aristocrats anyway, since white can provide cheap token bodies to fuel the engine) but Martyr's Bond serves well as a budget replacement for Dictate or Grave Pact, and most of the other pieces are fairly cheap. The best I can guess is that maybe it performs best with at least an additional color besides orzhov, so the mana base is the primary stumbling block, but Idk.

[@zackkelley2940]

Would Suggest Carnival of Souls and Black Market to help with the mana. They can put in some serious work, especially in an aristocrats deck. Can get Carnival of Souls for around 10 if you dig a bit and Black Market can be had for 5 or so.

[@ErasmusHereticus]

As an owner of an, admittedly not that budget, Hallar, the Firefletcher deck I can confirm it slaps. People just don't see the power coming, so thanks for putting him out there :)

[@aaronodst1174]

That Knollspine and Borborygmos combos seems nasty, super glad to hear about it.

[@JohnSmith-hs9ez]

One aspect of budget that has changed for me in the past few years is that I now own a lot of the staples. For example: I own a cyclonic rift that I got through trading and I own all 10 shocklands from when they were recently in standard. So when I go to build a deck, I only include budget cards that I don't already own. However, because I own some of the staples the on paper price is much higher than the actual price I am paying.

[@edgarventura7497]

I started magic with the wrath of the mortals event deck, than in 2018 I "discovered" commander, now I wanna build a deck for each commander in the game (just build, buy is another story), with this video I've thought to start at the ones that I already have, then go to set by set, building a deck for each legendary creature in that set. Edit: I'm definitely using EDHREC a lot!

[@ry7hym]

I really like the challenge the stats section of this episode! I play all three cards in my Neheb deck lol

[@PawzBrownMTG]

Great video guys helped me realize how many decks I am able to build. Keep up the great content

[@Yamipaladin]

My current most budget deck is a Feather the redeemed deck. I couldn't tell you what the most expensive card is but the whole thing couldn't be much over $50

[@Shivan_16]

I love knollspine dragon. I run him in my lathliss and Rakdos lord of riot edh decks and it puts in WORK! plus it just got much cheaper with its reprint in mystery boosters!

[@justinayran]

I might have missed it, but how did the episode define budget? What's the price threshold?

[@coreyroberson4550]

I'm really surprised not to see Tatyova Landfall listed. It's been a great budget deck for me and is always fun to play. I've loaned it out, and some of the people who played it have built their own versions. I decked it out one time with all the expensive cards, but after a few games, I switched back to the budget build because it was just more fun.

[@jakeapplegate6642]

Corey Roberson fetch lands is probably why. Good land are expensive.

[@coreyroberson4550]

Tatyova doesn't need them. Yes, you can build her with fetch lands and Crucible and Azusa and Exploration, but like I said, I had more fun after I cut them and went low budget. Tatyova generates enough card advantage to be really good on any budget.

[@jakeapplegate6642]

Corey Roberson sure you can build it on a budget but I’m not surprised it isn’t on the list of most common budget decks.

[@moersertrupp]

To the topic of more powerful commanders having more expensive decks: I think a big factor is also upgrades. Maybe they stared with one commander and then upgraded it bit by bit and I this process discovered that this other commander does similar things, but is better at it, so they changed it and so the upgraded/more expensive deck is listed under the new commander

[@EloquentTroll]

I love Tainted Strike, especially when you cast it on an opponent's creature. I'm not a dedicated infect player, but it's a fun tool to get around life gain. The most Infect cards I have in a single deck is 2, but most have 1 or 0.

[@arturrodrigues7161]

hey, a budget combos, bombs and/or win cons would be a realy nice topic for a video!

[@afish8883]

You can really storm off with budget artifacts actually. Mitch from the commanders quarters decided to stop playing his budget jhoira because it just does so much

[@diggerdog9205]

Torbran gets dangerous real fast. I built a burn deck so I have to be careful not to go through my cards too fast and kind of sandbag it a bit til my opponents soften each other up for me.😈

[@zackkelley2940]

I would like to know what this "budget replacement" for Doubling Season they brought up is. Literally the only other thing that does what Doubling Season does is Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider and that's still a good $30 or so. Better than the $60-80 for a Doubling Season but still up there.

[@thetogtube2]

MATT: My decks are free bc I already have all the cards. HAHA

[@patrickbidwell6799]

Werewolf tribal isn't great but it's super budget!

[@alexanderforbes1452]

It's a shame that werewolf tribal is so weak, it feels like it would be pretty easy to conceive of a commander and a couple enchantments that could really turn the werewolf cards on and make it viable, they just need to be bothered to do so. I guess the biggest problem is they would need to print them in a Commander pre-con or something, but I think that would be fine, they only printed a Madness commander last year even though it's a somewhat old mechanic. Maybe a temur commander that has an activated ability to transform your transform cards, that would mean you could play some of the good transform cards from Ixalan and whatnot on top of your werewolves. Temur rather than just gruul just because that makes more sense thematically to me, blue being in the activation cost and not in the casting cost, blue in lots of sets is associated with the moon and it's the control color, making things do stuff they aren't strictly speaking supposed to be capable of. There are a lot of good wolves that bleed into white and black so there's no wrong third color, black also has a moon association and a control aspect. Maybe an enchantment that's got pay three and tap it draw a card, it doesn't untap during your upkeep and you can pay three to untap it, while it's tapped your creatures can't transform. Something else that gives transformed creatures some kind of protection or a buff, maybe something that draws you a card when you transform a creature. Werewolves don't need that much help to become viable but they need help.

[@patrickbidwell6799]

@@alexanderforbes1452 I'm almost certain they will print a new werewolf commander in the new commander set. We know vampires are getting one. Wizards aren't THAT blind. Gavin V has even acknowledged that they need one. I would be pissed if they didnt though.

[@omagaking7]

I currently run a werewolf deck and the only reason it works as well as it does is that I take more advantage of the human tag then the werewolf tag.

[@igniteaxiom]

the most common archetype in edh has to be tribal by far. so this shouldn't be surprising at all.

[@amphetamean66X]

"It's just a Badland" - really out of touch with the wealth of the average magic player.

[@florianw116]

Zada is definitely not an uncommon. They put her at uncommon in Masters 25 because there wasn't enough space at rare. But in BFZ she's rare, as approrpiate for her complexity and power.

[@MajesticViking]

Im pretty sure the reason tribal is the most common is because people wanting to play for fun mostly want flavor. Making tribal decks is almost as fun as playing them.

[@damo9961]

Feather can be a really strong deck on a budget.

[@TheSynisterMinister]

knollspine should be in any cycling or wheel decks

[@abrahammendezgonzalez3242]

Id like to think that my Emry artifact decks really challenge that staple of expensive mono blue artifacts

[@pieterpluijmers3073]

tainted strike gotta love it was the only infect in the ur-dragon deck you gonna block no tainted strike on UR now busy with building a Torbran deck

[@afish8883]

Am i weird for wanting to hear about how you calculated everything? I mean i have a good idea but i still want to know

[@fearanarchy]

Easiest finds: Commander's Quarters tainted the data. Edric is my pick. $15 and it can beat most non cEDH decks

[@WhoThaCazer]

I would argue Zada is a combo deck. Even it does end games whit turning creatures sideways. atleast i like my zada whit bunch of Rituals and ending game whit one big turn.

[@jakeapplegate6642]

WhoThaCazer that’s not what people mean when they talk about combo.

[@brianmellema109]

Even Hallar's expensive limit with +1/+1 counter synergy is only $300.

[@BlackWolfC091]

I accidentally disliked the video and then liked it 😂 I love y’all and your content! Keep up the great work!

[@LegendaryMaeve]

I feel like I'm the opposite of wanting to spend more on more power. I tend to put all my expensive cards in my jank decks because I think it's funny.

[@AnotherMoMmtg]

Chandras ignition is a beast in zada

[@NoLessThanAGod]

Have to ask if wrong Omnath was intentional?

[@the_names_rob]

In my alela faeries tribal i mirromaded somothering tithe.

[@HJonesT]

I started playing Modern and loved the idea of commander when it started, I made the switch because “Modern was so expensive”. The irony.

[@kieranwouter2361]

Zada is so strong on a budget! She just destroys the table if left alone.

[@Soulus101]

Dramatic Scepter is a cheap combo enabler that can fit in any blue deck.

[@davidebigano6132]

I feel like this list is definitely skewed by those really expensive cards like doubling season or cabal coffers. It would be really intresting to see how the data changes if you factor in also those decks which have just a couple of non-budget cards

[@Fishcrab]

Mitch has done decks on three of the four.

[@nik700]

Creatures like Valduk and Tiana make me sad because I remember that Nazahn lacks red, which is a total injustice

[@mercystreetcjc]

I assume they are using the same metric EDHREC uses, which isn’t a number. The site just takes the the lowest priced 10% and call that the “cheap” budget. The top 10% becomes the “expensive” budget.

[@Voyajer.]

"Post pandemic" -May 29

[@guilhermeribeiromichelino3852]

Hahahah Yeah, funny

[@Nehemiah1604]

Well, wish we were post pandemic

[@CryptoC4T]

Maybe you should consider looking at average $ of a card in a deck to filter "one doubling season" problem.

[@TheKidsDaaaaad]

All the Ding-Dang Time LOL

[@skynyrdjesus]

That usage statistic on Temmet is really throwing me off. That's gotta be an editing mistake right? I find it incredibly hard to believe it's run in the 99 of 95000 decks, or that there are almost 270,000 decks it's legal in on EDHrec

[@apanapane]

Averaged out by the Pearson second coefficient.......?

[@scrattue]

i feel like the top budget commanders being uncommon points to people building pauper/peasant decks which will be much cheaper by default because they have no rares

[@Fishcrab]

Modric master tactician is on my list of enemies.

[@crawdaddy1234]

I think Finale of Devastation makes Craterhoof a bit less necessary. Yea, Natural Order into the Hoof is great, but just sayin’.

[@Adam.bomb97]

Im surprised krenko isnt on the list at all honestly

[@jakeapplegate6642]

Adam Stojkov there are several cards that are common to krenko decks that are not cheap like purphoros, grenzo havoc raiser, legion loyalist, moggcatcher, goblin rabblemaster, goblin sharpshooter, goblin lackey, warren instigator, goblin bombardment, and skullclamp. All of those cards are over $5.

[@misterturkturkle]

Mowu is doggo now

[@davinconway3451]

Fynn the Fangbearer would be here if the video was made now

[@maxwelljrj]

Can you update this?

[@domotoroOfficial]

Do they know about people who build pauper commander with uncommon legends? That’s probably affecting the list somewhat.

[@True_Ronin]

❤️ my Zada

[@xTobsecretx]

Sanguine bond is a dollar and change

[@zackkelley2940]

Exquisite Blood is the card they clearly meant. Sanguine Bond is around a dollar AND there are easily a couple dozen cards with an effect like that AND most of those are can also be had for under a dollar. Exquisite Blood is around 30 and there is literally NOTHING else that does what it does >

[@melind82]

Did you check for card rarity? The top commanders aren't rare so you might be finding people who are trying to build no-rare decks.

[@osviyero244]

That Estrid joke... my god!

[@bcoble121691]

I'm sure part of why more powerful commanders allow people to justify higher budgets is because people get attacked first based on their commander. I could build a budget scarab god or omnath deck but people know those commanders are strong and single you out for playing them, so it feels like you need stronger cards to compete with the aggression caused by the Commander's reputation.

[@Zedekiah92]

second comment

[@dragonballtalk8527]

More images less your face fellahs

[@xTobsecretx]

The budget competition on the cEDH subreddit was won by a Mikaeus Combo deck, so kinda aristocrats