The Best BUDGET Cards of 2024 | EDHRECast 347

[@nathones]

I think the average deck is way less than 600. People will often build their “ideal”decks online, which will inflate the cost.

[@WumboWings96]

Not to mention that Archidekt takes the sideboard price into account unless you turn that off

[@mathimus55]

That's definitely a factor. There's also folks who build stuff like pauper commander decks that just label it as regular commander along with lots of other factors. The data isn't perfect but we're going with the best data we have

[@mathimus55]

@@WumboWings96 This is out of respect for 60-card players where the sideboard is still part of the deck when you're playing them in tournaments. If you're looking for a category that doesn't count towards the price but are cards you want to keep in mind the maybeboard is the tool I'd use instead.

[@punkypinko2965]

Yeah I think the average deck estimation is wildly off in the real world and it's more like $300 - $400 at most. I can't believe, at least in my experience playing at my LGS, that the average is $600. That would have to mean that almost half the players or more are playing $1000+ decks because I see a lot of $200 - $400 decks. $1000 + $200 = $1200 / 2 = $600. That doesn't math for me. I think you're right: the average IDEAL commander deck is $600 but in reality because you know people don't have that much money on average is much lower. I just don't believe that the average commander player spends on average $600 on every one of their decks. They would have to spend that much on average for every one of their decks for it to be an average.

[@mathimus55]

@@punkypinko2965I’ve seen both sides of the argument when playing in the wild. I’ve sat in casual pods at MC’s where my $600-700 deck was half the price of the other 3. Special printings, secret lairs and other high end things like that also play a factor where the cheapest copy might be $2 but they have a chase version that’s $100. There’s lots of factors out there pushing and pulling against each other. We’ve never said the data was perfect, just reporting what we are able to see because that’s what players tell us.

[@gully041]

It would be really nice if you guys had an Archidekt link or something in the description with all the cards you talk about in these types of episodes. I normally listen on my phone while at work, and there are instances where I want to pick up a card or two you mentioned. It would be nice to be able to come to the KZbin upload and grab the list of everything to pick out the ones I want.

[@1notdeadfred]

Real talk- If you just proxy your mana base, your average deck cost can drop a solid 60-70% and that's even if you aren't including the OG dual lands. I own 1 copy of each land I use in decks. I proxy them in the actual decks. Has saved me somewhere in the range of 1,500$ and I don't even have a number of decks in the double digits yet.

[@WorldsGreatestVidiot]

This! ^

[@mathimus55]

With how aggressive they're reprinting mana base pieces, unless you're playing ABU duals I don't know if that's true anymore unless you're playing 5c only fetches/triomes/shocks.

[@TheSmartCinema]

Uncommon commanders will naturally have a lower average cost because of the Pauper EDH decklists that affect the data. Since Commons are inexpensive, it lowers the avg price by a lot

[@FernandoGonzalez-hu3id]

That Average deck cost is definitly inflated I have 12 decks on the site all of them between $400 and $450, but every single one of them includes Urborg, Coffers, Stronghold, Nyctos, Demonic Tutor and Deadly Rollick ($228) of witch i only own a copy of each, but since i build my decks modulary i include them Putting Cards on Archideckt is free

[@ospero7681]

12 decks, and all of them in the same color? I couldn't begin to imagine doing that - if anything, I have the opposite problem, I get annoyed when a new fun-looking commander is released for a color combination I already play. 😄

[@FernandoGonzalez-hu3id]

@ospero7681 not all of them aré the same color, they just all have Black. 2 Mono Black (Whisper/Yargle) 2 Orzhov (Teysa/Breena) 2 Dimir (Wilhelt/Ngatrod) 2 Rakdos (Strefan/Chainer) 2 Golgari (Shelob/Lyssaga) Is there overlap between them, sure but that is by design. After the Pandemic both my budget and playtime took a hit, so by building my decks modularly and leting them share manabases and Staples I can get diferent play experiences inside my límited budget

[@michaelpatalano9884]

My favorite is Disorienting Choice. It’s 4 mana to either blow up your opponents best Art/Ench, or you tutor ANY 3 lands. It’s insane

[@RedCometNurse]

I have 30 commander decks and only one of them is worth more than $600. That figure seems kind of absurd.

[@jlaw131985]

I’ve been collecting forever and I’ve got some older cards that wound up spicy, but $600 seems like so much. I guess I only have one Teferi’s Protection, and am missing a lot of “staples”…but still, how is it that expensive? I think if I threw my Sliver Queen in a deck, I would still have trouble hitting that price.

[@pretty_fly_for_a_jeskai]

I dont think decklists online reflect decks in paper, but as thats really all of the data we have, it is what it is.

[@pixelbomb97]

I would love if this episode was 3 hours. I've not been able to keep up with all the releases this year, so I need videos like this to compile the minor power creeps and make my all of my decks better for a 10 dollar TCGplayer order.

[@CamiloNavarroo]

600 dollar average is wild. Down here in my country (Colombia), specifically at my store we have Friday tournaments where the budget is 100 USD. And on Saturday we have leagues that go from 120 USD budget for beginners, to 80 USD budget for advanced players. My most expensive deck is faaaaar from even making it to 200 USD.

[@kazeinu0151]

I feel like the vast majority of my decks fall within the $100-$200 range and that when I'm building decks online the price gets a bit inflated. Just one aspect that comes to mind is calculating a cost for lands, like defaulting to a $2 basic and suddenly your deck cost is $80 more than it should be (lands are essentially free)

[@lightfut]

See y'all next year and thanks for a good one!

[@fhgwdads05]

Great review. Fangs of Kalonia is yet another example of how many heaters MH3 has at the C and U rarities, and as a fellow +1/+1 counter enjoyer I'm glad to see its praises sung.

[@sosukelele]

On OtJ having plenty of budget commanders: the overflow of legendary creatures in the mainset resulted in a fair amount of them being uncommon, which means that they can be played in pauper commander

[@conerchambers1214]

100% agree with Dana in the beginning. Out of my 15 decks, only 3 of them are above $250 and that’s with cards like Inkshield, Tprot, Smothering Tithe, surveil lands, shocks, fetches, battle bonds and the like. I really do wonder if the data separated certain printings or could discern things like reserve list

[@xanderjones6239]

Thanks for a great year, Joey, Matt, and Dana! I know this game brings us together, but we stay for the personalities. See yall in 2025 ❤

[@caedmonr112]

Hearing that the median deck price is $500 is wild to me. Barring my most expensive deck (a cedh build), every single deck I own is under $270. Many of which are closer to $100 or $150!

[@MikhailHudon_ZerithFarron]

when I was challenged to do an under $1 per card challenge, I made a pretty powerful Elminster deck for $25 because aggressive scry cards are not at all desirable by the community. Awesomely enough, butt loads of over costed Haymakers that no one wants are incredible when they're cast for basically free. This deck has a whacky 90% win rate with the only real challenge is the lack of early ramp. choosing a mechanic that is rarely or never looked at goes a long way in these challenges.

[@JonReid01]

Can you paste your list please?😊

[@rwaaful]

I recently built a melek deck for about $150 and it slaps. His ability is so strong and I either win through commander damage and a gravitic punch / fling or just Chandra’s ignition after I mill half my library (with Tunnelvision) highly recommend giving him a try!

[@jacquesdespadas]

This was a great topic and needs to become a regular part of the yearly cycle. You guys turned me on to at least a dozen cards this episode alone. Happy New Year everyone!

[@okgut2033]

this year was wild with the number of new cards. we broke the 2k non reprint cards, and with reprints, we have over 6k. That's also a new record.

[@isidoreaerys8745]

18:36 Matt is right. Your fancy equipment spells like Shadowspear, Anduril and Mithril Coat Nonbo with Arna because the copies will simply vanish. She works best with cheap nonlegendary equipments that give you ward or make a treasure each time you attack.

[@isidoreaerys8745]

And Aura’s with ETB effects like Sheltered by Ghosts. Cumulative Ward 2. And exile a permanent each attack.

[@Aerix]

Our pod had a couple budget challenges. My favorites were our $15 decks. Rendmaw enchantress/unatural was mine and I built my wife Jenny Flint & Madame Vastra clues. Our peak moment was her wrathing the board and then casting "follow the bodies" to make 34 clues. And then sunshot militia and later chao jun to finish the board.

[@WumboWings96]

Personal experience with Vile Mutilator since I haven’t played with it in paper yet. Had it in a draft in MTG Arena and every single time it dropped onto the field, I won the game 😂

[@dustinmartin648]

As an almost exclusively budget player, the $690+, $500+, or even $250 dollar decks are absolutely WILD to me 😂 I regularly do $50 budget decks and sometimes $10-25 hyperbudget challenges, and my decks still run very well and are fun to play. I just don't see the need for all these crazy expensive cards, but more power to those people, couldn't be me

[@Momo_pstat4]

46:32 i have a partners deck which uses lunar insight to do some gross stuff. It regularly reads 3 mana draw 4, and that tends to be the floor. I then use that draw power to become punching power, and thus people fall over real quick

[@Mobius_ll]

Was just telling my wife the other day about this card. Any deck that makes regular tokens would love to get value out of this card.

[@adamhall1340]

You guys missed a pun! Joey: was that "effective"? Matt: No but it was "affective". That was a great one.

[@Thessik73]

My average deck is $300ish, but that's taking expensive foils and fancy basics into account. If I used cheap versions of cards, only one would be over $300, and only just. That one is, of course, my pet deck. (Ur Dragon, but all the dragons are Legendary)

[@nolifeSnorlax]

Come back wrong seems busted …thanks for shouting it out I immediately bought 4 😅😂

[@WilliamWilliams-w2g]

Your videos are always top notch! Keep up the great work! 🍒🧡

[@cwba1rd372]

5:05 and I thought my $550 deck was crazy expensive. I was agreeing with Dana thinking $250 haha

[@baulsmahoney]

It would be nice if you put a link to the card list in the description.

[@pauldyson8098]

Embrace the Unkown and Wild Wasteland went right the hell into my Pia "Bring Your Daughter to Work Day" deck. Such great value.

[@boingy2828]

You want to talk about awesome budget cards from 2024? Boingo has got you! Modern Horizons 3, at uncommon sits the wonderful enchantment Muster the Departed. 2W for an enchantment that gets you a 1/1 Spirit with Flying and the other ability populates on end step if a creature died this turn. Most tokens are going to die when they attack/block, and so long as you have a token to populate, it refreshes itself. I run this in my Caesar deck, and I love getting an extra creature token of any kind. $0.12 last I checked as well. Wonderful little card for token decks

[@imaginarymatter]

My favorite budget card is Lively Dirge. For

[@jayjayhooksch1]

Before I sold my collection (30th anniversary and universes beyond turned me off the game) I had about 10 commander decks at about the 500$ range. Now I use that as a baseline for decks that I proxy, knowing thats what I would spend if I wanted to financially support wotc. My decks are now all under 50$ including full art variant cards, fancy basics, all the tokens necessary, sleeves and deck box.

[@Darkscotty76]

I also love Connecting the Dots for my goblin deck. Best way to not burn out mod game

[@hanschristopherson8056]

The average deck being like $200 more than the median is pretty crazy

[@hugmonger]

I feel like EDH Rec needs a way to mark your deck as Concept, Digital, Paper cuz like.... Are people really spending over $300 per deck? Like are you really buying multiple shocks, and battle bond lands and so on? When I spend $100 on a deck I feel pretty bad

[@FrancesLowery-h5q]

Simply wonderful! Thank you for your passion for what you do! 😚🍒

[@Etzlo1]

they really should change the commander rule, have it be an option to use it as a replacement effect

[@JaimeAGB-pt4xl]

Great question at the start... due to the nature of the game, and to keep the experience fun for everyone, my playgroup makes a the effort to keep the decks starting (when the deck is initially built at the very least) to be 200-250 USD ... this allows (most of the time) the decks to be focused and do some powerful stuff (but not the most broken) at the expense of excluding the mana base

[@eliasdejaye677]

Joey, Melek is so fun! 20/10 should build

[@AlarminglyBad]

Arna Kennerud + modular is a FUN time

[@TheQSwizzle]

This made me run my own numbers. 17 decks, $120 Average. Most Expensive being $230. I know nothing

[@cid7707]

Yarus is easy to build by just slaming two precons from Karlov and duskmourn together.

[@VendiVidiVinci]

I might have impacted the result of Kraum, I builted 3 differents version of him at 100 $ 😅. Edit: Imo nelly is less "hyper budget" because the precon have Trouble in pairs which increase the cost a lot

[@marcelinorodriguez7628]

My decks are all $60 or below with tax, lands, and shipping

[@jackfriedman9777]

I have like 12 decks and my average cost came out to about $150 including basics. $400 avg deck is absurd and I don’t believe you

[@nicolefalleur3540]

Dang I have 59 of these things

[@unseeliedream42]

my avg is smaller than your avg but i deserve luv anyway O_O

[@brennanmohr7348]

Making arna right now. Seems so so so degenerate.

[@nandomgu]

Would live an edhrec cast episode about best hacks using chatgpt during deckbuilding and for commander

[@guyvascm]

My decks are around $350-700