I’ve been playing Commander for seven years now, and I’ve been playing Magic: the Gathering even longer than that. However, despite my enthusiasm for the game, no matter what format I play, I always find myself encountering the same problem: the cards are too darn expensive! I get too excited when new cards are released, and before I know it I’ve brewed a powerful deck that will set me back the price of a video game console. Recently I saw the Youtube channel Tolarian Community College showcase a Commander game featuring decks built on a $50 budget.
$50? Now that sounds like an interesting build challenge, I thought.

So I got to work pouring over the cheapest cards I could find that could still swing with some weight in the big leagues of Commander. Little did I know just how difficult it would be to find budget replacements for some of my favorite Commander staples, and to build a deck that has a reliable strategy while adhering to my budget constraints. To make it a little easier on myself, I didn’t include the cost of basic lands against the $50 limit because I already have all the basic lands I’ll ever need. It was a really fun challenge, and I’ll definitely attempt it again in the future!

For my first $50 challenge deck, I tried to look at unpopular mechanics, thinking that their lack of popularity would indicate lower prices. Morph, Mutate, and Initiative were early contenders, but I landed on the Party mechanic that was featured in Zendikar Rising. A party consists of a Cleric, Rogue, Warrior and Wizard; doubling up on one of the creature types doesn’t add to our party value, meaning the mechanic has a low ceiling of X equaling four. To compensate, this deck’s Commander is Burakos, Party Leader with the Folk Hero background to reliably draw party members and use Burakos’ ability to generate Treasure tokens. This is my first time building a deck using a Background too, but similar to the Partner mechanic, it feels really nice to know we have cards to play on early turns.

Folk Hero says once each turn when we cast a spell with the same creature type as our commander, we get to draw a card, and Burakos, Party Leader is a Cleric, Rogue, Warrior and Wizard in addition to its other types, meaning if we play a creature with any of those types Folk Hero will trigger, drawing us an extra card. Burakos is a strong addition to any Party we start to form, as its multiple types let it fill the role of whatever “class” creature type our party is missing, and this deck is filled with creatures that can fill spots in our party to increase the X value in Burakos’ triggered ability. Sadly, a creature can only fill one role in our party; Burakos (and our Changelings) are not parties of one, but they’ll help us reach a full party with their flexible typing. Our strategy is to get value from Burakos‘ ability by filling our party with aggressive creatures and attacking together to reduce our opponents’ health to zero. To put on a little pressure, we’re also draining our enemies life totals whenever our creatures die with Zulaport Cutthroat and Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim.

Since we know we’ll have a card to play on turns 2 and 4, we can focus on taking a mulligan until we have 3 or four mana sources in our opening hand. Weathered Wayfarer has really come down in price from a few years ago, and although it’s a little slow, it can guarantee we have a land to play each turn. Deep Gnome Terramancer is over $2 of our budget, but it’s worth the price for ramp in white, and having flash allows us to surprise any of our opponents who are playing extra lands. We also have some treasure support in addition to our commander’s ability with Lotho, Corrupt Sheriff and Hoard Robber, not to mention the fair share of mana artifacts we’re including.

I originally intended to have a lot more Party cards, but the truth is there really aren’t many Party cards that feel broad enough to include in our deck. Thwart the Grave is cheaper for each party member we have, and it essentially brings back an entire party from our graveyard to the battlefield. Similarly, Coveted Prize is a tutor that gets discounted for each of our party members too. Deadly Alliance is affordable removal that fits our deck’s theme, but if I wasn’t considering budget this would be an easy cut. It fits our build, but there are much stronger cards out there. Still, it’s instant speed creature destruction for as low as one black mana, and it’s nice to have the reminder text for what a party is on a few cards.

The combat step is when our deck really takes off. A few of our creatures like Squad Commander and Seasoned Dungeoneer protect our creatures while they attack, while Nalia de’Arnise and Vault of the Archangel make them more threatening. Seasoned Dungeoneer brings with it the Initiative mechanic, which gives us an emblem that instructs us to go deeper into The Undercity each upkeep to earn a different boon. Our opponents can take this emblem from us by dealing damage to us, but we can always take it back, and we’re more interested in the exploration trigger and the protection it provides than the complicated dungeon mechanic. Nalia de’Arnise can be run as the commander of this deck too. However, although its ability to let us play Cleric, Rogue, Warrior and Wizard spells from the top of our deck is powerful, and her ability to put counters on our creatures and give them deathtouch has a high ceiling, it’s less consistent than Burakos/Folk Hero. Our deck has so much card draw in its current configuration that it’s far less likely to stall out.

To finish out the game we’re running three creatures with anthem effects, Mirror Entity, Jazal Goldmane, and Minthara, Merciless Soul. Originally I wanted to run a few more characters from Baldur’s Gate to bring party-building flavor out of the deck, but unfortunately I didn’t find many characters whose mechanics synergized with our theme reliably. These big buffing effects can pump up our attacking creatures significantly, making our attacks more threatening, and potentially lethal.

Planar Guide is a budget Teferi’s Protection that lets us pause the action if things are getting out of hand. The ability affects all creatures on the board, so this can also prevent a potential lethal attack for another player at the table as well. Shieldmage Elder is a strange control piece that can prevent damage from creatures and spells by tapping untapped Clerics and Wizards respectively. With Burakos on the field, Shieldmage Elder can tap itself and our commander for either effect, providing board protection and a way to discourage damage spells targeting us.

The full deck list can be found here. At the time of building, this deck’s price came out to $49.75, but only a few days after I was shocked to see the card prices had crept up to $51.85. I took some pride in being so close to the limit, but I didn’t account for the fluctuations in card prices, and now I really wish I had budgeted some buffer room! This was a really fun challenge and I was surprised at how difficult it was to build a 100-card deck without relying on Commander staples that fit into any white and black deck. It was infuriating to not be able to include personal favorite Swords to Plowshares, although Path to Exile (also too expensive) would probably be a better fit in this deck. I found replacing multicolor lands with basic lands was the easiest way to bring the price down, but I do wonder if this deck will suffer from having too many basics. I can already think of more than a few ways it could upgrade this deck beyond the $50 budget, Grim Hireling and Pitiless Plunderer easily have a place in this deck, but it was a lot of fun making decisions based on Card Kingdom’s prices rather than raw power alone. This black/white party deck is a unique contender among my decks and I’ll be very interested to see how it fares against some stiff competition. Thankfully at this affordable price, I won’t have to wait long to to build it in person!