By now you likely realize I love to brew my own decks. On and off for a while now I’ve had a deck idea that I wanted to put together and see where it went:

Given a tight budget, what can you build for EDH?

So how do I define a “tight budget”? First of all, I had to choose a place to get pricing from for consistent use. I chat online a lot and as a result I use a bot called Datatog over on the EFnet chat network, the same place where the official Commander/EDH chat room is located. Datatog’s pricing is pulled from “the average eBay closing price for a given card, obtained from <www.magictraders.com/pricelists/>. All prices except “THIS WEEK” are averaged over the past month, and only include prices with 3 or more auctions.” Thus, the prices I’m using are average ebay auction pricing. If I’m unable to find a price there, I will either estimate based on similar cards from the same set, or I will use the price from StarCityGames.com if need be. (Note that SCG pricing only got used for less than five cards in total.) Note that the least expensive set’s version was used – if a card cost 20 cents as 9th Edition but 40 cents from M12, the 9th Edition version was used.

Second, I had to choose a number. I needed something low. No, lower than that. I needed something that was such that anyone could afford to build it. I needed it such that even if the prices were doubled, you could still afford to go into the store and buy the deck outright. So I chose a number: $25. That’s right – this entire deck had to cost twenty-five US dollars or less to build from scratch. The only “freedom” I had was that basic lands were plugged in at a penny each. That and rounding and averaging..

Note that Datatog’s prices listed two types – over the last month, and over the last week. Sometimes you might hit a scenario where “last month” had 3 auctions and averaged 86 cents but the “last week” had 8 auctions averaging 26 cents. In cases like that I picked a number that was close to the average of both but did not take into account the number of auctions. In this case it would be 56 cents, rounded to 55 cents. All pricing was to a nickel rather than penny, and occasionally if I seemed to be rounding up a lot (58 cents rounds to 60 cents) I would round down a couple times to make sure it was more accurate (to 55 cents in that example).

All pricing though was kept close to accurate as possible otherwise. The first part, then, was to choose a General. I felt it would be most appropriate to choose a two-colour General. This would accomplish a couple different things. First, to make a good monocoloured deck would generally require higher-dollar items. It’s hard, for example, to build a monowhite deck without running Wrath of God variants, and almost none of which are going to be less than a dollar. Second, two colours allows for enough flexibility without getting into a messy manabase. You don’t want to feel you need to spend most of your budget just on a useable manabase. Two colours allows for the optimal flexibility between them.

Finding a General was simply a matter of asking Datatog to find all multicoloured legendary creatures whose price was low enough to be fit, and choosing the optimal one. Restricting to Legends that are 50 cents or less brings up a list of 19, which is small enough to skim through and choose. Some of those, though, are the awkward “Ugh, who in their right mind would play this??” Legends from, well, Legends. A current list includes entertaining options like Borborygmos Enraged and Ertai, the Corrupted, but in the end I felt like Gruul offered the best colour combination for what I wanted. Red and green can blow up anything and have pretty good creatures, and there’s lots of flexibility at all rarities. Red/Black, Black/Blue, Blue/White, and White/Green have too much overlap such that it’s hard to tell where one stops and the other starts. As for opposing colours, this would stretch the ability to find good dual lands since those cycles don’t get printed very often. Red/Green was my choice, and my options even now given that are:

Marhault Elsdragon
Stonebrow, Krosan Hero
Borborygmos Enraged

I don’t want to wait until turn 7+ to be able to cast my General most of the time – I’d rather have the chance to use him sooner. Stonebrow to me is the most efficiently-costed for what he does.

And now the fun begins!

Land Ho!

Four dollars spent on the manabase. There are 11 nonbasics – four fetchlands (Naya and Jund Panorama, Evolving Wilds and Terramorphic Expanse), six duals (Shivan Oasis, Fungal Reaches, Kazandu Refuge, Gruul Guildgate, Shimmering Grotto, and Archaeological Dig), and a Ghost Quarter just in case. Twenty-five basic lands fill this out. There should be a good enough chance of getting a dual early in the game. The Dig was 60 cents, GQ 50 cents, Oasis 40 cents, and everything else was in the 20-35 cent range.

Mana, this Rocks!

Less than two dollars (1.90) on mana rocks. These are artifacts that have mana abilities. Note that some of them don’t typically count as “mana rocks” because they cost more or filter instead, but for the sake of this deck, they do. Foriysian and Weatherseed Totem, Gruul Signet, Mind Stone, Talisman of Impulse, Fire and Moss Diamond all would normally count but the odd one to most people is Standing Stones. Back when Celestial Prism would have been considered balanced, this was ‘fair’ but nobody played it. That being said, after the Talisman and Totems at 30 cents each, the rest are a quarter or less and the Stones are only a dime.

Cleaning Time!

A bit over 2.50 for mass removal, and it’s amazing how cheap some of the options were! The most expensive in this category isn’t removal per se but it makes other removal that much better: Furnace of Rath, at 75 cents. After that, you can get Inferno, Flame Wave, Bloodfire Colossus, Chain Reaction (!), and Squall Line all between 25 to 50 cents each.

Man, I’m so buff!

A dollar and sixty cents gets us to a quartet of cards whose job it is to make our creatures better. Stonebrow gives a buff to any attacking creature we have that has trample, so the job of these four cards is to make sure trample happens. As a result we get Gruul War Plow (40 cents), Overrun (25 cents), Triumph of the Hordes (a whopping 65 cents!), and Stampede Driver (a more reasonable 30 cents) to get Stonebrow active.

Gimme moar land now!!!1

Thirty-five land seems a bit lower than typical, and there’s only four fetchlands. As a result I supplemented this with almost two-fifty worth of landcycling creatures, six cards total. Wirewood Guardian, Valley Rannet, Elvish Aberration, Chartooth Cougar, and Krosan Tusker are 30 to 35 cents each, but the Yavimaya Elder is more than double that at 75 cents. Between the mana rocks, lands and this category, mana shouldn’t be an issue.

You wanna fight? Bring it!

Three slots at a dollar and forty cents gives me some extra combat phases. Red and green are pretty good for attacking so these help make that even better. Hellkite Charger and Savage Beating were 40 cents each while Seize the Day was 60 cents. I don’t plan on using this much, obviously, but it’ll be nice to have a chance of taking out two players in one turn!

Spot the Problem?

Almost five dollars but 15 slots dedicated to spot removal. Flexibility was key for most of them and it helps a lot. The creature section is Indrik Stomphowler, Gorilla Shaman, Nantuko Vigilante, Kumano Master Yamabushi, and Daybreak Ranger/Nightfall Predator with pricing from a quarter for the double-faced card to 65 cents for the Master. The remaining slots were from 15 cents (Fissure!) to 40 (Desert Twister), netting me those two plus Pillage, Wreak Havoc, Bramblecrush, Creeping Mold, Into the Maw of Hell, Rain of Thorns, Brittle Effigy, and a reusable Helvault.

Requiem in Pax

Stuff that dies should stay dead. This category spent over a buck and a half on a mere three cards to make it so. Phyrexian Furnace was 30 cents and Night Soil was 40, but the Rysorian Badger cost more than both together at a hefty 85 cents – which seems to be the most expensive card on the entire list!

Back with another one of those block-rockin’ BEATS!!

And here come a baseball diamond full of Beastie Boys to do the battling alongside our other friends, averaging a neat quarter and ranging from 15 cents to only 40. Dragon Mage, Emperor Crocodile, Chancellor of the Tangle, Garruk’s Horde, Gigantomancer, Living Hive, Pentavus, Wildfire Emissary, and Moltensteel Dragon all seem ready to fight for their right to party!

What have we got here now, hmm?

A few extra cards, many that draw some more, and others that didn’t quite find the right home elsewhere. Giant Trap Door Spider and Strandwalker were a steal at a dime apiece. Chromatic Sphere allows for some cantripping mana fixing, Words of Wilding turns extra draws into Bears, Viridian Revel lets you draw for having opponent’s artifacts die, and Multani’s Acolyte is a slightly beefier Elvish Visionary, all at 20 cents each. This gave me room to add a Heart Warden for a quarter, Reforge the Soul for 40 cents, and Glissa Sunseeker for some extra artifact removal at a hefty 80 cents. And would you believe that one version of Fireball (M11) was going for a nickel?

When all is said and done, this is the decklist:

STONEBROW BUDGET EDH

Land:
10 Mountain
15 Forest
1 Naya Panorama
1 Jund Panorama
1 Evolving Wilds
1 Terramorphic Expanse
1 Shivan Oasis
1 Fungal Reaches
1 Kazandu Refuge
1 Gruul Guildgate
1 Archaeological Dig
1 Shimmering Grotto
1 Ghost Quarter

Mana Rocks:
1 Forisyian Totem
1 Weatherseed Totem
1 Gruul Signet
1 Mind Stone
1 Talisman of Impulse
1 Standing Stones
1 Fire Diamond
1 Moss Diamond

Landcyclers:
1 Wirewood Guardian
1 Valley Rannet
1 Elvish Aberration
1 Chartooth Cougar
1 Krosan Tusker
1 Yavimaya Elder

Buffers:
1 Gruul War Plow
1 Overrun
1 Triumph of the Hordes
1 Stampede Driver

Extra Combats:
1 Hellkite Charger
1 Savage Beating
1 Seize the Day

Mass Removal:
1 Inferno
1 Flame Wave
1 Bloodfire Colossus
1 Chain Reaction
1 Squall Line
1 Furnace of Rath

Spot Removal:
1 Indrik Stomphowler
1 Pillage
1 Wreak Havoc
1 Gorilla Shaman
1 Nantuko Vigilante
1 Kumano, Master Yamabushi
1 Daybreak Ranger/Nightfall Predator
1 Bramblecrush
1 Creeping Mold
1 Desert Twister
1 Into the Maw of Hell
1 Rain of Thorns
1 Brittle Effigy
1 Helvault
1 Fissure

Graveyard Removal:
1 Night Soil
1 Rysorian Badger
1 Phyrexian Furnace

Beatdown:
1 Dragon Mage
1 Emperor Crocodile
1 Chancellor of the Tangle
1 Garruk’s Horde
1 Gigantomancer
1 Living Hive
1 Pentavus
1 Wildfire Emissary
1 Moltensteel Dragon

Other:
1 Giant Trap Door Spider
1 Strandwalker
1 Reforge the Soul
1 Chromatic Sphere
1 Words of Wilding
1 Viridian Revel
1 Multani’s Acolyte
1 Heart Warden
1 Fireball
1 Glissa Sunseeker

Enjoy!