I Made 50 Commander Decks Under $50!
EDIT: CLICK HERE IF YOU JUST WANT TO SEE THE DECK LISTS WITHOUT EXPLANATIONS
Hey friends and welcome back to Budget Commander! Today I'm proud to show off my biggest budget project I've ever completed in my 10+ years of doing this series: here are 50 budget commander decks each under $50! Most of these are updates to older budget brews I've made in the past, many of which I've played on streams or on Commander Clash, but there's also some new brews that I'm excited to share with you!
But first, a couple of disclaimers! The commanders are sorted in alphabetical order to help if you're looking for a particular commander. Since there's so many decks to cover I'll only provide a brief rundown of each deck's goals and highlight key cards. Also the price of these decks are going to change depending when and where you're checking their prices: I'm using MTGGoldfish prices, which will be slightly different than other places like TCGplayer or Cardmarket. Also prices change over time: I've been working on this project for 2 weeks and had to constantly tweak the lists due to annoying price spikes, but I will stop making changes once the decks are published. I generally build with powerful cards while they are at their cheapest price point, so it's natural that decks get more expensive over time.
Alright, with the disclaimers out of the way, let's check out the decks!
Armix & Ich-Tekik Golgari Artifacts
Armix, Filigree Thrasher & Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer add a unique spin to the popular Artifact archetype by exploring it outside its traditional colors of Blue and Red: the result is an Artifact deck that gains a powerful sacrifice theme thanks to Black and a beefy game-ending threats thanks to Green! Armix provides a consistent source of interaction and graveyard recursion targets while Ich-Tekik provides combat muscle and finishers to the deck!
The goal of this deck is to play a ton of artifacts, sacrifice artifacts for value, and win with an army of beefy golems or draining our opponents' life totals.
Our deck has a strong Sacrifice subtheme: we've got plenty of artifacts that want to be sacrificed for value like Myr Retriever and Ichor Wellspring and sacrifice outlets like Chronomancer to draw cards or Scrapyard Recombiner to tutor up constructs.
Sacrificing artifacts benefits us numerous ways, such as reanimating things with Vat of Rebirth, making mana with Slagstone Refinery, making servo tokens with Sly Requisitioner, and draining our opponents to death with Marionette Master.
The deck also has a small Golem subtheme: since Ich-Tekik, Salvage Splicer pumps up all our Golems when our artifacts hit the graveyard, we have some spicy Golem inclusions like Cradle Clearcutter which makes more mana as its power increases, Geode Golem which can help cast our commanders, and Triplicate Titan which is a powerhouse finisher. Also Armix, Filigree Thrasher is a Golem! I didn't go all-in on Golems because Ich-Tekik closes out games all by itself but it's nice to make some good cards even better.
The rest of the deck is rounded out with amazing recursion options like Glissa, the Traitor, great board protection with Inspiring Call, and two one-sided board wipes with Phyrexian Scriptures and Their Name Is Death since nearly all our creatures are artifacts.
The deck is very well-rounded and not overly reliant on our commanders to function. Its main weakness is artifact hate but it can bounce back from one or two board wipes easily.
Baba Lysaga Sacrifice Drain
Baba Lysaga, Night Witch is a very unique Golgari Sacrifice deck that goes all-in on its commander's activated ability to drain out the table while maintaining a full grip of cards! This deck is directly inspired by Joey from EDHREC's list which I've had the pleasure of playing against twice.
The goal of this deck is to maximize Baba's activated ability. The deck is filled with sacrifice fodder for Baba: we have plenty of cards that want to be sacrificed like Nimblewright Schematic to make more creature fodder, Ordeal of Nylea which ramps you when it's sacrificed, and Chime of Night which destroys a creature when it's sacrificed.
We also run lots of cards that are multiple card types to make activating Baba easier: Ornithopter is free and provides two card types, Fang of Shigeki is a good blocker and also provides two, and some cards like Mishra's Factory can provide all three card types when it's turned into a land.
The rest of the deck supports our commander even further: we've got Sting, the Glinting Dagger to give her haste and get more activations per turn cycle, Kaya's Ghostform which protects her and is also sacrifice fodder, and Gixian Puppeteer which makes her activation even deadlier while also being able to return her to the battlefield from the graveyard.
This deck is powerful as long as Baba Lysaga is on the battlefield, as she herself is both our card draw engine and finisher while enabling so many shenanigans. The deck is built to keep her around, but it can struggle if our commander is shut down.
Braids Aristocrats
I swear not all my budget brews are Black Sacrifice decks! Blame the alphabet!
Braids, Arisen Nightmare is one of the purest forms of Mono Black Aristocrats you'll come across: like Baba Lysaga, Night Witch, Braids is a powerhouse card draw engine that drains opponents, but unlike Baba we aren't jumping through hoops to get our value, we're just playing a classic Aristocrats list that happens to gain crazy value from our commander but isn't built entirely around her.
The goal of this deck is to sacrifice our creatures for value while disrupting our opponents, discarding their hands and blowing up their creatures while we out-draw them and eventually drain them to death.
We are playing a mix of sacrificial creatures and payoffs for sacrificing them. For sacrifice fodder we've got self-recurring fodder like Cult Conscript, hand discard like Burglar Rat, and removal like Ravenous Chupacabra. We also have a few powerful noncreature sac fodder like Ugin's Nexus which we can sacrifice to Braids to take an extra turn.
For sacrifice payoffs we've got drain with Blood Artist, make ramping sac fodder with Pawn of Ulamog, draw even more cards with Smothering Abomination, and exile the sacrificed creatures to return them later with Prowling Geistcatcher.
The deck is super consistent and well-rounded. While our commander is very powerful and can draw us absurd amounts of cards if she sticks around, the deck can function fine without her. The main weakness is the deck has limited ability to deal with noncreature permanents such as enchantments.
Breena +1/+1 Counter Politics
Breena, the Demagogue wields a tremendous amount of subtle power: she provides card draw for both you and your opponents, while loading up your creatures with +1/+1 counters in the process. While some might assume that Breena is a Group Hug commander due to providing card draw to the entire table, she is far from it: yes, your opponents can draw cards off her too, but in exchange you get +1/+1 counters and they had to attack your opponents in the process -- so you will be the one benefitting the most at all times!
The goal of this deck is to play a bunch of small evasive utility creatures that can generate value and slow down opponents that can easily attack to trigger Breena. We pair that with political cards that encourage our opponents to attack each other, keeping our life total high while indirectly lowering our opponents' life totals, until we're ready to finish off our opponents with a lethal attack.
Because Breena is so efficient at loading up on +1/+1 counters I've leaned into it with a strong counter subtheme: we use those counters to draw cards off Dusk Legion Duelist, ramp with Scholar of New Horizons, have board wipe insurance with Felisa, Fang of Silverquill, and turn our team into lethal angels with Sigarda's Summons.
We have other ways to add +1/+1 counters to our creatures: Shaile, Dean of Radiance adds counters while also easily triggering Breena, Orzhov Advokist gives everyone counters but they can't attack us, Guardian Scalelord puts a counter while acting as recursion, but I especially love Noble Heritage which acts like an even better Advokist if our commander is out.
Overall the deck is well-rounded and consistent, and it doesn't fold to a single board wipe nor is it overly reliant on our commander sticking around. The deck has a lot of political cards that want our opponents attacking, so we're a bit weaker when paired against decks that have no interest in combat or constantly wipe the board.
Bruna Aura Voltron
Bruna, Light of Alabaster is an absurdly powerful Voltron commander: every time she attacks or blocks, she puts any number of Auras from your hand, graveyard, or battlefield, directly on to her. That means we can enchant her into an unstoppable 1-shotter without ever spending a single mana casting an aura!
The goal of this deck is to kill all of our opponents with Bruna commander damage. We're going to cast Bruna and attack, placing a lethal mixture of auras on to her from our hand and/or graveyard, and smash our opponents until they're dead. Simple!
We're going to use auras that pump Bruna into 1-shot territory like Battle Mastery, Auramancer's Guise, and All That Glitters. We can also be evil and poison kill with Corrupted Conscience.
Because Bruna puts all the auras onto herself without needing to cast anything, we just need to make sure our hand and graveyard has auras to enchant her with. Traumatize and Cut Your Losses make sure we have all the auras we need in our graveyard to enchant Bruna with, and we've also go tutors like Heliod's Pilgrim and Open the Armory to get specific auras.
Since our deck's entire game plan hinges on Bruna remaining on the battlefield, the deck is loaded with protection to keep her around such as Esior, Wardwing Familiar which we can cast a turn before casting Bruna, Loran's Escape to protect from most forms of removal, and of course protecting auras like Vanishing and Shielded by Faith.
And that's the deck! All we do is ramp, fill our graveyard and hand with auras, cast Bruna, attack with Bruna, and protect Bruna. Each opponent dies in one or two swings and we're loaded with ways to protect our commander. Either Bruna sticks around and we win, or Bruna is shut down and we lose. Simple but very effective!
Demonlord Belzenlok 1-Card Combo
Demonlord Belzenlok is a meme deck that looks to cast our commander and then immediately win the game. That's the only thing this deck is designed to do, so if you're interested in a silly gimmick budget deck then this is for you! This is how we do it:
Step 1: Cast Our Commander
First step is casting our commander. Since all 27 of our nonland cards in our deck have 4+ mana value, casting our commander will instantly draw our entire deck and deal a maximum of 27 damage to us. So our life total needs to be higher than that before casting Belzenlok or we need to give him lifelink with cards like Homicidal Seclusion or Deadly Wanderings. We also have ways to ramp out our commander a few turns early, mostly with lands like Peat Bog and Crystal Vein.
In order to combo off, we'll need either:
- 4BB if 1) an opponent controlling a Forest (or Forest dual) and you control a Swamp or 2) you control 5+ Swamps
OR
- 4BBB
OR
- Deal combat damage to a player with Geode Golem to cast Demonlord Belzenlok for free.
If we can meet any of those three criteria, we can cast Demonlord Belzenlok, put all the nonland cards in our deck into our hand, and proceed to Step 2!
Step 2: Combo Win
- Cast Demonlord Belzenlok, putting all the nonland cards from your library into your hand and taking that much damage (maximum 27).
- Exile a non-combo card (anything not mentioned here) to cast Unmask on yourself and discard Phantasmagorian.
- Activate Phantasmagorian, discarding Skirge Familiar, Dread Return, and a non-combo card to return Phantasmagorian to your hand.
- Now you need a third creature on the battlefield. Cast Deepwood Legate for free if any opponent controls a Forest (or Forest dual), or cast Dross Golem for free if you control 5+ Swamps. If you can't do either and have no third creature already then you'll need an extra B: you'll need to activate Phantasmagorian two additional times (holding priority) to discard 6 non-combo cards to delve Sibsig Muckdraggers for B, returning a non-combo creature to hand.
- Cast Hollow One for free.
- Flashback Dread Return, sacrificing Demonlord Belzenlok, Hollow One, and your third creature (Deepwood Legate / Dross Golem / Sibsig Muckdraggers) to reanimate Skirge Familiar.
- Use Skirge Familiar's ability to discard Cackling Imp, Grim Poppet, Cinderhaze Wretch, Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon, and a non-combo card for BBBBB.
- Spend BBBB to cast Necrotic Ooze.
- Spend B to give Necrotic Ooze haste from Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon.
- Tap Necrotic Ooze to make an opponent lose 1 life (from Cackling Imp).
- Put a -1/-1 counter on Necrotic Ooze to untap it (from Cinderhaze Wretch).
- Target any creature other than Necrotic Ooze, remove the -1/-1 counter from Necrotic Ooze as a cost. Then, before the "Put a -1/-1 counter on another target creature" resolves hold priority (from Grim Poppet).
- With the "Put a -1/-1 counter on another target creature" on the stack, repeat steps 11-13 to make your opponents lose infinite life and win the game.
TLDR: it's a Necrotic Ooze combo!
If our opponents manage to stop our combo we can discard Dread down to hand size, putting it on top of our library so we don't deck ourselves and try again next turn. Or if the combo is exiled then we try to kill people with Skithiryx, the Blight Dragon or our commander.
So this is a meme deck that just tries to combo win and do nothing else. It's not a good deck to play regularly, but if your playgroup is up for a meme game it's a fun one to bust out every once in a while!
Depala Dwarf Vehicles
Depala, Pilot Exemplar is a low-key powerhouse card draw engine for a Dwarf / Vehicle deck. Printed at a time when Boros was extremely weak at drawing cards, Depala provided the color combination a strong way to refill your hand and has only gotten better over the years with the increase in quality Vehicles and Dwarves! My version is primarily a Vehicles deck with some choice Dwarves to fill out the deck.
The goal of this deck is to run over our opponents with vehicles! It's a straightforward beatdown deck with built-in resilience to sorcery-speed creature wipes since vehicles are generally only creatures when attacking.
Our vehicles provide a ton of different utility for our deck: we've got ramp with Hoard Hauler, card draw with Weatherlight, graveyard hate and advantage with Nautiloid Ship, and of course beatdown with Parhelion II.
Our pilots are a diverse group of utility creatures: some are dwarves like Magda, Brazen Outlaw and Sram, Senior Edificer to ramp and draw cards, and non-dwarves like Sanwell, Avenger Ace to draw more cards and powerhouse finishers like Alibou, Ancient Witness to give our vehicles haste and blow up faces.
We've got plenty of cheeky plays to catch opponents off-guard, like mass reanimating all our artifacts with Wake the Past and Brilliant Restoration, or revving up all our vehicles with a surprise Reckless Crew or Start Your Engines.
The deck is well-rounded and not overly-reliant on our commander, though she's a superb anthem and source of draw in the deck. We're of course vulnerable to artifact hate but do have the tools to recover from one or two board wipes. It's a fair combat deck that isn't super fast but generates consistent value and can have some explosive combat steps.
Dralnu the Spellslinging Troll
Dralnu, Lich Lord is a deck I built explicitly to troll the table and embrace being the archenemy. This is a Spellslinger Control deck that is meant to make your opponents hate you and try to take you out, and then you use that aggression against them!
The goal of this deck is to kill our opponents with poison counters while controlling the board with tons of interaction and misdirection, including blowing up all their permanents with Dralnu!
Whenever Dralnu, Lich Lord takes damage, the controller has to sacrifice that many permanents. This is a major downside for us, but we're doing to turn that into a win condition by donating Dralnu to an opponent with the cards Wrong Turn, Sudden Substitution, Reins of Power, and Domineering Will. If we do this in response to a red board wipe like Blasphemous Act then some unlucky opponent is going to sacrifice a ton of permanents, or in the case of Will they're going to be forced to block and sacrifice. Wee can also dish out major damage ourselves with the cards Relic Amulet, The Filigree Sylex, and Sphinx-Bone Wand, which we can target Dralnu with once we've given him away.
But the main win condition is poison: we're running every card that can immediately put a poison counter on each opponent such as Prologue to Phyresis and Vraska's Fall. And once each opponent has a counter we can proliferate the poison until they die with cards like Flux Channeler and Experimental Augury. Of course all these spells can be recast by Dralnu for double the poison counters!
The rest of the deck builds utilizes our proliferate for extra value with cards like Astral Cornucopia and Mindsplice Apparatus for amazing ramp, tutors like Mystical Teachings, and sweet reanimation like Geth's Summons to keep opponents from killing us.
Keep in mind that this is an archenemy deck: even if you weren't blowing up people's boards with Dralnu, most folks will be gunning for you the moment you put a poison counter on them. Embrace the hate and understand that victory will be hard fought every time!
Edric Tempo
Ah, Edric, Spymaster of Trest, one of my first loves in Commander! This oldie is still a menace even in 2023 and is often restricted to high-power tables only, so be careful if you're building this for a casual pod!
The goal of this deck is to flood the board with cheap evasive creatures, draw a ton of cards off Edric, and keep our opponents off-tempo with cheap interaction! Eventually we win the game by chaining together extra turns and pumping our weenie army!
The first step is casting cheap evasive creatures. We focus on 1-drops like Triton Shorestalker, Hope of Ghirapur, and Siren Stormtamer, though there are rare exceptions for more expensive ones like Esior, Wardwing Familiar, which can protect our commander.
Then we play our commander and start drawing tons of cards. Because protecting Edric is crucial to our game plan and we draw so many cards, we favor mana-efficient answers over card-efficient, so cards like March of Swirling Mist, Abjure, Misdirection, and Foil work great here.
Once we have a decent-sized army we can start chaining extra turn spells like Notorious Throng and Karn's Temporal Sundering or pump our team for lethal with Scale Up and Biomass Mutation.
The deck is oppressively strong once it gets rolling but can be shut down if our board gets wiped before we can start drawing cards. From experience though this deck should be reserved for high-powered games as it'll often stomp low-power tables.
Eligeth & Esior Scry Voltron
Eligeth, Crossroads Augur & Esior, Wardwing Familiar is a Scry Voltron deck focused on winning with Eligeth, which turns all of our scry cards into straight card draw. This brew is a budgetized version of my boyfriend's deck which has a rather disgusting win rate.
The goal of this deck is to cast Eligeth and turn all of our scry cards into card draw. We protect our commander while suiting him up and killing our opponents with commander damage.
The reason why we go with Esior over the more poular Siani, Eye of the Storm is that Esior is a guaranteed turn 2 play that we can cast before casting Eligeth, providing an extra layer of protection for our most important card. Plus it holds equipment like Sword of the Animist and Mask of Memory very well, generating consistent value while we get ready to cast Eligeth.
Once we do cast Eligeth we start scrying with cards like Mystic Speculation, Preordain, and Serum Visions, filling up our hands.
We keep Eligeth protected with cards like March of Swirling Mist and Lofty Denial, then turn our massive card draw into a win condition with cards like Empyrial Plate and Hand of Vecna to quickly deal lethal commander damage.
This deck can soft lock the table once Eligeth sticks on the battlefield and draw so much interaction. It's designed to cast and protect our commander, but if our opponents do manage to shut him down or simply pop off before we get Eligeth on board then our deck won't be able to do much.
Evra Voltron
This Evra, Halcyon Witness deck is my attempt to make a budget version of Johannes Voss's Evra list which I had the pleasure of being destroyed by at MagicCon Barcelona: Johannes multitasking between piloting this deck and signing cards and ended up with an absurdly high win%, which was incredibly impressive for a commander that most people overlook as "weak"! My budget version sticks as close as possible to the essence of what Johannes is doing, but a lot of his speed comes from expensive cards we can't afford, I've opted for a slightly slower version that compensates with more interaction.
The great strength of Evra is that as long as your life total is above 21, Evra can lifeswap with you to 1-shot opponents with commander damage. This is the only commander that can do this without any other support pieces. Since we need nothing to make Evra lethal, the deck instead is entirely built around casting our commander, protecting it from removal, and then giving it evasion.
The goal of this deck is to kill people with Evra. This is not a Lifegain deck or a Lifeswap deck, this is a 100% committed Voltron list and every single card has been selected with the goal of killing with Evra as efficiently and consistently as possible.
The deck has a ton of ramp and land fetchers to get out Evra early, mostly traditional mana rocks but some notable inclusions are "speedbumps," blockers that protect our life total early game before Evra hits the field like Knight of the White Orchid, Loyal Warhound, Oreskos Explorer, and The Restoration of Eiganjo.
For protection, we focus on the most mana-efficient options possible since we'll be pinched of mana to both cast and protect Evra on the same turn. Selfless Savior, Skrelv, Defector Mite, and Mother of Runes are examples of mana-free protection that we can cast before casting our commander (protection from color can also double as evasion!), and we also have cards like Brass Squire which can equip protection for free.
Once Evra is on the battlefield, we give it evasion through protection like Faith's Shield and Emerge Unscathed or by equipment like Chariot of Victory and Whispersilk Cloak to start taking out opponents.
Overall it's a sweet Voltron list using a relatively unknown commander. Like all Voltron decks it's entirely reliant on Evra sticking, but the layers of protection the deck runs can definitely catch opponents by surprise!
Firkraag Goad Dragons
For those that don't know, I'm kind of an Izzet Dragons fanboy, so it shouldn't be a surprise that the latest budget brew entering my personal collection is Firkraag, Cunning Instigator! This deck forces your opponents' creatures to do your bidding, killing each other for your amusement while Firkraag draws you cards and grows into a lethal finisher! My deck combines two themes: Goad and Dragons!
The goal of this deck is to force our opponents' creatures to attack each other, forcing unprofitable attacks that cause their creatures to die and their life totals to dwindle, all while we draw cards and build ever-growing threats! Eventually our opponents kill each other or we finish the job ourselves with Firkraag and other powerful dragons!
For dragons, we're looking for ones that fit one or more of the following criteria: 1) cheap 2) have haste 3) force attacks 4) provide powerful utility. Some of my favorites unique to the deck are Chaos Dragon, Territorial Hellkite, Warmonger Hellkite, and Vengeful Ancestor, which force attacks to trigger Firkraag and continue to lay the smackdown themselves.
We have plenty of dragon support cards as well, like Dragon Tempest for haste and burn, Minion of the Mighty which cheats dragons into play, Lozhan, Dragons' Legacy burns when we cast dragons, and Lathliss, Dragon Queen which makes even more dragons.
Our goad theme fills in the gaps between our expensive dragons and further controls the board while growing our commander: Gloin, Dwarf Emissary ramps and goads when needed, Public Enemy makes one opponent increbily unhappy and potentially dead, Bothersome Quasit removes blocking from the equation, and Spectacular Showdown is an amazing finisher in the deck that doubles the damage output of the goaded board.
The deck can is overall pretty strong, but does have consistency issues: goad can feel almost unfair against tables full of combat-focused decks, but doesn't offer much at tables with few creatures or heavy board wipes. Worst case though our top-end dragons are still packing heat and can get the job done even when our goading isn't getting there.
Galadriel Scryfall
Galadriel of Lothlorien is a Simic Landfall deck with a really sweet Scry twist, turning your scrying into land ramp! Lord of the Rings also brought Elves into Simic and tied them to scrying, so the deck also runs an Elf subtheme that ties into its Scrying and Landfall themes. The end result is a unique deck that runs all the classic Landfall payoffs but enables them with unique Scrying and Elf cards that fuel our commander's land ramp!
The goal of the deck is to scry a bunch to fuel our various scry payoffs, most notably our commander, to rocket ahead in card and mana advantage and bury our opponents in value! We finish the job by flooding the board with creature tokens or Elf overruns!
Galadriel enables some non-infinite combos that are surprisingly easy to assemble: with Galadriel, one of our three cards that scry when a creature enters the battlefield (Sylvan Anthem, Season of Growth, or Elrond, Lord of Rivendell), and one of our four cards that create a creature when a land enters the battlefield (Scute Swarm, Sporemound, Rampaging Baloths, and Zendikar's Roil), we can put a land into play to trigger landfall and make a green creature token, which triggers a scry, which triggers Galadriel to potentially put a land from the top of our library into play and repeat the process. It's not infinite but with a bit of luck -- or with Scute Swarm to make things easier -- we can loop this process a couple times to ramp out a ton of lands and make a ton of creatures!
The rest of the deck are filled with powerful scry enablers or ring tempts you: we've got classics like Serum Visions but a lot of unique stuff like Celeborn the Wise, Cryptic Annelid, and Horses of the Bruinen.
We also have scry payoffs outside of our commander: Arwen Undomiel and Elrond, Master of Healing pump our team, The Temporal Anchor lets us play the cards we bottom, and Lost Isle Calling can take an extra turn while drawing cards.
The deck quickly snowballs out of control if Galadriel manages to stick on the table, generating tons of card advantage and ramping out lands at an astonishing rate. The deck loses a lot of steam when Galadriel gets shut down, but as long as we can ramp out two lands with her before she goes it's easy enough to recast her and keep going.
General Rokiric Multicolor Beats
General Ferrous Rokiric is a Multicolor Matters deck that rewards you with chonky 4/4 creatures whenever you cast a multicolor spell. The deck is surprisingly powerful, able to quickly flood the table with a huge token army that keep you safe and finish off your opponents with lethal combats, but also has some incredible consistency in card draw, interaction, and protection (Ferrous himself comes protected by common removal spells like Swords to Plowshares!). It's way stronger than it looks!
The goal of the deck is to passively flood the board with a huge token army as you do basic things like draw cards, ramp, interact, and protect your board. Eventually our army reaches a critical mass to swing out for victory!
If you're worried about Boros struggling to draw cards, fret not: cards like Losheel, Clockwork Scholar and Tocasia's Welcome draw cards on both our turns and opponents, and then we've got mass draw heavy hitters like Neyali, Suns' Vanguard and Commander Liara Portyr to really pop off.
Our multicolor spells do everything we need for our deck, like protect with Boros Charm, reanimate and draw with Campus Renovation, ramp with Prosperous Partnership, and blow up stuff with Alibou, Ancient Witness.
Once we've collected a nice golem army, it's time to win with cards like Aurelia, the Warleader, Adriana, Captain of the Guard, Blade Historian, and Lorehold Command.
This deck is undoubtedly the strongest budget Boros brew I've made. It really needs our commander to stick or else it'll struggle hard, but between our commander's innate protection against popular targeted removal and layers of board protection you should have a good shot to stick him and then take over with a golem army.
Ghalta Stompy
Ghalta, Primal Hunger is peak Mono Green Stompy: this deck is all about smashing with HUGE creatures, most importantly our commander, a 12/12 trampler that can be cast for as low as GG!
The goal of the deck is to cast huge creatures and smash face! That's it, that's the deck!
Our deck seeks to cast our commander as quickly and cheaply as possible. Ghalta is unique in that the more power we have on board, the cheaper Ghalta becomes: we're ramping it out with fatties like Topiary Stomper, Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma, Hunted Troll and my favorite tech Tangleweave Armor a 4-drop 12/12 equipment that gives a 12-mana discount to our commander as well!
We also have plenty of "size matters" payoffs like drawing silly amounts of cards off Return of the Wildspeaker, ramping out all the lands with Traverse the Outlands, devouring entire armies with Monstrous Onslaught, and flooding the board with creatures with Scepter of Celebration.
The deck has tons of interesting tech, from Majestic Genesis playing 12 cards from the top of our library to Dragon Throne of Tarkir being a massive overrun to Ezuri's Predation wiping out smaller creatures and providing a discount to Ghalta to one-shotting people with a surprise Boon of Boseiju on Ghalta.
It's simple, straightforward, flashy, fun, and BIG! Everything in the deck is BIG!
Gix Tempo
Gix, Yawgmoth Praetor is essentially Mono Black Edric, Spymaster of Trest that has a slightly weaker card draw engine (you have to pay life) and weaker colors but instead comes with a built-in finisher, trading your individually weaker cards of 1/1 evasive creatures for actual haymakers and win conditions of your opponents' libraries! The deck is super fun and straightforward with good replay value since you'll be casting a lot of your opponents' cards to close out games.
The goal of the deck is to quickly flood the table with cheap evasive creatures, draw a ton of cards off our commander, then activate Gix's ability to steal our opponents' better cards to finish the game!
We want to drop down cheap evasive creatures turns 1 and 2, then drop Gix and start drawing cards. Top-tier creatures for this include Changeling Outcast, Tormented Soul, Eyetwitch, and Eye Collector -- all 1 mana evasion.
Since the entire deck relies on Gix, we run a bunch of ways to keep him on the battlefield such as Undying Malice and Undying Evil to protect him and Unearth or Call of the Death-Dweller to get him back from the graveyard.
Finally to help maximize Gix's activate ability we use cards like Bubbling Muck to generate more mana and Reliquary Tower so we have more cards in hand to discard. We can also win with our own creatures, pumping them into more lethal threats with Drana, Liberator of Malakir or Strixhaven Stadium.
The deck is simple to play, powerful and consistent, but it's heavily reliant on our commander being on the battlefield to do anything.
Hallar Kicker Burn
Hallar, the Firefletcher is a Kicker Burn deck, turning all kicked spells into damage to our opponents' faces! This deck has been a mainstay of my personal Commander collection for years now as part of my Modular Kicker list. If often call it my "Purphoros, God of the Forge deck at home," because it's essentially a Burn deck that is fueled by Kicker cards and +1/+1 counters.
The goal of this deck is to cast Hallar, load them up with +1/+1 counters, then cast kicked spells to burn out opponents or kill them with commander damage!
First we cast Hallar and load them up with counters. We do this efficiently with cards like Forgotten Ancient, Ruinous Intrusion, and Strength of the Tajuru, then double those counters with cards like Hydra's Growth.
Then we cast kicked spells to start burning our opponents. We prioritize cheap casting cost over everything in order to maximize how much burn we can pump out: Vines of Vastwood and Goblin Bushwhacker are two of the best for being super cheap and having good utility, but we'll pay a bit extra for useful utility cards like Breath of Darigaaz and Inscription of Abundance.
The rest of the deck utilizes Hallar in cool ways, like Snake Umbra drawing us a card for each opponent Hallar burns, Chandra's Incinerator which turns Hallar's burn into creature removal, Return of the Wildspeaker instant speed hand refill with Hallar, and Dictate of the Twin Gods which can double Hallar's damage output.
I find that Hallar is seriously underestimated at most tables. The deck runs a lot of janky looking cards that are reliant on Hallar to work, but if the commander sticks on the battlefield then you can pull off some seriously explosive turns and kill the table in a hurry.
Iname Spirit Reanimator
Iname, Death Aspect was a deck I made last year for an "Unpopular Commander" challenge to build a deck around a commander that (at the time) had less than 200 deck submissions on EDHREC. But "unpopular" doesn't mean "bad," and Iname proved to be a powerhouse when built correctly, which is to cast Iname, dump a lethal amount of spirits into the graveyard, and then mass reanimate them to win! It's a one-trick pony, but it's a very good trick!
The goal of this deck is to cast Iname, dump all our spirits into the graveyard, mass reanimate them, then win the game!
Because Iname puts all our spirits into our graveyard, all we need to find is a mass reanimate spell to win the game: cards like Living Death, Patriarch's Bidding, and Haunting Voyage are what we need to find. Since we're looking for a particular card, we're running a lot of tutors in place of card draw, since we actually don't want to draw our spirits, so cards like Illicit Shipment are perfect here.
As for the spirits themselves, most of them are complete jank but it doesn't really matter when we have 30ish of them on the battlefield! But some sweet synergies include Kuro, Pitlord and Horobi, Death's Wail to machine-gun down opposing creatures for 1 life per kill, Patron of the Nezumi which drains opponents, and Kagemaro, First to Suffer which is an emergency board wipe when needed.
The deck is packing some other useful tricks like winning on our upkeep instead of reanimating with Mortal Combat, generating tons of mana with Songs of the Damned, one-shotting opponents with a surprise Soulshriek, or giving all our reanimated creatures haste to immediately win with Crashing Drawbridge.
Like the Belzenlok list, this deck is incredibly linear and wants to pull off the same trick each game. I think it's a very fun trick and it's great if people want a meme game, but it's not something I'd whip out regularly. Also the deck is obviously vulnerable to graveyard hate but you can sort of get around that by not grabbing all your spirits if you 100% know there's graveyard hate coming soon or you just straight-up start hardcasting spirits to close things out.
Isperia Flyers
Isperia the Inscrutable is a sweet oldschool commander that ends up being a fun Flyers commander with lots of unique card options. With a repeatable tutor in the command zone, this deck can find the right card for any situation!
The goal of this deck is to soar over our opponents' defenses with a flying army, then close out the game with some big Sphinx haymakers!
Isperia has a unique and powerful combat trigger that lets you tutor up a flying creature, but you have to correctly guess a card in the opponents' hand -- quite a hoop to jump through! Fortunately we have a few tricks to always guess correctly, such as Telepathy and Glasses of Urza to peek at opponents' hands and bounce like Gust of Wind to return cards to hand in order to guess them. Also double strike like Duelist's Heritage is minimum one tutor per combat but usually two!
For tutor targets, one of the best is Unesh, Criosphinx Sovereign, which is sort of a hidden commander for the deck, supercharging all our sphinxes like Defiler of Dreams. But we can tutor up whatever we need for the situation, like Sephara, Sky's Blade for protection or Cemetery Illuminator for graveyard hate.
The deck has plenty of cool Flying payoff as well like Watcher of the Spheres for ramp, Errant and Giada for draw, Jubilant Skybonder for protection, and Lofty Denial for countermagic.
Overall it's a fun deck with lots of unique cards and an oldschool commander. It's one of the weaker decks in this article though as it's pretty slow and very fair, better suited at lower/mid power tables.
Jeleva Spellslinger Haymakers
Here's a Spellslinger commander for all you Timmy players: Jeleva, Nephalia's Scourge lets us cast instants / sorceries for free, so we're going to load up on huge splashy spells to cast with her!
The goal of this deck is to put huge game-winning spells on top of our library to then cast for free with our commander and quickly overwhelm our opponents!
Some huge bombs that we're planning to cast for free with Jeleva include Volcanic Vision to recur and one-sided board wipe, Breach the Multiverse to steal a bunch of creatures, Mnemonic Deluge to cast the best spell three more times, and of course some extra turns like Karn's Temporal Sundering!
To support our haymaker strategy we're using cards like Harmonic Prodigy to double the amount of exiled spells and cast triggers off Jeleva, Diabolic Vision to ensure we hit something good with Jeleva, Oblivion Sower to ramp out the exiled lands, and Clout of the Dominus to give Jeleva haste and protection.
The deck is super reliant on Jeleva sticking in order to do much, but she's cheap enough that you can recast her a few times and also you will get to the point where you can just hardcasting your haymakers and win that way as well.
Jodah Legends
Jodah, the Unifier is known and feared at many Commander tables for his absurdly pushed power level. While a lot of people will tell you that making a 5C deck is impossible at $50, it is very much doable, making Jodah one of the strongest $50 brews in this article!
The goal of this deck is to cast a bunch of legendary creatures, generating obscene value off our commander and then swinging with an omega-buffed army.
Because Jodah all but guarantees a win if he sticks around for a couple turns, my list focuses on legendary creatures that can protect him: Gold-Forged Thopteryx, Hajar, Loyal Bodyguard, Saffi Eriksdotter, and Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate are some of the many ways this deck can protect Jodah.
The rest of the deck is primarily legendary creatures with useful utility like Eowyn, Fearless Knight for removal and evasion, Inga and Esika for ramp and draw, Ratadrabik of Urborg for removal insurance, and Shanid, Sleepers' Scourge for draw and evasion.
Rounding out the list are some noncreature spells with strong Legends synergy, mostly ramp like Leyline Immersion and Relic of Legends but also other stuff like board wipe with Urza's Ruinous Blast and mass reanimation with Primevals' Glorious Rebirth.
This deck is one of the stronger ones in this article. The manabase is a bit slow due to taplands but consistent, and a Jodah deck that is a turn slower than normal is still a powerhouse.
Jolrael Animate Lands
Jolrael, Voice of Zhalfir takes the classic Simic Landfall archetype and adds a sweet new twist: we're animating our lands and beating our opponents to death with them!
The goal of this deck is to animate our lands into huge beaters, crushing our enemies under the might of our Forests and Islands!
Jolrael animates a very impressive beater all by herself, but to maximize the card draw we're getting off her we're animating additional lands with cards like Tatyova, Steward of Tides, Embodiment of Insight, and Sylvan Awakening! Even Emergent Sequence is playable here!
There's a ton of cool tech in this deck, like Skyshroud Blessing and Teferi's Response being awesome ways to protect our animated lands, nonland board wipes like Consuming Tide not touching our lands, and manlands like Faerie Conclave being sources of card draw!
Eventually we crush our opponents with even more Jolrael land beatsticks from Irenicus's Vile Duplication and Strionic Resonator or pumping all our lands with Sylvan Advocate and Kamahl, Heart of Krosa.
The deck is strong and runs a lot of unique cards, so if you're looking for a Simic Landfall deck that does things a bit differently then I recommend Jolrael!
Kalamax Arcane
Kalamax, the Stormsire has a reputation for being a powerhouse commander, but my version is a bit ... janky. Behold: a deck built around the best parasitic mechanic in Magic, Arcane! Cards like Overblaze, Wear Away, Evermind, and yes, Commander staple Kodama's Reach! Arcane spells were largely overcosted even back when they were printed centuries ago, but our busted dino can make our splice piles more tantalizing as he'll copy the entire spliced spell for us, doubling the value of our spells!
The goal of this deck is to make arcane spells look good and ultimately win the game with arcane combos!
Yep, this is a combo deck! We're looking to win with a couple different Arcane combos:
- Desperate Ritual + Through the Breach + Rootha, Mercurial Artist = infinite red mana. Splice Glacial Ray or have Ral, Storm Conduit out for infinite damage.
- Psychic Puppetry / Toils of Night and Day + Desperate Ritual + Dual Casting = Infinite R, same thing as above
- Reach Through Mists + Peer Through Depths + Sift Through Sands = The Unspeakable, not a win con technically but I'd count it as a win
Are the combos good? No, not really, but the point of the deck is to make Arcane look as good as possible, so I'm sticking with my mediocre win cons! If you want a better combo then toss in Fury Storm, cast your commander a single time, cast Storm targeting any instant / sorcery and have the copy target the original Storm for infinite Storm copies. Win with Ral, Storm Conduit or whatever. It's not Arcane so I left it out!
The deck has a lot of cool support cards, like Elder Pine of Jukai and Loam Dweller fetching and ramping lands as we cast Arcane spells, Leyline Immersion tapping down Kalamax for tons of mana and keeping him safe, and Twinning Staff which doubles all our doubling!
Could the deck be way better if we ditched the Arcane theme and went for a generic Kalamax deck? Yes, absolutely. But Arcane is a really sweet and unique path to take the deck and can certainly hold its own!
Kardur Goad Blink
Of all the Goad commanders, Kardur, Doomscourge has the strongest "goad" ability despite not actually being goad: it forces your opponents to attack each other much like goad does, except it also affects creatures that enter the battlefield after Kardur's ability resolves, so your opponents can't play hasted creatures on their turn and attack you! You're 100% guaranteed unattackable until your next turn -- so long as you're not the last remaining opponent of course! And you passively drain your opponents whenever attacking creatures die for extra value!
The goal of this deck is to abuse the heck of Kardur's ability, making sure we trigger it every turn to force our opponents to attack every turn until we finish off the final opponent in a 1v1!
We have a variety of ways to keep triggering Kardur: the most common is by making token copies of Kardur with cards like Jaxis, the Troublemaker and Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink which trigger his mega goad before dying, but we also have bounce with Skull Collector and reanimate/blink with Rescue from the Underworld.
As generous patrons of the battlefield, we provide our opponents beatsticks to assist in their fighting with Xantcha, Sleeper Agent, Hunted Horror, Life of the Party, and Rite of the Raging Storm!
And we of course benefit from all this forced mayhem with cards like Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant, Death Kiss, Curse of Opulence, and Curse of Disturbance.
The deck is downright oppressive in combat-heavy playgroups, but on the flipside it can struggle against tables that repeatedly wipe the board and Sacrifice decks.
Kozilek Colorless Voltron
Sorry, Zhulodok, Void Gorger, but you weren't the best commander in your own deck, for the true Colorless King remains Kozilek, the Great Distortion! This Colorless deck is a giant pile of mana rocks that cast our commander, refill our hand, counter all our opponents' nonsense and then punch them into submission with commander damage!
The goal of this deck is to ramp out Kozilek as quickly as possible and kill our opponents with commander damage while countering anything that would stand in our way.
As mentioned, the majority of our deck is ramp since our commander costs as whopping 10 mana! Don't worry about flooding later, Kozilek turns excess mana rocks into countermagic anyway. Some spicy inclusions are Forsaken Monument which is the best of the best, Ugin, the Ineffable which doubles as card advantage and removal, Geode Golem which casts a 10 mana spell as a combat trigger, and Ebony Fly which can give Kozilek flying.
Once Kozilek is on the field we'll make him even deadlier by pushing him into 1-shot territory with cards like Fireshrieker and Inquisitor's Flail, give him haste and trample with Haunted Cloak, and unblockable with Key to the City.
We've also got a bunch of fun Colorless support cards like amazing draw with Mystic Forge, one-sided wipe with All Is Dust, cheeky countermagic with Warping Wail, and whatever the heck Endbringer is.
The deck is a serious beast if allowed to ramp out Kozilek. Even if Kozilek dies we just recast him and refill. The deck completely folds to artifact hate though -- one board wipe and it's GG. But that's just a fact of playing Colorless, you're stuck relying on artifacts to do anything.
I also haven't done this for any other deck, but if you're willing to dish out a few extra bucks I highly recommend picking up Calamity of the Titans, Desecrate Reality, and Not of This World, they're all under $5 each but they are incredible for the deck. And if you're willing to spend some big bucks then Id highly recommend Rise of the Eldrazi and Ugin, the Spirit Dragon, the two biggest upgrades for Kozilek. Beyond that go for faster lands Sanctum of Ugin, Ancient Tomb, Eye of Ugin, better ramp Mana Crypt, The One Ring for draw, the Eldrazi Titans (all), Conduit of Ruin, Void Winnower, Portal to Phyrexia, okay I'll stop now.
Light-Paws Aura Voltron
I think WOTC designers were really tired of people making fun of Mono White when they designed this commander, because the result is one of the strongest commanders printed in recent memory that just slaps even on the humblest budget: a repeatable tutor in the command zone that puts the searched card into play for free shouldn't be 2mv, but here we are and we're going to take advantage of it!
The goal of this deck is to suit up Light-Paws with auras and destroy our opponents with commander damage while shutting down anything they're trying to do.
To deal lethal damage we're going to be casting / tutoring auras like Ethereal Armor, Battle Mastery, Sage's Reverie, and Empyrial Armor to pump Light-Paws into a real slapper.
And to make sure our commander both doesn't die and can slip past blockers we're running auras like Unquestioned Authority, Shield of Duty and Reason, Robe of Stars, and Timely Ward.
Oh, and just in case our opponents want to launch a response or simply play the game of Magic, we'll tutor up / cast stuff like Faith Unbroken, Chains of Custody, Darksteel Mutation, and Ossification.
The deck is cracked. Only use it at higher power tables!
Minn Illusions
Minn, Wily Illusionist is a sweet and unique Mono Blue commander that cares about Illusions, drawing cards, sacrifice, and permanents, a weird combination indeed but it works into a really cool deck!
The goal of this deck is to draw cards, make a bunch of Illusions, sacrifice them to cheat our permanents into play, and repeat until we win!
We're playing a couple Illusions in the deck, like Phantom Steed, but the majority of Illusions are going to made by triggering Minn through card draw: Merfolk Looter and All-Seeing Arbiter can guarantee triggering Minn on our own turn, while cards like Arcanis the Omnipotent can trigger her on any turn.
We then sacrifice the illusions to cheat permanents into play with outlets like Witch's Oven, Culling Dais, Grafted Wargear, and the mighty Fade Away!
Eventually we win the game with an army of illusions from Minn and her copies Irenicus's Vile Duplication / Spark Double, having 13 cards in hand with Triskaidekaphile, or draining opponents with Psychosis Crawler.
Myra's Attractions
Myra the Magnificent is an amazing Izzet commander that combines the Spellslinger and Artifact archetypes together in a way that Galazeth Prismari could only dream of. Unfortunately won't give Myra a shot because she uses an Unfinity mechanic, but her ability is pretty simple and the summary is simply that whenever you cast an instant/sorcery from your hand Myra creates an artifact and she can then imprint instants / sorceries onto those artifacts and cast them for free each turn. Sounds strong? It is!
The goal of this deck is to open up a theme park on your battlefield, flooding the board with artifacts as you cast instants / sorceries and then utilize them in different ways!
What to do with our attractions? Well, we tap them to cast more spells with Galazeth Prismari and Inspiring Statuary, draw cards with Shimmer Dragon, and eventually turn them into a lethal army with Rise and Shine!
The deck is sweet and is one of my most complimented / requested decks to play, so I'd recommend giving it a spin and not being scared by Unfinity!
Nahiri Living Weapons
Nahiri, Forged in Fury is a snowbally Equipment deck that wants tons of equipment to cast her cheaper and then tons of equipped creatures to maximize her powerful triggered ability. To tick both of those boxes we're building an Equipment deck focused on cheap equipment that enter the battlefield pre-equipped!
The goal of this deck is to flood the board with cheap equipment that come equipped to creatures, cast Nahiri and then really flood the board with equipment, overwhelming our opponents with combat value!
We're focusing on equipment that come equipped to tokens like living weapons Flayer Husk, for mirrodin Bladehold War-Whip, and non-keyword equipment like Barbed Spike. We also run a couple equipment that enter equipping a creature like Maul of the Skyclaves.
The rest of the deck supports our equipment strategy like Puresteel Paladin, Reyav, Master Smith, Goldwardens' Gambit, and Akki Battle Squad.
Cast equipment, cast Nahiri, attack to cast way more equipment, and hope to dodge artifact board wipes long enough to close out the game!
Narset Token Prowess
Narset, Enlightened Exile is a powerful Jeskai Tokens deck that closes out the game by chaining a bunch of noncreature spells to pump your team with prowess. It's aggressive yet flexible and certainly powerful. If you like the idea of Jeskai Tokens then this should scratch that itch!
First we need to make tokens: incremental token generators like Third Path Iconoclast and Monastery Mentor are the heart of our token production, but we also have burst production like Secure the Wastes and Call the Coppercoats too.
Once we have tokens we're going to pump them with cards like Jeskai Ascendancy, Surge to Victory, Warlord's Fury, and Balmor, Battlemage Captain, all while Narset pumps the team with prowess and casts additional spells from the graveyard.
The deck can quickly end games with just a couple 1/1's on the battlefield. Narset is an amazing value engine all by herself but the deck can still win without her on the battlefield.
Niv-Mizzet Combo Control
Niv-Mizzet, Parun is my favorite character in Magic and one of my favorite decks. It started as a budget brew like this one but ended up being way too strong for my group so I morphed it into my CEDH deck. If you're looking for a high power Control deck then this one's for you!
The goal of this deck is to control the board until we can cast Niv-Mizzet and combo off to win the game.
The combo we're assembling is Niv-Mizzet, Parun + either Curiosity / Tandem Lookout / Ophidian Eye. Once we enchant Niv with any of these we just cast any instant/sorcery to trigger a near-infinite damage + card draw loop to burn out the table.
The rest of the deck is aimed at supporting this combo kill. We can tutor our combo piece with transmute like Dizzy Spell for Curiosity, we have lots of treasure looters like Big Score to ramp out Niv and also dig for our combos, we've got plenty of board wipes like Reckless Endeavor, and if our opponents' life totals are higher than our library count we can reshuffle with Commit // Memory to burn more.
This is essentially a linear combo deck that is elevated to powerhouse status because of how much interaction and protection it's packing, making it one of the strongest decks in this article.
Noyan Animate Lands
Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper is one of the most unique commanders out there, using Spellslinger to fuel an Animate Land strategy not in Green! While a bit slow and risky, Noyan runs a ton of weird yet powerful tech pieces that you won't see anywhere else.
The goal of this deck is to cast instants and sorceries, animate our lands, and then punch our opponents into submission with them!
Animating lands is an inherently risky strategy since they become more vulnerable to removal. In order to minimize risk we're animating indestructible lands like Darksteel Citadel, making all our lands indestructible with Terra Eternal, countering spells that would destroy our lands with Equinox (a notable judge nightmare!), or uno reversal our opponents' targeted removal with Teferi's Response.
Other cool tech is blinking an animated land to draw a bunch of cards and discard nothing off Vanish into Memory, turn our lands into angelic finishers with Sigarda's Summons, removing counters to ramp with Scholar of New Horizons, and we're also running all the "nonland" wipes like Flood of Tears because they don't affect our land creatures!
The deck isn't the strongest and is on the slow / risky side of things, but it's certainly one of the most unique decks you'll come across in the format!
Ob Nixilis Ping Voltron
Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin utilizes a ton of weird and janky "ping" cards, quickly growing into a lethal voltron threat while also drawing absurd amounts of cards. If you wanted to play a blisteringly fast Voltron version of Rakdos Group Slug then this deck is for you!
The goal of this deck is to ping our opponents repeatedly and as mana-efficiently as possible while Ob Nixilis takes out our opponents and provides us all the cards we need to keep going!
Our deck is loaded with ping cards: we're looking for cards that are as mana-efficient and repeatable as possible, like Manabarbs, Spiteful Visions, and Kessig Flamebreather, or utility pingers like Pestilence which clears the board of opposing creatures while pinging!
We also run powerful support cards to close out games like Chandra's Incinerator turning all ping damage into creature removal, Laelia, the Blade Reforged growing into an enormous threat with Ob's exile draw, turning Ob into a 1-shotter with Temur Battle Rage, and protecting him from removal with tons of cards like Armor of Shadows.
The deck is heavily reliant on our commander, but if we manage to keep him on the battlefield for just a few turns then all our opponents are basically dead! The deck plays FAST, either we crush the table or go out in a blaze of glory!
Omnath 4C Landfall
Omnath, Locus of Creation is a multiformat powerhouse so it shouldn't be surprise that a $50 even a budget brew can clean up tables too! Like any good Landfall deck, this ramps hard and generates value even harder!
The goal of this deck is to ramp out tons of lands, triggering our landfall cards to draw tons of cards and overrun with tons of tokens or combo off to win!
We utilize all our sweet land ramp to draw with Tatyova, Benthic Druid, generate an armies with Omnath, Locus of Rage and Rampaging Baloths. But we also have sweet tech like enchanting Omnath, Locus of Creation with Curiosity to draw 3 cards each time we trigger his third landfall ability!
We also have a combo kill if combat isn't working: any creature that taps to put a land on to the battlefiled like Scaled Herbalist + Retreat to Coralhelm + any bounceland like Azorius Chancery = infinite landfall triggers. We can make that infinite damage with Tunneling Geopede for example. You can also pull this combo by replacing the Herbalist with Ruin Ghost and then do this with any land that enters untapped and taps for W.
The deck is certainly one of the stronger decks in this article, despite having a very budget manabase that doesn't run any fetchlands.
Otharri Go Wide Voltron
Otharri, Suns' Glory is a sweet Boros commander that combines two traditionally opposed archetypes -- Go Wide and Voltron-- and merges them together into a cohesive theme! We attack with our commander to gain experience counters and generate more and more tokens, then attack again for even more value! The deck is simple, straightforward, aggressive, and effective!
The goal of the deck is to cast our commander and keep swinging, making an ever-growing army until all our opponents are dead!
Since we're generating so many tokens off our commander we're utilizing them different ways like ramping with Prosperous Partnership, drawing cards and dishing more damage with Neyali, Suns' Vanguard, pumping Otharri equal to the number of creatures we have with Kemba's Banner, and pumping the team while protecting them with Nahiri's Resolve!
Eventually we close out the game with extra combats like Aurelia, the Warleader, pumping our entire team as we make tokens with Goldnight Commander, giving our team up to +3/+3 with Skyhunter Strike Force, or pumping Otharri into something lethal with Mace of the Valiant.
The deck is reliant on Otharri to stick around but the commander's ability to reanimate itself allows the deck to be surprisingly resilient to removal, especially targeted removal.
Ramos Lucky Charms
Ramos, Dragon Engine is a Multicolor Matters deck that rewards you for casting multicolored spells by growing into an evasive 1-shotter that also skyrockets your mana, giving you a whopping 10 mana whenever you activate his (very easy) ability! This leads to a Multicolor deck that leans towards Voltron Control, and my build is a "Lucky Charms" very which has a heavy focus on charm spells (e.g. Sultai Charm), modular multicolor spells that have flexibility to answer any threat.
The goal of this deck is to control the board with multicolor spells, stick our commander, then destroy our opponents with commander damage and ramp out huge finishers!
While my version runs a lot of charms, like Abzan Charm to control the board in a Draw-Go style of play, I do run plenty of other high value multicolor spells like Guided Passage to draw cards and politic, Invasion of Alara for tremendous value, and Unite the Coalition which is a bonkers top-end.
Since we have so many 3C spells, support spells like Omnath, Locus of All and Meeting of the Five are tremendous value here, along with treasure generation from Widespread Thieving and repeat burn with Mana Cannons.
The deck is basically a pile of flexible interaction to keep us and our commander alive and then we close things out with huge flashy haymaker spells. It's a ton of fun but it is quite slow and prone to be hated out early game, but if we can survive to the midgame and stick our commander then the game is ours!
Sauron, the Dark Lord
Sauron, the Dark Lord has one of the highest "power floors" of any commander that has been printed in recent years: simply existing on the battlefield makes him a must-answer threat thanks to his huge stats, incredibly painful ward, the ever-growing army he summons that also replaces itself, and his ability to refill your hand! All this combined makes it impossible to make a "bad" Sauron deck since he brings so much value on his own, but we can definitely raise the power ceiling by making an optimized brew!
The goal of this deck is to utilize the hand discard + refill of Sauron's last ability to enable a powerful Grixis Reanimator style of deck, ramping out Sauron, discarding cards we want in the graveyard while drawing, and then cheating out haymakers from the graveyard for more value!
We're filling our graveyard with a combination of cyclers like Oliphaunt, looters like Moria Scavenger, tutors like Gravebreaker Lamia, and of course Ring Tempts you cards to trigger Sauron's wheel like Bilbo, Retired Burglar.
Then we utilize our graveyard by reanimating with Victimize and Sauron, Lord of the Rings, encoring Amphin Mutineer, or souping up our haymakers with Scavenged Brawler.
The deck is reeeeally strong and a lot of that comes with just how dang powerful Sauron is. Graveyard hate slows the deck down but not really stop it; the thing that actually hurts us most is if people destroy our mana rocks as our deck is mana-hungry, so going after our ramp can set us back multiple turns.
Sefris Dungeon Reanimator
Sefris of the Hidden Ways must be a professional speedrunner because you'll never find a faster commander at completing dungeons! Sefris utilizes looting, cycling, sacrificing, entombing, and milling of creatures to trigger her venture ability on everyone's turn, allowing you generate huge value as you loot dungeons and reanimate haymakers to close out the game!
The goal of the deck is to constantly put creatures into the graveyard to trigger Sefris' ability, speedrunning through dungeons and reanimating a game-winning army either through combat or combos!
In order to trigger Sefris on everyone's turn we're looters like Vohar, Vodalian Desecrator, cycling like Angel of the Ruins, sacrificers like Demon's Disciple, and grave-swapping with Tortured Existence. This allows us to speedrun through dungeons, generate tons of value while draining our opponents to death, and of course reanimating!
We also have a relatively simple to assemble combo: Karmic Guide + Reveillark + Radiant Solar + any free sac outlet like Viscera Seer = infinite sacrifice and reanimate loop, which lets you venture infinite times with the Solar. Choose Lost Mines of Phandelver as your dungeon and venture through Dark Pool for near-infinite drain (up to the number of cards in your library). If you run out of cards in library just venture through Tomb of Annihilation to finish the job.
This deck is very strong and consistent thanks to the sheer density of looters, interaction, and protection for our commander. It's definitely one of the strongest and most consistent decks in this article. Graveyard hate can really slow the deck down, though we aren't reliant on any specific cards to win the game.
Shorikai Vehicles
Shorikai, Genesis Engine is an incredibly consistent commander, providing steady card draw and pilots while dodging creature removal that most commanders fall to. All this, and being a vehicle, makes it an obvious choice to lead a great Vehicles deck!
The goal of this deck is to do hit-and-runs on our opponents with our Vehicles while out-valuing the rest of the table with Shorikai and our other powerful support pieces.
The heart of the deck is its vehicles: we've got sweet utility vehicles like Deluxe Dragster and Imposter Mech but also big finishers like Reaver Titan and Parhelion II
We support our vehicle strategy by drawing cards with Research Thief, giving them ward with Bronze Guardian, mass reanimating them with Brilliant Restoration, and turning them all into flying creatures with Cyberdrive Awakener.
This deck is incredibly fair, just trying to run over opponents with vehicles, but it executes its plan very consistently thanks to Shorikai's reliable engine. The deck does get blown out by mass artifact removal but that's the risk you take playing an artifact deck.
Siona Aura Combo
While Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice and Bruna, Light of Alabaster are the two best Aura Voltron commanders, Siona, Captain of the Pyleas is the greatest Aura Combo commander: she is part of a 2-card combo with Shielded by Faith to make infinite creatures, and it's incredibly easy to assemble this combo even on a $50 budget! The major strength that while the Voltron options do nothing if their commanders can't stick, Siona has no problems winning games without the combo since it's still a well-rounded Selesnya Enchantress deck without it.
The goal of this deck is to do typical Selesnya Enchantress things of drawing lots of cards, making lots of mana, and drowning opponents in value, but it can also easily combo off for the win too!
So there's actually two combos in the deck:
- The easiest one is Siona, Captain of the Pyleas + Shielded by Faith for infinite creatures. We either swing for lethal the following turn or win immediately with Crashing Drawbridge or Altar of Dementia.
- The other one is Siona, Captain of the Pyleas + Reins of the Vinesteed + Altar of Dementia. This one is harder to assemble because we can't easily find Altar of Dementia.
The rest of the deck is your typical Selesnya Enchantress deck: we've got protection and tutoring with Sterling Grove, ramp with Sanctum Weaver, draw and a threat with Sage's Reverie, and mass recursion with Mantle of the Ancients. So if you want to play a Selesnya Enchantress deck with a high-powered combo finisher up your sleeve, Siona is the deck for you!
Skullbriar Counter Voltron
Skullbriar, the Walking Grave was one of the very first decks I built when I got into Commander back in 2011. It was a wimpy voltron commander back then -- starts off tiny, hard to snowball, definitely not in the same league as oldschool terrors like Rafiq of the Many and Uril, the Miststalker -- but hoo boy did Ikoria's keyword counters give ol' Skullbriar a power boost! While still not the scariest Voltron commander out there, Skullbriar utilizes a ton of really cool cards and can definitely be a serious threat at tables!
The goal of the deck is to cast and keep smashing with Skullbriar, collecting a variety of counters that stick around as we recast him and eventually take out opponents!
The most fun part about Skullbriar is that we can permanently pump him up with keyword counters, giving him indestructible with Daring Fiendbonder, hexproof with Slippery Bogbonder, a whole bunch with Scavenged Brawler, and trample with Titanoth Rex.
There's tons of other fun cards too, like giving Skullbriar an easy +9/+9 with Belt of Giant Strength, growing him while taking out threats with Ruinous Intrusion and Astarion's Thirst, or wiping out opposing creatures with Find // Finality.
The deck is a very unique and very fair Voltron commander. It doesn't one-shot people out of nowhere, but rather comes out early and skirmishes with your opponents, steadily growing and giving your opponents ample time to respond. Its fairness keeps it from being one of the stronger decks in this article but it's certainly one of my favorites in terms of enjoyment of piloting. It's particularly vulnerable to -1/-1 counters which thankfully aren't that common, but probably don't play this deck against Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons.
Stangg Aura Voltron
Okay, this is my third Aura Voltron deck in this article, but I swear Stangg, Echo Warrior is different! You see, he's Gruul, therefore he is the superior choice! Honestly though, Stangg is super sweet and his weird "clone" ability being able to make token copies of our auras not just doubles our beatdown potential but also lets us abuse ETB / sacrifice triggers that the other Aura commanders simply cannot replicate. He's criminally underrated for how powerful he is.
The goal of the deck is to enchant our commander and swing in, making a copy of Stangg and all the auras we have enchanting the original, doubling our value while quickly taking out opponents!
So the really neat thing about Stangg is that he makes a clone of himself including copies of all the auras / equipment of the original. This means that we not just double the value of our auras like doubling the treasure production with Sticky Fingers, but we also get to re-use powerful ETB triggers like Cartouche of Strength, sacrifice triggers on auras like Ordeal of Nylea, and sacrifice triggers on enchanted creatures like Bequeathal!
The deck closes out games with extra combats from Akki Battle Squad, making our Stangg army lethal with Runes of the Deus, flooding the board with tokens using Chishiro, the Shattered Blade, and even if we get shut down we can get back all our auras for another round of beatdown with Storm Herald.
Stangg is super cool and super unique. Like any Voltron deck it does basically nothing if Stangg gets shut down, but Stangg is so underplayed that many tables with seriously underestimate what this powerhouse can do!
Torens Go Wide Humans
Torens, Fist of the Angels is my boyfriend's favorite Commander deck: while at it's core Torens is just a Creatures Matter commander, the fact that these tokens are Humans makes him a perfect commander to lead a Go Wide Humans deck, with some +1/+1 Counter subtheme for added spice!
The goal of this deck is to cast a ton of creatures, flooding the board with humans, then leverage our powerful Humans and +1/+1 Counter synergies to grind out value, pump our team, and swing for lethal!
Human payoffs in the deck include Katilda, Dawnhart Prime to turn all our creatures into mana dorks, Sigarda, Font of Blessings for protection and draw, Horn of Gondor for doubling our army, and Kyler, Sigardian Emissary for a huge anthem to finish games.
For +1/+1 counter payoffs we have stuff like Hopeful Initiate for repeat disenchants and Elite Scaleguard to tap down opposing blockers but we also have a cheeky combo with Scurry Oak / Herd Baloth + Rosie Cotton of South Lane / Ivy Lane Denizen for infinite creatures.
The deck is very strong and consistent, quickly snowballing out of control. Like any Go Wide deck repeat board wipes can shut it down, but we do run plenty of protection and draw to try and avoid being knocked out by a wipe.
Tovolar Werewolves
Do you like werewolves? Then Tovolar, Dire Overlord will not disappoint you! He draws LOTS of cards and transforms werewolves while costing a mere 3 mana, what more do you want?!
The goal of this deck is to fill the board with werewolves, then flip out and kill our opponents while drawing silly amounts of cards!
As you'd expect, the deck is filled with werewolves: we focus on cost-efficient ones and ones that bring strong utility. Some highlights include Kessig Naturalist, Geier Reach Bandit, Tovolar's Huntmaster, and memes aside Ulrich of the Krallenhorde.
To assist in flipping our werewolves, we're going to find ways to sneak them in without casting our turn. Some of the best ways include Howlpack Piper and Vivien, Champion of the Wilds, and flash creatures like Hollowhenge Overlord. Of course we can also force the transformation when needed with Moonmist and Unnatural Moonrise!
Clunkiness of OG werewolves and new day/night werewolves not changing at the same time aside, this is deck is real strong. It's a creature combat deck so repeat board wipes are an issue, but Tovolar's draw engine allows us to usually bounce back and rebuild.
Vadrik Storm Combo
Vadrik, Astral Archmage is probably the strongest deck in this article. It's a Storm Combo deck, looking to take a long turn of solitaire storming off until it can assemble a game-winning combo. It's probably not that fun for your opponents but it sure is effective at winning!
The goal of this deck is to raise Vadrik's power to 3, then storm off, generating mana while drawing through our deck until we assemble a game-winning combo!
In order to combo off we'll need Vadrik's power at 3. We either do that by taking off a turn casting spells to turn day to night and switch it back to day so Vadrik puts counters on himself, or we cast a pump spell like Blazing Crescendo. Then we combo off, digging through our deck while trying to be mana-neutral with spells like Big Score, Pirate's Pillage, Inspired Tinkering, and Tezzeret's Gambit.
Eventually we assemble a combo like Vadrik, Astral Archmage + any R generator like Storm-Kiln Artist + Searing Touch for infinite damage, or Electrodominance copied with Reiterate (w/ buyback) for infinite damage.
The deck is super strong. The downside is your opponents probably know this too and if they succeed in shutting down Vadrik you won't get anything done. The other downside is the storm turn takes like 5+ minutes even if you're fast.
Verazol Kicker Copies
While also a Kicker deck just like Hallar, the Firefletcher, Verazol, the Split Current's playstyle is completely different: instead of going aggressive Burn setting up an explosive turn, Verazol is all about that Simic Value baybeeeee! We're casting big haymakers and then copying them for double the value! You ever copied a kicked Rite of Replication? IT FEELS GOOD! And we don't care if Verazol dies because that just means we cast him for more +1/+1 counters and he kind of ignores the commander tax!
The goal of this deck is to overwhelm our opponents with pure, raw, Simic Valueeeeeee!!!!!!!
Some of my favorite kicked spells to copy with ol' Verazol is of course Rite of Replication, but also Inscription of Insight, Wolfbriar Elemental, and Inscription of Abundance.
We also have lots of support pieces like Roost of Drakes to make tokens (and also kick!), Forgotten Ancient to refill Verazol with counters, Hadana's Climb which turns Verazol into an evasive 1-shotter, and Twinning Staff which lets us get an extra copy of our copied spells!
I don't think I've ever seen another Verazol deck out in the wild and I'm honestly surprised because of how budget-friendly the deck is and how hard it goes.
Volrath Voltron Reanimator
Volrath the Fallen isn't just oldschool, he's downright ancient (released in 2000!), which is all the more impressive that this commander actually slaps so hard even in 2023! Not only is Volrath capable of 1-shotting opponents with ease, but he also isn't all-in on Voltron as the haymakers he's discarding can then be reanimated to finish up games!
The goal of this deck is to smash people with Volrath, discarding huge creatures in the process that are then reanimated to continue the beatdown!
In order to 1-shot opponents with Volrath, we need to activate his ability and discard 15 mana value worth of creatures. We can do this with a single activation if we discard either Draco or Shadow of Mortality. But discarding huge haymakers like Pathrazer of Ulamog will let us do the trick with two activations!
To support this "discard haymakers, punch people in face" game plan, we're going to discard and buff Volrath with cards like Scavenged Brawler, recur our huge haymakers with Gix's Command, force our opponents to hand over our haymakers with Protection Racket, and oh yes maybe double kill opponents by casting Essence Harvest after pumping Volrath? Sounds good yeah?
If you forced me to play one of these Voltron decks, Volrath would be my pick. The deck isn't the strongest Voltron option in this article, but I love how oldschool and underrated Volrath is and how he the deck isn't all-in on our commander, but rather has this powerful Reanimator strategy. The deck is on the slower side and is vulnerable to all sorts of things but it's a blast to play nonetheless.
Wilhelt Zombies
Of all the Zombie commanders, Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver provides the most consistent value: a steady stream of tokens and an extra card per turn, while also being a Zombie himself to benefit from synergies. He does everything Zombies want to do -- Aristocrat stuff -- making him a strong and popular leader.
The goal of this deck is to flood the board with Zombies, sacrificing them for value, and eventually overwhelming the table with a lethal army that wins through combat and lifedrain.
The deck is filled with Zombies that are either providing a bunch of sacrifice fodder like Diregraf Colossus, sacrifice outlets like Corpse Harvester, sacrifice payoffs like Midnight Reaper, and other powerful Zombie payoffs like Noxious Ghoul.
While the primary win condition is swarming with a big zombie army, drain effects like Diregraf Captain give the deck reach to close out games. It also enables combo win conditions like Rooftop Storm + Gravecrawler + Carrion Feeder to win the game on the spot.
The deck is strong and loaded with draw. Graveyard hate can be a pain though.
Yuriko Ninjas
As powerful as she is popular, Yuriko, the Tiger's Shadow is a well-known terror at many a Commander table. She is still incredibly scary at $50, but limited topdeck manipulation options at this price point keep her from being as oppressive as a budgetless version could be. Only play this at higher-power tables!
The goal of this deck is to play evasive creatures to ninjutsu out Yuriko, drawing cards while draining out our opponents.
We start the pain train by dropping an early evasive creature like Ornithopter or Faerie Seer which is particularly good due to the scry. Then we ninjutsu out Yuriko and hope to hit big haymakers like Rags // Riches and Draco for maximum drain!
To keep the pain train going we have some topdeck manipulation with cards like Nightveil Sprite and granting Yuriko and friends evasion with Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive. To close out games we turn our entire team into ninjas with Arcane Adaptation and take extra turns with Karn's Temporal Sundering.
The deck is very strong and very hard to keep shut down. Board wipes and denying Yuriko a chance to deal combat damage is the way to stop her, but easier said than done!
Zada Go Wide Storm
And we finish things off with my favorite Solitaire commander, Zada, Hedron Grinder. With just a handful of creatures on the battlefield, Zada makes Expedite look like a better version of Ancestral Recall. Your opponents either kill Zada or you win. The deck is the epitome of explosive!
The goal of this deck is to get Zada and a couple creatures on the board then storm off, drawing through our deck and generating tons of mana, eventually pumping our team for a lethal attack.
The first step is to get some creatures on the board. We're making tokens with Dragon Fodder and Hordeling Outburst, ramping with Storm-Kiln Artist, and putting down protection with Goblin Chirurgeon.
Then we cast Zada and the fun begins. We're going to speedrun through dungeons and get haste and pump with Kick in the Door, draw tons of cards and make our creatures lethal with Fists of Flame, untap all our creatures give them haste and cast our hand with Traitorous Greed, give trample and draw tons with Ancestral Anger. Easy game!
I love my baby girl and how busted she is, but I do feel bad since the deck is Solitaire.dec . Also if your opponents wise up and hold removal for Zada then the deck has very limited options to protect her.
FINISHED!
This project took two weeks and countless hours to assemble. I thought it wouldn't take much time at all but it turns out assembling 50 decks, updating all of them, writing brief summaries of each one, setting up the video, and constantly tweaking the price of the decks every single day for over a week because of goshdarn price spikes ended up taking more time than I expected!
I'll be back soon with new budget brews. Thanks for reading!
