Then today, @bobthefunny posted this thread over in the main Commander forum about newer players getting into the format on a budget. I find the topic interesting in general and wish I would have had some guidance with regard to MtG finance when I first started playing, so I chimed in. At the risk of sounding self-important, I'm going to quote myself from that thread:
Now the reason I quote myself is because shortly after I clicked submit I realized how hypocritical my statement was: "consistency with one deck instead of changing decks every five minutes" is pretty much the opposite of my approach to Commander since deck-building is half the fun in my book. Regardless of my own lack of impulse control, the advice rings true and many newer players would do their wallets and fun factor a favor by sticking with 1-2 budget decks and slowly building up their collection with regular updates. It occurred to me that there is a ton of Budget Commander content out there in terms of lists and deck techs, but very little that outlines the best methods of incrementally upgrading a budget deck until it's much more focused/optimized.MeowZeDung wrote: ↑3 years agoIf a player is brand new and just starting their collection there are a lot of great ways to build that first budget deck and still have it be powerful. Inevitably they'll want to build more, and they they get sucked into all the sweet powerful options for various color combos when really they just need to focus on good ramp, draw, and efficient interaction. Seriously.
Dear new player: you don't need 17 wincons, haymakers, and battlecruiser spells. 2-3 ways to win is enough. Really. Spend your magic budget on cards that smooth out your gameplay: ramp, draw, efficient removal.
Honestly, a big part of good budgeting with a new collection is consistency with one deck instead of changing decks every five minutes while your card pool is small and indulging by getting new toys for a dozen different archetypes. Pick one, maybe two for variety. Stick with it for a while, upgrading as you can.
All that said, I couldn't think of a good reason to not put something out there myself that tries to outline the process of upgrading and optimizing a deck on a budget. I've not been thrilled with my Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer / Seven Dwarves deck lately as that gameplan's novelty has worn off and gotten a bit stale, so I'm going to retire it and replace it with a new Izzet build. Enter $50 Melek, Izzet Paragon:
The plan is simple: ramp up and sculpt my hand and top of library, then put Melek out there for some copy-for-value spellslinging, or once I'm ready to go ham and try for the win. How will I win? By copying big draw spells as many times as possible with Psychosis Crawler and/or Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind (the deck's only two creatures) in play. There are several ways to spit out a token scattered throughout the deck, and I'm using Polymorph effects to turn a token into one of the two wincon creatures, so I functionally have 5 copies of the kill creatures. Then there's always the more traditional route of winning via combat damage if I manage to resolve many, many, MANY copies of Empty the Warrens or Rise from the Tides.
That's just the beginning of course, and the deck will naturally change as the cash flows. I started with $50 under the guise of Grandma sending some birthday money or some such, and I will be working with a budget going forward of $20/month in September. That's $70 at the outset in August, which will be $50 for the cards, and $20 for sleeves, dice, tokens, taxes, and shipping. (Note: this is all hypothetical since I own most of the cards in the list and most that I'll be updating with as well as sleeves, etc, but the thought experiment will proceed using the actual price points from the marketplace and within the constraints of a $20/month budget.)
I hope this thread will prove useful to some new players that are looking for the best way to build and upgrade on a budget as I post game reports, discuss cards, and update with newly acquired goodies monthly. If that is you, feel free to ask any budget or magic related questions at all here without being concerned that everyone is snickering at you since you don't own a Mana Crypt. I will probably post a follow up sometime soon (before the September update for sure) detailing some of my spending decisions for the original budget build.
As far as the monthly updates, I will plan them out and explain my reasoning, but I'd be thrilled to crowd-source a bunch of this thought process. So, feel free to chime in with what updates you would prioritize and why (ie: it's a staple the new mage on a budget will use in many decks for years to come, or it's absolutely perfect for the deck's strategy, or it's a massive boon for smooth mana or efficient ramp/draw/removal).