Construction thread for Mike's Budget Purphoros

[DirkGently]

Just making a list of cards so I can see how pricey everything is. His budget is ~$200 NZD so we're probably not getting a crypt.

Purp walk

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

Commander (1)

1 Purphoros, Bronze Blooded

Ramp

1 Sol Ring

1 Seething Song

1 Glittering Stockpile

1 Coalition Relic

1 Star Compass

1 Thought Vessel

1 Coldsteel Heart

1 Fractured Powerstone

1 Fire Diamond

1 Prismatic Lens

1 Wayfarer's Bauble

1 Fellwar Stone

1 Moonsilver Key

1 Hazoret's Monument

1 Commander's Sphere

1 The Celestus

1 Heraldic Banner

1 Skyclave Relic

Fatties

Value

1 Immortal Phoenix

1 Hoarding Dragon

1 Homura, Human Ascendant

1 Worldgorger Dragon

1 Siege-Gang Commander

1 Ancient Stone Idol

1 Myr Battlesphere

1 Wurmcoil Engine

1 Skyline Despot

1 Phyrexian Triniform

1 Triplicate Titan

1 Utvara Hellkite

1 Olivia's Attendants

1 Sandstone Oracle

1 Anje's Ravager

1 Bedlam Reveler

1 Ox of Agonas

1 Dragon Mage

1 Magus of the Wheel

1 Runehorn Hellkite

1 Ruin Grinder

1 Knollspine Dragon

Disruption

1 Cityscape Leveler

1 Balor

1 Living Inferno

1 Magma Phoenix

1 Terror of the Peaks

1 Hammerfist Giant

1 Balefire Dragon

1 Hellkite Tyrant

1 Chaos Maw

1 Thunder Dragon

1 Bogardan Hellkite

1 Tyrant's Familiar

1 Markov Enforcer

1 Ryusei, the Falling Star

1 Duplicant

1 Meteor Golem

Pure Damage

1 Heartless Hidetsugu

1 Scourge of the Throne

1 Dragon Tyrant

1 Drakuseth, Maw of Flames

1 Terror of Mount Velus

1 Blightsteel Colossus

Other Value

1 Zirilan of the Claw

1 Fireflux Squad

1 Feldon of the Third Path

1 Industrial Advancement

1 Viashino Heretic

1 Erratic Portal

1 Nevinyrral's Disk

Lands

40 Mountain

1 Myriad Landscape

Adding...

1 etali, primal storm

1 blast-furnace hellkite

1 flameshadow conjuring

1 sundial of the infinite

1 mimic vat

1 mind stone

1 combustible gearhulk

1 blasphemous act

1 molten primordial

1 inferno titan

1 inferno titan

1 bloodfire colossus

1 karlach, fury of avernus

1 angrath's marauders

1 avatar of slaughter

1 crater hellion

1 port razer

1 bloodthirster

1 moraug, fury of akoum

1 cauldron of souls

1 conjurer's closet

1 skullclamp

1 god-pharaoh's gift

1 war room

1 endless sands

1 arcane signet

1 cursed mirror

1 worn powerstone

1 dragon's hoard

1 everflowing chalice

1 skyclave relic

1 myriad landscape

Approximate Total Cost:

Cut Cards

DecklistCMCManaPricesChartsDraw 7

1 Mana Crypt

1 Mana Vault

1 Jeweled Lotus

1 Ruby Medallion

1 Ancient Copper Dragon

Approximate Total Cost:

[pokken]

Ilharg, the Raze-Boar always seems decent in these decks.

The new Atsushi, the Blazing Sky seems reasonable as well.

[PrimevalCommander]

There are a few of the more expensive cards in here that could come out for a bit more deck "grease". I suspect card draw will be important for a commander that cheats mana cost.

• Balefire Dragon
• Terror of the Peaks
• Blightsteel Colossus

All very powerful, but represent 40% of the deck's budget in 3 cards. Spreading that out will probably boost consistency.

• Reforge the Soul
• War Room
• Chandra Ablaze
• Skullclamp
• Valakut Awakening // Valakut Stoneforge
• Professional Face Breaker
• Rose Room Treasurer

These combine are only $30 and go a long way to help late game staying power.

[DirkGently]

@pokken Ilharg seems like more of an alternative commander to me, kinda redundant within the 99. Atsushi seems underwhelming since the point is to cheat things out, we can do better than a 4-drop.

@PrimevalCommander I cut the BSC and TotP. Balefire is pricey but it's really good, so I'll see if I can find one for a decent price.

Land-wise I'm definitely throwing in some late-game value I just didn't have time to figure it out yet. Skullclamp should be in there, yeah. Topdeck exile stuff I'm low on because our curve is so high and we can't cheat stuff out with purphoros from exile. Rose room treasurer doesn't seem very synergistic here to me, we're playing big creatures not tokens. Reforge and Chandra are both ok but I think the deck is probably doing okay draw-wise, especially once I add in a couple lands. Maybe reforge makes better sense than the Runehorn Hellkite? It's cheaper but the dragon gets a hit/block in and can be activated eot.

[Ruiner]

Rupture to get some extra value from a creature you have to sacrifice anyway may not be bad.

Transmogrify for similar reasons may be good to try.

My Zara, Renegade Recruiter deck tends to temporarily have creatures similarly to this deck (although in a very different manner), and Fling and Polymorph effects can be useful in my experience.

[pokken]

Ilharg seems like more of an alternative commander to me, kinda redundant

Ilharg's trigger puts the fatso back in hand, so you can ilharg, get 6 free damage, bash with your fat, and then fatso again next turn. It can also go quite bananas with a couple extra combat steps since its free. I'd think of it as a kinda ramp spell of sorts.

Ilharg into Scourge, for example, is a massive upgrade over just blitzing Scourge, since you get double ilharg triggers (so instead of doing 13 or whatever, you can do 25+the third creature).

Then you can blitz Scourge again.

Ilharg, the Raze-Boar also synergizes strongly with all your wheel bros, since he's the to draw again and guarantee another free trigger.

I'd give some thought to it over Dragon Tyrant myself, but ymmv.

--

On the glue front:
this is probably a Worn Powerstone deck and a Thran Dynamo deck.
at a casual level, this is *probably* a Gilded Lotus deck tbh, and I'd think hard about a Solemn Simulacrum as signet into solemn is a good place for this deck to be.
this is certainly a Faithless Looting deck and very probably a Cathartic Reunion deck, and almost absolutely a Light Up the Stage deck. I don't think you need 41 lands so much as more impactful ramp and a little draw smoothing

I think this is a deck worth playing the depletion tap for RR card, umm...Sandstone Needle, and man I would swear there was another one that was kinda similar but I can't think of it.
I'd think on cycling lands maybe.

This is gonna sound riduclous, but storage lands might be good in this deck; Mage-Ring Network and Dwarven Hold or whatever / Mercadian Bazaar. I've had really good luck with the Mage-Ring Network templated ones especially in control decks (Dreadship Reef etc).

The magic number in this deck ramp wise is probably more like 9 than 6, and you'd really like to get to 8 so you can drop purph and fire the cannon once to get some value train going.

Hope it turns out great, Purph is a pretty strong commander and has a lot of fun angles

[Chromaticus]

Does Mike "get" the game well enough to activate Purph on the previous end step?

[DirkGently]

Ilharg's trigger puts the fatso back in hand, so you can ilharg, get 6 free damage, bash with your fat, and then fatso again next turn. It can also go quite bananas with a couple extra combat steps since its free. I'd think of it as a kinda ramp spell of sorts.

The only real upside I see to that sequence instead of just having some other fatty ("bash with your fat" makes me think of Godskin Noble btw) is the 6 extra attack, but then if you don't have a fatty with an etb effect - and a fair number of them are focused around things other than their etb effect - then it might not really do much.

I can see more utility in playing him out normally as a way to potentially reuse the same creature repeatedly, but a big advantage of this deck is the fact that it's pretty resistant to removal while using Purphoros, and committing a regular creature to the board removes that resistance.

It also has the big downside of being predictable since the upside here is reusing the same creature. In my experience with this deck, a lot of the advantage is being able to suddenly slam down a ton of damage out of nowhere, and Ilharg doesn't really contribute to that outside of being a 6-power beater.

Ilharg into Scourge, for example, is a massive upgrade over just blitzing Scourge, since you get double ilharg triggers (so instead of doing 13 or whatever, you can do 25+the third creature).

Then you can blitz Scourge again.

Ilharg won't allow Scourge of the Throne to trigger if he puts him into play. You'd have to play both separately.

Ilharg, the Raze-Boar also synergizes strongly with all your wheel bros, since he's the to draw again and guarantee another free trigger.

I'd give some thought to it over Dragon Tyrant myself, but ymmv.

Dragon tyrant can pretty easily represent 20+ damage on its own. It's less exciting without the possibility for a few exceedingly non-budget cards - in particular Gauntlet of Might - but it plays much better into the "suddenly, you're dead" game plan instead of the more predictable etb value train that ilharg wants to do.

--

this is probably a Worn Powerstone deck and a Thran Dynamo deck.

Worn powerstone is fine, I'll refine the mana rocks and powerstone might make the cut. Dynamo I'm less interested in because it doesn't accelerate out of the commander any faster. It does let you activate him a turn earlier, though, so maybe?

at a casual level, this is *probably* a Gilded Lotus deck tbh, and I'd think hard about a Solemn Simulacrum as signet into solemn is a good place for this deck to be.

Definitely no to those two, if I have 5 mana I'm playing my commander not a mana rock. Solemn doesn't accelerate purp - he's okay to bring in with purp as a blocker but since mv doesn't matter at that point, we can do better.

this is certainly a Faithless Looting deck and very probably a Cathartic Reunion deck, and almost absolutely a Light Up the Stage deck. I don't think you need 41 lands so much as more impactful ramp and a little draw smoothing

I don't like exile draw because you can easily hit uncastable fatties and/or fatties you just don't want to cast right now. Faithless looting is fine but I think it's more important to get card draw instead of focusing on quality. We empty our hand relatively easily via purphoros, and then we need a way to recover. Card selection doesn't help enough in that regard imo.

I think this is a deck worth playing the depletion tap for RR card, umm...Sandstone Needle, and man I would swear there was another one that was kinda similar but I can't think of it.
I'd think on cycling lands maybe.

Yeah those could make the cut, I haven't refined the manabase yet.

This is gonna sound riduclous, but storage lands might be good in this deck; Mage-Ring Network and Dwarven Hold or whatever / Mercadian Bazaar. I've had really good luck with the Mage-Ring Network templated ones especially in control decks (Dreadship Reef etc).

That's kind of funny as a way to accelerate out the commander a turn early, but idk that it's worth sacrificing that much tempo? You have to play them on 1 and not use them until 4 lol. And then it's another 2 turns before they do anything.

The magic number in this deck ramp wise is probably more like 9 than 6, and you'd really like to get to 8 so you can drop purph and fire the cannon once to get some value train going.

I think 12 is what I have in the deck currently, and there are a couple lands that can also qualify to some extent. I think generally it's faster to play him on 5 and then untap rather than try to ramp to 8. It also means we can run a lot of 3-mana rocks which can give us a lot of extra utility. In a non-budget deck I'd try for a semi-consistent t3 purphoros but I don't think that's realistic on the cheap.

Hope it turns out great, Purph is a pretty strong commander and has a lot of fun angles

Oh yeah, he's one of my favorites.

Does Mike "get" the game well enough to activate Purph on the previous end step?

He does when I tell him about it.

[pokken]

Lol man no idea how I forgot scourge was an attack trigger. Ggs.
By 9 vs 6 I mean that's the mana I think you want to end at.

[DirkGently]

Lol man no idea how I forgot scourge was an attack trigger. Ggs.
By 9 vs 6 I mean that's the mana I think you want to end at.

Ah, well 9 will probably happen a decent amount of the time anyway, but I think 6 is still pretty okay tbh. With eot drops you can have 4 dudes out at once, that's a hell of a lot of damage with a good group of them. I definitely remember closing out games with just a couple creatures, as long as they're the right ones.