Better than a Booster Best Budget Buys April 2024  

Legend says that you can kidnap trinket mage and bring him to your LGS, which legally allows you to tutor any 1 cost artifact out of your deck, any time, and as many times as you want

I can’t believe it’s not butter than a booster

trinket mage cameo!?!

I think Rohirim Chargers even has a spot in any boros deck that is desperate to get Lightning Greaves on its commander. If it's your only equipment, you're guaranteed to find it.

Here's a wonky little card I found: Profane Memento. 1 mana artifact, gain 1 life whenever a creature card is put into an opponents graveyard from anywhere. Great for getting a ton of lifegain triggers, if your deck wants that, and it can also be backbreaking against aristocrats deck or combos involving sacrificing, discarding, or milling.

If we want to talk about budget cards, I love torgaar, famine incarnate. It is kind of a pet card but its also really fun, its a legendary avatar that costs BB 6 with, 7/6 as an additional cost to cast this spell you may sac any number of creatures. this spell costs 2 less to cast for each creature saced this way. and when this creature etbs up to one target players life total becomes half their starting life total, rounded down. This is a slept on card because you can annihilate lifegain players by putting them down to 20 life, bring your own life up to 20 if you are in a bad spot. or use it as a sac outlet beacuse there is no cap on the amount of creatures you sac. I am working on a commander deck around torgaar that can oneshot with bloodletter of alcatraz. overall super fun and versatile card that I think should see more play

Finally someone is appreciating glory. I run it in my greasefang deck, I can usually discard it at instant speed for a great gotcha.

Grasp of Fate - Since this card was first printed, cards have gotten better and I have found that people are hesitant on wasting a card to get their stuff back if the other two players get their stuff back for free. The triple tap of Dr Who, Commander Masters, and WoE Enchanting Tales turned this into a dollar or less rare. Alternately, Unexplained Absence is similarly good since its targets are forever exiled at the risk of giving them cloaked creatures but you can easily do it to yourself and upgrade a clue/food/blood/map token into a creature.

Finally, glory for Glory. People either forget about it letting you get a lot of mileage out of protecting from removal spells or they plan around it which means holding up 3 mana protects you from most attacks and spells without ever having to spend it.

When I played pauper sylvok of life staff literally won my friend games. Shinen of Life's roar was a stompy stable back in the day in pauper to get a creature through. Good times.

Definitely on the same wavelength, I have most of these in decks already! Cheekiest use of Shinen of Life’s Roar is in my infect deck, pseudo turning off blockers to push through lethal. My budget pick this time: Lively Dirge from OTJ. An uncommon spree card that is basically Green Sun’s Zenith where X=4 but can also throw a flashback spell in the yard? Free tutor for Yawgmoth or Sheoldred? Yes, please. Might even spec on this and grab extra copies now!

I'm definitely getting hunting grounds for my Sliver deck. Usually don't need ETB triggers.

I had no idea Hunting Grounds existed! Its going to go great in my Kathril, Keyword/Graveyard deck!

i have bosium strip in a spell heavy deck, with a few delve cards and collect evidence cards that let me exile the things that would trip up my big turn with it. i've liked how it's performed so far.

A funny budget card I'm considering for my Vishgraz the Doomhive deck is Death Match. Black 4 drop Enchantment that makes it so whenever a creature hits the field, that creature's controller can give -3/-3 to target creature until end of turn. I drop Vishgraz, get 3 mite tokens, distribute -3/-3 4 times, slide some boots onto Vishgraz, and watch as more things die. Pretty neat.

Its crazy how good demons like Herald of Anguish and Doom Whisperer, both of these demons have done great for me :P

Really love your budget pick videos. Saw a couple cards I'll pick up.

I pulled a Hunting Grounds in Dominaria Remastered and you are absolutely right. It's so good. And I didn't even think about Territory Forge hitting opponents stuff. It looks good, but it seems a little overcosted. But thinking about the potential, if it hits something you mentioned, it's worth it. But you definitely have some good options here. It's nice to hear that Glory is testing well for you. I've been thinking about using this and the Herald of Anguish... I have a copy of each, just need to find the home for them. Shinen as well. I've used this card in the past and I like it. You've definitely given me some things to pick up though

Foil is a great free counterspell. It also in the color that draws the easiest.

Bösium strip was my budget reusable yawgwill at some point. I speculated on it when Commander was announced lol Still waiting for that day it pays off 😂

Thanks for sharing :) I love seeing new cards!

Wow hunting grounds looks sick, I gotta try that in my sliver deck

I'll share an instant I love - surge of salvation. Unlike a pure counter spell, SoS lasts the whole turn afterwards, giving yourself and your boardstate hexproof and shutting off damage from black and red sources to your creatures. Run this and blasphemous act and you'll inherit the board. For 1 mana.

Could include step between worlds for a deck that runs blue. Mini wheel that you could cast later in a turn if you run out of gas.

For me, finding out about the Card Out of Time was a huge gamechanger, since phasing out is so overpowered in commander. Phasing out a commander doesnt put it into the command zone, because phased out cards as still treated as "on the battlefield" - i hope my enemies love playing without their commanders for a few turns. So its basically a 3 CMC Boardwipe, which gets rid of all creatures and commanders on the Field, but not putting them into the graveyard or exile, which also helps vs aristocrats strageties. Bonus points in my Zur Deck, because i can Tutor it with the Zur ability on the attack trigger, while saving my Zur with Astral Slide and a Cyling Trigger

Shinen is a pretty great card. I'm a big fan of Lure effects. I use this card in my General Marhault Eldragon forced blocks deck.

I have been a huge fan of Herald of anguish for so long. I love it so much

ok Mr mage FETCH ME MY BOOTZ

hunting grounds is a card that sees plays in sans blue creature combo decks in cedh, like tayam. that tells you enough about the impact it has on a table

I love the way you story telling. You could be an awesome character in a magic movie like a Jace or tezzeret master of mental 😂😊👍 greetings from Switzerland 🇨🇭🙋

Hunting Grounds does so much in my Anikthea deck, I dump out so many enchantment creatures it feels like cheating. I don’t get cast triggers like you said but, it still works great with Eidolon of Blossoms. Might have to add Glory too tbh!

OK, I really need more videos like this. I don't yet have a very wide range of knowledge for the general card pool. So all I can rely on is EDHrec for suggestions and things I see in real time. It bothers me greatly that hunting Grounds has the '"h" lower case.... -_- As for "Reenact the Crime" I'm gonna be trying it out in my Tasha the Witch Queen deck.

bösium strip with pull from eternity is quite good, to go quad or so

Underrated Cards: Druid's Repository Reverent Silence Insight Mind Harness Steal Enchantment Jailbreak Storm of Souls Trove Warden Renounce Devastating Mastery Curios Herd Codex Shredder Mishra's Research Desk The Great Aurora Martyr's Bond (White's version of Grave Pact) Cosmic Intervention Gaea's Touch Flickering Ward (as an Aura Removal Spell) Land Tax (as a Discard Engine)

I remember buying Hunting Grounds when it was like 12$ years ago!

I actually put a Territory Forge in my cEDH Ob Nix build, just want to see if it does something. The One Ring, like you said, but I also see a lot of Mana Vault's/Monolith's. Situational, I know, but that situation seems to appear almost every game. Expensive too, Ad Naus does not like it. But it can be pitched to Pyrokenisis, so we shall see 🤷‍♂️

Wow I hadn’t even considered vigilance on Rohirrim Chargers while I’ve been running it in my Syr Gwyn deck. I’m still riding the high of revealing into a Colossus Hammer K.O haha

my main problem with Territory Forge is the cast clause, because i cant even play it in my Osgir deck because of it

Stupid off topic question: I'm going to be playing sealed commander with friends of mine were each player buys a boosterbox of choice with the only restriction that it had to be standard legal at one point and build a edh deck out of it and every month we can buy 6 more packs from any set to add (every set can only be used once) what sets would you reccomend to make fun and functioning decks with?

Forensic Gadgeteer 💯

Reenact the Crime does wonder in my Vohar, reanimator deck. Instant speed Rise of the Dark Realm is bonker.

Does exiling The One ring with Territory forge really work though ? It specifically says "put a burden counter on The One ring" but technically Territory forge isn't called "The One ring" right ?

Really weird question, but do you think you have an influence on card prices. I only ask because i have watched this video, and now i want 3 more cards, surely im not the only person that feels like this meaning the cards price would go up.

Thanks dunkey Let's spelltable sometime

I think people heavily underrate territory forge in terms of hitting mana rocks. If you hit a sol ring, mana crypt, or any other rock that taps for 2 you are swinging the board by 4 mana. That is pretty impressive swing even on a 5 mana artifact, and there are times when it is considerably better

Or me. Lol