Weekly Recs - 08/19/24
Get these powerful staples before they creep back up in price!
Bling on budget!
Weekly Recs
Highlighting five cards that could be worth picking up. (Note: These are sent to subscribers first and then posted a week later)
Blinging out your deck is typically the opposite of budget. But what if you could do in an economical way? This week, here are some budget friendly blinged out cards, where the price is comparable to the "normal" version.
Lord Windgrace
C18 - $2.44
Special Guests: $4.22
Lord Windgrace is a classic Jund lands matter commander. Most of the time, you are using his plus ability to discard a land and draw two cards. There is a decent chance you will use his minus three to return some lands to your hand, but rarely will you activate his "ultimate," which is pretty underwhelming. Even if your opponents let you get his loyalty up to 11, drawing cards or recurring lands fuels your game plan much more than destroying nonland permanents. You are in Jund, which already has great removal. Use Lord Windgrace to draw into your lands matter win conditions quicker. And remember, put at least 40 lands into your deck!
Types of decks to put it in
- Landfall/Lands matter
Dismember
MM15 - $3.59
Special Guests: $6.88
Phyrexian mana is broken. Paying life instead of mana is one of the biggest ways to cheat a card's cost, and in commander when you have 40 life, paying four life and 1 black mana for a piece of targeted removal is fantastic. Dismember can take out most commanders and gets around indestructible since it gives the target -5/-5. Just make sure to balance any life loss with some lifelink, otherwise you'll be taking yourself out of the game faster than your opponents.
Types of decks to put it in
- Any deck with black and lifegain
Persist
MH2 - $1.45
Special Guests: $2.34
Persist is a budget Reanimate. Unfortunately it only targets your graveyard, but if you are in a graveyard based deck, the grave is an extension of your hand and what you put in there is intentional. The other downside is it only reanimates nonlegendary creatures, meaning you cannot intentionally let your commander go to the graveyard. Even so, imagine paying two mana for a Sepulchral Primordial and reanimating the best three creatures from your opponents' graveyards.
Types of decks to put it in
- Graveyard/reanimator
The Gitrog Monster
Mystery Booster - $7.82
Bloomburrow Commander: $7.68
What I said earlier about Lord Windgrace also applies to The Gitrog Monster. The Gitrog monster often goes in Lord Windgrace decks, too. But if you want a giant frog leading your army, he can be even more potent that Lord Windgrace, since his card draw ability triggers every time one or more lands are put into your graveyard. And you can play an additional land each turn, talk about value! Do not let the downside of sacrificing a land every turn scare you. That is built in card draw and in a lands matter deck, you will have no issue getting lands back out of your graveyard.
Types of decks to put it in
- Landfall/lands matter
Luminous Broodmoth
Ikoria - $8.74
Bloomburrow Commander: $5.94
Luminous Broodmoth is a great board protection piece and win condition built into a single card. Whenever something dies, it returns with a flying counter. Pretend you have some sort of sacrifice loop. Sacrifice everything, triggering your payoffs, and then have the creatures return so they can swing in with evasion next turn. An underrated way to use this card is by focusing on enter the battlefield (ETB) triggers. You will likely need a sacrifice outlet like Ashnod's Altar, but it in effect doubles each creature's ETB. I am sure there are some infinite loops you can get into by sacrificing a creature, removing the flying counter somehow, sacrificing again, rinse and repeat.
Types of decks to put it in
- Counters
- Decks focusing on enters the battlefield triggers
- Sacrifice
End step
One of the benefits of WOTC printing multiple variants of the same card in a set means it drops the price of all but the rarest. I am all for the raised, textured, alternate art, serialized cards because for cards I really love, I can pick up the regular foil version of the alternate art for dirt cheap while everyone chases scarcity. It can be nice to bling out our favorite cards and is even better when doing so does not hurt the wallet!