I just started getting into EDH and I need some guidance on knowing what to build and what staples to add. I do know how to play EDH so learning how to play shouldn't be an issue. My favorite colors to play are probably WU Azorius and I'm kind of stuck on which commander to use. I love playing both aggro and control but I'm not great in control. Also is EDH in general cheap and not as expensive?
EDH is as expensive as you want to make it. You can add all kinds of hyper expensive cards like Duals, Mana Drain, Force of Will and all that good stuff to your deck, but most decks barring the most competitive ones don't really NEED them. Like, it's a nice upgrade, but you can play perfectly well without them.
As for control in EDH; what needs to be kept in mind is that hardcore control - counter everything, land a threat, win with that - doesn't work in EDH. You have 3 opponents to deal with instead of just one, so your counterspells never keep up with all the threats. Instead, you need board-wide answers to go along with a suite of counterspells. The counterspells themselves should be aimed at gamewinners primarily and not just nilly willy at any random old card.
In Azorius, this kind of strategy is best combined with a Blink suite. This allows you to run cards like Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall to recycle your spells. Furthermore, Azorius has a nice selection of creatures with ETB effects that work nicely with the blink and help you push the opponent back, such as Lavinia of the Tenth, Angel of Serenity, Duplicant, and some other cards in the same vein.
This kind of deck is best headed by Brago, King Eternal. He's pretty strong but not absolute top tier, so you won't get hated off immediately. As for cards you'll need - boardwipes (Wrath of God styled), mass draw (Stroke of Genius and pals), a suite of counterspells (Mix and match to your heart's content. Try to avoid counterspells above CMC3 unless they have an awesome effect or are "free" like Rewind and Force of Will - I know the latter isn't really budget but just to give you an idea) After that, creatures with enter the battlefield effects, mana rocks and a Deadeye Navigator should round off most of what you want in such a deck. Most of this should be obtainable pretty cheaply.
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My Commander decks:
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
In addition to the fine ideas mentioned above, some cards to consider for your deck include Conjurer's Closet (more blink) and Panharmonicon (double ETB effects). If you can afford a copy, Venser, the Sojourner is another good thing for blink-oriented decks. Keep in mind, blinking works great with Clone and similar creatures, such as Stunt Double from Conspiracy 2. This combo lets you copy the best thing on the board (other than your own legendary creatures), then upgrade to something better as better things are played. You might also consider playing cards like Eerie Interlude and Ghostway, which protect your own creatures from boardwipes (yours and those played by others) and provide yet another way to double ETB effects.
Unless you are going heavy into merfolk, I would go with either Brago, Isperia, Supreme Judge, Ephara or - if you want to go heavier into control - Lavinia. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the hate you will get if you select Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as your general.
I play a "flying tribal" deck with Isperia as my general, and have found it a lot of fun.
Building on a budget can be tricky at times, but nowhere near impossible. Even in the most cut-throat metas, budget decks can always grab a win, as the threat assessment will allow you more general leeway. Giving specific card examples will be difficult without knowing the strength of the meta you're up against, but that's always something you can tweak to as time goes on.
When building a budget deck, and making it competitive to your meta, I feel that there are three key areas to focus on: the manabase, synergy, and a good threat availability. Once you have a deck planned out, and try it in your meta for a bit, you can start to revise it, either up or down, to create a positive impression.
The Manabase
Some of the most expensive parts of building NON-budget decks can be the lands, but it's also perhaps the least important. Don't get me wrong, having a solid manabase is quite possibly THE most important thing you need - but it's often conflated that a 'solid' manabase means an expensive one - and this is simply not true. While I no longer build on a budget (I have an extensive collection), I always build rather basic heavy in my decks, to make excellent use of land ramp, and filtration. These same principles make it wasy to build a solid 2-3 color manabase, while remaining very budget friendly. I wrote an article about basic manabases a while back, and there may be some good ideas in there for you, though I focus on other colors.
Playing budget, a lot of your cards may have less 'bang' then some you may run across. This means that you need to compensate by artificially increasing their value through heavy synergy. An example of this for me is having Salvage Scout as a pet card. I love playing with equipment, and sadly my equipment tends to die a lot. Salvage Scout can bring it back, and then he himself is easily returned with Sword of Light and Shadow, Sun Titan, Emeria Shepherd, and many other cards. He's also an early drop that I can suit up with a Sword of the animist early.
Another example would be the budget Riku deck that I built a long time back (note: prices have gone up, and it is no longer a budget deck). Since I was building the deck on an extreme budget, I used elves as a base: They would provide fast ramp early on, and despite using some of my budget space, the elf lords would turn them into potent threats late game.
Pretty much the name of the game is added value. My decks tend to feature a lot of card draw to keep my options open, and tend to be very heavy on the recursion to keep getting more and more value from them. In white, my Heliod and Trostani (not budget) decks have recently been fighting for newer slots in getting more and more recursion options, since draw can be quite limited.
If you have time, read over my Riku list. It's a bit old and dated, but I wrote it in a bit of a stream-of-conscious, so you can see some of how my thought process goes in building up the deck.
C-C-Combo!
This is also where combo shenaniganry can come in, though this depends on your playgroup. My group tends to stay away from combo, but some groups love it. While many combo pieces can be quite expensive (Palinchron), there are quite a few powerful combos that are very cheap to purchase, and by using some off-beat tutoring options (transmute, wizard-cycling, etc), you can actually get them rather consistently on the cheap as well.
threat availability
I touched a bit on recursion in the Synergy bit, but it also fits in here. One thing that comes up often in budget decks comes down to winning. Or rather, how to do it. Heavy synergy can mean that your cards individually don't really get there, so ensuring you have a good chance to close out the game comes down to having good threat density, and recursion to ensure that you can keep up the pressure. Finding the right balance will depend on your playgroup some, my own has shifted many times, based on the types of answers that people run (for a while, everyone was running so many wraths that large boards were impossible to keep, and single recursive threats were the name of the game).
If you want to play azorius, go ahead find your favorite legendaty creature of that color, dont bother how strong it is. Get some dexk building idea from internet and start building your own deck. Slowly tweak your deck through playing with friends, that is why EDH fun.
UWx aggroish control isn't a very natural combination, but if you want to, check my Brago, King Eternal list, that basically floods the board with tokens and is supported by control and recursion elements.
In any case he's a great commander as you can do so many fun and weird things with him, the tweaking never ends.
Adding another color to your commander identity gives you more options:
True enough, though I want to point out that several of these may or may not qualify as "budget" choices, depending on the budget in question, unless you're comparing them specifically to things like Tundra. I was very disappointed that Chromatic Lantern wasn't reprinted in each of the Commander 2016 decks, since each of those decks could really use it and since the Lantern is rarely if ever played in any other format.
Depending on the specific budget you have to work with, you may have to go mostly with basic lands, Azorious Guildgate, CIPT duals and things like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. And at two colors, that's probably fine. Combined with Commander's Sphere, Azorious Signet (and maybe the Cluestone or Keyrune), some of the more affordable options listed above and some of the suggestions bobthefunny made, you should be fine unless your metagame is very fast and competitive, in which case you will just have to accept that being on a budget likely puts you at some disadvantage.
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As for control in EDH; what needs to be kept in mind is that hardcore control - counter everything, land a threat, win with that - doesn't work in EDH. You have 3 opponents to deal with instead of just one, so your counterspells never keep up with all the threats. Instead, you need board-wide answers to go along with a suite of counterspells. The counterspells themselves should be aimed at gamewinners primarily and not just nilly willy at any random old card.
In Azorius, this kind of strategy is best combined with a Blink suite. This allows you to run cards like Archaeomancer and Mnemonic Wall to recycle your spells. Furthermore, Azorius has a nice selection of creatures with ETB effects that work nicely with the blink and help you push the opponent back, such as Lavinia of the Tenth, Angel of Serenity, Duplicant, and some other cards in the same vein.
This kind of deck is best headed by Brago, King Eternal. He's pretty strong but not absolute top tier, so you won't get hated off immediately. As for cards you'll need - boardwipes (Wrath of God styled), mass draw (Stroke of Genius and pals), a suite of counterspells (Mix and match to your heart's content. Try to avoid counterspells above CMC3 unless they have an awesome effect or are "free" like Rewind and Force of Will - I know the latter isn't really budget but just to give you an idea) After that, creatures with enter the battlefield effects, mana rocks and a Deadeye Navigator should round off most of what you want in such a deck. Most of this should be obtainable pretty cheaply.
Chandra, Torch of Defiance - Oops! All Chandras.
Prime Speaker Zegana - Draw for Power.
Pir & Toothy - Counterpalooza.
Arcades, the Strategist - Another Brick in the Wall.
Zacama, Primal Calamity - Calamity of Double Mana.
Edgar Markov - Vampires Don't Die.
Child of Alara - Dreamcrusher.
Unless you are going heavy into merfolk, I would go with either Brago, Isperia, Supreme Judge, Ephara or - if you want to go heavier into control - Lavinia. Just do yourself a favor and avoid the hate you will get if you select Grand Arbiter Augustin IV as your general.
I play a "flying tribal" deck with Isperia as my general, and have found it a lot of fun.
Good luck.
When building a budget deck, and making it competitive to your meta, I feel that there are three key areas to focus on: the manabase, synergy, and a good threat availability. Once you have a deck planned out, and try it in your meta for a bit, you can start to revise it, either up or down, to create a positive impression.
The Manabase
Some of the most expensive parts of building NON-budget decks can be the lands, but it's also perhaps the least important. Don't get me wrong, having a solid manabase is quite possibly THE most important thing you need - but it's often conflated that a 'solid' manabase means an expensive one - and this is simply not true. While I no longer build on a budget (I have an extensive collection), I always build rather basic heavy in my decks, to make excellent use of land ramp, and filtration. These same principles make it wasy to build a solid 2-3 color manabase, while remaining very budget friendly. I wrote an article about basic manabases a while back, and there may be some good ideas in there for you, though I focus on other colors.
In WU, some of my favored cards remain the popular artifacts: Solemn Simulacrum, Burnished Heart, and Wayfarer's Bauble. In addition to salvaging station, white can also run things like auriok salvagers to get the bauble back reliably, or even a plethora of or artifact-return effects that can be useful in a pinch if you really need to balance your mana, such as Salvage Scout. White also has Knight of the White Orchid, Kor Cartographer, Oreskos Explorer, and Endless Horizons. Then you can pair the creatures with things like Nim Deathmantle or Gift of Immortality for value.
Synergy
Playing budget, a lot of your cards may have less 'bang' then some you may run across. This means that you need to compensate by artificially increasing their value through heavy synergy. An example of this for me is having Salvage Scout as a pet card. I love playing with equipment, and sadly my equipment tends to die a lot. Salvage Scout can bring it back, and then he himself is easily returned with Sword of Light and Shadow, Sun Titan, Emeria Shepherd, and many other cards. He's also an early drop that I can suit up with a Sword of the animist early.
Another example would be the budget Riku deck that I built a long time back (note: prices have gone up, and it is no longer a budget deck). Since I was building the deck on an extreme budget, I used elves as a base: They would provide fast ramp early on, and despite using some of my budget space, the elf lords would turn them into potent threats late game.
Pretty much the name of the game is added value. My decks tend to feature a lot of card draw to keep my options open, and tend to be very heavy on the recursion to keep getting more and more value from them. In white, my Heliod and Trostani (not budget) decks have recently been fighting for newer slots in getting more and more recursion options, since draw can be quite limited.
Riku: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/213840
Trostani: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/637947
Heliod: http://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/677873
If you have time, read over my Riku list. It's a bit old and dated, but I wrote it in a bit of a stream-of-conscious, so you can see some of how my thought process goes in building up the deck.
C-C-Combo!
This is also where combo shenaniganry can come in, though this depends on your playgroup. My group tends to stay away from combo, but some groups love it. While many combo pieces can be quite expensive (Palinchron), there are quite a few powerful combos that are very cheap to purchase, and by using some off-beat tutoring options (transmute, wizard-cycling, etc), you can actually get them rather consistently on the cheap as well.
threat availability
I touched a bit on recursion in the Synergy bit, but it also fits in here. One thing that comes up often in budget decks comes down to winning. Or rather, how to do it. Heavy synergy can mean that your cards individually don't really get there, so ensuring you have a good chance to close out the game comes down to having good threat density, and recursion to ensure that you can keep up the pressure. Finding the right balance will depend on your playgroup some, my own has shifted many times, based on the types of answers that people run (for a while, everyone was running so many wraths that large boards were impossible to keep, and single recursive threats were the name of the game).
Good luck!
Retired EDH - Tibor and Lumia | [PR]Nemata |Ramirez dePietro | [C]Edric | Riku | Jenara | Lazav | Heliod | Daxos | Roon | Kozilek
In any case he's a great commander as you can do so many fun and weird things with him, the tweaking never ends.
Adding another color to your commander identity gives you more options:
- Rafiq of the Many
- Jenara, Asura of War
- Shu Yun, the Silent Tempest
While all of them are rather voltron than aggro they know how to close a game.As far as manabase goes my experience is that while Fetches and original Duals are nice, if you build the manabase right you won't need them. Azorius Signet, Talisman of Progress, Fellwar Stone, Chromatic Lantern, Command Tower, Glacial Fortress, Prairie Stream, Hallowed Fountain, Temple of Enlightenment and Nimbus Maze give you more than enough options for color fixing.
True enough, though I want to point out that several of these may or may not qualify as "budget" choices, depending on the budget in question, unless you're comparing them specifically to things like Tundra. I was very disappointed that Chromatic Lantern wasn't reprinted in each of the Commander 2016 decks, since each of those decks could really use it and since the Lantern is rarely if ever played in any other format.
Depending on the specific budget you have to work with, you may have to go mostly with basic lands, Azorious Guildgate, CIPT duals and things like Terramorphic Expanse and Evolving Wilds. And at two colors, that's probably fine. Combined with Commander's Sphere, Azorious Signet (and maybe the Cluestone or Keyrune), some of the more affordable options listed above and some of the suggestions bobthefunny made, you should be fine unless your metagame is very fast and competitive, in which case you will just have to accept that being on a budget likely puts you at some disadvantage.