MTG Salvation

Hello! As more people come to the store, they either have 1 or no deck. I've lent out a few of mine...but sometimes turns would be 5+ minutes because they are tutoring and reading every card.

What are some budget (yet still of decent power) decks that I can build to lend out? I'd like to stay within $50 a deck.

I think Mono-color or two-color is best, as players won't be needing to read every single land they play or tutor for the right lands. I also think that heavy tribal and graveyard interaction, while fun for new players, can also be a little complex to actually monitor the board. A few suggestions:

Talrand, Sky Summoner - While they will need to keep mana up for instants, it is hard to "screw up" if you just play Talrand and then cast instants and sorceries.
Kemba, Kha Regent - Step 1) Put a billion equipment on Kemba. Step 2) make a billion cats. Step 3)???? Step 4) Win the game.]
Heartless Hidetsugu - Give the dude Lifelink with a Loxodon Warhammer or Basilisk Collar, give him Haste, and burn the world down.
Seton, Krosan Protector - Hard to go wrong if you just play lands and lay down big threats, but unfortunately Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, and Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury are all really expensive. Seton here does a fine budget impression plus you get to run Gilt-leaf Archdruid and get extra value out of your Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, Quirion Ranger, and Reclamation Sages and give pseudo-haste to your mana dorks. Obviously the deck is better with access to stuff like Akroma's Memorial and Mana Reflection but it can probably live without them.
Rosheen Meanderer - A fun commander on a budget that lends itself to a clear but powerful strategy.
Varolz, the Scar-striped - While it does need to track the graveyard, Varolz is pretty straightforward and can be built cheaply, especially with the Death's Shadow getting a reprint recently.
Lavinia of the Tenth/Brago, King Eternal - flickering is fun, soooo fun, and Deadeye Navigator is a powerful but cheap add that can go infinite without expensive stuff like Palinchron.
Tajic, Blade of the Legion - Tokens + Wraths is a tough line to walk, but Tajic can still be pretty successful I think with limited rares and mythics.
Anax and Cymede - A good Boros alternative as you can build a quick army and then spam stuff like Conviction and Crown of Flames to strike people out.

Quote from Hawk7915 »

I think Mono-color or two-color is best, as players won't be needing to read every single land they play or tutor for the right lands. I also think that heavy tribal and graveyard interaction, while fun for new players, can also be a little complex to actually monitor the board. A few suggestions:

Talrand, Sky Summoner - While they will need to keep mana up for instants, it is hard to "screw up" if you just play Talrand and then cast instants and sorceries.
Kemba, Kha Regent - Step 1) Put a billion equipment on Kemba. Step 2) make a billion cats. Step 3)???? Step 4) Win the game.]
Heartless Hidetsugu - Give the dude Lifelink with a Loxodon Warhammer or Basilisk Collar, give him Haste, and burn the world down.
Seton, Krosan Protector - Hard to go wrong if you just play lands and lay down big threats, but unfortunately Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Azusa, Lost but Seeking, and Freyalise, Llanowar's Fury are all really expensive. Seton here does a fine budget impression plus you get to run Gilt-leaf Archdruid and get extra value out of your Farhaven Elf, Ondu Giant, Quirion Ranger, and Reclamation Sages and give pseudo-haste to your mana dorks. Obviously the deck is better with access to stuff like Akroma's Memorial and Mana Reflection but it can probably live without them.
Rosheen Meanderer - A fun commander on a budget that lends itself to a clear but powerful strategy.
Varolz, the Scar-striped - While it does need to track the graveyard, Varolz is pretty straightforward and can be built cheaply, especially with the Death's Shadow getting a reprint recently.
Lavinia of the Tenth/Brago, King Eternal - flickering is fun, soooo fun, and Deadeye Navigator is a powerful but cheap add that can go infinite without expensive stuff like Palinchron.
Tajic, Blade of the Legion - Tokens + Wraths is a tough line to walk, but Tajic can still be pretty successful I think with limited rares and mythics.
Anax and Cymede - A good Boros alternative as you can build a quick army and then spam stuff like Conviction and Crown of Flames to strike people out.

Thank you.
I do have a Talrand deck of my own....but a bit more complex and expensive cards (FoW for one). I feel I can rework that deck and remove those cards for my decks :))))

Mmmmm Kemba --- equipment always fun. There is also that mono white PW that can be a commander.
Heartless Hidetsugu forgot about this guy.... gonna look for something fun.

Quote from JDviant »

Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro shaman tribal is fun, and incredibly cheap. Mono-G has it pretty easy in that way.

In two colours, Kolaghan, the Storm's Fury is explosive and doesn't need to be expensive at all. I think I build one with only three or four dragons, and the rest goblin tribal.

Funny thing is Sachi, Daughter of Seshiro is actually placed down in front of me. I had her when I first started playing standard. I was thinking about shaman/druid tribal.

Instead of Kolaghan, I have seen some really budget Kaalia of the Vast decks. Issue is I traded her away at half the price a long ways back (Theros iirc).

I lend out decks all the time to more enfranchised players (usually after drafts, when not everybody has commander decks). Much of the time, they don't see the strategy or the more powerful interactions.

Some decks are better handled than others, though.

Things to avoid:
- Tutors: my friend once Chord of Callinged for Sidisi, Undead Vizier. The play was to tutor a combo piece or a lock piece. It's Karador, Ghost Chieftain - you pretty much only tutor for creatures anyway!
- Combo decks: People may understand a combo if it is all in front of them, but the number of times I've seen combo pieces discarded to hand size is alarming!
- Decks with a lot of decision trees - it will take forever - never lend Momir Vig.
- foreign cards, for obvious reasons
- triggers - when you are piloting a new deck, it is hard to keep track of ten million triggers.

I highly recommend Rakdos, Lord of Riots. My deck plays a bunch of pingers, and a bunch of beaters. For 50$ you aren't going to have 2 ulamogs and old Kozilek, but you can still put a lot of excellent cards.

I'm not even sure if I can make a deck with pricetag less than 50. For that price, it's better to pick up a pre-con and modify it to stick with one of the themes.

I would recommend a mono-color like Nahiri, the Lithomancer or Gisela, the Broken Blade where the game plan is super obvious: equip dudes, beat face. Unfortunately, the better equips are pricey, but you can still get some very decent ones on the cheap.

Alternatively, you can pick make Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas, pick a tribe and play a bunch of big guys with mana rocks to power them out. Not super powerful but very straight forward. Just tell them to tutor for mana things.

If you want to make something not aggro, Kynaios and Tiro of Meletis are pretty good if you pick up the rest of the tax cards such as collective restraint and Norn's Annex. Keep in mind that a good mana base in that range is impossible.

I have an Atarka, World Render deck that is idiot proof, has very few tutors and requires a new player to know how to turn a card sideways. It plays remarkably well, too.

I tried to get a friend to make a "loaner deck" and build Yidris, Maelstrom Wielder, with all x-spells. I just don't understand why that sounds like such a bad deck to lend out to players?

Combat based decks are the easiest to lend out.

I have a huge collection of decks and typically carry 8x around in my mtg sack, but realistically I can only lend out just my easy-to-pilot Akroma, Angel of Fury deck to an unfamiliar new-to-meta friend. It just tries to land mana effects and meaningful/impactful effects. It's hard to screw up and misplay, other than possibly using a wheel of fortune effect when it helps the opponents more than the pilot, or mis-using word of seizing/grab the reins.

I have a tendency to make overly complicated puzzle decks, with even the control elements being awkward to time correctly if you don't know the opponents/meta. Would a newbie know when to mana short/shadow of doubt against unknown opponent? Rakdos storm isn't always as easy as ritual-out-AdNas. Stax-Kraum is probably one of the most delicate (and brittle) experiments that I've been running, and so far each friend that has tried to pilot it has stumbled.

I'm pretty sure you can make a green ramp deck for fairly cheap. Normally pretty simple, decently strong, and allows newer players to cast some sweet fatties. I have an Omnath deck that I personally like to lend to newer players.

As others said, one or two color decks, with no nonland tutors and no foreign/full art cards. Synergies are great, but capitalizing on the variety of cards in Commander is what pulls many folks in, especially when it comes to answers and one-sided sweepers.

If you're like many folks who repurpose Fat Pack and Deckbuilders Toolkit boxes to cart around three decks each, you can make a loaner box containing all the colors, say a RG, a UW, and monoblack. Combat, control, and goodstuff.

Cheers!

Quote from JDviant »

I'm putting together an Edric, Spymaster of Trest for a buddy to play with tonight (broke up with his GF and she has all his cards). I'm just grabbing mostly junk rares and decent common and uncommons I have lying around, and I'd bet this whole deck would cost $25. Edric seems like a general you can do a lot with for very little.

I would also recommend Edric, Spymaster of Trest. You can build a pretty competitive list for $50 bucks or less because most of the creatures are Flying Men types with very little value. Edric, Spymaster of Trest encourages combat but also encourages new players to understand the importance of card advantage. Instead of winning with Time Warp effects, on a budget you can replace them with Overrun effects.

I probably say it every time this type of topic comes up, but I've found theft/clone type decks make for good loaners for newer players. They don't have to worry about how the parts of the deck synergise together, you can put in plenty of redundancy so tutoring isn't important and they get to play with all the interesting stuff that everyone else is using. Sakashima the Impostor or Lazav, Dimir Mastermind are good commanders for this.

I agree. I have one of those too. Lazav, Dimir Mastermind is more of a duel commander I've found, but the good thing about shapeshifter decks is that, by their very nature they scale to the decks around them. So at the very least, they have reasonably as good a chance at success as anyone else at the table.

Zada, Hedron Grinder is one heck of a budget commander. You'll easily stay below 50 bucks as it's mainly bulk.dec - which can be expanded with things like Purphoros, God of the Forge and other ofc.