MTG Salvation

So I'm almost brand new to mtg and I'm trying to build a deck out of the request of a few friends. I used to play super casually for a year or so during the time period of stuff like New Pyrexia so I have little card knowledge and very few cards.
With that out of the way I'm trying to as the title says, build a $30-35 commander deck to play with friends. The reason for the budget is because while I enjoy the game I don't at all know my play style because one, I haven't played much and two I don't remember if I had one. Also to be clear the play group I'll be with isn't competitive so the deck doesn't have to be super strong. We have a person with rareless Brago, one with the Wyrm, a $30 or so Draxos, and the only super serious deck is a Rafiq deck.
So if anyone has help to offer with choosing a commander then on how to build it, core cards that are must haves, wincons, etc. please help me out. I'd also like it if the deck had good future upgrades for if I enjoy playing. Thanks in advance to anyone that helps me out.

Get a precon?

Check out the Commander's Brew podcast, episodes before mid-2018. They did over a hundred decks all for less than $50.

Yep, getting a precon would be perfect for your budget and they're really good bang for buck in terms of power.

This years are a bit weak, though, so unless you particularly like one of them I'd aim for one from a previous year.

$30 is pretty low to the ground in terms of power in relation the inflated price of singles to date (even prebuilt WotC decks, retail msrp is $39.95). As I assume you'd like to play a deck that feels at least moderately competent, may I recommend you set your minimum buy in about $20 higher? Personally I wouldn't jump in for less than three digits, but $50 can at least buy you more than an unsynergistic pile of someone's draft leftovers.

Tatyova, Benthic Druid can play around a lot of ramp spells like Rampant Growth as well as giving access to blue for staple stuff like Counterspell. I'm sure there's plenty of $1 rare creatures like Sphinx of Uthuun you can play around without needing Consecrated Sphinx.

Precons certainly are good options to get into the game on a tight budget.

Aside from that, playing mono colored decks can help a lot - with the exception of some B and W staples.
In a casual enviroment like yours there are plenty of options if you feel like building the deck yourself. You'll need a well sorted store and/or friends with extensive collections nearby though, because my experience with budgets builds is, that if you have to order the cards online shipping will consume a large chump of your already small budget.

W's Danitha Capashen, Paragon, Kemba, Kha Regent, Sram, Senior Edificer and Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle leave enough design space, to build them with cheap-ish cards.
U has Talrand, Sky Summoner who is considerably strong as long as you keep the curve as low as possible, no matter the single card cost. Azami, Lady of Scrolls doesn't take too much money and effort either, since WotC overprinted Wizards massively.
B is a little trickier, as most major strategies and staples get relatively pricy fast. Toshiro Umezawa and Balthor the Defiled may be affordable options.
R has my favorite budget commander: Zada, Hedron Grinder! The avg. card price of that deck is laughably low and it works very decently without the money cards in color. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser and Valduk, Keeper of the Flame should be fun, too.
In G you have Yeva, Nature's Herald, who allows you to play virtually any creatures you have available. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard allows you to do the same and can become a beast with latter upgrades. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Surrak, the Hunt Caller can bring out the Timmy in you.

I'm curious to see what you'll end up with and happily offer advice.

Precons are your best bet. But i built a mono red deck (back when purpuros was like 4 bucks) for like 25 bucks. I built a green for like 50.

I would however watching the commander quarters oj youtube. He has bjdget decl build for 25 or less. (Though hus last few have been commander price exempt. But they are not 100 dollar commanders. Just that 25 dollars goes up to like 30

I've built a bunch of decks for a budget playgroup (All cards <$1 TCGPlayer mid, except for the commander). Plenty of them have since crept up beyond that limit, but are still well under $50.

Ephara, God of the Polis - UW control, $35,90
Muldrotha - Sultai self-mill and value, $46,96
Karametra, God of the Harvest - Landfall/ramp, $29,97
Mizzix of the Izmagnus - Spellslinger, $32,32
Wort, the Raidmother - Fireball combo, $31,84

Budget MTG Decks has a bunch of primers for cheap commander decks. EDHRec runs a bunch of articles on cheap deckbuilding. Without knowing what strategy you're going to play, I'd recommend building something from the ground up rather than buying a precon.

So just to add on to the people who are vying for precons, I think they are great for someone with a strict budget like you, but stores tend to inflate the prices above MSRP. It's much better to buy online for things like this.

Here's a link to TCG player, shipping is included for most it looks like and each of the 2018 commander decks is within your budget. Maybe you'll even have enough left over for some nice sleeves:

https://shop.tcgplayer.com/magic/commander-2018?Type=Sealed Products&newSearch=false&orientation=list

Happy playing!

i recently built a selenia, dark angel that worked surprisingly well. combine the likes of vizkopa confessor and pay all your life, then swap life totals around with things say magus of the mirror. kills out of nowhere, and i think total cost was less than $40 or so. also, selenia allows you to pay all your life to do funky things, so you've always got access to life-draining abilities.

anyways, it was a 4player game, i had an ineffective mono blue talrand, sky summoner tempo against a rakdos the defiler suicide BR against a yuriko, the tiger's shadow top of deck manipulator+extra turns, and won 2 games of 3 (and the game loss was because of mana-screw). AND, the deck was piloted by someone else i lent the deck to (in other words, they had to pilot it with the description "pay all your life to do weird things"). also, wound reflection with a repay in kind in actually quite painful.

i don't have a decklist right now, but if you want/are interested i can try to write an abridged decklist (i.e. minus lands)

Quote from NoNeedToBragoBoutIt »

Precons certainly are good options to get into the game on a tight budget.

Aside from that, playing mono colored decks can help a lot - with the exception of some B and W staples.
In a casual enviroment like yours there are plenty of options if you feel like building the deck yourself. You'll need a well sorted store and/or friends with extensive collections nearby though, because my experience with budgets builds is, that if you have to order the cards online shipping will consume a large chump of your already small budget.

W's Danitha Capashen, Paragon, Kemba, Kha Regent, Sram, Senior Edificer and Teshar, Ancestor's Apostle leave enough design space, to build them with cheap-ish cards.
U has Talrand, Sky Summoner who is considerably strong as long as you keep the curve as low as possible, no matter the single card cost. Azami, Lady of Scrolls doesn't take too much money and effort either, since WotC overprinted Wizards massively.
B is a little trickier, as most major strategies and staples get relatively pricy fast. Toshiro Umezawa and Balthor the Defiled may be affordable options.
R has my favorite budget commander: Zada, Hedron Grinder! The avg. card price of that deck is laughably low and it works very decently without the money cards in color. Grenzo, Havoc Raiser and Valduk, Keeper of the Flame should be fun, too.
In G you have Yeva, Nature's Herald, who allows you to play virtually any creatures you have available. Yisan, the Wanderer Bard allows you to do the same and can become a beast with latter upgrades. Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma and Surrak, the Hunt Caller can bring out the Timmy in you.

I'm curious to see what you'll end up with and happily offer advice.

I'd say zada too. Cheap, maybe a little glass cannon, but effective.
Stay with as few color as you can.

I'd go with 2 colour deck containing green. The biggest budget issue for any deck is the mana base using green allows you to easily ramp and fix mana. Two colour decks are easier than mono colour decks because mono colour decks have to rely on artifacts to many up for the things they lack, but when you have two colours you'll be in better shape to interact with your opponent.

Secondly, threats are cheaper and more interchangeable than answers, so you want to pick a deck with a good proactive game plan. You don't need top tier threats because something like Pelakka Wurm is just as terrifying as Eldrazi in most scenarios.

I'd probably go with Tatyova, Benthic Druid if I was to just pick a commander. recently printed uncommon, is green, provides its own card advantage for doing something you want to do anyway. The only issue is that UG can lack effective removal and mass removal.

Quote from Narvuntien »

I'd probably go with Tatyova, Benthic Druid if I was to just pick a commander. recently printed uncommon, is green, provides its own card advantage for doing something you want to do anyway. The only issue is that UG can lack effective removal and mass removal.

Absolutely agree with Tatyova, but I disagree on a lack of removal for the deck.

I've been running a budget Tatyova deck, and she stands up to much higher budget decks with a fairly impressive win ratio, all things considered. She ramps hard, draws lots of cards, gains a decent amount of life, has enough control to stay alive and enough muscle to finish the game. I highly recommend the OP gives her a try. My build comes in a little over $50, but you could easily swap some of the cards and bring it down to your target budget.