There are many great cards out there that are cheap to buy and yet bring a serious presence to the table. Their price-to-power ratio is very good. Consider an Underground Sea. The massive amount of money it costs to pick one up is nowhere near the benefit you gain from having a land that taps for two colors of mana, comes into play untapped, and can be fetched out by some land-searching cards. Underground Sea has a bad price-to-power ratio. On the other hand, a recently-printed house such as Sylvan Primordial or Teysa, Envoy of Ghosts has an amazing price-to-power ratio because they cost so little to acquire.

I love finding these cheap, strong cards and giving them their days in the sun. There are also some cards that were once casual all-stars but that faded as new hotness was released. Yet, there they are, still awesome, just waiting for another deck—another kitchen table, another chance.

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about some cheap, lesser-known options to consider when building your next decks. That article specifically wanted to look at pre-Modern cards that may have fallen off the collective map. In the comments, Benjamin Alan Mohr asked for some Modern cards to consider as well, and I thought that was a great idea. That brings us to today’s article!

I grabbed fifteen cards that are Modern-legal. All of them clock in at a buck or less near mint at CoolStuffInc.com. I’d like to extol their virtues and discuss how to use them in your next decks for casual night.

With that requisite preamble out of the way, let’s look at some cards!

Aether Snap – Here is another card that fell from the sky without grace. Considering the massive numbers of counters and tokens you use in Magic today, the absence of this card in your decks is nothing less than an absolute shame—a shame on all of us. In a day with populate Selesnya and a recently-reprinted Doubling Season, maybe this has some value. In a day when planeswalkers are played even more because the recent rule change allows multiple Jaces to be on a battlefield if controlled by multiple owners, maybe this has some value. In a day when creatures with wither and infect are still seen in numbers at the kitchen table, maybe this has some value. In a day when proliferate and other cards are still used heavily in casual games around the world, maybe this has some value. And when played alongside cards that you want to pull counters off (persist, undying, Dark Depths, etc.), maybe this has some value. Considering all of the things this just shuts down, it’s worth playing.

Sword of the Paruns – When looking for magical swords to use as Equipment for your next deck, you might look at the quintet of Sword of X and Y. (My favorite is Sword of Fire and Ice.) Or you might look for something like Sword of Kaldra or Sword of Vengeance. But it’s easy to skip past the Sword of the Paruns, and I can see why. It’s 4 mana to play and 3 to equip. And all you find for your effort is +2 to the front if the dork is tapped and +2 to the back if not. That’s not a lot. Of course, it’s more than that. The other Swords work to make your single creature better, but this makes your whole army better—a lot better. When you attack with your army, including the equipped creature, and you tap down stuff, everything gets +2 in the front. If you attack with just four creatures, that is 8 extra damage this Sword brings to the table. In decks with a reliable number of cheap hordes (such as token decks), this is a potent tool of destruction. It can also act as a sort of Castle for defense, so if you are not ready to swing all out with this mini-Overrun, just sit back and make it that much harder for people to penetrate your defense. But that’s not all! Don’t forget that you can tap and untap the equipped creature for 3 mana a pop. Maybe you want to abuse an ability such as Avatar of Woe’s or Arcanis the Omnipotent’s. In fact, you can use it to combo out as a key combo piece. Just for fun, why not put it on something like Ley Druid to untap that Gaea's Cradle. (Or put it on Krosan Restorer to untap multiple lands post-threshold in case you can’t afford a Cradle.) Still think the Sword of the Paruns isn’t worth a try?

Grim Backwoods – Now let’s shake things up by going to a recently-printed card I don’t see enough of. I have seen quite a few Commander decks with the Golgari colors in them that are not running this card in a land slot, and I always ask them why. Players usually respond with similar notes: They forgot about it. They go purchase, trade for, or grab a copy to toss into their decks. Look, if you have a deck with creatures, you have a deck where creatures are going to die. Since they are dying anyway to removal or combat, why not sacrifice one for a card here and there. Even if you just draw four or five cards over the course of the game because of this, that is powerful enough to turn the tides in your favor. Run it!

Stormtide Leviathan – Stormtide Leviathan is a lot better under the hood than you might think at first. There are a lot of subtle and cool interactions. Remember how often you see Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth—it’s because there are a lot of ways you can use it. From making your nonbasics tap for colored mana to fueling a Corrupt, you can find a lot of power in it. Sub in Flow of Ideas for Corrupt, and you have the same result. A lot of blue cards really want your opponent to control an Island. From the many islandwalkers or islandhomers to cards like Sea Monster and others, you want Islands in the control of others. It has a lot of synergy with such cards. It’s basically an unblockable 8/8 that you can build around.

Dire Undercurrents – This is a powerful engine that I rarely see used in decks. How often does a blue creature enter your battlefield? In your next Commander match, how many blue creatures will enter your board? Imagine drawing a card, for free, every time one does! Now imagine forcing a discard every time a black creature does. No need to use mana; it’s a free trigger. Sometimes, you’ll drop a creature that is both colors and win the lottery. But even when you don’t, every creature essentially becomes one with an enters-the-battlefield trigger. It is abusable and amazing. If you are playing the colors, play the card.

Crown of Convergence – It took a while to uncover how good this card can be. I had it as just another crappy rare and dismissed it for years. Then, I gave it a spin in an online Commander deck built around Jacques le Vert. And I saw how good it can be. At first, it looks like this weird, unreliable Glorious Anthem tied to this weird, unreliable Mirri's Guile. So, play with it, and tell me what you think. The combination of abilities plays a lot better than I would have thought. I could move a card to change what I was about to draw, manipulate a creature on top for a nice bonus to my dorks, and more. Plus, when I had mana open, my foes had to assume that my creatures had +1/+1 from its effect . . . even when it didn’t—just in case I flipped into a creature. It’s quite fun!

Proper Burial – When your creatures inevitably die, wouldn’t it be nice to net something from it—like, say, some life? When your dorks hit the ’yard with this in play, you will gin life equal to their toughnesses. It works well in white, where so many creatures can be Wall of Omens and Indomitable Ancients and Avatar of Hope. When someone plays Damnation, see it as an opportunity, not a setback.

And that brings us to the close of another look at some cards that clock in at a buck or less. We have a strong list of powerful cards to consider for that next deck. When you head to the kitchen table, why not grab a few extra bullets?

Let me know if this is a series you want to keep seeing or if two was enough for your tastes. With prices so cheap for many cards, we can keep going on and on and discovering more cards with a high price-to-power ratio.

See you next week,

Abe Sargent