Take the soon-to-be-reprinted set of fetch lands as a rare in MM17. What are they going for right now over at coolstuffinc.com? Arid Mesa is $34.99 right now (all prices are current as of the writing of this article, and are used for illustrative purposes, even if prices dip between now writing this on March 2, and publication a few days later)

That’s a lot of money for people that are budget conscious. And that’s after a reprint was announced, not a price that would have been going up and up. Basilisk Collar was at $20 and moving up after some good performance recently in tournaments, until it was announced in MM17, and now it’s dropped to $6 near mint for the MM17 version and $10 for the iteration from Worldwake. That’s a lot to pay for cards that are quality Commander staples too.

Building a deck with 100 cards ain’t easy on the cheap. Using your existing card stock or trading for the cards you want is a good start. And many folks have a limited budget. When I started playing, back in 1994, a lot of the people I was playing with were a little older, down to a few years younger. As I have aged, and am still playing 22 years later, those people have moved to a new chapter of their lives with families and the accompanying spiraling expenses of child care to worry about. And for those people that still like toplay, there’re isn’t that much money left in the budget after everything else is accounted for.

Budgets are no joke. So I have really tried to push my own budget building, and this is the 35th iteration of a series where I have built budget decks that are truly budgets. (Actually the 36th if you count both of my five color projects separately). In my last article, we clocked in at $33.26. Now my goal in each article is to be under the budget of the previous one.

Today I want to build a fun deck around an interesting Orzhov concept. Now it comes with a bit of a spoiler for a future project. I just created a brand new Cube, where I randomly selected a card from Gatherer, added it to my Cube, and then added one more card to it from all of the history of Magic, and kept doing that over and over again, taking the random cards vs the ones added intentionally. I just finished, and that mega-project process, in raw form prior to making in it publishable, is 14975 words and 47 pages. That’s a lot of pages. That’s like a novella length work of art. I need to figure that part out. But the draft archetype for Orzhov is based around tapping creatures with effects like Master Decoy and others, and then killing them with Royal Assassin and such.

And that’s also the theme of a card that already exists: Deathbringer Liege. So I thought that building a Commander deck with that theme is going to be a lot of fun, and moreover, would have a lot of cheap parts. Very few of these cards are in demand at all.

However, as I began actually crating this deck, I hit an interesting roadblock. Let me show you.

Normally in my Budget Commander series, I just give you the final product, and wrestle with issues behind the scenes. But I felt this time it would be fun to give you the early deck and walk you through some of the issues and decisions I am forced to make each time, and then give you a bit of a peek behind the curtain.

So here is my first decklist — 44 cards in . . . 

First Run Through List:

• 1 Kambal, Consul Of Allocation
• 1 Whipcorder
• 1 Deadeye Harpooner
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Abyssal Hunter
• 1 Blinding Mage
• 1 Court Street Denizen
• 1 Gideon's Lawkeeper
• 1 Goldmeadow Harrier
• 1 Kytheon's Irregulars
• 1 Nomad Decoy
• 1 Rust Tick
• 1 Ruthless Ripper
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1 Thrill-Kill Assassin
• 1 Agent of Masks
• 1 Drana's Emissary
• 1 Loxodon Gatekeeper
• 1 Imposing Sovereign
• 1 Swift Reckoning
• 1 Murderous Compulsion
• 1 Dark Dabbling
• 1 Sheer Drop
• 1 Death Grasp
• 1 Brink of Disaster
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Kismet
• 1 Icy Manipulator
• 1 Puppet Strings
• 1 Barl's Cage
• 1 Amber Prison
• 1 Scepter of Dominance
• 1 Magewright's Stone
• 1 Ring of Gix
• 1 Siren Song Lyre
• 1 Orzhov Signet
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Blinkmoth Well
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Evolving Wilds

I decided that I liked Kambal as my leader, because he gave me my colors as a bulk rare, and his draining ability is pretty solid. I had already decided to add in the backup draining effect as both a tool to victory and a way to stay alive, and then I saw his bulk rare status and I committed.

$12.98 thus far

Now the key 44 cards of all of the tappers, major killers and more runs at just under thirteen dollars, $12.98 to be precise. Many of these cards are uncommons, commons, or bulk rares, like Amber Prison or Brink of Disaster. Some of these are rares that were subsequently printed at a lower rarity, like Barl's Cage, that you can get for a quarter right now. That includes mana fixing like the various lands, the Signet and Ingot, Orzhov Basilica, and even some of the draining cards, Blind Obedience, Royal Assassin and more.

Take Orzhov Guildgate as a good example. Right now, you can get it a player’s set of four for $0.49 from Modern Masters 2017. So I count the one here at $0.15 for my project, which is a little high but a lot easier on the math than the actual $0.12 it would be. And a lot of these cards are in that range. I even was working on cards like early defense to let me set up and other support.

But . . . 

Here’s my problem:

I have three Wrath effects printed that will sweep all of the tapped creatures away. The best is the bulk rare, heavily printed, and totally awesome Sunblast Angel. So it’s already in, and in fact was the 3rd card I added after Royal Assassin and Icy Manipulator. But the other two have very high price values due to their limited printings. And it’s not like you can trade for the 1000-Li March, that’s a card so specific you’d likely have to buy it from a vendor. Which is fine, vendors play a very valuable role for us with getting cards reliably. But how many people really have $20 sitting around for a card that, if printed as a rare in Modern Masters 2017, would be a $1 or less? That’s the problem with investing in scarcity rather than quality. Cards that are heavily in print, like Propaganda or Ghostly Prison, are so in demandthat their price is very sustainable. The same is true of other tools from Commander like Lightning Greaves. It’s never dropping much, no matter how many they print. But a card like Righteous Fury is artificially high based on its scarcity versus it’s play value. Give it one printing as a rare in a Conspiracy III, and another uncommon of Propaganda in the same set, and even though there would likely be more Propagandas in that set alone as an uncommon, in addition to the numerous other ones in print, the Fury’s price will tumble below that of the in-set Propaganda every time.

And then we have true classics that would really make this deck shine, and it all begins with Deathbringer Liege. And we have great cards that tap, great effects that sweep, the Elixir to give my tappers haste as well as one another go. Staff of Domination is sweet here, and Yosei, as the least important, is listed last, but gives the deck some useful flying beef besides it’s on-flavor dying trigger.

Ah yes, the budget. This is a Budget Commander series. That’s the whole point. Toss in all of these cards together and you are looking at $83 from these ten cards, and after adding in some cheap support, we’d be pushing triple digits easy. So, easily.

And there’s only so many Assassinates, or Excoriates or Vengeances that I can run out there before the deck is overly watered down. We need these higher quality cards too, especially the wraths, Gideon and tappers.

I was looking at other options. Some are okay, but still are a little more than you’d want for this.

Here are some more options of priceiness:

And then cards that I want to use to bring back your dead stuff are pricey too. Take, as one example, Geth, Lord of the Vault who’s $8. Whew!

We are on the outside of this budget looking in.

Now this is a particularly important issue for this deck in particular. Why? Well this deck, even if it runs all of the best engines and cards available, regardless of cost, will still be underpowered compared to a lot of decks out there right now, right? Tapping a creature, then killing it, requires two separate cards to do so (except for potentially the Deathbringer Liege). And all you’ve done is turned Royal Assassin’s tap ability into Avatar of Woe’s or Visara the Dreadful’s. If I don’t have enough creatures (or other cards) that’ll tap and kill tapped creatures, then my deck is in a world of hurt.

I need Gideon Jura to be successful. I need King's Assassin, Deathbringer Liege, and Steam Catapult or even the junky Stone Catapult. But just those four cards alone, and nothing else, is $29. Way over budget.

So I could do a few things:

Hmmm . . . 

You know what, I want to embrace the challenge, and the issues on hand as well. So let’s do a little of both!

Let’s remove the budget concept entirely. But instead, only use expensive cards that are on theme and have to be here. So no support like Phyrexian Arena that’s clearly in here to draw cards, or Godless Shrine.

So how about this. Only those cards mentioned above can make the final cut. That seems fair. Everything else should be under a dollar each. How about that?

Deck completed!

The Great Orzhov Tap and Kill Dance of 2017 ? Commander | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Kambal, Consul Of Allocation

• Creatures (30)
• 1 Abyssal Hunter
• 1 Agent of Masks
• 1 Blinding Mage
• 1 Court Street Denizen
• 1 Deadeye Harpooner
• 1 Deathbringer Liege
• 1 Drana's Emissary
• 1 Geth, Lord of the Vault
• 1 Gideon's Lawkeeper
• 1 Goldmeadow Harrier
• 1 Imposing Sovereign
• 1 Kingpin's Pet
• 1 King's Assassin
• 1 Knights of the Black Rose
• 1 Kytheon's Irregulars
• 1 Loxodon Gatekeeper
• 1 Nomad Decoy
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Rathi Assassin
• 1 Royal Assassin
• 1 Rust Tick
• 1 Ruthless Ripper
• 1 Steam Catapult
• 1 Sunblast Angel
• 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
• 1 Thorn of the Black Rose
• 1 Thrill-Kill Assassin
• 1 Treasury Thrull
• 1 Whipcorder
• 1 Yosei, the Morning Star

• Planeswalkers (1)
• 1 Gideon Jura

• Instants] (3)
• 1 Dark Dabbling
• 1 Make a Stand
• 1 Utter End

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Ancient Craving
• 1 Death Grasp
• 1 Guan-Yu's One Thousand-Li March
• 1 Morbid Curiosity
• 1 Murderous Compulsion
• 1 Profane Command
• 1 Righteous Fury
• 1 Sheer Drop
• 1 Swift Reckoning
• 1 Unburial Rites

• Enchantments (6)
• 1 Authority of the Consuls
• 1 Blind Obedience
• 1 Brink of Disaster
• 1 Gift of Orzhova
• 1 Kismet
• 1 Palace Siege

• Artifacts (13)
• 1 Amber Prison
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Barl's Cage
• 1 Darksteel Ingot
• 1 Icy Manipulator
• 1 Magewright's Stone
• 1 Orzhov Signet
• 1 Puppet Strings
• 1 Ring of Gix
• 1 Scepter of Dominance
• 1 Siren Song Lyre
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Thousand-Year Elixir

• Lands (34)
• 13 Plains
• 13 Swamp
• 1 Blinkmoth Well
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Orzhov Basilica
• 1 Orzhov Guildgate
• 1 Orzhova, the Church of Deals
• 1 Scoured Barrens
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

Buy This Deck

The new support cards I added: Gift of Orzhova, Make a Stand, Kingpin's Pet, Knights of the Black Rose, Utter End, Treasury Thrull, Palace Siege, Diabolic Tutor, Ancient Craving, Morbid Curiosity, Profane Command, Unburial Rites, Armillary Sphere, and Pilgrim's Eye all meet my financial requirements. None of those cards are pricey, all are under a dollar, and I skipped cards like Solemn Simulacrum or Sun Titan or Karmic Guide.

And there we are!

Now we have a few fun themes in here. If I can’t deal with something, then I can just tap it with Icy Manipulator or Ring of Gix or Scepter of Dominance. You can tap down key lands, artifacts, and especially creatures. By just tapping stuff down, you can open lanes of attack to either smash face, or to hit Planeswalkers.

And then hopefully we can keep something tapped long enough to find removal, if I don’t have it at the time. We’ll eventually drop that Royal Assassin or find that Sheer Drop. I love Rust Tick in here, because you can tap it to lock down an artifact (including an artifact creature) and then just leave it tapped. Tap and forget it. Amber Prison is cool because it has a similar effect. Tap it down.

Given that the central conceit of this deck is killing creatures, I didn’t want to run too many other removal effects. Death Grasp can hit a player and thus their planeswalker, or a creature in a pinch. And you could certainly target a creature for exiling with the Utter End, although that’s not why it was included — but a key indestructible creature that needs to go certainly would be a compelling argument. (See also Excoriate for exiling a tapped creature if you prefer)

Feel free to add in abilities like Exsanguinate, better blockers, and more defense. You could add in Tawnos's Coffin, Maze of Ith, and Kor Haven all day long to help keep you alive. I also added in some resilience with cards such as Dark Dabbling and Make a Stand, as well as some reanimation. Feel free to hit that theme up with Volrath's Stronghold, Obzedat's Aid, Beacon of Unrest, Karmic Guide, and more.

There are a lot of other directions to consider too. I think an argument for land destruction like Wasteland or Dust Bowl could be made. I wouldn’t run mass removal, like Desolation Angel, but there are some intriguing options out there. See also Mishra's Helix.

What else would you look at? Three are a ton of cards that tap that I didn’t run here. Kor Hookmaster? Rathi Trapper? Squall Drifter? Topplegeist? Vectis Dominator? Blinding Souleater? Crown of Empires? Pooling Venom? Blinding Beam? Pacification Array? Trip Noose? All of those have some keen value, and give you other options. Note that Rathi Trapper fetches up Rebels, and Whipcorder is a Rebel already in the deck, if you wanted to mine that direction.

I had begun treading down the Assassin path, but I didn’t want to run the only card that cares about that type — Scarblade Elite. We have enough removal that I don’t have to go exiling them for more. But you could add in Silumgar Assassin, Big Game Hunter, Silent Assassin, or Nekrataal or something if you wanted to chainsaw down some timber and make a path. You could even force the path with cards like Adaptive Automaton or Obelisk of Urd.

So what did you think of the deck? I hope you found some stuff in there to enjoy it!