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Welcome back everyone for some more budget magic discussion! We are going to be bouncing around sets today ranging from new to older sets in Pioneer. We will have some additional cards with brief overviews for those on a tighter budget! I hope you enjoy the read and let's get this thing going!
- Unlucky Witness - For those looking for a cheap card to give card advantage. Helps in decks that want to sacrifice creatures.
- Dokuchi Silencer - A solid budget card to help control the board. Works well with graveyard recursion or just getting rid of creatures we might not need.
- Jhoira, Ageless Innovator - A great early play in both Pioneer and Commander, but more suitable for Commander and playing big artifact spells later in the game.
- Balmor, Battlemage Captain - A great card for ramping damage mid to late game in either an Izzet (
) deck or a Mono-Red deck. - Biomancer's Familiar - A budget-friendly card to use in decks that have a lot of expensive activation costs. Most suitable for Commander, but could be used in certain builds in Pioneer as well.
- Simic Manipulator - Can be utilized in either Commander or Pioneer. Has the potential to be a Pioneer player in Simic (
) builds utilizing +1/+1 counters and/or big creatures. - Wild Beastmaster - A great option for Mono-Green and Gruul () decks as a late game play to buff and swing for big damage! Highly underappreciated card in my opinion and great budget pick up!
- Ghostfire Blade - A Good 1-drop artifact to use in decks with artifact and colorless creatures. It has been on a downward trend for a while, so grabbing them on the low would not hurt.
- Wharf Infiltrator - I love this for card advantage, and the skulk ability helps to keep it alive. There is more upside than meets the eye in the right build. Foils are currently $1.07
- Graveblade Marauder - A fantastic card for graveyard decks. The ability is something that can come in clutch late game for lethal damage! Foils are currently only $0.75!
The top ability gives us an edge to deal extra damage that we otherwise would not have available to us, not to mention the types of decks this works well in are going to have smaller creatures, so buffing them all with 1 power is going to be a huge help. The bottom ability is also very flexible once it is triggered. Looking at cards like Corpse Knight and Cruel Celebrant they do not target, but rather automatically makes opponents lose life. With Judith, the Scourge Diva's trigger we can target creatures and planeswalkers if that seems like a better play than dealing direct damage to our opponent.
Another thing that I like to look at is decks that utilize cards like Fling. Judith's ability basically double dips when flinging a creature. First off you are hitting for one extra damage from the buff, and then you are pinging for one upon the creature going to the graveyard. In budget Commander decks it will not hurt to throw one in your deck if it synergizes with the build. Overall, I feel like this is one where the foils can creep up over time, and the non-foils can certainly rise from their current price. As always, use trade first on this and cash secondary if you have it available!
) ramp and counters decks. First off it is only a 1-drop artifact, so it is easy to mainboard. Being able to just pay one colorless to create a 1/1 creature is fantastic for building up a creature base. Additionally, we can duplicate a +1/+1 counter on a creature with the bottom ability, and this would trigger the top ability! Of course, we would need the available mana to pay for both.
The bottom ability gives us a lot of flexibility when it comes to where the counters go. In Commander format there is a type of counter that comes to mind that most players despise more than anything, poison counters. If a player has x amount of poison counters on them, you can politic a little and try to get them to work with you, so you do not target them. Commander politicking can be a game changing aspect to our play. Outside of politicking we can obviously bolster up how many counters we have on our own permanents! This one is a card you need to add to your trade binder!
What is really great about this is the bottom ability. Pioneer would benefit from this more than Commander, I feel, seeing as Pioneer uses more targeting spells and abilities than in Commander. That being said, for just one mana we now have a card that sits there allowing us to not only target anything, but it gives us protection in the event we need it. It can also make all of our creatures unblockable until the end of our turn. This part of the ability makes it intriguing for both Pioneer and Commander.
In Pioneer there are plenty of decks that could benefit from their creatures being unblockable during the later stages of our game to produce lethal damage. This is something that can also be said for Commander. Being able to build up a board and being able to swing for the fences on command is something none of our opponents want to see happen. This is absolutely one that you should trade into as I do not see this one going down in value anytime soon!
That's it for today everyone, and I hope you come back for the next article!
