As you all well know, the 75% project we started here back in February of 2014 has been a collaborative effort with the community and is a mere codification of philosophies that are as old as the format itself. I’d never claim I “created” anything that didn’t already exist since the proposals I have made aren’t exactly radical. One commenter said, flippantly, that 75% can be summed up as, “Don’t be a @#$%.”

As wrong as that isn’t, it’s overly simplistic and doesn’t give you any advice on deck-building. I can’t dispute that that applies, merely that it doesn’t tell the whole story. The rest of the story, I feel, is my job. I’ve enjoyed writing this column and will continue to do so until they pry it from my cold, dead hands—I mean, or fire me, I guess. They can probably just say, “Hey, we’re good, don’t send us any more articles because we won’t publish them,” and that way, they don’t have to literally murder me. Whichever route they decide to go, I feel a certain sense of ownership over this concept and how it’s presented, and some things make me bristle a bit. I’m reexamining some of the things I’ve resisted talking about to see if maybe I’m throwing out some perfectly good baby-meat with the bathwater every week.

While I still say that 75% isn’t necessarily a budget philosophy, I can’t argue with the fact that sticking to a budgetary restriction is going to make your deck adhere to a lot of our principles. You’re narrowing your card pool, and that’s going to lead to you making some creative choices, avoiding a linear build, and picking the best cards you can that you allow yourself to build. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend using a budget deck in place of a 75% deck if you’re taking it into an unknown meta where people could be waiting to try-hard you into bolivian, but if your group all agrees to a budget build, you could all build the same way and mix up your weekly ritual that way. But if you’re tailoring a build to a group, just adhere to their rules, and don’t worry about building 75% since your deck is specific to that meta. That has been my opinion about budgetary restrictions for years. Sure, building on a budget will keep your deck from being too powerful and consistent to be above 75%, but not a ton of decks need that much reigning in. If you want to build to a group, do it, and if your group wants to keep to a budgetary restriction, cool, but 75% rules are not necessary at that point.

However, I’m going to allow for the possibility that a deck with a budgetary restriction can still be 75% and contend with decks that are not built with any restrictions. A budgetary restriction can keep you from adding dumb, obvious, unfair cards since cards fitting that description are expensive if they’re Commander-ubiquitous. This makes you pick the best card for the deck you allow yourself. If I can make a deck with Genju of the Realm as the commander, where all of the cards are enchantments, I can make a deck that doesn’t suck where all the cards are under a certain price, right? I didn’t think so, but I received a reddit message from /u/spitfirefox that made a case that maybe a deck like that could get there.

I was intrigued. “Fast and surprisingly effective” may mean the deck can outpace slower, 100% decks and win through being streamlined. You can pick very powerful cards if we’re excluding cards like Food Chain and Purphoros and other cards that make Prossh so much fun to play. I’d argue those cards are okay in a 75% Prossh deck, but we’ll save that for another day. What does the deck look like with all of the cards under $2 as built by /u/spitfirefox?

Prossh Pingers ? $2 or Under Commander | /u/spitefirefox

• Commander (0)

• Creatures (31)
• 1 Anger
• 1 Dawntreader Elk
• 1 Deathbringer Thoctar
• 1 Embermaw Hellion
• 1 Falkenrath Noble
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Furystoke Giant
• 1 Hellrider
• 1 Hissing Iguanar
• 1 Hooded Hydra
• 1 Nullmage Shepherd
• 1 Ogre Battledriver
• 1 Ophiomancer
• 1 Orc Sureshot
• 1 Pharika's Mender
• 1 Rage Thrower
• 1 Reassembling Skeleton
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Savage Ventmaw
• 1 Skullmulcher
• 1 Smothering Abomination
• 1 Somberwald Sage
• 1 Sprouting Thrinax
• 1 Sylvan Ranger
• 1 Viscera Seer
• 1 Vulturous Aven
• 1 Wood Elves
• 1 Zhur-Taa Druid
• 1 Zulaport Cutthroat
• 1 Endrek Sahr, Master Breeder

• Spells (31)
• 1 Artifact Mutation
• 1 Consume the Meek
• 1 Fresh Meat
• 1 Noxious Revival
• 1 Putrefy
• 1 Rakdos Charm
• 1 Tangle
• 1 Unravel the Aether
• 1 Chandra's Ignition
• 1 Descent of the Dragons
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Farseek
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Lavalanche
• 1 Nissa's Expedition
• 1 Sylvan Offering
• 1 Tempt with Vengeance
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Deathreap Ritual
• 1 Fecundity
• 1 Fires of Yavimaya
• 1 Goblin Bombardment
• 1 Impact Tremors
• 1 Kyren Negotiations
• 1 Necrogenesis
• 1 Outpost Siege
• 1 Shadows of the Past
• 1 Ashnod's Altar
• 1 Commander's Sphere
• 1 Skullclamp
• 1 Spawning Pit

• Lands (37)
• 10 Mountain
• 12 Forest
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Grim Backwoods
• 1 Jund Panorama
• 1 Jungle Hollow
• 1 Kessig Wolf Run
• 1 Rakdos Guildgate
• 1 Rootbound Crag
• 1 Rugged Highlands
• 1 Savage Lands

Buy This Deck

$2 or less can be a big restriction, but luckily, we’ve had some key reprintings in the Commander (2015 Edition) decks that have made certain copies of certain cards very affordable. Let’s look at cards that are absurd and belong in the deck even if we’re not limiting the price.

Skullclamp — This card is bug-nutty with tokens and is stupid-powerful. This card is basically legal in Commander and Vintage because it would ruin every other format. It’s under $2 on some sites because of the Commander (2015 Edition) reprinting.

Smothering Abomination — This card is already in my 75% Prossh deck. It’s stupid-good.

Somberwald Sage — Someday, people are going to read this card and play it in Modern or some other spicy brew or Commander players will come to their senses as a community. Someday, we’ll have to take this out of our $2 or Under decks.

Kessig Wolf Run — Remember when these were $10?

Beastmaster Ascension — I have straight won games with this and Kobolds. Playing a Khalni Garden and attacking for 0 a bunch of times with the Plant to gain ascension counters still makes me cackle maniacally to this day.

Hellrider — I miss Avacyn-block Standard.

This decklist doesn’t have Burn at the Stake in it, but I’m pretty sure he knows that’s wrong and even included it in his “maybeboard,” which is good enough for me.

The real question is, “Does this deck suck?” Could it beat an ideally-tuned deck 1 ÷ X games if you play tight and get a little lucky? I don’t actually know. What I will say is that this isn’t too far off from what I would consider a 75% Prossh build. It has a lot of glaring exclusions, but what it does have is synergy, and synergy can sometimes be done on the cheap with big, durdly rares that are unremarkable in other builds but good in this one, niche uncommons, and cards that are so good in Commander that they’ve been reprinted into powder. That’s how you can find good cards under $2.

What’s my verdict? It’s hard to say. I would have to jam a few games with this deck, but even if it’s not capable of beating 100% decks 1 ÷ X games, I think it’s going to fit in fine with most playgroups and be somewhat competitive. No card you play paints a target on your back, and yet, everything works to give you a subtle advantage. Every dead creature draws you cards from Fecundity and Deathreap Ritual and deals damage from Zulaport Cutthroat and Outpost Siege. Every creature coming into play is a potential source of damage with Kyren Negotiations and Goblin Bombardment and becomes attacks buffed by Ogre Battledriver, Hellrider, and Beastmaster Ascension. The deck is a well-oiled machine, and considering it’s using $2 oil, the machine runs pretty well. I’m not prepared to call a build like this 75%, but I’m also not prepared to rule out budgetary restrictions as a way to limit our card pool as prescribed by our 75% deck-building guidelines.

What do we think? Does the deck pass muster or is it too limited by the budgetary restrictions to function as a 75% deck?

[poll id="668"]

Next week, I may try a budget deck of my own or I may just brew with the new Boros commander we have spoiled. Whatever I decide, keep the feedback coming, keep turning ’em sideways, and keep it 75%. Until next week!