I've talked in the past about how I came back to Magic in 2010 after a hiatus over a couple years. Upon coming back, I went deep down the rabbit hole of what the game had to offer, jumping into formats like Commander, Modern, and Legacy, while also seeing what all the fuss was with stuff like Cube. Through the aid of Commander, Cube, and a little set called Avacyn Restored, I quickly found myself falling in love with a unique strategy: blink decks. Blinking, or more commonly flickering, is where you exile a creature only to bring it back immediately or at the end of the turn. In doing so, you're able to generate tons of value with the help of various enters-the-battlefield abilities.

Today, I want to share a bunch of different options that you can use, why they're useful, and ones that are fairly affordable. If you've been playing Commander for a long time, you may find some of these are no-brainers, but there's a number of players out there far less in the know. Who knows, you may find something new yourself! For the sake of this piece, I'm going to be using the terms blinking and flickering interchangeably. Depending on who you ask, they can technically mean different things (blinking is end-of-turn return, flicker is instant return) but they're often used in the same way so I'm just going to be bouncing between the two here and there.

Additionally, this article may read a little weird to some people because, frankly, most of the creatures that you're playing in blink decks are quite affordable and budget-friendly. I almost dropped the "budget" aspect from the title because of this. As I started going through more options, though, I realized that "essentials" here could mean things like Dockside Extortionist, Purphoros, God of Forge; and Preston, the Vanisher - all of which can be quite pricey. So, while most of the cards I can discuss are fairly budget-friendly to begin with, I wanted to maintain that focus on affordability.

Ready? Let's dive in!

Card Draw

While Mulldrifter may be the fan favorite go-to option - and is arguably the best - for card draw, there's still lots of other great options. Blue alone is well known for having no shortage of solid cantripping creatures, and so there's plenty of ways to draw cards. Aether Channeler, Sea Gate Oracle, Watcher of Tomorrow, Couldblazer, Augur of Bolas, and many more not only draw you extra cards, but in many cases let you take your pick of cards from the top of your deck. Each of them is worth pennies and every one of them will help you in your quest for card advantage.

Card draw isn't just limited to Blue, however. White and Green both have a lot of notable options, many of which are similar to one another. Wall of Blossoms and Wall of Omens are basically just colorshifted versions of one another, and both Elvish Visionary and Spirited Companion are similar (though are slightly different). Black also has classics like Phyrexian Rager and Dusk Legion Zealot to draw you cards, but it'll cost you some life in the process. Red even has some decent ways to get cards as well, though it's the temporary exile method utilized in cards such as Abbot of Keral Keep.

Ramp

When it comes to ramp effects, these are most commonly in Green. That's not much of a surprise since the color is so heavily focused on searching for lands. Using creatures like Wood Elves, Springbloom Druid, or Farhaven Elf is a fantastic way to get into your deck and get lands onto the battlefield. The more you blink, the more lands you'll see along the way. If you use Coiling Oracle, it can even act as card draw whether you find a land or not, making it an excellent option. Even if you can't necessarily put the land straight onto the battlefield, you can alternatively use creatures such as Sylvan Ranger, Borderland Ranger, or Civic Wayfinder to get whatever land you need into your hand with ease.

There're some options for finding lands in other colors that are great for blinking as well. The most obvious of these is the good old sad robot, Solemn Simulacrum - a great colorless ramp creature that can also draw cards if it dies. White has a handful of decent ramping options as well, such as Kor Cartographer, Boreas Charger, and Knight of the White Orchid - each of which will help find you more Plains in a pinch. There are some more minor options in Red and Black utilizing more of a ritual-style ramp effect, but outright ramps is a bit more of a rarity, especially on ETB creatures. Blue doesn't usually have a ton, but there are a few cards like Cloud of Faeries and Peregrine Drake that can go a long way with the help of mana doublers or Ravnica bounce lands.

Creature Removal

Red isn't quite as efficient at blowing things up outright, but it has much more flexibility. Many of your options can only hit other creatures, such as Flametongue Kavu. However, if you get creatures that can burn players as well, then you're really cooking with gas. Bogardan Hellkite, Burning Sun's Avatar, and Inferno Titan are all great cheap ways to go about this. If you want something a bit smaller in scale, cards like Sparkmage Apprentice, Ghitu Shaman, and Basalt Ravager can really bring the beats. Cards like these all give you a lot of flexibility in that they not only wipe out creatures and planeswalkers, but can also outright kill opponents if you can push through enough damage.

The remaining colors can be a little trickier. Blue has no shortage of outstanding bounce options. Cards like Man-O'-War, Aether Adept, and Venser, Shaper Savant all do a great job at getting stuff off the board, but only in a temporary capacity. It's harder for Blue to deal with this stuff outright because the idea is that they can then counter them once bounced. White has also gotten more challenging as the years have gone on. Fiend Hunter and Palace Jailer are the clearest examples of solid, budget-friendly removal that's good for flickering, but most of the others aren't great as they're more in the vein of the temporary Banisher Priest. With Green, you have a handful of fighting creatures like Wicked Wolf, Thorn Mammoth, and Kogla, the Titan Ape, but they're fairly scarce on their own. If you want something a bit more catch-all for any deck, however, try Duplicant and Meteor Golem.

Artifact/Enchantment Removal

This category is largely limited to, as you might expect, Naya colors. Blue doesn't have solid removal access outside of cards bouncing any permanent - which are usually on spells, not creatures. Black only just recently started getting Enchantment removal to the point that it hasn't really shown up on many spells yet, and all of them have been non-creature ones thus far outside of the tremendously overcosted Baleful Beholder and Ghastly Death Tyrant. This limits the options to the other three colors.

Thankfully, there's no shortage of decent artifact and enchantment removal across the three colors. In short, Green has access to a number of creatures that hit both, such as Reclamation Sage, Acidic Slime, and Conclave Naturalists. Meanwhile Red has access to a lot of targeted artifact hate - Manic Vandal, Ingot Chewer, and Oxidda Scrapmelter - and White has primarily access to the enchantment hate - Dawnbringer Cleric, War Priest of Thune, Wispmare. Sometimes, though, White has a couple options that can hit both artifacts and enchantments as well, such as Loran of the Third Path or Rambunctious Mutt, but they're far less universal by way of comparison.

Token Generators

There's truly no shortage of token generators out there. Virtually every color has some kind of spell that spits out tokens, and there's plenty that are ETB creatures themselves. There's almost too many to list and several of them are fairly accessible. For the sake of this article, I'm going to list a couple options and explain why they stand out above the rest:

• Avenger of Zendikar - Do you like to really swarm the board? Then you absolutely must play Avenger of Zendikar. It's a staple top-end card for Green ramp decks for a reason, and is even better when you can blink it over and over again with a Roon of the Hidden Realm.
• Progenitor Mimic - This one is cheating a little because it's more a clone than a token generator on ETB, but by flickering, you can routinely change up what kinds of tokens you're making, which is always a big help.
• Hornet Queen - Another big Green top-end that spits out tons of murderous fliers.
• Blade Splicer and Master Splicer - Flickering for 3/3s over and over is no joke, and it's no wonder then that these are staple in these kinds of strategies.
• Biogenic Ooze - Not only does this make a token when if flickers, but it also makes them all bigger over time, and can even make more tokens even if you don't have flicker options.
• Myr Battlesphere - Another popular ramp finisher, this is a great one to flicker because it not only swarms, but can use that swarm by attacking with itself for big damage and then get flickered again after the ability resolves before dying to a lethal block.
• Siege-Gang Commander and Sling-Gang Lieutenant - Siege-Gang Commander has been a staple since it was first printed in Scourge. Both it and its spiritual successor, Sling-Gang Lieutenant not only spit out tons of tokens with flickering, but can do heinous amounts of damage as well thanks to their sacrifice abilities.

Spell Recursion

You can also use cards like Eternal Witness and Timeless Witness in this slot as well. Not only will these get you back your instants and sorceries to make the deck go nuts, you can also get back permanents as well. This is extra strong if you have one Witness on the battlefield with another spell recursion creature. Using a double flicker target spell, you can get back not just your flicker spell, but something else. Want to get back a Cyclonic Rift or Swords to Plowshares too? You can do that. Or you can get back a powerful creature you need to clinch your victory. There aren't many of these kinds of creatures, but you should definitely have a few in your deck and thankfully, they're all fairly affordable.

Miscellaneous Abilities

Finally, I wanted to touch on a couple solid options for a handful of more niche areas or spaces that don't have a lot of meat to chew on in terms of full paragraph write-ups. For simplicity's sake, I'm representing these in a bullet-point format, but if you're looking for additional effects to round out your lists with some variety, you should consider some of these.

• Countermagic: Mystic Snake, Frilled Mystic, Draining Whelk
• Reanimation: Karmic Guide, Phyrexian Delver, Extraction Specialist
• Milling: Manic Scribe, Thieves' Guild Enforcer, Sage's Row Denizen
• Self-Milling: Stitcher's Supplier, Satyr Wayfinder, Balustrade Spy
• Discard: Burglar Rat, Mesmeric Fiend, Sin Collector
• Goading: Insufferable Balladeer, Jeering Homunculus, Vengeful Ancestor
• "Gain Control" effects: Hostage Taker, Agent of Treachery, Gonti, Lord of Luxury
• Clones: virtually all of them, though a few are decently pricey.

And that about wraps it up for some of my favorite options out there for great budget-friendly blink options! As you can tell, there're plenty of choices to pick from. Best of all is this is only a small smattering of enter-the-battlefield creatures, meaning there's no shortage of cards to utilize in your decks. I think one day I may return with a rundown of more underrated choices, but really, it all comes down to how you opt to play the game as well as your favorite blink deck. There're almost no wrong answers here, but there are tons of ways to make it your own, so play it your way and have a great time with it.

Paige Smith

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