Some of you may not know this, but over the last few weeks I've been in the midst of a pretty lengthy move. I've talked about it a bit on various social media such as Twitter, but there's been a lot going on. For this move, I've returned back to my hometown of Buffalo, New York - hundreds of miles from my previous home of Florida. This has been causing a lot of stress and admittedly less time for Magic than I'd like. It also left me with a little bit of writer's block in the process.

I found myself constantly trying to decide what I should write about. I could talk about the sealed RCQ I played at this weekend, or the handful of stores in the area I've been able to check out over the last few weeks, or even building a local Pauper scene as is happening right as I came back to the area. None of these seemed appealing at all and I felt like I was just at a loss for what to do. Then the Commander Masters previews started rolling out yesterday and I was somewhat blindsided by an absolutely amazing card treatment of a classic card.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking is one I've loved for the better part of two decades. It's funny to be returning to Buffalo as I discuss this, because when I left, Saviors of Kamigawa was the latest set. My friends and I would play with the cards from Kamigawa block frequently, host drafts, and have a great time. Azusa was a card that frequently came up among the more playable options, and for good reason! In fact, her reputation continues to this day, being especially potent in Commander and in some builds of Amulet Titan in Modern.

I remember when I first came into playing Commander and how popular she was amongst the player base. At some point I opened a foil one out of a tournament pack I got when I was hosting Limited events in college with my friends. It was very much the envy of everyone as a particularly pricey card, but I simply couldn't figure out what to do with it! This is because while she's a great card, it's easy for her utility to dry up quickly, so I never quite found a home for her in the format and she often got left to the sidelines in my binder.

Now, in light of this truly stunning version of Azusa coming soon with Commander Masters, I feel it's time to finally give her the home I should've given her a decade ago. As such, I'm creating a PreDH list for her the way I might've back then. Let's take a trip back in time and check out what this classic Commander has in store for us!

Budget Azusa | PreDH | Paige Smith

• Commander (1)
• 1 Azusa, Lost but Seeking

• Creatures (36)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Baloth Woodcrasher
• 1 Baru, Fist of Krosa
• 1 Budoka Gardener / Dokai, Weaver of Life
• 1 Chameleon Colossus
• 1 Cloudthresher
• 1 Duplicant
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Fauna Shaman
• 1 Fyndhorn Elves
• 1 Garruk's Packleader
• 1 Genesis
• 1 Grazing Gladehart
• 1 Hystrodon
• 1 Joraga Treespeaker
• 1 Kamahl, Fist of Krosa
• 1 Kazandu Tuskcaller
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Lotus Cobra
• 1 Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer
• 1 Nullmage Shepherd
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Ohran Viper
• 1 Primordial Sage
• 1 Quirion Ranger
• 1 Rampaging Baloths
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Scryb Ranger
• 1 Scute Mob
• 1 Silklash Spider
• 1 Steel Hellkite
• 1 Terastodon
• 1 Verdeloth the Ancient
• 1 Vinelasher Kudzu
• 1 Yavimaya Elder

• Instants (3)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Krosan Grip
• 1 Momentous Fall

• Sorceries (10)
• 1 Collective Unconscious
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Gaea's Blessing
• 1 Genesis Wave
• 1 Harmonize
• 1 Praetor's Counsel
• 1 Primal Command
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Rude Awakening
• 1 Seek the Horizon

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Abundance
• 1 Keen Sense
• 1 Khalni Heart Expedition
• 1 Snake Umbra

• Artifacts (6)
• 1 Journeyer's Kite
• 1 Mind's Eye
• 1 Seer's Sundial
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Strata Scythe
• 1 Venser's Journal

• Lands (40)
• 34 Forest
• 1 Ghost Quarter
• 1 Mikokoro, Center of the Sea
• 1 Mishra's Factory
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Treetop Village

Buy This Deck Export text format

The thing about Azusa is that, well, I've just never really been sure what to do with her! How do you make the extra lands work for you? You need a surplus of landfall effects, solid card draw to keep the lands flowing, and big payoffs to close things out. This is so generic, though, that it could be built in just about any way or interpretation you'd like and there's no truly wrong answer. These days, you have way more options to make this work, but when utilizing the smaller card pool of PreDH, it's way more difficult.

Because of this I wanted to try something a little different and make this a stripped down and budget friendly version. Think of it being in the style of being a new player with a small collection. You might've purchased a Deck-builder's Toolkit, riffled through your local store's bulk bins, and maybe bought a few repacks off eBay because the idea of getting lots of rares at once seemed cool. That's how I might've done it when I came back in 2010 around the end of the PreDH period, and I wanted to recapture some of that here. It's a bit tighter than your typical "cards I own" sort of list, but still fits within the general vibe.

As a result, it's a very pared down list. You won't find too many heavy hitters here, with the biggest cards generally sitting around the $5 mark. There were a number of cards I actually wanted to include but left off because of their prohibitive prices. Think things like Crucible of Worlds - a card that's perfect for making use of expensive lands like fetches or Strip Mine - and Sylvan Library. Despite that, I still wanted it to be somewhat cohesive and tried sticking to the original guidelines noted above: landfall, card draw, and payoffs.

The first thing I looked at were cards with landfall on them. Naturally, an Azusa deck wants to be playing lots of lands, so you'd want to have cards that benefit from that. Unfortunately, there aren't quite as many as you may think there are. Classics like Avenger of Zendikar, Lotus Cobra, and Rampaging Baloths work great here, as do role players like Seer's Sundial, Vinelasher Kudzu, and Khalni Heart Expedition. However, no one's going to want to run cards like Eternity Vessel, Turntimber Basilisk, or Hedron Scrabbler in their Commander deck. I slipped in Baloth Woodcrasher since it gets super big with this commander and Grazing Gladeheart for the extra life, but beyond that it's pretty slim pickings.

Card draw is also a bit sparse in this older card pool. Nowadays with the big Commander push, there's simply no shortage of rock solid card draw in just about every color. Back in the day, though, the options were far more sparse - especially for Green. Green doesn't draw cards quite as much as some of the other colors, though this definitely began shifting during the mid-to-late aughts. It wouldn't truly become a bigger thing for a while down the line, but you could see the beginnings in the likes of Oracle of Mul Daya pulling lands off the top of the deck and0 Garruk's Packleader.

As such, the in-color options mostly include the likes of Curiosity-style effects from Keen Sense, Snake Umbra, and Ohran Viper to carry you, as well as the Beast Whisperer effect of Primordial Sage. Most others are big one-shot effects like Collective Unconscious, Regal Force, and Commander classic Harmonize. From there, there's a couple of artifact options in the form of the aforementioned Seer's Sundial as well as Mind's Eye, which isn't hard to activate with how much mana you'll have access to. Journeyer's Kite also acts as card draw by pulling out your lands to play with Azusa each turn, thereby getting you closer to the real meat and potatoes of your deck. That is to say, of course, your big beaters.

There's some obvious favorites in the mix here. As mentioned before, you have the likes of Avenger of Zendikar and Rampaging Baloths working great with the landfall synergies. Similarly, you have the dirt cheap yet exceedingly powerful Terastodon and Verdeloth the Ancient to drop some incredibly strong effects at your top end. You even have Cloudthresher and Silklash Spider to take out pesky fliers and Steel Hellkite to blow away the rest. Kamahl, Fist of Krosa provides one of a few ways to make good use of your excessive lands by turning them into creatures while Molimo, Maro-Sorcerer simply gets enormous enough to crush your opponents fast.

There's a handful of solid role players as well. Duplicant is a great removal card for a color that back in the days of PreDH wasn't well known for it. Genesis gives you a way to repeatedly get back creatures from your bin or you can put them all back into your deck wholesale with the help of Primal Command and Gaea's Blessing. You can even just draw your graveyard outright with the help of Praetor's Counsel - a surprisingly affordable card for a very powerful effect. Last, I think it's worth noting the utility in playing Quirion Ranger and Scryb Ranger. While there's not too many strong tap effects outside, say, Kazandu Tuskcaller, Fauna Shaman, or a handful of mana dorks, it provides a great way to set up surprise blockers and gives you more lands to dump with the help of Azusa.

What this all amounts to is a fairly simple and easy to play deck right out of the box. That alone makes it a great way to introduce newer players to the game, but what helps even more in that regard is the deck's price tag. When I punched this in to Moxfield to get a better look at the list, the price that came up was right around $75-80! You're simply not going to get much cheaper than that! I'd bet you even have a decent number of these cards lying around if you've been playing for at least a few years now, making it even easier to get than that. The result is a great deck to play at your next Commander night. Give it a try and see what you think! Just make sure you bring that amazing new borderless profile Azusa with you when you do.

Paige Smith

Twitter: @TheMaverickGal

Twitch: twitch.tv/themaverickgirl

YouTube: TheMaverickGal