Child of Alara Budget (€25)

Commander / EDH

KobusZSP

Land (39)

• 1x Arcane Sanctum
• 1x Azorius Guildgate
• 1x Bant Panorama
• 1x Boros Guildgate
• 1x Crumbling Necropolis
• 1x Dimir Guildgate
• 1x Esper Panorama
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 6x Forest
• 1x Frontier Bivouac
• 1x Gateway Plaza
• 1x Golgari Guildgate
• 1x Gruul Guildgate
• 1x Island
• 1x Izzet Guildgate
• 1x Jund Panorama
• 1x Jungle Shrine
• 1x Mountain
• 1x Mystic Monastery
• 1x Naya Panorama
• 1x Nomad Outpost
• 1x Opulent Palace
• 1x Orzhov Guildgate
• 1x Plains
• 1x Rakdos Guildgate
• 1x Rupture Spire
• 1x Sandsteppe Citadel
• 1x Savage Lands
• 1x Seaside Citadel
• 1x Selesnya Guildgate
• 1x Simic Guildgate
• 2x Swamp
• 1x Transguild Promenade

Artifact (3)

• 1x Conqueror's Galleon  ^Flip
• 1x Darksteel Ingot
• 1x Lifespark Spellbomb

Creature (22)

• 1x Cyclone Sire
• 1x Dauntless Escort
• 1x District Guide
• 1x Druid of the Anima
• 1x Embodiment of Fury
• 1x Embodiment of Insight
• 1x Gatecreeper Vine
• 1x Halimar Tidecaller
• 1x Harvester Druid
• 1x Liege of the Tangle
• 1x Naga Vitalist
• 1x Noyan Dar, Roil Shaper
• 1x Quirion Druid
• 1x Quirion Explorer
• 1x Rattleclaw Mystic
• 1x Spike Tiller
• 1x Sylvan Advocate
• 1x Sylvan Hierophant
• 1x Sylvok Explorer
• 1x Urborg Elf
• 1x Waker of the Wilds
• 1x Wall of Resurgence

Instant (11)

• 1x Altar's Reap
• 1x Costly Plunder
• 1x Eyeblight's Ending
• 1x Grim Harvest
• 1x Join Shields
• 1x Make a Stand
• 1x Merciless Resolve
• 1x Mortify
• 1x Ready / Willing
• 1x Rend Flesh
• 1x Wildwood Rebirth

Commander (1)

Sorcery (20)

• 1x Animist's Awakening
• 1x Blood Divination
• 1x Boiling Earth
• 1x Circuitous Route
• 1x Coastal Discovery
• 1x Disturbed Burial
• 1x Earthen Arms
• 1x Life / Death
• 1x Morgue Theft
• 1x Planar Outburst
• 1x Reprocess
• 1x Rude Awakening
• 1x Ruinous Path
• 1x Sheer Drop
• 1x Sylvan Awakening
• 1x Sylvan Scrying
• 1x Treacherous Terrain
• 1x Unburial Rites
• 1x Verdant Touch
• 1x Zombify

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Abundance
• 1x Diabolic Servitude
• 1x Genju of the Realm
• 1x Terra Eternal

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My meta decided that they wanted to build budget decks. As they say, restriction breeds creativity. But also, it makes a game of Commander less play to win than with budgetless builds. Decks need to be built for €25 or less, basic lands and commander don't count. This deck cost me exactly €25 euro to buy.

After building my Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind pinger tribal and Brago, King Eternal value/control decks, I got some kudos from my friends, but also the request to please build a non-control deck for once. A deck that might also be fun to play against. 'Fine,' I said, 'then you give me a commander to build around.' So, Child of Alara was chosen for me.

How to build Child of Alara on a budget

We want Child of Alara's ability to be as asymmetrical as possible. Budgetless decks can go for the indestructible + mass wipe effects, but we don't have that luxury. Instead, I decided to focus on the 'destroy all non-land permanents' ability of Child of Alara by animating our lands and getting rid of our commander as a mid- to late game option, leaving only ourselves with our land army. There's a couple of creatures in here than can animate lands, and of course a couple of Awaken spells as well. If we get to make our team indestructible with cards like Dauntless Escort or Join Shields, that would be even better. Cards that animate all lands (not just our own) are ignored completely, since we prefer our opponents to have nothing.

Second problem we run into is the mana base. How can we build a 5 color mana base on a budget? Well, firstly it'll cost a big chunk of your budget (about one fifth). The tapped trilands are absolute musts, and I chose to include Gates as the other multicolor lands. Gates are pretty bad and thus cheap, but can be fetched for with certain cards. Our dork package of course consists of creatures than can tap for multiple types of mana, and the indestructible Darksteel Ingot.

Weaknesses and solutions

The first obvious weakness is what the deck aims to do - animating our lands. This leaves them open for creature removal, which can be quite common, and thus risky, in certain metas. Terra Eternal is in here for this exact reason, but that's only one card. Not gonna lie - the deck's theme is pretty janky to say the least. Play at your own risk.

Second weakness is speed. Since lots of budget land ramp cards fetch basics, which we don't run a lot of, we won't build up a board of lands very quickly. This deck will start to function in the mid- to late game, but not much sooner.

Also, Child of Alara has to die. If we want to abuse its ability more than once, we need a way to kill it, and revive it. Luckily, black has some pretty good options for both of these. We've included a couple of cards that require a creature to be sacrificed, like Altar's Reap or Reprocess (just sac everything that would die off Child of Alara's ability anyway). There's also some spot removal included we initially hope to use on opponents' creatures, but can also kill our commander if necessary. Recurring Child of Alara can be done with a couple of cards like Disturbed Burial, Unburial Rites, or Sylvan Hierophant.

Conclusion

The deck wants to animate lands (risky), cast, kill, and recast our commander from the graveyard (devious), and needs quite some mana to pull this all off efficiently. Like I said earlier, the deck is pretty janky and probably shouldn't be brought to a budget competitive table. The deck is built for casual games, and aims more to be consistent in its unique theme than anything else.

Hope you enjoyed the list and description. If you've got any suggestions, please feel free to share them with me!

Date added	5 years
Last updated	5 years
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	1 - 0 Mythic Rares 21 - 0 Rares 30 - 0 Uncommons 37 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.31
Tokens	Morph 2/2 C
Folders	Budget Commander