Mikaeus, Extreme Sub $20 Budget EDH
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 3182 | 1154 COMMENTS | 535156 VIEWS | IN 2057 FOLDERS
Two major milestones! —May 1, 2016
Today the Mikaeus decklist has hit two major milestones at the very same day.
Not only have we reached a score of 1500, we also hit 250,000 views!
Honestly, when I first made this deck, I never expected it to get to this point, it was mostly made as a mental exercise to justify my expensive EDH decks. (If you've checked my other EDH decks, you've probably noticed they aren't too cheap). To prove that price doesn't always correlate to power, and that you could still compete on a budget. You face some tough restrictions, and the road is definitely harsher, but the possibilities are still there.
It ended up being such a fun idea that I built the deck, and it quickly became feared to the point where I couldn't play it anymore.
Since I first made the deck, I've removed well over half the cards and replaced them with others, at first I removed cards because they were plain bad, the first version of this deck is downright awful in comparison to how it is now. In more recent times, almost all the changes I have made has been to remove cards that increase in price. Probably a dozen or so cards that have been in the deck are and once were only half a dollar are now many times more expensive.
Unfortunately, the biggest offender to this is Mikaeus himself. When I made this deck, Innistrad was the most recent block. He was only $5 or so. This left a lot of room for cards like Blasting Station, Sol Ring, Contamination, Heartless Summoning etc! Unless a reprint comes, there will be a point where mikaeus passes $20 and the deck becomes even a theoretical impossibility.
Either way, I will strive to keep Mikaeus as cheap and ruthlessly functional as it is today! A big thanks to everyone who has upvoted or looked at my deck, and an even bigger thanks to all the people who felt inspired enough to go out and build the deck yourself!
Why'd you drop blasting station? I'm just curious because I thought it was one of the best ways to do the combo, at least according to the description.
January 8, 2016 6:57 a.m.
ThoAlmighty says... #3
Blasting Station is $2.5, so he moved it to maybeboard.
January 8, 2016 9:56 a.m.
TheGrayMerchant says... #4
Heartless Summoning is starting to spike, maybe move it to the maybeboard?
January 9, 2016 4:54 p.m.
TheGrayMerchant: Low price is $0.14 still, but I'll keep it in mind to see if it creeps up more. Having to remove Heartless Summoning would be really sad, it enables some of the fastest wins. :P
Minelia5 what ThoAlmighty said is right. Blasting Station is one of the best combo pieces in Mikaeus, but since I can't have it in the deck I moved it to the maybeboard so people can easily see it!
January 9, 2016 7:54 p.m.
ThoAlmighty says... #6
@Sleazebag: How did you get that awesome Mikaeus art? Did you make that yourself?
January 10, 2016 7:57 p.m.
ThoAlmighty: Not quite. Guy who takes requests to do custom cards did it, photoshopped an image from deviantart to make it fit the theme (Mono black necromancer) then added the card borders, text box etc.
The art is done by Saryth Chareonpanichkul (saryth.deviantart.com).
So basically, I just found a cool picture on the internet and used it, with a few additional steps in between.
January 10, 2016 8:16 p.m.
Sleazebag, I'm sorry I have to do this, but do you have any event records? If you don't, I have to move your deck to the Untested deck folder.
- Atony1400, leader of discussion of the committee for The Cheap Deck Club.
January 15, 2016 11:07 p.m.
If I were to add all the cards in the maybe board to the deck, what would I take out for them? I have a little more than 20 dollars to spend, but I can't afford your no-holds barred version quite yet :).
January 18, 2016 1:59 p.m.
firefox1413 says... #10
Is playing skithiryx as my commander viable? Im thinking im going to buy this deck as my first EDH deck! Any tips?
January 24, 2016 10:12 a.m.
RuiztheBeast says... #11
Awesome list. Looking forward to building this. I think the only thing that could make this better is a one-for-one trade for cards in the maybeboard and the more expensive list. Has anyone played this in multiplayer and if so, how did it function?
January 24, 2016 1:03 p.m.
Squirrel_of_War says... #12
@Atony1400: I can vouche for this deck, I built it and crushed my playgroup and laughed in their faces.
@toxicliam & RuiztheBeast: if you have some time to go back through some old updates Sleazebag mentions quite a few times what to sub for what when you are on a budget. Check it out, I'm pretty sure he answers your exact question.
@firefox1413: this deck is not good with any other commander. Skithiryx would not work here. However Skittles is my favorite black legendary. There are many ways to build around him, check my version out of you have the time.
Taste the Infection
Duel Commander
SCORE: 14 | 0 COMMENTS | 3732 VIEWS
January 24, 2016 1:35 p.m.
Zackarocco says... #13
This deck is awesome ! just, what card should I remove from the list to add the cards in the maybeboard ? I'm not a good "deckmaker" so I don't really know which one I should remove.
January 26, 2016 3:50 p.m.
A really good, cheap card you could add is Sifter of Skulls With infinite sac outlet he gives infinite mana and infinite tokens.
January 26, 2016 7:34 p.m.
@jonspal ; 4 mana for infinite mana when it could have been a card that actually wins the game. The point of mikaeus infinite isnt to build a board or make high mana plays, it's to end the match.
January 28, 2016 1:19 a.m.
ThoAlmighty says... #16
The infinite tokens could be used to swarm, the mana is just an added bonus. It would add the delay of another turn, unless you could find something to give them all haste.
January 28, 2016 9:52 a.m.
shaderaven says... #17
no Sol Ring? wouldn't it be better than Worn Powerstone? why Fractured Powerstone?
January 28, 2016 12:47 p.m.
ThoAlmighty says... #18
Look in the Maybeboard for Sol Ring. It's about $2.5, and that's more than 10% of the price of the deck. It's in maybeboard for people who have more money to spend.
January 28, 2016 3:18 p.m.
Would you consider Hedron Crawler over Fractured Powerstone?
February 1, 2016 8:14 p.m.
The crawler would work in the same way, but creatures are much more susceptible to clears than artifacts. Artifact creatures doubly so.
February 3, 2016 3:11 a.m.
Squirrel_of_War says... #22
The down side is creatures have Summoning Sickness, artifacts don't.
February 3, 2016 4:51 p.m.
Forgive my ignorance, but I have to ask. You have cards like Skinrender or with Persist so they come back with -1/-1 counters on them. Is this understood to just remove the +1/+1 counters from Mikaeus's undying, thus allowing for the infinite sac-res cycle? Because that's the only way I can see those cards working the way you describe, but I have the nagging feeling that if I try that out in my group, there would be disagreements. Cards like Triskelion or Tatterkite are self explanatory in the infinite sac combos, but its the ones that involve -1/-1 counters taking advantage of the Undying loophole that I can't wrap my head around.
February 21, 2016 1:41 p.m.
Been a bit busy lately so I haven't kept up with the comments. Thanks to Squirrel_of_War and ThoAlmighty for helping people out in my absence. :P
Maringam: No, Hedron Crawler is worse in almost every imaginable way. Dies to random boardwipes, dies to the most common form of removal, has summoning sickness. Just no.
Clefspear: The way it persist and undying interact is different from how most people realize, but I just can't be bothered explaining every rule interaction imaginable in the description (Most people don't read it anyways).
When your combo creature dies without any counters, it triggers persist and undying. ONE of them resolves first (you get to pick), and it comes into play with a +1/+1 counter or a -1/-1 counter. Then you sac it again, so the opposite version triggers. Let's say you let undying resolve first, so now it has a +1/+1 counter on it. Sac it again, this time undying can't trigger since it has a +1/+1 counter on it, so persist triggers. Now it enters with a -1/-1 counter. Sac it, this time undying triggers, comes in with +1/+1, repeat until you feel you've made your point clear.
The synergy between cards like Skinrender (and other creatures that put -1/-1 counters on themselves) is just really simple. +1/+1 counters and -1/-1 counters negate each other. That's just how the game works. The end. El fin. Die ende. Slut.
shaderaven: Honestly, there's a dozen different 2 mana rocks that also tap for 1 colorless that could slot in for Worn Powerstone and do essentially nothing else. Worn Powerstone was just the cheapest one in $$$. If you have one of those lying around, just use that. Except creatures of course, unless it's Palladium Myr. He's great (and like $0.8, wtf man).
Sleazebag says... #1
Reached 100 comments, so time to do a reset!
The irony is that the page is still so long due to it showing Folders...
January 8, 2016 6:33 a.m.