Budget League
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Nov. 25, 2018, 2:27 a.m. by kingyfyvf
I'm helping in building a budget Commander league for school and am wondering if the rules so far are pretty good. Any feedback is appreciated.
Budget Commander League Rules:
Decks must be submitted to mtggoldfish.com
Decks cannot be worth over $50
Commander cannot be worth more than $10
Basic lands do not count towards price
Standard Commander rules apply
DrukenReaps says... #3
In case you have anyone that might be scratching their head about how to make a good deck with such a small budget you might direct them to The Commander's Quarters on youtube.
November 25, 2018 4 a.m.
Panzerfire says... #4
Definitely like it. It's about the same guidelines I used when first starting deck building for commander. Definitely second The Commander's Quarters.
November 25, 2018 4:59 a.m.
I would drop the price restrictions on a single card. It's a bit tricky basing it on price as you can buy a commander precon for like $40 USD (I think that's the MSRP - it's ~$60 AUD) but the deck might be worth more than that in singles.
I would recommend setting the price high enough that somebody can buy a precon deck and just play. And the best way to do that is to tset the budget accordingly, not to implement some sort or precon rule. Without checking the price of all the singles, I would say that $100 is a better starting point. It means people who have one or two good cards can still pay them with it being broken.
November 25, 2018 6:58 a.m.
The reason we dont include precon is that the overall worth of each deck is well worth over $50 and while $50 may not seem like a lot its actually plenty to build a deck even from Commanders Quarters. $100 seems like asking a lot from some college students whose money mostly goes towards tuition and gas and plenty of other things. We're taking everything into account so that the budget league can be great fun for both beginners and advanced players. We've done the math and $50 seems like plenty of wiggle room to make unique decks that can be fun and can still break the game. Ex: I'm working on an Oloro, Ageless Ascetic deck that is all about life gain and opponent life loss that can use Felidar Sovereign or Exquisite Blood and Sanguine Bond to win the game nice and easy.
November 25, 2018 3 p.m.
Gidgetimer says... #7
I second dropping the individual card price restriction. $50 is a tight enough budget that nothing too crazy can be done with a single card, but if someone finds themselves $5 or so under budget it would be nice to be able to throw in a checkland not named Rootbound Crag. Such a low price restriction is already disadvantaging certain mana bases. Per card restrictions just make some budget land and rocks options straight up unable to be played.
November 25, 2018 10:34 p.m.
I like the idea, I do hope you guys do up the price down the road after you get going for no other reason then the price of cards can change and what is a $3 card today can spike to be a $15 card tomorrow.
Also I would toss into your rules not to hold foils price against people.
November 26, 2018 12:01 p.m.
So bad news. The person im working with wants it to be a $25 budget deck, no single restriction, $10 maximum commander. I am scratching my head wondering if that will even work. Thoughts?
November 26, 2018 11:42 p.m.
Well I say try it and it may not work and they may realize it. Even at that if it works your group could decide to up the limit latter.
November 27, 2018 12:31 a.m.
Gidgetimer says... #11
$25 is pretty darn hard. At that point you are moving away from "build what you want without being concerned about expensive cards" to "actively budget build". I realize that I have a rather large collection, but I have decks thrown together from stuff I owned that are over $100. I could cut shocks and a few other $5+ cards and get them down to $50. I don't think I could get them to $25 and still be happy with how they run.
November 27, 2018 7:35 a.m.
DrukenReaps says... #12
Well that resource I gave in my second post does $25 decks so it isn't an impossible budget but now you are asking people to put significant effort into staying in budget rather than asking them to use cheap cards.
It can still work I'm just not sure people will want to do that.
I'd say exclude basic lands and the commander from the budget but no commanders over $10 still. Then people only have to figure out 99 minus basics. Still won't be easy but people will feel like it is easier.
November 27, 2018 9:31 a.m.
Dalektable says... #13
$25 is too restrictive. If that specific member needs to build on a $25 budget, he / she can do that themselves. The power level differential between a $25 and $50 deck is very inconsequential if both players are good deck builders. One person working on a smaller budget shouldn’t restrict the creativity of others. Besides that, I agree with others to remove the single card price restriction. If someone wants to use $15 of their budget to splurge on one cool powerful card like a Consecrated Sphinx, then more power to them. My playgroup and I all built budget decks on a $50 budget for fun, and it was great! It makes you think more, you can’t blindly include staples like Cyclonic Rift because it takes up too much of your budget. It increases creativity, while still being a challenge. If anyone needs ideas, I built both Grand Warlord Radha and Brago, King Eternal on this budget and both were easily doable, powerful and SUPER fun. I highly recommend Brago, budget Brago is all about fun ETB effects and not stax and is truly a blast.
November 28, 2018 3:56 p.m.
Ok i dropped the single restriction cause i realized everyone was right right about it. My friend is using Commander's Quarters and his shops league as a base now but when i check the prices of the decks in the channel i see them being $33-$50 which i am more than likely to use. I have already made two $25 decks based around Oloro, Ageless Ascetic and Jodah, Archmage Eternal. In my opininon the Jodah one stinks while the Oloro deck has some value.
DrukenReaps says... #2
You aren't banning a play style, so that is nice to see :)
That would be a difficult budget for me to stick to but if no one you are playing with has an issue with it then more power to you.
November 25, 2018 3:45 a.m.