Maybeboard


A little intro to this deck and the idea behind it. My friend lost87gst and I were getting bored of our multiple thousand dollar decks. So we decided to look at the Commanders by Power Level [EDH Tier List] and pick tier 4 or lower generals and build a deck with a $50 budget to really challenge our deck building skills and get back to when commander was not about throwing Mana Crypt s and fetch lands into every deck.

So I built Jori En, Ruin Diver with the idea of running a bunch of instants and sorceries to trigger his draw ability. The win-con's are sticking a Young Pyromancer , Talrand, The Sky Summoner, Docent of Perfection   or Metallurgic Summonings and then play spells and not die, eventually swarming my opponents.

I run Runechanter's Pike to make my commander a legitimate threat. With the bounce I run commander kills on folks are a real possibility.

I run Aetherflux Reservoir as a way to gain life and politic my way to victory. I'm usually using the card to gain 5 life a turn and using my instants to keep alive and eventually use the reservoir.

Some of the things i've noticed while playing is i want to recur my spells more, which is why elixer of immortality is in. I'm thinking of running physic spiral to complement this plan. The delve spells help manage your graveyard in a cool way as well, you delve out your lands than shuffle the good stuff back!

Card Debates!!!

  1. Should i run Baral, Chief of Compliance or Goblin Electromancer over Jace's Sanctum ? Baral I think i can rule out due to budget reasons, unless i take out Sol Ring for it. The basic arguement comes down to is the cheaper mana creature better than the more expensive enchantment that's (hopefully) harder to kill.

  2. Shattering Pulse or Vandalblast ? Slow repeatable kill, or 1 time kill everyone else's stuff?

  3. Forbid or Foil ? Both card disadvantage that Jori can offset, but which to run? Foil is nice protection when i need to tap out, Forbid I think could test how many cards I could really draw lol.

I have some room in the budget right now so any other cards you think of that could be good let me know!

Desolate Lighthouse loot land! This really helps me smooth out my draws late game

Mage-Ring Network lets me charge up my mana base to power out my big spells with counterspell back up late game.

Evolving Wilds , Grixis Panorama , Izzet Boilerworks , Izzet Guildgate , Swiftwater Cliffs , Terramorphic Expanse are the budget mana fixers!

The cards in this section make the deck churn through it's library trying to find the wincon's and answers to what my opponents are doing. I've also noticed when i play that this deck is very mana hungry, and playing a land every turn of the game is izzets version of ramping lol. I sometimes run into the situation where i need a land drop and just start pairing spells in my hand to trigger Jori and attempt to draw lands.

The best ones to trigger Jori En, Ruin Diver are the one mana instants.

Right now Quicken and Whispers of the Muse are basically draw 2 cards with my commander out, it's rare that i get to use the extra text of them.

Retraced Image is a cute card I primarily use to ramp.

Peek is included in the deck over Gitaxian Probe due to being an instant and the $price$.

Tormod's Crypt I categorize as a draw spell because I like to keep it in hand till i have another spell to pair with it. A really cute line I've had a couple times is tap out to play my commander then play the crypt afterwards to draw a card.

The 2 mana rocks are really important in this deck. In your opening hand they represent 4 mana on turn 3, which idealy includes Jori En, Ruin Diver and a 1 mana cantrip. Mid and late game they ETB untapped and can pair with another spell to draw a card when Jori is out.

Oona's Grace is my most expense single card draw spell, but i really like it because the deck is pretty good at surviving and turning any drawn mountains into spells or islands is a good deal.

Treasure Cruise is a great card draw spell when you fill the graveyard as fast as this deck does. It also has the additional duty of taking any bad cards out of your graveyard so when you eventually hit the Elixir of Immortality you're shuffling in straight GAS!

This deck can run a lot of spot removal because the whole deck is card advantage. It's a very Blue feeling to hold a full hand of 7, all your mana untapped when people are deciding who to attack and feel completely in control

I run Pongify , Rapid Hybridization , Reality Shift , Comet Storm , Into the Roil , Curse of the Swine , Reality Spasm , Capsize , Exhaustion , Imprisoned in the Moon , Fire / Ice , Niblis of Frost , Reins of Power , Wash Out , AEtherspouts , Evacuation , Turn / Burn and Blasphemous Act to control my opponents creatures.

Pongify , Rapid Hybridization , Reality Shift are blue's best cheap "permanent" removal. think of the creature left behind like the life given with Swords to Plowshares , irrelevant most of the time.

Fire / Ice is a weaker card that i'm trying to find a replacement for. In the running is Izzet Charm so far. The flexibility of fire/ice is very nice.

Turn / Burn is a fun combat trick, turn a blocker into a 0/1 and shock another thing. Also answers gigantic creatures that can be tricky.

Into the Roil is my budget Cyclonic Rift . It's not on the same power level, but it hits everything which is better than Jilt .

Niblis of Frost can quickly change the flow of the game, allowing you to become the puppet master, "Who are you going to attack with that creature?" lol.

Reins of Power is strictly a mulitplayer card, but it's a great one! swapping out my army for one opponents so i can block another is great! also conspiring with someone to take down the king of the hill is a great way to use the card.

Wash Out is great against those pesky green decks, token decks, enchantments, and also a great political card. You don't pick the color you're choosing until resolution, so any counter spell deck doesn't know until it's too late!

Niv-Mizzet, Dracogenius is a new card i'm testing over Charmbreaker Devils . It's main purpose it to turn my mana into either pinging creatures or drawing cards by pinging folks faces. The upside to Niv is that i can use the ability right away, with the devils i needed it to live a turn and then i still only get one card. Granted the devil kills faster on an empty board but if that's the case I think i'm doing well with either card.

AEtherize , AEtherspouts and Evacuation are great answers to folks deciding to take out the "helpless" blue deck.

Blasphemous Act is my only full blown wrath effect in the deck.

Counterspells are Blues best weapon against whatever your opponents are going to throw against you. I try to use my counterspells to stay alive, not annoy my opponents.

Arcane Denial the best counterspell for politics, sorry i countered your spell here's some cards.

Counterspell the O.G.

Disdainful Stroke expensive things are generally scary, so stop them!

Overwhelming Denial surging this spell out is almost trivial

Free counterspells are neat! since the budget won't allow Pact of Negation or Force of Will I get Foil and Rewind

I play only a few wincons in the deck because it's mostly about staying alive and running my opponents out of cards like a control deck. The wincons I do run synergize with the rest of the deck quite well though

Young Pyromancer , Talrand, Sky Summoner , Docent of Perfection   and Metallurgic Summonings all create tokens that chump block, gang block and eventually overwhelm my opponents defenses.

Docent of Perfection   is really good at helping Jori En, Ruin Diver get in for commander damage. Add a Runechanter's Pike and you've made yourself a real threat!

Metallurgic Summonings really makes you read your cards, I've cast AEtherize at the end of someone's turn just to get the 4/4. If the card doesn't target you can cast it even if it doesn't do anything. Evacuation is not as great though, the summonings will create the token and then it will get evacuated away.

I have a minor artifact theme in the deck, mainly because Whir of Invention is $cheap$ and Aetherflux Reservoir is cool haha.

Whir can get graveyard recursion in Elixir of Immortality , graveyard hate in Tormod's Crypt , commander kills in Runechanter's Pike or a wincon/lifegain in Aetherflux Reservoir

I had one infinite combo in the deck, it's kind of a goofy one and has been retired due to how hard it was to actually pull off. I have no tutors so I'd have to draw into both pieces and then wait until I had enough lands to combo off, making it kinda inconsistent.

You need 11 lands, Nivix Guildmage (or 13 lands if you want to do it all in one turn) and Reality Spasm . And because this deck can't ramp, this is the definition of a fair combo I think.

  1. Cast Reality Spasm for X=5 untapping 5 lands, in response copy the spell with Nivix Guildmage 's second ability.

  2. allow the copy to resolve now you have untapped more lands then you used to copy the spell with nivix's 2nd ability. +1 Mana of any color, repeat till you have whatever big number you like, then

  3. use Nivix Guildmage 's first abilty to draw until you get Comet Storm or Blue Sun's Zenith .

  4. If using the zenith, first target yourself to draw exactly your library. Then draw the zenith with the guildmage's first ability, then target an opponent to draw at least 1 more than their library, shuffle back into your now 1 card library and repeat.

Suggestions

Updates Add

So when the Saheli deck came out there were lots of cool reprints that lowered the price enough that I could play them.

Young Pyromancer out for Goblin Welder I think my main game plan has shifted away from instant/sorceries and into artifacts. I'm excited to see how this swap preforms.

Retraced Image out for Hieroglyphic Illumination the image hasn't impressed me much. I'm slotting the illumination as a 1 drop that has a 4 drop option.

Desolate Lighthouse out for Buried Ruin my main wincon is Salvaging Station, the ruin will keep the station rolling

Island out for Mage-Ring Network charge land to help with big turns or X spells.

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Top Ranked
  • Achieved #29 position overall 6 years ago
Date added 6 years
Last updated 1 year
Exclude colors WBG
Legality

This deck is not Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

4 - 0 Mythic Rares

29 - 0 Rares

29 - 0 Uncommons

28 - 0 Commons

Cards 114
Avg. CMC 2.79
Tokens 2/2 N Creature Pincher, Boar 2/2 G, City's Blessing, Construct */* C, Frog Lizard 3/3 G, Goat 0/1 W, Manifest 2/2 C, Servo 1/1 C, Treasure
Folders Projects, Budget Decks, Budget, Inspiration, Deck Inspiration, Decks, EDH, Interesting Commander Decks, Budget, EDH
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