Comments on: Building On A Budget | #117

By: Abdulhazred

Abdulhazred — Tue, 16 Aug 2016 22:04:00 +0000

I’m current working on the ‘sleeve everything ever in the same sleeves’ plan. I’ve been doing it for a few months and so far it has been working out. I double sleeve everything which is a little more expensive, but worth it for my more expensive cards. I started out by sleeving new decks as I put them together. Right now I have 3 decks sleeved that I rotate between. Double sleeving is important here because I use a wet-erase marker (there was some concern about dry erase and shuffling) the mark the inner sleeve of cards which move between decks. Currently I’m using a series of colored triangles to denote different decks, with the colors representing the colors of the respective deck. And it works. When I want to play a deck, I quickly thumb through my other decks and look for the symbols I need. I am considering adding a ‘card’ for each deck which says what cards I need, just so I don’t miss something.

My best “investment” was buying random packs as a kid from mirrodin block to Betrayers of Kamigawa (when the shop downtown closed), especially champions. I ended up with a lot of useless crap, but I also have a Top, a Minamo, and a playset of serum visions, among other things. It was a fun day when I got back into the game and started pricing some of my old stuff. Alas, my Mons’s Goblin Raiders from the 1999 starter set is worth less than a quarter.

By: Deathavails

Deathavails — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 18:00:00 +0000

Well gentlemen, I have been watching the show now for 7 months. I didn’t think it had been that long, turns out I was wrong. You guys do amazing work and I now find myself tuning in as early as possible on Tuesdays. I just wanted to say thanks and keep up the good work. As for budget building, I find that I budget build on accident by picking weird themes for commander that others don’t use. I recently built a Zurgo, Samurai tribal Voltron deck. The next deck I am working on is a Vela, the Nightclad Ninja deck. Should hopefully turn out fun. I always try to pick up the most productive cheap mana rocks that I can for any deck I run. I don’t know if youll read this, but if you do thank you once again for giving me something awesome to listen to while I am at work. You guys always give good insight and I have used more than a couple of your ideas.

By: Josh Lee Kwai

Josh Lee Kwai — Mon, 15 Aug 2016 16:50:00 +0000

In reply to Sascha. Sweet! Great timing!

By: Sascha

Sascha — Sun, 14 Aug 2016 12:54:00 +0000

Hi Guys. My best purchase was aplayse of eldrazi temple before it spiked in foil. I bought them for 2 â‚¬ a piece and sold them for over 20 â‚¬ a piece

By: Jeremy Parsons

Jeremy Parsons — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 10:32:00 +0000

In reply to Jeremy Parsons. Furthermore, if you're building on a Budget on MTGO, then there's some Freebots with handfuls of free commons and uncommons each month or two. As well as potential deals. For instance, on many planeswalkers, and other chase cards. The readily available ones will have the most up to date pricing and availability. But there's often a promo or foil duel deck version which due to low volume on the bots (a given seller might have one and that's it) can be grabbed for half the price of the normal copies. In those cases I'll hunt for the deal on the seller's website, order it online, to let their sytems find which bot actually has the card, and have them deliver it to me in MTGO for tickets.

By: Jeremy Parsons

Jeremy Parsons — Fri, 12 Aug 2016 10:26:00 +0000

Building on a budget: Modern sets are better at offering mana fixing. But green is still the king of this. Going any kind of green mix and loading up on forests first and then hybrids/fetchable lands can make for solid budget mana bases. Likewise, you guys spoke of buying piles of signets. Well over the years I tended to hoard almost any card that produced or fetched mana. Piles of Priest of Titania, Skyshroud Elves, Wirewood Channelers, etc. Some good, many downright meh, but the habit does mean I still have unused Sakura-Tribe Elders.

A word of warning. Try to limit lands that come in to play tapped to no more than one third of your land base. There are definitely niches and turns where you can get away with playing an uncommon dual land. But if you start working with fancy lands, and especially Ravnica bounce lands, then being 1-2 mana shy starts adding up and means you’ve got access to 4 mana spells when your opponent dropped Guilded Lotus at 5 mana last turn and is now untapping with 8 or more mana. Interactive and control decks can get spendier on the mana base if multi-color as they more often feel the pain of going: Play this, tap that to advance, put that land into play tapped. Now I don’t have the untapped mana to stop your Vorinclex with the cards I have in hand.

By: Josh Lee Kwai

Josh Lee Kwai — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 23:29:00 +0000

In reply to Josh Jurgensen. It was a bunch of stuff including multiple OG dual lands. Jimmy has that luck!

By: Josh Jurgensen

Josh Jurgensen — Wed, 10 Aug 2016 20:00:00 +0000

Great calls on furthering the idea of a “Commander Binder”. I try and have that same strategy and utilize something kind of like the checklist for my decks as well.

Also, what was in your 10$ Goodwill treasure trove find?

By: Nick LaNave

Nick LaNave — Tue, 09 Aug 2016 18:29:00 +0000

funny enough my first commander deck which started off as augustine the IV about 4 years ago has evolved into dragonlord ojutai and is still my most feared commander deck today in my playgroup. I do agree that your first commander deck probably wont last but my case happened to be different. needless to say 2000 dollars later that white blue deck came a long way.