Commander on a Budget: 10 Red Cards Under $20
“Magictating” is defined as getting into the zone with your Magic the Gathering collection--thinking, planning, organizing, reminiscing about past games, and imagining future games. It is a combination of hard thinking about the game and calm meditation, reveling in the joy it brings you.
Finding budget Rares is fun, and finding budget Mythics is even more exciting. These Red Mythics are some that you might not be aware of that are both powerful and budget friendly. This list includes some seriously interesting and seriously heavy hitting cards. These budget beauties are a perfect match for kitchen table Commander players slinging spells and scarfing Cheetos!
1. Indomitable Creativity
Yes, I know it is sorcery speed replacement/removal, but it's actually far more flexible. I love how you can use Indomitable Creativity to upcycle your useless Artifacts or token Creatures into the more powerful and useful ones you have in your deck. Just think about all those extra treasure or blood tokens you might be producing. Now imagine them becoming all those other powerful cards in your deck for only one mana each! Yes, this card has the potential to make you indomitable in a game, and it gives you a Chaos Warp effect as well. Being able to also eliminate pesky problematic cards and upcycle your own with a single spell is really powerful. So, what are you waiting for? Pick up this creative card and get your indomitable groove on!
2. Malignus
So, this little beauty is approaching his 10 year anniversary and is still only about 5 bucks. Malignus can easily be the biggest Creature on just about any battlefield turns 5-10. I'm amazed that such a powerful Creature is still so cheap. It's only been printed in one set, nearly a decade ago, and it's incRedibly powerful. It scales with your opponent's highest life total, and cracks for a ridiculous amount of damage that can't be prevented. Using this to attack people with lower life totals is brutal. Combining Malignus with sneaky cards like Rogue's Passage can lead to some games getting closed out in short order. Also, it's pretty sweet when you can triple up Malignus's damage with something like Fiery Emancipation—just saying.
3. Hero of Oxid Ridge
Here's another Mythic Rare with only one printing and a decade under its belt. Hero of Oxid Ridge is still cheaper than most Rares. Crazy, right? If it were a Goblin, then it would be commanding a seriously high price tag, but it doesn't have to be a goblin to benefit goblin decks. It helps boost the team with a nasty little Battle Cry ability that grants the rest of the attacking team +1/+0 until end of turn. However, when you manage to combine this with multiple attack phases, then you are able to get the pump effect for each time Hero of Oxid Ridge attacks. That's a bellow we all like to benefit from. The incidental anti-chump blockers clause actually comes up more often than you might think. Granting evasion to your swarm and pumping them to crash straight past those pesky Eldrazi, Elf, Goblin, Saproling, or even Vampire tokens can make for a very rewarding play—while using a budget Mythic no less.
4. Dragon Whisperer
It's easy to argue that Dragon Whisperer is only good when you are already ahead. However, in Commander, you aren't necessarily ahead if you have 8 power on the board. Being able to crank out lots of flying Dragons does mean that you will be ahead and very quickly. This is a vastly underrated card, and as a result it's a powerful Red Mythic that has a super budget price tag. You had me at Dragon, Mr. Whisperer.
5. Furyborn Hellkite
I'd pay 7 mana for a 12/12 flier, how about you? Would you pay about $3 for the card in question? If your answer to both of these questions is a yes, then you need to grab yourself a copy of this budget Mythic! It's only ever seen print once, in M12, and that makes yet another decade old Mythic that comes in under our budget umbrella.
6. Moonveil Dragon
I promise the rest of the list has nothing to do with Dragons. Moonveil Dragon is a great card for any decks that have swarms of tokens. Whether you have Kobolds, Goblins, or Dragon tokens you can pump them all up to ridiculous proportions. Moonveil Dragon allows you to have both an end game threat and effect all in one big Mythical Dragon body. Moonveil Dragon is the type of budget Mythic that gets me excited to stretch my dollars.
7. Subterranean Tremors
Subterranean Tremors is for those times when you just have to blow up all the groundlings and their cute little toys. This is a card that scales as the game goes on. You can play it early to wipe out someone off to fast start with tokens or some other elvish nonsense. Mid-game you can need only five mana to pull off an extremely powerful play. For five mana you blow up all artifacts and wipe out all non-fliers with toughness four or less. Top-decking this late-game, when we have extra mana, gives us the ability to blow up everything with toughness seven or less while also netting us a big fat 8/8 lizard to beat face with! Also of note, this is another Mythic Rare with only one printing to its name. I'm guessing we will see this in a precon before long, but for now it's plenty cheap enough to justify picking it up.
8. Wolf of Devil's Breach
I think a few of us out there may have forgotten about this little reanimation enabler. Wolf of Devil's Breach is a five mana 5/5 that allows us to drop reanimation targets into our graveyard for two mana. It also allows us to slam people for massive damage for only two mana. Most of your reanimation targets are higher mana value cards, like Baleful Force and Avatar of Woe, that you want to cheat into play. Why not crank out extra damage with the Wolf before reanimating big threats like them with your other fun spells? Grave Upheaval anyone?
9. Port Razer
Now, I know that Port Razer is a newer card, and that maybe some people haven't forgotten about it, but it's a seriously powerful budget Mythic. Maybe it's because Port Razer is an Orc Pirate, but this card is more powerful than its price tag would have you believe. Being able to chip in damage on a weaker opponent whose shields are down and then untap afterwards is very powerful. You don't actually have to attack during that second attack phase, thus giving your Creatures pseudo Vigilance. It's a little like they were all Eternal Warrior(s).
10. Bonfire of the Damned
I like to plan as much as any Blue mage. However, Bonfire of the Damned is such a huge late game top deck, especially when paying the Miracle cost, that I'm willing to eschew planned strategy for impulsive power. Bonfire of the Damned has blasted me and my army to pieces. Being on the receiving end of this spell can be crushing; you go from large army, good board position, and safe life total, to a wrecked and vulnerable mess. This is quite the beating, and can often be pitched with other impulsive filtering spells in Red if you ever draw it too early or find it at the wrong time. This is an under-played and under-used Mythic that will crush your opponents all while barely denting your wallet.
Red is an interesting color and I found that it has many parallels with Blue. These enemy colors both had a striking similarity in the makeup of Mythics under $20. They have nearly the same number of budget Mythics. Interestingly, both colors have budget Mythic tribes—Blue has Sphinxes and Red has Dragons. I was pleasantly surprised to see so many beefy Dragons that are very playable—Scourge of the Throne comes to mind. A few managed to make the list, but I'd like to offer a look into a couple more that you could use to fill out a mon-Red Dragons build with either Inferno of Stars Mounts or Ilharg, the Raze-Boar as the masters of these beasts. Consider that Bogardan Hellkite, perhaps the cheapest Mythic in existence, can be jammed alongside the likes of fellow hellkites like Hellkite Courser, Hellkite Tyrant, Thundermaw Hellkite, and honorary hellkite Stormbreath Dragon, for well under $100 is the type of Mythical budget I love to buy into. Heck, swooping in with these fiery beasts is more fun than beating face with Bouncing Beebles. Perhaps there's a budget big-Red Dragon deck in your future, because I'm totally building one right now. Anyway, until next time, may your budget and the cards be ever in your favor!
Commander on a Budget Series:
Community
Related Products
Accessories
