(The Necrobloom | Art by Igor Krstic)

Bloomin' Onion

Hello fellow brewer and welcome back to Brew For Your Buck, where we swap out the top 10 most expensive cards in a deck with 10 budget cards that add a unique twist. Well, Wizards finally did it. They made a Lands commander that will have me disassemble my Gitrog Monster deck and explore a new angle on the theme. Of course, we're talking about the new, organic, Plant-based hotness that is...

The Necrobloom brings some fresh new aspects in comparison with a typical hypnotoad deck. Obviously, the addition of white opens up a bunch more card choices. The Landfall ability gives us some inevitability with what is essentially Field of the Dead in the command zone. But my favorite part, and what we'll be focusing on for today's budget package is that second ability. I used to think "You may play lands from your graveyard" was the sexiest sentence in the game, but now I think it's "Land cards in your graveyard have dredge 2." This will essentially turn all your lands into better versions of Dakmor Salvage, the infamous land that enables high powered Gitrog decks draw and loop their whole library in conjunction with a discard outlet. At time of writing, The Necrobloom's got 1491 decks already brewed up (one of them is mine) and still climbing, with an average list that comes to a price of $654.33. Let's see what we're removing:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Demonic Tutor ($30.19)
               2. Lumra, Bellow of the Woods ($30.00)
               3. Burgeoning ($22.63)
               4. Scapeshift ($19.42)
               5. Crucible of Worlds ($19.27)
               6. Squandered Resources ($17.97)
               7. Constant Mists ($14.23)
               8. Realms Uncharted ($14.17)
               9. Exploration ($11.35)
               10. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove ($10.75)

Total Value of Cuts: $189.98

Lumra, Bellow of the Woods keeps getting added to decks despite it not releasing for a while. I guess these are all just thought exercises? If you want to ignore Lumra, the next most expensive card would be Ob Nixilis, the Fallen.

Unsurprsingly, the mana base for this deck is expensive. That's what happens with a three color, lands matter deck I suppose. Removing the expensive lands to replace with basics will save you an additional $217.20, for a total of $407.18.

As I alluded to above, we're going to take advantage of giving all of our lands dredge 2 by jamming in a few pieces that make the Gitrog Monster decks tick, and ways to find them. On top of that, we'll add some lands that don't mind going to or being in the graveyard.

Additions

Combo Power

To be frank, the Gitrog/Dakmor combo is about as complicated as the game can be, and is often shortcutted even though it's a non deterministic loop. Our friends at Commander's Spellbook outline the basics below, with the first card we'll be adding to the deck, Putrid Imp ($0.46).

Normally this little Imp would be nearly useless outside of the combo, but with Necrobloom, we can pitch ANY land in order to keep the self-mill going, and dredge them back once we need it. A quick explanation of the combo: With Gitrog on the battlefield, we get a draw trigger for discarding a land. We use Dakmor Salvage to replace the draw trigger with dredge 2, milling two cards. If one of them is a land, another draw trigger goes on the stack. In response, pitch a land to the Imp again, and repeat the process, putting X draw triggers on the stack, where X = the number of cards in your library + the number of cards in your graveyard. We throw in Gaea's Blessing ($0.22) and now we can draw the entire deck without milling out.

There's a million ways to go from there, but for the sake of simplicity, we'll add Skirge Familiar ($0.15) as another discard outlet so we can make infinite black mana by going through the loop. Toss in Exsanguinate ($1.95) and we can complete our combo package to win the game.

Land Tech

The addition of white allows us to play two of my favorite lands. First up, is Riftstone Portal ($2.18). Its price has been slowly creeping up so I'd get this now before it's too late, but it should be obvious why this is an excellent card for the Necrobloom. If you need to get it out of the graveyard, you can, but it's power relies on just sitting in there to fix all of your mana for green and white. Next is Flagstones of Trokair ($2.50). Combined with cards already in the deck like Crop Rotation and Zuran Orb, this allows you to ramp out a Plains (including typed duals) every turn, since you can dredge it back and play it over and over again. The last land we'll add is one of the new fetches, Deceptive Landscape ($0.14). I can't get over how much I love these as budget lands for three color decks. Here, it means doubling up Plant or Zombie production, plus you can cycle and dredge it back. It even comes into play untapped so you don't have to take a tempo hit if your colors are already fixed.

Grave Tutors

With all this dredging going on, we can throw in some cards that make good use of the graveyard to find our combo pieces. Analyze the Pollen ($0.10) and it's older cousin Traverse the Ulvenwald ($0.73) both let us fix mana at the start of the game, but later become powerful tutors for any land or creature (The Gitrog Monster, for instance). These being one mana is especially great, since you can tutor for and play the card you grab on the same turn. Finally, it wouldn't be a Brew For Your Buck article about a graveyard deck if I didn't include the series favorite: Mausoleum Secrets ($1.01). I'll continue to beat this drum for as long as I can. An instant speed tutor that can go grab ANY black card in the deck is so wildly powerful. Imagine grabbing Eerie Ultimatum at the end of your opponent's turn just before you untap, then reanimate your whole graveyard on your turn. It's so delicious.

Wrap Up & Savings

Let's see what we saved:

61% is nothing to scoff at, but usually we aim for a new price that's less than $256. If you want to save more, there's plenty more to remove and replace. Some more lands that I'd recommend for this deck are Murmuring Bosk ($0.17) and Krosan Verge ($0.18). Bosk is a tri-land you can fetch with Three Visits and Nature's Lore, and Verge can also fix your colors by grabbing any of the typed duals, plus get two Landfall triggers as needed.

So what do you think? Are you excited for the Necrobloom? Do you want me to feature any of the other Modern Horizons 3 commanders? Are you sick of me suggesting Mausoleum Secrets? Too bad! Let me know in the comments and I'll see you next time when we brew for your buck!

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Please note: card prices listed in this article are accurate at the time of writing, but prices can vary over time and between locations.

Read more:

Brew For Your Buck - Budget Human +1/+1 Counters

Brew For Your Buck - Gitrog Ravenous Ride on a Budget

Brian Cain

Brian played Magic intermittently between 2003 and 2017 when he fully embraced his love for Commander. Finding ways to maximize the value of each piece of cardboard in the deck is one of his favorite things to explore, especially if it involves putting lands in the graveyard! Outside of Magic, Brian works as a consultant in the marine industry, turning his passion for boats and ships into a career.