Deduce | Art by Quintin Gleim

Brew For Your Buck - 2024 Review and Stats

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.

While this article will be my first for 2025, as is tradition, we need to look at the stats from last year's decks! I'll also have some polls down below to get your feedback so we can continue to improve BFYB for this year! Enjoy!

To recap the BFYB process: Our goal is to remove the top 10 most expensive nonland cards from a deck, add a package of cards that way less expensive than what we removed that also brings a twist to the deck that makes it a bit more unique.

We also take a look at the mana base separately; removing lands that would have made our top ten list and replacing them with basics. This ensures we keep the original ratio of lands to nonlands.

Through this process, we "value engineer" our decklist so that we keep 90 of the 100 cards from the original list, so we don't spend more money in the long run upgrading the deck anyways.

We built 23 decks last year, so let's take a look at the numbers. I'm going to preface all of the data with the disclaimer that I am not a mathematician, statistician, or any other 'tician. I have a very simple Excel sheet that I use to keep track of this stuff, so for you data wizards out there, cut me some slack.

Savings Stats

Being a budget series, the first set of statistics we should examine are those related to savings:

Total Savings	$ 5,921.91
Average Saved per Deck	$ 257.47
Average %	70%

 

So compared to the average list's pricing on EDHREC, we've saved just short of $6000 across the 23 decks, with an average of $257.47. The most important number is the percentage.

On average, using the BFYB process, we save about 70% on the original price of the deck. It's pretty crazy to see how top-heavy these decks are when it comes to cost. Here's where we are in comparison to 2023:

	2024	2023
Total Savings	$ 5,921.91	$4477.22
Average Saved per Deck	$ 257.47	$222.86
Average %	70%	66%

We're doing even better than 2023! That could be due to a number of factors, from decks we picked to fluctuation in price of cards. The important thing to note is that we're close, so we can start to see a trend developing.

Next let's look at the decks at the top and bottom of the list:

Largest Savings by $	Rose Junk Tokens ($497.56)
Largest Savings by %	Oskar Discartifacts (83%)
Smallest Savings by $	Lagomos Screaming Cat Combo ($76.67)
Smallest Savings by %	Titania Lands (52%)

 

We see a pretty wide spread, but I something that stood out is the Savings by $. The average decklist for Rose had cards leftover from cEDH decklists, including the previously expensive Mana Crypt.

Meanwhile Lagomos only started at $128. Perhaps that stat isn't the most useful thing to analyze.

Magic Stats

Now let's look at the stats related to the game itself. First of all, the color spread across the articles:

I do make an effort to keep the colors relatively balanced, so I can cover decks and playstyles that are interesting to all types of players. Although my personal bias is pretty obvious when you take a look at the chart. I am a little surprised I didn't feature red a bit more, as behind black it's definitely my favorite.

Last year I mentioned the "quest for 32", the writer's achievement we have around here to write an article for each color combo among the possible 32 combinations. Here's where BFYB stands on that:

White	Azorius (WU)	Orzhov (WB)	Bant (GWU)	Abzan (WBG)	Glint-Eye (non W)	Five Color
Blue	Dimir (UB)	Izzet (UR)	Esper (WUB)	Jeskai (URW)	Dune-Brood (non U)	Colorless
Black	Rakdos (BR)	Golgari (BG)	Grixis (UBR)	Sultai (BUG)	Ink-Treader (non B)
Red	Gruul (RG)	Boros (RW)	Jund (BRG)	Mardu (BRW)	Witch-Maw (non R)
Green	Selesnya (GW)	Simic (GU)	Naya (RGW)	Temur (RUG)	Yore-Tiller (non G)

Not many left! The four color combos are always a challenge, but maybe we can get there with partners. Hopefully all 32 will be done by this year.

Card Stats

Now for the best part: let's look at the most commonly removed cards from decks in the series. As is tradition, we'll look at top ten by number of times removed, and I'll include the current price at time of writing:

Cyclonic Rift	6	$45.18
Anointed Procession	5	$57.83
Esper Sentinel	5	$23.41
Demonic Tutor	5	$44.56
Heroic Intervention	5	$10.49
Smothering Tithe	4	$23.08
Roaming Throne	4	$23.98
Mondrak, Glory Dominus	4	$39.30
Rhystic Study	4	$45.20
Crucible of Worlds	4	$24.61

 

 

Those are some heavy hitters and popular cards that aren't easily replaced. I'm kind of shocked that Anointed Procession hasn't had more reprints, considering how popular and frequent token decks are in white.

Interestingly enough, there isn't a red card on the list either, so maybe if you're looking to build a budget deck, that is a good place to start.

Now we have my favorite segment, the most added cards. Of course, the number one is near and dear to my heart:

I truly think this card is continually underrated, and it's a great replacement for Demonic Tutor in black graveyard decks. Besides Maus-rets, we had a few others show up a couple of times: Genesis, Foil, Inspiring Statuary, and Songs of the Damned. Otherwise we didn't have a lot of repeats, something I'm proud of; BFYB is showcasing some really unique cards!

Combos

For you combo focused players out there, I'll use the help of Commander's Spellbook to recap some of the combos that we featured last year. Clink on the link to see the article where they were featured!

Screaming Cat - Total Cost: ($4.37)

Pirate Queens' Cart - Total Cost: ($6.39)

Vadrik's Touch - Total Cost ($2.03):

Gitrog Dakmor - Total Cost ($6.52)

Wrap-Up and Polls

That's all I've got for stats for last year, but I'm always open to your feedback if there's more you want to see. With that in mind, here are a few polls that you can answer if you'd like!

I often get feedback about the number of lands being too low. This is from the average deck data on EDHREC.

And finally, I typically choose cards under $2 for the budget packages.

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If you have anything else, be sure to let me know in the comments. Thanks again for a great year, I really love writing these articles and I hope you love reading them. 2025 should be an exciting year, and I'm looking forward to all the budget brews we have coming up. So I'll see you next time when we brew for your buck!