The Infamous Cruelclaw | Art by Christina Kraus

Cruella Wea-sel

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. Bloomburrow is upon us and I'll admit, there wasn't much from this set that excited me for my current decks. Key word being current. There are a TON of great deckbuilding ideas that hit me during spoiler season, and since the next one probably starts tomorrow or something, I need to squeeze in as many as I can now. That brings us to my favorite commander from the set:

Upon loading up the average deck from EDHREC into Archidekt, one thing stood out immediately: There are SIXTY-FIVE lands in the average list. That's unusual since I feel like there normally aren't enough lands on average, and here we have twice the usual amount. Then I realized people are trying to use Cruelclaw's ability to flip into the biggest and baddest spells in Rakdos (red-black), while minimizing the dead hits like mana rocks or something, similar to how certain cascade decks work. The average list also comes in at a whopping $501.68, and here's why:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth ($49.41)
               2. Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre ($44.33)
               3. Vampiric Tutor ($37.61)
               4. Deflecting Swat ($33.78)
               5. Ulamog, the Defiler ($31.97)
               6. Blightsteel Colossus ($31.61)
               7. Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger ($27.58)
               8. Sensei's Divining Top ($25.18)
               9. Worldfire ($21.01)
               10. Emrakul, the World Anew ($16.94)

Total Value of Cuts: $319.42

Casting an early Eldrazi titan, Blightsteel, or even the especially mean but funny Worldfire seem to be the shared goals of everyone brewing so far. I'm here for the theory, but not the cost. In fact, these cards are so expensive that as of now we wouldn't even need to replace any lands with cheaper options (though you still could of course).

Coming up with a budget package threw me for a bit of a loop this time. We've removed a bunch of the haymakers, and their replacements like Ancient Copper Dragon or similar aren't any cheaper. Instead, we'll focus on ensuring we hit the big spells that we have remaining by building in layers of library manipulation and ways to accelerate out Cruelclaw as fast as possible.

Additions

Library Manipulation

Doom Whisperer ($1.21) shocked me when I saw its newly deflated price. Paying two life over and over again will add up, but you can do it repeatedly at instant speed, like perhaps when Cruelclaw's trigger is on the stack. The Demon isn't the worst thing to flip off of the Weasel's ability either, which is a funny sentence to say out loud. Next up, we have Crystal Ball ($0.37) doing a poor imitation of Sensei's Divining Top or Scroll Rack, but since it's orders of magnitudes cheaper, we'll take it for our budget purposes. Just like those two, it's reusable for only one mana per activation. Dogged Detective ($0.14) is great in this deck, stacking the library when it enters or pitching to Cruelclaw's ability with little worry. Commander players love drawing cards, so I expect it'll be jumping in and out of the graveyard with ease. When using these, be sure to remember your draw step and sequence everything properly so you flip into the right card!

If you've ever played a deck like this, it's always the worst when one of the things you want to flip into ends up dead in your hand. Brainstone ($0.13) is the worse, albeit colorless version of one of the best hand manipulation cards ever printed, but it does double duty by manipulating your hand AND library. It comes down cheap and can sit around until you need it. Speaking of sitting around, Shadows of the Past ($0.38) is a card I used to use in my old Grenzo deck, and it works great here too. It triggers when ANY creature dies: from any player, token or nontoken. It can come down early and passively let you scry your way down to the haymakers lurking in your library.

A quick note: it's not a budget card, but Insidious Dreams is bonkers for this deck, and it couldn't keep myself from mentioning it.

Restonks

Did you know that putting something from your graveyard into your library is referred to as "restocking" according to Mark Rosewater's color pie article from 2017? Weird, because the card Restock doesn't do that, but the card Reclaim does. Anywho, Here are two cards that will restock stuff back to the top of your library, maximizing our limited number of nonland cards. Biblioplex Assistant ($0.02) turns out to be the only card in Rakdos that can do this with an instant or sorcery. Considering we can re-cast things like Call Forth the Tempest or Breach the Multiverse, it seems worth the understatted body. We can also throw in Dead Reckoning ($0.11) as a way to restock a creature like Shadowgrange Archfiend and subsequently blast an opposing one.

Accelerate the Weasel!

Our entire plan for this deck revolves around getting Cruelclaw to successfully connect with an opponent. It's a bit of a glass cannon in that way, wanting to end the game before the opposing value engines come online and bury us in card advantage. After all, we're probably playing twice as many lands as they are. Ramping from one to three mana is a lot more challenging than two to four, especially in these colors. Strike It Rich ($0.39) is the best option, fixing us for black mana in case the lands in our opener don't produce it. It's fine to pitch away later in the game and still be useful thanks to flashback. Blood Pet ($0.53) and Skirk Prospector ($0.13) operate in a similar fashion, as casting them on turn one leads to a turn two Cruelclaw so long as you have the correct colors of mana to follow up with. They're less useful later, and really not something you want to flip into with Cruelclaw's ability, but we've introduced enough library manipulation to minimize the risk of that happening.

Bonus Cards - Lands!

Here at Brew For Your Buck, we don't usually get into mana base tweaking. We don't remove lands unless it's for price reasons and we're swapping them for basics, and only add them when I think they're really great for the deck. Cruelclaw's average list is very different due to the sheer amount of lands compared to normal, so I think it's extra important to get the most out of your mana base as possible. So here are some lands to swap with some basics in the list. Don't worry, they're still budget cards and I'll account for these changes in the wrap-up at the end.

Most importantly, there are four Sol lands (lands that tap for two mana) we can add. These are the depletion lands Sandstone Needle ($1.79) and Peat Bog ($1.70), along with Dwarven Ruins ($0.55) and Ebon Stronghold ($0.34). We talked already about accelerating out Cruelclaw as quickly as we can. We add these for the same simple reason, they enable three mana on turn two to cast Cruelclaw ahead of schedule.

Second, there are a bunch of lands that also go along with our top deck manipulation theme. Mortuary Mire ($0.20) and Witch's Cottage ($0.63) go in as a mana-less way to restock a creature. There are also some colorless lands that scry or surveil like Conduit Pylons. We'll throw it and its friends in too, all for an extra $0.80.

Wrap Up & Savings

Let's see what we saved:

The deck still comes in at almost $200 so there's definitely room for more savings, but we'll take $310 for just ten cards, thank you very much! This was a fun one, and I liked looking for some extra lands to add. I would imagine this version of the deck might get old playing after a while though, being as much of a glass cannon as it is. Perhaps as more people build Cruelclaw and we collect that data, we'll see some different build trends. But hey, if glass cannons float your boat, hopefully this gave you some ideas for floating cheaply.

So, what Bloomburrow commander do you want to see next? Do you have suggestions for other haymakers to flip with Cruelclaw? Is it restock or reclaim? 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 Arna Kennerüd Auras

The Over/Under - Predicting the Popularity of Bloomburrow Commanders

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.