Samwise Gamgee | Art by Ekaterina Burmak

Cats and Potatoes

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, I couldn’t resist it any longer, we need to feature The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth (LTR) cards. I am a HUGE Lord of the Rings fan and completely decimated my wallet when the set was released. When I say huge fan: my best man quoted Gandalf in his speech at my wedding. This set did it all for me.

We also haven’t done a combo package in a while, and our largest Universes Beyond installment came with a new best friend for Protean Hulk: Samwise Gamgee ($2.09). In conjunction with Cauldron Familiar ($2.94) and a sac outlet, we can win the game on the spot. This even showed up in the Pro Tour not too long ago, which could be why Cauldron Familiar has been seeing an upward price spike lately. Anyway, I didn’t pay attention to cEDH during the Flash-Hulk days, but apparently it used to be pretty busted. The idea was to use Flash to cheat in Protean Hulk, then when it sacrificed itself, you can go find a combination of creatures that win the game. Protean Hulk has seen less play of late, but that’s ok, because it’s still a little expensive dollars-wise, and we don’t want to bother getting it out of the deck anyway. Instead, we look to a commander that does a similar thing, but from the graveyard:

Mutating Nethroi will let us do a Protean Hulk imitation once we get all the pieces in the bin, or just provide us with an insane amount of value after milling, discarding, and dredging our deck away. We have some of the usual staples making up the bulk of Nethroi’s $228.08 list, so here’s what we’ll remove:

1. 1. 1. 1. 1. 1. Delighted Halfling ($13.93)
               2. Guardian Project ($8.91)
               3. Luminous Broodmoth ($8.12)
               4. Fiend Artisan ($8.08)
               5. Life from the Loam ($7.69)
               6. Assassin's Trophy ($7.09)
               7. Buried Alive ($5.85)
               8. Birds of Paradise ($5.39)
               9. Grist, the Hunger Tide ($4.86)
               10. Animate Dead ($4.77)

Total Value of Cuts: $76.49

As we’ve come to expect with three color decks, the mana base gets pretty expensive (though I have a sleeper for you down below) so replacing the lands that would otherwise make the above list would save an additional $77.09, bringing the total to $146.76.

Additions

Combo Pieces

First, let me outline the combo: when everything enters the battlefield, Sam will make a Food for each one, and the Cat will drain our opponents. We sacrifice Cauldron Familiar to our sac outlet, and then sacrifice a Food to reanimate it. Sam n' Cat trigger again, and then repeat for the win. In cEDH, this is all tutor-able straight onto the battlefield with Protean Hulk, and you can even bring Grand Abolisher out with the combo pieces to ensure no one can interact. Pretty awesome! Even more awesome, the deck already contains some of the best sacrifice outlets (Viscera Seer and Carrion Feeder) and a similar loop with Reveillark and Karmic Guide, so we have a built in back up plan as well. We can even throw in Saffi Eriksdotter ($0.94) to make this line even more efficient.

Set up

Of course, since we aren’t using Protean Hulk, we’ll need ways to get our combo pieces into the graveyard. We have some good ways already via Dredge, Death's Oasis, Greater Good, etc. Sadly, we had to remove Buried Alive due to the budget constraints, but we can add some cards with similar effects like Jarad's Orders ($0.74), Unmarked Grave ($0.77), and Fauna Shaman ($1.10). The first two will tutor the combo pieces directly into the graveyard, while Fauna Shaman allows us to pitch them from our hand in exchange for another value piece, some ramp, or any of our other utility creatures. Lastly, we can add a BFYB classic: Mausoleum Secrets ($1.15). I'm going to keep plugging this card. It's just so sweet in a heavy creature/graveyard deck.

Graveyard Value

While we're preparing for our big combo turn, we can spend that time eeking out extra value from our graveyard. For this, I was really looking for cards that offered value just by being in the graveyard. First up, we have Genesis ($0.34) which can buy us back a creature every turn, and ups our creature count for additional synergies. In the same vein, we have the recently reprinted Glory ($0.12). We can use Glory offensively during a big attack, or defensively to protect our board. Using your graveyard as a second hand is something newer players can take some time to discover, and just having these Incarnations sitting there is a great way to educate!

Finally, I've been waiting and waiting to get one of my favorite cards into a deck, and I think this is the one. I present to you... Riftstone Portal ($1.11). While it sits in your graveyard it allows ALL of the lands you have on the battlefield to tap for green and white. It's an easy thing to discard or sacrifice for value, and even taps for colorless AND comes into play untapped! I've never wanted a cycle to be completed more than this one. Imagine this thing in Golgari colors? It’s what dreams are made of!

Wrap-Up and Savings

Let’s take a look at our savings:

Excellent, another combo win-con that saves 62% of the original decklist. Here’s the final list:

A question of all of you related to The Lord of the Rings: Longtime readers will know that the first article in the series featured Ratadrabik of Urborg as the commander. There are some silly synergies with the Ring tempts you cards from LTR that I’d love to highlight, so if you’re ok with a revisit, I’ll be glad to do one. Just vote in the poll below!

Anyway, I hope you liked another combo budget package for your Abzan decks. Let me know if there are some cards that I missed or if you’d like to see a specific commander or budget package, 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.

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.