(Radagast the Brown | Art by Alexander Mokhov)

We've all heard of White Weenies, but what about Green Weenies...?

Hey there, my name is Jordan, and I run the EDH Jank Center on YouTube. Welcome to Finding Homes For Janky Cards, the series where we rifle through that big pile of bulk you've got lying around, find a package of five janky, budget, or underutilized cards, and pair them with a commander that will help them shine. The deck we get out of it might not be the fanciest or most extravagant at the table, but we're still going to build it, because every card deserves a loving home!

Today's warm and fuzzy host is: Radagast the Brown

When The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth was announced last year, my first thought was "I don't care what it is, I am going to build a Radagast deck." Now here we are, and it's better than I could've imagined. Not only is the art incredible, but Radagast's creature-looting ability is so much fun and reminds me a lot of one of my other personal favorite builds: my Volo, Itinerant Scholar and Popular Entertainer deck!

As a lover of all things underwhelming and janky, builds centered around mashing a bunch of creatures with different/obscure types in a deck are my bread and butter, and Radagast is no different. I'm super excited to talk about this build, but first let's take a look at what people have been usually building this commander with:

So, as we can see, people are gravitating towards playing a bunch of Chonky Boiz like Apex Devastator and Craterhoof Behemoth.

Now, not only are these creatures just generally amazing, but their high mana costs ensure that we're able to loot through as much of the top of our deck as possible and find some more juicy (and probably expensive) cards.

However, I say Nay to that.

Today, we're going to be playing a bunch of small creatures, Green Weenies, if you will... and getting lots of fun synergy and payoffs from casting multiple small creatures per turn! And we're going to be doing all of this for under $50!

Let's not dilly dally any longer, because I want to talk about the staple card of this build...

Almighty Brushwagg

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He's just a little guy! So cute.

Anyway, this card and others like it (meaning 1 and 2 drops with fun abilities and unique creature types) are the staples of this build.

Their small mana costs can be considered a drawback since we're not going to get to loot through 10 cards at once, however, since this deck is chock full of creatures, we're almost always going to hit something! Since this strategy relies on having and casting a ton of creatures, these tiny guys turn Radagast the Brown ability into pseudo card draw!

This will help us cast more creatures, build a larger board, and eventually swing out for a win! And listen, a lot of these weenies have awesome, utilitarian abilities: from trample to deathtouch to countering activated abilities, so we're going to be set for a ton of different game scenarios.

Now let's take a look at some cards that support this janky concoction:

Paragon of Eternal Wilds

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The idea here is pretty simple: our way of winning in this deck is through combat damage. Our tiny creatures unfortunately don't have a lot of hitting power on their own, but never fear, because Radagast is all about friends helping out friends.

In comes this green anthem effect that pumps up our entire board (save for the few artifact creatures in this list) and can also enable trample for a single creature if the game scenario calls for that.

You might be scoffing at the very idea of throwing all of this chaff in here, but hey, you know what playing chaff lets us do? Have leftover money to include even more powerful cards that do a similar thing like Unnatural Growth and Sylvan Anthem

Moving on to...

Bellowing Tanglewurm

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Not only is this artwork absolutely incredible, but this card is what we like to call a FINISHER, folks.

In a deck that wants to win through combat, giving all of our creatures evasion of any kind is going to be an absolute boon for us.

Additionally, it'll allow us to loot through 5 cards from the top of our deck! All that value for less than 50 cents? I'll take that any day!

Let's move on to something a liiiiiiitle more unassuming though, shall we...

Roaring Primadox

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This has been one of my pet cards for a while now. I used to run it in a Yeva, Nature's Herald deck that has since been taken apart, but I'm so ecstatic to have found what is - in my opinion - an even better home for it!

I'd say in a good number of minds this card is slow, inefficient, and "unplayable", but as we know Radagast loves ALL creatures and so... voila!

Getting one of our tiny creatures back to our hand every single upkeep is really good for our deck, especially for cards that love when we recast things:

Before we know it, we'll have a giant board of beaters that we can smash face with, and that's some good ol' fashioned Magic right there!

Garruk's Horde

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It's the Walmart version of Augur of Autumn!

Jokes aside, I love this card for this strategy, when it enters we get to look through 7 card from the top of our library, THEN we get to play with our top card revealed and cast stuff from there if we can!

This card essentially gives us an additional creature to cast every turn! And it gets really tasty when we combine it with a card like the aforementioned Yeva, Nature's Herald.

Pretty sweet being able to get our commander's triggers going on our opponent's turns, eh?

Now that we've highlighted some favorite cards from the build, let's take a look at the full decklist:

Extremely proud of this deck and very excited to build it for myself!

I hope you've enjoyed reading the article, and remember: Every card deserves a chance to shine.

That just about does it for this month's installment. Let me know in the comments down below what cards you'd like me to find a home for next! Your suggestions might just make it into the next article. Cheers!

Jordan Iacovella

Jordan is an actor, music producer, and gigantic nerd who runs the EDH Jank Center on Youtube! Through various tier lists, janky deck techs, and budget-friendly guides, the Jank Center hopes to show people that you don't need to be rich to have fun playing this wonderful game. Think outside the box, baby!