From the Brim to the Trim - Pounding Down Opponents and Budget
March 30, 2023 by
Arnaud Gompertz 
(Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder | Art by Justin & Alexis Hernandez)
Orfeo Likes to Cheese
Greeting and salutations from France! I'm Arnaud, and I’m thrilled to take you on a journey of uncanny brews, budget cards, and usage of EDHREC’s filtering features.
Long story short, I’m a Magic Boomer, as I started playing the game in middle school back in 1995. I remember the glorious days when I thought that Sisters of the Flame was a great spell, that the Moxen were only glorified lands, and that 300 Francs (about $40 back in the day) for a dual land was much too steep a price for a slightly better basic.
When I started playing EDH in 2012-ish, what struck me most was that basically almost any card was playable. Not just legal in the format, mind you. It went beyond. You could actually include seven-, eight-, or nine-mana spells that would otherwise be unthinkable in any other format, or you could play draft chaff that would shine with a specific Commander. For the Legacy player I was back then, this was Christmasland and then some.
By 2022 I had played tons of EDH games, toyed with a lot of staples, and brewed a lot of decks. That’s when I shifted to devising fun budget builds: making decks with no single card worth more than €1 (I know that most of you use American dollars, but rest assured, the thought process remains identical, and I'll make sure to post equivalences in the end).
The stage was set, now I only had to find the right Commander. Enter Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder.
Now that’s what I call one sneaky enabler! He seems quite inoffensive when he hits the board – who’s scared of a potential 4/4 with no evasion? – but don’t forget, he’s a Riveteer, and the Riveteer boys, they’re a band o’ brothers, and brothers stick together, they drink together, and they smash together. With this in mind, I went to most logical place: Bouldy’s EDHREC page.
Let’s Get Things Started
Okay, so Mr. Orfeo, the Boulder's EDHREC page is a massive list of cards, and it feels all over the place, with a plethora of themes to boot, from Power Matters to Infect, from Treasure to Equipment. Heck, there’s even a Phyrexian Theme that seems to have snuck in recently. A bit overwhelming, if you ask me. So let’s be methodical. Text View tab? Check. Copy all of the cards? Check. Dump them in a deckbuilding website? Check. I like Moxfield for some specific reasons I’ll detail later, but any other brewing platform will do just fine.
Listing down all of these cards here would probably give you (and I) a hefty headache, so instead this is what we'll do: I'll post the most significant cuts, as well as a link to where the list currently stands.
The plentiful list, glorious and untrimmed.
And there we have it. A magnificent list of 277 cards all jumbled together, only waiting to be trimmed down to a more reasonable build. Bear in mind that I could have just as well used EDHREC’s Cheap filter to gain some time, as the total amount would remain close (271 cards). However, that could lead to some regrettable misses in certain cases, especially for commanders with a higher deck count, as the filter doesn’t care for my upper €1 limit, but only about the 10% cheapest cards used. I could also have gone through any of the themes, but again, I like to have options, and we can always come back later to see if we missed something vital.
Now we start cutting.
First Trim: The Card Chainsaw Massacre
The first step is certainly the simplest one: let’s cut anything that’s above €1. To make things easier, I set the view tab to “Visual Stacks”, the Group tab to “No Grouping”, and the Sort tab to “Price”. Moxfield can conveniently show you the price tag based on major card retailers, so we can easily see what to remove. From there, I scroll down to the first card costing more than €1, and away we go! You can hit Alt+2 on your keypad to quickly remove a card. With that done, we’re down to 200 cards. Not bad, but we still have a long way to go. It’s time to move on to tags.
The unruffled list, without all the expensive frills.
Second Trim: Cardward Scissorhands
Remember I told you earlier I liked Moxfield? There’s one major reason for that: resilient tags. Basically, you can assign one or several tags to a card – ramp, card draw, mushy dragons breathing cabbages, you name it – and decide whether that tag will remain for future brews (using #! before the tag) or if it needs to be applicable for this deck only (# only, without the exclamation point). You can then see all the cards neatly sorted with the “Type & Tags” tab in Group. It’s a hassle to setup in the first place, but it will greatly ease the brewing process for subsequent decks.
So now that we have everything in order, let’s go with the easiest cuts: lands, ramp, removal and board wipes. As a rule of thumb, I usually go with 35-36 lands, 10-12 ramp spells, 3-4 removals, and 2-3 wipes, then adjust as needed at the very end. While we're at it, we'll also add basic lands, as the list we got from EDHREC did not include them in the first place.
This is what we'll cut down from the tree.
Better, though not quite there yet: 150 cards.
The almost-presentable list, shaved from the kerfuffle.
Third Trim: Cutting Off the Rough Edges
Now we get to take a look at all of the other categories. That’s where our theme shines and where the real fun begins. I want creatures to smash into a player for a massive amount of damage (20-40 a swing) before we Fling them into another opponent’s face to wipe them from the earth. Therefore, we need to focus on four major assets: resilient or evasive creatures with a decent mana cost/power ratio; enablers to be able to chain through two or three pump effects to create a significant threat; Fling spells to maximize our creature’s impact after combat; and protection spells to make sure our juggernauts live long enough to do their job. I’ve tagged all of the spells that fit in one of those categories, for later. For now, let’s take a look at all the remaining untagged spells. We can cut several enchantments, sorceries, and instants that don’t quite fit the bill. Please bear in mind that all these cuts (and all of the subsequent ones) are where the subjectivity of the brewer really kicks in.
Out you go:
While we’re at it, we can also cut some of the more expensive creatures that don’t have an immediate impact on the board. We want to be as efficient as we can with our cheap (pun totally intended) resources.
Say goodbye to:
Down to 128 spells, let’s dive into the deck’s main focus.
The slimmer list, without the chonks.
Fourth Trim: Butcher’s Cleaver
Only 28 cards left to cut, let’s see if we can get there.
First, we have 25 boost spells. That’s much too high of a count, we can probably make do with roughly 15. Again, a good way to trim these down is to look at how expensive they are, mana-wise.
We can safely dismiss:
| Dragon Throne of Tarkir Bonehoard Invigorate Audacity |
dqsdqsdqs | Fight Rigging Blood Mist Antagonize Uncaged Fury |
Next, let’s have a look at the Flings. I figure 6-9 is a good ratio, so that the probability of getting one or maybe two if we’re lucky in the course of the game is consistent enough.
We currently have 12, let’s get rid of the most unconvincing 6 for now:
| Surestrike Trident Gravitic Punch Pyrrhic Blast |
dqsdqsdqs | Thud Mage Slayer Flesh // Blood |
Finally, let's chop some protection. Let’s keep the very best, and remove the following:
| Feign Death Undying Malice Vines of Vastwood |
The almost-quite-but-not-there list.
Finishing Trim: Heart-Wrenching Choices
This is it, this is the final step, and probably the hardest one. We have 9 more cards to cut, and from my experience, this is where it becomes truly excruciating to cut anything, since all the cards just seem to fit well into the strategy. We still have a few venues. In these last stretches I look at mana value, sheer efficiency compared to the other spells within the same tag and potential greedy pet peeves.
- Casualties of War is good, but I’m not a fan of a spell costing six mana that does not properly reset the board.
- We can probably cut a Mountain since Kazuul's Fury is technically a land as well.
- Feed the Swarm, being a sorcery, is the worst of our removal spells.
- Tuya Bearclaw and Yargle are cute, but their lack of evasion is a huge setback.
- Rancor, despite being resilient, iconic, and giving evasion, is not exactly game-winning here.
- Fireshrieker is a bit too mana-intensive for my taste and lacks the element of surprise.
- Fires of Yavimaya has been outclassed by Invigorating Hot Spring.
- Snakeskin Veil, because Gaea's Gift is strictly better.
Perfume, Cosmetics and Last-minute Touches: Did We Miss Anything?
At this very moment, we have a decent list that should serve its purpose. However, I like to do two things before taking it to the fray.
The first is to have a second look at all the cards that were cut in the final 20, to see if there is something that could fit in after all. I then tuck them in the considering section, and possibly swap them in after a couple of games, especially if a spell did not yield the expected results in the field. In this case, I’d probably take back a couple of Flings, some of the protection, and possibly a draw spell or two. It never hurts to keep some breathing room.
The second is to have a final look for cards tied to our core strategy, again, to see if there was anything we missed. Things like Thorn Elemental, Tornado Elemental, and Pride of Lions, for example, could make sure the damage goes through, even with a blocker. Or something more resilient that could come back even after it dies, like Wave of Rats.
Don’t underestimate these final tweaks: they will make the difference with other similar decks and allow you to show off some of your acquired taste. I absolutely love it when one or more players at the table go, “Wait, what does that do?”
And How Do You Like Your Card Cut, My Good Sir?
Whew, we made it! Many thanks if you followed through this long journey. When updated to cheapest, the final brew comes down at slightly above €25.
Converting to the US market, the deck would cost on average slightly less than $50.
Here's our final list.
Orfeo
View on Archidekt
Buy this decklist from TCGplayer
I hope you liked this step-by-step concept of trimming down a deck to its cheap quintessence. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this brew and/or the overall approach in the comments, as well as any spicy suggestions I might have missed.
See you next time for a new commander. Let me know what we should brew up!
Arnaud Gompertz
Arnaud Gompertz has been playing Magic since 4th Edition, back in 1995. He's been an assiduous EDH enthusiast since 2012, with a soft spot for unusual and casual Commanders. He'll always favour spectacular plays against a boring path to victory. Aside from mistreating cardboard, he's a dedicated board games player, loves a challenging video game and occasionally tries to sing with his choir.
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