20 Great and Cheap Budget Commander Decks to Try Next (April 2026)

Last updated on April 1, 2026

Costly Plunder | Illustration by Ben Maier

Commander is one of Magic’s most popular formats and the king of casual play. The deck size and singleton constraint give the format incredible versatility, creativity and personal expression in one deck. You rarely see the same game twice. It can also be incredibly expensive, which makes jumping into the format daunting.

There are plenty of budget options you can play in Commander, and today I rank budget decks with plenty of power and variety despite not costing more than $100 (before shipping). Remember to review your shipping costs and check for lesser-costing versions of cards since some have printings with a vastly greater price for the same mechanical function.

These decks are generally in EDH's bracket 2 with no pricey game changers and straightforward with easy-to-understand strategies that make them perfect to get into Commander without a huge financial investment. If you need information on budget cEDH, your article is in another castle.

Let's get to it!

#20. Sergeant Benton Voltron

Sergeant John Benton | Illustration by Wei Guan

Sergeant John Benton barely makes rank as a budget voltron commander. It does cause card draw for you and one other opponent so you need your best Commander political skills to navigate who to attack. Once your mission is clear, the impressive stack of instants in this deck are ultra low in mana cost and help you jump up to 21 commander damage when they least expect it. The combat tricks are also your contingency plan with several ways to grant Benton hexproof or indestructibility.

The solid starting stats, trample and haste really make use of cards like Aerial Boost, Might of Murasa, and Tyvar's Stand. There's a decent package of aura action here so Sergeant reports to Siona, Captain of the Pyleas for support. Because the mana costs are tight, this list uses more lands that enter untapped without paying more than a couple of bucks for any one land. Outside of those, there's lots of flexibility in cards you can swap with this list and get comparable results so get creative to complete your objectives.

#19. Kardur Goad

Kardur, Doomscourge | Illustration by Chris Rahn

Listen, this is not about honor, it's Rakdos . I love it when I come across others battling, watch them trade blow after blow, and then I come in and clean them both up. With Kardur, Doomscourge be patient enough to let your opponents play down some heavy hitters then you get maximum impact from the ETB that goads all opposing creatures.

Frenzied Gorespawn gives you a massive effect as a follow up to Kardur, because you just want to cause a frenzy.

Then you take control of combat on key turns in which the table would rally against your goad commander with a sacrifice outlet and pop off a Not Dead After All type of card to bring Kardur's ability up again. That also enables Oversold Cemetery to give you repeat Kardur's ETB ability without the commander tax.

The value racks up quickly with life loss triggers all over the place. Numerous effects in this deck come upon entering the battlefield, so outside of countermagic, you ensure you get good value from your creatures. It eventually becomes inevitable that your attacking creatures represent lethal damage with either their power, or dying and Kardur's life drain trigger, kind of like a Wicked role token.

#18. Giada Angel Tribal

Giada, Font of Hope | Illustration by Kai Carpenter

Let's get into mono-white angel tribal helmed by Giada, Font of Hope. This is a white midrange deck that looks to quickly power out angels with Giada to ramp them out ahead of schedule and provide them with a stat boost in the form of +1/+1 counters.

The main thing that keeps this deck lower on the list is that it’s a little slow and held back by its color and budget. White is better than 15 years ago, but still the worst at ramp and card advantage, which can allow other decks to either outpace or grind out a Giada deck. One of the best white ramp cards for angels is Starnheim Aspirant with Oketra's Monument close behind. You've got a great chance to make up cards with Wojek Investigator and Exemplar of Light. Giada does well when you pop out plenty of angels, and Herald of the Host wants a grand choir. To give extra boosts beyond +1/+1 counters are Thraben Watcher, and Lyra Dawnbringer.

The non-budget version of this deck would add some of the game's best payoffs and enablers like Righteous Valkyrie, Avacyn, Angel of Hope, and Urza's Incubator. Despite these drawbacks, this is still a delightful deck that utilizes one of Magic’s strongest and most iconic tribes and is a fantastic introduction to Commander with a straightforward game plan and easy lines.

#17. Gitrog Ride or Die

The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride | Illustration by Johan Grenier

When I hear Gitrog, I think of land advantage and graveyard goodies, and Golgari () is no stranger to those strategies. The Gitrog, Ravenous Ride is a gnarly way to get ahead on lands and cards in hand because it exploits the creatures that saddle it. Aside from fixing with reasonable dual lands, the lands here give little bits of utility and value and you have a few copying abilities to pull in the land-based weapons from across the table. You get the most use out of your lands with the fun LCI card, Spelunking which brings your lands into play untapped.

The Golgari Swarm is represented by team Speedbrood in Aetherdrift and good power to cost ratio in cheap vanilla creatures like Jibbirik Omnivore and Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant. Outside of those you have oldies that play like rock stars in Phytotitan. With plenty of creatures going to your graveyard, threshold helps Krosan Restorer become a powerful version of ramp.

This deck is no stranger to board wipes or a few ways to cheat creatures into play. As for the riders of Gitrog, there is a healthy variety of different powers, from the humble Paradise Druid to the mid-way Puppeteer Clique and up to the huge and splashy Yargle and Multani. The faster you chew up the mana dorks for extra cards and lands, the quicker you get to your giant threats. Use your big mana, big creatures for overpowering damage and it's OK to surprise players with an occasional win from a late Exsanguinate or Choose Your Weapon. This is where your flex on budget comes into play, because if you could afford higher cost creatures or spells, look to Tiller Engine or Greensleeves, Maro-Sorcerer.

#16. Eshki Dragonclaw

Eshki Dragonclaw | Illustration by Tran Nguyen

This Eshki Dragonclaw deck is a flexible one with lots of room for self-expression. The goal is to outvalue the table with double spells. You have a mix of 4 power-matters, adventures and other mechanics that make it easy hit both types of spells like omen, warp, and plot.

It still has ramp, card draw and +1/+1 counters on tap, so don't be afraid to sub out options that you have on hand and you'll consistently have powerful attackers beyond your Dragonclaw leader.

#15. Talrand Tempo

Talrand, Sky Summoner | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Blue and budget don't always go in the same sentences about Commander, but Talrand, Sky Summoner is an exception. This list is primarily concerned with tempo and of course, blotting out the sky with drakes. You could certainly pour more money into this and maybe get some strictly better cards, but the low costs on these blue instants and the built-in evasiveness of your creatures go a long way in giving you options to interact and make effective attacks.

Squeeze in a couple of inexpensive planeswalkers to help absorb ground attacks in Kasmina, Enigmatic Mentor and Jace, Architect of Thought. Kasmina disrupts your opponent's removal a bit, gives you a bit of card selection and incidentally puts down a blocker too. This Jace can really slow down opposing decks that go wide, and does occasional budget card advantage to refill your hand.

Be cautious though because your wizard commander is your only creature and will likely be the only target of your opponent's creature removal.

#14. Anara & Ardenn Equipment

Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist | Illustration by Jason Rainville

This deck partners Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist with Anara, Wolvid Familiar to create a powerful Voltron combo built around stacking a ton of equipment onto one of your commanders and getting in for plenty of damage. Ardenn lets you equip any number of equipment for free, while Anara ensures you can freely attack with indestructibility.

In truth, the real plan of this deck is to use Worldslayer. If you can get Ardenn and Anara in play and auto-equip one of them with Worldslayer, you basically win the game. A single attack destroys everything, including lands, but Anara ensures that your commanders survive. You can then win at your leisure as your opponents watch you attack without any lands to play their own spells.

The deck has ways to find equipment like the one and only Worldslayer, including Quest for the Holy Relic, Open the Armory and Stonehewer Giant. This deck can play a more traditional Voltron deck without Worldslayer, though it’s definitely less fun.

#13. Nymris Flash

Nymris, Oona's Trickster | Illustration by Johannes Voss

Nymris, Oona's Trickster leads the main control deck on this list. It’s a great control commander because it blocks incredibly well and draws you a ton of cards. One of the weaknesses of control in Commander is that you often play one-for-one removal against three opponents. Nymris counteracts this as it not only draws you cards when you cast spells on your opponents’ turns but gives you the best of two cards.

You maximize this with a fat stack of instants and a plethora of cards with flash. Creatures like Cunning Nightbonder and Slitherwisp let you play threats at instant speed to back up Nymris.

Like any good control deck, you’ve also got tons of interaction. There’s a suite of excellent countermagic and instant-speed removal like Annul, Counterspell and Go for the Throat to ensure you call the shots on what happens on the battlefield. You play a long game in which you win with massive threats like Hullbreaker Horror and Lochmere Serpent.

#12. Doran Toughness Matters

Doran, the Siege Tower | Illustration by Rob Alexander

Doran, the Siege Tower may be an elderly treefolk, but this deck is anything but slow. Despite most of your creatures having little to no power, Doran goes aggressive and looks to capitalize on it’s toughness matters across the board ability. A few board wipes become very one-sided like Expel the Interlopers and The Battle of Bywater. You're not wholly reliant on Doran; there are enough redundant versions of the effect like Abzan commander, Bedrock Tortoise, Huatli, the Sun's Heart, and Assault Formation that this deck operates just fine without your commander.

Take advantage of high toughness creatures like the plant option on Skinshifter, the five toughness on Nyx-Fleece Ram, and Runic Armasaur that were designed as defensive options and turn them into aggressive beaters. Who doesn’t love a 2-mana 5/5 that gains life every turn?

You lean heavily on green creatures with lots of stats for their cost to make up most of your offensive and defensive forces in the deck. They also give you access to the invaluable ramp and fixing to enable your 3-color strategy. When paired with utility lands like Access Tunnel, white’s excellent removal and black's card draw, this deck is resilient and strong.

#11. Faldorn Exile

Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald | Illustration by Jason A. Engle

Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald gives you an interesting take on Gruul () with a commander that wants to exploit casting spells from exile. Exiling spells with that you can temporarily cast has become red’s primary source of card advantage, and Faldorn benefits from it by making tokens of the wolf variety to go along with all the cards you play.

This deck functions on a pretty simple idea: ramp, ramp, and ramp some more. Some are specific like Interdimensional Web Watch, and to give you consistent card selection use Shadow of the Goblin. You’ve got plenty of mana to play the cards you’ve exiled to make as many wolves as possible. This deck “draws” cards like a blue deck to see as much of your library as possible and find your wincons.

This list leans heavily on Faldorn’s ability to produce an army to finish things off. You’ve got enough mana fixing and green ramp to help cast it multiple times, and your best win conditions are cards like Grumgully, the Generous, and Overrun that turn a few 2/2s into a lethal board state.

#10. Gonti Scam

Gonti, Lord of Luxury | Illustration by Daarken

Gonti, Lord of Luxury is hands down one of my favorite card designs. Here the Aetherborn kingpin leads a mono-black midrange aristocrats deck with an ETB subtheme to maximize the number of cards you can extort from your opponents. Cunning Rhetoric gives you more of the same effect that Gonti goes for.

Modern players may find this deck familiar because it has a strategy that works like Rakdos () scam. You’ve got Undying Evil and all its variants on display here. This deck grinds out opponents with edict creatures like Plaguecrafter. You can use Fake Your Own Death to bring back your Plaguecrafter to double-edict or target something like Gonti to get a second trigger.

The main thing holding this deck back is its narrow interaction. Withering Torment is a step towards more flexible interaction, but far from an excellent answer. This is broadly the weakness of a monocolor Commander; you just won’t some tools in your black commander's arsenal. In Gonti’s case, this deck is excellent at shutting down opposing creatures but falters against decks that aren’t looking to win on that axis.

#9. Fynn Poison

Fynn, the Fangbearer | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

Fynn, the Fangbearer is perfect for any prospective Commander player who wants to be a little toxic in their pod. This is a very aggressive green deck focused on using Fynn’s ability to give opponents poison counters. This circumvents the traditional issue with aggro in Commander: the need to deal 120 damage.

This is a bit of a glass cannon deck, and your ability to win with it depends on your ability to read a table. You can rush one player to 10 poison counters in a few turns, but that could lead to the rest of the table deciding you’re a threat and turning the game into a 2v1. You could spread the poison around, but that could lead to players picking you off as you get closer to 10 on each of them.

If Fynn is your commander of choice and your beaters are Gnarlwood Dryad, Bloated Contaminator, and Questing Beast, you should consider that not every table cares for poison decks. That said, Fynn is still an interesting commander that offers some interesting lines and rewards those that plan several turns out.

#8. Shanna Lifegain

Shanna, Purifying Blade | Illustration by Jody Clark

How can your opponents win if they never get your life to zero? Shanna, Purifying Blade forces your opponents to consider this as it helms a controlling midrange deck that’s focused on lifegain. Shanna makes a perfect human commander for this deck because it lets you draw cards based on how much life you’ve gained.

This is a deck that ramps really, really hard because you never run out of things to do with your mana. If your hand starts running low, you can pump five or six mana into Shanna to refill it for the next turn. You’ve got some lifegain payoffs like Exemplar of Light that facilitate card draw, and Pristine Talisman is basically : gain a life and draw a card.

This deck has a tokens subtheme to win the game. You eventually get far more creatures, mana, cards, and life than your opponents, and you can close things out with cards like Lathiel, the Bounteous Dawn, Nykthos Paragon and Blossoming Bogbeast. This is a passive deck that builds up defenses over time, so make sure you don’t look too threatening in the early game.

#7. Gargos Hydras

Gargos, Vicious Watcher | Illustration by Mathias Kollros

Gargos, Vicious Watcher is an excellent deck for anybody looking to turn their local commander table into a kaiju war. This deck pumps out massive hydras loaded with +1/+1 counters thanks to support like Loading Zone and uses them to fight your opponent's puny cardboard. Sit back and watch them scramble beneath Hungering Hydra, Heroes' Bane, and Whiptongue Hydra.

This deck packs a variety of ramp spells like Rampant Growth, Arbor Elf, and Overgrowth to let you accelerate into Gargos and get ahead of your opponents. You never lack for something to do with your mana since you have so many spells with X in their cost and a few cards that draw you a bunch of cards since they scale off the size of your biggest creature.

You also have plenty of targeted spells to make Gargos fight or bite your opponents’ creatures so you can slip through their shattered defenses for a win. There are also multiple ways to enable trample on your hydras to ensure you can close the game.

#6. Judith Aristocrats

Judith, The Scourge Diva | Illustration by Wesley Burt

Who doesn’t love to put on a show for the table? Judith, the Scourge Diva ensures you have the flashiest deck at the table as you inch your opponents to their deaths one triggered ability at a time. This aristocrats deck makes a spectacle of your victory and forces your audience to watch you chip away at their life total with a plethora of cards that deal damage to them whenever your creatures die.

You also get way more effects triggered by your creatures dying. There’s an abundance of card draw, for one. And… well, that’s about it. But what more do you need than card draw and damage? This deck has a bunch of cards that either produce tokens or creatures to recur so you can repeatedly sacrifice them to ping your opponents to death.

Judith loads up on board control thanks to a suite of edict creatures. You'll close the game with cards like Torbran, Thane of Red Fell that maximize your damage. You can also go infinite with Putrid Goblin, First Day of Class, and a free sacrifice outlet; after casting Class, the Goblin persists back to the battlefield with a -1/-1 and a +1/+1 counter that cancel each other out so you can sacrifice it again and again. This is an easy win with Judith in play.

#5. Ezuri +1/+1 Counters

Ezuri, Claw of Progress | Illustration by Livia Prima

Ezuri, Claw of Progress is a deck that takes a little time to get going, but quickly snowballs out of control. The deck dumps a huge number of counters on small creatures, often to much more benefit than just a few extra stats. Paired with proliferate cards from Phyrexia: All Will Be One, this brews a lethal deck.

This deck has some insane mana production. On top of green’s already solid ramp, there are lots of cards like Marwyn, the Nurturer, Gyre Sage and Rishkar, Peema Renegade that work with this theme specifically to make dizzying amounts of mana. You’ll use this to play a bunch of spells, fueled by cards like Edric, Spymaster of Trest, Fathom Mage and Primal Empathy that help you draw a load of cards.

Much of this deck’s power comes from how hard it is to interact with Ezuri. You can’t interact with experience counters, so it’s like having a commander that creates a planeswalker emblem. Paired with the mana production, you can’t get rid of it. This deck also has some sneaky cards that win the game. Blighted Agent easily puts a whole table on a three-turn clock, while Sage of Hours gives you infinite turns if you have five or more experience counters.

#4. The Locust God Card Draw

The Locust God | Illustration by Lius Lasahido

This Izzet () deck unleashes a plague of locusts upon your opponents faster than they can react. This is a quintessential The Locust God deck that wants to ramp out the commander and draw a bunch of cards to create a hasty swarm of insects.

The primary win condition is beating in the air. Once you get your god in play, you’ve gotcards like wheels, looting, and rummaging that let you draw multiple cards per turn like Magus of the Wheel, Baral, Chief of Compliance, and Arjun, the Shifting Flame to make swarms of Insects. The Insects can even spawn more of themselves with the help of effects like Reconnaissance Mission and Unctus, Grand Metatect.

You have numerous ways to make your insects stronger. Cards like Shared Animosity and Ferocity of the Wilds help your insects hit harder than ever. You can also play a grindier game with cards like Opposition and Niv-Mizzet, Parun to give the deck staying power if the aggressive route doesn’t work.

#3. Jinnie Fay Tokens

Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second | Illustration by David Gaillet

One of the wider token decks on the list, Jinnie Fay, Jetmir's Second offers a ton of explosive power from the command zone. Most token generators are balanced for their cost by producing 1/1s. Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon still makes 1/1s, but scales itself up and puts out an absurd amount of creature tokens. Jinnie Fay breaks those 1/1s wide open by making 2/2s and 3/1s to build a force that outscales the amount of mana you put into your spells.

You generally want to turn all your tokens into cats. The haste is fantastic, and you’ve got a few cat lords like King of the Pride and Feline Sovereign that make the Cats more appealing than the dogs.

The token deck leans on explosiveness and makes a few tokens incredibly large and focuses the power of a reasonable force and finishers like Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, and Inspiring Leader to claw your opponents down.

#2. Abdel & Candlekeep Sage Flicker

Candlekeep Sage | Illustration by Kim Sokol

Flicker decks have been a part of Commander forever, and Abdel Adrian, Gorion's Ward makes a great commander for the deck when paired with the Candlekeep Sage background. Abdel is wrath protection in the command zone and a way to get numerous triggers and build out a wide board all at once while the background gives you access to blue and plenty of card draw. When permanents return to play, they come in untapped, so Split Up is a good situational one-sided board wipe. Plus you still get white's great removal in the flexible Getaway Glamer and the staples Path to Exile / Swords to Plowshares.

Abdel is the heart of this deck. Often, you want to build out a bit of a board then cast it and exile multiple permanents with its ability. This nets you several soldier tokens. You can then use one of your flicker effects to blink Abdel. This draws two cards if Candlekeep is in play, but also gives you two triggers from Abdel; its ETB and LTB. Stack them so it puts all the permanents into play first to get their ETB triggers, and then exiles them again, to produce more tokens and set you up to do it again the next turn.

This is an insanely grindy deck with tons of lifegain and card draw. Few cards grind opponents down like Marang River Regent. The longer the game goes, the more likely you are to squeeze enough value from your cards to win the game. You even get a sneaky infinite combo with Peregrine Drake, Archaeomancer, and Ghostly Flicker.

#1. Adrix and Nev Token Doublers

Adrix and Nev, Twincasters | Illustration by Andrew Mar

Where Jinnie Fay went tall, Adrix and Nev, Twincasters is a token deck that wants to go wide. Really, really wide. This is just Doubling Season in the command zone, so it’s not surprising the Twincasters top this list as the strongest of our budget decks.

The strategy is simple: ramp out and start doubling tokens. It’s just so much value. It’s hard to keep up with this many tokens. It’s hard for your opponents to attack you, and you generate a powerful attack force of tokens that swarm around your opponents’ blockers. Quina, Qu Gourmet is a guest chef that really cooks with the Twincasters and acts as redundancy for your main plan. A flexible tool from Aetherdrift is Defend the Rider which gives extra protection when ward falls short, plus the instant can provide a pair of pilot tokens if needed.

Once you establish an overwhelming force, you can finish the opponent with cards like Overrun and Master Biomancer, or crush your opponent with sheer numbers as long as you can build up steam.

Try a Precon

One other option if you don't like any of these decks is to check out Wizards' Commander preconstructed decks. They often offer a pretty decent mix of value and (sometimes) playability.

Our pick

Tricky Terrain – Modern Horizons III

Turtle Power! – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Eternal Might – Aetherdrift

Creative Energy – Modern Horizons III

Peace Offering – Bloomburrow

Counter Blitz – Final Fantasy

$53.68

$59.95

$44.95

$39.19

$59.94

$54.44

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Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Buy on Amazon

Our pick

Tricky Terrain – Modern Horizons III

$53.68

Buy on Amazon

Turtle Power! – Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

$59.95

Buy on Amazon

Eternal Might – Aetherdrift

$44.95

Buy on Amazon

Creative Energy – Modern Horizons III

$39.19

Buy on Amazon

Peace Offering – Bloomburrow

$59.94

Buy on Amazon

Counter Blitz – Final Fantasy

$54.44

-

Buy on Amazon

If you worry about how well they play, go with one of our recommended decks versus a random one, which might end up more lackluster.

Bonus: The Cheapest Ranked Commander

Among the cheapest commanders we ranked above, Fynn, the Fangbearer, nudges lower in price than the rest at $0.13. Judith, the Scourge Diva comes in next at a market price of 19 cents. Gonti, Lord of LuxuryEshki Dragonclaw tie for 3rd place at two dimes and a penny.

Then start under a quarter for Shanna, Purifying Blade at 23 cents while close behind are Nymris, Oona's Trickster at 32 cents and Talrand, Sky Summoner at 33 cents.

Virtually all of the commanders in our budget decks cost less than a play booster pack, and many of them less than $1. I thought it helpful to see how cheap you can go from the command zone to the bottom of your library and still get an effective deck worth playing.

Commanding Conclusion

Worthy Cost | Illustration by Andrew Mar

To play Commander on a budget doesn’t mean you need to forsake the most powerful cards and strategies. There's incredible variety for budget Commander players, from aggressive strategies to controlling and everything in between. You have plenty of choices for the color you want to play with, hidden treasures for each archetype and should brush up on tips for building Commander decks.

These budget Commander decks are a great entry point for players new to Commander or Magic as a game. They’re cheap and straightforward without pulling punches on power. Did any of these Commanders surprise you? Got a story of a budget card beating the pants off of a pricey card? — We want to hear it! Let me know in the comments, or find us on the Draftsim Twitter.

Stay safe, have fun, and save some money!