The 32 Best Budget Colorless Cards in MTG Ranked

Myr Battlesphere | Illustration by Franz Vohwinkel

MTG decks are quite known for cards that can fetch a pretty high penny, but not all the cards in our decks need to be expensive. We can do a lot of work with good cards under $5 or so. Especially in casual Commander decks: You don’t need to be that optimized to compete, and the format is also popular for that reason.

Today, we look at the best colorless budget cards in MTG, most of them applicable to casual EDH. Colorless cards include a lot of different stuff, from equipment to Eldrazi, so I’m striving to include cards that fit a high variety of decks ranging from aggro to control and combo.

What Are Budget Colorless Cards in MTG?

Everflowing Chalice | Illustration by Steve Argyle

Colorless budget cards are colorless cards that most players can get without breaking their bank accounts. A good chunk of these cards, if not all, are aimed at casual Commander decks. We’re talking mainly cards under $5 as a top limit, but most cards are in the $0.50-$3 range at the time of writing.

A card like Ashnod's Altar is very useful and has many reprints, even as an uncommon, but it’s constantly closer to a $5-10 price tag, so I won’t include it here, or similar cards, even if an eventual reprint brings the price down to $3-4.

I’m including only cards that have a colorless identity and aren’t lands because I don’t want this to be filled with lands or mana rocks and mana fixers.

Honorable Mention: Sol Ring & Arcane Signet

Many Commander decks start with a Sol Ring and an Arcane Signet, and since these are reprinted in every precon, most copies fit into a very low-budget build.

#32. Reality Smasher

Reality Smasher was once a Standard and Modern staple. It’s a 5/5 haste creature with a good pseudo-ward ability that most decks can play. In Commander, it’s usually played in Eldrazi decks, or decks that care about haste creatures.

#31. Ugin, the Ineffable

While most colorless planeswalker cards and Ugin cards are very expensive, this one is the most accessible. Ugin, the Ineffable’s best ability is to reduce the cost of colorless spells by 2. Here, you get a decent removal effect, or you can ramp to a 10- to 12-drop much earlier.

#30. Desolation Twin

There aren’t that many good expensive cards at the $5 range, but Desolation Twin gives you two 10/10 creatures. This card is awesome in decks that ramp or reward you for playing expensive spells. Imagine if you had Zhulodok, Void Gorger in play, then you cast this card and cascade into another massive creature.

#29. Oblivion Sower

Oblivion Sower is large, and one of the best “ramp spell” creatures, especially if you’re playing a landfall deck. Or if you care about Eldrazi and big colorless spells. Regardless, you get a 5/8 for 6 mana and some lands. Note that you can dump any land your opponent has exiled (for example, with impulse draw), not just the cards exiled with Oblivion Sower.

#28. Psychosis Crawler

If you’re building around draw-matters, make sure to include this card. Legendary creatures like Nekusar, the Mindrazer and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse are solid build-arounds, and if you’re drawing a lot, Psychosis Crawler gets big and smashes face, not to mention the amount of damage it deals directly.

#27. Maskwood Nexus

Making tokens every turn is nice, but what if you can make specific 2/2 shapeshifter creature tokens? Maskwood Nexus is the right tool for the job. Creatures you control become every creature type, so this card can be used to support a poorly-supported creature type, like minotaurs or sphinxes. This artifact is awesome when your commander cares about more than one creature type, like Voja, Jaws of the Conclave or Rin and Seri, Inseparable.

#26. Springleaf Drum

Springleaf Drum is an excellent way to turn a creature into a mana dork, while it enables tap and untap synergies and fixes your mana. You can help mechanics like survival or inspired, and the Drum can do some work when you target specific cards that need to be tapped like Kilo, Apogee Mind or Magda, Brazen Outlaw.

#25. Idol of Oblivion

Idol of Oblivion fits token decks, and it helps you to get more gas as the game goes on. If your commander has any way of regularly making tokens, you’d better run this card. In the late game, you can even get a massive Eldrazi token by sacrificing it.

#24. Vanquisher’s Banner

The star of most typal decks, Vanquisher's Banner boosts your preferred creature type and makes you draw a card when you cast spells of the chosen type. It’s clunky as a 5-mana artifact, but it’s acceptable in slower formats like EDH that allow us to play these cards. Drawing cards whenever we play spells is an excellent way to stay gassed up.

#23. Meteor Golem

Seven mana for a 3/3 creature is a lot, but Meteor Golem comes with a removal spell attached. Blue/blue-white decks benefit from this card the most, because blue doesn’t have hard removal, and it can blink creatures easily. There are also artifact synergies involved in blue decks. Green is a close second with its lack of direct removal.

#22. Ornithopter

Zero-mana artifact creature that flies. Enough said. Ornithopter is a nice creature when you play affinity and you have ways to slap an equipment onto this card, or if you draw cards when you cast artifacts. For some time, Modern decks cast this card and a Cranial Plating to win a match in a few attacks.

#21. Myr Battlesphere

Seven mana gives you game-warping cards these days, but this 2010 big guy still delivers. Myr Battlesphere is five artifacts in one, and that alone makes it fit plenty of decks. Whether you care about the number of artifacts you control or you have a way to double tokens, you should think about the Battleball.

#20. Heraldic Banner

Heraldic Banner is simple, but every deck that’s heavy on a single color and goes wide can use this hybrid of a mana rock and an anthem. Goblin decks love those little 1/1 tokens that attack as 2/1s, and the same can be said of elf or bird decks.

#19. Steel Overseer

Steel Overseer is an excellent lord in an artifact-heavy deck. Combine this with proliferate and counter-doubling cards to gain a huge army very quickly. Decks that go wide with artifacts like Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch appreciate this little fella.

#18. Loxodon Warhammer

Loxodon Warhammer is an old Mirrodin artifact, but it’s still strong. A bonus of +3/+0, trample, and lifelink turns any 1/1 token into a threat. If you’re playing big dumb green creatures or a lifegain-matters deck, you’ll probably want this card in your 99.

#17. Kozilek, the Great Distortion

One of the few Eldrazi Titans under $5, Kozilek, the Great Distortion is a great bomb to ramp into. Just having a good creature on the battlefield that draws you up to seven is solid, and you can use some cards to counter spells here and there. It’s solid as a colorless commander; if your opponents keep killing your general, you simply recast it and draw more cards.

#16. Ultima, Origin of Oblivion

Ultima, Origin of Oblivion is a nice way to double your mana produced by colorless sources. It basically turns your Wastes into Ancient Tombs without a downside. Besides, with this creature around, you get to sabotage your opponents’ lands, too. This card can be a competent commander or a nice addition to colorless ramp decks.

#15. Forsaken Monument

Forsaken Monument is on the edge of the $5 limit, but it’s too good to ignore. Giving +2/+2 to all colorless creatures turns your myr and Ornithopter army into real menaces. You also get more mana and more life, which also makes this card excellent in ramp decks and Eldrazi decks.

#14. Myr Retriever + Scrap Trawler

Myr Retriever is another classic combo piece that lets you go infinite in many scenarios, mainly with Ashnod's Altar. Scrap Trawler adds an interesting redundancy, in case you can’t play two Myr Retrievers. Either way, you’ll sacrifice one to recover the other, which nets you infinite cast triggers and infinite sacrifice triggers.

#13. Solemn Simulacrum

Solemn Simulacrum, a.k.a. the Sad Robot, is an easy-to-include card in most decks. You get ramp, a good card to blink, and an easy chump block. It’s also a nice target to make a copy of until the end of the turn and sacrifice it. A cantrip, a land, and a creature in the same package.

#12. Foundry Inspector

Cost reduction is always welcome. Foundry Inspector isn’t a card you’ll fit in every deck, but many awesome commanders are, in fact, artifact-based commanders. This card pulls some heavy weight in those decks, whether we’re talking Breya, Etherium Shaper or Urza, Lord High Artificer. This creature can also enable some artifact loops due to its cost reduction.

#11. Blackblade Reforged

The best part of Blackblade Reforged is that it’s cheaper to equip legendary creatures. And, well, Commander is a format that revolves around them, right? Plus, you boost your creatures based on the number of lands, which also fits a slow format like EDH. Sometimes, you can cast this for 2, equip for 3, and give your commander a massive +8/+8 boost. This card is reprinted enough to stay in the $3 range.

#10. Hedron Archive

This card is basically two Mind Stones duct-taped together. Although the initial cost is steep, Hedron Archive provides some nice ramp, and in the late game, you can cash it in for cards.

#9. Herald’s Horn

Herald's Horn is a card that’s easy to include in typal decks, as you get cost reduction and eventual card advantage. Not to mention, if you choose your commander’s creature type, you always cast it with mana reduction.

#8. Basalt Monolith

Basalt Monolith is a nice, cheap piece of colorless ramp. But you’ll probably use this card in infinite mana combos, when you can untap this card for less than 3 mana. Some MTG cards allow you to untap artifacts, while others cause Monolith to produce more mana than it takes to untap it, which are the easiest ways to break this card.

#7. Colossus Hammer

Colossus Hammer requires specific synergies like “equip 0” effects or commanders that allow you to equip without paying the mana cost. Cards like Captain America, First Avenger or Bruenor Battlehammer appreciate this equipment, and you can use other cards like Forge Anew, too. Once you do that, a +10/+10 bonus is nothing to scoff at.

#6. Everflowing Chalice

Although it’s an old card and not the staple it was some years ago, Everflowing Chalice is a classic mana rock because it scales with the game. You’ll usually cast this for 2 or 4 mana and be happy about it. But in some ramp or proliferate decks, sometimes you can do crazy stuff and have a Chalice with 5+ counters.

#5. Academy Manufactor

Many Commander decks these days generate Treasure, Clue, or Food tokens. Each time you create a Treasure, Academy Manufactor gives you a free Clue and Food token, and ditto for the other two tokens. Now let’s add token-doubling cards to the mix to get two of each instead. Get the idea? This is one of the few borderline $5 cards that I feel is safe to include because it should show up in more Commander precons.

#4. Expedition Map

Expedition Map is one of the best tools to find the land you want. Whether you just want to fix your mana, get a value land like Urza's Saga, find a creature land, or finish Urza Tron, this card has you covered. You can also use it to get combo or lock lands, like Strip Mine or Dakmor Salvage.

#3. Mystic Forge

A multi-format staple, Mystic Forge is an excellent card advantage engine if your deck is mainly colorless. If your commander relies on artifact, Eldrazi, or devoid spells, there’s no excuse not to run this card, and the combo potential is huge, too.

#2. Skullclamp

Skullclamp is a classic. This card is a mix between a card advantage engine and a sacrifice outlet. If you have any ways to create X/1 tokens, you won’t find a better rate than to pay 1 mana to draw two cards. As a token staple in EDH, this uncommon card keeps its $3-4 price even after being heavily reprinted.

#1. Lightning Greaves + Swiftfoot Boots

Almost every Commander deck in MTG wants to keep its commander alive, and these two equipment pieces help. Lightning Greaves gives haste and shroud, which isn’t ideal if you require hexproof, but at least the equip cost is free. Swiftfoot Boots is better with the hexproof but worse on the equip cost. In many EDH games, you’ll want to play one of these equipment and play your commander afterwards to create an immediate “shields-up” situation.

Wrap Up

Meteor Golem | Illustration by Lake Hurwitz

And that’s about it for colorless budget cards, folks. Of course, many budget cards have more expensive and better replacements, but here I'm trying to go the other way around and make your decks better for cheap.

This list could be much bigger, so if you want to help to increase it, please give us suggestions in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over in the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and until the next time!