The 30 Best Budget Green Cards in MTG Ranked

Garruk's Uprising | Illustration by Wisnu Tan

MTG becomes more and more expensive each month, and players usually are very careful about how much they spend on their cardboard. While not every card can be cheap, we can fill most of our deck with cards that cost $5 or less, and sometimes even less than a dollar, especially in casual formats like Commander or low-powered Cube.

Today, we’re looking at serviceable cards and even staples you can play in a variety of decks, from lowly commons and uncommons to bulk rare/mythics.

Let’s go!

What Are Budget Green Cards in MTG?

Beast Within | Illustration by Jesper Ejsing

Budget green cards are good to great cards with a green color identity under a set budget. These can be multi-format staples, and more often than not see play in Commander, at least in casual decks.

For this article, we’ve set the limit to $5 per card, but most cards in this list are under $1-2. It’s good that we’re talking about green since green EDH cards are often common ramp spells anyway, and sometimes a strong, expensive bulk rare will get the job done. 

#30. Unnatural Growth

Green usually provides beefy creatures, but what if you could double their power and toughness in combat? Unnatural Growth fits in decks that care about just power or toughness, and it provides a nice devotion bump if you’re into that as well.

#29. Tamiyo’s Safekeeping

Green has many combat tricks that grant hexproof for 1 mana, but Tamiyo's Safekeeping is nice because it applies to any permanent. 1 mana to protect a key card from spot removal or wraths is good, and the extra 2 life can enable lifegain synergies. Snakeskin Veil is also a good option if you’re leaning more into +1/+1 counters.

#28. Realmwalker

Realmwalker has an excellent cost-to-benefit if your deck is heavy on creatures with the same creature type, as a good changeling creature that provides card advantage. Considering the color green alone, this card often fits elf decks, but you could put it into spider decks, insect decks, and even unsupported typal decks as a shapeshifter reinforcement. 

#27. Ghalta, Primal Hunger

Ghalta, Primal Hunger is one of the quickest ways to put stats on the board. It’s an awesome payoff for having big creatures in play, even if they don’t have trample or other forms of evasion. It works very well with cards like Xenagos, God of Revels, allowing you to hit with a 24/24 trample and haste creature.

#26. Apex Devastator

Yes, Apex Devastator costs 10 mana. But it’s still one green’s strongest ramp targets thanks to the insane amount of value you can get by cascading four times. If you’re playing some Commander deck like Averna, the Chaos Bloom, which profits from all the cascading, it’s even better.

#25. Avenger of Zendikar

Avenger of Zendikar provides so many bodies, and it’s still good as an “army in a can” card. It’s hard to answer a card like this cleanly, and, once your plant creatures start to grow, your opponents are pretty much done for. On some Commander boards, you’ll make 10+ plants in no time.

#24. Harmonize

Draw three cards in green for 4 mana, no questions or synergies asked, is a strong card draw spell. These days, green decks have better ways to draw cards using their creatures and commanders, so Harmonize isn’t exceptional anymore, so play it in slow decks that can afford a 4-mana, do-nothing sorcery. 

#23. Hardened Scales

Hardened Scales is a green +1/+1 counter staple in many formats. Considering that many green Commander decks have some synergy with +1/+1 counters, this 1-mana card is an easy inclusion, especially if your commander deals with counters. It's also a very common reprint these days. 

#22. Ramunap Excavator

Ramunap Excavator is the classic Crucible of Worlds effect on a creature. It’s a commonly played rare card in many decks, so it has a higher price tag, but it’s often reprinted in EDH precons to keep its price reasonable.

#21. Reclamation Sage

Reclamation Sage is the classic ETB creature that nukes an artifact or enchantment, besides being an elf, which is one of the main creature types in MTG. A staple in elf or flicker decks, or in decks like Muldrotha, the Gravetide, where it’s a Naturalize you can cast from your graveyard.

#20. Return of the Wildspeaker

Not only is Return of the Wildspeaker instant speed, but this card has two different modes, one being a card draw spell and the other being a mass pump. You should play Return of the Wildspeaker whenever you’re going wild with non-humans, or you have creatures with generally high power, like a commander, to draw some extra cards.

#19. Inspiring Call

Inspiring Call is exactly what decks with +1/+1 counter synergies want. If you have three cards with counters, and your opponent wraths the board, this will draw you three cards and protect them all from certain doom. Heavy-played commanders like Voja, Jaws of the Conclave or The Wise Mothman can put +1/+1 counters on each creature you control, so Inspiring Call is perfect in those decks.

#18. Sakura-Tribe Elder

Sakura-Tribe Elder is a unique creature as it can be sacrificed to search for a land without the need to tap, so the ability's unaffected by summoning sickness. It’s a common pattern to have it block, and after blocks, you sacrifice it to get a land while soaking up some damage. It’s a nice target for recursion, too.

#17. Garruk’s Uprising

Garruk's Uprising is a strong card in any big creature deck in EDH. If your commander has 4 power, this card is already worth adding because you get a card and trample for free on your commander. Not to mention the bonuses you’ll get from creatures that will enter the battlefield later.

#16. Explore

Explore is a cantrip/ramp spell. It’s so simple and yet so effective, in part because green doesn’t have many cantrips. The floor on this card is to draw another one, and in your opening hand, it will often work as ramp. Plus, when you don’t have a land to play, you can try to find one with this card.

#15. Utopia Sprawl

Utopia Sprawl is a staple mana fixer in decks that play multiple colors. You’ll produce a land that generates an additional color of mana, and with land untappers like Arbor Elf, you can produce four mana in a given turn. This little combo sees play in many formats, from Modern to EDH.

#14. Eternal Witness

Eternal Witness is your classic recursion creature. So many combos are possible when you loop this with key cards in your graveyard. The simplest interaction is to blink it with a card like Ghostly Flicker, so you can get it back and do it again later. What makes this card so powerful is that, unlike your typical Archaeomancer or Gravedigger, Eternal Witness gets any card back.

#13. Pick Your Poison

Pick Your Poison makes your opponents sacrifice their Signets, Talismans, or Sol Ring as early as turn 1. This card is very potent for just 1 mana; although it’s best in EDH, where you have more players to sacrifice cards, this card can see play in 1v1 Eternal formats, too. 

#12. Beast Whisperer

Draw all the cards! Slap a Glimpse of Nature onto a creature and see the magic happen. Beast Whisperer is a very important card in decks that play many creature spells, usually elf decks. It’s good redundancy for Chulane, Teller of Tales’s ability too. The constant reprints in Commander precons keep the price tag in check. 

#11. Scute Swarm

Scute Swarm gets out of control very fast. It’s trivial to have six or more lands in green EDH decks, and, when you’re creating more copies of Scute Swarm, you get creatures at an exponential rate. This card is known to crash MTG Arena from time to time.

#10. Evolution Sage

Evolution Sage allows us to proliferate a lot, considering the multiple ways to trigger landfall. We can use fetch lands, cards like Cultivate, or more elaborate ways like Splendid Reclamation. If your deck has any +1/+1 component, planeswalkers, or weird charge counter synergies, consider this card.

#9. Tireless Provisioner

Although Tireless Provisioner is a landfall card, it’s worth adding to any deck that has synergies with artifacts, Food, and Treasure. Or token synergies in general. Or decks that can sacrifice permanents for value. Or, you know, just green ramp decks. And lifegain… I could go on, but you get the idea. An incredibly flexible card, your deck is usually a little better with Tireless Provisioner around. 

#8. Toski, Bearer of Secrets

Toski, Bearer of Secrets adds saboteur “draw a card” ability to all your creatures, making it a competent commander and a fine addition to green decks that go wide, including elf decks, saproling decks, squirrel decks, and the like. It’s also indestructible and thus hard to deal with. 

#7. Rampant Growth + Farseek

The classic 2-mana ramp cards, green decks thrive on getting their lands into play quickly. These cards can be used to trigger landfall, fix your mana, and so much more. I’m putting Rampant Growth and Farseek together even though they’re slightly different cards, but the basic idea is the same.

#6. Oracle of Mul Daya

Oracle of Mul Daya combines several strong abilities, like playing lands from the top of your library and spotting you an extra land each turn, with a card price that’s almost at the top of what I’d consider budget. It’s fragile as a 2/2 for 4 mana, but it gets the job done.

#5. Llanowar Elves + Elvish Mystic

The quintessential green mana elf, Llanowar Elves, Elvish Mystic, or other 1-mana dorks are staple green cards across multiple formats. While people often play Noble Hierarch or Delighted Halfling in formats like Modern, those are well beyond our budget, not to mention the green color identity. Formats like Standard can play this card, and for EDH, you can count on a variety of 1-drop mana dorks.

#4. Beast Within

Beast Within is a staple green removal spell for EDH. It fills a big gap in green decks as a Vindicate effect. Leaving your opponents a 3/3 is always better than what you’ve destroyed with this card, and green decks should be well-equipped to deal with 3/3 creatures anyway.

#3. Cultivate + Kodama’s Reach

Cultivate and Kodama's Reach are almost synonymous with the Commander format. For 3 mana, you get a basic land on the battlefield and another in your hand, fixing your mana and giving you some ramp and card advantage. It’s slow in 1v1 formats, but in slower formats where you can take some time to set up your board, these two are king.   

#2. Veil of Summer

On the limit of what I consider budget, Veil of Summer is a green card played across multiple formats, be it on the main deck or sideboard. The ability to protect a spell or creature from interaction and still draw a card is very strong, and for only 1 mana. You can also use it as a “Negate + draw” if you need to resolve a key spell.

#1. Chord of Calling

Creature tutors are very powerful and often very expensive. Chord of Calling is the backbone of many creature combo decks since it finds a creature at instant speed and puts it directly into play while using your creatures to convoke the spell. This card is at the price ceiling for this list, although it’s been printed a lot and probably won’t spike in price that much. Its best use is to tutor for small creatures like Vizier of Remedies or Viscera Seer, but you can search for a Craterhoof Behemoth with enough mana and creatures.

Wrap Up

Utopia Sprawl | Illustration by Ron Spears

That concludes my take on budget green cards. As we can see, many green EDH decks play some of these cards, and as a singleton format, sometimes we need more redundancy of the same effect.

I’ve limited the list to 30 entries, so there are many more cheap cards to consider, though I’ve tried to cover as much ground as possible. I’m sure many of your favorites didn’t make it, so please leave us a comment down below, or let’s discuss it over Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and until the next time.