The 48 Best Budget Protection Spells in Magic Ranked

Flare of Fortitude | Illustration by Kev Fang

Magic cards can be ludicrously expensive for slips of cardboard. Not everybody can get every card, especially the super pricey chase cards that are staples for one reason or another. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build strong decks on a budget.

Magic has so many cheap gems everybody’s forgotten about. Today, I’m trawling through the bulk bin at the LGS to uncover the best budget protection spells I can.

What Are Budget Protection Spells in Magic?

Shelter | Illustration by Christopher Moeller

Budget protection spells are cards that defend your creatures and other permanents from opposing cards while costing less than $5–often quite a bit less. To be clear, I’m talking about protection as a general slang term, not just the literal mechanic; cards that give abilities like shroud, hexproof, indestructible, and, yes, protection, are all viable. If it prevents or impedes your opponent from removing your stuff, I considered it.

One note: If the card has at least one printing that costs less than $5, I’ve added it; some of these cards have multiple printings with varying prices, so you might need to check a few versions. All my prices are from TCGplayer as of May 2025.

#48. Archetype of Endurance – $1.69

Archetype of Endurance has fallen off in recent years as threats become more powerful and 8 mana goes further and further (compare this to Nyxbloom Ancient!) but it works as protection for a battlecruiser deck in a pinch.

#47. Dominaria’s Judgment – $0.15

Dominaria's Judgment is secretly a 5-color card as it effectively relies on having domain. I suppose it works fine in 3-color decks, but I want at least four colors before I’m excited to run this.

#46. Reality Ripple – $0.27

While there are more efficient versions of similar effects, Reality Ripple is still fine. It protects you from anything, and sometimes that’s all you need.

#45. Lazotep Plating – $0.38

Lazotep Plating provides a handy burst of protection for zombie, token, and sacrifice decks all in one; those are enough synergies to make it interesting, though I wouldn’t play it without something to make the Zombie Army more impactful.

#44. Ranger’s Guile – $0.06 + Snakeskin Veil – $0.04

If you’re messing around with +1/+1 counter synergies or otherwise care about modifying creatures, Snakeskin Veil and Ranger's Guile are fine budget protection spells that save your creatures from spot removal and the odd damage-based sweeper.

#43. Glory – $0.20

Glory takes a fair amount of work to set up since it needs to hit the graveyard in a color that’s not known for self-mill or self-discard, and it can be costly. But it’s really hard for your opponents to interact with Glory, and you can use it as often as you like.

#42. Join Shields – $0.09

Join Shields is fairly expensive as far as protection spells go, but the untap clause eats the occasional attacker, and you can’t beat countering a board wipe for less than $0.10.

#41. Village Elder – $0.14

Village Elder offers cheap, repeatable regeneration shields, though it comes with the significant cost of sacrificing a forest. You can offset that with cards like Titania, Protector of Argoth and Titania, Nature's Force that exploit lands sliding between zones.

#40. Welding Jar – $0.70

Though incredibly narrow, Welding Jar has seen plenty of Constructed play as a free source of protection. Try pairing it with recursive cards like Lurrus of the Dream-Den or Emry, Lurker of the Loch to keep your prized artifacts safe turn after turn.

#39. K-9, Mark I – $2.67

Ward comes awful close to being insignificant, but K-9, Mark I distributes it at a cheap enough cost with additional value that you can do something with this, presuming your deck has a high enough concentration of legendary creatures—which becomes easier and easier with each set dropping additional legends.

#38. Swarmyard – $4.13 + Accursed Duneyard – $1.53

Accursed Duneyard and Swarmyard protect a massive swathe of creature types between the two of them. Given the low opportunity cost of adding a land to your deck, you can safely play this in any deck with a commander that shares a type with their abilities, and of course typal decks.

#37. Brokers Confluence – $0.86

Brokers Confluence boasts incredible flexibility; while I imagine you often default to protecting three creatures, shutting down a valuable trigger like Craterhoof Behemoth or proliferating thrice to ultimate a planeswalker sounds pretty decent. Like a surprising number of budget protection cards, I’d keep this confluence to counters decks that really leverage the proliferate option.

#36. Celestial Armor – $0.05

Celestial Armor is a pretty cool protection spell since it leaves an evasive, power-boosting equipment behind. I probably wouldn’t run it without equipment synergies, but many aggressive strategies can leverage the strong power boost.

#35. King Darien XLVIII – $0.22

Token decks are particularly susceptible to board wipes, so dedicated protection like King Darien XLVIII provides a decent amount of value. Darien looks particularly promising since it does things other than protect your tokens thanks to the anthem and activated ability.

#34. Bronze Guardian – $3.07

Ward is just annoying enough to make Bronze Guardian a useful tool to make your opponents direct removal at something other than your creatures. It adds up nicely, too; your opponents might pay it once or twice, but they often run out of patience for mucking up their turns to interact with you.

#33. Surge of Salvation – $0.50

Surge of Salvation is rather strange; it provides hexproof, then additional defense against red and black spells. The hexproof lets you play it fairly safely, but I’d keep it out of my decks unless I need to regularly handle Fire Covenant and Ill-Timed Explosion and the like.

#32. Maximum Overdrive – $0.05

Black has no shortage of combat tricks that give a creature deathtouch and indestructible; they’re pretty versatile since you can blow your opponent out by trading up in combat, or you can stop random removal spells and board wipes from taking out your best creature. Maximum Overdrive is the best of them as it gives a +1/+1 counter in addition to its keywords.

#31. Jirina, Dauntless General – $0.22

You need a high concentration of humans to leverage Jirina, Dauntless General’s protection ability, but that’s hardly a challenge since humans appear in almost every Magic set. The added graveyard hate makes it a tiny bit more flexible, which I really appreciate.

#30. Crown of Awe – $0.18

Crown of Awe has some interesting play patterns. Slap it on a creature you need to slip past the Rakdos () deck up until somebody throws down a Blasphemous Act or similar wrath. It’s a shame that protection can’t save you from Damnation, but I like this.

#29. Emerge Unscathed – $0.22

Emerge Unscathed works nicely in aggressive decks since you can protect a threat from removal then use the rebound cast to let said threat punch through enemy lines.

#28. Brave the Elements – $0.33

Brave the Elements is a stellar card if you’re mono-white, or at least close to it; the more colors you add, the worse it gets. I appreciate the flexibility of saving your creatures from spot removal and damage-based wraths while enabling large attacks since protection messes with blockers.

#27. Angelic Intervention – $0.09

Angelic Intervention is an excellent combat trick for counter decks that offers additional protection from interaction. It’s strictly better than Feat of Resistance since it protects planeswalkers and lets you gain protection from artifacts, but you could probably play both if you want one.

#26. Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl – $0.62

Ward is a pretty significant cost that turns even the hyper-efficient Swords to Plowshares into a Limited-playable card that has no business showing up in Commander. It’s a shame that it comes attached to the 7-mana Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl because it stops you from accessing the protection super early, but it’s not like green decks struggle to play 7-drops before turn 7.

#25. Bulwark Ox – $0.23

Bulwark Ox works nicely with any +1/+1 counter synergies. Counters are a common enough boon you might get away with playing this outside of dedicated synergy decks, especially since the mount‘s ability spreads counters around on its own.

#24. Shelter – $0.12

Shelter provides a quick, simple source of protection, literally. At worst, it cycles as long as you control a creature, which is fine value.

#23. Obsidian Acolyte – $0.45 + Crimson Acolyte – $0.61

Obsidian Acolyte and Crimson Acolyte are meta calls more than anything, but they offer strong tools in decks capable of tutoring small creatures and holding up a little mana.

#22. Samite Elder – $0.56

You need to be deep in a bowl of multicolor soup to really leverage Samite Elder, but repeated, team-wide protection that scales with your board is worth jumping through a few hoops for.

#21. Dauntless Escort – $0.23

There are cheaper options mana-wise, but Dauntless Escort is more affordable than Selfless Spirit while working with soldier synergies and cards like Elemental Bond that care about creatures having 3 power.

#20. Fanatical Devotion – $0.71

If you have sacrifice synergies, Fanatical Devotion should be on your radar. It’s not just protection—it’s a free sacrifice outlet! Once again, targeting any creature opens the door to political ploys, which you should always be aware of in EDH.

#19. Inspiring Call – $0.29

You need to be deep in +1/+1 counter synergies to leverage Inspiring Call, but the reward is exceptional: all the power of indestructible with a burst of card draw? This isn’t a budget option, it’s an archetypal stable.

#18. Duty Beyond Death – $0.24

A protection spell that doubles as a sacrifice outlet while distributing counters screams “synergy masterpiece.” Blowing out a removal spell while triggering your Midnight Reaper; turning a bad block into extra power; setting your board up to proliferate. It does many little things that culminate in it being a roleplaying powerhouse in the right (probably Abzan ()) list.

#17. Scuttling Sentinel – $0.14

Scuttling Sentinel interests me as a repeatable source of hexproof you can easily reset with Temur Sabertooth or flicker spells like Ghostly Flicker. Heck, a hexproof trick you can flicker each turn for counters seems fine with Thassa, Deep-Dwelling and the like.

#16. Valorous Stance – $0.07

What’s better than a protection spell? A flexible protection spell. Valorous Stance serves as budget protection and budget removal in one package, maximizing your options.

#15. Collective Resistance – $0.96

I’d appreciate Collective Resistance as a modal spell, but escalate kicks it up a notch; instead of choosing between the modes, you can have all of them! Saving a creature from removal and blowing up an artifact and/or enchantment provides clean card advantage. This spell notably targets any creature, not just yours, which adds a political mode for even more flexibility.

#14. Selfless Savior + Friends

• Selfless Savior – $0.23
• Benevolent Bodyguard – $0.28
• Alseid of Life's Bounty – $0.17
• Dauntless Bodyguard – $0.17

There are many variants on 1-mana white creatures that sacrifice themselves to protect a creature; I like Selfless Savior the best, but Benevolent Bodyguard, Alseid of Life's Bounty, and Dauntless Bodyguard are all reasonable options.

These play nicely in decks that care about death triggers (probably paired with black) or have strong recursive cards like Sun Titan and Abiding Grace that let you rinse and reuse them.

#13. Tyvar’s Stand – $0.96 + Tamiyo’s Safekeeping – $1.99

Tamiyo's Safekeeping is one of the most comprehensive protection spells in the game since it targets any permanents with pretty comprehensive protection between hexproof and indestructible.

Tyvar's Stand is similarly efficient, though less flexible. The X spell mode gives it additional teeth, and it provides the occasional surprise win since it adds an easy 8 damage to your swings in the late-game.

#12. Wail of the Nim – $0.22

Wail of the Nim stands out as a significant card on this list because black rarely gets protection from board wipes; its “protection” often involves feeding your board to cards like Yawgmoth, Thran Physician or punishing the wrath with Zulaport Cutthroat. That makes this a legitimately interesting color pie break in addition to being an affordable card choice.

#11. Golgari Charm – $0.74 + Wrap in Vigor – $1.12

Wrap in Vigor and Golgari Charm are very close alternatives to Heroic Intervention, particularly if you don’t have access to white for slightly more expensive spells like Make a Stand.

Golgari Charm is definitely the better of the two since it has three times as many options, but you won’t always have access to black, so you should keep both cards in mind.

#10. Your Temple Is Under Attack – $0.17

The flexibility of Your Temple Is Under Attack appeals to me. You can save your board or make a political friend for a little card advantage. There are a few other 3-mana options like Make a Stand and Unbreakable Formation that are worth considering.

#9. Teferi’s Veil – $0.47

Teferi's Veil provides incredible protection for aggressive decks. As long as your creatures survive combat, they phase out—protecting them from any and all sorcery-speed interaction, like board wipes.

#8. Slip Out the Back – $1.23

If you only care about protecting creatures, you can’t do much better than Slip Out the Back. And it’s another one that leaves behind a +1/+1 counter for some reason.

#7. Sejiri Shelter / Sejiri Glacier – $1.88

Sejiri Shelter will never be the flashiest spell in your deck, but bundling your protection with Sejiri Glacier makes your deck more flexible and consistent.

#6. Revitalizing Repast / Old-Growth Grove – $0.92

Revitalizing Repast goes in all my Golgari+ () decks, even without budget restrictions. MDFC lands provide stellar flexibility; getting a mana-fixing land or a protection spell in a single card is awesome in Commander since it’s great when drawn early or late.

#5. Pippin, Guard of the Citadel – $0.38

Is Pippin, Guard of the Citadel just Mother of Runes? No. But it does a damn good impression for less than a buck, and it’s a fine inclusion to any creature-based deck looking for a cheap, early play.

#4. Divine Resilience – $0.14

I deeply appreciate Galadriel's Dismissal as a protection spell that flexes between spot protection and team-wide protection, but it’s one of the most expensive protection spells.

Divine Resilience fills the exact same slot, with the same mana costs, albeit at a slightly worse rate since indestructible is worse than phasing—but this is one of the better swaps on the list regardless.

#3. Guardian of Faith – $3.90

Guardian of Faith is another good protection spell that incidentally meets the budget restriction. Protecting all your other creatures from everything is pretty nice; it costs the same as Make a Stand and similar effects, with the added bonus that you can find this with Chord of Calling or reset it with reanimation and recursion effects.

#2. March of Swirling Mist – $2.09

Is March of Swirling Mist really less than $5? I looked this up expecting it to exceed the cost threshold.

Phasing is the best form of protection in the game; it saves you from combat, spot removal that damages or exiles, board wipes that destroy, deal damage, exile, and so on. MoSM protects one creature at an okay rate, two at a reasonable rate, and it only scales better from there. Since it hits any creature, you can also disrupt opposing combos (your Pestermite phases out before Splinter Twin resolves) or even save another player’s cards that you need to keep around—perhaps a Spirit of the Labyrinth keeping that Elemental Bond in check? Oh, and you don’t even need more than up if you have cards in hand to exile!

#1. Flare of Fortitude – $4.08

What’s better than low-cost protection? Free protection! Flare of Fortitude requires sacrificing a creature, but that’s a slim price to play to save the rest from the Wrath of God. Even better, this protects you by locking your life total in stone. What Moonshaker Cavalry?

Wrap Up

Join Shields | Illustration by Winona Nelson

Working within a budget doesn’t mean you have to deny yourself the tools of a functional Commander deck. These cards offer all the protection you could want without costing nearly as much as format staples like Teferi’s Protection/card].

What kind of a budget do you build around? Have you played any of these, or is there one I missed? Let me know in the comments below or in the Draftsim Discord!

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!