How Much Does the Average Magic Deck Cost? [8 Formats Analyzed]

Last updated on November 19, 2025

Mighty Leap | Illustration by Winona Nelson

Magic is a game with a lot of different formats, each with their own distinct power levels and format identities. Due to the wildly varying power levels across these formats, the average price of a Magic deck can depend heavily on the type of Magic you’re interested in. While there are a lot of factors that go into picking which Magic formats are for you, one of the biggest is price.

How Much Does a Magic Deck Cost?

Worthy Cost | Illustration by Andrew Mar

A Magic deck can be as cheap as $20 or as expensive as $50,000. This depends heavily on which MTG format you want to play, how old the cards are, and how competitive the deck is.

For perspective, the difference between the cheapest Standard deck in the meta and the cheapest Legacy deck in the meta is roughly $2,000. When you jump from Legacy to Vintage, it's a $10,000 difference. 

So, how much does a Magic deck cost? We’re going to answer that complicated question by taking a look at Magic’s different formats, the decks that see play, and how much of your well-earned money these piles of cardboard will run you. 

All dollar-value and ticket-value prices in this article are sourced from MTGGoldfish as of October 9, 2025….September 20, 2024.

Before we get into it, I want to bring up Magic: The Gathering Online and Magic: The Gathering Arena. The economy on the Magic videogames is a bit different.

Magic Online

In Magic Online, like in paper, each card has a monetary value. Instead of a direct dollar value, they’re valued in “tickets” (often called “tix”). One ticket is worth $1, so in a roundabout way it is a dollar value. Cards tend to be cheaper on Magic Online than the tabletop versions. A lot of competitive Magic is played on Magic Online, so if the older and more expensive formats appeal to you, Magic Online could be significantly more accessible. Don’t worry, I’ll cover this based on format when it’s relevant, too.

Magic Arena

Magic Arena's economy is an entirely different beast. The value of cards on Arena is determined by their rarity on the client, meaning that Tezzeret, Cruel Captain, one of the more powerful planeswalkers and mythics on Arena, has an identical value to a card like Kylox's Voltstrider, another mythic that sees absolutely no play in any formats. This means that a “budget” deck on Arena is given that distinction based on the number of rares and mythics, rather than any card prices. This means that even if a deck is “cheap” in paper, it might be a lot less budget-friendly on Magic Arena.

I’ll be covering the wildcard costs of decks in formats that are played on Arena, too. For reference, you can spend $20 to get four mythic wildcards through the Arena store or $10 for four rare wildcards. Though you do earn wildcards slowly as you open Arena packs. Common and uncommon wildcards aren’t even slightly as scarce, though. By the nature of the Arena economy’s design, it’s not very reliable to convert from dollars to wildcards directly, so the “prices” of decks on Arena are best determined by wildcards needed.

How Much Does a Commander Deck Cost?

A Commander deck can cost as little as $20. Commander, unlike other formats, is a casual format. Other formats prices, like Standard or Modern, are driven by tournament results and the competitive players who want to win as much as possible. Commander’s prices are determined in full by your budget. Most pre-constructed EDH decks range from $20-80. If you aren’t interested in competitive Magic and just want to play for fun regardless of budget, Commander is perfect – there’s a reason it’s the most popular paper format.

How Much Does a Standard Deck Cost?

The average price of a Standard deck is about $288. To play Standard, expect to spend roughly $230-600. Here’s a breakdown of the prices of 10 Standard of the best decks right now – for every deck I'll list its price in dollars (tabletop), tix (MTGO) and wildcards (MTGA):

• Izzet Cauldron $652 [MTGO: 723 Tix][MTGA: 12 Mythic, 32 Rare, 13 Uncommon, 18 Common]
• Selesnya Kona $588 [MTGO: 81 Tix][MTGA: 25 Mythic, 30 Rare, 7 Uncommon, 13 Common]
• Simic Omniscience $559 [MTGO: 470 Tix][MTGA: 19 Mythic, 24 Rare, 10 Uncommon, 22 Common]
• Selesnya Gearhulk $430 [MTGO: 129 Tix][MTGA: 15 Mythic, 36 Rare, 9 Uncommon, 15 Common]
• Azorius Control $383 [MTGO: 88 Tix][MTGA: 7 Mythic, 40 Rare, 15 Uncommon, 13 Common]
• Orzhov Self-Bounce $325 [MTGO: 59 Tix][MTGA: 8 Mythic, 36 Rare, 20 Uncommon, 11 Common]
• Mono-Red Aggro $284 [MTGO: 49 Tix][MTGA: 6 Mythic, 35 Rare, 10 Uncommon, 24 Common]
• Dimir Midrange $275 [MTGO: 63 Tix][MTGA: 4 Mythic, 36 Rare, 19 Uncommon, 16 Common]
• Temur Battlecrier Combo $247 [MTGO: 80 Tix][MTGA: 7 Mythic, 40 Rare, 16 Uncommon, 12 Common]
• Boros Mice $230 [MTGO: 46 Tix][MTGA: 4 Mythic, 37 Rare, 20 Uncommon, 14 Common]

As you can see, the prices of these decks can vary a lot depending on whether you’re playing in paper, on Magic Online, or Arena. Notably the $20+ card Screaming Nemesis is a must in nearly all decks with red. Whereas Consult the Star Charts is used in many blue builds, but can be found for $4-5.

If you’re looking for a budget option in paper or on Arena, it’s hard to go wrong with Mono Red. Since it’s a mono-colored deck, those Arena wildcards don’t have to go towards lands, which is nice.

Another note is that Magic Arena has pre-constructed Standard decks designed for Best-of-One play, so they don’t contain sideboards.

How Much Does a Pioneer Deck Cost?

The average Pioneer deck costs around $240. If you want to play Pioneer on paper in the current meta, plan to spend between $150 and $500. Pioneer had a big shake-up with the ban of Sorin, Imperious Bloodlord and Amalia Benavides Aguirre. The format looks a lot different and continues to forge into new territory:

• Rakdos Midrange $519 [MTGO: 75 Tix][MTGA: 11 Mythic, 41 Rare, 11 Uncommon, 12 Common]
• Hidden Strings $312 [MTGO: 53 Tix][MTGA: 6 Mythic, 48 Rare, 16 Uncommon, 5 Common]
• Azorius Control $263 [MTGO: 56 Tix][MTGA: 10 Mythic, 48 Rare, 25 Uncommon, 12 Common]
• Mono-Red Aggro $230 [MTGO: 52 Tix][MTGA: 4 Mythic, 23 Rare, 24 Uncommon, 24 Common]
• Izzet Phoenix $206 [MTGO: 101 Tix][MTGA: 5 Mythic, 29 Rare, 15 Uncommon, 26 Common]
• Gruul Prowess $180 [MTGO: 62 Tix][MTGA: 3 Mythic, 31 Rare, 31 Uncommon, 10 Common]
• Orzhov Greasefang $192 [MTGO: 44 Tix][MTGA: 5 Mythic, 43 Rare, 22 Uncommon, 5 Common]
• Azorius Flash $180 [MTGO: 34 Tix][MTGA: 2 Mythic, 56 Rare, 12 Uncommon, 5 Common]
• Selesnya Angels $170 [MTGO: 25 Tix][MTGA: 6 Mythic, 51 Rare, 6 Uncommon, 12 Common]
• Boros Convoke $153 [MTGO: 25 Tix][MTGA: 4 Mythic, 36 Rare, 16 Uncommon, 18 Common]

It’s important to note that Pioneer is available on Arena. The now-retired Explorer – was Arena’s version of Pioneer before virtually all the cards played on paper and Arena became equivalent.

Pioneer is the first format where your mana base and lands eat up a large chunk of the budget. Izzet Phoenix spends over $100 on its lands. Hidden Strings spends about $200 on fixing the mana for a 3-color base.

Other expensive cards include Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, with full playsets in Rakdos Midrange and Jund Sacrifice. Azorius Control runs some expensive planeswalkers in Teferi, Hero of Dominaria and The Wandering Emperor.

For the budget-minded, Gruul Aggro is the easiest deck in the format to recommend, but Boros Convoke can definitely be built on a budget, too.

How Much Does a Modern Deck Cost?

The average Modern deck costs $700 or 380 Tix. Unless you’re interested in Ruby Storm, you can spend anywhere from $400-$1,300 to compete within the Modern meta. The addition of Modern Horizons 3 and the subsequent banning in Modern of The One Ring, Nadu, Winged Wisdom and Grief gave the format a nice mix of new and old decks. Here’s the breakdown:

• Izzet Affinity $1,318 [MTGO: 396 Tix]
• Esper Goryo's $907 [MTGO: 1,002 Tix]
• Boros Energy $791 [MTGO: 250 Tix]
• Amulet Titan $788 [MTGO: 206 Tix]
• Domain Zoo $638 [MTGO: 328 Tix]
• Azorius Control $604 [MTGO: 381 Tix]
• Belcher $591 [MTGO: 520 Tix]
• Neobrand $511 [MTGO: 212 Tix]
• Eldrazi Tron $429 [MTGO: 422 Tix]
• Ruby Storm $432 [MTGO: 82 Tix]

Modern is a format filled with powerful cards from premium Magic sets, and the prices of the decks reflect that pretty clearly. Modern is the first format we’re covering that contains fetch lands, which pull the price up on most of the decks.

The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth had a defining impact on Modern – The One Ring was eerily persistent until it got banned. The black decks play four Orcish Bowmasters, which hovers above $30. Modern Horizons 3 also contributed heavily to the prices of the energy decks, as the $30+ range includes Ocelot Pride, Ugin's Labyrinth for the big-mana Eldrazi deck, and a little card named Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer.

It’s hard to build Modern on a budget, since so many of the decks are completely defined by such expensive cards. If you want to play within the Modern meta on a budget, look to Ruby Storm, though similarly-priced decks exist just under the top-tier decks. Decks revolving around Hollow One perform solidly on Magic Online at a similar price point to Ruby Storm.

How Much Does a Legacy Deck Cost?

The average Legacy deck costs $3,263 or 545 Tix. To play Legacy in paper, it’ll likely fall somewhere between $2,000-5,000. Legacy, like Modern, has bans on some of the most powerful cards in Magic. Let’s take a look at 10 of the top decks in the meta:

• Dimir Reanimator $4,961 [MTGO: 669 Tix]
• Red Stompy $3,438 [MTGO: 508 Tix]
• Mystic Forge Combo $4,619 [MTGO: 616 Tix]
• Izzet Delver $3,692 [MTGO: 526 Tix]
• Eldrazi $2,831 [MTGO: 425 Tix]
• Cephalid Breakfast $2,891 [MTGO: 484 Tix]
• Sneak and Show $4,141 [MTGO: 442 Tix]
• Jeskai Control $2,289 [MTGO: 568 Tix]
• Oops! All Spells $1,521 [MTGO: 261 Tix]
• Painter $2,253 [MTGO: 953 Tix]

Modern Horizons 3 had a pretty big effect on Legacy, with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student and especially Psychic Frog making blue-black the colors to beat. Legacy has no shortage of expensive cards, as the deck prices indicate. This is a format that includes cards from the Reserved List, so the original dual lands like Underground Sea are a big price factor for these decks.

Near the $60 range, Force of Will and Force of Negation are pricey pieces of interaction. Orcish Bowmasters is especially good when it’s punishing Brainstorm, so it’s all over the place in Legacy, too.

Legacy is not a great format for those with budget concerns. Magic Online makes playing Legacy much more reasonable, though, as the Reserved List doesn’t affect digital cards – Underground Sea is over $800 in paper, but only 16 Tix in the Magic Online economy, so $16. 

How Much Does a Pauper Deck Cost?

The average Pauper deck costs $74 or 120 Tix. In the current meta, you’ll likely be spending $50-100 for a deck. Only cards printed at common rarity are legal in Pauper, so it’s an inherently budget-friendly format.

• Grixis Affinity $116 [MTGO: 218 Tix]
• Spy Combo $98 [MTGO: 86 Tix]
• High Tide Combo $87 [MTGO: 124 Tix]
• Jund Glee Combo $84 [MTGO: 110 Tix]
• Mono-Blue Terror $75 [MTGO: 169 Tix]
• Rakdos Madness $66 [MTGO: 112 Tix]
• Familiars $62 [MTGO: 102 Tix]
• Mono-Red Aggro $58 [MTGO: 74 Tix]
• Black Sacrifice $49 [MTGO: 115 Tix]
• Elves $44 [MTGO: 92 Tix]

The only Eternal format without commas in its deck prices, Pauper is the format for the budget-minded Magic player. Commons don’t tend to be expensive, but they can be quite powerful! If you want to cast your Brainstorm without paying Legacy prices, you’ll enjoy Pauper.

As far as expensive cards go, there isn’t a ton to talk about. Pyroblast is a favorite sideboard answer in the right matchups. Mental Note is played in blue alongside faeries and both are around $5 per copy, and those are among the most expensive cards played in the format.

Interestingly, most of the Pauper decks are more expensive on Magic Online. This may be because Magic Online is where the majority of competitive Pauper is played, so there may be more demand for the format on the online platform than in paper.

What’s the Most Expensive Format?

The most expensive Magic format is Vintage, where the average deck costs about $41,000 or 411 Tix. To build a paper Vintage deck (good luck!), you’ll need anywhere between $10,000 and $65,000. No cards are banned in Vintage, so these decks contain copies of even the rarest, most-expensive cards in Magic History. The breakdown is as follows:

• Jewel Shops: $60,749 [MTGO: 482 Tix]
• Dimir Lurrus Control: $52,726 [MTGO: 557 Tix]
• Sphere Shops: $52,238 [MTGO: 389 Tix]
• Lurrus PO: $48,980 [MTGO: 491 Tix]
• Sultai Midrange: $48,813 [MTGO: 498 Tix]
• Oath of Druids: $45,390 [MTGO: 495 Tix]
• Doomsday: $42,805 [MTGO: 416 Tix]
• Mono-White Initiative: $37,054 [MTGO: 321 Tix]
• Counter Vine: $11,257 [MTGO: 287 Tix]
• Dredge: $10,070 [MTGO: 176 Tix]

Vintage is as close as Magic comes to no-holds-barred, with nearly every single card in Magic’s history allowed. Not only are those original dual lands expected, but most decks include copies of the most infamously strong cards in the game: the Power Nine. A Black Lotus runs you nearly $20,000, so if you play Vintage, chances are you started collecting in 1993, are a celebrity, or saved up your Magic Online Tix.

Dredge, the most popular deck in the format, is also among the cheapest decks in the greater Vintage meta: It doesn’t use lands to cast spells. $9,100 of the deck’s $10K price tag is locked up in four copies of Bazaar of Baghdad which helps fuel the deck’s graveyard strategy. 

Historic & Timeless

Historic and Timeless are digital-only formats exclusive to MTG Arena. They’re higher-power formats with the addition of digital-only cards. Since they’re only on Magic Arena, there’s less format data available for them. Some of Historic’s highest-level tournament data is from the Historic Arena Championship in July 2024, before digital-only balance changes were made to Ocelot Pride, Guide of Souls, and Galvanic Discharge, which absolutely dominated the entire field.

Just know that if you want to play either of these formats at a high level, you’ll need to spend a lot of rare and mythic wildcards. Historic has similar mana bases to Pioneer, and Timeless has the additional expense of fetch lands, not to mention all the powerful nonland cards in both formats.

Deck Prices in Constructed vs Limited

The playing field is fully level in Limited since each player puts in the same amount to play. In Constructed on the other hand, there are sometimes significant gaps in how much players spent on their cards. If you don’t like the idea of spending a lot of money on a Magic deck, but the purely casual nature of Commander doesn’t speak to you, there’s a good chance you’ll like Limited.

In Limited events, you open play boosters or draft boosters and build decks on the spot. Everyone starts with the same value in packs even though the cards are randomized and will not end up equivalent, but rather each player builds a deck the same way, either through a draft or opening up a Sealed set of six packs.

In Constructed, you buy cards and build decks from what you own. There are entry costs to both Constructed and Limited, and it’ll cost more to participate in Limited events. But you don’t need to have invested in the format before you walk in the door, so the overall barrier-to-entry is much lower in Limited. 

How to Check the Price of a Deck

To check the price of a deck you find on Draftsim, go to the handy “Buy this Deck” button with the shopping cart. It’ll put the whole decklist in a TCGplayer shopping cart for you!

To price other decks, like the ones in this article or the ones you build yourself, let’s go through a rundown of how to use the MTGGoldfish deck pricing tool.

Navigate to the Deck Pricer

In the navigation bar of MTGGoldfish, go to “Decks,” then “Price a Deck.”

Enter Your Decklist

Once you’re on the deck pricer, paste your decklist into the white box.

Hit “Submit” after your decklist is entered.

Voilà! Your deck has been priced in dollars, tix, and you have a rarity breakdown for MTG Arena.

Wrap Up

Finale of Devastation | Illustration by Bayard Wu

Magic can be an expensive game, so I hope that this breakdown helped you find a format that fits in your price range! If you’ve got less to invest in the game, I suggest you play Standard. Especially if you build an aggro deck, it’s the lowest barrier-of-entry to the incredible world of Constructed Magic.

What’s your format of choice? What’s your favorite budget deck to play in it? If budget weren’t a concern, what’s the first deck you’d build? Let us know in the comments or on the Draftsim Discord.

Thank you for reading, and stay safe!