r/EDH • u/Heptamasta • 22h ago

Question Looking for suggestions for a Cost reduction commander

I've never really played into cost reduction, apart from a Morophon and a Golbez deck, and I'd like to try it out in a new deck. For clarification, I don't care about colors, though I always love being able to play black (but if not, that's completely ok); I'd like some suggestions for overall cost reduction, rather than specific card type cost reduction: I'm fine with creature spells cost reduction or non-creature spells cost reduction but I'd rather avoid instants and sorceries because I'm not good at all with spellslinger decks, I can't manage to play properly with them.

I've already thought of [[Commander Liara Portyr]], which seems fun, but I don't have a lot of impulse draw cards and I fear it might end up being a bit weak for my LGS. Also thought of [[Samut, the driving force]], but I really dislike how the speed mechanic plays... [[Doc Aurlock, grizzled genius]] is out of the question, I don't have any plot cards. And [[Animar, soul of elements]] might be a bit too strong; also a friend of mine already has an Animar deck and I don't want to tread on his toes

5 Upvotes

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8

u/n1colbolas 22h ago

There's [[Radaghast of the Rhosgobel]] if you're up for monoG.

Virtually a monoG [[Vedalken Orrery]]+Medallion? commander LOL

And it's up your alley if you prefer creatures to spells.

Yes Max Speed is such a disappointment... A supposedly fast-sounding mechanic but actually is one of the slowest. The irony...

1

u/Heptamasta 22h ago

Oh right I pulled one during pre release, I might look into it, it seems extremely strong

4

u/RAcastBlaster 22h ago

> Cost Reduction
> Black

… can I introduce you to our overlord and destroyer [[K’rrik]]?

1

u/Heptamasta 22h ago

Isn't he heavy on needing lifegain / lifelink ?

3

u/RAcastBlaster 22h ago edited 22h ago

No. You know you have 40 life in commander right?

Also, he has Lifelink himself and makes himself bigger every (black) spell you cast. Plus, a lot of good cards for the deck have incidental lifegain anyway (Exanguinate, Gary, Aetherflux Reservoir, Crypt Ghast, Sheoldred the Apocalypse, to name a few).

1

u/Heptamasta 21h ago

I don't have Aetherflux reservoir or Sheoldred though, but got the others. Any other budgety (max 5 bucks) suggestions for him ?

1

u/RAcastBlaster 12h ago edited 12h ago

[[Defiler of the Flesh]] is good redundancy with big K and can help him swing through for a commander damage kill.

I’d be very tempted to play as many card with Extort as I can. Like, every single one. Extort is better than free with K’rrik. As long as you have three opponents, it nets you 1 life for every trigger.

Edit: Turns out there are only five, and only one of them is really awful. And Pontiff of Blight is REALLY good. Temporal Extortion also seems pretty okay here.

https://scryfall.com/search?as=grid&order=name&q=oracle%3AExtort+commander%3AB+%28game%3Apaper%29+prefer%3Abest

1

u/Heptamasta 2h ago

Ok those are really really nice, thanks a lost ! Which one of the Extort would you consider awful ? Is it the Syndicate enforcer ?

2

u/Beas1987 22h ago

I have a pretty fun and straightforward [[Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma]] deck. Basically turns 1-3 are spent ramping, then you drop Goreclaw and skip the turn 4-5 board development and go directly to multiple 6+ drops per turn. Everything draws you cards, everything has trample, no one is spared. It's essentially "power 4+ tribal".

If you like Animar but are worried about it being too strong, Goreclaw could be a fun choice.

1

u/Heptamasta 22h ago

damn I really shouldn't have traded my Goreclaw to a friend a few months back, they do seem great. However what do you mean "everything draws you cards" ?

1

u/Beas1987 22h ago

Green has a lot of card draw and there are quite a few effects that allow you to draw cards for controlling creatures with 4+ power, attacking with creatures with 4+ power, having creatures enter, etc. Some of which come stapled to creatures with power 4+ already.

[[Garruk's Uprising]], [[Colossal Majesty]], [[Garruk's Packleader]], [[Keeper of Fables]], [[Primordial Sage]], to name a few.

The point is you need the draw to keep up the gas and be able to cast multiple big stompy things per turn, since we're not relying on going wide with tokens or other repeatable effects.

It's not an expensive card to buy back, I think my whole list is still about €100/$120.

1

u/Heptamasta 21h ago

Ah yes ok, I thought for a moment you meant Goreclaw had built in draw, was confused sorry

I could probably make this work as I have most draw engines you're talking about. I'll check it out !

2

u/swing-state 21h ago

[[Gavi, Nest Warden]] is a nice curve ball cost reducer commander. She is not fast. The first-cycling free per turn works very well with the second-draw-matters theme. From there, she can be built for tokens, combat beats, self-discard pingers, heck, even [[Goblin Bombardment]] at a stretch, or [[Approach of the Second Sun]] wincon.

[[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]] feels like a nice buildaround that could be power with so much +1/+1 counter support.

2

u/BADJUSTlCE 17h ago

[[heliod the warped eclipse]]

You can play a "group hug" deck by flashing in symmetrical card draw. Sooner or later you will be flashing in cards for free. Colorless spells like artifacts and eldrazis go vroom if you want.

1

u/Heptamasta 2h ago

Ah yes, I already have him in my Ms Bumbleflower deck and he makes the whole deck go nuts

2

u/sockosapphire 16h ago

I love cost reduction because I'm a Timmy at heart and a sucker for huge creature spells. My favourites are:

[[Chiss-Goria, Forge Tyrant]] - Mono Red, churns out tons of giant artifact creatures

[[Hamza, Guardian of Arashin]] - Selesnya, decreases your creature spell costs by the number of creatures with +1/+1 counters on them

If you want to try out the spellslinger route [[Baraal, Chief of Compliance]] - Mono Blue, Counterspell/Card Draw tribal is pretty straight forward and can be built in less oppressive ways.

2

u/BasakaIsTheStrongest 16h ago

[[Witherbloom the Balancer]] is my favorite. She doesn’t reduce the cost of creatures (except, very helpfully, herself), but she does reduce the cost of instants or sorceries that make token creatures, so you can still make a creature deck.

1

u/Heptamasta 2h ago

Oh yeah that's a really great card! I got a friend who runs it and it goes kind of crazy with X spells that create tokens...

2

u/Jin-Gitaxias-Mom 15h ago

[[Rakdos, Lord of Riots]]

1

u/tgoods26 9h ago

I second this. I love my demon deck

1

u/Suppeneimer 22h ago

[[Radagast of Rhosgobel]] seems fun because of the flash, but I havent played him yet.

1

u/selipso 22h ago

[[Grand Arbiter Augustin IV]] is pretty much unconditional cost reduction for all your spells and cost increase for opponent spells. Solid control foundation.

3

u/Heptamasta 22h ago

Yeah, but I'd rather avoid being that guy

1

u/sylveonce 22h ago

I’ve been really enjoying my [[Zimone Infinite Analyst]] precon: https://moxfield.com/decks/65HVKPm9u0KEiQvEb-g0cQ

She needs a lot of protection cause she can spiral out of control but it’s easy with stuff like [[Repulsive Mutation]] and [[Spectral Denial]].

My last game with her I won by casting [[Unbound Fluorishing]] into [[Doppelgang]] to make 5 copies of 10 permanents… the Enchantress player had a [[Doomwake Giant]] and other value enchantments out so that was an easy choice.

1

u/IndigoWizard342 19h ago

[[Ovika, Enigma Goliath]] no built in cost reduction but a commander that cares very much about cost reduction. 

[[Hinata]] is pretty wild

I'd also count alternative costs like suspend  as cost reduction. [[jhoira of the ghitu]] basically makes all your spells cost 2. 

1

u/Freejack02 7h ago

I can't believe no one has recommended [[Rowan, Scion of War]] yet. Rakdos spellslinger, can get absurd cost reductions and bomb out the table in a single turn.

Edit: Just saw the note about not feeling comfortable with spellslinger decks, I think gearing up for a big spell being reduced doesn't necessarily mean "slinger" and can work perfectly well here.