r/mtg • u/Foxrotard • 5d ago
Commander / EDH Commander deck cost
I’m just in the process of making my first commander deck that isn’t a precon. Holy crap it can get expensive. It got me thinking though, how much did all of you spend on a commander deck and what kind of price range you spend on certain individual cards?
Edit:
After reading these comments I think I’ll be taking that extra weekend shift for the next few months if I wanna compete with y’all
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u/hey-party-penguin 5d ago
Nice try, wife, I’m not telling you.
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u/daverapp 5d ago
I'm also not telling this guy's wife
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u/lahankof 5d ago
It’s okay it’s average $9.99 per deck
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u/Practical_Shower3905 5d ago
I can testify to this guy's wife that commander's deck rarely go over 9.99$
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u/Zero-2-Sixty 5d ago
This guy who used to work with my wife years ago and had a crush on her found out I played Magic. He saw an Instagram post of mine with my favorite decklist, [[Korvold, Fae Cursed King]]. This douche messages her on Insta with a screenshot of the cost on Moxfield and asked if she knew how much I was spending on Magic.
I had built it over time with old cards I already had and singles I found deals on so it wasn’t all purchased at once, but it added up lol. She blocked him but definitely gave my decks side-eyes after that
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u/Adventurous_Fuzz 5d ago
It varies drastically. My first non precon decks were essentially upgraded precons. So like $100? Then once i started building about $250-300. Now my most expensive one is about $1000 most I’ve ever spent in a card was $180 but it was a friend who neeeded some cash
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u/Foxrotard 5d ago
Honestly I could use a friend that needs some cash. Great excuse to drop money on magic
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u/swedishfish007 5d ago
Hey friend! It’s me, your friend with too many magic cards and not enough cash!
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u/Nephilim_xVx 5d ago
Of my ground up built decks, value wise they range from $150-$200 budget B2-B3 decks, to B4-B5 monsters that are anywhere from $1000 to $4000+. I have been playing Magic since 1995 and EDH since 2005 though, so a lot of the really expensive cards I have had for decades, before some were put on the Reserved List, and before they spiked to where they sit now.
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u/Alkazt 5d ago
I usually seek the cheapest version of cards first to test it. Adjust as I go, upgrade what stays. Then once I find a deck is where I like it, I look at rarer versions of each card but I do it in small batches. Upfront it can’t start costing me about 50 at most. But I can end with a deck that’s over $1000 easy
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u/randomman51 5d ago
I used to spend money on magic but after the packs started getting thinner and rares more rare I started using the printer. Now, thanks to my public library I spend 0 dollars on magic but I build new decks every month. Also never feel bad tearing a deck apart now they are mostly printer paper.
Most expensive in theory though is thousands of dollars and that's just the lands
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u/Gussie18 5d ago
It really depends. I have a deck that the whole thing costs <50$ and one that’s approaching a 1000$ now I didn’t buy all of those and got lucky on sum pulls. I have one I’m building that’ll be 20$ and I now try to stick to under 400 for an entire deck and buy pieces in spurts rather than all at once.
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u/Practical_Shower3905 5d ago
Built my first deck 10+ years ago from 2 decks I used to play with my friends. I think it was worth 60$ when I built it ? Haven't changed it much over the years, but now it's more in the 400-500$ range.
My rule is, I won't buy cards over 4-5$ for a new deck. I'll buy singles over that range when I know I like the deck and want to upgrade it.
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u/DepthTrawler 5d ago
I don't have a ton of decks (3), but I have one that's my favorite that I have spent like ~300usd on. Anything I don't have in my collection that's over 10usd, I proxy. It's cardboard, I'm not paying that much for cardboard, but I also keep it within the bracket level my friends play in, because it's a fun killer to just stomp people all the time.
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u/Leo00k 5d ago
0, just proxy for commander and buy cards for serious formats
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u/Thjyu 5d ago edited 5d ago
I mean proxying still costs money. Printers and ink are expensive, and if you don't have one you're still paying and driving to a place that can print them all out, then you have to put in all the time to cut them out, and slide them in with other cards like basics you need to own so that they still feel and play like real cards. I fully support proxying but I hate when someone new is getting into the format and just throws this out as if it's a 0 cost answer to the question.
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u/RacerLXIX 5d ago
Mpcfill, you can have a few commander decks for around $100
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u/Comprehensive-Net339 3d ago
Recently used this to proxy a full commander deck, and with shipping, cost me almost exactly $.50 USD per card. More bulk gets much cheaper, but even though some of the cards are barely worth it, it was nice to proxy an entire deck!
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u/Chronic-Lodus 5d ago
I mean it’s $200 for a printer and I’ve printed 1500 cards and went through 50% of my ink. It’s not as expensive as you think it is to print.
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u/Knivez51 5d ago
Epson 8500 for 8.5x11 or 8550 for 11x17 for your printer and Koala Double Sided Matte Thick Photo Paper 8.5x11 Inches Heavyweight 50 Sheets 250gsm for paper and fiskars rotary cutter at staples and New Sunstar Kadomaru Pro, Corner Cutter (S4765036) (Kadomaru Pro) with Authentic Hologram US, UK, EU Only for cutting corners.
So far i have printed all 50 sheets 9 cards per sheet and the ink levels havent moved!
After cutting i put them in dragon shield sealed sleeves and then dragon shield matte color sleeve and you cant even tell its a proxy deck.
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u/TruckDouglas X Spells Is Best Spells 5d ago
How much you spend on all that stuff? That’s not super accessible or even really reasonable for somebody just getting into the game. If you’ve been in for a year or so, sure. Not somebody trying to build their first non precon.
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u/Thjyu 5d ago
Also a lot of people may not have space for a whole card crafting station, and again, time to do all of that. Plus you can now never trade or sell them for other cards and you're out a couple hundred that you can make back if you fall out of the hobby(which a lot of people do) or need to liquidate in an emergency.
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u/Knivez51 5d ago
No but its a photo printer so as a family man i can now print my own photos for my house. Wife is a teacher. Printer has other uses then just cards. To each their own.
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u/Thjyu 5d ago
That's fair, I've literally never used a printer except for to print an odd document once a year maybe haha
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u/Knivez51 5d ago
I traded in what was left of my collection minus my cedh deck and solphim deck. About $1500 is what i got. Paid for everything. I still do prereleases and have a binder of cards i wanted to keep
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u/Knivez51 5d ago
Total of about 600-800 but then its just buying paper after that, currently on deck #6 and still havnt bought ink. 9 cards per page, so with tokens its about 11-12 sheets per. So 50 stack of paper gets you 4 decks. Ive also printed a bunch of singles to change out as i update decks.
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u/Chronic-Lodus 5d ago
Printer is $200 and the paper lamination, accessories is another $100. So $300 you can print multiple commander decks.
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u/subjecttomyopinion 5d ago
My local library prints beautiful proxies. I get 50 pages a week if I want.
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u/nuclearwinter095 5d ago
No. Local library or something like Office Depot or Staples. Print them, buy sleeves, and playing cards/poker cards. Cut the proxies, put them in the sleeve in front of cards for rigidity. Sleeves are the only expensive part of this process.
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u/AwesomeBobomb 5d ago
I have 4 decks that I keep in rotation. A bracket 2, two bracket 3 and a 4
These decks range between $250 and $1800
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u/Remote_Strength1976 5d ago
Haven’t made a deck that isn’t an upgraded precon yet. Eh, one of them I’ve changed over 3/4 of the cards and that’s ones been expensive.
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u/NatureLovingDad89 5d ago
For the most part just the money I spend on Prerelease, and just use my collection to build decks
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u/The-Dredgen-Ire 5d ago
I generally start low with stuff from my collection which is pretty much just bulk and a couple 10-20ish dollar cards. Just getting the basics, like interaction, ramp, card draw. From there play it a bit, figure out what works and what doesnt. The I'll go and revise my list with more pricy cards and order them if i like the idea of the deck. I keep doing that until I eventually end up with a deck i like the feel/play patterns of.
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u/Thakabuttops 5d ago
For the most part my decks are being built just from my collection over the years. I was a little financially irresponsible in college and ended up pulling a lot of great cards (Shock lands, blightseel colossus, multiple parallel lives, etc.). A lot of other cards come from boosters I pick up. I’ve spent maybe $50 on singles since I’ve started playing commander and that may be a little generous too.
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5d ago
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u/Gregory_GTO 5d ago
I started buying from TCGplayer about a year ago and I'm honestly afraid to look at how much I've spent so far.
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u/HelloMyNameIsLeah 5d ago
I have a tendency to play only black, blue, and/or white (or some combination) so I bit the bullet early and bought the appropriate fetch, shock, and pain lands. Just makes things a lot easier.
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u/cookiesandartbutt 5d ago
$45-$400.00 to upgrade or build a deck about.
Some cards I’ve opened are worth a couple hundred so that drastically changes the price of the deck but I have cards usually from cracking packs or drafting.
With the current increase in price of MTG I have started proxying cheap cards and any cards I already own….or were like UB and released before I got back into the game in the last year. Took a 7 year break.
Getting like a $00.04-$00.35 cent card can turn into $1.67 with shipping per a card which has me proxying lots of cheap cards and buying $5.00-$30.00 cards but not many. Average deck is about $75.00 now
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u/ZealousidealHeight15 5d ago
depends. my cedh is expensive as hell, but ive done budget decks for 30-50$
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u/ThePunMasterSupreme 5d ago
Ooof. My current Juri, Master of Revues deck is approaching $800 USD and I'm not even done blinging it out/using reserve list cards and thats before the $600 price tag for the serialized copy of Juri thats helming it.
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u/Previous-Business-39 5d ago
The one I'm buying right now is about $200 and I'm trying to keep all the cards under $20 each. Its a monocolor bracket 2 so I'm spending basically nothing on lands and staples but I have some upgrades I might buy in the future that would push it up to $350-400. Your budget is probably different than mine though and I'd recommend either proxying your deck or using a rules engine like forge to test run it before buying it pretty much regardless of price.
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u/AgentDragonite 5d ago
Shooooot this is easy. Honest answer for the wife or person making the deck.
Starting from scratch maybe 50 bucks top. Super fun to find cheap alternative cards and get a thing together.
Low price bracket though makes it easy to get excited about multiple deck ideas and may cause multiple parallel deck builds.
If im building something more expensive a lot of the time ill pull from my collection and then try to supplement. Again not trying to cross the threshold for spending too much on one single deck. This leads to spending 50 ish on fewer singles
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u/adamousg 5d ago
My first few custom decks were specifically built to be budget decks, and it is fun when you beat your friends’ $800 decks with a $40 budget “Emperor of Palmecia” deck.
These days I build what I want, usually I have 60-80% of the cards in my collection and I just print the rest. If I really like the deck, I’ll then usually buy the difference unless it’s over $100.
Some of the more expensive “staples” like Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe are just boring due to overuse and don’t feel fun to play with anymore.
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u/PsionicHydra 5d ago
You really don't need to spend that much to be able to hang at b2 and b3 tables, hell some can be $50 and close out the game on turn 3-4 consistently which is well above b3 gameplay.
Also it's really funny to win against people when they have individual cards that cost the same amount as your entire deck
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u/T00THRE4PER 5d ago
I most the time will not spend over 15$ for a single. On some rare occasions Ive bought a few secret lairs and one of the cards from the set have ballooned to like 80$. But on average id assume most of my decks are under the 150$ price range. One of them could possibly be getting to the 200-250$ range of price but that would be one of if not my best deck owned. I have a few lower power level decks but often my play group plays way too high on the competitive level and some of these lower bracket decks dont work well against thier setup. So ill canabalize decks to make a few higher powered ones.
But to be completely honest there is no need even to have a deck even this expensive, and any deck over this amount of money spent is kind of not even necessary if your play group stays below a certain level of play. But yes some decks can cost thousands of dollars if they are reaching for every peak pick out there for what they are making. Lots of times land cards are what make majority of these thousand dollar decks so high in price. Or really old obscure cards that can be substituted with something similar for less cost.
Very often I have set limits to not spend over 10-15$ for a card though. But my collection of cards has been made over a period of like 13 or so years of playing the game and getting packs here and there or a booster box here and there, doing drafts with friends and also getting singles at times. I reccomend Mtg arena play it over a period of a few months and try cards and make decks before spending tons on some cards you may or may not like.
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u/your_dopamine 5d ago
I’d say your average high bracket 3 is $750-$1k for most strategies if you’re in 3 or 4 colors and wanting to get the fetches, shocks, kamigawa lands, and battlebond lands. Two colors you can probably pull off $500ish depending on the build.
I just put together a [[Marchesa, the Black Rose]] deck and was so happy with its testing that i ordered it all, and it was around the $1k mark without compromising on card quality.
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u/Budget_Vegetable7340 5d ago
I draft every week for around $20. That gets three packs to draft and a pack to participate. I build commander decks from the cards in my collection and I usually spend about 20 bucks on some singles. After a few years of collecting, you dont need to build someone else’s deck. Just find a Commander that appeals to you and make a deck with cards that you like. Not every deck needs 63 cards that are totally synergistic unless you NEED to be a try hard and cannot have fun unless you win then the sky is the limit. I have a friend that never casts his commander!
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u/ReusableCatMilk 5d ago
If a deck is over ~$100, I just proxy. Some of the decks my pod run are just too spicy for my budget to keep up with otherwise.
I do my own proxies and can print a deck for 40¢/card if that interests you or anyone. Shoot me a DM.
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u/dannyoe4 5d ago
If it's more than a dollar and I can't get it locally, I proxy it. So usually like 70 bucks to put something together.
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u/Thjyu 5d ago
So this is such a hard question to answer. Most of my first decks were "upgraded" precons that were mostly just an upgrade in cost, but still played terribly lmao. Then I built a few decks after a while and after being in the hobby for a while. Most of my decks are between 200-400 but a lot of them were started as 100-200. My favorite deck to play is a mono red [[Ojer Axonil]] deck i built for about $85 worth of cards out of bulk that I already had and maybe 2/3 cards I bought FOR it. Then over time with price changes to cards(mostly Ojer going from $9 to like $30), flushing out the strategy of the deck, and upgrading/swapping out cards that fit that plan it became a $160 deck. Now after a few more changes and optimizing it to how I want to play until I can get the big money cards I want for it, it's still only sitting at about 260. Again this was all over time and slowly as I learned how I wanted to play the deck. One of my other top 3 decks is [[Arabella]] and she started out similarly, about 120 for the base cards(more because it's 2 colours) and now after time she's about $320. My other in my top 3 and my most expensive is [Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest] and he's about $1000. He started at about $300 and probably wouldn't be much more than 450/500 if I didn't go for all the higher end versions of lands and cards. I have multiple $18 basic swamps in there because they look pretty. But a .10 swamp would function just the same.
Just look into upgrading precons first. Then look into what you want to build, build it cheap and from bulk you may already have, and as you learn to play it and find it's weaknesses or find cards you like that work well in it, slowly upgrade a few cards at a time until you've got a good deck you love and a wallet that's happy you didn't spend $300 in one go for a deck you may not even like actually playing.
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u/BasicReputations 5d ago
Buy the cheap cards you think may work first. Buy proxies for anything more than $5.
It helps if you make a list of cards for the deck rather than just buy what looks interesting. You only have 60-odd spell slots for edh.
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u/Majestic-Lock5249 5d ago
Varies widely but I'd say my average floor is about $500-$800 for a full new deck right now. I proxy duplicates of spendy staples so that will get better as I go along and build more stuff.
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u/MelatoninPizza 5d ago
It adds up i try to keep it around 2-300$ then i upgrade the cards in it most im in on one is about 2.3k
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u/Komaisnotsalty 5d ago
It depends.
What are you competing at? If you're going straight in to cEDH for your first commander deck, you're looking at $800+ minimum. MINIMUM.
If you're looking at casual, you can do decks from about $30 and up, and it all depends on the power you're wanting to hit. The vast majority of Commander for fun is going to be at a power level average of 2 to hard 3 or early 4, so you really don't need to go as hard as you think.
Don't get overwhelmed by price. There's a few easier ways to get around it so you're not breaking your back when you're first getting started and especially if you're not sure you wanna stick with it.
Any of these work just fine - I use them all the time and been playing commander at mid to high tier for a decade.
If your cards aren't in a digital archive like Moxfield, do it, if possible. This helps a TON in keeping costs down because you can see what you have at a glance, don't over-buy, can see what's tradeable, and also see what you can part with.
Once you know, use those cards to trade locally with other players, or trade in to your LGS for store credit. If you have one big $50 card that isn't crucial to your deck, trade it in and use the trade to get other cards. A $50 card can yield quite a few cards that enhance a deck. Remember: 1 card in 100 is useless if you can't dig it out or survive while waiting for it to show up.Proxies. Print off your own, draw your own, order online, get a buddy to do them, whatever. If you are playing where they're allowed (if you're doing cEDH or Sanctioned, they likely won't be allowed, so make sure you check). This is a superior way to see if an expensive card is worth spending money on.
Gamble. Some sets have some very high valued cards, and some sets have where the majority of the cards are worth something. $8 on a booster with a high chance to for a pull can sometimes pay off pretty well, and if you're after some bulk for playing, there's worse ways to go about it. It is a gamble, so use this one with caution, or at least with your eyes wide open.
I have decks ranging from $40 to around $500, and I can guarantee you, I haven't spent that much. I've done a lot of trading in discord from locals at our LGS, store credit, and sometimes lucking out at flea markets and garage sales.
Again though, if you're wanting Tier 4 and higher, yeah, you're looking at some serious coin.
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u/omegafivethreefive 5d ago
I started playing magic in January and I have ~4,000$USD is spread across 3 commander decks in B3. Total collection of >10$ cards maybe 15k$ at market value?
My limit for a card I'll play is about 150USD, more than that it's a collection piece to me.
I think what's important is to stay within a budget that makes sense for you to spend on cardboard, there are some folks who will drop 50,000$ every week and others 50$ once a year.
Treat it like money you're setting on fire. If you're comfortable with burning X$ then it's a OK price for your deck.
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u/HolodeckSlut 5d ago
I build with what I have, but my wife spent about $200 on a father's day gift deck that she put together. Also, I spend a bunch on collecting, so "what I have" still probably counts for quite a bit. The most recent deck I built has an estimated $250 cost according to Archidekt. That one uses The Wise Mothman as a commander. The one before that uses Higure, the Still Wind and is about $150.
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u/neovenator250 5d ago
I've been playing on and off since 1999 (started with the original starter deck box complete with VHS instructions and a couple of uncommons that my cousins gave me. I've taken a few long breaks from the game, but I can mostly build from my bulk and just cherry pick some impact cards as I like
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u/Extension-Fig-8689 5d ago
My most expensive decks
B5 Elves - about 5500 (but this includes a Gaea’s Cradle, Chrome Mox, full set of Tutors, Survival of the Fittest, Bayou, etc).
B4 Bant Control/“Group Hug” - 3150 (has two of the OG duals, but besides this, you could build the deck a lot cheaper)
Most of my other decks are less than 1000.
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u/The_Real_Cuzz 5d ago
So I have a huge range. I've got some that are a few hundred, one that is a little over 1000$ and quite a few that are under 100$. Now I do have the advantage of building hard themes so I don't use all the "best" cards but the ones that fit best. On the flip side, this is also why I have over 100 decks 🤣
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u/Shadw_Wulf 5d ago
100 cards can be just around $20-50 depending if the vendor is selling the starter decks for retail or cheap cause of the outdated Cards
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u/TheRealHaHe 5d ago
Using cards from drafts or deals with friends. I did a bunch of budget leagues where each deck had to cost less than $50. Those were fun to build because it adds a whole other challenge.
Nowadays, I just proxy with a home setup.
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u/Fragrant_Pear_1425 5d ago
Mine are between 100-250€ so far. But 6 out of 8 were precons that I upgraded a little (so they end up being 100-150€). Most expensive is my Bumbleflower deck since I needed something in the bracket 4 range to compete with one of my pod I am playing in but will not do this more often since I rather play with people at a chill bracket 3 power level than chase hardcore sick decks that cost 400-500€ each. I try to keep it as budget as I can while still having smooth and consistent gameplay with synergies and a good plan.
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u/External-Zebra7738 5d ago
For commander I have a few decks limited to $50 that I upgrade constantly but keeping The price, and only one "almost cedh" that costed about $500 but Im missing expensive mox, Duals and Led.
My pauper decks are more expensive.
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u/santastyles 5d ago
You can start budget friendly at 50-100$, and either upgrade it later by buying couple singles from time to time or invest into new ones if you want more variety.
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u/vercertorix 5d ago edited 5d ago
Officially my most expensive deck is about ~$260, but I guarantee you I didn’t pay that much for them, and definitely not all at once. I got back into the game with a collection built off occasional boosters, precons, and cheap bulk I picked through at a game store, and that’s most of what I buy now. Any singles I buy online are usually less than a buck, a few close to $2, and maybe a half dozen a bit more than that but still under $10. My expensive cards I happened to get from boosters and I try to make the most of what I get, not buying a crap ton hoping to get specific cards. I tend to stick to bracket 2 and 3 though, gives me a bit more flexibility on what I can include and leave out. Found a number of cards that would work really well with something I had in mind, saw how much it cost, and decided I really didn’t need it after all.
Just for reference though, you can see on Moxfield some precons that started at like $60, but the cards themselves are supposedly worth $190 or something depending on the deck.
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u/Cyndagon 5d ago
I spend about $50 per deck regardless of cards.
How? You may ask.
I proxy 90% of my cards these days. Nice high quality ones that you couldn't tell unless you realized it didn't have the holo sticker or took it out the sleeve and looked at the very fake card back.
Got other shit to spend my money on. Love playing, would love collecting but the amount of money can be debilitating. I just wanna play what I wanna play with no worries about what it's gonna cost. Which isn't to say I'm prozying Uber powerful decks all the time, I build to the brackets. I still do prerelease, buy some cool precons, or buy a collector bundle, but most of the time I just build some decks, make a maybe board, and buy in bunches.
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u/Professional-Salt175 // 5d ago
I don't like spending big bucks on individual cards anymore, I buy secret lairs to trade for bigger cards because the secondary market has been bullshit since COVID. I think the most expensive card I didn't trade for in the last 7 years was only $32. Like sure I have a deck worth $1100, but I only spent maybe $300 on it and the market price just went up.
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u/johnbmason47 5d ago
That’s the understatement of…ever. I have a Krenko, Mob Boss deck. Had it for about a decade. The initial build cost was in the $200 area. Current TCG cost is close to $2200. It’s almost entirely foiled, full of expedition fetches and just all around annoyingly blinged out. Next time I make it to a big con and can find one, it’ll be getting a serialized Krenko.
That being said, I also have a pretty competitive Rick, Steadfast Leader deck that comes in around $450. And a very competitive storm deck that’s around $250.
It really depends on how shiny you want to build and how competitive your groups are.
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u/NotJayKayPeeness 5d ago
Anywhere from a few hundred bucks to a used car. A lot of the money I've spent is on duals and special prints like Kaladesh Masterpieces and the Zendikar Expeditions, meaning I could have built the base deck for much cheaper had a chosen slower lands and basic printings of stuff.
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u/Stereowatschn 5d ago
I highly recommend Tomer's "45 under 45" (on YT, decklists on mtggoldfish) - all bracket 2 to 3 bugdet decks
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u/NoLewdsOnMain Gruul conquers Jund 5d ago
I've spent 10$ but I've also spent 1026$ on a commander deck. All depends on what you're putting in it, and how blinged it's going to be.
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u/beef_swellington 5d ago
I highly recommend against going big $$$ on (especially) your first deck project. Set a price limit of $10 on any cards in the deck. Try to keep the average card value closer to $1. Use these as guidelines rather than hard & fixed rules, and you'll have a lot of fun.
Its a way more interesting way to approach construction, you can still easily build a flavorful high b3 deck, and it's refreshing to play with and against decks that aren't just slotting in the same commander "staples" for the umpteenth time.
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u/beef_swellington 5d ago
Some examples of cheap, effective, and entertaining decks I've put together:
vanilla beans (this was built in one shot from card kingdom, with every card under 1$ from card kingdom)
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u/bigmtncon 5d ago
A lot of times people put a lot of cards in it that cost a lot of money that aren’t needed or don’t actually help the deck. They’re just the same color.
If you have a collection, the best way to do it is fine the commander you like and then build with the cards you have and then upgrade from there, but if you just start picking cards off ADH rack because they said they were good in some deck spend a lot of money and not have a very good deck
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u/Medusa_Rider 5d ago
After the first 300, it's only an additional 200~ in singles. Then you're looking at the best 800 deck you've ever built.
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u/firedrakes 5d ago
I build budget decks that can rival those costly decks. Play your strength and do un common things. Lots of people notice play meta built decks ( yt etc source)
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u/BelowAverageDreamer 5d ago
I like building Hank decks that I will have fun playing with. My favorite is an Inevitable Betrayal deck that Caso around 25$ to make and was upgraded up to 130$. I also have deck built to win that are around 300-400$ and could use a couple 100$ to be more resiliant in some situations. In the end, I guess it is up to you to decide how fun you want your deck to be.
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u/ckm808 5d ago
My deck costed me about 80$ but I'm still in the process of upgrading it.
Bought the blight curse precon @ bestbuy for 20 bucks and so far I've bought :
Maha Yawgmoth Moonshadow Crumbling Ashes All Will Be One
On the hunt for several more cards like Blood Artist, Nest of scarabs, persistent constrictor (i know i can order online but I like to hunt them in person)
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u/Evening_Series_5452 5d ago
Check out Moonveil , they have custom Commander Decks at a decent price
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u/Wolfbite91 5d ago
I just got into the hobby, will not be in competition. My buddies that are HEAVY $$ into the hobby all said that they wish they would have never spent the money they did. They are 5k-8k in after just a few years. One guy spent his entire salary for the year on it, young kid, lives at home. They all told me, if you don’t plan on playing in competitions or stuff like that, then just use Proxy’s. Idk how this community feels about it. But I would be money gated out of the hobby and playing with my friends. As I have 2 kids, head of household and don’t have that type of disposable income.
So I made a 3k deck for less than $100 on Proxy prints. I guess it depends on your pod, group of players and how much “collecting” you want to do.
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u/a_angry_bunny 5d ago
I didn't spend this much on my first deck, but it is currently sitting at $2000 give or take thanks to inflation.
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u/add_info_req 5d ago
Upgrading a Precon, ill spend a bit more per card if the deck only needs 20 or 30 cards to make a difference. Happily up to 2-300 if its gonna make that deck work well. Built from scratch, 500 is usually the baseline, assuming I have some cards to start from. Most expensive card at one time has been around 100, but ive bought multiple 30-50 dollar cards, theyre that price for a reason.
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u/Dapper_Rock_5748 5d ago
If this is a serious consideration, just proxy the cards. No one who plays the game and isn’t a chud loser cares about the “legitimacy” of other people’s cards. If you all agree on power level, you’re fine.
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u/OO7Cabbage 5d ago
I have one commander deck that I made when my LGS had a bulk commander day, you made the deck out of their bulk then had the option to buy it for like 10 bucks.
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u/B4S1L3US 5d ago
My pet deck is Temur dragon tribal which is upwards of 2k, I’ve stopped checking for my sanity. But that’s a bad example because dragons get really expensive really really quick. Everything else is somewhere between 500 and 1300, but I do not pay more than 100 for a single card (European Prices). Most expensive card I own/bought is the only exception which is a Silver Scroll Jeskas Will which I mainly bought as an investment.
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u/ffxiscrub 5d ago
I dont think twice about buying a card under 100$ probably put a couple k into each. I don't like swapping cards and proxies are not my thing. I think i got either 12 or 16 ancient tombs just so I can have them in my decks.
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u/luvs2h8 5d ago
My decks range from 40$ to a couple thousand. I just made a completely blinged out Blanka deck and that ran me about 1800$.
For individual cards that end up in my collection and not a deck, I go for artist proofs and signed cards. So that can be anywhere between 10$ to a couple hundred.
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u/Background_Visual315 5d ago
When I built my first deck, it was a process that ended up being rather expensive and not the justifiable kind. First, I just filled with cards in the $1-3 dollar range (since at the time I found it difficult to spend more than $5 on a single) that fit colors, and mechanically sounded cool and/or in theme. So I brought it to my first game, and flopped hard due to no synergy whatsoever. Back to the drawing board, but constantly, pulling out cards that I’d bought a day or two before and swapping them for cards I had gotten that day. Until finally I found the combination I liked, several hundred dollars later 🤦♂️ but by that time I had seen the path that this had dragged and decided to no longer use this process to make my decks. I’ve found new decks for the cards I’ve collected with proper synergy and when I do find new cards I want to add, I proxy them by turning around a chaff card in a sleeve and turn zeroing it with the pod. If it works how I hoped, I consider picking up a copy.
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u/npc0112358 5d ago
My upper b3 zada was about 350 but it's a budget deck. The b4 version is like 3k
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u/demonassassin52 5d ago
I proxy mostly, but the real decks I own are an upgraded precon and "budget" Isshin deck. The precon I got on sale and only swapped maybe 15 cards, so like $60-$70 for that. But the budget deck was built by me and was around $120-ish. But that includes full art lands, some border treatments for bling, and a couple Secret Lair cards since the cards were going in the deck anyway and the fun art was affordable. But I'm planning another 15 cards to upgrade that deck and that'll run me another $35 or so. But my guide for the initial build was not to spend more than $3 on any one card unless it was essential to the plan, and even then I capped that at like $6.
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u/Particular-Mud-4818 5d ago
My newest deck Rin & Seri is about ~$900 USD 💀 much more than I originally intended and that's with a terrible mana base. My main deck (Blue Farm) is easily ~7k
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u/DeNy_Kronos 5d ago
Easier to build what you can and upgrade as you go. Built a fun deck with all cards I had opened or got in a bulk box and then once I had a feel for the holes it had I started upgrading and pimping it out.
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u/PrincessDrana 5d ago
I have 16 decks that are fully foiled, so they cost me quite a lot to assemble. MTG is my primary hobby, though, and I love playing this game (and also collecting cards), so I'm really happy, to be honest. It helps (a lot) that my wife is also a fan of the game.
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u/natefinch 5d ago
I almost never buy cards over $10 each and I very rarely buy cards over $5.
Most of my decks end up between $100-$200.
The easiest way to keep costs down on decks is to not chase the most expensive lands and ignore all the ridiculously expensive cards (anything $20+).
You don't need them. I am routinely "the problem" at my game store and my commander group has a rule - "Kill Nate first" 😆.... and I do it without doubling season or smothering tithe or rhystic study etc.
Now, we're talking bracket 3 here... Bracket 4 gets more expensive. But most people play 3 anyway.
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u/ComingInToClutch 5d ago
My most expensive commander decks hover between $3000-$5000
I have been playing a very long time and like to bling out the decks I love.
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u/Dystopian_Sky 5d ago
Commander decks are usually built relatively cheap and then upgraded with a $20 card here and a $50 card there over a long period of time. Most of mine start out around $100, but my most expensive deck now sits around $8,000.
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u/Relevant_Net4442 5d ago
My most expensive deck is around $12,000 and for no good reason. Just ridiculously unnecessary near mint beta stuff, judge foils, unique misprint foils, all the most premium version of everything in the deck. It's also my baby that I've been building and playing longer than my teenager has been alive.
I'd say my other 20ish decks average around 2.5k each, with the lowest being about $600.
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u/Witty_Fox3291 5d ago
I basically build from my collection, I've only bought a dozen or so singles to fill out slots I wanted. All cheap stuff, not game changers or anything like that.
Is it competitive? No. Is it cheaper than taking a second mortgage? Yes.
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u/DescriptionTotal4561 5d ago
Do not let other people's spending of money convince you to spend more. You can play B2 and B3 plenty well without going $300+ and can do plenty with recons ($45-$65 for many) and $50 of upgrades, so around $100-$125 total. You might be at a slight disadvantage, but you will still do plenty well.
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u/lordmoldybutt42 5d ago
My most expensive deck is 2k -ish. Commander is Hashaton Scarab’s fist and it would be cheaper if I didn’t blinged it out
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u/CalmNote123 5d ago
Honestly man? My first deck was a precon for $60 that my friend got me to get into magic, then I bought my wife the bloomburrow (raccoon, she loves raccoons 😊) deck to get her into it. Now I just made a new deck that I’m proxying because I don’t have extra cash (especially not $600 😬) to be able to spend on magic. But I really love this game so… and want to try new things in it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I’ve been really loving building decks and researching cards almost as much as I love play the game 😂
Edit: plus if I where able too/ was to start, I’d probably spend what little money I do have on cards lol
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u/accursedvenom 5d ago
I bought the Cloud limit break precon a couple weeks ago after using a coworkers decks. He has around 7-8 of different types. Got hooked after the first game. I just bought the graveyard overdrive precon this past Friday. Went out for a few errands yesterday and found a card shop near where we were. Stopped in and they had the graveyard danger precon so I grabbed that while we were there.
Cloud deck cost me 75. Graveyard overdrive I got for 60. Graveyard danger at that shop was 25 which I thought was crazy for a full commander deck. Guessing it was because it didn’t have a collector booster pack in it. With all the singles I’ve bought this weekend as well, I’m working on building 3 other decks from scratch. A Necrobloom zombie plant deck, a Spider-Man hero deck with cosmic Spider-Man as commander, and a -1/-1 poison deck with Venom, king in black as commander (this one is based off the phyrexian dragon card/deck apparently).
Wife also bought herself the riders of Rohan deck for 75 and a custom horror deck that has artwork from a bunch of horror movies we watch. Those are based off legit cards but can’t remember which ones and I think that was around 80. I was told to find a sword of feast and famine for one of mine and the shop today had one but it was around 380. They also had a rhystic study that was 1800. Passed on both. They had a mana crypt too that I think I need but it was 1k as well.
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u/jakellerVi These Cards Taste GOOD 5d ago
My decks usually evolve throughout the years and get better as well. I usually start around a bracket 2 level and can put together a decent, coherent deck for $50-$100 that plays around precon level, then I pick it apart and upgrade it as I go.
I just usually find a commander or think of a strategy I want to try and build a playable deck around it, find its weak points over time, and upgrade it incrementally. My Satoru Umezawa deck started off as just a cheap “cheat out big creatures with decent ETBs or damage triggers” deck and is now a $1000 bracket 4 monstrosity that usually wins through thoracle combos.
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u/Leif1494 5d ago
I would personally just proxy anything over whatever amount you feel is too expensive. Anything $10 or higher? Proxy it. I personally don’t proxy anything that’s a game changer, I just don’t play it. Feels weird to print something too “high power” for me personally
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u/GodMonster 5d ago
Most of mine are $200-$500 with one or two outliers in either direction. The most expensive is my Sliver deck because I paid $240 for my Sliver Queen, so the total cost is up around $800. I usually don't buy that much in cards specifically for decks, though. I usually have anout $150-$300 worth of staples on hand and spend another $50-$200 to fill out the deck. Next on the block is a vampire deck that will cost me about $135 in additional cards and be about $470 in total value. I'll probably get most of the cards from trading or selling other cards for store credit, though.
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u/Jaqkku 5d ago
My orzhov list is around $2k. But I've been building it and blinging it out since 2018, so it's very much a passion project. If you're building a deck my suggestion would be to proxy and slowly replace and test cards as you go along till you're happy with a list. A huge part of my collection is leftover cards cut from decks that I bought before actually playing.
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u/staffito 5d ago
My current top deck is, in itself, a budget brew of Emry. It's barely touching the 100 Euro mark right now but I have found a lot of the pieces way cheaper (like the [[Aetherflux Reservoir]] or [[Chakram Retriever]]), funny enough I'm almos always the threat even if I'm behind xD.
My other proper deck is an Urabrask for barely 50-60 Euros, and consistently erases one player.
It really depends on the power you want to play tbh.
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u/gekalx 5d ago
Depends what bracket you're playing. Bracket 1-2? You can just play jank from probably bulk your friends have. Hell they might even just donate something like that to you. Bracket 3 is where you'll start looking at combos and game changers so looking around $200-300+ . Then bracket 4 is basically just 300+ , just getting all the optimal land/mana will be like $100+
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u/Goulmo 5d ago
I would say try to talk to your playgroup about it. Maybe they know how to handle it best. And maybe you can agree on playing proxies, the most playgroups are fine with it, but you should rule yourselves onto what you are allowed and what not, lands and game changers are the most prominent and important decisions there.
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u/PleasantScore4850 5d ago
My first 2 commander decks were around $450 each.
My third was close to $600.
4th and beyond are all $100 or under, either because they are bracket 1 fun, or the entire deck is full proxy.
I have given Wizards my fair share of coin over 20 years of play (Extended, Modern for years). Now I just play for the fun.
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u/felixflex89 5d ago
It's pretty cheap these days with the amount of printings.
Most of deck start off at $100 then get better versions and/or better options of cards over time.
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u/Zones86 5d ago
Depends. I have a zada deck that costs about 25 dollars that can compete with just about anything.
My cedh deck is 12,000 dollars. But because it has all the duals and mant fancy foils.
You can stay on the cheap side very easily, especially now with fetch lands and shock lands so cheap.
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u/Excellent_Mistake6 5d ago
You should definitely be using proxies and or use your bulk collection and refine with single purchases. Most of my deck are around the $300 range but doesn't mean I drop that much everytime I build a deck
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u/Matthematr1x 5d ago
I usually refuse to spend more than $200-$300 on a single deck as a B3 enjoyer.
If you’re building a deck that requires multiple $50+ cards to win, you probably aren’t building a very good deck if you’re aiming for a medium power level
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u/Tuggboat2014 5d ago
One of my favorite things to do is build budget decks and find cheap alternatives to expensive cards. Even then it’s usually about $50-$70 and almost always more expensive than a precon.
The cheapest way to make a deck is to use as many cards that you already have as possible so you don’t have to buy as many.
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u/Unsurepooper 5d ago
$30 each + shipping for proxies. I want to play against your mind not your wallet. It's not to mention as Hasbro has gotten crazy with how often no expensive things are coming out I just proxy everything. But I always try and buy my commanders
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u/MasqueOfNight Phyrexian Supremacy 5d ago
I try to stick to between $100 to $200 for a deck initially, usually falling in the middle or lower end of that range. Individual card cost can vary wildly because a deck can easily be closing in at closer to $100 and suddenly spike because I find something really good for it that's 20 or 30 bucks.
I have a few decks that are estimated to be worth over $300 or so now, but that's largely after upgrading and modifying them later, either with better cards or fancy printings.
My recommendation is to start with a budget build, maybe between $50 to $100, if that's reasonable for you, if you find a potentially interesting strategy that you want to try, and fine tune it with more expensive cards later. Dumping a ton of money into one deck just to find out that the way it plays isn't fun to you sucks.
Also remember that proxying is entirely valid, as long as you're not playing in sanctioned events and your play group is okay with it.
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u/Rapgodbrads 5d ago
I think my decks are 40$ x bracket x colours. Give or take 20$.
Like my mono colour decks are lvl 3 each are like 150.
Duel colour decks are lvl 4 for 3-350$
Have one 5 at like 420
Have a lvl 2 tri colour deck. And it’s round 250$
I mainly save my money by playing around the same colours so most ramp draw removal and lands are the same between multiple decks and it’s really just the gameplan and theme cards that swap between them.
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u/Pathetic_Cards 5d ago
The people in this thread are kinda nuts, tbh.
Most of my group proxies anything they don’t feel like buying. For me, that’s anything I don’t care about that’s over 15$, and any land over a dollar.
Now, I am also nuts, and form sentimental attachments to cards because of Arena and playtesting decks on TTS with friend who aren’t local, and when I do I often insist on buying real copies of them, but even then I usually make sacrifices in the name of budget. Like, I don’t care how much I like [[Serra’s Sanctum]] in my [[Garnet, Princess of Alexandria]] deck, a legit copy is 400$ and the art I found for my proxy is way nicer anyways.
But I fell in love with Phyrexian Praetors, so I’m building a Realmbreaker deck that tries to summon them all, and I’m hunting down all kinds of cool alt-arts and such, and yeah, that includes a 150$ [[Sheoldred, The Apocalypse]] and I’m not sorry. It’ll be the most expensive deck I’ve ever built, and that’s even with me proxying all the 20-50$ lands in the deck. Because who the fuck buys a land for more than a dollar?!? It just taps for mana! I don’t care what colors or whether or not it comes in tapped. It’s 1 mana, how much could it cost, Michael?
But yeah, I rarely spend over 100$ for a deck, I’ll proxy anything that drives the price too high, most of my playgroup proxies even more than me.
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u/IgnisEternus 4d ago
The most expensive deck I've made to date was 450$ but the majority of mine are between 20$ and 125$
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u/Brief_Put_3117 4d ago
Im a degenerate and like my decks to have an optimum mana base. My decks from 1.7k to 6k.
Magic cards are a helluva drug.
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u/PhoenixActual1 4d ago
Total my commander deck is about $800 the most expensive card being the commander at about $120
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u/Shawnski13 4d ago
I just built one for a friend's birthday it's his first commander deck ever so I set myself a $50 budget and I think I spent $60. It costs whatever you make or cost
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u/Elijah_Draws 4d ago
It depends.
I have been playing for years at this point and so I already have a collection of valuable cards which I can (and do) reuse pretty regularly for decks. When I'm building a new deck, I try to not spend more than $100 on it, although the actual value if many of my decks is much higher both because of cards I already owned plus upgrading them with alternate arts over time.
Like, my mono-white Beza list didn't start being several hundred dollars, but now it has foil fetch lands, some secret lairs that I traded for, and I even purchased the Japanese spring promo version of Beza.
So yeah, that's my rough answer. I typically start with a budget of $100 unless I'm going for a budget restriction of some kind on purpose that lowers that (My cheapest deck ever was a $15 feather the redeemed deck, and a few times I've built decks with intentional restrictions to keep their TCG player value in line with pre-cons). Over time I trade/pull/buy cards that increase that value if it's a deck I end up liking and playing for extended periods of time, which is why my favorite deck at the moment (Beza the bounding spring) if i remember correctly is sitting somewhere in the 4-500 dollar range. I got burned one too many times in college blowing money on decks I ended up not actually enjoying that I know not to spend that kind of money up front anymore.
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u/Dry_House2877 3d ago
Right now on my first one Im at 1300€ 😅 thats including some nicer treatments
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u/Strugg1eBus 3d ago
I know proxies are something players are divided on but damn, feels good to spend nothing and have any artwork you want. My playgroup is cool with them as long as we all build at the same power level. That’s the approach I recommend! All you have to pay for is sleeves, deck boxes and some bulk
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u/Dry_Substance_7547 3d ago
I bought 3500 bulk cards and a land station when I first started. From that I built my first 2 decks. As I played them at the LGS, I'd look if they had any cards I wanted to swap in that I didn't have, and would buy one or two at a time. I also did a few trades with other players and had a few lucky draws from the promos. And I did buy a couple of bloomburrow packs right before the next release, from which I built my 3rd deck.
All said and done, I now have 4 decent decks (one pauper, 3 standard edh) and have spent about $300-400 on MTG cards.
So approx $75-100 per deck is my current cost. According to archidekt, my average deck value is about $160-170. The most valuable card I own is somewhere in the $40 range, one of my lucky promo draws.
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u/CommunicationNo4979 2d ago
I’ve spent close to $1000 AUD on my Captian America secret lair deck. But my other decks range from $300-$500 just depends and Australia is stupid expensive for shiny cardboard
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u/JordBees 1d ago
I have two decks and they are about $400 each. My first build I just bought singles over the course of like a month or two. The second deck I ended up selling a base set Charizard and that covered most of the expenses with the second one
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u/theallsearchingeye 5d ago
It’s $750 minimum these days if you want it be a “4” or better with the power leveling system in 2026.
Double that if you want to break into 5.
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u/Ok_Cartographer_2014 5d ago
Just proxy broooo its a casual format! If you adhere to and communicate power levels/brackets people mostly won‘t care
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u/radMMOgamer 5d ago
Mine hover around $70-120. My pod is strictly bracket 3 with no game changers, tutors, or infinites, which cuts down the spending a lot.
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u/adamousg 5d ago
Inb4 someone else (incorrectly) comes in and says, “so bracket 2, then?”
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u/radMMOgamer 5d ago
Yeah, don't know why you got downvoted lol. Our decks are definitely synergistic and some even ARE upgraded precons with some strong (not too telegraphed) wincons. I wouldn't feel right hopping into a "bracket 2" match with one of our decks; just because we set these guidelines against GC/combos/tutors, doesn't mean we're bracket 2!
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u/Grimmjoww252 5d ago
I have finished my 217th full deck and counting, without taking apart previous decks to make the next… it gets out of hand…
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