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Bombs on a Budget [2DH] *ARCHIVED*

Commander / EDH* Budget Group Hug Mono-Blue

pokepower116


Maybeboard


***IMPORTANT***

This deck is made specifically for a format at my local card shop where it's the same as regular EDH but every card over $2 (according to the lowest TCGPlayer median price) is banned aside from the general who is allowed to be up to $5.

If you're not interested in playing in this format, use this deck as a skeleton to find some really good, fun, and cheap cards to throw into your deck and improve it with more expensive cards that do a better job.

***IMPORTANT***

Welcome to my Braids, Conjurer Adept deck! This is a deck designed for the format 2DH so I tried getting the best cards I could that are under $2. That being said, this deck isn't the most innovative or novel; but it's just fun!

As with most Braids decks, this deck is all around getting your commander out and fueling your hand with amazing cards to throw down as a result of her trigger. Since this is a mono-blue deck a lot of the big creatures under $2 are leviathans, krakens, and sphinxes; which is great because sphinxes are good card advantage engines and krakens/leviathans are big creatures that usually come with board control!

Also as with most Braids decks, while it's a "symmetrical" effect, you want to try and take the most advantage. The main ways you do this are:

1) Cheating out the biggest cards -- When everyone else is slamming down 4-5 mana cards with a decent effect, you want to be slamming down 8-9 mana cards with game-ending effects. This will naturally give you a stronger board position even though it's symmetrical.

2) Cheating people out of her effect with vanishing -- With the two cards Vodalian Illusionist and Vanishing you are able to phase out your Braids after your upkeep so they won't get her trigger AND she's safe from removal until your next turn!

3) Cheating other players out of their cards -- The best part about Braids is that it encourages your opponents to play the best things out of their hands. Because of this, with cards like Control Magic, Corrupted Conscience, and Roil Elemental, you get free pickings of your opponent's best cards. Also with cards that bounce creatures back to your opponent's hands like Capsize, Displacement Wave, Whelming Wave, and Wash Out you force your opponents to use Braids' trigger to play their card again OR force them to hard-cast it; either way is a huge tempo swing in your advantage.

All-in-all Braids seems to be a very fun commander! It allows people to play their decks and create board states that shouldn't normally happen; while also trying its best to make sure that you're the one that benefits the most in the end.

Comments are always welcome, please feel free to leave one!

Suggestions

Updates Add

Removed: Mystic Remora, Rite of Replication, and Confiscate

Added: Counterspell, Swan Song, and Negate

As a brief note: If you've been following this deck since it's creation you'll know that I really intended to make this deck while completely excluding counterspells. I had two main reasons for this. This deck was made to be fun and pseudo-group-hug and having your spells countered isn't fun (neither is getting your creatures stolen, but at least you got to play the creatures in the first place and control magic is easier to play around than counterspells). The other reason is because I sought to take advantage of an insane board-state by having one-sided removal or by taking the biggest threat on the board; this has not changed.

The removal of both Mystic Remora and Rite of Replication were both due to price. Every printing has risen above $2 and are no longer legal for this deck. Confiscate was removed purely to find room for other cards in the deck. I felt like the deck was a little too heavy on control magic and Confiscate was the weakest of the bunch. Other cards I considered cutting were Arbiter of the Ideal, Gate to the AEther, Cryptoplasm. Renegade Doppelganger, Colfenor's Urn, Mind Unbound,and Bident of Thassa; but in the end I liked all of those cards a little more than Confiscate.

Now to the addition of the counterspells. They're only here for one thing only: protection. The experience that I've had playing the deck and the feedback that I've gotten from everyone else always goes the same way. People get their Braids trigger, then they try and remove Braids because they've already gotten their benefit from her; and why wouldn't they? If you are trying to win the game, there is no benefit to letting Braids live past your turn. So to counter that, I've added cards like Swiftfoot Boots, Neurok Stealthsuit, Vanishing, and Vodalian Illusionist. But when you look at it, that is only 4 out of a 99 card deck. Nowhere near consistent enough for a key part of our strategy. That's where these counterspells come in. I don't want to counter what their deck is doing, I just want to counter any removal coming towards Braids. That's why a key part of choosing these counterspells is making sure that they were cheap in mana cost. I want to be able to cast Braids and have a counterspell ready to back her up.

Once again, 7 out of 99 cards dedicating to protecting Braids with only the counterspells not requiring any setup is still very inconsistent; so I'm going to be looking into adding more ways to protect her in the future. Alexi's Cloak and Arcane Denial are cards that are definitely going into the deck once I get a copy of them. For now, this is where I currently am with what I have.

What do you think? Do you agree with this change in direction in the deck or are you still very anti-counterspell? Please let me know and leave some recommendations for some good protection for Braids!

Comments

Revision 56 See all

(4 years ago)

-1 Arcane Denial maybe
-1 Crystal Shard maybe
+1 Curator's Ward main
+1 Curse of the Swine main
-1 Displacement Wave main
+1 Dissipate main
+1 Fact or Fiction main
-1 Hoverguard Sweepers main
+1 Impulse main
-2 Island main
-1 Kederekt Leviathan main
+1 Memorial to Genius main
+1 Mimic Vat main
-1 Mindlock Orb main
-1 Minion Reflector main
+1 Mirrormade main
+1 Mystic Sanctuary main
+1 Paradox Haze main
-1 Pathrazer of Ulamog main
-1 Rapid Hybridization maybe
and 24 other change(s)
Top Ranked
  • Achieved #26 position overall 9 years ago
Date added 9 years
Last updated 3 years
Legality

This deck is Commander / EDH legal.

Rarity (main - side)

1 - 0 Mythic Rares

32 - 0 Rares

23 - 0 Uncommons

15 - 0 Commons

Cards 100
Avg. CMC 4.38
Tokens Boar 2/2 G, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Vizier of Many Faces 0/0 W
Folders 2dh, Blue EDH, To builf, Deck Ideas, Commander Ideas, possible new deck, Decks to buy, Commander, Budget BB, awesome
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