Expensive Commander Cards that are Dirt Cheap Online
Big Money Cardboard Cards Under $5 (5 tix) on Magic Online
Despite Magic Online's long list of problems, there are perks to slinging digital cards compared to cardboard, the two biggest being 1) the convenience of playing whenever you want in the comfort of your home 2) purchasing your favorite cards at drastically reduced prices. A quick scan through Standard's top constructed decks shows that digital versions of constructed decks are anywhere from 20% to over 50% less than their cardboard versions.
For us Commander folks, we can take things a step further and build decks jam packed with powerful cards worth thousands of dollars in cardboard for $20 or less online if we know where to look. Just look at the price disparity between these power cards:
The price in the blue box is cardboard, yellow box is online price:
The online version of Mana Crypt is $150 cheaper than the physical version, a 97% difference! With such huge discounts on power cards, you can build pretty disgusting decks online for under $20, which I do regularly for my Budget Commander series. You can make these soup'd up decks online for the sake of playing and having fun, or you can build them as playtest versions of future cardboard purchases. You can test hundred-dollar cards or entire deck concepts online against a diverse field of players to see if the cards / decks are worth the money before committing to buying the physical version.
Now for the meat of the article! Here is a list of powerful, staple Commander cards that are way more expensive in cardboard than on Magic Online. The cards were combed from Metamox's list of top played cards. I arbitrarily decided to make the maximum price $5(-ish) as a starting point. Please give me your feedback on what cards to include and the criteria for being on the list. I'll make updated versions in the future!
Honorable Mentions. These cards are way cheaper online but not cheap enough to make my $5 maximum:
- Blue: Jace, the Mind Sculptor, Timetwister
- Red: Imperial Recruiter
- Duals: Tundra, Volcanic Island, Tropical Island, Underground Sea
- Green: Gaea's Cradle, Natural Order,
- Multicolor: Dack Fayden
Did I Miss Anything?
I hope you guys enjoyed my first crack at this guide. With your feedback I can tune the lists, remove unworthy cards, and add others I missed. Follow me on Twitter @BudgetCommander for notifications on when the next article is up, updates on future decks, and input for what to work on next. Thanks for reading!
