Commander Budget Builds: $10 Cynette, Jelly Drover
In Magic, there’s not much you can buy for just $10 these days. There are booster packs, of course, but even then you don’t get as many as you used to. But what you can buy for just $10 is an entire mono-blue commander deck helmed by the brand new Cynette, Jelly Drover.
But on such a tight budget, there are some trade-offs. There are the obvious trade-offs, like not being able to run certain staples (even ones that are generally considered “budget-friendly”). But it also forces us to stick to one thing and do it the best we can. There’s little room for pivots or plans B through Z, so we have just one trick: Go wide with fliers, and hit our opponents in the face. A surprisingly red gameplan, really.
The Core
As I said above, this is a very single-minded deck that wants to play aggressively and flood the board. We can do this with flying creatures, of course, but Cynette’s anthem effect makes it much more economical to make tokens. Occult Epiphany is the prime example, letting us dig for what we need now while also potentially making a handful of bodies. Similarly, Stolen by the Fae can simultaneously set an opponent back and give you a bunch of bodies. Feywild Visitor has some hoops you have to jump through, but it rewards you handsomely with the potential of three additional bodies every single turn for just 3 mana. And then there’s Ethereal Investigator, which gives card draw up front and tokens for as long as you can keep drawing cards.
This deck also needs ways to protect the commander, since the anthem effect has the potential to result in huge blowouts if Cynette is removed after we make an attack. For this, we have four 1-mana cards like Mizzium Skin and Shore Up, plus two 2-mana cards, my favorite of which is Plumecreed Escort since it is also, itself, a flier. I also put in a few ways to give Cynette (and our other non-flying creatures) flying, which we don’t exactly need to have but I wanted so that Cynette could buff herself and start attacking. Cloak of the Bat is the most straightforward of these cards, and Fae Flight gets to pull double-duty as a hexproof spell and a flying-granter.
Finally, we need some extra flying synergy. More anthems are of course great, with Windstorm Drake and Favorable Winds being very straightforward. We also have Wingspan Mentor though, which is great here since it’s not just a one-time boost but a repeatable ability. Just don’t try to put the flying counter onto Cynette. And we also have Warden of Evos Isle as a decent way to ramp us, with it reducing the cost of ~27% of our deck.
And then, as always, the things every deck needs. We have just one wrath, which I’ll touch on later, but we have a decent bit of card draw and ramp. Vanguard Suppressor lets us dump a bunch of mana to go wide and has the potential to draw us plenty of cards. Mulldrifter is a classic, and Loyal Drake is in my mind a budget staple that shines especially bright in this deck. Our ramp package is pretty straightforward, with the only notable thing really being the number of 2-mana ramp creatures we have, since they tend to be especially cheap: Flywheel Racer, Hedron Crawler, Silver Myr, and Myr Convert.
Winning
I know, I know, I keep saying the same thing, but I feel the need to really hammer it home: This deck is very focused on one gameplan. We have a bunch of flying creatures. We’re going to hit our opponents with those flying creatures. And hopefully that will result in them losing the game. These cards will make that easier.
My personal favorite is Shadow Puppeteers, and it isn’t particularly close. This is our Craterhoof, which will give us good stats up front that get even better if Cynette is in play, and also turns all of our fliers into 4/4s when they attack. And, thanks to how layers work, means they’ll be even bigger once you factor in our other anthem effects. Day of the Dragons is very similar. You play it, you get an army of dragons, and then you probably replay Cynette on your next turn and swing in for a bunch of damage.
Finally, we have Thopter Assembly, which can be good for going wide when you want to go for a kill, or can just help you rebuild after a board wipe.
Spice
This is really the reason I write these: So I can make people look at my weird little pet cards. You could cut some of these to add more power to the deck, but really, I’d recommend slotting in your own pet cards instead to make the deck better fit your tastes.
I need to start by talking about my favorite card that I (somehow) managed to squeeze into this deck. It’s the wrath I mentioned earlier, and of course, it’s Floodgate. Floodgate sits in play as a 0/5 defender, doing basically nothing until it leaves the battlefield. Which, of course, it will do instantly if you can find a way to give it flying. When it does leave, it’s guaranteed to at least take a decent bite of your opponents’ boards while leaving yours almost completely untouched.
We also have The Bath Song, which is a decent card draw option, but really it’s here because it’s one of my favorite cards from the last few years of limited and I try to squeeze it into commander decks wherever it makes sense. We also have Malcolm, Keen-Eyed Navigator, who does a fine job of ramp — and we do have two other Pirates to help trigger his ability — but he’s mostly here because I think he’s cool. And finally, we have Meneldor, Swift Savior, who is probably one of the most reasonable includes in this category. At just 4 cents, he doesn’t eat up much of the budget, and he gives fine stats for a flier. But, most importantly, he can flicker Cynette every turn to help us make more Jellyfish, or flicker other high-value targets if we have them, like Mulldrifter or Whirler Rogue.
Breaking the Bank
Many decks have $50-$100 as their threshold for what counts as an “expensive” card. With just $10 to work with, that threshold changes drastically. For example, the most expensive card in this deck (by a lot) is actually Cynette herself at $1.46. Often when working on a deck with a budget this tight, I would just ignore the commander’s price, but for some reason I decided to give myself the extra challenge on this one.
The next-most-expensive card that I want to highlight here is Shadow Puppeteers, which I mentioned once already but I think deserves to be mentioned again. The card is very good in the endgame, and is definitely one of the strongest cards in the deck, making it well-deserving of its 41 cent price tag. We also have Signal Pest at 31 cents, which is a very good, very cheap anthem. And while he doesn’t technically get Cynette’s buff since he doesn’t technically have flying, being just 1 mana is enough for me to overlook those technicalities.
Then we have to talk about Drake Hatcher. At 29 cents, I was almost tempted to cut it because of the deck’s lack of spells. But I think that really, if you ignore that angle, the rate on the card is still perfectly acceptable, giving you a cheap, slow stream of tokens, especially if you can give it flying.
And finally, we have Donal, Herald of Wings at 29 cents. While he only lets you copy 1 thing per turn, that’s still enough to help you keep going wider and grinding out value.
Donal is great. We love Donal.
What’s Not Here?
On a $10 budget, there are some things that are going to get cut or overlooked. But if you have them on hand, these could be good (or at least fun or interesting) options to slot in.
Sol Ring is an obvious include. I said with $25 Delina that I could’ve squeezed Sol Ring in, but with a $10 budget, that isn’t even really true. Unfortunately even with the number of times it’s been reprinted, it would still be the second-most expensive card in our deck, so it just couldn’t be included.
Sphinx of the Second Sun is a very fun card that can pull a lot of weight, but at 46 cents and 8 mana he was doomed from the start.
Deluge is a fun one that I almost left in just for laughs, but I couldn’t quite afford the expensive joke.
Wand of the Elements can make us a 2/2 flier every single turn, but I decided to cut it because 4 mana and sacrificing a land every turn was just too steep of a cost.
Sharding Sphinx was a card that I wanted to include, but ultimately cut due to a lack of artifact creatures. But the deck could definitely be built to support it, and I could definitely see it snowballing out of control in an alternate universe version of this deck.
Wrapping Up
These decks are always so interesting to build, because the more you constrain the budget, the less they look like normal commander decks. $50 and $25 decks tend to still have their fair share of popular cards, but once we get down to $10 (or less), even springing for a 20 cent card feels extravagant. You should definitely try this deck out, or if you don’t, at least try building your own deck (or decks!) on an extreme budget. It’s a great way to spice things up with your normal playgroup, and who knows, you might just find a new style of Magic you enjoy!
You can find me on Twitter and Bluesky if you want to ask questions or talk about this deck, or even follow me there or on Moxfield to see what I brew up in the future! You can also leave a comment on the deck on Moxfield if you want to chat there.
Community
Related Products
Accessories
