Budget Extra Turns: More Turns, Less Money

Extra Turns refers to the archetype that, as the name implies, is about taking extra turns. You’re chaining extra turn spells to make it so you’re the only one playing at a point. Although many extra turn spells are expensive, you can still build a strong budget Extra Turn list. This guide will show you how to build a budget Extra Turns deck, and show off various decklists to see what a budget Extra Turn deck looks like.

Budget Extra Turn Staples

When it comes to Extra Turns, there are not actually too many staples you have to worry about. Extra Turn decks are more about what you’re doing in those extra turns instead of only caring about the extra turn spells being cast. Regardless, as with all archetypes, you have staples to play with that most decks want to be playing.

Extra Turn Spells

In an archetype called “Extra Turns,” as you may expect, extra turn spells are very common. Some of them can be expensive. While Warrior's Oath, Expropriate and Final Fortune can be useful, it’ll hurt the wallet if you’re buying them.

Luckily, there are cheap extra turn spells you can run. Alchemist's Gambit is one that loses at the end step, but you can pay an extra cost to make it a traditional extra turn. Some specific extra turn spells include Twice Upon a Time and Lost Isle Calling, which need more setup, but are still useful in decks that can run them. The most budget “regular” extra turn spell is Part the Waterveil, but it can turn a land into a creature. Karn's Temporal Sundering is another common budget extra turn option, but does require a legendary creature on your battlefield to actually cast.

Recursion Staples

There are only so many extra turn spells in the game. For Commander-legal cards, there are only just above 50 extra turn spells you can play. So, you want ways to return your extra turn spells to your hand from the graveyard. Eternal Witness guarantees you can get a spell back from your graveyard. Regrowth does the same, just not attached to a creature. If you’re playing multiple Islands, then Mystic Sanctuary can get an extra turn spell back into your hand when it enters. Timeless Witness gives you two chances to get an extra turn back from your graveyard thanks to eternalize.

If you like playing with cards from your graveyard, you’ll love Reanimator. We have an overview of the Reanimator archetype you can check out here.

Budget Extra Turn Commanders

As mentioned before, budget Extra Turn decks are less about staples, but instead, how you build around commanders. There are multiple routes to build solid Extra Turn decks without having to spend a ton of money for more valuable ones. So, the rest of this article will go over different budget Extra Turn builds to give you an idea of how to build them.

Edric, Spymaster of Trest

This is the most “direct” Extra Turn deck here. Edric, Spymaster of Trest acts as draw power, and encourages your opponents to attack anyone but you since they get to draw if they do. You draw a bunch to draw into your extra turn spells like Alrund's Epiphany and Walk the Aeons, then start chaining them. It’s not uncommon for your creatures to lead into a chain of extra turn spells until all life totals are down to zero.

To guarantee you draw cards, creatures that are unblockable make up most of the creature suite. The best ones are ones that let you also draw and discard cards to get to your key cards quicker. Examples of this include Looter il-Kor, Shoreline Looter, and Suspicious Stowaway. You also have traditional unblockable creatures like Mist-Cloaked Herald and Slither Blade tp get guaranteed damage in.

When you’re chaining extra turns, there are a few different paths to victory. The easiest is with Triskaidekaphile with how many cards you draw. It’s a lot slower, but you can slowly take an opponent out of the game by utilizing Strixhaven Stadium. You’ll be attacking a lot, especially through extra turns. So, Beastmaster Ascension can reach the five counters needed quickly to deal a ton of damage since all your damage is unblockable.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. With the unblockable damage, cards that get rid of hand size limits, and extra turns, you can win the game quickly with Edric, Spymaster of Trest

Eluge, the Shoreless Sea

For this flavor of Extra Turns, Eluge, the Shoreless Sea leans more on a Spellslinger theme. Thanks to its effect, your lands are going to have a lot of flood counters, making your extra turn spells such as Time Stretch and Beacon of Tomorrows much cheaper, if not free to cast. Each turn makes your commander stronger the more Islands you have, which all the extra turns let you play more.

Your commander triggers on it entering or attacking, so there is a Blink deck within the deck too, so you can get more flood counters quicker to make your spells cheaper. Blue has access to a lot of great Blink spells, including Teferi's Time Twist, Planar Incision, Ghostly Flicker, and Essence Flux. Your commander can often make these free to cast, making it easier to stack up flood counters for your expensive instants and sorceries.

The extra turns being taken are about setting up your lands with flood counters and casting big spells to win the game with once you’re done chaining. Bribery can steal an opponent’s win condition if you know they have a good card in their deck. You can steal a powerful permanent from all your opponents with Blatant Thievery. Mass Manipulation can be cast at a steep discount with a big X value to steal a bunch of different creatures from any opponent.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. This deck is a slower start, but once you reach the middle of the game, it can really snowball out of control with a ton of flood counters and free spells.

Kilo, Apogee Mind

Kilo, Apogee Mind is about leveraging extra turns to re-tap it to keep proliferating and spreading counters to all your permanents. This build takes advantage of cards with tap effects since the extra turns let you untap with them. Some examples of cards that can be useful in tapping multiple times include Coretapper and Steel Overseer.

The deck takes advantage of multiple Spacecraft cards. To get charge counters, you tap creatures to convert their power into charge counters. So, the extra turns help to turn them into creatures with their best abilities active before your opponents get a chance to remove them. Uthros Research Craft gives you draw power while growing into a very powerful flying creature. The Eternity Elevator turns into a very powerful mana dork, and even without the counters, is a solid mana rock. Most vital is Inspirit, Flagship Vessel, which gives all your artifacts hexproof and indestructible to give them all a massive layer of protection.

There are various paths to victory you can take. All the extra turns make a victory with The Millennium Calendar easy with how many counters you can get on it. There is even an extra turn card that benefits from extra turns with Magistrate's Scepter. The extra turns mean a lot of counters going onto Darksteel Reactor, which is hard to remove thanks to being indestructible.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is very artifact-heavy and shines with extra turn spells.

Obeka, Brute Chronologist

Obeka, Brute Chronologist is a unique Extra Turn commander as it enables you to use Red extra turn spells that make you lose the game at the end step. You don’t have to worry about the downsides of Last Chance or Alchemist's Gambit when you can end your turn before the trigger to lose ever goes on the stack. When you end your turn, everything on the stack goes with it. So, with those triggers on the stack you can activate Obeka, Brute Chronologist to end the turn and avoid automatically losing the game.

A big theme of this deck is theft. The extra turns help you to build up mana, which lets you cast various spells that let you steal creatures. Normally, you have to return them at the end step, but with your commander, you end your turn before those triggers happen, letting you permanently keep those creatures. The best effect for this is Insurrection, which steals every creature on the battlefield. Mob Rule is similar, but locked into creatures of a certain power. Mass Mutiny steals from each opponent, but only one creature from each.

Another tool the deck has is cards that create tokens that have to be sacrificed. By ending the turn with your commander, you keep them before you have to get rid of them. And with the extra turns, you can use these effects multiple times to amass a large battlefield of useful creatures. If you have good creatures, both Flamerush Rider and Calamity, Galloping Inferno can create copies of your best creatures. Mishra, Eminent One can make artifact copies that are artifact creatures, while Saheeli, the Sun's Brilliance makes a copy of any creature or artifact with haste.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. This deck is a bit more varied in what it can do when compared to other Extra Turn decks.

The Ninth Doctor + Clara Oswald (Green)

This partner pairing puts The Ninth Doctor with Clara Oswald (on Green) to abuse a ton of upkeep triggers. The extra turns gained from Time Warp and Temporal Trespass give you even more upkeeps. The idea is to get as many upkeep triggers as possible, both with The Ninth Doctor and all the extra turn spells in the deck.

For the most part, you’re amassing a battlefield through cards that create tokens at your upkeep. On creatures, you have Skyline Despot and Dragonmaster Outcast to crate 5/5 Dragon creatures. Awakening Zone creates tokens that can be sacrificed for mana to ramp into your extra turn spells. Extravagant Replication lets you copy any nonland permanent you control to double up on all of your best ones. With multiple triggers of Rite of the Raging Storm, that’s a lot of power with trample you can send someone’s way.

There are a lot of different cards with good utility effects that trigger on the upkeep. Plargg and Nassari lets you cast two spells for free, potentially letting you play a spell way ahead of your mana curve. Mindsplice Apparatus gets counters to make your sorcery spells cheaper, making it trivial to cast your extra turn spells despite being costly in mana. Both Stolen Strategy and Triple Triad can steal cards from opponents for you to cast. Court of Cunning mills opponents while Court of Ire and Court of Embereth burn them.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a ton of upkeep triggers and ways to get multiple ones every turn.

In Conclusion

Budget Extra Turn decks is something that is very unique. While you have to forego some of the more powerful extra turns spells, a lot of them hover around the $5 or less category. Though, since you tend to need a lot, a lot of the budget goes into extra turn spells and shaving budget in the decks themselves. So, you’re taking advantage of cheap cards, with extra turn spells enabling them to make for a formidable deck.

Ultimately, every deck can be built on a budget. And a bright side to budget Extra Turn decks is that they are easy to upgrade. You generally only want one Extra Turn deck, as they can get “same-y” if you have too much of the same kind. Luckily, there is a large variety of ways to play Extra Turns, so you’re not just constantly playing Solitaire with yourself while your opponents have to watch.

If you want to see more about Extra Turns without budget in mind, you can view our overview of Extra Turns.