Table of Contents
Five-Color Commander decks are quite popular. They are also quite expensive. Due to needing to account for five different colors, you often need to invest a lot in order to have consistency in your deck. This leads to a hefty pricetag when you take cards like fetchlands and triomes into consideration. However, you can still make a very playable budget Five-Color deck without needing these pricey cards.
Building A Budget Five-Color Manabase
The most important part of a Five-Color deck is the manabase. Without a good one, you might get stuck with lands that don’t let you cast the cards in your hand if they’re the wrong color. Usually, you can get around this by using fetchlands such as Windswept Heath to fetch whatever land type you need using shocklands like Godless Shrine or triomes like Spara's Headquarters. These cards are very much not cheap, so if you’re building a budget deck, they simply won’t be in the budget.
As a substitute for lands that have a basic land type, Battle Lands are useful (Cinder Glade). These enter tapped unless you control two or more basic lands, and in budget decks, this is usually the case. You also have tapped tri-lands (Mystic Monastery) that are weaker than triomes since they don’t have land types and can’t be cycled, but still provide three possible options for mana generation. There are budget fetchlands as well, like Flood Plain that enter tapped, but after can function like traditional fetchlands after they untap.
There are also cheap lands that let you tap for mana of any color. In Five-Color decks, Path of Ancestry can generate any colored mana you need. If you’re playing a budget Five-Color deck focused on a specific creature type, Secluded Courtyard and Unclaimed Territory are must-runs.
Nonland Permanents For Mana Fixing
There are various cheap permanents you can throw into your budget Five-Color decks for extra consistency. Faeburrow Elder lets you tap it to generate one mana of every color, so long as you control a permanent of that color. Inga and Esika turn all your creatures into mana dorks that can make mana of any color, so long as it’s used on creatures. Cascading Cataracts lets you dump five mana into it in order to turn that into whatever color of mana you need of any combination.
You also have tools to make it so all your lands can tap for any color. Chromatic Lantern does that while being a mana rock on its own. Relic of Legends lets you tap an untapped legendary creature to make mana of any color, letting you ramp with it too. They aren’t too expensive, but aren’t super cheap like other budget options either, but Leyline of the Guildpact and Wrenn and Realmbreaker give your lands the ability to tap for any color.
Budget Ramping
If you’re building a budget Five-Color deck, you need ways to ramp so you can get all the right lands onto the battlefiled as possible. Farseek and Nature's Lore will be your best friend, as these can get dual lands out from your library so you won’t struggle as much to have the right colors. Rampant Growth is another cheap ramp card you’ll want. All these cards’ low casting costs let you cast them early so you can get all five colors online as early as turn two.
Although it’s not direct ramp, Gift of Estates lets you put three Plains cards into your hands (including dual lands with the Plains typing). It’s more costly than other options, but Skyshroud Claim puts two Forest cards onto the battlefield. Spelunking lets you play an extra land when it enters, and makes lands enter untapped. Most budget nonbasic lands enter tapped, so Spelunking can get around the biggest downside of playing with budget manabases.
With budget manabases, you’ll need to commit to a lot more to mana rocks that cost mana, as this is most common for mana rocks that can tap for any color. Commander's Sphere will be your most common choice of bugdet mana rock. Decanter of Endless Water gives you the bonus of getting rid of your maximum hand size. Blitzball taps for all colors and can draw you two cards with ease. You have the staple Arcane Signet that’ll tap for any color.
Budget Five-Color Commander Options
There is a good handful of Five-Color commanders available to you. Normally, a lot of these decks can quickly rack up a high price tag. As with every deck, you can build budget Five-Color versions of these commanders. They’ll be weaker, but still very much playable. You just have to know what budget options are available for you. In many cases, specific commanders can utilize specific cards to make them consistent.
Jodah, the Unifier
Despite being a relatively new Five-Color commander, Jodah, the Unifier is one of the most popular Five-Color commanders. The deck is all about playing legendary creatures, as Jodah, the Unifier provides them with stat boosts. It’ll also essentially cascade into another creature. The deck has budget tools to mana fix so you always have access to your colors. Jenson Carthalion, Druid Exile can turn five mana of any color into one mana of every color. Jegantha, the Wellspring can tap itself to make one mana of any color that can be used to cast spells, just not pay generic mana costs.
Since the majority of your creatures are legendary, you can take advantage of various mana rocks that help you ramp quicker. Relic of Legends lets you tap your legendary creatures to make extra mana. Honor-Worn Shaku can only make colorless mana, but you can keep untapping it so long as you have legendary permanents to tap to activate the effect. Another great budget mana option is Great Hall of the Citadel since you can turn two lands into mana of any color for legendary spells.
A common trope in budget decks are cards that are a bit costly, but help you to get consistency once they’re on the battlefield. Leyline Immersion turns any legendary creature into a mana dork that can add five mana of any combination of colors. A Realm Reborn turns every other permanent into a mana rock/dork, letting you have access to any color of mana at all times.
If you want to play budget Jodah, the Unifier, here is a build that won’t break the bank while still being quite powerful. Jodah is just that powerful of a commander even a budget version is still great.
Commander
Creatures (36)
Instants (6)
Sorceries (8)
Artifacts (11)
Enchantments (4)
Lands (35)
100 Cards
$161.5
The Ur-Dragon
The Ur-Dragon isn’t a cheap card, but you can invest in the commander, and make the rest of the deck budget to keep the price tag low. Dragons have been around for a long time and are incredibly popular. As such, you have no shortage of budget options for the deck. Dragons are costly in mana, but you can utilize cheap cards such as Dragonlord's Servant, Dragonspeaker Shaman, and Sarkhan, Soul Aflame to discount the mana needed.
There are many ways to generate specific mana to cast Dragon spells. Crucible of the Spirit Dragon can tap for a ton of mana if you have a lot of storage counters on it. Orb of Dragonkind lets you tap it for one mana to make two mana for any Dragon. It can also be sacrificed in a pinch to dig for a Dragon creature. Rivaz of the Claw is a mana dork that generates two mana, but can only be used for Dragons. It also comes with the bonus of being able to cast Dragon spells from the graveyard once a turn.
You have some great Dragon-specific support card you can utilize on a budget. Dragon Tempest turns every Dragon entering into burn damage that gets progressively larger the more Dragons you have. Crux of Fate gives you a board wipe that can be one-sided so long as your opponents don’t control any Dragons. Call the Spirit Dragons provides a win condition for controlling five Dragons of different colors while also making them indestructible. Despite using cheaper cards, you still have a lot of ways to close out games.
When it comes to a budget The Ur-Dragon, the commander is the most important piece. While you skip out on the most powerful Dragons due to price, there are plenty of great choices you can still choose from on the cheaper side. An example of a budget build can be seen below.
Commander
Planeswalkers (1)
Creatures (31)
Instants (7)
Sorceries (7)
Artifacts (12)
Enchantments (7)
Lands (35)
100 Cards
$150.36
The Wandering Minstrel
If you really want to build a budget Five-Color commander, look no further than The Wandering Minstrel. It is built around the Town land type, which are all very cheap cards. Since The Wandering Minstrel makes lands enter untapped, Towns like Gohn, Town of Ruin and Gongaga, Reactor Town enter untapped, making them very powerful dual lands when combined with your commander. This is true for any dual lands, turning all those budget duals that enter tapped into untapped lands for immediate use.
Since the deck will run so many Towns, you have access to easy mana fixing. Reach the Horizon and Prishe's Wanderings let you tutor out for Town cards and put them directly on the battlefield. Nearly all Towns are dual lands, making it trivial to ensure you have access to all colors early on. Once you have a lot of Towns on the battlefield, you can cast Travel the Overworld for a small bit of mana.
The deck usually plays a Land Matters theme, so you want ways to play more than one land a turn. There are fantastic cards that let you do this, but don’t fit within the budget theme. Some budget options for this effect include Mina and Denn, Wildborn, Druid Class leveled up to level 2, and Case of the Locked Hothouse, which allows for cards to be played from your library if you solved it.
The Wandering Minstrel is the easiest budget Five-Color commander deck to build. Since it actively wants you to run Towns, you can save a good amount of money on the manabase, which is where a lot of the price tag tends to be for good lands. Aside from that, it’s a rather traditional Land Matters deck that has a “game over” button with The Wandering Minstrel‘s effect. You can view a sample decklist down below.
Commander
Creatures (23)
Instants (12)
Sorceries (8)
Artifacts (9)
Enchantments (9)
Lands (39)
100 Cards
$116.22
Building Up From Budget
With budget Five-Color Commander decks, you’re making your decks weaker and less consistent in exchange for not having much of a price tag. The main benefit of building budget is that you can expand from it later. This can be because you have the money to splurge on a powerful card, or because it got reprinted and it’s much more affordable now. You might want a copy of Sakashima of a Thousand Faces in your deck, but it’s not a cheap card. If it ever gets reprinted, especially in something like a precon deck, you can get it without ever having to break the bank. You can just slot it right into your budget deck.
With budget decks, you might even stumble into powerful cards that can go in them. If you decide to crack open a boost pack, you might end up with something like a Rhystic Study or Smothering Tithe to suddenly power up your deck with. You don’t need to jump into powerful decks right away. You can start with a budget deck then expand upon it by adding expensive cards as you get them through buying them or trading or however else.
With budget Five-Color decks in particular, your biggest problem with budget will likely be your manabase. You need consistency with Five-Color decks, or else you’ll be stuck in situations you just can’t play your deck. As the years have gone by, there have been better and better budget dual land options to make this easier. For example, Slow Lands such as Dreamroot Cascade and Rockfall Vale have been on a downward price trend, thanks to starting to see reprints in easily accessible precons. This trend is likely only going to continue with other land cycles, making it even easier to build budget Five-Color Commander decks.
In Conclusion
Building a budget Five-Color Commander deck may seem impossible, but over the years, the task has gotten much easier. Thanks to the various resources dedicated to WUBRG decks that have released over the years, you can build playable Five-Color decks without sacrificing too much consistency.
You can use a budget build as a groundwork, or you can keep it as a budget deck. It’s up to you if you want to slowly sprinkle in more power and consistency, or stick with what you got. Either way, budget Five-Color Commander decks have gotten to the point where you can feel like you’re playing a powerful deck instead of having to rely on drawing the right kind of basic lands.
