Skip the $20+ cards (Thrumming Stone, Coat of Arms, Cover of Darkness) and the deck still hums: Commander: Karumonix, the Rat King (~$1) Engines: Pack Rat (~$3.30), Piper of the Swarm (~$3), Ogre Slumlord (~$0.45), a couple of Relentless Rats / Rat Colony (~$56 each cap the copies to stay on budget) Payoffs/utility: Crypt Rats (~$0.50), Nezumi Bone-Reader (~$0.40), Bontu the Glorified (~$3) as a sac outlet, Throne of the God-Pharaoh only if budget allows The rest: cheap black removal, Swamps, and a Sol Ring The whole list comes in well under $50, and it scales up gracefully add Marrow-Gnawer and Thrumming Stone later and the same shell jumps several power levels
If you can give it deathtouch then suddenly you have a very easy way to wipe out any troublesome Creatures
5 Nuka-Cola Vending Machine (Borderless, Surge Foil) Who Doesn't Enjoy An Ice-Cold Nuka-Cola
Horrid Shadowspinner Rating: 4/10 When weve seen uncommons that rival the power level of rares and mythics, seeing a signpost card that just says draw two and discard two on it is pretty underwhelming
The keys to finishing out the rest of the deck are to make sure we actually kill our opponent, not just go big and give them time to counter with a combo finish, and to make sure we have something to do at every point in the curve so we dont fall behind between the initial burst of mana and our expensive top end
Of all the hall of fame of fantasy artists, nobody has latched onto my brain stem the way Larry Elmore has