Sometimes $100 is too expensive for commander player who are are a limited budget. Budget alternatives provide the Take Ten a similar build and an affordable alternative to the series. If you have not seen the Primal Genesis upgrades you may do so here
The Cost
As of August 23rd the cost of the Take Ten replacements for Primal Genesis on Card Kingdom was $104.96 The cost is reasonable when compared to some commander decks that cost well over $500. In the Take Ten Budget Series, cards are used that reduce the cost of the deck build dramatically. Whether a high school student or a new player consider these substitutions. They are as follows…
The Substitutions
Remove Enlightened Tutor $27.99 for Hoarding Dragon $0.25 Enlightened Tutor gets the artifact you need right away. Hoarding Dragon will get an artifact as well but you will need to jump through a few hoops to get it to hand. You have to let it die to get the card. It still can be a little dicey if someone exiles your dragon. You can;t go wrong for a quarter.
Remove Purphoros, God of the Forge $24.99 or Dragon Throne of Tarkir $0.25 We lose a strong win condition due to cost but we will add another one in with the Dragon Throne. This one is searchable with the Hoarding Dragon. I’ll take the Overrun effect for a quarter.
Remove Eternal Witness $4.99 for Luminate Primordial $0.35 Luminate Primordial is a Swords to Plowshares on a beat stick. It is more effective as it targets a creature for each opponent although it is removal at sorcery speed. Beggars can’t be choosers. It is a 4/7 with vigilance for a little over the cost of a chocolate covered cherry.
Remove Akroma’s Memorial $27.99 for Helm of the Host $6.99 The Helm is a little more expensive than our other budget options. It still is a significant savings over the memorial. We lose the keyword soup but we will gain more unique tokens. To make up for it. Imagine making a token of the Luminate Primordial mentioned above.
Remove Loyal Unicorn $0.25 for Soul Separator $0.25 This configuration relies more on generating unique tokens and the special abilities they can bring to the battlefield. The Soul Separator is another way to do that and it targets a resource from your graveyard for extra value.
Removed Lightning Greaves (N/A Precon) added Desolation Twin (N/A Precon) We add the Desolation Twin back in for this build because of the additional abilities to generate a 10/10 token. This build had the Dragon Throne that can abuse a vanilla 10/10 creature +10/+10 and trample to all your creatures for two mana is an excellent rate for the effect.
With these replacements the deck substitutions are much more affordable for any budget at $26.84
