In 2016, I finished my High School exams. My Summer job could afford my newfound love, Commander, Oloro, Ageless Ascetic. Stopping by the local game store with my first paycheck, I saw something beautiful: From the Vaults 20. Gilded Lotus, Venser Shaper Savant, and the crowning jewel, Jace, the Mind Sculptor. This box sat high on the store shelf. The foils were gorgeous. The rainbow shone through. It was more vibrant than a normal foil. I still have nostalgia for them today.

There was one other Magic player in the store. An acquaintance I had met a handful of times. We sat down for a 1v1. They were a regular. I know my deck didn’t stand a chance. But this wasn’t about win or loss.  I wanted to play with my new cards. Turn four, Jace off the top of my library. I slammed it down. “Why isn’t that sleeved?” my opponent said.

Playing with an unsleeved deck without a care in the world is a great feeling. Back then, I did not realize the power or price of Jace. Today I have several decks, all powerful and protected in sleeves. A friend posed an idea: “What if we built decks that didn’t need to be sleeved?”. This unlocked something in my brain. I have so many worthless cards. I would never play them. Suddenly, they have a home.

Today I want to embrace low-power Commander. It comes in many forms. Let me share some thoughts, and hopefully you can join me on this unsleeved journey.

Deck building is all about compromise. There are three pillars you need to balance in your deck.

• Cheap: The cost of your deck. Whatever “cheap” means to you will vary. But everyone has a number where a deck becomes too expensive.
• Cute: A deck is cute when it tries to do things for theatrics, not strictly just to win.
• Good: A good deck wins the game.

These three factors will dictate your deck building. It is incredibly hard to max out all three pillars. Imagine you have 10 points. How do you want to divide your points?

A bracket 5 Tivit deck is not cute or cheap. But it is very good. It is powerful. The best lands, threats, and interactions make this a powerhouse.

My “Jumpstart Volo” deck (that we wrote about here) is cute and cheap, but it is not very good. The deck is trying to juggle so many different game plans that I recognise it is weak. But it’s a lot of fun, and brings variety to my game nights.

A deck that tries to be good and cute at the same time is expensive. This happens when you try to make the “best” version of a non-CEDH commander. Trazyn the Infinite is a good example. It is a combo machine. Put a Thran Dynamo and Staff of Domination into your graveyard, and Trazyn will quickly win the game. The problem is: the deck is playing so many “bad” cards to make the deck work. Thran Dynamo is not a cEDH card. I could pour all the money in the world into Trazyn, and he would still ultimately be trying to do something “cute”.

A deck that is good, cute, and cheap all at the same time is impossible. The dials you need to turn conflict with each other too much. You can have a powerful deck doing something cute, but it’s never going to be as powerful as a version that forgoes the cute stuff.

This brings us to decks that are good and cheap; this inspired the whole article. Here we are trying to build strong decks within a budget. For me, the budget was zero; I wanted to only use the cards I own.

Evaluating cards you should consider when they are at their worst, best, and the average. Many players only look at the best situation. Rampant Growth is at its best when you play it on turn two, and next turn play a four-cost spell. In the worst scenario, you have ten lands in play already, and it does almost nothing. The average, you cast it along with something else because you had nothing better to do with the mana. It is a fine card; it’s safe, but it doesn’t do anything special in the deck.

Within the bounds of a budget, modality is incredibly powerful. Think about cards that you are always happy to draw. Boros Charm, Glissa Sunslayer, and Farewell all give you choices. They are never dead draw. You can rely on them.

Modality comes in other forms. Lands that double as spells are a great inclusion. Whether it’s Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire, or Ishgard, the Holy See, you can make your mana base work for you. A great budget option (although not very suitable for unsleeved play) is the MDFC lands from Modern Horizons 2 and Zendikar Rising. Some of them are all-around hits like Glasspool Mimic, while others are more situational. Waterlogged Teachings is one of my favorites when I can go hard into the flash/instant theme.

Channel, cycling, and transmute are other ways to introduce flexibility. Channel has a whole range of effects. Touch the Spirit Realm is one of my favorites. It gives you a cheap, temporary, instant speed answer for two mana or a three mana long term answer at sorcery speed.

Cycling lets you dig through your deck at a low cost. Keep an eye out for cycling cards that have other effects. Webstrike Elite has been a great recent example. The land cycling cards from Lord of the Rings also fit in nicely here. Transmute helps fulfill the budget-friendly side of our deck.

To transmute, you discard the card and search for another card with the same mana value. With clever deck building, you can unlock a huge chunk of your deck. As of this article, all transmute cards are blue/black. There are transmute cards at every mana value from zero to six. Then a jump to nine mana. Your deck-building choices will determine which of these are best for you. Dizzy Spell is quite bad on its own. However, it can grab Sol Ring, Swords to Plowshares, and Skullclamp. Dimir House Guard is a sacrifice outlet. If you love killing your own creatures, this one is solid. Transmuting it, you have a lot of great options. The One Ring is an obvious choice. Brainspoil destroys a creature for five mana. It’s ok in a pinch. But, for three mana, you can transmute for Force of Will or Misdirection.

I love channel, cycling, and transmute in particular, as they are all abilities. A traditional counterspell cannot stop you. Short of Stifle, you’ll be fine!

We run a suite of spells with reduced costs. Overwhelming Remorse, Misdirection, and Kellan, Inquisitive Prodigy // Tail the Suspect give us some options in the early game. Force of Vigor and Commandeer make for great surprises off the top of your deck with Glarb. If budget is no concern for you, Force of Will and Deadly Rollick are great choices.

Winning the game is usually a barrage of big creatures. These are mostly replaceable, but they were what I had on hand. I enjoy Annoyed Altisaur and Dawnglade Regent as they can replace themselves.

An alternative win-condition is Doomsday. I adore this card. It is my deck of choice in Vintage. With Keruga, we are missing Thassa’s Oracle. Instead, we opt for Jace, Wielder of Mysteries. Here’s how we win. Cast Doomsday. Search for four random cards and Jace. Put Jace on top, then the rest of the cards in any order. Cast Jace off the top. Use Glarb’s surveil ability. Bin both cards. Activate Jace’s +1 ability. Congratulations, you win! You can be more sophisticated with your pile, but this one is very simple. If Jace doesn’t feel fun, I sometimes search for Ormos, Archive Keeper. It’s much worse, but it’s a fun mini-game trying to kill everyone with Ormos.

Our suite of nuisances covers a lot of bases. Aven Mindcensor prevents tutoring. Vryn Wingmare, combined with Wakka blowing up mana rocks, puts pressure on mana. Spirit of the Labyrinth prevents extra card draw. All of these little creatures come together with Wakka’s buffs to make combat difficult for your opponent. Their resources are squeezed tight. Meanwhile, my board keeps getting bigger.

I have been chasing novel deck building for a while. The Volo Jumpstart project was a joy to create and maintain. We also spoke about Gimmick decks in a broader sense in this article. But, I think the unsleeved framework captures the feeling I am after in a way that isn’t so rigid. You’ll probably only ever build one “Mark Poole artwork” deck. You can build hundreds of unsleeved decks.

This got me thinking of other ways to bring novel ideas into deckbuilding. Companions are a great choice. This bakes the deckbuilding restriction into the rules of Magic. If you go for companions, try stretching your muscles and see what’s really possible. Everyone knows Belakor and Gyruda are well-known. My beloved Glarb and Keruga are obvious. But what about Zirda and Queen Kayla bin-Kroog.

Stepping outside cards with their own restrictions, we can bring some self-imposed restrictions. One of the folks at Three for One has been playing Boomer Commander. A variant using only cards from a certain year back. I think this could be a lot of fun if you have nostalgia for that era. You could also try building with certain sets excluded. Try building a deck using only non-standard sets. Between Modern Masters, Lord of the Rings, and Modern Horizons, you have a powerful card pool!