What do you consider "budget"?

[ekans_]

What even really is budget or semi-budget?

When PleasantKenobi tells me a 100€ modern deck is budget, and then Commander's Quarters builds entire 100 card decks for 20€, I'm kind of confused what is considered a budget deck. I know it depends on the format, but I'd like to know for each format and your opinions

[Aetherium Slinky]

I play EDH exclusively. For me sub-1€ cards are budget. A quick calculation shows that spending a few euros on lands + 60 other cards at roughly 1€ each would yield a "budget" deck for 50€-100€. That's my limit for budget, anything above that is in the "normal" range and multiple cards over 50€ each will usually push the deck into the "expensive" category because the value of the deck adds up into silly amounts rapidly after that.

[WizardSpartan]

I definitely agree with MustaKotka. If the average card in your deck costs you $1, then it is budget in my eyes (for EDH).

Also, your comparison is for different formats. PleasantKenobi's budget deck was for Modern, while Mitch's budget decks are for EDH. That's a very important distinction to make. Modern is an inherently competitive and expensive format, while Commander is a lot more fun and relaxed. To build a decent Commander deck, (especially if you pick a Commander that likes working with cheap cards like Feather, the Redeemed or Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker) you don't need to spend nearly as much money on average as you would need to spend to build a decent Modern deck on average.

[Schau]

For me, "budget" is building a deck with only cards that I already own so building that deck doesn't cost me anything.

[CleanBelwas]

Budget is incredibly subjective and means different things to different people.

When it comes to online content, I think a good rule of thumb is to consider a budget deck to be "significantly cheaper than tier one deck". This in itself is hard to quantify, but is generally a good place to start. It is also entirely relative to the format in question. $100 is cheap for a modern deck because modern is quite an expensive format in general and tier 1 decks can cost a lot of money. The mana base for modern jund alone is upwards of $500, so $100 for a whole deck that can compete is very budget. That doesn't mean that $100 isn't a lot of money to spend on cardboard, just that within the context of the modern format, it is a cheaper entry point

EDH is a bit of a funny one. A global established meta is far less prevalent and expectations are different. If you sat down at a table and said you're playing a modern deck and it was just cards you had lying around, many people would consider it to be kitchen table only and not format viable. In EDH, there as many people who would love it as would dismiss it. EDH is very much the format to play what you want and what your budget can afford. It's a huge part of its popularity. Some people like to play with expensive, optimised decks and some people like to play with piles of jank (I'm one of the latter personally). For EDH, budget likely will just mean using cards that cost under a dollar or two, but without the established meta of other formats its much harder to quantify.

Things like legacy and vintage are like modern but to greater extremes. Tier one decks can be up the thousands, so $300 would be a relatively budget deck, but it would still be more than my most expensive EDH deck.

Standard used to be the cheap way to get into magic, but that trend seems to be in the way out. Tier one sandard decks can cost as much as modern decks these days.

To come back from all of my inane waffling and round this off succinctly, I think a good rule of thumb would be to take and average of a given formats top deck prices, and if a deck is significantly cheaper (we're talking at least 50%, but more like 60+%) but still viable in the meta, it can be considered a budget deck.

[robort]

Depends on what type of deck you want. Any deck from Modern to Edh can be expensive because of the land base alone never mind any other card in the decks. The meaning of budget is what one can afford because everyones budget is diffrent. My own definition based upon my budget for a commander deck is about $200.00 or less without a strong mana land base. I also keep buying singles at top end of 20.00 when feasible.

[stuffnsuch]

I like to think of cards as budget, not decks.  I don't make my decks to be specifically budget, because when I have a Food Chain or a Sliver Queen or a Gaea's Cradle just lying around, I might as well put them to good use.  That being said, I'll rarely spend more than a dollar to purchase a single.  If I find a card that's functionally very unique and necessary for my strategy, I'll go up to two dollars sometimes, but that's about it.  Because of that, I spend between $20 and $50 buying cards for most EDH decks I build, but I also only buy about a third of the cards I end up using.  I consider that to be a budget approach, buying cheaper cards that fill roles, only splurging for the expensive cards if they're really necessary for the deck, and never splurging on anything that's definitely expensive.  This approach will allow you to play casual EDH, fairly competitive pauper, and, of course, regular kitchen table Magic.  It will not allow you to be competitive in EDH, Legacy, or Modern (and usually not standard).
For those formats, the definition of "budget" can't be based on getting the cheapest cards that reasonably fill certain roles, because in those formats there are not cheap alternatives to necessary cards.  The ability to win depends on having top tier cards, and those cards will never be budget.  The design of gameplay at those higher levels of competition is not using cost or availability of cards as a factor in deck design, so decks typically cost hundreds, and even thousands of dollars, not because people are just filthy rich and want to spend that sort of money on cards, but because that's what it takes to be competitive.  The mindset is, buy the cards you need to optimize your deck.  In top tier, highly competitive formats, there isn't an idea of "budget" because that idea conflicts directly with the optimized deck.  True, some decks are cheaper than others, but what I'm trying to say is, if all the reprints of Lightning Bolt were suddenly destroyed, you wouldn't see a bunch of legacy burn decks running Shock instead, you'd see the price of playing Legacy burn skyrocket.  Burn's not budget, the best cards for burn just happen to be on the slightly cheaper side.