Dollar Menu Dynamite, Part 3

There's no need to choose between paying for lunch or a new power card for your favourite casual deck - expand your horizons somewhat and you can have both! A couple years ago I started a tentative feature called Dollar Menu Dynamite, which offered suggestions for underrated and underplayed cards that can be had for one dollar or less. Well, wouldn't you know it, those fine folks in Seattle just keep on printing cards... and as there are ever more options, that has the side effect of meaning that older cards have more to replace them. Likewise, as new strategies become popular, old cards that happen to synergize with (or fiercely oppose) such strategies are suddenly given a new lease on life. Here, then, I have another ten cards for the budget-minded gamer, all of them easy to acquire, a buck or less, and able to bring plenty of havoc to the gaming table.

 

Bloodfire Colossus: An Inferno with legs, the Colossus was a big bad 6/6 who could basically wipe the whole table on demand for just one mana. You lose the surprise value of the original, but with an ability this strong and this cheap to leave open, you can actually use that fact to your advantage. Consider a multiplayer game, where the Colossus will nail two or more opponents in one go. The lower someone's life is, the more power you have over them - and if someone's board is stuffy with creatures who have six or less toughness, do you really think they'll take the swing at you? No way, they'll be hunting for a player less (visibly) able to retaliate. While instants are hailed for their ability to take a foe by surprise, sometimes the threat of a visible ability can twist them to your advantage and cause them to make mistakes. Besides, the ability is so cheap to activate that you can easily "cheat" the Colossus' ability out. Sneak Attack, Shallow Grave and other ways of cheating a creature out don't mean you won't be prepared to use your big guy if needed!

Grafted Skullcap: Card advantage wins games, but if you're playing red or white, you're mostly out of luck as far as reliable card draw goes. Thankfully artifacts are always on the table, and if you're piloting an aggressive deck that plays out its hand as soon as possible, the Skullcap has virtually no drawback. So long as you can play two cards per turn, you won't lose out on anything. You lose the opportunity to take good advantage of instants, but you automatically get Hellbent and a guaranteed Madness enabler every turn, making it a good fit for an aggressive red/black deck.

Dogged Hunter: I know what you're thinking. "Three mana for a 1/1 that can tap to blow up a squirrel token? Gee, I guess they colorshifted Prodigal Sorcerer to white, too. Next!" But consider what block just came out - tokens have recently gotten a big boost thanks to Selesnya's latest offerings. There are all sorts of 5/5 tramplers, 8/8s with vigilance and even Scion of the Wild tokens running around in casual games now, and there's always that one player in any playgroup who loves creature swarms. Keep 'em in check with this half-price Visara.

Aether Snap: It's a little mana-intensive, but since the printing of this forgotten blanket-answer, we have seen the rise of the Planeswalker card, the damage-that-sticks of Infect and Wither and the token madness headed by such firepower as Populate and Doubling Season. Considering how notoriously popular Doubling Season is and just how many cards it synergizes with, it's worth it to keep in mind that Aether Snap shuts down just as many cards. If you feel like being more proactive, though, the Snap can also combo with anything of your own you want to pull counters off of - think of Persist, Undying, or dare I say Dark Depths?

Perilous Forays: Sakura-Tribe Elder has been a marquee green creature for a while now, with its ability to peace out for a tapped land right into play. Perilous Forays bestows this ability on every one of your creatures! You have to pay a mana to use it, but note that it lets you get lands "with a basic land type" - this means that shock lands, dual lands, and even goodies like Dryad Arbor and Mistveil Plains can be nabbed. This can lead to insane ramping in token decks and/or game-ending blowouts when paired with landfall. The obvious pairing is with Bloodghast or Sporemound, since every land gives you another creature to be sacrificed in order to fetch yet another land, to the limit of how much mana you have open. Not evil enough? Combine the Forays with Roil Elemental and you can sacrifice your opponent's hard-earned creatures instead! 

Reconnaissance: Simple concept, but it's incredible what's possible with this innocuous little card. Even without any tricks, it basically functions as a Serra's Blessing stapled to a Dolmen Gate for only one mana! The intention with Reconnaissance is similar to the Gustcloak creatures, permitting you to attack recklessly and then pull out any creatures that end up in bad blocks. This is especially handy for any creatures that have useful abilities that trigger on attack, such as Preeminent Captain, Márton Stromgald or Yore-Tiller Nephilim - you can send them into the red zone every turn without any risk of them being killed off for doing so. But here's the thing: unlike the Gustcloak creatures, Reconnaissance can be used at any time during combat, including during the End of Combat Step, after combat damage has been dealt! Even if you nail your opponent with all of your creatures, you can untap them all afterwards and still have them ready to block. Intended? I highly doubt it. Effective? Absolutely!

Dark Impostor: The Impostor has a pretty unimpressive chassis, being a Scathe Zombies with different typing. Once you make it to six mana, however, he can remove any creature from the game at will, grow bigger while doing it, and not even have to tap. In a colour with Cabal Coffers, Bubbling Muck and Crypt Ghast, you can pretty easily get to the point where your Impostor can wipe out entire armies. He even gets to inherit activated abilities from any creature removed, meaning you could end up with all sorts of useful things to do with your still-untapped vampire... but you wouldn't be so evil as to exile your own Viridian Joiner, would you?

Druidic Satchel: Monocoloured decks are always limited in what they can do by the tenets of the colour pie. Thanks to some tricky artifacts, though, you can pick up some effects outside of your usual wheelhouse: the Satchel provides ramp, creature tokens and lifegain in red, black and even blue decks! You aren't always sure what you'll be getting, but combining it with something like Soothsaying or Sensei's Divining Top can help engineer whatever effect you want most. The Satchel also lets you see the top card of your library, which can help set up something like Predict or Conundrum Sphinx. An underrated feature here is that it's never powerful enough to warrant being destroyed - your Satchel might be collateral damage in a Planar Cleansing, but I wouldn't ever expect anyone to blow a Disenchant on it.

Bonehoard: I think this is one of the most reasonably-costed Living Equipments in the game, right up there with the humble Flayer Husk. Unlike the Husk, though, this can often be (or create) the biggest creature on the board. Bonehoard checks all graveyards, so especially in multiplayer games, it can be an 8/8 or bigger for four mana. If it's killed off, you're left with that same boost that can be parceled out for a measly two mana - easy enough to spare up even if you're still casting cards. And while a vanilla 15/15 can be harmlessly chumpblocked all day, what happens when you attach Bonehoard's enormous size to an Invisible Stalker or Blighted Agent?

Word of Seizing: Threaten effects are nice, especially for punishing the player who ramps out a huge fatty, but when they are Sorcery speed, their uses are fairly straightforward. An Instant-speed Threaten is a little trickier, letting you borrow a creature for defensive purposes and more easily achieving a two-for-one. Word of Seizing can do all that and more, as it can borrow any permanent! Why shouldn't you get to use that Shrine of Burning Rage or Planeswalker ultimate that your opponent so painstakingly built up? In addition to sidestepping the usual countermagic and sacrifice outlets, Word of Seizing is perfect for borrowing a card with a sacrifice ability without letting your opponent use it in response. You can finally cash in on cards that normally resist creature theft with impunity, like Etched Oracle, Ravenous Baloth, Phyrexian Plaguelord, or Triskelion, while your opponent watches helplessly.

Got a ten-dollar bill? Then you could have every card on this list, each able to rub shoulders with much more expensive powercards at the casual table. The best part of not rolling up to the table with the latest Type 2 Net-tech? Everyone else won't be completely prepared for your strategy and know how to counter every card in it. Well... that, or having the knowledge that you didn't spend enough on your casual deck to pay for a secondhand car. That's pretty good, too!