cEDH Costs a Fortune in Paper
Price Breakdown · Competitive EDH
cEDH Costs a Fortune in Paper. Here’s What the Top 8 Would Cost in Proxies.
Competitive Commander is the most expensive way to play Magic. We took all eight Top 8 decks from the most recent large cEDH event, priced every single card at its cheapest real-paper TCGplayer printing, and compared it to building the same 100 cards with proxies from mtgproxies.biz. Across eight decks, the real-card bill came to $58,746. In proxies it was $2,675.
The Top 8, deck by deck
Every deck is 100 cards (99 + commander, or 98 + two partner commanders). “Real cost” uses the cheapest available paper printing of each card on TCGplayer. “Proxy cost” uses mtgproxies.biz pricing for the cards we stock; the handful of bulk commons we don’t carry are counted at their (already cheap) real price, so these savings are if anything conservative.
| Finish | Deck (Commander) | Colors | Real (TCGplayer) | Proxy | You save | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | Rograkh + Ishai Max Safran | WUR | $6,476 | $354 | $6,123 | 94.5% |
| 2nd | Ral, Monsoon Mage Sean Rader | UR | $9,774 | $298 | $9,476 | 97.0% |
| 3rd–4th | Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy M. Swaney | GU | $4,337 | $358 | $3,979 | 91.8% |
| 3rd–4th | Tymna + Kraum William McCall | WUBR | $9,035 | $331 | $8,703 | 96.3% |
| 5th–8th | Kraum + Tymna Corbin | WUBR | $8,681 | $325 | $8,356 | 96.3% |
| 5th–8th | Inalla, Archmage Ritualist Sasquatch | UBR | $6,940 | $337 | $6,604 | 95.2% |
| 5th–8th | Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy Evan Pierce | GU | $4,340 | $359 | $3,982 | 91.7% |
| 5th–8th | Tymna + Thrasios Crave | WUBG | $9,163 | $314 | $8,849 | 96.6% |
| All eight Top 8 decks | $58,746 | $2,675 | $56,071 | 95.4% |
The cards carrying the cost
These six staples appear all over the Top 8 — and they’re where proxies do the heavy lifting. Tap any card to grab it on mtgproxies.biz.
Where the money actually goes
cEDH decks aren’t expensive because of 100 pricey cards — they’re expensive because of about a dozen. Reserved List dual lands, original fast mana, and a few format-defining staples carry almost the entire bill. Here are the single biggest per-card swings we found across the Top 8:
Case study: the winning deck
Max Safran took the whole event with Rograkh + Ishai. On paper it’s a “mid-priced” cEDH deck by Top-8 standards at about $6,476. Just the fourteen most expensive cards account for the overwhelming majority of that. Here’s what they cost in paper versus proxy (card names link to the proxy on our store):
| Card | TCGplayer (cheapest) | mtgproxies.biz |
|---|---|---|
| Mox Diamond | $1,094.00 | $9.95 |
| Volcanic Island | $833.03 | $5.95 |
| Lion’s Eye Diamond | $788.89 | $4.75 |
| Tundra | $589.19 | $4.95 |
| City of Traitors | $521.77 | $4.25 |
| Plateau | $350.12 | $2.75 |
| Intuition | $327.91 | $3.25 |
| Mox Opal | $217.99 | $7.75 |
| Chrome Mox | $149.31 | $4.95 |
| Ancient Tomb | $119.70 | $6.50 |
| Mana Vault | $94.03 | $4.75 |
| Mox Amber | $74.27 | $3.50 |
| Deflecting Swat | $67.23 | $4.50 |
| Force of Will | $62.97 | $5.95 |
| These 14 cards | $5,290 | $74 |
Fourteen cards. $5,290 in paper, $74 in proxies. The other 86 cards in the deck — the rituals, the counterspells, the cheap creatures — barely move the needle either way.
Why this matters
- The barrier to entry is the cards, not the skill. Every deck here is reachable for the price of a night out once you take the Reserved List off the table.
- Proxies let you test the real metagame. You can build all eight of these decks for ~$2,700 and actually learn the matchups instead of theory-crafting.
- This event was explicitly “Proxy Friendly.” More and more cEDH organizers allow high-quality proxies precisely because the format’s card prices have spiraled out of reach.
Build the whole Top 8 for the price of one dual land.
Every staple in this article — the Moxen, the original duals, the Power — is available as a high-quality proxy at mtgproxies.biz.
Shop cEDH staples →New here? Take 15% off your first order with code 15FIRST at checkout.
