- Home
- Budget swaps
MTG budget swaps
Paste any Magic: The Gathering or Commander decklist to price every card and find where the money goes, then get cheaper alternatives that do the same job and stay in your deck's colors. Pricing your deck is free and needs no login.
One card per line. Your commander (under a “Commander” line) is never swapped: it sets the colors every suggestion has to fit.
Your deck's price breakdown shows up here
Every card priced at TCGplayer market via Scryfall, the biggest spends first, then cheaper swaps that keep your game plan.
How MTG budget swaps work
Magic: The Gathering decks can get expensive fast, and a handful of staples often make up most of a deck's price. This free budget swap tool reads every card in your list from the Scryfall database, looks up the current market price and shows you exactly which cards cost the most. Then, with a free account, it suggests cheaper cards that play a similar role and stay legal in your deck's color identity, so you can build the deck you want for less.
Find your most expensive cards first
Before you can save money, you need to know where it's going. The tool totals the whole deck and ranks your cards by what they cost you (a playset of an expensive card counts four times), so the outliers, the dual lands, fast mana and chase mythics, are obvious at a glance. The pricing pass is completely free and needs no login: paste, price, and see the breakdown instantly.
Cheaper alternatives that keep your game plan
A good budget swap isn't just any cheaper card, it's a card that does the same job. If your expensive card ramps, the replacement should ramp too; if it's removal, you get cheaper removal. Every suggestion is checked to be a real card that fits your commander's color identity, isn't already in your deck and is actually cheaper than the card it replaces. You'll see each alternative's price and how much you'd save across every copy, and you can copy the budget version of your list with the swaps applied.
Commander and 60-card decks
Budget swaps work for Commander / EDH decklists and for 60-card Constructed decks. Your commander is never swapped: it defines your color identity, so the tool keeps it and makes every suggestion stay within those colors. You can paste straight from Moxfield, Archidekt, MTG Arena or MTGO exports.
Why build on a budget?
Budget decks are some of the most rewarding to play: they're approachable for new players, easy to bring to a casual Commander pod, and they free up money for the cards you really want. Cutting a few hundred dollars of staples for close-enough alternatives often costs surprisingly little power. Want to go further? The AI deck builder can build a whole deck to a budget you set, and the free deck analyzer checks your curve, ramp, draw and removal ratios.