How MTG budget swaps work
Magic: The Gathering decks can get expensive fast — a handful of staples often make up most of a deck's price. Our 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 are costing you the most. Then, with a free account, it suggests cheaper replacement 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 ranks your cards by price and totals up the whole deck, so the expensive outliers — the dual lands, fast mana, and chase mythics — are obvious at a glance. This pricing pass is completely free and needs no login: paste, price, and see your deck's cost breakdown instantly. Prices come live from Scryfall.
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 your mana, the replacement should ramp too; if it's removal, you get cheaper removal. Every suggestion is checked to make sure it's a real card, fits your commander's color identity, isn't already in your deck, and — critically — is actually cheaper than the card it replaces. We show the price of each alternative and how much you'd save.
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 sure every suggestion stays 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 kitchen-table or 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 play power — and this tool finds those alternatives for you.
Want to go deeper? The AI KrakenTheMeta deck builder can generate a whole deck to a budget you set, and the free deck analyzer checks your mana curve, ramp, draw and removal ratios. Together they help you build a deck that's both affordable and on-meta.