Budget cEDH: Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy

Today, I bring another Budget Commander list, this time based around an infinite mana combo with Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy!

Kinnan is a two-mana 2/2 commander that gives you an additional mana, of the generated color, whenever you tap a nonland permanent. This ability makes the deck's early game extremely explosive, as a dork on turn 1 turns into two mana on turn 2, giving you an absurd speed boost.

Also, for 5 colorless, one blue and one green you look at the top five cards of your library, and you can put a non-human creature on the battlefield, so the commander alone can be two important parts of the deck: first it speeds you up and then, if you don't have more efficient ways to spend mana, it lets you spend all that mana putting non-humans from the deck onto the battlefield.

The deck has different modular combo lines that consist of having infinite mana, a way to filter it and how to use it.

Infinite Mana

Kinnan+Basalt

The most consistent combo in the deck, depending solely on the Commander and Basalt Monolith.

Condition for the combo: Kinnan and Basalt Monolith in play untapped

1 — Tap Basalt to generate 4 colorless mana.

2 — Pay 3 colorless mana from your pool to untap Basalt.

3 — Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have infinite colorless mana.

Advantages: one piece combo, since the other is in the command zone.

Disadvantages: it depends on a way to filter the mana or find a card that allows you to draw the deck.

Kinnan+Dork

This combo depends on the commander and a dork that is capable of generating blue and green mana, in addition to some of the auras that allow you to untap a creature (Pemmin's Aura or Freed from the Real); if the dork is recently cast, you will need Lightning Greaves or Swiftfoot Boots to give it Haste.

After having a non-sick dork, the aura and Kinnan on the battlefield:

1 — Tap the creature to add two blue mana.

2 — Pay one blue mana to untap the creature.

3 — Repeat steps 1 and 2 until you have infinite blue mana, then repeat for green.

Usable Dorks:

Advantages: Does not rely on mana filtering, and if you have Sanctum Weaver on the battlefield, does not rely on Kinnan to generate infinite mana.

Disadvantages: Depends on spending a full turn with these creatures in play or one more piece in the combo to be able to work.

IsoRev

Combo Condition: Isochron Scepter, Dramatic Reversal in hand and at least 3 mana from artifacts or creatures (at least one colored), and mana to cast it.

1 — Cast Isochron Scepter, exiling Dramatic Reversal.

2 — Activate the scepter's ability, if you have untapped non-treasure artifacts, tap them to generate mana.

3 — Repeat step two until you generate the amount of mana you want.

Advantages: if you can't use it with colored mana left over, you can use a mana filter card or Prophet of Distortion to draw the deck.

Disadvantages: If the Scepter leaves the battlefield, reversal is lost.

Filtering infinite colorless mana

Treasure Vault

This artifact land can be used to filter mana, it can be searched by all artifact tutors and by Crop Rotation. Once you have infinite colorless mana, use its second ability to generate infinite treasures.

Advantages: it's a land, so it can already be on the battlefield at the time of the combo, it's easily searchable.

Mirage Mirror

This artifact can be found by the standard artifact tutors in the deck, and is more complicated to filter mana.

1 — Pay two colorless mana to turn it into a land that generates colored mana.

2 — Untap it with IsoRev, or use its activated ability to turn it into the Basalt Monolith and then use the activated ability to untap it.

Repeat this process until you have infinite colored mana.

Spending infinite mana

To spend your infinite mana, there are 3 ways:

Activating Kinnan

For this form, you need to be generating infinite colored mana, and it's simple. You need:

1- Activate Kinnan until you find a Spectral Sailor.

2- Activate its ability until you draw all the cards in your deck.

Now that you have the deck in hand and infinite colored mana, use Blue Sun's Zenith to win the game, as explained further below.

Prophet of Distortion

You don't need infinite colored mana for this method.

1 — Use the Prophet's ability to draw the deck.

2 — Cast Mirage Mirror and filter your colorless mana, to turn it into infinite blue mana.

Now that you have the deck in hand and infinite colored mana use Blue Sun's Zenith to win the game.

Blue Sun's Zenith

For this method, you need to be generating infinite colored mana, and it's simple. You must find Blue Sun's Zenith with some tutor and follow these steps:

1 — Cast Zenith, targeting you to draw all cards in your deck.

2 — Cast Spectral Sailor and use its ability to draw a card.

3 — Use Blue Sun's Zenith targeting an opponent, with x=200 causing them to lose the game, and shuffle it into the deck.

4 - Repeat the process.

I separated the deck cards into packs, so I could explain them better without talking directly about each one, except for the ones that need some attention. The packages in which I separated the cards from this deck are: Ramps, Tutors, Card Draw and Interactions.

Ramps

This deck has all the one mana creatures that generate possible mana and some two mana creatures to get into the game as early as possible, as well as several mana rocks like Sol Ring, Talismans, Seals, and other; this added to the mana base of the deck makes it very difficult for the deck to not have enough colored mana.

Prophetic Prism is a card that would not normally be added to the deck, but it refills in the hand and still generates mana like a Signet when Kinnan is on the battlefield. In addition, the deck also has a Leyline of Abundance to speed up the early game even more.

Tutors

This list has all possible viable artifact tutors: Moonsilver Key, Reshape, Whir of Invention, Fabricate and Trophy Mage to find the combo parts with consistency, Muddle the Mixture which finds the mana value 2 cards and Drift of Phantasms which finds the mana value 3 spells.

We also have Solve the Equation and Merchant Scroll, which can fetch important interactions, and Blue Sun's Zenith or Dramatic Reversal if needed.

The list also has Neoform and Eldritch Evolution that can fetch creatures from the deck to combo or generate value.

Card Draw

This list does not have so many ways to guarantee so many extra cards in the hand, precisely because of its density of tutors and the commander's second ability that manages to guarantee specific cards in the hand and generate value, respectively.

Windfall is especially strong on this list because if you generate more mana from rocks and dorks, and it's not hard for you to spend your entire hand and use that card to draw 6, or 5 cards.

In addition, the list has many cards that work as interactions and can also filter your hand, such as Blink of an Eye, Into the Roil, Kenrith's Transformation and Arcane Denial that can replenish or filter the cards in your hand, plus some cantrips like Ponder, Preordain and Gitaxian Probe.

Interactions

The interactions of this deck were designed to affect and stop the most common combos used on budget lists.

Low-cost counterspells like Dispel, Miscast, Arcane Denial, Negate, Delay, Muddle the Mixture, and Counterspell they are low-cost interactions that cover a broad range of cards they can counter.

Blink of an Eye, Into the Roil, Kenrith's Transformation, Tale's End, Resculpt and Run Away Together deals with what is already in play, returning it to the hand, transforming or exiling. It is essential to emphasize the importance of understanding how your opponent's deck works to interact with them in the best possible way.

Test of Talents is a strong counterspell to reveal your opponent's hand, and Submerge is a great interaction that can save you in games.

Strengths

— This deck explodes very fast, and it puts itself far ahead in the game.

— It may protect itself relatively well from other decks, especially if you know when to combo, minimizing interactions with opponents, as a deck pilot.

Weaknesses

— This deck depends a lot on the commander to generate value, and too much focus to deal with Kinnan ends up delaying the game plan a lot.

— It depends on good starting hands and protections to win in the early or mid-game.

I close this article here, stay tuned as we will have another budget deck guide soon!

If you want me to try to come up with a budget list for a specific commander or a specific strategy, you can put it in the comments that I investigate, and I will probably bring in future articles.

Until the next time!