When most Magic: The Gathering players hear the word “pre-constructed”, they can’t help but laugh a little. Not only are the pre-constructed decks rarely any good, but the rares provided in said decks are often cards that have no chance of being desirable in any meta game. With that said, I was elated still at the announcement of the commander pre-constructed decks that will contain NEW cards, never before seen, alongside a plethora of presumably useful cards in the format. Boy was I not disappointed.
In fact, the Commander pre-constructed decks are pretty well thought out with a lot of obvious and hidden synergies. They break the preconception of what a pre-constructed deck should look and feel like, leaving you wanting to buy the other decks just to see what you are missing. But which deck is the strongest, which is the weakest? Are there other factors that go into picking these decks?
I will start first with the deck that originally caught my eye- the BUG deck, Devour for Power. Now this deck has three strong commanders available at the helm- Vorosh, the Hunter, Damia, the Sage of Stone, and THE Mimeoplasm. Vorosh is old school, no real need to go into him to much. For a while he was the only BUG commander available, so he got more than his fair share of play. The Mimeoplasm seems more like a good main deck inclusion, as he is particularly awful if there is any measure of graveyard hate. The shining commander of Devour for Power- Damia. With a nearly broken card drawing ability, she can keep your hand filled up with the right cards. Deathtouch is nothing to sneeze at either. The big restriction with Damia is her 7 cmc, so you will want to play some ramp like Coalition relic or Far Wanderings and keep your hand full of protective cards like counterspells or vines of vastwood. Luckily, the deck comes with lightning greaves. Also included in the deck are the eternal witness and solemn simulacrum, both of which are staples in most commander decks. Like all the commander decks, Devour for Power comes packed with all the inexpensive mana fixing lands available to the wedge, which are not necessarily hard to come by but certainly more difficult to find. The deck plays pretty well, though the central theme is somewhat foggy. There are a handful of mill cards, synergizing with the Mimeoplasm’s ability and a legend available in the deck, Wrexial, the Risen Deep, but without a dedicated mill theme it is extremely underwhelming. I am turning the deck into a mill themed Damia deck, as I think that Damia is overtly powerful and I want to temper that with a subpar theme. Look for further entries for the decklist and feasibility reports.
Next, I will discuss the second deck of interest to me- the GWB Counterpunch deck. What originally caught my attention about Counterpunch was one of the unique cards in the deck- the Scavenging Ooze. An important piece of mono-green graveyard hate, the Ooze will go perfectly in not only the decks I am building with the Devour and Counterpunch pre-cons, but also my Omnath Tool box of combos deck. The commanders- Ghave, Guru of Spores, Karador, the Ghost chieftain, and of course Teneb, the colors’ wedge dragon, are all powerful. Karador is very strong and a strategy based on numerous ETB creatures will definitely be a strong deck, but I feel it is a pretty obvious strategy and will not take too much thought, not to mention that he shares the Mimeplasm’s problem of weakness to graveyard hate. In my humble opinion, Ghave is the shining star of Counterpunch. His ability is subtle but powerful and extremely versatile. Karador is well suited as his lieutenant, taking advantage of Ghave’s sac outlet. The off color legend in the deck, Blood Arbiter, makes a fantastic win condition. Whats more, Ghave has synergies all over the board, especially with the fungus creatures from FE/Timespiral, including the Fertilid which is included in the deck. This deck is extremely powerful out of the box and will make a very fun and layered saproling/+1+1 counter deck with cards like Nemata and Verdeloth. His potential for abusing persist is great is well, especially so since all the best persisters are GWB.
Third, I will discuss Political Puppets, the WUR deck. The commanders in this deck are the worst of the commanders- Numot is of course very strong, no need to discuss that big boy. Ruhan, the Fomori, is particularly puzzling- he attacks a random opponent every turn. I suppose the implication is that he causes less political pressure as you have no choice but to blame the attack on random chance. Perhaps he is decent in 1v1, but there are no shortage of decent beater generals out there. The other commander, Zedruu the Greathearted, is dedicated to the politics of gifting- he doesn’t do anything without giving away your own permanents. This is of course an interesting ability, the main issue being that there is not much in the pre-constructed deck that is worth gifting to an opponent except for things like oblivion ring where the actual owner of the permanent is coincidental or the plethora of low hate walls. I am sure that there is a good deck inside of Zedruu but I am not the player to bring that out. There is a huge reason to buy this deck though- Flusterspell and Chaos Warp will both be legacy staples and hence will carry a decent price tag; already, both are ~15 and most legacy players are not Commander players so it may take a few tournament inclusions to really catch on. Furthermore, Nin the Pain artist comes in this deck, who will probably make a more interesting commander than the wedge colored cards. A fun red/blue torture themed deck would be fun with her, kind of a shame she doesn’t have any black in her. Threaten cards combined with indestructible creatures will make Nin a power house. Can you say Stuffy Doll?
Next is the Mirror Mastery RUG deck. This deck has the strongest of all the generals offered in the release- Animar, Soul of Elements, is ridiculous, combining a sick beater, mana ramping, and scaling as the game goes on. Also, Protection from white and black gets around most removal and lets him evade ALL the other wedge legends in the release. Like Karador, he is pretty straightforward and mostly promotes a good stuff deck. Like Vorosh, Intet, the Dreamer, was the only legend in his RUG wedge and is possibly even more ubiquitous than Vorosh. The star commander of Mirror Mastery, however- Riku of Two Reflections. This guy is similar to Aminar in that he is not terribly sublte- play good cards, double them, win game, repeat. The trick I think is making a Riku deck that is not an abusive good stuff deck. Also packed in this deck is the join forces land tutor Collective Voyage. This card is particularly fun in general but with Riku doubling it, it could make for instant mega battles.
Lastly, I will discuss the RWB deck. This is the deck that is perfect for those who love to run theme decks, as it is essentially a collection of the strongest themes of the game- angels, demons, and dragons. The Main commander, Kaalia of the Vast, is rather easy to build upon and facilitates playing a lot of really cool creatures that would otherwise be a sub par deck building option. Consider Erratic portal/Cloudstone Curio and Angel of despair. Her Liuetenant, Tariel, Reckoner of Souls, is another new legend that is better off playing in the main deck as a strong support creature. The wedge dragon, Oros, the Avenger, is probably not worth the card slot he will take main deck as he may end up hurting you own stuff more than your opponent, especially if your opponent is mono white. The cards in the deck go perfectly with Kaalia, especially Bladewing, the risen who will chain into another free dragon. The mana Charged dragon is interesting- he has a joined forces firebreathing that will turn into a strong political tool. Also in the deck is comet storm, a fireball with multikicker in the voice of strength of the Tajuru. The potential for boardwipe is evident.
In the end, I am extremely happy with the commander decks. Currently owning three and yearning for Mirror Mastery, the RWB Kalia deck is the only deck that I will probably not purchase. Red and black are not my normal colors and the white in the deck is not all that tempting. Right out of the box, the decks make for epic games and will easily convert to a deck with a more central strategic focus, whatever that may be.
