Out of the Box: March of the Machine 2/3
Let’s dive into the next two Commander precons from March of the Machine! If you’ve missed the first article in the series that talks about Growing Threat (Brimaz // Moira and Teshar) and Cavalry Charge ( Sidar // Elenda and Azor), you can find that here.
A reminder that I’ll be looking at these precons and see which cards stand out and where to make upgrades and changes through the eyes of wanting to keep it into the Battlecruiser (BC) power level on our own server, where we seek to curate an environment where people can play with boxed and upgraded precons and homebrew decks designed to play nicely against one another.
Divine Convocation
Kasla, the Broken Halo is the first ever commander that cares about other convoke spells and while she’s 6 mana to get on board for the first time, you do get a 5/4 creature with flying, vigilance and haste. You can reduce that mana cost to 0 if you go wide enough, and there are several cards in the deck that bring tokens to the field to ensure you’re rarely going to be tapping down 6 mana to see Kasla appear. I know this has nothing to do with the mechanics of the deck, but man do I love the design of the wings in the art. More of this please!
Saint Traft and Rem Karolus cares about getting tapped several times per turn and untaps when you cast a spell with convoke. While I’m sure this card becomes great in a homebrew deck, the game has to go into the very late turns to make it truly shine in the boxed unedited precon. The 1/1 on the ground feels not very significant and if you’re able to cast 2 to 3 convoke spells a turn, you either got very lucky and managed to find an early enabler piece or you’re in one of those games where everyone has 20 mana so you can dump your hand on the field every turn. Unedited out of the box, I’d keep Kasla at the helm.
This precon to me lacks focus. There are less than 20 cards that care about the convoke mechanic and a large portion of the deck is made up of what to me are draft chaff and dollar bin filler cards. A third of the creature base provides little to nothing to the deck other than flying – a minor subtheme in the deck with not enough payoffs or synergy to truly matter – or suboptimal card draw and interaction that usually gets passed around the table in limited because the cards simply aren’t good or desirable.
This deck would have been way more interesting if there were more spots to make new convoke cards, but those slots are already taken up by the Planechase mechanics they forced into all of these precons. There’s not a whole lot of room for fun new EDH cards when 30% of the new cards care about Planechase.
Cards like Goblin Instigator, Spirited Companion, and Angel of Salvation immediately take me back to the quality of the cards we got in precons ten or more years ago. This deck feels like it was designed in that era, and if you’ve played with some of those older decks, you’ll know exactly what I mean. It wouldn’t have surprised me to see an Armillary Sphere, Jeskai Banner and 42 lands in this deck, if you know what I mean.
A large part of the creature base are cards that were clearly designed for draft archetypes that were relevant in their time period. I’ve often talked about power creep going up the past few years and it feels very weird to see specifically one deck out of a cycle of 5 having a noticeably lower card quality than the others in the same cycle.
We saw some amazing cards get (re)printed that could easily have made their way into this precon the past few sets and it’s almost as if they went out of their way to not add the actual cards people would run in this shell to force you to go pick up the singles that current in-print products have access to. Monastery Mentor, which got reprinted in the Standard set instead and Bennie Bracks, which was part of the Commander drop in Streets of New Capenna Set Boosters.
I know the idea is that precons are meant as an starting point into the format, but with the quality of the precons we saw the past years and the addition of the Starter Commander Decks (SCD) late last year, to me this one truly feels like it missed the mark. I really don’t enjoy being negative in these types of articles but I do try to be as honest as possible, and to me not all of these precons were created equally this time around.
Interesting New Cards
Yep, card, singular. Wand of the Worldsoul can be played in just about any go-wide token deck and I’m sure it’ll find its way in most Adeline, Resplendent Cathar or Emmara, Soul of the Accord EDH brews going forward. It synergises really well with Kykar, Wind’s Fury which is also present in the precon because you can first tap down your spirits to convoke a spell and sacrifice them later to add red mana for any followup casts you had in mind.
Cuts
Flight of Equenauts has never been a great card in EDH and seeing this appear in a precon where you want to tap down your board for a big payoff, it failed to impress. It’s a 4/5 that brings nothing to the table other than flying. Hard casting a better 5 drop over convoking out this card will feel better.
Chant of Vitu-Ghazi, in a world where a simple fog costs 1 mana is just not good. Yes, I’m aware you can cast this for 0 mana by tapping down 8 creatures, but that requires you to have 8 untapped bodies on the field to begin with. This card kind of feels like a slap in the face knowing one of the Phyrexia: All Will Be One precons got Clever Concealment in its interaction package and the deck it came in had no other convoke cards in the rest of the deck!
I know Keeper of the Accord is a great card, but the precon mostly runs it to generate those Soldier creature tokens. My issue with it is that in its own precon, it’s rarely going to give you that token. There are several ways of generating creature tokens in the 99 and more often than not you will have the highest creature count. While it’s a great card in its own right, I don’t really feel you’re getting the benefits here.
If you play with the same people every weekend at your LGS and you know they’re going to outpace you in creatures and/or lands then clearly, keep it around, but in the base unedited precons, when matched up against other out of the box unaltered precons, it kind of didn’t do a whole lot.
Replacements
It’s hard to recommend ‘just a few swaps’ because to me personally this is a bit of a boring precon. Not enough cards that care about the mechanic or gimmick of both commanders, too many low impact reprints and lack of focus on how to actually close out the game. I’d easily cut a third of the cards here or opt to homebrew something else for a different power level because the base precon just doesn’t interest me much, but that’s not the point of this article series so here we go.
Decide on what your game plan is going to be. Choose if you’re going to focus more on a go-wide 1/1 token approach or if you’re simply looking to outvalue your opponents on the battlefield and go from there.
Keeping Kasla, the Broken Halo at the helm means you have a scry and draw engine in your command zone. You essentially have access to a free Deliberate every time you cast a spell with convoke and your upgrades should likely capitalize on the fact that this ability doesn’t say ‘once per turn’, like we see so often on modern cards. I’d seek to add more convoke cards and look for more consistent convoke payoffs like creatures that gain benefits when they tap and untap so you get more value out of tapping down your board.
Invasion of Sevogia gives you 2 tokens with trample and only has 4 defense counters. This gets oneshot by your commander and due to the other flying creatures and tokens in the deck, you should have no issue getting Caetus, Sea Tyrant of Segovia, giving all your noncreature spells convoke and untapping 4 creatures in your end step, providing you with 4 additional mana to cast extra convoke spells.
There’s a cycle of cards from Born of the Gods that can likely make its way into this deck called God-Favored General, Aerie Worshippers, and Satyr Nyx-Smith. I’m not saying ‘add all three’, but Aerie Worshippers gives you more fliers and Satyr-Nyx Smith gives you a hasted 3/1 with trample which is higher in power than most of the tokens you currently have access to. Kykar and Satyr Nyx-Smith also go well together if you decide to keep Kykar around since your spirits can pay the red pip for Nyx-Smith’s its ability cost.
Daring Thief from the same set will exchange some of your 1/1s for your opponent's best creature. Note how that ability doesn’t say ‘until end of turn’ or ‘until Daring Thief leaves the battlefield’ by the way. A free Dimir recommendation out of my spice cabinet for potentially other decks in the future, you’r welcome. Let’s add Rumor Gatherer for some additional top deck knowledge and card draw.
Zephyr Singer can be used as a soft-finisher and make your creatures harder to block — again, a card with convoke and flying, both of which are themes present in the precon that didn’t make it’s way into the 99 but got put in the Standard set instead.
You might be incentivized to replace Mentor of the Meek for Welcoming Vampire but I’d wouldn’t make that swap. Due to convoke you’re going to have more mana available to you and more often than not you can afford to pay for Mentor’s ability. Since Welcoming Vampire only triggers once per turn, I’d not take out one for the other. Welcoming Vampire on top can’t hurt, but taking out Mentor of the Meek seems like the wrong action here.
If instead you’re going to be putting Saint Traft and Rem Karolus at the helm, having the ability to tap down your commander without attacking is going to be your focus. For the sake of BC on our own server, this probably means you stay away from cards like Pemmin’s Aura and Freed from the Real which basically allow you to make as many tokens as you want every turn rotation so long you just have blue mana open. I’d instead look at ways to tap and untap that are more limited.
Vehicles immediately come to mind as ways of tapping but not attacking with your commander. Your commander has no keywords or protection caked in so having means to tap it safely are going to be important. Smuggler’s Copter gives you some extra card draw and can be crewed by any of the 1/1 tokens the deck produces in case your commander isn’t on the field. Imposter Mech can become a copy of the best creature an opponent controls, and if you’ve read any other article I’ve typed up the past two years you know I’m an idiot for clones.
Mobile Garrison could be the once per your turn untap you’re looking for to get a little extra value out of your commander. Unbender Tine is a card I feel rarely sees play in any EDH deck, probably because of its limit of being able to just get activated once. I get that this isn’t the strongest card, but when trying to stay within a certain power level, grabbing the non optimal choice is a compromise you’ll have to make. You can get the same effect with Kelpie Guide, though that one actually does see more play so you lose cool hipster-points if you decide to play that card instead.
Prosperous Partnership makes some extra tokens and gives you another way to tap down your commander, providing you with an extra treasure on top! If you feel the deck needs more finishing potential then Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer likely gets the job done, turning all your 1/1 tokens into 4/4 angels (if you have one to start with). If Planechase mattered in our regular curated queues, I wouldn’t recommend this card as I wouldn’t really feel comfortable being able to turn all your tokens into Hedron Fields of Agadeem’s 7/7 annihilator 1 tokens.
I’m unsure Augusta, Dean of Order (the flip side of Plargg, Dean of Chaos) is the right card to add. You’re mainly looking at the final ability it provides, allowing you to untap and tap a number of creatures. I don’t really feel the power and toughness boost is significant enough to matter in the larger scheme of things, but I thought the card was at least worth getting mentioned.
Favorite Boxed Line Of Play
Kasla, the Broken Halo + Kykar, Wind’s Fury + The Locust God + Improbable Alliance on the field. Cast Meeting of Minds for its full convoke costs using whichever tokens are available. On cast, scry 2, draw a card. Create a token through Kykar, create a token through Locust God. Meeting of Minds resolves, draw two cards, create 2 1/1 Insect creature tokens, create a 1/1 Faerie creature token.
Call for Backup
Bright-Palm, Soul Awakener has the brand new backup mechanic, which gives a creature a +1/+1 counter and part of another creature's ability box until the end of the turn. To compliment this, the precon leans in on older counter mechanics such as bolster and renown.
Shalai and Hallar shoot damage to any target whenever you put one or more +1/+1 counters on a creature you control. This makes it so most creature spells you cast now come with free damage, which is a strong way to deal with your opponent's life totals. It’s like being able to put Warstorm Surge into your command zone.
This deck is quite strong out of the box, having access to cost cheating, doubler effects and in my eyes the best interaction package out of all 5 decks in this cycle. It’s not often a precon gets a fog, a ‘return everything that died’, 2 instant speed removal staples and 2 fight effects, all at instant speed. This does come with the downside that it’s going to rebuild at a way slower speed than the other MOM precons, which is also why it’s so thinly spread on boardwipes.
Out of all the counters-matter decks we’ve seen the past few years this one seems the most interesting to me, mainly because of the backup mechanic. It’s a weird pseudo haste effect, making a creature that enters not being able to swing itself but lending their ‘when n attacks’ effect to something you already had on the board instead.
The playstyle quickly lends itself to ‘on this turn, cast creature A, which gives B a counter and A’s text box. Next turn, cast C, which gives A a counter and C’s text box’ and once you start making the connections on which card to hold back for next turn because you can then swing in with the creature you cast this turn and give it more abilities you get this weird snowball effect going of moving to attackers being quite a trigger heavy occasion. If you’ve ever played a mutate deck, this feeling might seem familiar to you.
And just like with mutate, if you’re hungry for more, you’re going to have to be patient and hope the mechanic shows up in another set in the future. Only 26 cards with backup exist for now, 6 of which are limited to just this precon. It’s a little unclear which plane this mechanic ‘belongs to’, seeing how we clearly get a Kamigawa face commander, Dominaria alt commander,Tarkir warriors and a dragon. The +1/+1 counter tied into the backup mechanic makes those cards a little easier to slot into decks that already care about that, but if you’re looking to make a dedicated backup deck, it’s slim pickings for now.
Interesting New Cards
Path of the Pyromancer is the only card in the Path cycle I’d actively run without caring about the ‘Will of the Planeswalkers’ line of text. Discarding all the cards in your hand to then ritual into more mana and filling your hand back up is very strong, especially in our format where wheels and cards like Jeska’s Will and Underworld Breach have found their home. I’m expecting this card to pop up in many games, across all power levels.
Guardian Scalelord turns any creature on your board into a makeshift reanimator piece reminiscent of Sun Titan and I’m very interested to see which decks are going to make use of it. Isshin, Two Heavens as One and Raffine, Scheming Seer immediately come to mind. One for getting the double reanimation triggers, the other because you naturally have a sizable graveyard to choose from.
It doesn’t just reanimate creatures, it’s any nonland permanent in your graveyard, and with removal being spread around a little bit more evenly in colors that previously lacked decent access to them – Ravenform, Resculpt, Feed the Swarm, Fade from History, just to name a few – having means to rebuild is always smart. It might just be an observational bias, but in my eyes the past two or so years I feel more and more people started focusing on using their graveyard as a secondary hand and slotting in more ways to rebuild after a board wipe.
Cuts
While Ion Storm isn’t a bad card, it either required too much mana to be effective at keeping the board clear, or I felt shrinking down my creatures power and toughness wasn’t really feasible. It felt good to have in those situations where a counter or damage doubler was on the field, and outside of that it kind of just sat there. ‘Consequential maybe sometimes damage’ might as well not be damage at all. I’d keep this around if you’re making severe upgrades to the deck and are going down the counter storage and damage doubler route for a different power level.
Triskelion didn’t seem that strong for the same reason. At its worst, it’s a 4/4 for 6. It’s not a card you want in your opening hand, and it’s also not something you’re looking to hard cast after you’re behind or when the board just got cleared. It gets hit by both creature and artifact removal, and while I realize it’s not bad to have in a situation where Hamza has stuck around for a while, we can do better for 6 mana.
Wood Elves felt a little mediocre and might as well get replaced with any 2-drop mana rock you have access to. High Sentinels of Arashin either came out a 12/12 when already very ahead and it didn’t matter anymore, or it came out way too early and it sat there being not that useful. Is that a Temple of the False God I see? Goodbye. As usual, take out the Planechase cards, except for Path of the Pyromancer obviously!
Replacements
This was the only deck where I felt you didn’t have to pick which commander you’re putting at the helm before making upgrades. Backup’s seemingly inconsequential +1/+1 counter might seem harmless at first, but you’ll quickly find out that’s not the case.
Halana and Alena, Roommates Partners gets rid of the downside of your backup creatures not having haste. This means you can get the attack trigger on both the creature you targeted with backup and the creature you cast this turn. The haste isn’t boardwide and it doesn’t provide trample so it’s a limited in those regards, which is very much a deliberate choice for BC. Dusk Legion Duelist adds some extra card draw to the deck and the vigilance is going to be more relevant than you think it is. Quite often you’re tapping down your board to swing and have little means to block incoming damage.
Doomskar Warrior is one of the new backup cards I’d add and turns any creature on your board into a ‘top deck knowledge cards to hand’ engine, which is an effect I’ve always been a fan of. The deck is light on boardwipes because it has little means of rebuilding outside of a few specific cards, but I feel a card like Damning Verdict isn’t out of place here.
Verdant Confluence is a nice flexible card where all three options could be useful depending on the situation of the current board state. Regna’s Sanction is a pretty unique way of tapping down all opponents boards while growing your own, and while it’s no Akroma’s Will, it’s definitely more on theme here.
I’d be mindful adding more free ways to grow your board or power up the +1/+1 counters synergy in the deck. While it’s obvious a deck like this would want Branching Evolution, Tribute to the World Tree, Hardened Scales, and The Ozolith, that’s also a quick way to make a deck get out of hand. For the purpose of balancing out decks to fit within our power level structure, if these are the kind of cards you’re going to want to add, potentially reworking the deck for a different power level might be smart.
Favorite boxed line of play
Shalai and Hallar + Guardian Scalelord + Enduring Scalelord + Uncivil Unrest on the battlefield with Abzan Battle Priest in the graveyard and Conclave Sledge-Captain in hand.
Cast Conclave Sledge-Captain. Your backup targets are Shalai and both Scalelords. 1 +1/+1 counter on each, shooting 2 damage three times through Shalai and Hallar thanks to Uncivil Unrest. Enduring Scalelord gets 2 extra +1/+1 counters in separate triggers, 1 from Shalai and one from Guardian Scalelord, shoot 2 damage twice again.
Conclave Sledge-Captain’s riot choice will be a +1/+1 counter, trigger Shalai, trigger Enduring Scalelord, trigger Shalai again. Move to combat. Declare Shalai and both Scalelords as attackers, who have ‘whenever this creature deals combat damage to a player, put that many +1/+1 counters on it’ and ‘If a creature with a +1/+1 counter would deal damage, it deals double that damage instead’.
Trigger Guardian Scalelord, returning Abzan Battle Priest to the field. Riot choice is a +1/+1 counter here, trigger Shalai for 2 damage, trigger Enduring Scalelord, trigger Shalai for 2 damage again. Your attackers now have lifelink. How much damage are you taking? Math is for blockers - or for editors, right Chief? ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Chief: Yikes. That’s pretty scary. I love it! I’m pretty sure that Shalai and Hallar is the strongest commander in MOC and this is just one example of why I think that. I cast Teferi’s Protection in response because I don’t have time to do the math and find out if I survive.
While writing this Out of the Box series for MOM, I originally intended for it to be a two-part article. Real life commitments and time constraints made it impossible for me to playtest 5 precons in two weeks time and turn my opinions into an enjoyable reading experience. If you’ve seen me on Discord lately, you might have caught on I'm actively looking to move several countries further north (Belgium to Sweden), and it’s taking up way more of my time and energy than I originally anticipated.
We don’t often get 5 precons releasing all at the same time, so this will be a three part article instead. Next time I’m looking at the final precon, Tinker Time, and as a bonus, I’ll make a comparison and see what they do differently and which staples got slotted in what precon in regards to ramp, draw, removal, interaction and landbase because of the huge amount of shared colors we saw in this cycle.
I’ll look forward to seeing you for the final article in this series soon! Join our automated, curated, webcam EDH pods on our Discord, where we have 5 seperate queues for people looking for games, one designed specifically for out of the box precons to even out the playing field! Articles like these are made possible and kept ad-free by our amazing Patreon supporters.
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