Both of these cards were present in the 2013 precon cycle by the way ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

If we look at current day precons compared to older ones, I get why people might feel they’re ‘better’. The speed and consistency of precons went up noticeably after the cycle of the New Capenna precons, at least that’s where I feel we saw a permanent change in precon design. All of these decks had a larger focus on color-fixing, stack interaction, card draw and ‘cast a spell, trigger trigger, draw a card, trigger trigger, move to combat, trigger trigger’ behavior compared to older precons, and this trend seems to have continued in close to every precon cycle that got printed afterwards.

Left: Power Hungry, 2013 - Right: Cabaretti Cacophony, 2022.
How many cards do you recognize in both pictures without having to look them up?

To make some comparisons between old and ‘new’ —Streets of New Capenna is already a year and a half ago— I chose Cabaretti Cacophy with Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva at the helm. It’s a three color deck with the potential to make a lot of tokens and turn those tokens into an advantage to go both wide or tall, with plenty of staples to point to, and a lot of ‘if/when’ related triggers, with a well rounded response package.

The older deck I’ll compare it to will be Power Creep Hungry from Commander 2013. Prossh, Skyraider of Kher is also a creature token-focused commander, provides a sacrifice outlet in the command zone, has access to green which was easier for comparison reasons in regards to ramp and color-fixing, and he was the go-to Food Chain commander at some point in the past, so he should be a recognizable character for those of you who’ve been playing the format longer than I have.

Ramp and Color-fixing

While precons have always had ramp, how important and staple heavy that ramp was and how color-fixing has been approached took some time to come to fruition. In several of my articles I talk about the homogenization of the Commander format as a whole, and it’s easy to point fingers at the player base for running the same easy auto-includes every time.

I do however believe this behavior isn’t uniquely caused by the players and in part is a play pattern also enabled by the design of modern day Commander precons and Magic cards as a whole. Though If they made a current day precon without Arcane Signet and reverted back to slotting an Armillary Sphere, a card in Prossh’s precon, I don’t think most players would take it well.

The card is just that good, to the point it skyrocketed hard when it got first printed in the Throne of Eldraine Brawl precons. If you weren’t playing Magic then, initially Arcane Signet pre-ordered as a single for about 35 USD on release and is currently available for less than a dollar, and it only got there because it kept getting reprinted in every precon since. The last time we saw Armillary Sphere was in Commander 2019 —three weeks before Arcane Signet showed up— and that doesn’t feel like a decision that wasn’t made consciously. I expect it won’t show up again soon unless a precon comes out that focuses on doubling up on search or sacrifice triggers.

I do feel Arcane Signet isn’t Armillary Sphere’s replacement, even though it’s clear a majority of the player base does desire Arcane Signet to be in their deck by default. Not accounting for Commander Anthology, Wayfarer’s Bauble was in the Commander 2017 precons and then didn’t show up in premade decks for four years until Forgotten Realms Commander, and it’s been printed in over 10 precon cycles since then. It’s good in close to every boxed precon’s opening hand and guarantees you’re color-fixed by turn 3, which is when most decks seem to want to start developing their more meaningful board.

We’ve also not seen Darksteel Ingot in a precon in a while, even though it was in the 2013, 2015, 2016 and 2017 precons. It’s been reprinted in a Masters Set, Secret Lair and Anthology since then, but never again in a preconstructed Commander product. The obvious three-drop to point to here is Commander’s Sphere, which got printed first in 2014 and has been reprinted over 35 times since then. The same can be said for Fellwar Stone, another card that feels near mandatory to include in most three-color decks and which has showed up in roughly 15 precon cycles. Both of these are present in Cabaretti Cacophony, and it’s hard to imagine a three-color precon that wouldn’t run these cards.

With Prossh in mind, I think a lot of people who would build the deck from scratch now would lean heavily on their access to green to ramp and color-fixing, which isn’t the case in the stock list. You wouldn’t be surprised to see Cultivate or Kodama’s Reach in homebrew lists, even though the deck or gameplan might not synergize with sorceries or lands entering the battlefield. You just want to make sure you have Jund mana available as consistently and as early as possible.

If someone would cast Spoils of Victory you’d probably have to ask ‘what does that do’, even though the card was literally printed in the precon Prossh came with. It’s just been surpassed by other cards that do a similar effect for less mana. That’s also one of the only green sorcery card Prossh shipped with to land and colorfix. I’m not going to call Restore a reliable card, though it does mean you could reuse your opponent’s or your own Terramorphic Expanse…

For a three-color deck, I think modern day precon design has dropped the slower approach to board building, and a broader focus on ‘make sure people can cast the spells they draw, especially in color-heavy decks’ is now the norm. Being the one person at the table that doesn’t get to play their deck isn’t fun, so is focusing more on making sure you actually get to play the cards you draw a bad design decision?

Interaction

Stepping away from our two decks for a while, if I asked you what the most played blue instant card in Commander is you’d probably rightfully point to Counterspell. And yet, while this card has been printed in Commander Masters, Commander Legends and one Secret Lair precon, it has never been printed in a regular precon cycle. This is a player-desired and ‘mandatory’ staple that just about goes in close to every deck that can run it, but it doesn’t show up in Commander precons. Oftentimes precons have little to no means to counter spells on the stack to begin with, even with access to blue.

If and when they do, they’re usually conditional counterspells that can’t hit every spell like Negate, or spells that provide your opponents with ‘something in return’ such as Arcane Denial or Swan Song. If you look at three color decks, the boxed instant package usually steps away from counterspells and focuses more on onboard removal or removal that synergizes with the deck as a whole, even if blue is part of their available colors. On our server we notice counterspell-related removal are often some of the first changes people make when upgrading their deck, even in Battlecruiser, our precon power level.

The absence of the go-to staple isn’t true for other colors. If I asked you what white’s staple removal card was, I’m sure you’d say Swords to Plowshares, which has been reprinted in roughly 15 precon cycles by now. The same can be said about Chaos Warp and Beast Within, which find their way into boxed precon close to every cycle. I’m sure Infernal Grasp will soon follow the same trend, after it’s been around for longer.

The Prossh precon was clearly made for a different Commander time period and/or play experience. The deck gets no spot removal at instant speed outside of Jund Charm. Looking at the sorceries there’s also no Blasphemous Act, instead you get Sudden Demise. Power Hungry came with plenty of creature removal, on permanents with activated abilities that cost mana to activate. The need for playing around on the stack at instant speed to interact with your opponents clearly wasn’t seen as a ‘must do’ for every deck back then, or at least not out of nowhere directly from your hand.

Meanwhile Cabaretti Cacophony gets Path to Exile, Artifact Mutation, Aura Mutation, Boros Charm, Beast Within, Cabaretti Charm for instant speed removal and Grand Crescendo to protect your board in case you don’t want to get wiped. It’s got Martial Coup and Fell the Mighty for sorceries to wipe the board on top. Note how almost all these cards provide a significant amount of tokens on top.

The question remains whether we as a player base have a higher demand for interactive decks to consider buying a precon or whether the design team noticed interactive games lead to better game experiences and that’s why interaction got pushed into more decks. I’m also just comparing one deck from one cycle to another deck from another cycle. The more recent Virtue and Valor precon from Wilds of Eldraine only had Swords to Plowshares and Generous Gift in the instant slot, compared to Fae Dominion from the same cycle which had 17 instant speed responses. Does that make Fae Dominion the better deck?

Drawing Cards

Every precon ever printed has always had effects that drew you cards, but there’s a noticeable upward trend of making sure drawing cards can be tied to your Commander so you always have access to it. There’s a big difference between a commander like Zedruu the Greathearted, which relied on you giving (unwanted) permanents to your opponents to enable your card draw, and cards like Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor or Ellivere of the Wild Court that enable themselves, regardless of your opponent’s board state or gameplan.

Assuming my Scryfall filter is correct, if we search for unique (printed once and once only) legal Commander cards printed in or after Streets of New Capenna with the words ‘draw’ and ‘card’ on them, we find 84 commanders that check that box. That’s counting since Streets of New Capenna’s release date, which is roughly 18 months ago at the time of writing. That’s also only commanders specifically, not cards printed uniquely in commander precons, so that’s without any card that can’t be your commander.

While you have that Scryfall page open, note how long most of the text boxes are as well. They’re not just drawing cards. Modern commanders just feel like they get overloaded with abilities, giving you more reason to put them in your command zone over a card from 5 to 10 years ago. Maybe it’s time to consider making Alexander Clamilton format legal soon.

This increase in card draw potential is noticeable in most precons, and to me the same is true for the format as a whole. It’s not a coincidence I highlighted Opportunity and Tower of Fortunes in the opening paragraph. There’s a distinct difference between Lunar Mystic and Archmage Emeritus. That said, we still see older draw effects be relevant today. Cards like Mystic Remora and Skullclamp likely predate some Commander players but they’re still relevant and got printed in precons recently. Do current precons draw more cards, or are we just more aware now that card draw means our opponents have an advantage over us because they have more options?

Synergy, Backline, Engines

In my eyes this is where the biggest changes have been made, or at least the most noticeable changes between old and new precons. Old precons tended to run strong cards or effects in a vacuum. More recent decks all seem to have two to three overlapping themes and effects it’s trying to highlight, while older precons tended more to ‘pile-ness’. “This card is cool. Don’t you think this card is cool? It doesn’t do anything with my commander, but look at this card. It has fangs and claws and wings. I love this little dude!”

Older precons seem skewed more to the ‘child talking about their favorite dinosaur’ type build strategy. In newer precons a lot of cards focus on either card draw engine pieces, or backline trigger-related cards that don’t want to attack or block and just stand there… menacingly.

Weirdly enough, because of this design change, older precons still stand a fighting chance in a 4 player pod of boxed precons. Who are you paying more attention to? The person who just struggled naturally putting Jund on board that hardcast a Charnelhoard Wurm, or the player that just cast Call the Coppercoats at instant speed before their turn and made 6 tokens, putting 6 more counters on their Champion of Lambholdt, triggering Sizzling Soloist 6 times?

At the same time, this turns the current precon design space into a self-fueling fire. Precons out of the box have more synergy, which means they should run more removal to stop threats their opponents will cast, because your opponents also have that synergy, which means they’ll remove your cards more often which means you need more draw or recursion, which in turn means you need the mana and cards to do all of the above so you need better ramp, color-fixing, and draw.

This can lead to precons feeling more ‘completed’ out of the box. I catch myself making less than five changes in a precon nowadays where a few years ago I’d more easily make 10 to 15 cuts because there was less synergy to be found in the boxed experience to begin with. Older precons tended to leave more of a breadcrumb trail of ‘effects the game of Magic as a whole has to offer’, where the newer ones seem to be designed to be more thematic and playable and give you a more enjoyable play experience with friends.

They feel like board game pieces where each of you brings a set piece that was meant to go head to head, which sounds exactly like what you want preconstructed decks to be. This in turn led to better play experiences straight out of the box to me personally, especially when playing precons from the same cycle in one pod. I’ve seen people buy one of each precon in a set and keep them unchanged, to have Commander nights at their place. No need to bring a deck, just grab one off the shelf, this Friday it’s Ixalan, let’s do Commander Masters next weekend. Should precons be made ‘worse’ or should they provide a fun experience as is and be treated as a finished deck that can just ‘be’? Do we as Commander players look at precons in the wrong way?

Lands

There’s no way around it: the quality of the average land base of precons is still not great. To me this feels like the most lacking part of any precon. This notion seems to be a general consensus in the topic of precons as a whole. Even if people think precons are faster, have more synergy or are more on theme out of the box, the same players that don’t want precons to speed up more than they already are will likely take out the tapped lands and replace them with better options instead. I too am guilty of this.

While I understand people who say ‘landbases are better than they used to be’, we still get current day precons where over half of the lands enter the battlefield tapped. Tapped lands means casting less spells means getting behind your opponents who don’t run taplands. 2013’s Power Hungry ran 3 Guildgates, 2022’s Cabaretti Cacaphony runs 3 Thriving lands. While it’s true you can pick your second color on Thriving Bluff, it still enters tapped, meaning you can’t use it the turn you play it.

Precons don’t get Shocklands, Triomes, Pathways or ‘real’ Fetchlands —you know what I mean, not Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse— unless you’re willing to pay extra for a Secret Lair precon. Often these can be some of the more expensive singles to buy when changing your deck around. I know I’m the first to point out Commander’s homogenization, and I’m well aware that I’m equally guilty in making sure I can cast my spells because my lands fix more and better at a faster pace. Very few people want to land pass go, and I’m not one of them. How much faster would precons be if they had no taplands in them at all?

Different Times, Different Experiences

I’ve been told by people who have been playing Commander for longer than me —I only got into EDH in 2019, after having played mainly Limited and Standard since 2000– that this tonal shift and ‘precons nowadays feel different’ isn’t a new feeling, often pointing to the 2017 precon cycle with the eminence ability being their ‘this set, it changed things’, just like New Capenna Commander changed things for me.

The last few cycles of decks will be someone else's baseline in the future. Someone who only just started playing Commander will get their first games in with The Lost Caverns of Ixalan or Wilds of Eldraine precons, and those decks will be their ‘normal’. We don’t know what precons will be like four years from now.

Wanting precons to be fun and good to play out of the box while at the same time wanting a less ‘complete’ boxed product where there’s plenty of room left for self expression to change the deck to be your deck feels like a hard puzzle to solve, if it has to be solved to begin with. Are new precons better? I don’t think there is a correct way to answer that question. As long as everyone is having fun, I’m not going to care that a precon now isn’t what a precon was 10 years ago. And obviously, older precons weren’t all that bad to begin with.

Anyhow, Prossh was 14 mana so I’ll make 14 0/1 Kobolds. Oh, I forgot I had Primal Vigor out, make that 28. I’'ll sacrifice all of those, drawing me 28 cards with Fecundity. This also untaps Goblin Sharpshooter 28 times, shooting all the damage to the Kitt Kanto player, you’re out. I don’t really see that big a difference between our decks if I’m honest. Any response before I move to combat?

Articles like these are made possible and kept ad-free due to the support of all of our Patreon, Twitch, and Discord subscribers. Come check us out on Discord to chat about all things Commander and play curated games with people from all over the world! We’d also love to hear from you on Twitter where you can find all of our latest news!

“This article is unofficial Fan Content permitted under the Fan Content Policy. Not approved/endorsed by Wizards.
Portions of the materials used are property of Wizards of the Coast. ©Wizards of the Coast LLC.”

Precon Power Creep?

Commander Spotlight: Jetmir, Nexus of Revels

My Top 10 Cards for Lost Caverns of Ixalan