Starter Commander Decks 2022 Prediction Results
Exxaxl: While we (Exxaxl, reading through the Grimoire of the Dead and Chief, who still loves Mentor of the Meek) usually try to space similar articles apart a little bit, we thought we’d go over our Starter Commander Decks (SCD) predictions right now because the full decklists were previewed yesterday.
We also find ourselves (finally) in a three-week gap of Magic-related content where we don’t have to ‘catch up’ to the latest previews of a main or supplemental set. It took almost six months of planning where both of us weren’t working on two to three different sets worth of articles behind the scenes just to ensure all of our content came out at a relevant time.
Trying to make fun but plausible predictions while having to keep track of previews and world-building streams and weekly Magic videos that might already contain card details, makes it harder for us to make predictions that aren’t leaning on already known info.
Chief: It can be very difficult to keep up with all of the new Magic information that’s coming out. It was very refreshing to be able to spend extra time on revisiting these predictions, since we’ll probably plan to recap our predictions for The Brothers’ War during our prediction cycle for Phyrexia: All Will Be One. In true eternal hype cycle spirit, we’re already starting to get information for that set!
My first time focusing on Commander precons for an article was when the Warhammer 40,000 Commander decks were revealed. Those decks were very cool, but it was definitely nice to see a more accessible Commander product that was obviously aimed at beginners with price and ease of entry. Anyway, let’s see how we did on our predictions!
General Product Predictions:
Exxaxl: Sol Ring, Commander’s Sphere, and Command Tower in each deck:✅
Chief: Talismans and Arcane Signet in each deck:✅
Exxaxl: Yay, adequate ramp in precons! I get that precons have to function at a certain speed, but I feel the format as a whole, even at ‘starter level’ has progressed well past the need for putting the Locket cycle into precons at this point.
Chief: Out of all of my predictions, this one was the most important to me. I wouldn’t have been happy if these mana rocks were skipped over. The lack of good reprints for some of these cards - especially Talisman of Progress - have been frustrating. With any luck, this won’t be an issue in future Commander products.
Exxaxl: I’m also happy both of them are in every one of these without fault. ‘Our starter deck has these and yours does not’ can lead to feels-bad situations for new players, and at a table where several new players are playing, ‘This is the same card you played but in my colors’ leads to less ‘What does that do?’ types of interruption in game flow as well.
Chief and Exxaxl: Every deck will have alternate commanders:❌
Exxaxl: Well 4 out of 5 do - Draconic Destruction is the odd one out here. I wonder if that’s because of the lack of replacement Gruul dragon commander slots that were available. Do you reckon they’re at least going to try and slot a second commander in each of these next time?
Chief: I certainly hope so. I always enjoy the flexibility that comes from having a choice between multiple commanders right out of the box. Just swapping between the commanders can have a surprisingly large impact on the gameplay of a Commander precon. There’s always next time.
Exxaxl: Note how none of these have a Temple of the False God by the way.
Chief: It can be really frustrating to start the game with a land that doesn’t produce any mana for several turns, because it can cause situations where you can’t cast spells on-curve. This is the same reason why Commander precons often have so many lands. New players aren’t likely to continue playing if their early experiences involve getting mana screwed.
Exxaxl: Before we get to our deck-per-deck prediction results, a reminder that all of the SCD precons can be played as is in the Battlecruiser (BC) power level on our Discord server - there’s no need to second guess where to play it, you can just open your cards, shuffle up and play them as is against other precons or homebrew decks with similar strength and speed. Alright, let’s get to the actual decks!
Exxaxl: Medomai the Ageless in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Chief: Inniaz, the Gale Force in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Exxaxl: They added Kangee, Sky Warden instead. No extra turns for anyone - and probably nobody is upset about this.
Chief: While I think that our choices were more exciting, I’m not incredibly surprised by this outcome. I still like our choices more.
Exxaxl: Empyrean Eagle reprint:✅
Exxaxl: Talrand, Sky Summoner reprint:❌
Chief: Zetalpa, Primal Dawn reprint:❌
Chief: Windborn Muse reprint: ❌
Exxaxl: Empyrean Eagle and Thunderclap Wyvern too - they already put both in the Kaldheim Commander decks, I didn’t expect them to put both in another precon already. Thunderclap Wyvern doesn’t get utilized as a combat trick often enough in my eyes, be that offensive or defensive. If you’re reading this and you’ve never cast it at instant speed as an ‘aha, gotcha’ moment, please consider it for next time!
Chief: Somehow, both Talrand and Zetalpa are sitting this one out. I’m as surprised as you are.
Exxaxl: I’m pretty sure I can Spark Double a Talrand and then Rite of Replication the Spark Double copy and represent each token copy with an actual Talrand card from previous precons at this point.
Chief and Exxaxl: Grimgrim, Corpse-Born in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Exxaxl: I did not expect them to reprint Vela, the Night-Clad in this one. When looking at the other precons, the Dimir one struck me as the ‘eh … that’s pretty mediocre’ one though. All of the SCD lists strike me as quite competent and different from other precons we’ve seen, but this one to me truly feels like ‘just get Wilhelt instead’. It’s considerably weaker in comparison.
Chief: Yeah, that’s a weird choice for an alternate commander in the 99 of a zombie deck. I can see why maybe Grimgrim is a bit too strong as a free sacrifice outlet in a deck like this one. I’ll be interested in seeing how Vela plays out in this deck.
Exxaxl: Lord of the Accursed reprint:✅
Exxaxl: Necroduality reprint:❌
Chief: Rooftop Storm reprint:❌
Chief: Fleshbag Marauder reprint:✅
Exxaxl: Lord of the Accursed and Fleshbag Marauder, I am so very shocked we got these right ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°). Next thing you know we’ll predict Murder to show up in a black precon *gasp*. I’m not upset to not see Rooftop Storm though.
Chief: Rooftop Storm is really strong. I agree it might be over-the-top in this deck. I just think it’s very flavorful in a deck with these commanders especially because Geralf is right there in the flavor text.
Exxaxl: Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Chief: Blim, Comedic Genius in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Exxaxl: It’s Kaervek the Merciless! We’ve not seen this card in a precon ever. I’m just glad he’s 7 mana which means he shouldn’t come out too consistent or early when playing in a BC pod.
Chief: Great reprint. It’s easy to underestimate how strong Kaervek actually is, until you play against him. It’s usually better to try to remove him as fast as possible rather than hoping to play through his ability. That damage adds up really fast.
Exxaxl: Bloodthirsty Blade reprint:❌
Exxaxl: Shiny Impetus reprint:❌
Chief: Insurrection reprint:❌
Chief: Disrupt Decorum reprint:❌
Exxaxl: Wow 0 for 6 on this one huh. This deck seems quite strong for our own BC environment and a lot less ‘random chaos haha’ than the Draconic Dissent (Firkraag) deck from earlier this year.
Chief: Thermo-Alchemist and Guttersnipe might have actually been good reprints for this deck, because there are enough instants and sorceries in here for them to put in some work. I was really surprised that none of our predictions happened.
Exxaxl: Dictate of the Twin Gods + Brash Taunter + Blasphemous Act is going to bring someone's life total to zero. It’s neat to see Lightning Greaves and Sunbird’s Invocation too. Out of the bunch, this one feels most like what I expect people that homebrew for our server specifically would come up with when brewing Kardur. Also hello Kazuul, it’s been forever!
Exxaxl: Dragonlord Atarka in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Chief: Thrakkus the Butcher in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Exxaxl: No alternate commander feels quite unfair seeing how it’s the only one. ‘All of us can swap to our other legendary creature, you can’t, so uh… sucks, I guess’. You reckon this was due to lack of options?
Chief: Yeah, there just aren’t many choices and Atarka is probably already the best commander for this particular deck. Maybe we’ll get more cool Gruul dragons down the line!
Exxaxl: Drakuseth, Maw of Flames reprint:✅
Exxaxl: Steel Hellkite reprint:✅
Chief: Savage Ventmaw reprint:✅
Chief: Dragonborn Champion reprint:❌
Exxaxl: Wow, three out of four! Drakuseth, Maw of Flames is here to burn everything all at once! And it brought some friends, Steel Hellkite and Savage Ventmaw. I hope your pod has a First Flight precon at the table to keep the dragons at bay.
Chief: I’m pretty happy with what we got, but I do wish that Dragonborn Champion made the cut. The price keeps going up and it would have been a great fit for this deck as a way to help keep your hand full.
Exxaxl: Trostani Discordant in the 99 as an alternate commander:✅
Chief: Rhys the Redeemed in the 99 as an alternate commander:❌
Exxaxl: Hey, at least we guessed one alternate commander correctly!
Chief: Speak for yourself. I struck out in this category. I hope that I do better next time.
Exxaxl: Mirror Entity reprint:❌
Exxaxl: Divine Visitation reprint:❌
Chief: Springleaf Drum reprint:❌
Chief: Anointed Procession reprint:❌
Exxaxl: We have Slate of Ancestry though! Feels like it’s been forever since we saw that! I feel like Overwhelming Instinct has fallen out of favor and has seen ‘functionally better’ prints over the years as well. It’s good to see some less played older cards in these decks.
Chief: While Springleaf Drum didn’t make the cut, they did include a good amount of ways to tap Emmara in the 99. I can hardly complain. I’m also excited about both of these, I remember playing both during Onslaught and enjoying the cards a lot.
Final score: Exxaxl: 6/17 - Chief: 3/17
Exxaxl: Wow we did quite terribly on these overall. Granted, this was a brand new product line and we didn’t get any information for them ahead of time outside of the face commanders. Now that we know what the average starter deck looks like, it should be somewhat easier to make better predictions in the future.
Chief: I remember once predicting that we’d never do so well on predictions ever again. That definitely seems to have come true this time. I might need to find a way to break the curse if this keeps up. I do have a better idea of what to expect out of future iterations of this particular product, so we’ll probably be able to make more informed guesses next time.
Exxaxl: We also don’t want to make these too easy right? ‘The white precon will likely get Swords to Plowshares or Path to Exile and the green one will get Cultivate or Beast Within aren’t exactly interesting or hard predictions to make to begin with. I’m curious to see how often Starter Commander Decks will be released. Do we know if this is a once a year type thing or is this a ‘wait and see’ type situation?
Chief: I don’t know what the plan is for this product line moving forward. I would have been very surprised if they put Anointed Procession and Rooftop Storm in these decks, but it’s so much more fun to predict spicy cards! We already know that they’ll include some popular staples every time. Even though we did poorly on our predictions, I wouldn’t change a thing about how we did it.
Exxaxl: For now we’ll add them at the bottom of our power level compendium as ‘checked for BC’. If people want me to make upgrade guides for these while still staying within the boundaries of our own BC environment, let me know on the PlayEDH Discord
Those precon upgrade articles take quite some time to write because I try to playtest all decks ahead of time before making decisions on what to and what not to do - something that felt quite natural to me, but thanks to our podcast about Brewer’s Tips & Tricks I found out not everyone playtests their decks before taking them to a table which feels… strange to me.
Do you have anything else to share with the MTG content consuming crowd before we close this one out, Chief?
Chief: I recently shifted from a PlayEDH Media contributor to the PlayEDH Media Lead position! As part of this new role, I’m going to be handling a lot of exciting new projects. This also means that I’ll probably be taking over most of our Twitter activity soon!
It’s crazy to think I’ve been on the team for over 2 years and I’ve been able to do a number of different things to help grow our community into what it is today. I want to thank our amazing Patrons, because I wouldn’t have had these opportunities without each and every one of you!
Exxaxl: See you guys next week for PlayEDH Mindcrank! I will not elaborate.
Chief: He’s killing me with this. He forgot to add the Wizards Fan Content Policy.
I have to do everything around here…
“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.”
