In this article, we’ll take a look at the four Baldur’s Gate Commander decks. Commander precons are always fun and exciting, and this time they’ll be even more flavorful, as they’re DND-themed. In this article, you’ll find everything you need to know about them, including the decklists and new cards.
Decks’ Names
As we said, there will be four different decks:
| Deck name | Colors | |
|---|---|---|
 | Party Time | |
 | Mind Flayarrs | |
 | Draconic Dissent | |
 | Exit from Exile |
Release Date
The Baldur’s Gate Commander decks will be released on June 10, 2022, that’s the same day as the set’s release. Nevertheless, you can already preorder the precons on Amazon.
Intro or Full Versions?
In the past, Wizards released two different types of Commander decks. One type are the intro (or lite) Commander decks. These decks had lower power level and lower price. The last such decks were Kaldheim Commander decks.
The second type of the deck are the fully powered Commander decks. The most recent ones were Neon Dynasty Commander decks. These have higher power level, more powerful reprints, and have the standard price for Commander precons.
So, are Baldur’s Gate Commander decks intro decks or the full versions?
Well, Kaldheim was released over a year ago — back in February 2021. It doesn’t look that this trend is coming back. So all this points to the fact that the Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander decks will be fully powered.
This means that these are powerful decks with 10-15 exclusive new cards in each one and with exciting reprints. The new cards will be thematically tied to Battle for Baldur’s Gate, but the reprints can be from anywhere. There are 5 fewer new cards per deck than usually.
With that said, let’s speculate on what we might see in the decks, based on their names and colors.
Party Time
- Theme: Party mechanic
- Colors: White, Black
- Main Commander: Nalia de’Arnise
- Party Time Upgrade Guide
This deck makes for the return of the party mechanic. That’s a mechanic that cares about the four creature types: Clerics, Rogues, Warriors, and Wizards. It rewards you for having a full party (all four creature types among at least 4 creatures), or if you’re close to it.
The mechanic was introduced with Zendikar Rising, and it was quite surprising when it didn’t return in Adventure in the Forgotten Realms. It’s a perfect fit for a DND-themed set, after-all!
It makes sense that it would return in Battle for Baldur’s Gate, which also mixes MTG with DND.. This was confirmed when we saw the main Commander, Nalia de’Arnise.
Nalia de’Arnise Review
Before this set, the most popular commanders for party decks were: Tazri, Beacon of Unity, Zagras, Thief of Heartbeats and Linvala, Shield of Sea Gate. Thruth be told, these also were the only commanders that specifically referenced the party mechanic. So, does Nalia have what it takes to compete with them?
There was no White-Black party commander yet, so Nalia’s got that going for her. The cost of three mana is also on the cheap side, as far as commanders go, so that’s another plus. It all comes down to the abilities.
The first ability allows you to cast all party creatures from the top of your library. If your deck is built in a way to take advantage of it, this can provide some serious card advantage.
The second one rewards you for having a full party. At the beginning of your combat, all your creatures get a +1/+1 counter and deathtouch until end of turn.
As far as the party commanders go, Nalia looks like a very powerful choice. However, in a vacuum she’s probably a fine commander, although nothing spectacular, and might not be the best option if your play group is playing very competitive decks. On the flip side, you probably won’t be the biggest problem at the table, so you’ll probably have time to develop without other players ganging up on you.
Don’t forget that Nalia could also be a very fine part of a 99 in a Cleric / Rogue / Warrior or Wizard deck, as it allows you to simply cast these types from the top of your library.
Party Time Decklist
Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks New Cards – Party Time
Best Reprints in Party Time
As you might’ve seen from the decklist, there are quite a few good reprints in the Party Time precon. Here are some highlights:
Mind Flayarrrs
- Theme: Horror tribal, mill
- Colors: Blue, Black
- Main Commander: Captain N’ghathrod
- Mind Flayarrrs Upgrade Guide
Here’s a very unusual name for a Commander deck. Wizards don’t usually use joke names, and even before the main commander was previewed, lots of players speculated that we’ll see N’Ghathrod, a mind flayer space pirate.
The deck looks like it’ll have a tribal component with Horrors. Furthermore, if you like milling your opponents, you’ll probably enjoy this precon, although the deck doesn’t necessarily have to go all-in on the mill plan.
Captain N’ghathrod Review
Captain N’gathrod is a very exciting commander to say the least. 3/6 for five mana is acceptable, but as usual, the most interesting part is in the text box.
In there you’ll find a lot of support for one of the not-so-supported tribes, Horrors. It makes them harder to block, and makes them mill cards, when they connect. Discovering tribal synergies for such tribes is always fun, as you can find some obscure cards, that wouldn’t work in many other shells, like Guiltfeeder.
However, N’ghathrod isn’t just a straightforward commander, as it also cares about milling. Thankfully, there are already some cards that fit perfectly in that shell, such as Umbris, Fear Manifest.
If all of that isn’t enough, you also get another payoff for milling. At the beginning of the end step you can choose an opponent’s artifact or creature that was milled this turn, and get it in play yourself – for free! That’s certainly a powerful effect.
Just how strong N’gathrod will be, depends on your playgroup and the way you’ll build around it. Nevertheless, it certainly has a lot of things going for it, and should hold its own, while providing some very nice deckbuilding decisions.
Mind Flayarrrs Decklist
*You might notice that some card previews aren’t working. These are the new cards, you can find cards exclusive to the deck below.
Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks New Cards – Mind Flayarrrs
Best Reprints in Mind Flayarrrs
Mind Flayarrrs precon also has some useful reprints, such as:
Draconic Dissent
- Theme: Dragons (unconfirmed)
- Colors: Blue, Red
- Main Commander: Firkraag, Cunning Instigator
- Draconic Dissent Upgrade Guide
The franchise is called Dungeons and Dragons, so a Dragon-themed deck fits naturally among the Baldur’s Gate Commmander decks. Dragon tribal precons, are always very popular, and there’s no reason for this one to be any different.
One problem with recurring themes in Commander precons is that they might feel the same, as the ones that came before. Wizards could easily go with classic Dragon tribal themes, or even with something spell based, as this is the Izzet color combination (but we already saw that with Niv-Mizzet Parun). Instead, they decided to go for something fresh, by focusing on both Dragon tribal and the goad mechanic.
This mechanic allows you to force creatures to attack – preferably someone other than you, which is great in multiplayer games. One problem that multiplayer games sometimes have is that they sometimes take too much time, as nobody wants to attack of the fear of that player attacking them back.
Goad takes care of that by forcing the players to attack. This gives more focus to combat, which sometimes feels a bit neglected, compared to other phases. So, it’s certainly going to be exciting to see just how this deck combines both goad and Dragon tribal. We can already draw some conclusions from the face commander.
Firkraag, Cunning Instigator Review
Five mana for a 3/3 flyer is a bit underwhelming, but Firkraag does come with haste which is a very relevant keyword, as it works very nicely with both its abilities.
The first ability triggers whenever one or more Dragons attack an opponent. If you attack an opponent, you’ll get to goad one of their creatures. That’s a pretty nice ability, and you can make it even better by including something like War’s Toll in your deck.
The second ability has an interesting trigger. It triggers whenever a creature deals combat damage to one of your opponents, but only if it was forced to attack. When that happens, you get to put a +1/+1 counter on Firkraag, and you draw a card.
All in all, this Firkraag looks like a pretty interesting card, even if it’s not the strongest out there. It can certainly change the direction of the game, but you’ll really want to use it in multiplayer games, as that’s where this Dragon will feel the most at home.
Draconic Dissent Decklist
*You might notice that some card previews aren’t working. These are the new cards, you can find cards exclusive to the deck below.
Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks New Cards – Draconic Dissent
Best Reprints in Draconic Dissent
Besides the new cards, Draconic Dissent also contains some powerful reprints, like:
Exit From Exile
- Theme: casting spells from exile
- Colors: Red, Green
- Main Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald
- Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide
The last deck undoubtedly provides a fresh take on the Red-Green color pair. It rewards you for playing spells or lands from exile. This is an interesting deckbuilding proposition, as you have to decide which cards to include carefully.
You’ll want the Red’s impulse draw with cards like Abbot of Keral Keep. Of course, Escape to the Wilds will also be amazing, but you also have other options, such as cards with foretell, and so on. Anyway, it’s fun to see Red-Green do something new.
Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald Review
Faldorn is cheap to cast, and if you manage to build your deck in a way that you’ll play a lot of your spells and lands from exile, you’ll get rewarded with an army of Wolves. It’s also cool that the second ability combines nicely with the first one.
However, Faldorn is perhaps more than any other commander here, dependent on how you build around it. You can make it either quite competitive or very casual, depending on which cards you’ll decide to include.
We’d recommend Faldorn, if you like to dive deep into the deckbuilding process to find fun and exciting interactions.
Exit From Exile Decklist
Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks New Cards – Exit From Exile
Best Reprints in Exit From Exile
Let’s take a look at the best reprints in Exit From Exile precon:
Baldur’s Gate Commander Decks – FAQ
Before we wrap up, here are some questions that you might have about Commander Legends 2 precons. If you have a question that we didn’t answer, you can leave a comment below, and we’ll get back to you.
Yes, they are. Whenever Wizards release a bunch of decks together, they always try to balance them against one another. Even when they don’t reach their goal completely, due to the variance of Commander and multiplayer games, it’s possible to win with any of them.
It’s hard to say, as each deck has its pros and cons. Most of the decks are pretty close in value, as they all have good reprints and good new cards. It looks like, it’s probably best to just go with your favorite colors. If you can’t decide you can simply get all four Commander decks.
Yes, they can. You can get all four Commander decks, and use them as a board game for 2-4 players.
Yes, they do. Each Baldur’s Gate precon comes with a Sample Collector Booster, which contains two cards.
All four decklists have already been previewed.
Conclusion
There’s still a lot of information that we have to unveil about Baldur’s Gate Commander decks, including the decklists. Once it becomes available, we’ll update the article, so make sure to check back now and then.
But for now, you can take a look at the following articles: