Commander Masters Precons: Decklists & Spoilers

Commander Masters set is bringing us a bunch of exciting Commander reprints, but that’s not all. We’re also getting four ready-to-play Commander decks alongside it. So, in today’s article, we’ll talk about everything we know about the Commander Masters Precons so far.

Commander Masters Decks – Contents

There will be four different Commander Masters Commander decks. Each of them contains:

• 2 foil cards (main and secondary commander)
• 98 non-foil cards (with the previous two cards, this makes a 100-card ready-to-play deck)
• 1 Collector Sample Pack with two cards (with alternate art or in foil)
• 1 foil-etched Display commander (a thicker card, not for tournament play)
• 10 double-sided tokens
• 1 life tracker
• 1 cardboard deck box

Out of the hundred cards in the deck, 10 will be brand-new cards. The rest of the cards will be reprints. The decks are all already available for preorder on Amazon, and here’s a quick overview of them:

	Deck name	Colors
	Eldrazi Unbound	Colorless
	Enduring Enchantments	White Black Green
	Planeswalker Party	White Blue Red
	Sliver Swarm	White Blue Black Red Green

Now, it’s time to explore each of the four decks in more detail. Of course, not everything is known yet. What we know for sure, are the deck’s colors, names, and face commanders. Thankfully, this let us know quite a lot about the decks, so let’s get right to it.

Eldrazi Unbound

• Theme: Eldrazi tribal, expensive colorless spells.
• Colors: colorless
• Main Commander: Zhulodok, Void Gorger

Do you like to cast very expensive spells? Do you like to play with unusual decks? Do you enjoy the Eldrazi? If you answer yes to these questions, then you’ve just found the perfect Commander Masters deck for you.

With over 90 Commander precons, one would think that all the color combination were already done. That fact is true, if you aren’t counting colorless as a color combination. Yes, this is the first time that Wizards made a colorless deck.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one will play out. You can probably expect expensive spells, and ramp that allows you to cast them ahead of schedule. Give that the deck’s name is Eldrazi Unbound, the precon will have an Eldrazi theme too.

There were no new Eldrazi printed in the last seven years, so it’s fun to see them make a return. These big creatures have powerful effects, and they work nicely with the face commander. Speaking of which, let’s take a look.

Zhulodok, Void Gorger Review

Nothing about Zholodok is ordinary. There’s colorless mana in its mana cost, and it has weird stats as a 7/4 for six mana. Its rules box is pretty simple, though. It gives your colorless spells that cost 7 or more double cascade.

We’ve seen how powerful effect this can be with Maelstrom Wanderer. Getting two additional spells for free is insanely good, as you’re both drawing two nonland cards, and casting them without paying. However, Zhulodok doesn’t have the double cascade itself, which can be a problem. If your opponents destroy it before you can cast a big spell, you didn’t get much value from it.

Nevertheless, when it does survive, it can allow you to make some memorable plays. Casting Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger has never felt so good.

In a highly competitive metagame, Zhuldok, Void Gorger probably won’t shine. You’ll need to have many ways to protect it in order to get to your payoff. However, in a more relaxed setting, it can certainly do a ton of powerful stuff. On top of that, it’s a unique Commander to build around, and such cards are always very welcome.

Enduring Enchantments

• Theme: enchantments in graveyard
• Colors: white, black, green
• Main Commander: Anikthea, Hand of Erebos

This deck’s focus is on enchantments. However, it not the most typical enchantress strategy, as it also has a strong graveyard theme. Given the deck’s colors, this does make sense. White and green care about enchantments, and both black and green can use the graveyard.

As such, this deck will be great for players who like both of these things, playing with enchantments, and using their graveyard as a resource.

Anikthea, Hand of Erebos Review

Five mana for a 4/4 is not too exciting, but this one does come with a 3/3 Zombie, if you build your deck right. You also get another Zombie, when it attacks. To get zombies, you’ll need to exile an enchantment from your graveyard. If that was all Anikthea did, it would bring some stats to the board, but it would be quite boring.

Thankfully, that’s not the case. The Zombie tokens are actually copies of the enchantments you exiled with it. This improves the card massively, and opens up so many possibilities.

There are just so many good enchantments that you can exile. You can protect yourself with cards like Sphere of Safety, and your other permanents with Privileged Position. You can draw a bunch of cards with Enchantress’s Presence and Eidolon of Blossoms. Want a ton of mana? Exile Mirari’s Wake or Nyxbloom Ancient. Remove problematic permanents with Aura Shards.

Perhaps the most amazing combos can happen with Song of the Worldsoul, which can quickly get out of hand.

All things considered, Anikthea looks like one of the strongest commanders released recently. (Not just among the four Commander Masters precons.) It allows you to do some unique and powerful stuff, and all that for a really fair starting price of five mana.

Planeswalker Party

• Theme: planeswalkers
• Colors: white, blue, red
• Main Commander: Commodore Guff

Planeswalkers are weaker in a multiplayer format such as Commander. If you play a planeswalker, you have to protect it from multiple opponents, and not just from a single one. However, that doesn’t dismay some players, who like to build a deck around planeswalkers. Those decks are typically called superfriends decks.

However, despite their not-that-small popularity, they didn’t have an excellent dedicated commander. You could use Atraxa, Praetors’ Voice or Carth the Lion. However, neither of them was a planeswalker, and Garth only allowed you to use two colors. This precon is here to fix that.

This deck gives you access to white, blue, and red, and uses a planeswalker as a commander, which is amazing for a superfriends deck. On top of that, if you like to play with planeswalkers you can probably expect to get a bunch of them in this deck.

Commodore Guff Review

Four mana is a fine cost for a 3-color Commander. Its colors are also quite good for a superfriends theme. Carth the Lion, for example, only gave you access to 71 different planeswalkers, while Guff lets you pick among 139 of them.

An important thing with planeswalkers are their loyalty counters. Guff comes with five, which allows you to activate both of its activated abilities on the turn you play it, and still keep it around.

The +1 makes a token, which can help you cast your other planeswalkers. That’s a useful ability, particularly as you can use the token to chump block and keep Guff alive for longer. The -3 ability deals some damage to your opponent, and more importantly draws you cards. How good it will be, depends on how many planeswalkers you have in play.

There’s also the static ability, which lets you put a loyalty counter on one of your other planeswalkers, at the end of your turn. This is also quite useful in this theme, as it both makes your planeswalkers harder to remove, and closer to their ultimate abilities.

So, how good is Guff? Well, it’s perfect for what it’s meant to be – a great commander for the superfriends archetype. However, it’s not that strong that it’ll just make the whole theme absurdly strong. It’s just a really cool option for anyone who wants to jam a ton of planeswalkers in their Commander deck.

Sliver Swarm

• Theme: Sliver tribal
• Colors: all five
• Main Commander: Sliver Gravemother

One of the most popular tribes in the game are most certainly Slivers. These creatures all have abilities that support other Slivers, and are a really fun tribe to play with. For some example, you can check our article with the best Slivers.

If you’re a fan of these creatures, then you’ll probably really enjoy this precon, as Slivers are the main theme of the deck. You also have access to all five colors, which is really important, as some of the best Sliver cards contain all colors.

The precon also takes care of one of the hardest parts of building a Sliver deck. Just getting all the creatures you need for a deck. A lot of the common Slivers can be quite cheap, but when you need to get 30+ of them, the shipping costs and their prices can really add up. Getting this deck will be an amazing starting point for getting a good base of Slivers. Even if you’ll need some upgrades, you won’t need to start building from scratch.

Sliver Gravemother Review

The cost of five mana is as low as it gets for a five color legendary (barring any hybrid mana shenanigans). For your investment you get a 6/6 Sliver, which is fine, but how good it is depends on its abilities.

The first one looks a bit out of place when you first read it. “Legend rule” not applying is unusual, although it can be useful with various copy effects. However, once you get to its second ability, it starts to make sense.

Each Sliver in your graveyard gets the encore ability. When you use pay the encore cost of a card, you get a copy of it for each of your opponents. Each copy attacks that opponent if able.

The combination of both abilities allows you to also bring multiple legendary Slivers in play – without them dying immediately. This allows you to make some brutal plays. Just imagine bringing back three Sliver Legions. All of your Slivers are now insanely big. Encoring The First Sliver gives your Sliver spells multiple instances of convoke, which we already talked about how good it can be. Even bringing some common Slivers back, such as Predatory Sliver can be good.

In a typical Sliver fashion, Sliver Gravemother also has encore itself, which can allow you to play around the Commander tax in the right scenario. Having such an option, always makes a commander significantly better.

Slivers certainly have a large selection of strong five color commanders. Nevertheless, Gravemother can hold its own against them, if you’re playing a multiplayer game. If you’re only playing against a single opponent, its encore ability gets significantly worse, but it’s still perfectly playable. All things considered, this is another great commander for Slivers, particularly since it gives your Slivers a bit more longevity.

Commander Masters Precons – FAQ

In this section, you’ll find answers to some commonly asked questions players have about the Commander Masters precons. If you don’t find the answer to your question, leave a comment below, and we’ll get back to it.

We’ll start with the two perhaps most important questions, then we’ll move to other ones.

Are the Commander Masters Precons Worth It?

Typically, the Commander precons are the one product that’s almost always worth buying, particularly if you like the theme of the deck. You’re getting a complete ready-to-play 100-card Commander deck, and you know exactly which cards you’re getting. On top of that, each deck usually has at least some valuable cards, which comes in handy if you ever decide to sell the deck.

There’s also the Collector Sample booster, which does add some value, as you might get a chase card inside it.

However, some decks are better value than the others. Sometimes Wizards miss with new cards, or the build of the deck with a theme that isn’t that popular, and the decks becomes available for a lesser price in a few weeks after the release.

For the final verdict about the Commander Masters precons we’ll have to wait to see the full decklists previewed. However, based on the themes, and the face commanders, these decks look like they will be worth it. Slivers and Eldrazi are both insanely popular. Superfriends and enchantments also have their fans. As such, it’s hard to imagine that this decks will be a bad buy, especially if you like the deck’s theme.

Which Commander Masters Precon is the Best to Buy?

Well, that depends on what you’re looking for. If you want a deck that will be fun to play for you, here are some tips on how to decide:

• You like unusual decks and strategies. You like to make big and exciting plays, with lots of mana available. The bigger the creature, the better it is. In that case, you should go with Eldrazi Unbound.
• Planeswalkers are your favorite cards in all of Magic. If you could jam 500 of them in a single deck, you would do so. You’re a player who’ll enjoy playing with Planeswalker Party for sure.
• Enduring Enchatments should be your choice, if you like powerful strategies and unique rules interactions. You want to use your cards multiple times over the course of the game, and your favorite card type are enchantments.
• If you’re a player who likes very synergistic decks, with a ton of creatures, then you should certainly pick up Sliver Swarm. The deck is perfect for you.

If you can’t decide, you can also get all four decks. You can then use them, as a self-contained board game. Have friends coming over? They don’t need to bring their own decks, and there won’t be any hassle about discussing who brought a too powerful deck. You each picks one of the four decks, or select them randomly, and you’re ready to battle.

On the other hand, if you care about the long term value of the decks, then it gets a bit trickier. Usually, the decks that do the best are the ones that either contain sought-after cards (new ones or powerful reprints), or have widely popular themes. If the deck can achieve both of these things, it often has quite a high value after a couple of years or so.

Since we don’t know the decklists yet, we can’t comment on which deck looks most powerful in that department. However, as far as the popularity of the themes goes, all four have their fans, but Sliver tribal is likely the most popular one.

Additional Questions

Conclusion

That’s all about the Commander Masters precons. Which one does look the most exciting to you? Let us know in the comments. Once more inflammation becomes available, we’ll update the article, so make sure to check back soon.

Until next time, have fun, and may your starting hand always contain a Sol Ring.