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Commander Series: List of Commander Precons 2020-2021

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With multiple Commander decks coming out every few months, we had to split our big List of All Commander precons into three parts, to keep everything neatly organized. This article is the second part, and features all 24 precons released in 2020 and 2021.

In 2020, Wizards of the Coast started with multiple Commander releases through the year, so that seemed like a nice breaking point to start the article with.

In these two years, there were eight Commander releases, and you can find all of them in the following table of contents. I’ll talk about the characteristics of each deck, discuss their themes, and so on. I’ll start with the more recent ones, and make my way back in time. So, we’re starting at the end of 2021, and moving back to the start of 2020. Let’s get to it!

Newest Commander Precons (2022-Today)

If you’re looking for newer Commander decks, you can find them in the main article with all Commander precons.

Innistrad: Crimson Vow Commander

Crimson Vow was the second Innistrad set in 2021. It was released on November 19th, 2021, and it brought us two new Commander decks, both with tribal focus. This time, the two tribes were Vampires and Spirits. Both of these are iconic Innistrad tribes, and quite popular ones at that.

Vampiric Bloodline

Vampiric Bloodline Crimson Vow Commander Deck Decklist
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We’ve had a tribal Vampire deck led by Edgar Markov. If you count the Madness deck, led by Anje Falkenrath in 2019, we actually have two. Those two were probably more powerful, but Vampiric Bloodline adds a unique new flavor to the tribe. Vampiric Bloodlust wanted you to make a massive army of little Vampires, while Merciless Rage wanted to focus on spells with Madness (of which many are Vampires).

Vampiric Bloodline, though, encourages you to play bigger Vampires thanks to Strefan’s Sneak Attack-esque ability. Despite its similarities to other precons we’ve seen in the past, this deck certainly had its own identity that made it fun.

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Spirit Squadron

Spirit Squadron Crimson Vow Commander Deck Decklist
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This is certainly a fun deck to pick up, as it’s built around a less common creature type, with Spirits. It enables some cool play patterns, and it’s a great pickup for players who like to play decks that aren’t the most mainstream.

We already got a deck that is somewhat similar to Spirit Squadron in Kaldheim with Phantom Premonition. That deck, however, focused more on that set’s main mechanic, Foretell. This one really committed to the Spirits theme, encouraging you to go wide quickly. It also came with some important support cards for White, listed below.

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Set Booster Exclusives

Just like Midnight Hunt and assumedly going forward, Crimson Vow had set booster exclusive cards that technically belong to the Commander set. Here is the list of those:

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Commander

Innistrad: Midnight Hunt (released on September 24th, 2021) had two Commander decks, much like other recent premier sets. However, Midnight Hunt was actually the first Innistrad set with corresponding Commander precons. One of them was focused on a popular tribe – Zombies, while the other had a +1/+1 counters theme with a small Human subtheme.

Undead Unleashed

Undead Unleashed Innistrad Midnight Hunt Commander Decks
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Fans of Zombies, rejoice! Undead Unleashed is a perfect precon for you. Wihelt is a powerful commander for a Zombie deck. The fact that it gives you access to not only black, but blue as well, is particularly nice. Furthermore, this deck includes tons of much-needed Zombie reprints, like Rooftop Storm, Endless Ranks of the Dead and Liliana, Death’s Majesty.

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Set Booster Exclusives

In addition to these two decks, Wizards released a handful of cards as a part of the Innistrad: Midnight Hunt Commander set that cannot be opened in the pre-constructed decks. These cards can only be found in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt set boosters. This is a comprehensive list of the rest of the cards from this Commander set:

Coven Counters

Coven Counters Innistrad Midnight Hunt Commander Decks
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Coven Counters precon is more focused on the +1/+1 counters than explicitly on the Human tribe. However, on Innistrad, green and white means Humans. Plus, Kyler, Sigardian Emissary is the b-commander for this deck, and he cares a lot more about Humans. So whether you like Selesnya +1/+1 counters, Humans, or the new Coven ability, this is a great deck for you.

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Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commander

2021’s Summer set was something new for Magic players. Not only did it cross over into a non-Magic intellectual property, but it also gave us four more Commander pre-constructed decks. These decks are fully-powered decks, more similar to the Commander 2021 product than Zendikar Commander.

Just like the previous two years’ decks, the cards, and themes are mechanically tied to the set they were released with. This means that each deck had a card or two from a cycle that rolled dice. Also, most of the new support cards had something to do with dice-rolling. In addition to dice, one of the decks had a major Venture into the Dungeon theme.

The other two decks did not necessarily have a set-specific mechanic, but were flavorful relative to the Dungeons and Dragons theme of the set. One used powerful weapons to min/max your character, while the other collected as much loot as you could carry in your pockets.

The D&D theme for these decks is very clear, which can be fun if you like that. Even if you don’t care for the theme, there are plenty of powerful cards and valuable reprints from this set, ensuring that there will be something for everyone.

Aura of Courage

Forgotten Realms Commander Decklist Aura of Courage
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At first blush, Aura of Courage doesn’t seem to be anything special. A few years before this deck was released, Wizards printed Adaptive Enchantment. These two decks both use Enchantments to build up one or two Creatures and pound your opponents with them. However, this commander goes about doing it slightly differently.

Thanks to the fact that Galea lets you cast spells from the top of your library, you don’t have to build an Enchantress deck around her. Rather, you can focus on just pumping her up and protecting her.

Additionally, the fact that she can let you play Equipment is also important. Now you can have an Enchatress-esque equipment deck in Bant colors.

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Draconic Rage

Forgotten Realms Commander Decks Draconic Rage
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This deck does exactly what Gruul wants to do: make big Creatures and attack your opponents with them. It throws in the dice-rolling mechanic and Enrage for flavor, which adds a level of novelty that other red/green commanders might lack.

The backup commanders, Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient and Wulfgar of Icewind Dale, are also compelling. Similarly to Vrondiss, they both provide a unique way to play an archetype that players already enjoy.

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Dungeons of Death

Forgotten Realms Commander Deck Decklist Dungeons of Death
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This deck focuses on the new mechanic from Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. It is designed to let players explore through the new Dungeon cards, while also having room for a couple of other strategies. This is important because Dungeons have only ever had one set’s-worth of support.

There are plenty of cards from the main set that can buoy up this deck, but you might not find as many Dungeons cards as you would like. In that case, you can upgrade either Sefris of the Hidden Ways or Nihiloor to do something else as well.

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Planar Portal

Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Commander Precons Planar Portal
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This deck leans heavily into an ability that Wizards has been giving red for a while now. In the past, red had struggled in Commander due to its relative difficulty drawing cards. Wizards decided to start giving it more impulsive card draw, which exiles cards from your deck and lets you play them temporarily. This was incredibly helpful to the color, and has increased its power level in the format.

Planar Portal takes that idea and rewards you heavily for doing it as much as possible. Additionally, you can get the benefits from playing Cascade, Madness, Adventures, and any number of other mechanics from Magic’s history.

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Commander 2021 / Strixhaven Commander

Commander 2021, like the previous year’s decks, were tied to the release of the Spring Premier set. In this case, that set was Strixhaven, School of Mages. Each of the precons was inspired by one of the two-color factions from that set. These factions were colleges on Strixhaven, and each one had its own theme:

  • Red-White students studied History and Archeology.
  • White-Black students Poetry, Prose, Leadership, and Politics.
  • Black-Green students learned about Biology, and how life and death are so intimately connected.
  • Green-Blue students calculated every kind of Math equations.
  • Blue-Red students expressed themselves with Music, Art, and Theater.

Lorehold Legacies

Lorehold Legacies Strixhaven Commander Decks Precon
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This deck represents a monumental milestone in Commander for the red/white color pie. For three years previous, players have complained abundantly that Boros (now Lorehold) was the weakest color pair and needed more powerful support. After so many years, Wizards definitely delivered with this precon.

This deck aims to get oodles of value from sacrificing and reanimating artifacts. If you like artifact decks, I would definitely recommend giving this one a try, since it feels very powerful and unique.

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Silverquill Statement

Silverquill Statement Commander Deck
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For Silverquill, politics is king. The idea behind this deck is to trick your opponents into beating each other down, so you can swoop in for the kill. Like the Lorehold Legacies deck, there are a couple of cards in this precon that represent significant steps forward for white cards.

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Witherbloom Witchcraft

Witherbloom Witchcraft Strixhaven Commander Precon
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True to the theme of this year’s product, the Witherbloom deck reimagines the skill suite of the black/green color combination. This deck focuses mainly on utilizing your life total as a resource. The commander, as well as several cards in the 99, reward you handsomely for spending a lot of life points and earning them all back. Plus, Gyome, Master Chef is a hilarious option for a food-themed deck.

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Quantum Quandrix

Quantum Quandrix Commander Decklist Precon
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Quantum Quandrix is an interesting deck that seems to only want to do one thing: make as many tokens as possible. This deck put a Parallel Lives in the command zone and let the players run wild with it. If you love Simic, but haven’t been able to make all of the tokens that you wanted to, look no farther. Because this is the deck for you.

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Prismari Performance

Prismari Performance Strixhaven List of All Commander Precons
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The last deck for this year’s Commander product focuses on casting Instants and Sorceries. Not only that, but it wants to cast the biggest Instants and Sorceries that it can. I would recommend comparing this deck to the 2015 “Seize Control” deck led by Mizzix of the Izmagnus. They seem to want to do similar things.

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Kaldheim Commander Decks

Kaldheim brought us two new “lite” Commander decks. Both precons feature one of the themes from Kaldheim.

Phantom Premonition

Phantom Premonition Kaldheim Commander Precon Deck
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This deck highlights the newest mechanic from Kaldheim, foretell. In addition to that, Ranar’s abilities work well with abilities like those on Flickerwisp. The precon leans into some of those abilities as well. These round out a few great Foretell cards, as well as leaving room for players to improve upon some of these themes.

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Elven Empire

Elven Empire Kaldheim Commander Precon Deck
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This deck is focused on one of the most popular tribes in Magic the Gathering – Elves. While, they are mostly green, Elves on Kaldheim are black too. This deck is certainly a fine pick-up for anyone who enjoys the typical Elf tribal synergies.

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Commander Legends Commander Decks

Commander Legends brought us not only a spectacular combination of Commander and Draft, but also two Commander precons. These are somewhat less powerful than your regular Commander precons, but also have a lower price.

Each deck contains just three new cards, and the rest are reprints.

Reap the Tides

Commander Precons Reap the Tides Deck
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Aesi is Tatyova, Benthic Druid pumped to the max. The deck wants to do what Simic usually does – ramp and get value while doing so. It’s a great starting product for a brand-new Commander player, as it offers a pretty clear and safe way to improve it, while still containing some pretty strong cards.

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Arm for Battle

Commander Precons Deck Arm for Battle
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The deck is built around equipments and auras. Whyleth is a pretty cool commander for this type of strategies, as it gives card advantage to red-white combination, which sometimes lacks it. It’s a great deck for anyone who likes to play Voltron-type strategies (making one creature gigantic).

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Zendikar Rising Commander Decks

When Zendikar Rising was released in September 2020, Wizards first decided to replace the typical planeswalker decks with a special something for Commander players. The set came out with two more Commander precons. Similar to the planeswalker decks, though, these precons were significantly less powerful than a typical Commander precon.

Also, there were only three new cards printed in each one. Other than those three cards, each card in the deck was a reprint.

Land’s Wrath

All commander precons list Land's Wrath
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Zendikar is a plane famous for caring about lands entering the battlefield. As a result, this Commander deck is all about Landfall. This is a very popular mechanic among Magic players. Sometimes it feels bad when you draw too many lands, and you can’t do anything with them, However, if you have landfall cards in your deck, you’re always getting at least some value from playing lands.

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Sneak Attack

All Commander Precons List Sneak Attack
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Another main theme from the Zendikar Rising set was tribal Rogues. In the past, Rogues have had a few strong commanders, but Anowon, the Ruin Thief brings something new to the table. It buffs Rogues, and helps you with the mill theme that this creature type often deploys.

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Commander 2020 / Ikoria Commander

In this year, Wizards decided to tie all the Commander decks to the standard set that they were released with. This meant that all of these decks were mechanically similar to Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths. This innovation avoids the issues that Commander players have with parasitic mechanics like Energy. There are legendary creatures that can lead decks around all the mechanics from Ikoria, and each new ability has enough support to craft a full deck around.

This was also the first product in four years that had five different decks with equal color representation among them.

Each deck has a face commander, a secondary commander that matches the color identity of the face commander, and a partner pair whose colors add up to the face commander’s color identity.

There is also a cycle of cards that can be cast for free if you control a commander, and a cycle of auras called the Impetuses. The Impetus cycle gives the enchanted creature a power/toughness boost and goads it. They have not yet proved to be very popular, so I will not be including them in the individual deck summaries.

Ruthless Regiment

All Commander Precons List Ruthless Regiment
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  • Main Commander: Jirina Kudro
  • Colors: White, Black, Red
  • Theme: Tribal Humans

Ruthless Regiment tries to make an army of little Humans and pump them up into a scary threat. There are also some aristocrats synergies, so you can sacrifice your Human army to finish your opponents off. Most notably, Verge Rangers is a new card in a series of white cards that Wizards has printed to increase the power level of white in Commander.

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Arcane Maelstrom

Arcane Maelstrom
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Admittedly, the Arcane Maelstrom deck does not have a lot to do with Ikoria mechanically. This deck specifically cares about casting instants. The commander, Kalamax, copies the first instant you cast each turn, which lets you maximize the value you get from each one.

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Symbiotic Swarm

All Commander Precons List Symbiotic Swarm
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Symbiotic Swarm is a deck that highlights a brand-new thing that appeared in Ikoria, Lair of Behemoths. Kathril, Aspect Warper, the commander for the deck, cares about creatures with keyword abilities so that they can give your creatures keyword ability counters.

This deck fills its graveyard with creatures that have a lot of keywords, then casts the commander to make a formidable threat.

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Timeless Wisdom

All Commander Precons List timeless Wisdom
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This deck finally provided Commander players with a legendary creature who is specifically meant to lead a cycling deck. It is full of utility cards that can be cycled away if you don’t need them right away. Then, once you have cycled into all the cards you require, finishers like Brallin and Shabraz, The Locust God, and Zenith Flare end the game.

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Enhanced Evolution

Ikoria Enhanced Evolution
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The Enhanced Evolution deck is perhaps the most unique of the decks from this year. The deck is designed around Ikoria’s new Mutate mechanic. Besides being a rules nightmare, this mechanic provides a very interesting foundation to build a Commander deck around.

You can either make one of your non-human creatures a massive threat, gaining incremental value with each new mutation, or enhance each of your creatures with one or two mutations each.

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Older Commander Precons (2011-2019)

If you want to learn more about the Commander decks that came before these, you can find older Commander precons released between 2011 and 2019 here.

Conclusion

So, which of the 24 decks released in 2020 and 2021 is your favorite one? Let me know in the comments below. Also, you can follow me on Instagram or Twitter.

If you’re planning on getting a precon and also upgrading it, feel free to check this Guide on How to improve Your Commander Deck. In it, you’ll find five useful tips on how you can have more fun, and win more games with your precon or a deck that you built yourself.

Last, but not least, if you want to find a list of all precons in a single article, check our aforementioned Commander Precons List.

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