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Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide – Five Ideas to Try

Commander Legends: Battle For Baldur’s Gate is giving us four new pre-constructed Commander decks. This is perhaps the most exciting one. It captures the feeling of multiple aspects of a tabletop RPG, contains valuable reprints, and introduces powerful new cards. In this Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide, we’re going to be discussing what to do after you buy this deck: What should you focus, and how can you make it unique?

A Brief Note on Budget

As far as budget goes, these articles aren’t going to have any kinds of restrictions. I want to be as thorough as possible in these articles in the hopes that anyone and everyone can find inspiration for a fun deck that they might want to build.

As a result, some of the cards I recommend might be pretty expensive. Whenever possible, I will try to include affordable alternatives to pricey cards. In some cases, though, these alternatives might not exist. If you really want to play with a card that’s too expensive for you to get your hands on, consider talking to your playgroup about using proxies.

In addition to my spiel about budget, I also want to mention that this article is intended to come up with as many ideas as I can. I am not including full decklists. Rather, I am discussing as many cards as I can think of that might work well with a specific aspect of this deck’s commander.

I don’t pretend that this article is an exhaustive list of every possible way to upgrade this deck. It is hopefully a fun exercise that gives you ideas for a deck that you love. If you think of other cool ideas that I didn’t, though, please leave them in the comments down below.

If you don’t already own Exit From Exile precon, you can order one on Amazon.

Exit from Exile Baldur's Gate Commander Decks

Exit From Exile Decklist

Commander (1)
Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

Planeswalkers (2)
Vivien, Champion of the Wilds
Xenagos, the Reveler

Creatures (22)
Aurora Phoenix
Bonecrusher Giant
Dire Fleet Daredevil
Dream Pillager
Etali, Primal Storm
Greater Gargadon
Izzet Chemister
Laelia, the Blade Reforged
Tectonic Giant
Urabrask the Hidden
Wild-Magic Sorcerer
Arasta of the Endless Web
Battle Mammoth
End-Raze Forerunners
Hornet Queen
Lovestruck Beast
Managorger Hydra
Sweet-Gum Recluse
Embereth Shieldbreaker
Sakura-Tribe Elder
Bloodbraid Elf
Grumgully, the Generous

Sorceries (15)
Ignite the Future
Jeska’s Will
Mizzium Mortars
Ezuri’s Predation
Escape to the Wilds
Nature’s Lore
Light Up the Stage
Beanstalk Giant
Cultivate
Explore
Kodama’s Reach
Search for Tomorrow
Terramorph
Three Visits
Volcanic Torrent

Instants (4)
Return of the Wildspeaker
Demon Bolt
Beast Within
Natural Reclamation

Enchantments (5)
Outpost Siege
Stolen Strategy
Warstorm Surge
Primeval Bounty
Sandwurm Convergence
Lands (39)
Castle Embereth
Cinder Glade
Game Trail
Kessig Wolf Run
Mossfire Valley
Mosswort Bridge
Raging Ravine
Spinerock Knoll
Temple of Abandon
Command Tower
Ash Barrens
Blighted Woodland
Gruul Turf
Highland Forest
Myriad Landscape
Temple of the False God
11 Mountain
12 Forest

Artifacts (3)
Chaos Wand
Arcane Signet
Sol Ring

New Cards* (9)
Durnan of the Yawning Portal
Passionate Archaeologist
Delayed Blast Fireball
Nalfeshnee
Green Slime
Journey to the Lost City
Tlincalli Hunter
Venture Forth
Sarevok’s Tome

*These are the new exclusive cards in this deck.

Exit From Exile – General Upgrades

Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald Baldur's Gate Commander Decks

For the most part, the new Commander precons have been fantastic products. I have lost more than once to decks with no additional upgrades. I only say this to illustrate that these decks are designed to be adequately playable out of the box. However, there are a couple of initial things that we can do to any version of the deck to start improving it.

The Mana Base

The first place that precons usually need to be upgraded these days is in the mana base. The one that comes in Exit From Exile is perfectly workable, but it could also be significantly better.

Wooded Foothills Mana Base Upgrade Exit From Exile

First, you could probably afford to cut two lands from the deck. Most of the time I recommend playing about thirty seven lands in your Commander decks. This is true unless you have enough ramp to justify cutting lands or enough Landfall effects to justify adding more. Each deck is unique, so you might just have to experiment to get exactly the right number. I expect, however, that you will need to take out at least a couple lands from this deck.

As a general rule, you want your lands to tap for more than one color of mana and to enter the battlefield untapped. If they also synergize with what your deck is trying to do, that’s even better. Here are some lands that at least meet those first two criteria:

What to Take Out

For the most part, this deck is well constructed. There are few if any cards that I think don’t belong. And even if you left those cards in the deck, I’m sure it would be fine. However, I want to point out a few of these cards. They don’t have very strong synergy with what any version of this deck is trying to do.

Most of the time, they meet a need that the deck has (card advantage, ramp, removal, finishers, etc). This gives them utility, but not synergy. With a game that has over 25,000 cards in it, I am confident that you can accomplish the same utility with other cards that also work well with whatever your deck’s main strategy is.

Specifically, the cards that I’m referring to in this deck are:

Again, I don’t think you should get rid of all of the things that these cards do, but rather find other cards with similar abilities that also contribute to what your commander is doing. I talk more specifically about examples of this in each individual section coming up. Keep your eye out for synergistic removal, ramp, etc in each of those sections.

5 Ways to Upgrade Exit From Exile

This is what I came up with for this deck. These five ideas, while not the only possible ones, are what this article will focus on:

  1. Impulsive Draw
  2. Various Synergistic Mechanics
  3. Undaunted
  4. Tribal
  5. Madness

Some of them might look kind of odd, but go ahead and scroll down to see what I have to say about them.

Power Level

At the beginning of each the next sections I included a range of numbers. That range is what I expect this deck to be able to perform at on a 1-10 power scale. (Based on the power scale established by the Command Zone Podcast). For more information on the Commander power scale, you can take a look at the table below.

Power LevelNameDescription
1-2Jank Very little synergy among cards. No Commander staples. Under powered on purpose.
3-4Casual Some synergies, but lacking the strong ones. The deck still lacks focus. Mana curves mostly neglected. A deck that a new player would build.
4-6Focused Synergy exists, the deck has a focused gameplan, although it doesn't always win in the exact same way, usually after turn 13. Includes staples and a small amount of tutors. On the same power level as most Commander precons.
7-8Optimized Powerful and varied synergies between the cards. A decent number of good tutors. Good mana curve. Has an efficient and consistent way to win on turns 10-12 (level 7) or 7-9 (level 8). Some social rules — like no mass land destruction, no consistent combo wins — still exist.
9-10Competitive The most powerful decks, on competitive EDH level. Quick and explosive, can win on turns 4-6 (level 9) or 1-3 (level 10). No social rules, no jank cards. Only the most powerful commanders and strategies can reach this level.

Actual power levels may vary, but let those numbers be a guide when considering upgrading this deck in those ways.

1. Impulsive Draw (5-7)

Recommended Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

The first section probably wouldn’t be a legitimate strategy if the commander didn’t pay you off so well for it. Impulsive draw is more of a utility concept that contributes to your deck’s ability to gain card advantage.

Chandra Torch of Defiance Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

However, whenever you cast spells or plays lands from exile, Faldorn gives you a 2/2 Wolf creature. We’ll go deeper into mechanics that specifically cast spells from exile later, and for now focus exclusively exiling card from the top of your library and casting them until the end of your next turn. For example, look no farther than this nice little list of cards:

Other Synergies

As you can see, there are a lot of cool and easy ways to generate card advantage this way. A couple of other things that I wanted to mention here is that Food Chain in combination with Eternal Scourge or Squee, the Immortal lets you cast infinite spells from exile, which creates infinite 2/2 wolves with Faldorn’s ability. I know that not everyone likes playing with infinite combos, but if you are the kind of person who enjoys it, Faldorn gives you a new way to abuse this old combo.

In addition to that, there are some interesting cards like Omen Machine, Knowledge Pool, and Tibalt’s Trickery that could let you do some fun things. Since the exile zone is such a unique part of the game, you can do a lot of interesting things with Faldorn.

Tokens

Even though the card advantage you accrue this way is going to be extremely valuable, it probably won’t win you the game by itself. Rather, I would recommend trying to maximize the value you can get from making those wolf tokens.

You will want to use cards like Doubling Season, Parallel Lives, Primal Vigor, and Second Harvest. This will help you turn your incidental tokens into a sizable army. You can also pump their power with cards like Beastmaster Ascension, Coat of Arms, and Shared Animosity.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

As is going to be the case for most of the sections in this article, the new set doesn’t offer any new cards for this strategy. Or rather, it does, but they all come with the precon. The only card I can recommend here is Wand of Wonder. Other than that, you probably won’t open any cards for this deck in Commander Legends 2.

What to Take Out

You can feel free to keep anything you want in this deck. However, I think if we are trying to focus in on the impulsive draw/wolf tokens strategy, you can afford to cut a lot of things from the precon. For example, you don’t need the cards with named mechanics that cast spells from exile (don’t fret, though, we’ll talk about those in the next section). After you cut these and the cards I mentioned at the beginning of the article, you should have plenty of room to add more cards to focus in on this strategyl

2. Various Synergistic Mechanics

Recommended Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

One thing that I love about this deck is how it employs numerous different mechanics that have appeared in Magic’s past to capture the feeling of playing D&D. One way to do that is to use a handful of mechanics with similar effects to the impulsive draw cards that we discussed in the previous section.

These mechanics are similar in the sense that they cast spells from exile, which is what Faldorn happens to care about. I am dubious that these mechanics have enough support in Red/Green by themselves, but you might be able to mix some of these together to get a cohesive deck. In this section, I’m going to list the cards separately by mechanic.

Adventures (3-6)

Merchant of the Vale Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

For a long time after Throne of Eldraine released, Standard was dominated by Green/Red/x Adventure decks. Theoretically, if the cards are so powerful they would probably be playable in other formats as well, right? Well, I’ll leave it to you to decide if Adventures are as good in Commander as they were in Standard once:

Also, when you talk about an Adventures deck you can’t ignore Lucky Clover or Edgewall Innkeeper. They might seem innocuous, but they are vital to any deck trying to get away with playing Adventure cards.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

If the Throne of Eldraine Adventures are not enough on their own, Battle For Baldur’s Gate introduced a large number of new Adventure cards. Perhaps, combined with the cards that come in the precon and the cards listed above, you can find enough cards to keep up with the rest of the table.

Cascade (5-7)

Apex Devastator Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

It seems like lately, Wizards of the Coast has printed a lot of new Cascade cards. Perhaps they think that Cascade is more fair in a format where one for one spells put you behind. Regardless of their reasons, there are a handful of Cascade spells that help you generate additional value by themselves, as well as synergizing well with your commander:

You’ll notice that a lot of these spells have a high mana value. I would probably recommend playing plenty of ramp in this kind of deck. You probably want more than you think you do.

Suspend (3-6)

Crashing Footfalls Faldorn Upgrade

This is the oldest mechanic of the ones we’re talking about in this section, and as a result has the most cards to choose from. Suspend tends to be slow, warning your opponents of what you have coming and letting them prepare for it. This makes Faldorn a pretty good commander for a Suspend deck, since she pays off your patience with additional value.

Like Adventures, Suspend also has a few utility cards. They don’t have Suspend on them, but you’ll probably want at least some of them in your Suspend deck:

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

The only Suspend cards in this new set are reprints, or the card Venture Forth, which appears in this deck. Unfortunately, if you want to build a Suspend deck, you will have to use almost exclusively old cards. This feels especially bad when you also know of the new commander, Alaundo, the Seer. Alaundo has a very similar ability to Suspend, but it is technically different, and he is in the wrong colors.

Its possible to be able to combine all of these ideas in a Temur deck (which would also let you play Jhoira of the Ghitu), but I won’t go into that here.

Foretell (3-6)

Quakebringer Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

From the oldest mechanic to the newest. Foretell has only ever appeared in Kaldheim and it’s supplemental Commander products. The most prominent colors for Foretell were Blue and White, so there is not ass much support in Red and Green and you might want for a complete deck. These are not just the playable cards in these colors, but all of the available cards that don’t already come in the precon:

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

Once again, the only new Foretell cards in this set already come in the precon. You won’t be able to supplement your deck with any cards that you crack in packs, so don’t even worry about it.

Rebound (3-5)

Faithless Salvaging How to Upgrade Exit From Exile Precon

The last mechanic (at least for this section) is Rebound. Rebound lets you cast a spell, then cast it again for free from exile on your next upkeep. This works great with Faldorn, but again, there aren’t very many options out there for you. Other than the ones that come in the precon and the new one you get in this deck, these are the Rebound cards in Red/Green:

The bummer with this mechanic as well as the others that I have mentioned in this section is that not all of the card I listed are even playable. If you want to focus on a mechanic that casts cards from exile, you will probably have to do the same this that this deck does and combine these mechanics together. Doing so should give you plenty of options, though. You should be able to meet all of your deck’s needs in a synergistic way.

What to Take Out

Similarly to the last section, you can leave as many cards as you want from the precon in this list. There are quite a few that you might want to include. However, I always like committing to a theme. I recommend choosing one of the mechanics we talk about in this section, putting as many cards as you can that are reasonably playable, and then filling up whatever is left of the deck.

As I have mentioned before, try to make sure you have enough ramp, removal, card, advantage, etc that also matches up with casting cards from exile. If the cards can do both things, they will be even more powerful than they otherwise would have been.

3. Undaunted (3-7)

Recommended Commander: Durnan of the Yawning Portal

This is a mechanic that debuted in Commander 2016. I don’t think that it would be possible to build an entire deck around, since there is literally only five spells in the entire game with Undaunted, two of which fit in these colors.

Seeds of Renewal Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

However, Durnan makes it quite a bit more interesting to brew around this mechanic. He gives any creature that you cast Undaunted as long as you attacked with him this turn. In addition to that, the fact that Durnan has Choose a Background means that you can build a deck around him that is any two color combination including Green. This means that would spend forever considering all of the possibilities for building around Durnan.

For this article, though, I want to assume that we are using the Background that comes in the precon (Passionate Archeaologist), and only talk about building a Red/Green deck around him.

Even with the restrictions I just outlined, there are still a lot of options for building a Durnan deck. You could try to make expensive creatures cheaper, or just have three-mana value colorless creatures free. I recently wrote an article on how to upgrade the Riveteers Rampage pre-constructed Commander deck. Henzie “Toolbox” Torre is a commander very similar to Durnan of the Yawning Portal, since they both allow you to play expensive creatures for cheaper. I would recommend reading my Henzie upgrade article for some fun ideas on how to build this deck.

Morphs

Ainok Survivalist Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

One upgrade strategy that I did not explore in that article, but would like to go into here, is Morphs. These are cards with an ability that lets you cast them face down as 2/2 creatures for three generic mana. Then, you can pay their Morph cost at any time to flip them face up. Usually, when you pay a creature’s Morph cost, you also trigger an ability that they have. For example, here is Ainok Survivalist in case that wasn’t a clear explanation.

Durnan’s ability lets you cast a Morph creature for three generic from exile. He also reduces the generic cost of that cast by three, making it free to cast creatures with Morph from exile with Durnan. Your opponents will be able to see what creature you cast face down, so you lose the element of surprise that sometimes comes with Morph decks. There are plenty of ways to capitalize on this, though, despite your opponents being aware of your face-down creatures.

Here is a list of some of the relevant Morph creatures you might want to consider:

In addition to these, there are a few cards that give you additional value for flipping your Morphs.

Even More Value

In order to really capitalize on the free creeatures you are putting into play, here are some cards that give you even more value.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

Unfortunately, there are not any new Morph cards from Baldur’s Gate. I’m sure you could have guessed that, though, since this has been the case in every section of this article so far. In the next section, “Tribal”, there should hopefully be some good cards you can find in packs.

What to Take Out

This deck is so unique that it hardly needs any cards from the precon. Durnan serves as the engine for Passionate Archaeologist, so you don’t need any of the impulsive draw effects or other named mechanic cards. You’ll also need tot make plenty of room for the Morph cards. I would probably recommend running twenty five or so, just so you’re sure to hit one when Durnan triggers.

I do want to say, though, that you should feel free to keep any cards in your deck that you want to play with and like. These upgrade guides are not supposed to be hard and fast rules. So if you have a card in this deck that you really love, that is a good enough reason to keep it in the deck even if it doesn’t have any synergy with Morphs what so ever.

4. Tribal

Obviously, this deck is not designed to be a tribal deck. However, I always love looking at the new commanders in the context of the tribe that they belong to. Perhaps they have some sort of secret synergy with those creature types without saying anything about it on their card.

Humans (4-6)

Recommended Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald or Durnan of the Yawning Portal

The first tribe we are going to look at is Humans. Both Faldorn and Durnan are Humans, but I have a feeling that Faldorn will be the better option for this tribe. The reason I feel that way is because I want to lean into the specific faction of Humans that can also turn into Werewolves.

Each time we visit the plane of Innistrad, we get a bunch of new Human Werewolf creatures that can transform when certain conditions are met. Oftentimes, these Werewolves have synergies for both their own tribe members and Wolves. And wouldn’t ya know, Faldorn also has synergies with Wolves. I think these two are a match made in heaven.

Werewolves and Wolves
Tovolar, Dire Overlord
Tovolar, the Midnight Scourge Commander Exit From Exile Upgrade

Notoriously, Werewolves are not a very powerful tribe. Only recently did they get a powerful commander and enough support to make a powerful deck. Let’s look at some of the important pieces of a Werewolf deck and see if any of them have additional synergies with Faldorn.

Despite the fact that none of these cards let you cast spells from exile, they are still likely a great option for this deck. Faldorn will be able to make the Wolves off of her own ability, and the rest of these Werewolf cards will power up each other as well as the tokens.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

There aren’t any Werewolves in this set, but there are a handful of Humans. None of them are really helpful to the Werewolves/Wolves strategy. However, Caves of Chaos Adventurer exiles a card from your library and lets you play it this turn. This effect works well with Faldorn. Other than that, there aren’t any cards that could work for the kind of deck we’ve been outlining.

Druids (3-5)

Recommended Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

Gilt-Leaf Archdruid Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

Druids are not a tribe that have a lot of cohesion among the individual members. Gilt-Leaf Archdruid and Seton, Krosan Protector are the only two interesting cards that care specifically about Druids. However, a lot of Druids can tap to add mana. So while this isn’t going to be a very synergistic deck, ramping a lot is always pretty powerful. Additionally, Faldorn doesn’t really pay you off for having a lot of mana. All in all, Faldorn is probably not a very good Druids commander.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

There are a handful of Druids in this set, but none of them have abilities that care about Druids. They do have a couple of good utility abilities, though. Even with these additions, this is probably still not a very viable deck.

Warriors (4-7)

Recommended Commander: Durnan of the Yawning Portal

Boldwyr Intimidator Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

Of the tribes we’re discussing in this article, Warriors are probably the one that has the most synergistic tribe members. There are tons of great Warriors in the game, and they are pretty aggressive. Here are a few of the best reasons to play Warriors in Red/Green:

Because Durnan’s Choose a Background ability lets you choose whichever second color you want, there are even plenty more options than the ones I list above. Even though Durnan doesn’t have any abilities that explicitly work with Warriors, reducing the casting cost on your cards is alway good. So while Najeela the Blade Blossom is still probably the best overall commander for Warrior tribal, if you want to play a Green + one other color deck in this tribe, Durnan could be a cool option.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

There aren’t any cards in Commander Legends 2 that care about Warrior tribal, but there are a few Warriors. They might be decent in a deck built around Warriors, but I’ll let you decide if you ultimately end up building this version of the deck:

What to Take Out

When building a tribal deck, I try to keep all of the creatures in the same tribe. Not everyone shares this opinion, but if you do, you can take out any of the off-tribe creatures for this deck. Otherwise, feel free to keep any cards that you want from the precon, then cut the rest. That way you’ll have plenty of deck slots available for your tribe members.

5. Madness (4-7)

Recommended Commander: Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald

The last idea that I had for upgrading this deck is to focus on Faldorn’s discard ability. Discarding a card often feels like a pretty steep price. Faldorn helps mitigate that cost by giving you one impulsive draw in exchange. However, discarding cards with the ability Madness will let you get even more value out of it.

Surly Badgersaur MTG Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide

For reference, here are the good Madness cards that you could run in this deck:

When you cast a card with Madness, it also counts as being cast from exile. This means that you get to draw a card, cast two spells, and potentially make two Wolves all for one mana (plus the cost of the spells you cast). This deck feels like the kind that could start spiraling out of control once it gets going.

Since you’ll be incidentally making Wolves when you do this, you can also include some of the Wolves or Tokens cards that I’ve talked about in previous sections. This deck has a lot of potential to be a fun deck with lots of weird interactions.

New Cards From Battle for Baldur’s Gate

Unsurprisingly, this set doesn’t have any Madness cards either. Battle for Baldur’s Gate, while flavorful and fun, is probably not going to help you very much as far as upgrading this deck goes.

What to Take Out

Recommending cards to take out of this deck is a little more difficult. I expect making cuts for this version of the deck will be pretty similar to making cuts to the Cascade/Suspend/etc version. Madness triggers Faldorn’s ability, so you don’t need to try too hard to make Wolf tokens.

If it were me, I would cut all of the cards that have a named mechanic that isn’t Madness so the whole deck could focus on one theme. However, if there are cards with Cascade, Rebound, Foretell, or whatever other mechanic that you want to play, go ahead and keep them in the deck.

Exit From Exile Upgrade Guide – Conclusion

That’s it for the first upgrade article from Battle for Baldur’s Gate. Keep an eye out for the other three decks coming out soon. If you want to get in touch with me, you can leave a comment down below, or find me on Instagram or Twitter.

If you’d like to try your luck and perhaps open some cards for your Exit From Exile upgrade process, you can get a Baldur’s Gate Set booster box on Amazon.

Battle for Baldur's Gate Set Booster Box

More Baldur’s Gate Content

If you want to upgrade another Commander deck from the New Capenna Commander set, we’ve got you covered there as well. Check out these articles for reference:

Furthermore, you can also read about the best Commander cards in Battle for Baldur’s Gate. There you’ll find the best cards from the main set, that you might use for various Commander decks.

Until next time, have fun and enjoy battling with you upgraded Exit From Exile deck.

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