The "Looking For Game" section of our Patron Discord is 100% free and open to everyone: discord.gg/tolariancommunitycollege Arin Hanson Forgot He Suggested Crappy Commander Decks: ua-cam.com/video/CB_mIPRnaL0/v-deo.html D's Vintage Power Cube Is Nuts! | Shuffle Up & Play #38 here ua-cam.com/video/75I-CIZgIc4/v-deo.html
i feel like the pirate deck should have included Revel in Riches. 🤔 🤨 mine does, if i cant win by points, or milling a player, or pumping up my pirates.. then getting 10 treasure tokens and protecting revel in riches, I automatically win 😂
Has someone notice the bad printing look lower quality in the precons bought the dino and merfolk and they where awful blurry compare to the old cards more noticable in the merkfolks 😢
I asked my LGS why the vampire and dinos deck were more expensive than the other. The answer was that he had to order from his distributor by increment of 4, one of each deck every time. The reality is, my LGS had a lot of preorders for the vampire and dinosaur deck, and almost none for the two other, but he was forced to buy them anyways. The store had to make up for the time these decks will sit on the shelf somehow.
I started Magic with hand me down Merfolk cards and it has become my go to creature type, not because it wins all the time(which it definitely doesn’t) but I have more fun with the cards mechanics. Im very happy to see Explore make a proper splash in my Merfolk decks
Love that you're keeping in some small bloopers in the latest video. Really shows how much effort get put into these and a bit on how fun they can be to make. Keep up the great work everyone.
I originally ordered the pirate and Dino decks for $34 each when they were first announced and then snagged the vampire and merfolk decks for $40 on card kingdom right around the deck lists release. My wife and I really wanted to build these typal decks, so we thought these would be great starting points. It’s great to hear how well these decks play!
Yeah I got the vampire deck for 35 before anything was released because I've been meaning to build one and when I started seeing the deck lists I was going to try and get the dino deck but gave up after seeing the price had been jacked up. I'm happy overall considering the whole deck is essentially the cost of an old copy of Exquisite Blood.
There are some genuinely good reprints in here! The land base always needs work, as every commander deck has been haha. I'm personally getting these because I love the plane!
Someone always has to whine about the land base... I can overlook the usual mediocre land base when they put this much effort into the actual meat of the decks. And the 2-color decks don't even need insane land bases anyway.
@@nanoglitch6693^ This. When the colors are 2 or 3 color I can forgive weaker land bases cuz they aren't as needed for a winning strategy. These decks especially have good synergy outside of the basic strats
The inclusion of clips from Galavant is, by far, the best reference this channel has ever made. Don't get me wrong, the channel is great, but this show deserves a lot more than what it got.
I bought the Edgar deck back in, God, 2017? And I'm still tempted to get the vampire one, simply because there's actually been quite a few vampire sets since then, and I wouldn't mind grabbing all the relevant cards in a single box. It doesn't hurt that the deck plays pretty differently from Edgar, and probably isn't going to attract as much vitriol from the table (which is kinda why it's been gathering dust as of late). The Exquisite Blood reprint isn't really relevant to me, but I'm certainly happy to see it either way!
I got all 4 for $138USD. The professor is right never pre order and never order magic from Amazon. I usually do both. $138 for 4 has me at or below the price he listed here.
I've seen it play, its pretty sneaky but its very synergistic and with a few upgrades I would imagine being very oppressive! (if you're into that kinda thing haha)
I've always wanted to build Merefolk Tribal and the precon has so many needed peices as well as really good cards for counters strategies. Wave Goodbye is so good!
my uncle got me the merfolk deck and I’ve had a lot of fun with my wet elves when I put more cards in the board than all 3 of the other players combined
As soon as I saw gameplay of the decks in action, I loved how each of them worked and went to my local store's website to preorder the set of 4 for around $145, and I do NOT regret the purchase - can't wait to crack into them, play with them and upgrade them over time!!
If I didn't already collect every Commander precon, I would have picked these up for the nostalgia. I started playing MtG at the release of original Ixalan
@Zomburai45 yep, ot was the fall release set for 2017... It was my first semester of college and I saw some guys playing a card game so I watched, next thing I was at the rivals of ixalan prerelease
been waiting for this. Just getting back into magic commander with my friends and your videos are amazing! I also found out you are a local in the bay area! Thank you for amazing videos!
It's so nice to see the Professor still helping his viewers understand what their money gets them for sealed products. Personally, it helps a lot since I'm playing Magic on a part time job budget
I used to never buy precons because I already have several commander decks, and just choose to buy singles for those decks. But, after buying all 4 Doctor Who precons, I've actually slowly been buying the precons from the past and sleeving them up to play on Spelltable with other precons. So, I'll definitely be picking these up!
I am getting precons due to the fact my LGS does Commander Party precon tournaments and the decks are more or less balanced. I gave up on getting into my past LGS events due to the fact that a chunk of people didn't seem to get casual tournaments should be casual and pulled out expensive pay to win decks and in time every event became pretty draining as such pods became one-sided. I want to have fun, not to get a loan to build a deck to match up these few folks.
I just started playing about 3 weeks ago, bought a tyranids precon from my LGS. I went to the LCoI prerelease and got Gishath as my promo, so now im going to build dinos. Coming from Yu-Gi-Oh, Commander has been really cool to dip into.
All hail the Merfolk. Excellent summary Prof. Was a little surprised you didn't shout out the new art for a good few reprints, as I know it's something you've called for to bring these releases closer to the Universes Beyond ones. ✌🧡
I've been waiting YEARS for a Grixis "play your opponents' decks" commander just like Don Andres, and I have NOT been disappointed by him. The precon is more aligned with Admiral Brass as the face commander, but I immediately went to work brewing for Don Andres. (Step 1: Mash the precon, my Prosper deck, and my Xanathar deck all together and see what works from the mess of 300 cards.)
My LGS is selling the decks for $49.99 each, with a $5 discount per deck if you buy more than one. So I was able to get vamps for myself and dinos for my buddy for under $100 after tax. Not including sleeves.
I really love your content Professor. Im currently working and really happy listening to your voice talking about this product. I purchase the merfolk deck.
I've already taken my decks for a few spins and can testify that these are some of the strongest precon Commander decks I've played in a long while. They can all get crazy out of hand fairly quick and there are many great and fun synergies packed into these. Great fun! Can only recommend.
I played 2 games with the pirate precon against my friend's 5 coloured Dragon deck, and it was fun to gain control of the dragon that just hit me, and hit them with it, even if my board eventually got wiped. i like a good theft deck and i didn't have one.
I started playing because of the original Ixalan's flavor, and the vampire deck is almost 1 to 1 my dream commander deck flavored on that set. I am absolutely getting it, though I am thorn as to whether I should add green to play Mavren and Ghalta!
My big box stores sell all their precon decks at like 55 or 60 now. My local LGS sells them all for around 50, except the raptor one, they had it at 65.
I got the merfolk deck and vampire deck to help my buddy learn magic. He picked it up super quick and loves it so far. He's gonna add some wipes and removal to the vamp deck though
What’s funny is I went for the Merfolk (for The Smiling Flood) and Pirates. They just seemed more unique and fun. I get why the Dino deck was most expensive, and I’m sure current Vampire decks saw this precon as a nice surprise.
After the amazing fun my group has had with the Dr who decks and the builds we're already working on with these decks, I'm hoping we continue to get good quality commander decks going forward
I am always glad for reprints of expensive cards! That said, I’m pretty sure this is not a first reprint for Exquisite Blood. I opened one in an original Jumpstart pack.
13:01 is this a meta commentary on finance and gameplay or a left in flub? 🤔 either way a good video! A little more flavor/ enjoyable than the other recent review videos while still informative but not caught up in trying to be jokey/ entertainy. Keep up the good work!
Hey Prof! I really love your videos and have always especially enjoyed the ones you make about how to improve decks or learning the game better! I’ve recently been getting into other formats outside of modern and so I’d like to make a video suggestion. What about a video on how to turn decks into other formats? Like how to take that modern deck that you love so much and make a commander version of it or how to take a draft deck that is super cool and punch it up into a playable pioneer deck. I think it would be pretty cool!
My guess with the one splashy reprint in each deck is tied to how they can no longer do MSRP. I think that because of the lack of MSRP they probably warped deck construction to ensure that all the decks were roughly the same price. First by putting garbage in the decks as if they’re all garbage then they will all cost the same. But this may mark a paradigm shift in that regard. By adding one splashy reprint to each deck, they should theoretically all cost the same as well. But this is just speculation on my part.
I managed to pull one of the commander cards in my bundle and just plan on building it from what I already was building. The creature is Pantlaza, Sun-Favored I pulled a borderless foil. He looks quite nice. I had Ren and Siri but was a bit boarded with the deck. I decided to build Naya Dino with most of the cards from that deck.
Price aside, I actually love these decks. The only one I didn't necessarily want was the Pirates deck, but all 4 in a bundle were running for the msrp at my go-to store, so I just got them all and am very happy with that. The Merfolk deck especially was surprisingly great, after fixing the mana base I only swapped out ~10 cards for some of the original Ixalan explore/merfolk cards and caverns pack pulls I got. Can't wait to play around with it when my group meets next!
@@mjminino I put some more focus on Explore, mainly. Some more straightforward upgrades are Curse of the Swine for a spare Cyclonic Rift, Explore for Enter the Unkown. I dropped Bygone Marvels and Commit//Memory, don't feel like the deck really needs the recursion. Other than that, Commanders Sphere, Kiora's Follower, Prime Speaker Zengana, Surgespanner, Tributary Instructor and Ruinous Intrusions left for various reasons. I've added a Deepfathom Echo, Glowcap Lantern, Path of Discovery, Jadelight Spelunker, Twists and Turns, Wildgrowth Walker, the great Wanderwine Prophets and a Cultivate for some more Ramp. I also, and this is just a personal meme thing, replaced Ravenform with Witness Protection, because I love Witness Protection and run it in more or less any deck with blue interaction pieces. This is a rough first draft, there are a lot more cards I would LIKE to fit (a Deeproot Pilgrimage, for example, which I pulled in foil borderless), and some areas where I will probably need to patch some holes (I am very creature heavy right now, but with a relatively low level of protection and, almost unthinkable for blue, no counterspells), but the precon had so many great cards that it genuinely felt hard to remove stuff at times. I still have not had the time to watch the Command Zone Game Knights episode where the prof played his beefed up version of this deck, I am very curious to see what he did with it.
I personally cannot complain. I want the dinosaur deck because I always wanted a fancy Gishath deck but it was to expensive. I bought the precon at my local game store and because I found 3 Players who each want one of the other decks (and nobody wants the same one), all of us are getting them cheaper than what they should cost regularly and much cheaper than what they cost because of mark ups. I actually got my deck so cheap, that I bought myself the new cool jurassic world basic lands and a good friend opened a Gishath and the new Ghalta. 😊
Prof. With vintage and legacy you should do a fire side chat about proxies. Hell, even in commander. This is just my observation from my lgs. Since standard died , proxies are super acceptable and people love to print their own high quality cards from China. Or even the classic sharpie on lands or paper you drew on down a sleeve
This is the first time I ever preordered anything from wizards. I was super excited for these decks, especially the vampire deck, and when I saw that I could preorder them from my LGS, I did right away. For a while before seeing the deck reveals, I was honestly really nervous. I knew that preordering is a BAD IDEA and that I should always wait to see what I'm buying before I actually buy it. When the decklists were finally unveiled, I was so happy that they were the best decks in a WHILE. Super happy with my purchase (and didn't even pay markups).
Was definitely not expecting a galavant cutaway gag 😂😂. Amazing Awesome that there’s a solid reprint in each deck, but a shame there’s a markup on them
To be fair those Amazon prices are other sellers selling them that high, I got all 4 from Amazon for 157, every deck is 40 bucks straight from Amazon unfortunately the Dino one was sold out
For what it’s worth. I got to see these decks early via the ambassador program. Merfolk and Vampire are the strongest of the 4. Dino’s is fun but nothing really new. Pirates I found clunky out the box and the weakest of the 4. But with some upgrades there’s some wild stuff you can do. Avoid mark ups but these are some great decks.
I preordered the set of 4 from my old LGS for like $110 and I’m stoked. Ixalan is my favorite plane, maybe tied with Innistrad, so I was really looking forward to these decks
Do you know it has been 2+ years that ALL (5) my LGS have "basic" commander decks at 80$ and "premium" (e.g. reprints sets, or LOTR) decks at 120$. And that's why I buy on Amazon or online. They have the decks you find on MKM at 18$ at 80$. Nice LGS!
I really enjoyed merfolk despite only playing it once so far but I'm looking forward to more games with it. It might rival my elves deck as most fun to play, and I really love elves. Can't wait to see how I can improve the list :D
i upgraded the merfolk deck with 1 dinosaur ( elder), and the blue Ojer from the set, and added a few other cards to make it run better and work around the explore and +1+1 strategy (edit), and for me Dinosaur where my First Commander deck so any dinosaur focued deck will have a place in my heart forever
I hate to disagree but I preordered the Velociramptor deck for 36 dollars on Amazon. It really does save money to preorder there and then cancel it if you don't want the contents after they are revealed.
I mean, I had them all pre-ordered on amazon for 33, So I wouldn't say never buy on amazon. But also there's a chance they just won't ship them. So I guess we will see. Love the decks though, I am excited to play with them.
Glad I asked a friend who works at an LGS to put away both a dino and merfolk deck for me :D They do not charge mark ups, and I even get 20% off due to us being friends :D
I was looking to get into magic with these commander decks, namely the dinosaur one because that was my first deck in Yugioh. Sadly the preorder for it was sold out for a couple weeks if not more. Oh well
I ended up getting the LOTR: Riders of Rohan and Warhammer 40K: Forces of the Imperium decks and my friend got all the Ixalan decks. They easily destroyed either of my precon decks multiple times in a row. The pace and the number of interaction of the Ixalan decks are much better and so much fun! Hopefully I can upgrade my decks to be somewhat more quick, but ootb the Ixalan definitely feel like a much better step-in precon for newer players.
Prof, i never played merfolk. I went n tosee if icould buy dino and vampiresand they sadly were reserved for other players. I thought prof said merfold were good. Won thefirstgamewith it with no upgrades. Deck is nuts, i dedicated that win to you. I honestly do think it wastop notch, so much synergy and value! Now toupgrade it!
Professor, can you also make a timely review of all past commander decks 1 year after its release, if it is still worth it to buy today. I found a Warhammer commander deck, is it still worth it to buy now?
We have all 4 and the merfolk is by far the most powerful, but I hate using it. Each turn takes an eternity to go and explore with each creature. Probably leaving it in the vault next my poison deck, and elesh norn deck.
Uhhhhhhh... i kinda wanna buy one or two of these, but I already bought eight of them (all four Doctor Who's, Middle Earths Sauron and Frodo/Sam, Sidar Gibari and Eldraine Enchantments) but i feel like I already got enough stuff this year! I haven't even started upgrading the Doctor Who Decks yet!
Interestingly enough the average of those four decks shown is $46.15.. wonder if they switched to an average cost across all four decks rather than one price per deck?
That merfolk deck was... Odd. I don't usually buy precons because I'm a collector who likes tribal, so I usually have 70-80% of the deck and just buy new cards and singles. Not only the merfolk deck had all those odd LRW-EVE merfolk that are hard to find all in one place (the order gets split into a dozen shops), but I was neglecting merfolk for a while. It was an easy pick, LGS had a nice price on release. On to removing the bad/out of place cards - usually half the precon - and make some upgrades... And I swapped only 10 cards (removed 2 lands). Taplands are atrocious, but I could use the scry from the temple, in example (same for the tapped land that adds G with Graft). Yes, I could replace a few more lands (I would on the pirates/dinos, but this is a 2 color deck and not super greedy). Tl,dr: the deck is actually good, the reprints are fine (amazing if you consider how annoying to get they used to be) and the manabase just works. That was... a sealed product worth getting. That's like a first. In years. Iirc, the last one were the commander decks from Ikoria - "buy a fierce guardianship for $40, get 99 weird cards for free".
The demand for the dino deck is far higher than the demand for the other decks, but Wizards won't do a restock of just the dino deck, hence the gross markup.
Seeing the land base, they also looked solid. A lot of decent budget lands rather than guildgates and forgettable tapped dual lands with various names. Im a little surprised this wasnt covered here honestly.
Another thing that didn't got mentioned, but: they put checklands in these! Don't know if I have missed this and it's actually some time they've begun to do this, but I don't recall ever seeing them outside of UB products (and even Reveal lands are not excessively frequent, too).
@@lysanderxx1664 I also use them in 4-5 color decks in tandem with typed taplands when I want to go for a cheap manabase... though I'd be a liar if I didn't admit I also put the triomes in there and that helps out a ton. Sorry I can't do miracles. 😭
I've been looking at each of these decks individually, and I can greatly appreciate that these decks feel like they truly wanted folks wanting a creature type-themed deck to have a great starting point. I'm very impressed by these decks, something I couldn't say for many of the previous sets.
I wanted the Frodo and Sam precon REALLY bad, but LotR was an extremely hard product to find here. I decided to just buy singles from friends and try to open packs or use equivalent cards from my collection. I almost never play green, so my land base was terrible, like I had 3 heaths and 2 gates or something like that. I saw the commander masters enchantress deck in store as it was being stocked, and since none of the others jumped out to me, I bought it for the lands that are usually good in precons, and I hardly ever use enchantments, so maybe it'll be fun. Well, the land base was trash and all the good ones I already had, but it's a pretty fun deck, even if it was $100. Someone in my pod built an Olivia deck and it's his baby, if I beat him with the vampires precon he'll never forgive me, so I'll probably buy the pirates deck, seems fun!
The "Looking For Game" section of our Patron Discord is 100% free and open to everyone: discord.gg/tolariancommunitycollege
Arin Hanson Forgot He Suggested Crappy Commander Decks: ua-cam.com/video/CB_mIPRnaL0/v-deo.html
D's Vintage Power Cube Is Nuts! | Shuffle Up & Play #38 here ua-cam.com/video/75I-CIZgIc4/v-deo.html
Merfolk Pre-con! :D
i feel like the pirate deck should have included Revel in Riches. 🤔 🤨 mine does, if i cant win by points, or milling a player, or pumping up my pirates.. then getting 10 treasure tokens and protecting revel in riches, I automatically win 😂
Hey prof, just want to let you know that Factor is extremely anti union and abuses its workers regularly.
Has someone notice the bad printing look lower quality in the precons bought the dino and merfolk and they where awful blurry compare to the old cards more noticable in the merkfolks 😢
you should do a video on full art lands that you liked the most.
The best benefit to the Magic product overload is all the videos we get from the Professor about it all
Factually
Fax!
Damn it you’re so right
You're not wrong!
Agreed
Even the Sun-Favored can’t get his moment in the sun uninterrupted.
Love the Galavant reference, that show was so fun.
A hidden gem, for sure.
Galavant is the best show ever! It's how my wife and I bonded on our first date!
Yep. Would have loved a third season, but the music was soooo spot on and catchy.
Big same. It even had Weird Al as a monk!
First time I heard about Galavant. When I looked up the Wikipedia entry, I was like "Why was this never on my radar?"
I asked my LGS why the vampire and dinos deck were more expensive than the other. The answer was that he had to order from his distributor by increment of 4, one of each deck every time. The reality is, my LGS had a lot of preorders for the vampire and dinosaur deck, and almost none for the two other, but he was forced to buy them anyways. The store had to make up for the time these decks will sit on the shelf somehow.
I've been told the same by my shop
I thought they stopped doing that garbage and actually made individual decks available to distributors. A shame if they went back to bundles only.
That makes perfect sense. Thank you for bringing that up!
Just preorder online for ~35 each when they go up before list announcements. Cancel any if you don’t like the list.
@@tbd3058 inventory space is limited, and the store loses money for every item on shelves it can't move.
I started Magic with hand me down Merfolk cards and it has become my go to creature type, not because it wins all the time(which it definitely doesn’t) but I have more fun with the cards mechanics. Im very happy to see Explore make a proper splash in my Merfolk decks
The use of Galavant here was astounding. Highly under appreciated tv show.
Love that you're keeping in some small bloopers in the latest video. Really shows how much effort get put into these and a bit on how fun they can be to make. Keep up the great work everyone.
that galavant cutaway was so perfect, well done editors!
I originally ordered the pirate and Dino decks for $34 each when they were first announced and then snagged the vampire and merfolk decks for $40 on card kingdom right around the deck lists release. My wife and I really wanted to build these typal decks, so we thought these would be great starting points. It’s great to hear how well these decks play!
Yeah I got the vampire deck for 35 before anything was released because I've been meaning to build one and when I started seeing the deck lists I was going to try and get the dino deck but gave up after seeing the price had been jacked up. I'm happy overall considering the whole deck is essentially the cost of an old copy of Exquisite Blood.
It’s Kindred now
Wait till he finds out that velociramptor went up to 100 bucks
125*
@@ole38 Plus shipping and taxes in my country 😅
There are some genuinely good reprints in here! The land base always needs work, as every commander deck has been haha. I'm personally getting these because I love the plane!
I'm getting these as the decks just look like a lot of fun to play.
Someone always has to whine about the land base... I can overlook the usual mediocre land base when they put this much effort into the actual meat of the decks. And the 2-color decks don't even need insane land bases anyway.
@@nanoglitch6693^ This. When the colors are 2 or 3 color I can forgive weaker land bases cuz they aren't as needed for a winning strategy. These decks especially have good synergy outside of the basic strats
The inclusion of clips from Galavant is, by far, the best reference this channel has ever made. Don't get me wrong, the channel is great, but this show deserves a lot more than what it got.
getting weird al to lead the singing monks... with jaz hands was the absolute best
I’m so happy for The Professor getting more merfolk!
I bought the Edgar deck back in, God, 2017? And I'm still tempted to get the vampire one, simply because there's actually been quite a few vampire sets since then, and I wouldn't mind grabbing all the relevant cards in a single box. It doesn't hurt that the deck plays pretty differently from Edgar, and probably isn't going to attract as much vitriol from the table (which is kinda why it's been gathering dust as of late). The Exquisite Blood reprint isn't really relevant to me, but I'm certainly happy to see it either way!
You got me with the Galavan ref, Proffesor! Mad respect
I'm really happy I got the dinosaur deck for $50 CAD before it went up.
lol lucky you, even my lgs is asking 60 CAD for all of the decks not just the dinosaur one which is not too bad of a mark up.
I got all 4 for $138USD. The professor is right never pre order and never order magic from Amazon. I usually do both. $138 for 4 has me at or below the price he listed here.
I managed to get the dinosaur deck for $38 with a 5% extra discount from Amazon.
Thanks for letting me know the Pirate deck is still worth getting, I was really on the fence about it ❤
I've seen it play, its pretty sneaky but its very synergistic and with a few upgrades I would imagine being very oppressive! (if you're into that kinda thing haha)
I've always wanted to build Merefolk Tribal and the precon has so many needed peices as well as really good cards for counters strategies. Wave Goodbye is so good!
Put hakbal in the 99 make it less about explore and more about tapping and untapping and run kumena as ur commander
my uncle got me the merfolk deck and I’ve had a lot of fun with my wet elves when I put more cards in the board than all 3 of the other players combined
I will always love Galavant representation. Thanks Prof!
As soon as I saw gameplay of the decks in action, I loved how each of them worked and went to my local store's website to preorder the set of 4 for around $145, and I do NOT regret the purchase - can't wait to crack into them, play with them and upgrade them over time!!
My wife and I went to Barcelona and it is a great city to visit. I hope you have a great time there Professor.
If I didn't already collect every Commander precon, I would have picked these up for the nostalgia. I started playing MtG at the release of original Ixalan
@tbd3058 no, I said if I didn't already collect precons anyways I would pick these up for nostalgia.
It is absolutely screwing me up that Ixalan is old enough for people to have nostalgia for it
@Zomburai45 yep, ot was the fall release set for 2017... It was my first semester of college and I saw some guys playing a card game so I watched, next thing I was at the rivals of ixalan prerelease
Me too. Orzhov Vampires is my favorite deck to this day.
I started playing MTG when Avacyn Restored was still in store shelves around 2013...
Yep... I'm old.
As an October Baby, I definitely want the Vampire deck just as a jumping off point for my eventual horror show
been waiting for this. Just getting back into magic commander with my friends and your videos are amazing! I also found out you are a local in the bay area! Thank you for amazing videos!
I always appreciate the humor that you put into your videos, proff. 9:02 had me on the floor.
Glad you like my sense of humor!
It's so nice to see the Professor still helping his viewers understand what their money gets them for sealed products. Personally, it helps a lot since I'm playing Magic on a part time job budget
Simic merfolks were my introduction to magic and I couldn't possibly be more excited for a precon
Pre-ordered the 4-pack on amazon right away at 137$, making them about 34.25$ a box. Right now they have it at 157$ which comes to about 39.25$ a box.
One-of-each bundles tend to be at or below "MSRP", individual decks are when the markups hit.
Same, got the $137 price when they were announced and could have canceled if the deck lists stank. Not sure why folks are so anti Amazon.
I got the dino precon and it was absolutely worth both as a deck you want to keep or just as a product to buy for a bunch of usable commander singles.
Can confirm I got all 4 from my LGS WPN for 35 each! Preorder special but still. Best value of the century for magic.
I'm only a few months into MTG and bought the Mefolk deck the other day. Absolutely love it! I've discovered I'm a blue player and I like Mefolk alot.
I used to never buy precons because I already have several commander decks, and just choose to buy singles for those decks. But, after buying all 4 Doctor Who precons, I've actually slowly been buying the precons from the past and sleeving them up to play on Spelltable with other precons. So, I'll definitely be picking these up!
I am getting precons due to the fact my LGS does Commander Party precon tournaments and the decks are more or less balanced. I gave up on getting into my past LGS events due to the fact that a chunk of people didn't seem to get casual tournaments should be casual and pulled out expensive pay to win decks and in time every event became pretty draining as such pods became one-sided.
I want to have fun, not to get a loan to build a deck to match up these few folks.
I just started playing about 3 weeks ago, bought a tyranids precon from my LGS. I went to the LCoI prerelease and got Gishath as my promo, so now im going to build dinos. Coming from Yu-Gi-Oh, Commander has been really cool to dip into.
All hail the Merfolk. Excellent summary Prof. Was a little surprised you didn't shout out the new art for a good few reprints, as I know it's something you've called for to bring these releases closer to the Universes Beyond ones. ✌🧡
Fought the merfolk precon yesteday at my LGS, dude had a blast with the deck.
I've been waiting YEARS for a Grixis "play your opponents' decks" commander just like Don Andres, and I have NOT been disappointed by him. The precon is more aligned with Admiral Brass as the face commander, but I immediately went to work brewing for Don Andres. (Step 1: Mash the precon, my Prosper deck, and my Xanathar deck all together and see what works from the mess of 300 cards.)
My LGS is selling the decks for $49.99 each, with a $5 discount per deck if you buy more than one. So I was able to get vamps for myself and dinos for my buddy for under $100 after tax. Not including sleeves.
I really love your content Professor. Im currently working and really happy listening to your voice talking about this product. I purchase the merfolk deck.
I've already taken my decks for a few spins and can testify that these are some of the strongest precon Commander decks I've played in a long while. They can all get crazy out of hand fairly quick and there are many great and fun synergies packed into these. Great fun! Can only recommend.
I played 2 games with the pirate precon against my friend's 5 coloured Dragon deck, and it was fun to gain control of the dragon that just hit me, and hit them with it, even if my board eventually got wiped. i like a good theft deck and i didn't have one.
I started playing because of the original Ixalan's flavor, and the vampire deck is almost 1 to 1 my dream commander deck flavored on that set. I am absolutely getting it, though I am thorn as to whether I should add green to play Mavren and Ghalta!
An example of a abzan commander for legends matters that can be for vampire creatures and dinos- kethis, hidden hand
Thanks for another awesome and informative video Prof! I wasn't excited for these except Merfolk for my partner, but now I'm very hyped!
My big box stores sell all their precon decks at like 55 or 60 now. My local LGS sells them all for around 50, except the raptor one, they had it at 65.
I got the merfolk deck and vampire deck to help my buddy learn magic. He picked it up super quick and loves it so far. He's gonna add some wipes and removal to the vamp deck though
Haha, I just finished rewatching Galavant last week, with my wife seeing it for the first time. Great reference!
What’s funny is I went for the Merfolk (for The Smiling Flood) and Pirates. They just seemed more unique and fun. I get why the Dino deck was most expensive, and I’m sure current Vampire decks saw this precon as a nice surprise.
After the amazing fun my group has had with the Dr who decks and the builds we're already working on with these decks, I'm hoping we continue to get good quality commander decks going forward
I am always glad for reprints of expensive cards! That said, I’m pretty sure this is not a first reprint for Exquisite Blood. I opened one in an original Jumpstart pack.
Agreed everyone is overlooking this
13:01 is this a meta commentary on finance and gameplay or a left in flub? 🤔 either way a good video! A little more flavor/ enjoyable than the other recent review videos while still informative but not caught up in trying to be jokey/ entertainy. Keep up the good work!
5:25 Phew they reprinted Zetalpa.
Hey Prof! I really love your videos and have always especially enjoyed the ones you make about how to improve decks or learning the game better!
I’ve recently been getting into other formats outside of modern and so I’d like to make a video suggestion.
What about a video on how to turn decks into other formats? Like how to take that modern deck that you love so much and make a commander version of it or how to take a draft deck that is super cool and punch it up into a playable pioneer deck.
I think it would be pretty cool!
Hi professor I'm a yugioh player but im getting into magic the gathering I bought 2 decks. You and shuffle up and play got me into magic
My guess with the one splashy reprint in each deck is tied to how they can no longer do MSRP. I think that because of the lack of MSRP they probably warped deck construction to ensure that all the decks were roughly the same price. First by putting garbage in the decks as if they’re all garbage then they will all cost the same. But this may mark a paradigm shift in that regard. By adding one splashy reprint to each deck, they should theoretically all cost the same as well. But this is just speculation on my part.
I managed to pull one of the commander cards in my bundle and just plan on building it from what I already was building. The creature is Pantlaza, Sun-Favored I pulled a borderless foil. He looks quite nice. I had Ren and Siri but was a bit boarded with the deck. I decided to build Naya Dino with most of the cards from that deck.
Price aside, I actually love these decks. The only one I didn't necessarily want was the Pirates deck, but all 4 in a bundle were running for the msrp at my go-to store, so I just got them all and am very happy with that.
The Merfolk deck especially was surprisingly great, after fixing the mana base I only swapped out ~10 cards for some of the original Ixalan explore/merfolk cards and caverns pack pulls I got. Can't wait to play around with it when my group meets next!
What exactly did you swap out?
@@mjminino I put some more focus on Explore, mainly.
Some more straightforward upgrades are Curse of the Swine for a spare Cyclonic Rift, Explore for Enter the Unkown.
I dropped Bygone Marvels and Commit//Memory, don't feel like the deck really needs the recursion. Other than that, Commanders Sphere, Kiora's Follower, Prime Speaker Zengana, Surgespanner, Tributary Instructor and Ruinous Intrusions left for various reasons.
I've added a Deepfathom Echo, Glowcap Lantern, Path of Discovery, Jadelight Spelunker, Twists and Turns, Wildgrowth Walker, the great Wanderwine Prophets and a Cultivate for some more Ramp.
I also, and this is just a personal meme thing, replaced Ravenform with Witness Protection, because I love Witness Protection and run it in more or less any deck with blue interaction pieces.
This is a rough first draft, there are a lot more cards I would LIKE to fit (a Deeproot Pilgrimage, for example, which I pulled in foil borderless), and some areas where I will probably need to patch some holes (I am very creature heavy right now, but with a relatively low level of protection and, almost unthinkable for blue, no counterspells), but the precon had so many great cards that it genuinely felt hard to remove stuff at times.
I still have not had the time to watch the Command Zone Game Knights episode where the prof played his beefed up version of this deck, I am very curious to see what he did with it.
I personally cannot complain. I want the dinosaur deck because I always wanted a fancy Gishath deck but it was to expensive. I bought the precon at my local game store and because I found 3 Players who each want one of the other decks (and nobody wants the same one), all of us are getting them cheaper than what they should cost regularly and much cheaper than what they cost because of mark ups. I actually got my deck so cheap, that I bought myself the new cool jurassic world basic lands and a good friend opened a Gishath and the new Ghalta. 😊
Prof. With vintage and legacy you should do a fire side chat about proxies. Hell, even in commander. This is just my observation from my lgs. Since standard died , proxies are super acceptable and people love to print their own high quality cards from China. Or even the classic sharpie on lands or paper you drew on down a sleeve
This is the first time I ever preordered anything from wizards. I was super excited for these decks, especially the vampire deck, and when I saw that I could preorder them from my LGS, I did right away. For a while before seeing the deck reveals, I was honestly really nervous. I knew that preordering is a BAD IDEA and that I should always wait to see what I'm buying before I actually buy it. When the decklists were finally unveiled, I was so happy that they were the best decks in a WHILE. Super happy with my purchase (and didn't even pay markups).
Many Magic: The Gather content creators ask "has Wizards turn a corner and are listening to The Professor?"
Was definitely not expecting a galavant cutaway gag 😂😂. Amazing
Awesome that there’s a solid reprint in each deck, but a shame there’s a markup on them
To be fair those Amazon prices are other sellers selling them that high, I got all 4 from Amazon for 157, every deck is 40 bucks straight from Amazon unfortunately the Dino one was sold out
For what it’s worth. I got to see these decks early via the ambassador program. Merfolk and Vampire are the strongest of the 4. Dino’s is fun but nothing really new. Pirates I found clunky out the box and the weakest of the 4. But with some upgrades there’s some wild stuff you can do. Avoid mark ups but these are some great decks.
I played against someone who had the Merfolk precon last weekend and it did pretty good
I preordered the set of 4 from my old LGS for like $110 and I’m stoked. Ixalan is my favorite plane, maybe tied with Innistrad, so I was really looking forward to these decks
ikoria is my favorite set. nothing beats mutate mechanic LOL
Do you know it has been 2+ years that ALL (5) my LGS have "basic" commander decks at 80$ and "premium" (e.g. reprints sets, or LOTR) decks at 120$. And that's why I buy on Amazon or online. They have the decks you find on MKM at 18$ at 80$. Nice LGS!
I really enjoyed merfolk despite only playing it once so far but I'm looking forward to more games with it. It might rival my elves deck as most fun to play, and I really love elves. Can't wait to see how I can improve the list :D
Seeing the online prices, I am so thankful my local card shop has all their precon's set to $45
i upgraded the merfolk deck with 1 dinosaur ( elder), and the blue Ojer from the set, and added a few other cards to make it run better and work around the explore and +1+1 strategy (edit), and for me Dinosaur where my First Commander deck so any dinosaur focued deck will have a place in my heart forever
Never thought I would see a Galavant reference again
I am so damn excited for Wednesday now. Prof back on game knights?! Let's party!
I hate to disagree but I preordered the Velociramptor deck for 36 dollars on Amazon. It really does save money to preorder there and then cancel it if you don't want the contents after they are revealed.
I bought the merfolk and the pirate decks and they are really fun yes I upgraded them to a bit
For real though factor while a bit expensive legit has amazingly good meals
I mean, I had them all pre-ordered on amazon for 33, So I wouldn't say never buy on amazon. But also there's a chance they just won't ship them. So I guess we will see. Love the decks though, I am excited to play with them.
I literally just bought yesterday blood bites but i still find time to watch this video lol.
Glad I asked a friend who works at an LGS to put away both a dino and merfolk deck for me :D
They do not charge mark ups, and I even get 20% off due to us being friends :D
My partner actually won the Veloci-ramp-tor deck for me and gifted it to me for Christmas. Hype! Didn't have to pay markups!
i love it when the professor says “ dont buy mark-ups 😒” cuz its true 😂😂😂❤
I get both Zegana cards in the merfolk decks❤ not that I need them but I love her
I was looking to get into magic with these commander decks, namely the dinosaur one because that was my first deck in Yugioh. Sadly the preorder for it was sold out for a couple weeks if not more. Oh well
I played and saw the pirate deck in action against custom decks and it not only stood a chance but it dominated a game.
Loving the Galavant call outs btw 😊
I ended up getting the LOTR: Riders of Rohan and Warhammer 40K: Forces of the Imperium decks and my friend got all the Ixalan decks. They easily destroyed either of my precon decks multiple times in a row. The pace and the number of interaction of the Ixalan decks are much better and so much fun!
Hopefully I can upgrade my decks to be somewhat more quick, but ootb the Ixalan definitely feel like a much better step-in precon for newer players.
Prof, i never played merfolk. I went n tosee if icould buy dino and vampiresand they sadly were reserved for other players. I thought prof said merfold were good. Won thefirstgamewith it with no upgrades. Deck is nuts, i dedicated that win to you. I honestly do think it wastop notch, so much synergy and value! Now toupgrade it!
Professor, can you also make a timely review of all past commander decks 1 year after its release, if it is still worth it to buy today. I found a Warhammer commander deck, is it still worth it to buy now?
We have all 4 and the merfolk is by far the most powerful, but I hate using it. Each turn takes an eternity to go and explore with each creature. Probably leaving it in the vault next my poison deck, and elesh norn deck.
Really hope these become the norm for precons...unfortunately I doubt that will be the case
Uhhhhhhh... i kinda wanna buy one or two of these, but I already bought eight of them (all four Doctor Who's, Middle Earths Sauron and Frodo/Sam, Sidar Gibari and Eldraine Enchantments) but i feel like I already got enough stuff this year!
I haven't even started upgrading the Doctor Who Decks yet!
Interestingly enough the average of those four decks shown is $46.15.. wonder if they switched to an average cost across all four decks rather than one price per deck?
I pulled an Exquisite Blood list reprint in my Streets of Capenna bundle and It paid off the bundle. :)
That merfolk deck was... Odd. I don't usually buy precons because I'm a collector who likes tribal, so I usually have 70-80% of the deck and just buy new cards and singles.
Not only the merfolk deck had all those odd LRW-EVE merfolk that are hard to find all in one place (the order gets split into a dozen shops), but I was neglecting merfolk for a while. It was an easy pick, LGS had a nice price on release.
On to removing the bad/out of place cards - usually half the precon - and make some upgrades... And I swapped only 10 cards (removed 2 lands). Taplands are atrocious, but I could use the scry from the temple, in example (same for the tapped land that adds G with Graft). Yes, I could replace a few more lands (I would on the pirates/dinos, but this is a 2 color deck and not super greedy).
Tl,dr: the deck is actually good, the reprints are fine (amazing if you consider how annoying to get they used to be) and the manabase just works. That was... a sealed product worth getting. That's like a first. In years. Iirc, the last one were the commander decks from Ikoria - "buy a fierce guardianship for $40, get 99 weird cards for free".
The demand for the dino deck is far higher than the demand for the other decks, but Wizards won't do a restock of just the dino deck, hence the gross markup.
Seeing the land base, they also looked solid. A lot of decent budget lands rather than guildgates and forgettable tapped dual lands with various names. Im a little surprised this wasnt covered here honestly.
Love seeing the Galavant references!
Another thing that didn't got mentioned, but: they put checklands in these! Don't know if I have missed this and it's actually some time they've begun to do this, but I don't recall ever seeing them outside of UB products (and even Reveal lands are not excessively frequent, too).
@@lysanderxx1664 I also use them in 4-5 color decks in tandem with typed taplands when I want to go for a cheap manabase... though I'd be a liar if I didn't admit I also put the triomes in there and that helps out a ton. Sorry I can't do miracles. 😭
I agree if you 100% about the explorers of the deep deck. it was definitely better than the dinosaur deck
1:20 Am I the only one who was disappointed he didn't end the sentence with "so let's explore"? It would've been perfect lol
I've been looking at each of these decks individually, and I can greatly appreciate that these decks feel like they truly wanted folks wanting a creature type-themed deck to have a great starting point. I'm very impressed by these decks, something I couldn't say for many of the previous sets.
I wanted the Frodo and Sam precon REALLY bad, but LotR was an extremely hard product to find here. I decided to just buy singles from friends and try to open packs or use equivalent cards from my collection. I almost never play green, so my land base was terrible, like I had 3 heaths and 2 gates or something like that. I saw the commander masters enchantress deck in store as it was being stocked, and since none of the others jumped out to me, I bought it for the lands that are usually good in precons, and I hardly ever use enchantments, so maybe it'll be fun. Well, the land base was trash and all the good ones I already had, but it's a pretty fun deck, even if it was $100. Someone in my pod built an Olivia deck and it's his baby, if I beat him with the vampires precon he'll never forgive me, so I'll probably buy the pirates deck, seems fun!