I have followed the qr code and try to register. Cant i do it from Spain? There is no Spain option to reguster. I wanted to get something from you guys, is there anyway i can?
For me its Planeswalker Party from commander masters. But for the reduced price of 40€. For the original price i would‘nt bought this deck. But it turns out to be a very fun and strong precon for me. With some small upgrades its very powerful. But i gotta say that the hobbit deck is at least even. So flavourful and such a nice playstyle when upgraded.
We forgot to include the final ranking chart at the end of the episode. The final rankings can be found here. But, of course, SPOILERS: commandzone.com/2023-precon-ranks/
I think in a tier list about the decks having the name of the deck may help as well. I couldn’t tell you what a single one of these decks are named without going back to watch the full video a second time to find which is which. Just a thought 🖤
You guys gotta do an episode where you square the 4 s tier decks against each other. That could be cool. Or maybe even a few from the a tier as well. In anycase, fun video! Would be nice to see your thoughts in the same vein for years past.
started playing commander with the neyali deck, and the sheer amount of times ive had to hide a smug face while my playgroup freaked out about my board because i had either of the free protection spells
The base strategy of this one is very strong, though some of the basics are lacking (Ramp and card draw). The commanders are also great. Neyali gives card advantage and the phoenix can avoid commander tax easily by summoning itself from the graveyard (and creating a million tokens).
I feel like for Kalonian Hydra people often forget it doubles +1/+1 counters on ALL of your creatures. People often speed read it as it just doubles its own counters and is a big trample beater, and it is, but it ALSO DOUBLES the counters on your entire team! That is really why it was $19, not just because it's a big hydra on its own.
True. I won with phyrexian hydra after my friend proliferated it turn 3 then I bear umbraed it the turn after and by turn 5/6 I was able to use the green instant to double counters with pay 1G for extra targets on two creatures and took out my friend who proliferated it first since his atraxa deck was way the scariest. Fastest clean win with the hydras deck :^)
I got 2 precons this year, the Ixhel one at 11:00 and the Merfolk one at 2:17:30 and super agree with your assessments. I had to upgrade the Ixhel deck a LOT to make it be able to compete versus mid-powered decks. The Merfolk deck is a delight to play and the commander isn't complicated once you get used to it.
Eowyn not being an S from 2 of them is insanity...it's absolutely a BANGER. It dominates any precon level game I've played that doesn't have merfolk involved.
I think the thing Eowyn suffers from is a lack of ramp. I fixed that issue with Land Tax and Smothering Tithe. Otherwise I've had a total blast with it. Also, with Horn of Gondor being under $5 now, it's a great piece to add to her.
I felt it was a good deck but it was a flavor fail. The lead singer should have been Eomir, and it should have incorporated either the horsemanship or flanking mechanic. I think it is an A
@@kylethompson7641 agree that a Rohan deck without horsemanship or at least flanking was a tragedy. It's a great deck. I bought it for my wife. It expodes and explodes and she has fun as it explodes again. It's ... explosive and fun. But keeping the cavalry aspect to the artwork is really disappointing.
I really appreciate the honest review of these precons. I feel like during the upgrade guides everyone's being polite so it's nice to get the mask off review here lol
I really like Bright-Palm, I preordered Call for Backup as soon as I saw the art (major Kamigawa nerd here), but 100% agree it's an F with it's maybe 3 total card draw spells. Absolutely dropped the ball on deck construction even though all the new cards are very cool.
Agree with you there - I took apart my Chishiro deck and combined it with the Bright-Palm deck just because they were both very similar and synergetic with one another, in both mechanics and flavor. A few weeks later though, I just put Chishiro back together because it was a more interesting deck and just added some of the new Backup cards in
I disagree, I'd give Bright Palm at least a B if not an A. Right out of the box the deck was playable with my friends higher power decks and even had a decent win rate. It was super easy to understand right off the bat and super interesting. With just a few upgrades it has become an extremely powerful deck that can win games out of nowhere. All in all It was money well spent in my opinion. Nothing quite like outright killing a man with a super pumped up Birds Of Paradise or Sanctuary Cat.
Explorers of the Deep is my first ever commander deck, and my intro in magic in general. I've been having an absolute blast playing it, even though it was a bit overwhelming at first since you have so much to do and decide every turn. I'm still considering buying Fae Dominion or Hosts of Mordor since I absolutely adore lotr and the art looks amazing.
for the timey whimy deck you can give rose evasion with the sonic screw driver and psychic paper rouges passage is in there as well. if you can keep her alive rose can get massive and win a game commander damage fairly quick
Agreed with both, not sure what they didnt like about them. Id say Timey Wimey is complicated, but by no means is bad once you get the gist of how it works. And Ill say, Im glad the upgrade path is so straightforward for them, just pull out the cards that dont have anything to do with the core mechanic
I love Timey Wimey. It does so many things! Except win the game. There's almost no way to win outside of Rose. I've upgraded it a bit, adding some wincons to get the best of both worlds!
I’m loving timey wimey I’m giving it at least a c tier from how I have been playing it please note: I’m a new player as well with this being my first commander deck
@chrisnorton8844 awesome. When I first played the Food and Fellowship precon without the upgrades, I did use Lobelia, Defender of Bag End to take someone's Relic of Sauron, I was abusing the crap out of it by using it for card draw. It was fun.
Does it really need upgrades? Every time our group plays my friend who has it pre-con'd just ends up becoming a raid boss of 50+ hp while everyone else is sub-10 making pacts to stay alive just one more turn. It has life gain, ramp, synergy, and extremely good early-game (that will just ramp dmg into lategame) with the commander duo.
Definitely! Now I'm skipping through a 2:30 hours episode to find the exact moments a score was given. It's super inconvenient unless you listen to the entire thing.
@@grapesodaboy I watched the whole 2h40 (not in one sitting) becouse i wondered what their opinon and reasoning for each ranking where. At the end i was wondering how the ranking looks becouse i lost track where wich deck ended up during the different sessions i watched it.
Ive been trying to skip through to find the tier list and its nonexistent. They show glimpses of certain sections but not a full overview. Change the thumbnail if you are not going to show the list
Thank you guys for helping me jump headlong back into MtG this year! I dug out all the old cards my stepdad and I collected from 20+ years ago and spiced it up with a ton of new heat. It was a great year for tribal players. I picked up 8 precons and have used a lot of your deck building/upgrading vids to great effect at my local game store! All 4 LotR decks were great head to head and super nostalgic-- Food and Fellowship creates an overwhelming board state, Mordor with 9 Nazgûl and more reanimation is evil incarnate. 3/4 Ixalan precons slapped (I skipped the pirates, respectfully), but your guys' cut lists were very much appreciated. Thanks for doing the Lord's work on the Devil's game there. Merfolk is surprisingly becoming one of my favorites, I leaned more into the +1/+1 counters and added Doubling Season and Unnatural Growth for good measure. I thought the Eldrazi deck deserved an S, but it definitely needed some more rocks, ramp, and big Eldrazi uglies to really do the deed, so I understand where you put it overall! Great vid ❤ looking forward to '24!
I definitely have to say that swapping in the secondary commander in Tinker Time and giving some (a good few actually) upgrades towards them made it so fun and fairly good too.
Great episode as always. I do think you guys were a bit harsh on the Doctor Who decks, however. Sure, there is a way bigger emphasis on flavor on those, and many cards are duds as a result. But overall the decks are a blast to play, especially against each other in a pod. I feel like some of the LOTR decks (mainly the Elves and Mordor ones) had similar focus/unplayability issues with some cards that got a little more overlooked.
Yeah. But out of the box, the Doctor Who decks need some work. I'm having a good time with Paradox and Masters of Evil though. Split the decks into multiple decks.
Was surprised about Ixel. It was the first precon I ever bought that got me into magic. I was able to hold my own against non precons and even now that I have upgraded it I tend to do just fine in pods. Ive only been playing for about 3 months but i tend to bench my Ixhel deck cause it tends to actually sweep to fast in some games and I want my friends to have fun xD Also Timey-Wimey I still have as a unedited precon. Its a really fun deck. Lots to do and tbh Rose Tyler is the main commander here. If you opponents cant get rid of her she can quickly become a 1 shot kill threat. There are even a hand ful of ways and cards in the deck that makes her unblockable and lots of phasing out in the deck to protect her. Most the complaints they had when talking about it ive never really had so i was pretty confused at that part.
My guff deck is one of my favorites. I have affectionately named it guffing dumb and it really is so dumb at mid to high power casual tables. Guff is insanely good as a superfriends deck commander.
I love the guff deck too it has an insanely high win % for me personally. That being said every time I go to grab it my pod will release an audible groan. I feel it's more fun to pilot than play against.
I love the convoke deck as a generic non-creature spells deck, with the convoke spells thrown in for added fun. Invasion of Segovia can combo really well by giving all non-creatures convoke once you flip it, and there are so many token generators that give you tokens when you cast non-creatures. Best of all, convoke is a pretty popular mechanic, so I can only imagine it getting more and more options to upgrade as the years go on.
@@famousstranger8468 not more than came in the precon. I had a turn 1 sol ring and arcane signet, then turn 2 third path iconoclast and invasion, then turn 3 I played the commander, then turn 4 I flipped tge battle, played jeskai ascendancy and my skull clamp to start a chain of convokes that ended with a halo fountain win.
I ripped out all voting cards from elves LotR precon and went all in on scry. Elrond, Master of Healing is commander. Seems strong to scry and plan your draws all while getting scry pay offs. Haven't seen a ton of success with it, but still seems like it could be good! Would love to see Rachel's decklist.
I remember listening to the command zone back when they even had video and now were here after all these years. Love all the growth. I was a bit sad when Josh and Jimmy werent headlining main epaiodes at first, but now it would be really weird if it were just them. Keep it up, Command Zone. You rock and thank you for all the years of content and entertainment!
Didn't expect to spend 2.5 hrs watching deck rankings today, but this video was awesome! I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything (although Eowyn totally should be an S) and desperately hope Wizards is taking notes! Crazy to see 25 precons in one year - it used to be more like 4, so exciting to see my favorite format growing and doing well 😊
Ixhel was my first experience with any form of poison counters. I had a ton of fun playing it and ended up transforming it into an atraxa deck which has been much more successful. While i didnt keep it as a precon i still appreciate it like crazy as it helped me make one of my favorite decks ever.
Regarding the Corrupted All Will be One Commander Precon. It was my personal favourite, because it really innovated a mechanic in a way that made it very accessible to me while not making you archeenemy instantly. I do wish there were more interesting corrupted cards (maybe in the future), because deckbuilding is super limited, but otherwise it was a slam dunk for me
It was my first precon on my venture back into MTG and commander specifically; and albeit a hasty one. I’ve had some success with it and playing the low key threat is the way to go. Victories are quite satisfying when this precon beats tables, especially ones that have constructed decks worth several times more than this one. 🤙🏽
I feel like the Eldrazi unbound has a decent amount of 5 and 6 cost cards for one reason. With Zhulodok his cascade triggers at 7. If there weren’t a bunch of 5-6 drops you would be cascading into either something super small (which isn’t bad always, but why not go big or go home) or something that just has to go onto the bottom of your deck?
i'll be honest, adding green to my Brudiclad list and changing it into Gimbal was one of the better decisions i made this year. digging around for all the different type of artifact tokens you can make really got my deckbuilder juices going.
I remember being at commandfest Seattle and they had the commander precon pods. Day 1 everyone was talking about the knights deck but when day 2 came around everyone was talking about Divine Convocation and how the deck was storming off in these precon games and everyone was super impressed with it. I never got to play it myself but I'll always remember the buzz that deck generated when everyone got the chance to play it.
I got into Commander this year by buying the Veloci-Ramp-Tor deck. I moved for school in September, and the local card shop near me happened to be very Magic focused, so I really wanted to have something to do there. I found out they were releasing a new set, and not only were Dinosaurs a major theme, but they were even making a Dinosaur-themed Commander deck! I like big monsters, I like Dinosaurs, the playstyle seemed strong, but relatively straight froward, so I was immediately interested in using it as a template to make a deck and pick up a new hobby. Ironically, I'm also really into a second deck that is Red-White, and all about tokens; I didn't know about the Rebellion Rising deck, and I realize now I probably could have used it as a sturdy base to build my deck out of, but oh well!
Damen Lenz is such a nice guy. All the members of the crew are awesome, but I specifically like Damen. His attitude and energy is so fun to watch! The whole episode overall is pretty great, as always. Thanks a lot for the upload!
Love the video. Funny enough my family's favorite precon decks this year have been unmodified Doctor Who decks. We love the show and really get a kick out of how ridiculous and complicated the games can get. Don't underestimate paradox of power, that deck gets better the more you play it. Now I'm off to buy that fairies precon 😂. Great video.
Honestly call for backup was a very strong deck in my opinion. After 13 card upgrades, it is my deck with the highest win rate. It's at 17 wins and 1 loss. How I see it is that you have in your hand a way to give cards, abilities and pseudo haste. Slam dunk, and next thing you know I'm overwhelming my opponents. And of course, I do have the infinite combo added in and even then, I've only had to use it once
I mean, I basically just used some of the backup cards, shallai and Halal as a commander - no infitites - and it won me a out 6 out of 7. But 17 out of 18 seems completely preposterous
Great episode, surprised you didn't show a pic of the final full rankings though, bit of a miss there. LOTR were the best for me this year, got so many people into or back into Magic, they were perfectly playable as is and mostly nice and easy to play.
I do not yet have the velociramptor deck, but the coolest thing you could do with pantlaza is get panharnonicon and raised by giants on the battlefield first. That way, the first time you cast pantlaza, you discover 10 twice, and if you run a couple of intermittent blink/flicker spells, you can get a LOT of value from casting one time.
I have a Neyali deck. Its win percentage is around 27-30%. This probably doesn’t sound great, but it’s really not a bad win percentage. I think this is attributable to the fact that opponents look at her and think that she’s not much of a threat. She really flies under the radar, and allows you to sit back and casually play until you explode a ton of tokens on the board and swing in for lethal.
I have been playing Sidar since release (with Moonshaker when WoE dropped him) and I never even thought about the synergy of first strike triggering an etb or effect before regular combat damage.. my mind is blown how I overlooked that for so long >
I really enjoyed this. It provided more of a critical look at the products. The upgrade videos do come across nore promotional at times. Be very pleased if this becomes a regular thing.
Just started playing this year. I picked up Timey Wimey as my first precon ever. It is a ton of upkeep but a ton of fun. It is a bit slow at the start, but when it pops off you’re instantly a threat.
@@stationdisatrous647 I bet! I went with more two colored tokens so I could use them for basically color fixing and not have to rely on lands as much for colors. Funny enough she's the reason I ended building Gimbal cause I understood how to make a huge token army
Being brand new to the game I really wish you had one of these for every year. It really helps me decide what to get for the family to be able to play with in the future and have fun and have pretty equal decks without wasting money. This was amazing.
Great episode ! Zhulodok works with X-spells, so I don't really understand Rachel's confusion about the enclusion of such spells in the Eldrazi Unbound precon.
In defense of gimbal, I put Rashmi in the command zone with Brudiclad as a second commander like you suggested in the upgrade, after a few more upgrades it plays really well and is really fun!! Definitely not good out of box but it's my favorite deck at the moment
While my favorite is Eowyn for all the reasons you said, my second favorite is by a long shot Timey Wimey. While not a "starting precon" by any means, I found it incredibly engaging, the time counter mechanics I found were pretty solid and in general had a great time when I played it in a precon environment even against LotR precons. What I will say is that I played as an aggro deck, early and as a combo deck late, Rose and the Tenth working as an extremely efficient combo for both purposes, drawing cards, giving free casts and getting massive. I upgraded it and its really powerful, sometimes it feels like you are not a threat and suddenly you suspend like 6 things, Rose gets massive, you cast them immediately with Timey Wimey and you have control out of nowhere. I ended removing like 12 cards that are more flavor than substance (Looking at you Astrid) and adding both more suspend cards (Rousing Refrain and the Suspend versions of the Power 9) and protection/evasion cards and can win games with powerful decks on the table
During the preview I had great hope for every deck of CM but in the end I found Guff to be most interesting. I tend to play with a large variety of archetipes so I'm not very picky but the planeswalker deck felt like the only good one of them all the mana base is pretty amazing for a precon the reprints are great and it really needs only a couple of changes to work really well. Had the fortune to claim one copy during the magic con in Barcelona, and it's been a blast to play since then
I got into magic this year, and the Sauron deck was the first I bought for myself. Even though it’s now definitely one of my weaker decks, I still bust it out sometimes because it holds a special place in my heart.
hey, I don't comment much ( on any vidoes ) and I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your videos. They genuinely make my day better. In a world of negativity you may not hear this enough but thank you for your hard work and creatively
I've never played magic before and after seeing Fae Dominion I purchased it, I've dropped over $100 upgrading it and I'm so hooked on magic. I've already got more plans for a couple deck builds but WOE is what hooked me.
Glad to see I made a good choice picking up Fae Dominion for my first commander deck 😅 hopefully my upgrades are good. Also got Rebellion rising, but mostly for a mana/staples base for a different Boros deck (Aurelia Warleader). Love this channel as a Commander newbie
I have the Eldrazi and the Dinos. I'm not new to Magic but only started Commander last year. The Veloci-ramp-tor deck is the best by far of the three I've bought out of the box. Very pleased with that purchase although it was a bit more expensive to pre-order because of the demand. I do like my Eldrazi but it feels like half the deck is for Zhulodok and half the deck is for Omarthis. I'm slowly replacing all the X costs but I actually have Kozilek as my commander. Filling up my hand is very good and being able to discard a card to counter a spell is invaluable for a deck that has next to no instants and creatures with huge targets on their backs.
great episode, this is the year I returned to magic so precons were my thing this year. I think you underrated Ixhel, that deck was sooo fun and a ton of fun to improve. great cards and corrupted is an awesome addition to the infect theme.
Frodo and Sam was the first precon I’ve ever played out of the box, and it was amazing. My second favorite, and the only other one I’ve played unmodified, was Commodore Guff.
Are the average prices that you mention the current sell price of the card, or the current buy price of the card? Because the current BUY price for the card is far more important when calculating value to the consumer than how much a store can charge for it.
I have managed to sneak 2 games with the ten doctor deck. Won both. Against precon to upgraded precon lvl. I am pretty sure that I won because the table didn't know how to interact. I am a seasoned player. This deck is probably the only precon I have ever had that needs actual piloting skill. So many decisions. I love this deck and I saw great improvement in my gameplay only after one game. Which makes it terrible to be handed to someone to have 1 game with it.
I agree, I personally love the Dr. Who decks. I learned so much about the mechanics of deck building in the blast from the past deck and how to “theme” a deck better because what is history if not repeating… and THAT is what this deck is made to do…. Repeat! Once I got that… all the pieces clicked and we just had fun playing with it and against it. Learning curve is rough at first but like you said it takes a bit to pilot. But once you get it down, they are so fun. My play group now after playing against them wants to do a dr who vs. dr who night. Will be interesting!!
@@bloodforrugbyify Dude it's always pretty funny breaking it out for the first time infront of a new group. They have no idea for the storm that's about to wash over them. Divine Visitation is the most busted card in the 99 for sure.
1:55:01 100% agree here. I too love doctor who. The cards were incredibly well designed, flavorfully. All of the nods, and Easter eggs, and references, we’re phenomenal. Most everything was true to form. Seeing favored characters come to life in a unique way was awesome. However. The game play was rough. IMO
What a great way to encompass everything commander for 2023, especially consisdering I returned to MTG in January after an 18 year hiatus. I've had a lot of fun playing/upgrading precons as well as building my own decks throughout the year and feel generally the same as those at the table. Emmenance is overpowered and pushes Cavalry Charge over the edge, Fae Dominion is just great straight of the box and with a little fine tuning becomes amazing. I think Carmen from Blood Rites is under appreciated. She can easily become a commander who will 2-shot opponents with both lifegain and recursion in an aristocrats theme. But overall the best deck has to go to Veloci-ramp-tor, not only for being amazing, but also best pun.
So far the planes walker party deck has been my favorite. I upgraded it a bit, and it's currently my strongest deck. I just upgraded timey wimey, and fae dominion, those three decks are exactly my kind of play styles, and ive had great success with. I made the mistake of getting the new vampire deck, felt so slow, and required a lot of upgradrs to get it doing its thing more consistantly.
My son got the Virtue and Valor deck. It's fun but rough to play against. It has an enchantment that turns a target creature to a 3/3 elk and cancels abilities. Good thing there's only one... except... It has a land that allows you to grab an enchantment out of the graveyard. If anything cool came out he'd fish that out of the graveyard again and turn it into a damn elk. Best line from the night... "I just want to see you happy and full of joy... so I can turn that joy into a 3/3 elk." lol
Bought the ixalan set. We get sleeves, counter dice, deck boxes, mats etc and just leave it at a summer home and play it when the family gets tired of board games. Best way to get friends and family into it.
My favorite card from all commander products is River Song. It is not even close! This is such an intriguing design not just for its flavor and highlights to me why this whole Dr Who Set* is just brilliant. I can't wait to build and play that as my commander and I can't remember when I was that enthusiastic for a new commander since I started. *Tolarian Comunity Colleague stated that it should be considered as such
wow, thanks for this amazing episode! great way to sum up the year. also once more agrreing to the many other comments over the past months: rachel is such an awesome include in the podcast! looking forward to 2024 :)
Great episode, mostly agree exept for Ixhel, I build it and think its a fun deck and in no way OP, biggest problem is that people fear infect because of how it used te be, killing one player out of nowhere. Verry happy you guys told the truth about the commander masters set!!
I love my Guff deck, even though the upgrades cost me as much as the deck itself (but i got it for like $50 on sale, so sure why not) 😅 But what I really like about him is that he has a wincon right on him, especially compared to some other superfriends commanders, like Atraxa or Prismatic bridge, who will help greatly, but you have to dig for something that really does a big splash. Because of that, it's also versatile in terms of power adjusting - in a weaker pods, you can just swap out planeswalkers according to the power level you want without really sacrificing your ramp, draw and wincon ❤
Corrupting influence was my first precon I bought and upgraded after a 15 years break, it often obliterated my friends and it still does! It draws a ton of hate but can be surprisingly lethal
I preordered all 4 Ixalan decks before the prices went up, to split at Christmas with my son. Extreme ezcited for them, especially now. I love typal decks in general.
As an owner of the Zhuldok precon after I upgraded it was definitely one of my best and most fun decks, I would suggest this deck to newer, intermediate, and even long time magic players.
What ranking did you give it? I gave it the D. On an aside…you three are great together! The synergy between the hosts was by far the best out of any other combo of CZ creators. You made the 2.5 feel like a quick CEDH game. Thoughtful, relevant, engaging analysis of the decks gave me what I needed to know to wade through these decks. Thanks! Excellent work.
i've been carefully honing my Neyali, Sun's Vanguard deck all year and still playing it (i even played it tonight and won!). it's such a fun deck, and Clever Concealment is such a great card in it to save your tokens from so many different types of board wipes that Flawless Maneuver wouldn't. completely agree that the precon itself left a bit to be desired. the equipment didn't make much sense, and i think the only equipment i have now is Skull Clamp
This is exactly the video I was hoping for! I’ve been trying to do my own research as someone who just started playing last week and it’s been a little tough.
I love the Hosts of Mordor precon for some reason, even straight out of the box I have fun with it. I've even managed to win a game with it unmodified against higher-power decks running big money cards in them simply by biding my time and capitalizing on my foes fighting amongst themselves, as any proper Dark Lord should. One of my favorite moments from that game was when I finally managed hit 8 mana on board, cast Sauron from the Command Zone... and one of my opponents immediately countered it. And I was like, "Okay, he gets countered, but you do realize I still get the cast trigger, right?" At which point their reaction could best be summed up as, "Wait, what? (reads the card) ... oh no." Sauron, Lord of the Rings is such a Timmy/Tammy card, and I absolutely adore it for that.
Merfolk Chad here - I disassembled my trash merfolk aggro modern deck when I pulled Hakbal in a pack. Added green counters stuff, further Merfolk synergy for singleton, and got a wider berth of useful removal/landfall triggers. A week later it proceeds to go wide stompy all at once against Omnath LOA, The Ur-Dragon, and Liesa (got the cmdr damage on her). Table was a bit perplexed when they looked down on turn 3 and saw that I had 7 lands.
Honestly, my two favourite precons of the year are the Vampires from Ixalan and the Enchantments from WOE. I bought the enchantments for myself, because I didn't have one, and I upgraded it plenty and it SMACKS. I love doing things in magic. I don't need to win to have fun, and boy oh boy, it does things. Bought the vampires for my friend as his 2nd deck (I build him one before) and he's figured it out, does all the things, and it's so, so good, synergizes so well, and is so powerful out of the box. It's so good.
I got back into MtG during 2023 and purchased several precons throughout - the only one that felt very confident, like you could always rely on it (assuming you had mana) was the Dinosaur precon. Everything else was too reliant on getting sufficient ramp/mana throughout the first 10 turns, or having enough creatures on the board (despite any necessary blocking or removal spells). The dinosaur deck literally only requires that you have sufficient mana, and by turn 4-5 you'll be pumping out larger and larger dinos that can block until you have even more dinos with synergy out, and can afford to play sorceries, your commander, or other stuff.
I absolutely loved the Ixhel toxic deck! Slightly different approach to infect & poison counters with corrupted mechanic makin it more of a go-wide strat instead of kill-one-fast is great. I can totally agree that "classic" infect deck might still be better but playin them will always put a huge target on your back while with Ixhel it.. still does cause people usually hate poison counters no matter what xD but most of my playgroup quickly adjusted to Ixhel poisoning tempo and I've won with it a couple of times when I could actually play the game a lil longer than classic infect lifetime;) Eowyn rohirrims is a banger of a precon and I loved it. Also ixalan merfolks and vampires
Zhulodok, Sliver Gravemother, Eowyn, Pantlaza, Hakbal, The 10th Doctor and Rose. I find myself going back to all of these commanders (aside from Gravemother - I only play her when i want to be a degen, mostly because i proxied the mana base so it plays fast). Commodore Guff was a ton of fun to upgrade, but i find that it doesn't do well. People are too scared of planeswalkers to let you do anything. Overall, I think my favorite commander deck was Zhulodok because who doesn't love Eldrazi? Having color shenanigans is fun and cascade is a banger. I look forward to upgrading it even more!
1:33:12 The Planeswalker deck is my favorite...I'm consistently surprised at how powerful it is and Guff is a real beast. He's perfect in this deck...he ramps, builds up other Planeswalkers, draws cards, and deals direct damage (REALLY wish it counted as 'Commander Damage'). But I totally agree with these guys. It is not a fun deck to play or play against. Games get very bogged down and there's a ton of things to keep track of. My turns can go for way too long as I'm trying to manage all the walkers and it makes for unpleasant games for everyone at the table. But for pure power...it's consistently been awesome in mid-powered games! I play it straight from the box with no upgrades and love it!
I bought the doctor who precon with davros as the commander and honestly that precon, even before I upgraded it scared my group of friends more than any other deck including many very powerful scratch builds in our circle.
Kasla you use chief engineer to give all artifacts convoke, encroaching mycosynth to make your permanents artifacts, and then jeskai ascendancy to cast any permanent and then untap the creatures that just convoked your permanent and do it again. It can be tough to get set up but once you have you crush the table frequently in a turn.
Which was your favorite precon this year? Which one didn’t hit the mark for you? What do you hope for the precons coming out in 2024?
Love kesla and sauron made sauron into two decks
I have followed the qr code and try to register. Cant i do it from Spain? There is no Spain option to reguster. I wanted to get something from you guys, is there anyway i can?
The 13th Doctor just does it all.
the new dino pre con is rly rly fun
also super easy to upgrade by simply switching out the self damage package for better dinos
For me its Planeswalker Party from commander masters. But for the reduced price of 40€. For the original price i would‘nt bought this deck. But it turns out to be a very fun and strong precon for me. With some small upgrades its very powerful.
But i gotta say that the hobbit deck is at least even. So flavourful and such a nice playstyle when upgraded.
I still don't understand how we got an ARTIFACT deck in TEMUR led by a gremlin ARTIFICER from KALADESH and it wasn't energy based
or at least Enable an energy deck by having a proliferate effect!! they dropped the ball so hard
Gotta give those Fallout decks something unique to encourage people to buy them.
@@elcapitanofthemtn Sad but true. And the energy commander isn't even fun
That's coming in the Fallout decks.
the actual temur energy deck was not artifact based though.
We forgot to include the final ranking chart at the end of the episode. The final rankings can be found here. But, of course, SPOILERS: commandzone.com/2023-precon-ranks/
This should be pinned at the top
I think in a tier list about the decks having the name of the deck may help as well. I couldn’t tell you what a single one of these decks are named without going back to watch the full video a second time to find which is which. Just a thought 🖤
You guys gotta do an episode where you square the 4 s tier decks against each other. That could be cool. Or maybe even a few from the a tier as well.
In anycase, fun video! Would be nice to see your thoughts in the same vein for years past.
started playing commander with the neyali deck, and the sheer amount of times ive had to hide a smug face while my playgroup freaked out about my board because i had either of the free protection spells
Do you play with the precon out of the box ? How well does it play ?
I've played against it it does stuff and things scary stuff
The base strategy of this one is very strong, though some of the basics are lacking (Ramp and card draw).
The commanders are also great. Neyali gives card advantage and the phoenix can avoid commander tax easily by summoning itself from the graveyard (and creating a million tokens).
Neyali is by far my favorite Commander right now I got the Pre Con and did tons of Upgrades definitely worth it!
The problem with the precon for me is isshin exists. Both commanders make amazing pieces in isshin tokens.
Wow those playmats from the intro are Exquisite. I'm not even an enthusiastic playmat collector or anything.
Agreed
I feel like for Kalonian Hydra people often forget it doubles +1/+1 counters on ALL of your creatures. People often speed read it as it just doubles its own counters and is a big trample beater, and it is, but it ALSO DOUBLES the counters on your entire team! That is really why it was $19, not just because it's a big hydra on its own.
True, the stand alone hydra is called Primordial Hydra, and Kalonian is so much better
Kalonian Hydra is one of my favorite cards in the game, so I was so happy that it got a reprint, because that means I can by more :)
Who exactly ARE “Kalonian Hydra people,” anyway? :)
@@typoholic sorry didn’t mean to leak the new set ;) it’s all about Kalonian Hydra Human tribal
True. I won with phyrexian hydra after my friend proliferated it turn 3 then I bear umbraed it the turn after and by turn 5/6 I was able to use the green instant to double counters with pay 1G for extra targets on two creatures and took out my friend who proliferated it first since his atraxa deck was way the scariest. Fastest clean win with the hydras deck :^)
Fee like this is a great way to wrap up the year from a gameplay perspective
I got 2 precons this year, the Ixhel one at 11:00 and the Merfolk one at 2:17:30 and super agree with your assessments. I had to upgrade the Ixhel deck a LOT to make it be able to compete versus mid-powered decks. The Merfolk deck is a delight to play and the commander isn't complicated once you get used to it.
Eowyn not being an S from 2 of them is insanity...it's absolutely a BANGER. It dominates any precon level game I've played that doesn't have merfolk involved.
Yeah but it's not techinacally something new... Humans aggro. Yeah we've had that.
I think the thing Eowyn suffers from is a lack of ramp. I fixed that issue with Land Tax and Smothering Tithe. Otherwise I've had a total blast with it. Also, with Horn of Gondor being under $5 now, it's a great piece to add to her.
I felt it was a good deck but it was a flavor fail. The lead singer should have been Eomir, and it should have incorporated either the horsemanship or flanking mechanic. I think it is an A
switch to Aragrorn and it as immediatly more flavour
@@kylethompson7641 agree that a Rohan deck without horsemanship or at least flanking was a tragedy. It's a great deck. I bought it for my wife. It expodes and explodes and she has fun as it explodes again. It's ... explosive and fun. But keeping the cavalry aspect to the artwork is really disappointing.
I really appreciate the honest review of these precons. I feel like during the upgrade guides everyone's being polite so it's nice to get the mask off review here lol
I really like Bright-Palm, I preordered Call for Backup as soon as I saw the art (major Kamigawa nerd here), but 100% agree it's an F with it's maybe 3 total card draw spells. Absolutely dropped the ball on deck construction even though all the new cards are very cool.
Agree with you there - I took apart my Chishiro deck and combined it with the Bright-Palm deck just because they were both very similar and synergetic with one another, in both mechanics and flavor. A few weeks later though, I just put Chishiro back together because it was a more interesting deck and just added some of the new Backup cards in
I disagree, I'd give Bright Palm at least a B if not an A. Right out of the box the deck was playable with my friends higher power decks and even had a decent win rate. It was super easy to understand right off the bat and super interesting. With just a few upgrades it has become an extremely powerful deck that can win games out of nowhere. All in all It was money well spent in my opinion. Nothing quite like outright killing a man with a super pumped up Birds Of Paradise or Sanctuary Cat.
@@TheBitterSuite7279 did literally the exact same thing, put chishiro into it, broke it back apart for Chishiro 😂
Ate the end of the video we should have a pic with all decks ranked together...
Ive been searching this video trying to find a glimpse of the tier list and its barely in here at all....
@@dontforgetthis92 2:25:44
Explorers of the Deep is my first ever commander deck, and my intro in magic in general. I've been having an absolute blast playing it, even though it was a bit overwhelming at first since you have so much to do and decide every turn.
I'm still considering buying Fae Dominion or Hosts of Mordor since I absolutely adore lotr and the art looks amazing.
for the timey whimy deck you can give rose evasion with the sonic screw driver and psychic paper rouges passage is in there as well. if you can keep her alive rose can get massive and win a game commander damage fairly quick
The timey wimey and villian doctor who decl felt amazing out of box. Strong feeling decks
Agreed with both, not sure what they didnt like about them. Id say Timey Wimey is complicated, but by no means is bad once you get the gist of how it works. And Ill say, Im glad the upgrade path is so straightforward for them, just pull out the cards that dont have anything to do with the core mechanic
Rose Tyler hits hard
I love Timey Wimey. It does so many things! Except win the game. There's almost no way to win outside of Rose. I've upgraded it a bit, adding some wincons to get the best of both worlds!
The paradox power deck with upgrades is also amazing. Just too much value
I’m loving timey wimey
I’m giving it at least a c tier from how I have been playing it
please note:
I’m a new player as well with this being my first commander deck
I'm currently upgrading my Frodo/Sam precon deck, its going to be awesome and is my favorite precon that came out this year.
Nice! Mine was the Riders of Rohan precon I already upgraded. The LOTR precons are peak.
@@Dauth312 they are awesome and I have yet to upgrade the Abzan Infect precon yet, its going to be sweet.
I upgraded Hosts of Mordor myself. Leaned into reanimate, amass orcs, and Nazgûl. Swapped the commander to Sauron the Dark Lord too. So much fun
@chrisnorton8844 awesome. When I first played the Food and Fellowship precon without the upgrades, I did use Lobelia, Defender of Bag End to take someone's Relic of Sauron, I was abusing the crap out of it by using it for card draw. It was fun.
Does it really need upgrades? Every time our group plays my friend who has it pre-con'd just ends up becoming a raid boss of 50+ hp while everyone else is sub-10 making pacts to stay alive just one more turn. It has life gain, ramp, synergy, and extremely good early-game (that will just ramp dmg into lategame) with the commander duo.
would have liked to see the overview of how each deck was ranked. would be great if it would be added for next year.
Definitely! Now I'm skipping through a 2:30 hours episode to find the exact moments a score was given. It's super inconvenient unless you listen to the entire thing.
@@grapesodaboy I watched the whole 2h40 (not in one sitting) becouse i wondered what their opinon and reasoning for each ranking where. At the end i was wondering how the ranking looks becouse i lost track where wich deck ended up during the different sessions i watched it.
Ive been trying to skip through to find the tier list and its nonexistent. They show glimpses of certain sections but not a full overview. Change the thumbnail if you are not going to show the list
Thank you guys for helping me jump headlong back into MtG this year! I dug out all the old cards my stepdad and I collected from 20+ years ago and spiced it up with a ton of new heat. It was a great year for tribal players. I picked up 8 precons and have used a lot of your deck building/upgrading vids to great effect at my local game store! All 4 LotR decks were great head to head and super nostalgic-- Food and Fellowship creates an overwhelming board state, Mordor with 9 Nazgûl and more reanimation is evil incarnate.
3/4 Ixalan precons slapped (I skipped the pirates, respectfully), but your guys' cut lists were very much appreciated. Thanks for doing the Lord's work on the Devil's game there. Merfolk is surprisingly becoming one of my favorites, I leaned more into the +1/+1 counters and added Doubling Season and Unnatural Growth for good measure.
I thought the Eldrazi deck deserved an S, but it definitely needed some more rocks, ramp, and big Eldrazi uglies to really do the deed, so I understand where you put it overall! Great vid ❤ looking forward to '24!
I definitely have to say that swapping in the secondary commander in Tinker Time and giving some (a good few actually) upgrades towards them made it so fun and fairly good too.
Great episode as always.
I do think you guys were a bit harsh on the Doctor Who decks, however. Sure, there is a way bigger emphasis on flavor on those, and many cards are duds as a result. But overall the decks are a blast to play, especially against each other in a pod. I feel like some of the LOTR decks (mainly the Elves and Mordor ones) had similar focus/unplayability issues with some cards that got a little more overlooked.
Yeah. But out of the box, the Doctor Who decks need some work. I'm having a good time with Paradox and Masters of Evil though. Split the decks into multiple decks.
Unrelated to the video, but it seems like Josh Murphy has been getting fit. Good for him!
Was surprised about Ixel. It was the first precon I ever bought that got me into magic. I was able to hold my own against non precons and even now that I have upgraded it I tend to do just fine in pods. Ive only been playing for about 3 months but i tend to bench my Ixhel deck cause it tends to actually sweep to fast in some games and I want my friends to have fun xD
Also Timey-Wimey I still have as a unedited precon. Its a really fun deck. Lots to do and tbh Rose Tyler is the main commander here. If you opponents cant get rid of her she can quickly become a 1 shot kill threat. There are even a hand ful of ways and cards in the deck that makes her unblockable and lots of phasing out in the deck to protect her. Most the complaints they had when talking about it ive never really had so i was pretty confused at that part.
I will not apologize for having Commodore Guff as my favorite. I will always be a planeswalker guy.
GUFFF!!!!!
I will not apologize for having Leori as my favorite. I will always be a planeswalker guy.
My guff deck is one of my favorites. I have affectionately named it guffing dumb and it really is so dumb at mid to high power casual tables. Guff is insanely good as a superfriends deck commander.
I love the guff deck too it has an insanely high win % for me personally. That being said every time I go to grab it my pod will release an audible groan. I feel it's more fun to pilot than play against.
I win more than lose with guff its insane. Such a good deck
I love the convoke deck as a generic non-creature spells deck, with the convoke spells thrown in for added fun. Invasion of Segovia can combo really well by giving all non-creatures convoke once you flip it, and there are so many token generators that give you tokens when you cast non-creatures. Best of all, convoke is a pretty popular mechanic, so I can only imagine it getting more and more options to upgrade as the years go on.
The invasion & jeskai ascendancy win games
@@famousstranger8468 It really does! I had one magical Christmas game where I ended up accidentally winning on turn 4 with that combo.
@ThePretzelBread was you playing fast mana?
My quickest was turn 5
@@famousstranger8468 not more than came in the precon. I had a turn 1 sol ring and arcane signet, then turn 2 third path iconoclast and invasion, then turn 3 I played the commander, then turn 4 I flipped tge battle, played jeskai ascendancy and my skull clamp to start a chain of convokes that ended with a halo fountain win.
@ThePretzelBread everything you said is in my deck 😅 halo fountain so good
I ripped out all voting cards from elves LotR precon and went all in on scry. Elrond, Master of Healing is commander. Seems strong to scry and plan your draws all while getting scry pay offs. Haven't seen a ton of success with it, but still seems like it could be good! Would love to see Rachel's decklist.
The new Galadriel from the Holiday Scene box is a great Simic choice too 😊
I remember listening to the command zone back when they even had video and now were here after all these years. Love all the growth. I was a bit sad when Josh and Jimmy werent headlining main epaiodes at first, but now it would be really weird if it were just them. Keep it up, Command Zone. You rock and thank you for all the years of content and entertainment!
Didn't expect to spend 2.5 hrs watching deck rankings today, but this video was awesome! I wholeheartedly agree with pretty much everything (although Eowyn totally should be an S) and desperately hope Wizards is taking notes! Crazy to see 25 precons in one year - it used to be more like 4, so exciting to see my favorite format growing and doing well 😊
The tenth doctor precon is so cool to play! After that Fellow and fellowship is my close second!
I have loved having Rachel on so much content this year. She's my favorite deck builder! Happy Holidays to the Command Zone crew
Ixhel was my first experience with any form of poison counters. I had a ton of fun playing it and ended up transforming it into an atraxa deck which has been much more successful. While i didnt keep it as a precon i still appreciate it like crazy as it helped me make one of my favorite decks ever.
Rachel: "How big do pirates get?"
Dargo: "Yes."
Regarding the Corrupted All Will be One Commander Precon. It was my personal favourite, because it really innovated a mechanic in a way that made it very accessible to me while not making you archeenemy instantly. I do wish there were more interesting corrupted cards (maybe in the future), because deckbuilding is super limited, but otherwise it was a slam dunk for me
It was my first precon on my venture back into MTG and commander specifically; and albeit a hasty one. I’ve had some success with it and playing the low key threat is the way to go. Victories are quite satisfying when this precon beats tables, especially ones that have constructed decks worth several times more than this one. 🤙🏽
Guff has been my favorite for this year. What his deck added to Superfriends really makes the archetype even more viable
I feel like the Eldrazi unbound has a decent amount of 5 and 6 cost cards for one reason. With Zhulodok his cascade triggers at 7. If there weren’t a bunch of 5-6 drops you would be cascading into either something super small (which isn’t bad always, but why not go big or go home) or something that just has to go onto the bottom of your deck?
i'll be honest, adding green to my Brudiclad list and changing it into Gimbal was one of the better decisions i made this year. digging around for all the different type of artifact tokens you can make really got my deckbuilder juices going.
I remember being at commandfest Seattle and they had the commander precon pods. Day 1 everyone was talking about the knights deck but when day 2 came around everyone was talking about Divine Convocation and how the deck was storming off in these precon games and everyone was super impressed with it. I never got to play it myself but I'll always remember the buzz that deck generated when everyone got the chance to play it.
2:19:10 Merfolk *tribal. Glad I could help.
I got into Commander this year by buying the Veloci-Ramp-Tor deck. I moved for school in September, and the local card shop near me happened to be very Magic focused, so I really wanted to have something to do there. I found out they were releasing a new set, and not only were Dinosaurs a major theme, but they were even making a Dinosaur-themed Commander deck! I like big monsters, I like Dinosaurs, the playstyle seemed strong, but relatively straight froward, so I was immediately interested in using it as a template to make a deck and pick up a new hobby. Ironically, I'm also really into a second deck that is Red-White, and all about tokens; I didn't know about the Rebellion Rising deck, and I realize now I probably could have used it as a sturdy base to build my deck out of, but oh well!
Damen Lenz is such a nice guy. All the members of the crew are awesome, but I specifically like Damen.
His attitude and energy is so fun to watch!
The whole episode overall is pretty great, as always. Thanks a lot for the upload!
I agree I was extra excited for the content once I saw Damen
I LOVE my Neyali deck. It’s a blast to play. I’ve upgraded it and it’s pretty strong!
Same here, light upgrades and it's a good time!
Love the video. Funny enough my family's favorite precon decks this year have been unmodified Doctor Who decks. We love the show and really get a kick out of how ridiculous and complicated the games can get. Don't underestimate paradox of power, that deck gets better the more you play it. Now I'm off to buy that fairies precon 😂. Great video.
Great video about precon decks from this year. Thanks to this video people will much easier to make decision what to buy. Thanks
Just in time for Christmas! Good timing for this one.
Honestly call for backup was a very strong deck in my opinion. After 13 card upgrades, it is my deck with the highest win rate. It's at 17 wins and 1 loss.
How I see it is that you have in your hand a way to give cards, abilities and pseudo haste. Slam dunk, and next thing you know I'm overwhelming my opponents. And of course, I do have the infinite combo added in and even then, I've only had to use it once
Do your opponents not run removal?
I mean, I basically just used some of the backup cards, shallai and Halal as a commander - no infitites - and it won me a out 6 out of 7.
But 17 out of 18 seems completely preposterous
They absolutely do run removal. It's more so people not knowing what to remove until it's too late. @@mofomiko
Wow! I forgot nearly half of these, and didn't remember what year the rest came out! What a great dive in!
Great episode, surprised you didn't show a pic of the final full rankings though, bit of a miss there.
LOTR were the best for me this year, got so many people into or back into Magic, they were perfectly playable as is and mostly nice and easy to play.
I do not yet have the velociramptor deck, but the coolest thing you could do with pantlaza is get panharnonicon and raised by giants on the battlefield first. That way, the first time you cast pantlaza, you discover 10 twice, and if you run a couple of intermittent blink/flicker spells, you can get a LOT of value from casting one time.
I have a Neyali deck. Its win percentage is around 27-30%. This probably doesn’t sound great, but it’s really not a bad win percentage. I think this is attributable to the fact that opponents look at her and think that she’s not much of a threat. She really flies under the radar, and allows you to sit back and casually play until you explode a ton of tokens on the board and swing in for lethal.
I have been playing Sidar since release (with Moonshaker when WoE dropped him) and I never even thought about the synergy of first strike triggering an etb or effect before regular combat damage.. my mind is blown how I overlooked that for so long >
I really enjoyed this. It provided more of a critical look at the products. The upgrade videos do come across nore promotional at times. Be very pleased if this becomes a regular thing.
Just started playing this year. I picked up Timey Wimey as my first precon ever. It is a ton of upkeep but a ton of fun. It is a bit slow at the start, but when it pops off you’re instantly a threat.
I loved upgrading Kasla with crazy token generators. I had never really built a deck with that in mind, but since then I have built many
Young pyromancer, third path iconoclast, and Monastery mentor are awesome in kasla.
@@stationdisatrous647 I bet! I went with more two colored tokens so I could use them for basically color fixing and not have to rely on lands as much for colors. Funny enough she's the reason I ended building Gimbal cause I understood how to make a huge token army
Being brand new to the game I really wish you had one of these for every year. It really helps me decide what to get for the family to be able to play with in the future and have fun and have pretty equal decks without wasting money. This was amazing.
Great episode ! Zhulodok works with X-spells, so I don't really understand Rachel's confusion about the enclusion of such spells in the Eldrazi Unbound precon.
In defense of gimbal, I put Rashmi in the command zone with Brudiclad as a second commander like you suggested in the upgrade, after a few more upgrades it plays really well and is really fun!! Definitely not good out of box but it's my favorite deck at the moment
While my favorite is Eowyn for all the reasons you said, my second favorite is by a long shot Timey Wimey. While not a "starting precon" by any means, I found it incredibly engaging, the time counter mechanics I found were pretty solid and in general had a great time when I played it in a precon environment even against LotR precons. What I will say is that I played as an aggro deck, early and as a combo deck late, Rose and the Tenth working as an extremely efficient combo for both purposes, drawing cards, giving free casts and getting massive. I upgraded it and its really powerful, sometimes it feels like you are not a threat and suddenly you suspend like 6 things, Rose gets massive, you cast them immediately with Timey Wimey and you have control out of nowhere. I ended removing like 12 cards that are more flavor than substance (Looking at you Astrid) and adding both more suspend cards (Rousing Refrain and the Suspend versions of the Power 9) and protection/evasion cards and can win games with powerful decks on the table
During the preview I had great hope for every deck of CM but in the end I found Guff to be most interesting. I tend to play with a large variety of archetipes so I'm not very picky but the planeswalker deck felt like the only good one of them all the mana base is pretty amazing for a precon the reprints are great and it really needs only a couple of changes to work really well. Had the fortune to claim one copy during the magic con in Barcelona, and it's been a blast to play since then
That’s a ton of work, concise and great detail. Thank you for the recap!
I got into magic this year, and the Sauron deck was the first I bought for myself. Even though it’s now definitely one of my weaker decks, I still bust it out sometimes because it holds a special place in my heart.
hey, I don't comment much ( on any vidoes ) and I just wanted to say that I really enjoy your videos. They genuinely make my day better. In a world of negativity you may not hear this enough but thank you for your hard work and creatively
Thank you for the kind words
2:03:23
Murph: welcome to the D club
Rachel: *trying hard to not laugh out loud*
I've never played magic before and after seeing Fae Dominion I purchased it, I've dropped over $100 upgrading it and I'm so hooked on magic. I've already got more plans for a couple deck builds but WOE is what hooked me.
I do love the Anikthea precon, I got it for my birthday, I am upgrading it to be better including upgrading the mana base.
Glad to see I made a good choice picking up Fae Dominion for my first commander deck 😅 hopefully my upgrades are good. Also got Rebellion rising, but mostly for a mana/staples base for a different Boros deck (Aurelia Warleader). Love this channel as a Commander newbie
I have the Eldrazi and the Dinos. I'm not new to Magic but only started Commander last year. The Veloci-ramp-tor deck is the best by far of the three I've bought out of the box. Very pleased with that purchase although it was a bit more expensive to pre-order because of the demand. I do like my Eldrazi but it feels like half the deck is for Zhulodok and half the deck is for Omarthis. I'm slowly replacing all the X costs but I actually have Kozilek as my commander. Filling up my hand is very good and being able to discard a card to counter a spell is invaluable for a deck that has next to no instants and creatures with huge targets on their backs.
great episode, this is the year I returned to magic so precons were my thing this year. I think you underrated Ixhel, that deck was sooo fun and a ton of fun to improve. great cards and corrupted is an awesome addition to the infect theme.
Frodo and Sam was the first precon I’ve ever played out of the box, and it was amazing. My second favorite, and the only other one I’ve played unmodified, was Commodore Guff.
Eldarazi deck I got for first sale value at 35$ lol, rarely use it but still was too good to pass for the cost
Are the average prices that you mention the current sell price of the card, or the current buy price of the card? Because the current BUY price for the card is far more important when calculating value to the consumer than how much a store can charge for it.
I have managed to sneak 2 games with the ten doctor deck. Won both. Against precon to upgraded precon lvl. I am pretty sure that I won because the table didn't know how to interact. I am a seasoned player. This deck is probably the only precon I have ever had that needs actual piloting skill. So many decisions. I love this deck and I saw great improvement in my gameplay only after one game. Which makes it terrible to be handed to someone to have 1 game with it.
I agree, I personally love the Dr. Who decks. I learned so much about the mechanics of deck building in the blast from the past deck and how to “theme” a deck better because what is history if not repeating… and THAT is what this deck is made to do…. Repeat! Once I got that… all the pieces clicked and we just had fun playing with it and against it. Learning curve is rough at first but like you said it takes a bit to pilot. But once you get it down, they are so fun. My play group now after playing against them wants to do a dr who vs. dr who night. Will be interesting!!
I took my Neyali deck and modified it to be an Otharri deck. That firebird snowballs HARD, and I love it. My playgroup doesn't though :P
People have no idea how hard Otharri goes. I can wreck tables with my deck. Just go into proliferate and laugh.
@@bloodforrugbyify Extra combats and Strionic Resonator/Lithoform Engine for me! Once I hit 4+ rebels per attack trigger things get nutty.
@@bloodforrugbyify Dude it's always pretty funny breaking it out for the first time infront of a new group. They have no idea for the storm that's about to wash over them. Divine Visitation is the most busted card in the 99 for sure.
1:55:01 100% agree here. I too love doctor who. The cards were incredibly well designed, flavorfully. All of the nods, and Easter eggs, and references, we’re phenomenal. Most everything was true to form. Seeing favored characters come to life in a unique way was awesome. However. The game play was rough. IMO
What a great way to encompass everything commander for 2023, especially consisdering I returned to MTG in January after an 18 year hiatus. I've had a lot of fun playing/upgrading precons as well as building my own decks throughout the year and feel generally the same as those at the table. Emmenance is overpowered and pushes Cavalry Charge over the edge, Fae Dominion is just great straight of the box and with a little fine tuning becomes amazing. I think Carmen from Blood Rites is under appreciated. She can easily become a commander who will 2-shot opponents with both lifegain and recursion in an aristocrats theme. But overall the best deck has to go to Veloci-ramp-tor, not only for being amazing, but also best pun.
So far the planes walker party deck has been my favorite. I upgraded it a bit, and it's currently my strongest deck. I just upgraded timey wimey, and fae dominion, those three decks are exactly my kind of play styles, and ive had great success with. I made the mistake of getting the new vampire deck, felt so slow, and required a lot of upgradrs to get it doing its thing more consistantly.
Murph!!! You're looking amazing, whatever you're doing for your health is working!!
My son got the Virtue and Valor deck. It's fun but rough to play against. It has an enchantment that turns a target creature to a 3/3 elk and cancels abilities. Good thing there's only one... except... It has a land that allows you to grab an enchantment out of the graveyard. If anything cool came out he'd fish that out of the graveyard again and turn it into a damn elk. Best line from the night... "I just want to see you happy and full of joy... so I can turn that joy into a 3/3 elk." lol
Bought the ixalan set. We get sleeves, counter dice, deck boxes, mats etc and just leave it at a summer home and play it when the family gets tired of board games. Best way to get friends and family into it.
My favorite card from all commander products is River Song. It is not even close! This is such an intriguing
design not just for its flavor and highlights to me why this whole Dr Who Set* is just brilliant. I can't wait to build and play that as my commander and I can't remember when I was that enthusiastic for a new commander since I started.
*Tolarian Comunity Colleague stated that it should be considered as such
wow, thanks for this amazing episode! great way to sum up the year. also once more agrreing to the many other comments over the past months: rachel is such an awesome include in the podcast! looking forward to 2024 :)
Great episode, mostly agree exept for Ixhel, I build it and think its a fun deck and in no way OP, biggest problem is that people fear infect because of how it used te be, killing one player out of nowhere. Verry happy you guys told the truth about the commander masters set!!
I love my Guff deck, even though the upgrades cost me as much as the deck itself (but i got it for like $50 on sale, so sure why not) 😅
But what I really like about him is that he has a wincon right on him, especially compared to some other superfriends commanders, like Atraxa or Prismatic bridge, who will help greatly, but you have to dig for something that really does a big splash.
Because of that, it's also versatile in terms of power adjusting - in a weaker pods, you can just swap out planeswalkers according to the power level you want without really sacrificing your ramp, draw and wincon ❤
Corrupting influence was my first precon I bought and upgraded after a 15 years break, it often obliterated my friends and it still does! It draws a ton of hate but can be surprisingly lethal
Did Rachel share her LOTR precons in-world upgrades anywhere? I tried doing the same thing, but I still don't think the elf one is in a good spot.
Enduring Enchantments is the deck that got me into commander. Love the reviews of all the sets
I preordered all 4 Ixalan decks before the prices went up, to split at Christmas with my son.
Extreme ezcited for them, especially now. I love typal decks in general.
As an owner of the Zhuldok precon after I upgraded it was definitely one of my best and most fun decks, I would suggest this deck to newer, intermediate, and even long time magic players.
The eldrazi was and is a amazing pre con it has hold it's own for me
Absolutely, I think the review here was quite harsh and from the box the deck usually presents a must answer threat.
What ranking did you give it?
I gave it the D.
On an aside…you three are great together! The synergy between the hosts was by far the best out of any other combo of CZ creators. You made the 2.5 feel like a quick CEDH game.
Thoughtful, relevant, engaging analysis of the decks gave me what I needed to know to wade through these decks.
Thanks! Excellent work.
i've been carefully honing my Neyali, Sun's Vanguard deck all year and still playing it (i even played it tonight and won!). it's such a fun deck, and Clever Concealment is such a great card in it to save your tokens from so many different types of board wipes that Flawless Maneuver wouldn't. completely agree that the precon itself left a bit to be desired. the equipment didn't make much sense, and i think the only equipment i have now is Skull Clamp
This is exactly the video I was hoping for! I’ve been trying to do my own research as someone who just started playing last week and it’s been a little tough.
I love the Hosts of Mordor precon for some reason, even straight out of the box I have fun with it. I've even managed to win a game with it unmodified against higher-power decks running big money cards in them simply by biding my time and capitalizing on my foes fighting amongst themselves, as any proper Dark Lord should. One of my favorite moments from that game was when I finally managed hit 8 mana on board, cast Sauron from the Command Zone... and one of my opponents immediately countered it. And I was like, "Okay, he gets countered, but you do realize I still get the cast trigger, right?" At which point their reaction could best be summed up as, "Wait, what? (reads the card) ... oh no."
Sauron, Lord of the Rings is such a Timmy/Tammy card, and I absolutely adore it for that.
Merfolk Chad here - I disassembled my trash merfolk aggro modern deck when I pulled Hakbal in a pack. Added green counters stuff, further Merfolk synergy for singleton, and got a wider berth of useful removal/landfall triggers.
A week later it proceeds to go wide stompy all at once against Omnath LOA, The Ur-Dragon, and Liesa (got the cmdr damage on her). Table was a bit perplexed when they looked down on turn 3 and saw that I had 7 lands.
Honestly, my two favourite precons of the year are the Vampires from Ixalan and the Enchantments from WOE. I bought the enchantments for myself, because I didn't have one, and I upgraded it plenty and it SMACKS. I love doing things in magic. I don't need to win to have fun, and boy oh boy, it does things.
Bought the vampires for my friend as his 2nd deck (I build him one before) and he's figured it out, does all the things, and it's so, so good, synergizes so well, and is so powerful out of the box. It's so good.
I got back into MtG during 2023 and purchased several precons throughout - the only one that felt very confident, like you could always rely on it (assuming you had mana) was the Dinosaur precon.
Everything else was too reliant on getting sufficient ramp/mana throughout the first 10 turns, or having enough creatures on the board (despite any necessary blocking or removal spells).
The dinosaur deck literally only requires that you have sufficient mana, and by turn 4-5 you'll be pumping out larger and larger dinos that can block until you have even more dinos with synergy out, and can afford to play sorceries, your commander, or other stuff.
I absolutely loved the Ixhel toxic deck! Slightly different approach to infect & poison counters with corrupted mechanic makin it more of a go-wide strat instead of kill-one-fast is great. I can totally agree that "classic" infect deck might still be better but playin them will always put a huge target on your back while with Ixhel it.. still does cause people usually hate poison counters no matter what xD but most of my playgroup quickly adjusted to Ixhel poisoning tempo and I've won with it a couple of times when I could actually play the game a lil longer than classic infect lifetime;)
Eowyn rohirrims is a banger of a precon and I loved it. Also ixalan merfolks and vampires
Zhulodok, Sliver Gravemother, Eowyn, Pantlaza, Hakbal, The 10th Doctor and Rose. I find myself going back to all of these commanders (aside from Gravemother - I only play her when i want to be a degen, mostly because i proxied the mana base so it plays fast).
Commodore Guff was a ton of fun to upgrade, but i find that it doesn't do well. People are too scared of planeswalkers to let you do anything.
Overall, I think my favorite commander deck was Zhulodok because who doesn't love Eldrazi? Having color shenanigans is fun and cascade is a banger. I look forward to upgrading it even more!
1:33:12
The Planeswalker deck is my favorite...I'm consistently surprised at how powerful it is and Guff is a real beast. He's perfect in this deck...he ramps, builds up other Planeswalkers, draws cards, and deals direct damage (REALLY wish it counted as 'Commander Damage').
But I totally agree with these guys. It is not a fun deck to play or play against. Games get very bogged down and there's a ton of things to keep track of. My turns can go for way too long as I'm trying to manage all the walkers and it makes for unpleasant games for everyone at the table.
But for pure power...it's consistently been awesome in mid-powered games! I play it straight from the box with no upgrades and love it!
I bought the doctor who precon with davros as the commander and honestly that precon, even before I upgraded it scared my group of friends more than any other deck including many very powerful scratch builds in our circle.
Kasla you use chief engineer to give all artifacts convoke, encroaching mycosynth to make your permanents artifacts, and then jeskai ascendancy to cast any permanent and then untap the creatures that just convoked your permanent and do it again. It can be tough to get set up but once you have you crush the table frequently in a turn.