What Precon should I get?
Commander (EDH) forum
Posted on Aug. 22, 2017, 7:41 p.m. by RazortoothMtg
My LGS does a thing after Commander releases where we do a sort of tournament but we have to play with one of the new precons. I plan on making Inalla and Kess decks seperately either way, but none of the other cards in the deck would really go into either one so that's not really an issue. The dragon and wizard decks are the most like my playstyle, so I'm leaning on either one of those. According to mtggoldfish, all the precons have about the same overall value (that's counting bulk, but still) so that's not pushing me in any direction.
RazortoothMtg says... #3
Well if I do get all of them, which one should I play? The reason I mention wizards the most is because they were the ones I was most hyped for and I like the commanders of the deck, but I feel their deck is very lacking against the other decks.
August 22, 2017 7:52 p.m.
I do believe that Vampires is the best out of the box, followed by cats.
Dragons is suuuuper slow unless you get lucky and sadly, wizards are so lacking in finishers it becomes very difficult to win without alterations...
August 22, 2017 8:21 p.m.
Out of the box wizards is by far the worst. It lacks any real ways to end the game. If your tournament is 4 players in a match go vampires, if it is 1v1 then I'd go dragons or cats.
August 22, 2017 8:43 p.m.
DrukenReaps says... #6
Well you can buy wizards now or later. If you want to place well vamps hands down but that doesn't help you long run. You could use Marchesa, the Black Rose to command the wizzy-con. You will just keep gaining value as the game goes with her.
August 22, 2017 10:16 p.m.
Winterblast says... #7
I would take Vampires because Markov provides the most value from the command zone and usually you can completely forget any fancy win options directly out of the box. They haven't even put Lost Leonin or any cheap double striker in the cat deck, so I wouldn't use that precon for a tournament, although I like what can be done with Arahbo if you build your own deck.
August 23, 2017 3:14 a.m.
I love Grixis, but out of the box wizards deck has no wincon and inalla and mairsil as commanders need a sort of combo deck, wich i Dislike.
Dragons are nice. Jump in very big creatures is sort of relax, but it's too slow and the manabase is the worst of theese precons.
I will go for vampires, having decent manabase, nice eminence ability, removal and because is the best precon speaking about synergy of the cards
August 23, 2017 8:06 a.m.
Cats have a big problem.Sone cards wants you to go tall and voltron, other wants you to go wide. Eminence ability can't be used for voltron and giving +3/+3 to one creature in a multiplayer format with 40 life is kinda messy for me.
My 2 cents.
August 23, 2017 8:10 a.m.
Well consider this. if you have a Balan, Wandering Knight equipped twice, say with Bloodforged Battle-Axe and Sword of Vengeance. This is a situation that isnt hard to achieve, and not best case either, just generic. he is currently a 7/5 doublestrike with trample. give him +3/+3 and he is a 10/8, then you can use arasho's second ability for 3 mana, and he is a 20/18 doublstrike.. for 40 total damage.. that eminence ability did 12 of that damage in that case. 3 goes to 6 from doublestrike, to 12 from the second activated ability. Moreover, with hammer of nazaan out, you can fairly easily attach equipment to various separate creatures, and there are many other strong creatures, it can easily overwhelm an opponent. The cats are getting a bad rep because people simply arent actually doing the math.
August 23, 2017 8:35 a.m.
Winterblast says... #11
Qolorful I absolutely love what the cats can do in a tuned deck, it's just that the precon is not focused enough. When do you get Balan and two equipments that boost power and give trample? When do you get Arahbo plus 3 mana to use the second ability? By then you have a swarm of vampire tokens on the field.
The precons are completely random with their single sol ring and no further acceleration. If you want to play cats, they need a consistent fast start with all the available 0 mana artifacts and a double striker or infect and the precon deck offers basically no acceleration at all. If you want to win, pick a deck that gives you advantage right from the start and doesn't need a whole lot of mana to put pressure on the board even if you don't draw that lucky sol ring. I think the vampires do that best in this set.
August 23, 2017 9:37 a.m.
Winterblast I'm not saying vampires aren't the best out of the box, because they quite simple are. What I'm saying is the cats deck is capable of more than people give it credit for. There are enough small beaters that come out fast that the +3/+3 makes a pretty big difference early on, and enough cards to suck value out of it to make it capable of hitting hard later on. I'd say that despite vampires being the best by a fairly decent margin, i think out of the box, cat's has a little more umph behind it than dragons.
August 23, 2017 9:43 a.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #13
Another thing to keep in mind is that most people generally agree that vamps is the strongest out of the box which will also make the vampire players the early targets in most games.
If you get stuck in a 4 man pod though where the other 3 players are all vamps well...
Hopefully not everyone in your shop is strictly trying to win and they just want to have fun. Personally im playing dragons at my event because while obviously slower, there is nothing more satisfying to me than dropping giant creatures. Plus I have seen it win before on a preview video online and boy did it win. Depending on draws and your opponents ability to keep it in check the deck is hard to stop once its rolling.
My advice, play what you will have the most fun playing. That way win or lose you are having a good time. Save trying to win for something with better prize output :) (assuming this is store credit like mine)
August 23, 2017 10:01 a.m.
But is maybe the only double strike card in the deck, with the best equips of the deck attached...
I'm honestly more scared by Mairsil caging Nevinyrral's diskXD
August 23, 2017 10:23 a.m.
landofMordor says... #15
If you're going to get wizards anyways...
get wizards, run Marchesa to maximize your chances of winning, and if you do win, it's a nice bonus. If you lose...well, at least you didn't buy a deck you didn't like.
August 23, 2017 2:31 p.m.
Yeah, kitties are underestimated. They also have more protection than the average precon deck in the group... I haven't seen a whole lot of high-utility exiling/mass removal to deal with hexproof, indestruct, shroud, etc. Everyone who watched the videos of gameplay probably isn't looking @ it completely objectively. Although daaaammn! for that art on Markov :)
August 23, 2017 5:05 p.m.
LittleBlueHero says... #17
I have watched a couple of videos so far. The first kitties for some reason couldn't seem find creatures (which is not good in a tribal) but in the end none of the decks had a chance against Edgar. I just chalk the kitties loss up to bad luck in this one though.
The second game I watched was much more balanced. All players stayed relatively in the game until the very end when Ur-dragon went nuts.
Wizards in both games basically just durdled... they never died first but they never made a huge impact other than some timely removal or disruption.
Cats had a very solid showing in the second game but with as long as it went dragons>cats. The dragon army just flew over everyone in two turns. Woulda been interesting if Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist had been around. I think the Cats woulda taken it if they coulda controlled the combat phase.
August 23, 2017 5:14 p.m.
Yeah, I was annoyed watching one game where cats chose to get rid of some derp enchantment instead of Frontier Siege -- Against dragons... pretty dumb. Also getting rid of Lightning Greaves on discard is just kindof stupid. Not activating Arahbo's ability to repeatedly leave open mana instead, not using it to make an early 14/14 to force Ur Dragon to block or take 14 to the chops (when dragons had lowest life total), spending 12 mana to equip Argentum armor for the targeted removal or a dragon when it backfired and destroyed his permanent..Gotto take into context the types of precons they are playing: minimal artifact removal, color intensive, slower builds, he was constantly playing with lands untapped like his opponents were loaded with instants that would just stop his combat phase (not a TON of that in the precons) I just think those guys aren't playing enough agro to play cats right. Also with the dragon games BOTH games I've seen had the new red curse supplying tons of any color mana, those guys were Lucky with a capital L that they were caught up to the G/W cats manawise
CChaos says... #2
Wizards. U mentioned them more than any other deck.
Best option is to get all.
August 22, 2017 7:48 p.m.