Pattern Recognition #378 - Commander Merging, the Sequal!
Features Opinion Pattern Recognition
berryjon
7 August 2025
367 views
7 August 2025
367 views
Hello Everyone! My name is berryjon, and I welcome you all to Pattern Recognition, TappedOut.Net's longest running article series. Also the only one. I am a well deserved Old Fogey having started the game back in 1996. My experience in both Magic and Gaming is quite extensive, and I use this series to try and bring some of that to you. I dabble in deck construction, mechanics design, Magic's story and characters, as well as more abstract concepts. Or whatever happens to catch my fancy that week. Please, feel free to talk about each week's subject in the comments section at the bottom of the page, from corrections to suggested improvements or your own anecdotes. I won't bite. :) Now, on with the show!
Hello and welcome back! Today, I return to something I did many years ago, and that I've been meaning to do again ever since. Back in Issue 148, I merged two two preconstructed Commander decks into something that I hoped was a little bit better at a way to show off some deck building techniques for players who were getting into Commander, but didn't have the same ridiculous cardpool I or others have.
Just take two similar precons and develop their mutual synergies into a better product! Simple, right?
Oh, how I wish.
THE DECKS
Today I'm taking a look at Edge of Eternity's World Shaper Precon and the Commander 2018 Nature's Vengeance precon. They are both in the same colours - , and both have a healthy lands-matter theme. Which is why this is going to be both easy and hard to do at the same time.
But in case you don't have the decks at hand, allow me to provide the relevant decklists, thanks to the tireless efforts of our membership!
Lord Windgrace Precon
Commander / EDH
SCORE: 1 | 65 VIEWS
Created in 2018, the Lord Windgrace deck suffers greatly from design decisions of the era in terms of Preconstructed decks from Wizards. The biggest thing, historically, was that this was the era when Wizards put three Commanders into a deck. One, the 'Face' Commander was the one that the deck was designed to work with. And pulling a number out of my ass here, let's go with 60% of the deck was synergistic. The second Commander had about 30% of the deck that worked with it, and the last had 10% of the deck to back it up. Or to put it more simply, the Basic lands. In this deck, Gyrus, Waker of Corpses
is in the 30% section, working with Graveyard shenanigans to get things done in a deck with a decent self-mill package.
Thantis, the Warweaver should not be in this deck at all, and when I build the final deck, it's not in.
On the next subject, this deck really goes all in on the lands. 43 of them in the base deck! When I rolled this out for a Slow Grow Tournament, I recognized this was still too much and trimmed it down to 38 over the course of the tournament. And still lost horribly. Not my finest showing. But it does show that you can have too much of a good thing, so I'll have to carefully curate how that goes for the final deck list.
Other than that, I want to save my comments for the deck when I get around to designing it.
Hearthhull Precon
Commander / EDH*
30 VIEWS
OK, I take that back. There are 42 lands in this deck as well, which means that for some reason Jund Lands Matter decks run more lands than Naya Landfall decks do! Weird. But I can work with this. This deck also has a Spaceship for the face Commander, something that has a little less inherent protection than Windgrace, but it's better than being a Creature. Way too many ways to kill a creature in this format.
But at least all three possible Commanders in the deck are relevant to the game plan! Szarel, Genesis Shepherd is good for recurring lands that are sacrificed to put +1/+1 counters on another creature. But unlike Hearthhull, it doesn't have a built-in engine to sacrifice lands. The third potential Commander to the deck, Soul of Windgrace is I think a very cheeky on-point reference to how the first deck went down, and how this one carries with it the intent of that deck from 7-8 years ago. And it has both engine and value all in one! Maybe not the best in value, but it's still there.
The deck itself is ... decent-ish, but I haven't even sleeved it yet, and so I don't have any real experience with how it works, or how the heck it's supposed to win. At least with Windgrace, you could see it with the Scute Swarm and Avenger of Zendikar with lots of Landfall. Here? I'm having trouble seeing what the endgame is, aside from a fully-online Hearthhull acting as another Mayhem Devil, but more focused and more damaging. And as a person who has rolled opponents with the Devil so hard they have a 'kill-on-sight' response to it, I can get behind that.
Maybe someone in the comments below can fill me in?
THE COMMANDER AND GAMEPLAN
Picking a good Commander will help cement this deck together, but will also give a focus on how I want to build the deck. There is absolutely nothing stopping me from picking one and putting the other three options into the deck itself and I will probably do just that regardless. But making the choice for the headliner is very important no matter how I justify it. It's not like there are four different versions of Niv-Mizzet out there that are functionally interchangeable, right?
Lord Windgrace, being a Planeswalker, has to be treated differently than my other Commander Options. The MV of is a bit on the heavy side for my tastes, but given that I'm also running a three color deck, this gives me time to fix my mana pool and set things up before he hits the table. His lack of self-protection and non-ultimate removal is also something to be wary of - he will need protection or a suite of board removal to allow him to land and start to work before your opponents can marshal a response.
His +2 is a basic Loot effect. Discard a card and draw a card is nothing special unless you discard a land card and therefor you draw two cards instead of one. Both of these decks come with a lot of lands, and putting them into the graveyard one way or another is part and parcel of everyone's plans. The problem is that some want the lands on the battlefield first, and others want them in the hand to pitch to the graveyard from there. Lord Windgrace is in the second category. Note to self - Lord Windgrace Madness.
-3 is supposed to work on a three turn cycle with the initial ability. You spend the first two activations of Windgrace to put two lands into the graveyard, then you pull them back out for a net loyalty total of +1. However, while acceleration is good, you need to have a plan for all this mana you now have. Ideally the card draw from the initial activations will give you options, but that is very dependent on your mana curve. Most likely, these will simply be Landfall triggers for cards such as Scute Swarm, Baloth Woodcrasher, Scouring Swarm, or Moraug, Fury of Akoum. Even then, those are not what I would call a serious part of the deck - a problem known since 2018. The Landfall decks that worked were in , not in these three.
Lastly, Windgrace's Ultimate Ability destroys 6 non-land permanents and makes 6 tokens. It was, in my play experience, pretty mid, and firing it off was a desperation move given how late in the game it was. Too bad there's no proliferation in the deck. I rarely ever saw myself firing this off.
Windgrace doesn't care about lands on the battlefield, rather that they are in your hand. Gruul Turf and the other two Ravnican Bounce Lands in the deck are excellent fodder for this as they ensure that a land is in your hand to fuel more used later - even when returning from the graveyard to the battlefield. However, all this mana needs an outlet, and I'm not yet in a position to work with things.
I'd normally skip to the commanders of the second deck, but I figured going from Windgrace to Windgrace is a little smoother in the transition. This Windgrace is a creature with all the benefits that implies - but the two decks are seriously lacking in protections. Not a single pair of boots between them! That's a problem! I cna look forward to this guy dying to a stiff breeze... if he didn't have access to an activated ability that could make him Indestructible.
It's not always on, but it's certainly there. But I am getting ahead of myself. The first thing that the Soul does when he enters is get a land from the graveyard out of the graveyard and back onto the battlefield. He's intended to work with fetch lands, from the lowly Terramorphic Expanse to the mighty Prismatic Vista, where you use those fetches to mana-fix and then bring them back for more fixing and thinning of your deck. Of note, he doesn't bring it back to your hand, which can be a little awkward when it comes to the rest of his text box. But that can be worked around with the Bouncelands I mentioned earlier. Of course, he's also intended to work with his other abilities as once he's online, he also pulls back lands when he attacks.
Oh, that's dangerous with the card pool I'm working with. But he can attack and you can pick lands back into play that you've discarded for his abilities. It's not that hard really. But the abilities themselves? Welll.......
The first activated ability is a version of Healing Salve without the option to prevent damage. Wait. No. That's Healing Leaves. Sorry, forgot that got colorshifted. But you're discarding aland to do it, a orm of very narrow Spellshapering. Which is totally a verb, I just used it like one. This is very meh, but none of these activities require tapping, so it is something that can be fired off repeatedly if you need to burn your mana pool for life. Of note, you can tap a Forest for this ability, then sac the same forest to it. It's designed that way.
The second activated ability is to pitch a Land, pay to draw a card. Not the best or most effective way to cycle cards through your hand - and in many ways I would prefer actual Cycling, but such is not to be. It's a great way to dig through your library in the mid to late game to look for a solution or a victory, but you have to be careful not to overdo it. Which can happen.
Lastly is the one I mentioned earlier, where you can pay , pitch a land and Soul become Indestructible and tapped until the end of the turn. It's expensive, but repeatable, so you can protect him from one removal or combat-kill each turn cycle unless you untap him somehow. This ability seems to be more of an an 'Press in case of Emergency' button, but there is a place for those in the game. In all honestly, I would probably use the second ability most often.
Soul of Windgrace has a home in this deck. But it's probably in the 99 more than anything else. A deck built around him as the Commander can work, but the resources I have at hand don't seem like the best way to support him. Good pick, not the best.
As a regular Artifact, a lot of people are wising up to including Artifact removal in their decks now. The inclusion of Legendary Spaceships and Vehicles as viable commanders has, hopefully forced a bit of a paradigm shift in terms of removal in decks. Which is a problem for me if I want to run Urza as my Slow Grow Commander next year, or perhaps something else entirely.
As a station, this requires creatures on the board to bring its abilities up to where they should be, and while I was initially worried about the creature curve in these two decks I'm planning on merging, An actual check showed me I had over 20 options to choose from, meaning that you should be able to reliably bring it up to speed without too much issue, especially if you delay casting it, or need to recast it.
Hearthhull's first ability is easy enough to bring online - and good lord there has to be a better way to describe this - with a mere Station 2 required. Here, you can pay a single mana and tap the Spaceship to sacrifice a land and draw two cards and then allowing you to play an extra land this turn. This is a very good ability, that's for sure! Much like with the Soul, you can sacrifice the land you used to pay for the ability, meaning you're not restricting your available mana any further. In fact, with this ability, you are potentially up another land as you get the Explore effect to go with it! And even if you don't, drawing two cards every turn is nothing to sneeze at. This precon comes with 42 lands, so hitting an extra one shouldn't be too hard.
And having said that, statistics are a thing. You can always botch your draws repeatedly.
However, at Station 8, this Commander becomes a creature (with all the weaknesses that implies), gains some combat related keywords, but most importantly, Whenever you sacrifice a Land, each opponent loses 2 life.
This, I think, is a trap. Or rather, people are going to hit this level too fast, and then realize that their only reliable source of Land sacrificing is this card itself. Meaning that they will be slowed down by needing or wanting to activate the ability again and again. And finding that the 2 life just doesn't do much unless they can keep it going, or everyone is already at low life, or they can multiply the life loss.
Yes, I'm aware that Planetary Annihilation was printed in this precon. It is not a solution! Or Eumidian Wastewaker! It's not a way to end the game, it's a way to bring it closer.
I like the card, but I'm not sold on it yet.
Moving on, we have the other face-like Commander for the set. It's...
OK, so I've observed some patterns in recent Commander Precons. That being that the Face Commander is usually pretty good at the deck's game plan by itself, but the second Commander provides some vital functionality to make the whole thing really work out. And that theme is right on point with this deck and this card. Szarel provides two supplemenary abilities that really make Hearthhull work.
First and most important is that you can play Lands from your Graveyard. Which is great because it means that when paired with Hearthhull, you are guaranteed to be able to play the land you just sacrificed back to the battlefield regardless of what you drew and you still get the card draws!
And when you sacrificed that land, you could put some +1/+1 counters on (sadly another) creature you control. You know who would be an absolute monster with that thought? Halana and Alena, Partners, that's who. Who isn't in the precon, darn it!
But those counters can make your other creatures better able to Station Hearthhull, or just Station it itself, and reach that magic number. Or not have Hearthull in play and just make your big creature even bigger!
By iteslf, this deck really likes sacrificing lands for effect, then getting them back. I almost wish there were Deserts here from my experience with Hazezon, Shaper of Sand and recurring lands there. But this deck does have TEN Fetchlands of various stripes, as well as cards like Harrow to sacrifice additional lands. You should be able to reliably get value out of this Commander, that's for sure. Just choose your targets wisely. But the targets in these decks are pretty... lackluster. In fact, if I do go with this person as my Commander, I might actually consider the Warweaver in the deck!
Wow, even I can't say that with a straight face.
And that's it for the Commanders available in these decks! Obviously Gyrus and Thantis are out and what do you mean there's one more Commander? What are you talking about? That there's a hidden commander in the deck list that could work wonders? What are you talking about?
...
...
...
Oh yeah.
Him.
Korvold is a powerhouse of a Commander, no two ways about it. A repeatable and reliable sac engine, he doesn't care what is fed into his maw, only that he gets fed. And he draws you a card and gets bigger whenever you sacrifice anything, not just to himself, or with a non-token clause. He can very quickly get very big, and very lethal to your opponents, but he does have one little problem.
He has no innate protection, and Korvold is not considered one of the more dangerous Commanders out there without reason. In fact, as of this writing, he's the 44th most popular Commander according to EDHRec over the past two years. That's not a Commander that has slipped under the radar, and in fact, he really does show on a lot of Radars! But for this deck.... not so much.
That reason being there's a lot of support needed to make him work, support that doesn't appear in these two decks. No protection, no safe-recursion. He dies, he dies, and all your work forward with him is lost. He is, like my comment earlier in this article, that one Commander that doesn't really interact with the rest of the deck. Well, in this case, he does. Too well, and yet not well enough. I can't in good convenience keep him in the Zone, and if he stays in the deck, he'll be relegated to the 99. Let him start in a deck built around him. That's for the best.
I've gone well over my word-count for this article and I haven't even made a decision! So, why don't you guys in the comments make your suggestions before I actually get around to building the deck next week or the week after. I may just make up my mind, or if there is an obvious consensus below and get it done for the 14th, or I may hold off to the 21st and do something else next week. I'll see what the feedback is like!
Thank you all for watching and reading, and I'll see you all next week!
Until then, please consider donating to my Pattern Recognition Patreon. Yeah, I have a job (now), but more income is always better, and I can use it to buy cards! I still have plans to do a audio Pattern Recognition at some point, or perhaps a Twitch stream. And you can bribe your way to the front of the line to have your questions, comments and observations answered!