Zurgo StormrenderZurgo Stormrender | Art by Lie Setiawan

Hello, and welcome back to How To Be New, a series for newer Commander players.

Commander preconstructed decks ("precons") are by far my favorite Magic: the Gathering product, and it isn't a particularly close race. At this point I have played a good many of them. I've recommended them a couple of different times. And I still think they are by far the absolute best thing you could walk up to your first Commander table looking to play.

Now, would I call myself a preconnoiseur? No, of course not, that would be ridiculous.* But I am a big fan. And I realized recently while talking to a friend who's a fledgling Commander player that as much as I've talked about specific precons, I've never talked about precons at large. What are they? What can you expect to find in there?

And how could you, as a brand new Commander player, be expected to pick up 100 brand new cards and play a game, sight unseen? Well, let me tell you.

*Actually yes, and I would prefer if you addressed me as such.

What Is a Commander Precon?

Commander precons are 100-card Commander decks that the Wizards of the Coast design team puts together and releases alongside most of the major new Magic sets as they come out. They're cohesive decks built around one or two central themes that are meant to be played right out of the box.

Some precons have come with a life counter and possibly a sample Collector Booster pack for their associated set (recent cutbacks have seen the removal of both of these bonuses). They also come with a card box that should be juuuust large enough to fit the deck outfitted with your preferred brand of card sleeves, and possibly the deck's associated tokens (in addition to the 100-card deck, these decks will also include any relevant creature or artifact tokens that the included cards might create).

Some also come with a short guide booklet which will provide an overview of the deck, as well as some general info about the Commander format and Magic: the Gathering at large. In short, it comes with all of the things you'll need to shuffle up this deck and play even your very first game of Commander.

It is worth noting, there is a cycle of Starter Commander Decks if you want a precon that's specifically tailored to newer players. This isn't to say that a new player couldn't play any precon off the shelf, but there certainly is a spectrum in terms of piloting* difficulty.

For example, I think the Abzan Armor precon from Tarkir: Dragonstorm is a perfectly fine precon for a newer player to play, as its game plan mostly boils down to simplifying a creature's stats to one, easily memorable number. On the other hand, the Mardu Surge precon from that very same set is one that I have never seen played without the whole table having to put their heads together together to sort through the cacophony of combat triggers that deck produces.

If you're looking specifically for some new player-friendly options, I've written about some here**.

*Piloting is a term for the operation of one's deck within a game of Magic.

**Yes, I did recommend specifically to play Mardu Surge in that article. You may notice I recommended taking some of the more difficult to navigate cards out. But I've since updated my personal advice on that precon to "Maybe just don't."

How Can I Learn How to Play a Commander Precon Deck?

The largest benefit of a precon is that it contains a fully composed deck around a clear central theme, which serves to provide great direction to players on the prevailing strategies and play patterns they can expect to engage in when playing this deck.

There are a few ways to ascertain what that theme is. Many of these are hinted at on the packaging of the deck. For example, the Peace Offering precon featuring the iconic Ms. BumbleflowerMs. Bumbleflower simply reads on the front "Group Hug" and "+1/+1 Counters." It's the most precisely descriptive text I've seen on a precon box.

You'll know going in that your strategy will involve Group Hug (a strategy by which you provide benefits to the other players at the table in exchange for outsized power for yourself), and that it will heavily involve +1/+1 counters going onto your creatures.

Likewise, the Jump Scare! precon from Duskmourn says on its box: "Tricky Instants" and "Mysterious Face-Down Cards." This lets the player know that they should expect to play some impactful noncreature spells and utilize the set's manifest dread mechanic to play spells face down before revealing them at a later time.

This is a much more helpful description than its fellow Duskmourn precon Endless Punishment, which simply reads, "Punish Your Opponents" and "Make Them Pay." And though this isn't necessarily helpful in the actual playing of this precon, it is near perfect description of the vibes of this deck, which are focused around nasty damaging effects that burn the life totals of the table down fairly quickly.

To compare precon decks to books, if the box is the cover, the advertised commander is the back cover. Reading the actual card of the commander should give you a lot more information about what you can expect to see in this deck.

If we take that Jump Scare! precon as our example, reading its commander Zimone, Mystery UnravelerZimone, Mystery Unraveler gives us a bit more clarity about the "tricky instants" promised on the box. Seeing that her effects happen as landfall triggers, we come to understand that those spells will likely involve us putting extra lands onto the battlefield during both our and others' turns, and that doing so at opportune times will allow us to flip our face down creatures up at just the right moment for massive impact.

So when we draw things like Eureka MomentEureka Moment, and Growth SpiralGrowth Spiral alongside creatures such as Scute SwarmScute Swarm and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre StraitAesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait, we can easily understand how they work together to help us win the game.

Wait, I'm Just Noticing That There's Two Commanders in Here. Why?

Because variety is the spice of life! The first card in your deck will typically be the deck's "face commander," who will be the one featured on the box art and possibly on an oversized or cardboard card at the front of the pack. The second will be your "backup" or "alternate commander."

The designers included both with the idea that either one is entirely capable of helming this deck. Before each game, you can choose either one to serve as the actual commander of your deck, and you'll shuffle the other one together with the other 98 cards in your deck.

To continue our metaphor from before, the alternate commander is like the Goodreads review of the book. It will give you some more in-depth info on what you can expect to see in the deck. This is especially true for decks which have what I'll call "secondary themes."

Some precon decks come loaded with a suite of cards that, while helpful to the face commander's game plan, really come into fruition when the deck is helmed by its secondary commander. I ran across this first in my beloved Masters of Evil precon from the Doctor Who commander set, which includes quite a few cards centered around the goad mechanicgoad mechanic. Goad forces your opponents' creatures to attack each combat, but doesn't allow them to target you with those attacks.

While the deck's primary commander Davros, Dalek CreatorDavros, Dalek Creator, enjoys the safety that goading opponents' creatures provides, and the fact that having potential blockers tapped from forced combat helps him to trigger his own end step effect more easily, it's not what I would call a natural fit.

However, the deck's secondary commander, MissyMissy, can use goad in spades. Any creatures who die during those forced combats come under her command as Cyberman artifact creatures (the set is so wonderfully themed), and she can use those Cybermen to either gain card advantage or burn her opponents down with noncombat damage on her end step.

This is why reading the backup commander is so important, even if you don't plan to use them as the leader of the deck. It can help inform you about cards in your deck that wouldn't necessarily be obvious just from a perusal of the face commander's text box.

Is There Anything Else I Should Know?

Honestly, no. If you have a somewhat firm grasp of the basic rules of Magic (and a few watches of your favorite YouTube Commander show should help with that), then you truly have all you need to shuffle these decks together and play. I do recommend sleeving the cards, but even that isn't a hard and fast rule.

Commander precons are a fantastic entry point into the game for newer players, and a wonderful resource for more veteran players who simply seek to expand their tactical repertoire. So please, if you're debating whether to get into Commander, please pick one of these up and do it! EDHREC even has all sorts of more in-depth reviews of precons and guides for how to upgrade them, should you be interested.

Once upon a time, that Masters of Evil precon worked to get me playing Commander. I promise that there's a precon out there that will do the same for you.