Zurgo, StormrenderZurgo, Stormrender | art by Lie Setiwan

Today, we're here to Mardu, not Mardon't.

Our red, white and black color scheme is putting us square in the middle of the Mardu horde and its token-making strategy. We want to make tokens, sacrifice tokens, make make tokens again. Let's see how we're planning to do it.

Package Contents

Zurgo's back, and instead of smashing helms and ringing bells, he's cutting an entire storm in half. Inside Mardu Surge, you'll find the following:

• 1 Ready-to-play 100-card Commander deck with:
• 1 Traditional foil face commander with borderless art
• 1 Traditional foil featured commander with borderless art
• 10 Double-sided tokens
• 1 Collector Booster Sample Pack
• 1 Deck box

As for what tokens you'll see in Mardu Surge, it's a bit of a spoiler for what we're going to be doing at the Commander tables:

• 1x Treasure // Spirit token
• 1x Goblin // Soldier token
• 1x Human // Rat token
• 1x Angel // Spirit token
• 1x Bird // Thopter token
• 1x Snake // Myr token
• 1x Dog // Goblin token
• 1x Eldrazi // Citizen token
• 1x Warrior // Servo token
• 1x Warrior // Elemental token

That's a whopping seventeen different token creatures produced by this deck.

The Commander

The Alternate Commander

Decklist

New Cards

We've got a dog riding a cat, something that only happens on Tarkir or Tiktok. Like our commanders, catdog provides us with fodder in the form of 1/1 red Goblins — up to three each combat step in a standard Commander game.

That's the triggered ability, but it also has an activated ability that may seem familiar if you've ever rocked a King Darien XLVIIIKing Darien XLVIII list, giving all your creature tokens indestructible at the cost of a sacrifice.

It's sneaky powerful, especially if you manage to live the dream of Isamaru, Hound of KondaIsamaru, Hound of Konda out of the command zone into Ainok Strike Leader for three Goblins on the second turn of the game.

We see the return of the Lieutenant ability with Ironwill Forger, a keyword that debuted with a cycle in Commander 2014. We last saw it late last year with Siege-Gang LieutenantSiege-Gang Lieutenant from Modern Masters 3 Commander, which with Ironwill Forger makes 13 total cards that feature the ability.

Ironwill Forger is one of the most powerful applications of Lieutenant, however, providing any of your creatures with Myriad if you control your commander at the beginning of combat on your turn.

The applications of that are endless, as you might guess if you've ever equipped a Blade of SelvesBlade of Selves. And if you're playing Mardu Surge, you'll be doing that very thing soon, as Blade of Selves is seeing a reprint here.

Our first dragon of the day defies that classification, and you'd be forgiven for assuming that this would have been a demon in any other set. Four four mana, we get a flash flyer with a base 2/2, which is Vexing GullVexing Gull levels of not interesting on its own.

However, you're casting this following a sweeper to generate as many +1/+1 counters as you can to ensure that on its way out, Bone Devourer pays you back in card form. We'll probably see this looked at more favorably in a dedicated +1/+1 counters deck rather than here in Mardu Surge.

This will forever be Goldust Triad for a certain generation of Magic fans. We're not hear to talk about Curtain Calls, though. We're here to talk Magic. And Goldlust Triad is a very cool Magic card. It's no Old GnawboneOld Gnawbone, but then again nothing is. Instead, we've got a 4/3 flying dragon with Myriad for five mana, meaning you've got to attack to really get your value.

But once you do, our dragon friend splits into equal fragments, to hopefully generate for you at least a few Treasure tokens. This'll see much more relevance if you're running Neriv over Zurgo in this particular precon, but if you're looking to jam it into a dragon deck, be sure to pair it with Ganax, Astral HunterGanax, Astral Hunter and a Dragon TempestDragon Tempest.

A 3/3 first striking orc wizard for three mana joins the fray next, which is already not a terrible value, but here in the year of our lord 2025, we want more. Luckily, we're getting it, in the way of a very odd Parallel Lives.

You've got to attack with the orc to double your tokens, and those doubled tokens have to have been created that turn, so it's likely that Redoubled Stormsinger will be too much trouble for a lot of players. If you're looking to use Myriad, though, like Mardu Surge nudges you to do, it might be worth the hassle.

HellriderHellrider was a hell of a card, so stapling a slightly different version of Hellrider's ability onto an enchantment makes for a solid card.

Obviously this is much better in a deck like Mardu Surge seeking to flood the board with small token creatures rather than a few beefy boys, and I'd wager we'd see it muscle into the 99 of black+ decks looking to make all kinds of tokens, from thopters to elves. The two tokens we get when this hits play are just gravy.

We took a look at the Will of the Jeskai in the last precon review (FOUND HERE), so naturally we've got the Mardu slice of the cycle today.

This time around, we've got a very Mardu circa 2025 pair of options: matching another player's creature count with a burst of 1/1 red Warriors, or dealing damage equal to our own creature count.

As usual, if you control your commander at the time, you get both options, with the damage part counting the creatures that were made from the token generation part. The instant speed here will do a lot of heavy lifting, but you should remember that the direct damage option only targets creatures.

Our first equipment from Tarkir: Dragonstorm precons is a doozy, and one that will likely carry a lot of value for certain players. Mobilize X is a very cool new ability, and having the chance to give that ability to any creature willing to march in your infantry will be very powerful for token strategies.

You're investing five mana to cast and equip the shield, so it's not going to go in any red+ deck. But for decks looking to eke out utility from tokens coming and going, it'll find its way into their 99s quickly. And it just so happens that Mardu Surge is one such deck.

How The Deck Plays

This is the deck for players out there who love tokens, but don't care about if all those tokens are the same creature type. As mentioned before, Mardu Surge creates 17 different kinds of creature tokens, from dogs to citizens, myr to warriors, goblins to spirits.

That's the name of the game here. We want to be spamming tokens every chance we get in order to build an advantage. Since Zurgo has a built-in card draw engine, all we need to be doing is making creature tokens and finding ways for them to die unceremonious deaths. Luckily, we've got options:

We could definitely use more instant speed sacrifice outlets, though, and the omission of something like Goblin Bombardment is glaring. But we'll get to that.

This is a solidly creature-centric deck, and there are no two ways about it. Out of our 64 nonlands, almost half — 31, to be exact — are creatures. And of the 33 that aren't, 14 of them make creatures.

There are certainly ways to win without attacking, sure; Zurgo gives us one such way, and the "each opponent loses 1 life" trigger might be more deadly than people give it credit for considering the sheer number of tokens we can make.

But realistically, we'd rather be drawing cards than pinging for 1 life loss in most cases, and that means looking to assert ourselves in the combat step:

And that's not even counting the Myriad. 

We know that Myriad only triggers on the combat step, so that pushes us even further toward turning things sideways as often as we can. We've got a solid array of cards that either have or grant the ability. Let's take a look:

Sure, four cards out of 64 nonlands isn't that much. In fact, if you're a math person, it's 6.3%. Keep in mind, though, that there are only 21 cards in all of Magic that are in our colors and say the word Myriad on them.

Combos & Synergy

If we head over to Commander Spellbook's Combo Finder, we see once again that designers were careful not to supply Mardu Surge players with any known combos. That's perfectly fine, because we've got plenty of synergy around making tokens to be competitive.

Very few selections in the 99 of this deck are irrelevant to our core gameplan of generating advantage from tokens entering and leaving the battlefield. There are a few oddballs, though:

And that's pretty much all there is. Everything else either makes tokens, improves tokens, or sees increased benefit from being around tokens. It's a very synergistic and tightly-crafted deck, and you'll feel that from the moment you sleeve this bad boy up.

Lands & Mana Rocks

For a preconstructed deck's landbase, this one's got a lot going on. As you'd expect, we've got a variety of B-tier two-color lands like Canyon SloughCanyon Slough, Battlefield ForgeBattlefield Forge, Fetid HeathFetid Heath and Temple of TriumphTemple of Triumph.

None in the full selection of three playable in our colors (except for check-lands like Isolated ChapelIsolated Chapel), but rather a hodgepodge of one or two from each of those cycles.

On the basics front, it can't get much easier than this: five each of MountainMountain, PlainsPlains and SwampSwamp. Done and dusted.

Where it gets a bit more interesting than the average preconstructed deck, and certainly more interesting than yesterday's Jeskai Strike, is in all the utility lands. Usually, we can expect two or three such lands, but today, we've got five:

In a vacuum, that's not really all that exciting. We're a deck looking to make and capitalize on tokens, so why wouldn't our lands try to help out with that goal?

But this is a precon, remember, and there's nothing in the rulebook that says that any of our 37 lands have to do anything other than make mana.

Moving over to mana rocks, we've got a few. Like every deck associated with Tarkir: Dragonstorm, we've got the triplets of Sol RingSol Ring, Arcane SignetArcane Signet and Fellwar StoneFellwar Stone, as well as two (but not three) Talismans.

Unlike yesterday's deck, though, we go a bit beyond that, also including a Wayfarer's BaubleWayfarer's Bauble to play off some built-in synergies in Mardu Surge. And by that, it's pretty much exclusively Sun TitanSun Titan.

Upgrading The Deck

We'll once again look at this in terms of price, starting with five in, and five out, with the added cards each being under $1. Where should we start?

Out

These might be somewhat controversial, so let's explain.

With Kaya, or any planeswalker, we don't want to invest resources to defend them since we want to be attacking as often as we can. Even in a gummed up board state where we normally couldn't attack with a bunch of useless 1/1 tokens, Zurgo says we throw caution into the wind and if they die, good.

As for Legion LoyaltyLegion Loyalty and Myr BattlesphereMyr Battlesphere, our deck doesn't have the resources to reliably get to seven or eight mana regularly unless the game goes on forever.

And you might know from past experience, a game going on forever does not usually bode well for a token deck's chances in the first place. We can find better, and cheaper options.

Lastly, Mindblade RenderMindblade Render — it's a great card, and one that we normally wouldn't want to cut. But in this particular deck, with it's shotgun approach to token generation, how many warriors do we have?

Sure, there's Zurgo, and anything with Mobilize. Then there's Ainok Strike LeaderAinok Strike Leader, the Render itself, as well as Beetleback ChiefBeetleback Chief, Ogre BattledriverOgre Battledriver and Within RangeWithin Range. That is simply not enough to justify a 1/3 with no evasion that might not ever actually trigger.

In

Oh, and as a little bonus suggestion, this is a good chance to suggest Fervent ChargeFervent Charge. It's not even really that good here, but how often do you really get to add it?

With these, we're looking to just continue building on the strategy already present in the deck, while broadening our definition of "creature token." With Feldon and Jolly Balloon Man, it's basically a Great Value Myriad, which fits right in to what we're trying to do.

What if money's not a consideration? Well, when it comes to a deck like this, you can spend quite a bit if you're not careful. Here are five cards to start with:

This list could go on and on, with a multitude of options represented behind each one of these selections.

Instead of Anointed Procession, for example, you could go with Mondrak, Glory DominusMondrak, Glory Dominus, or instead of Phyrexian Altar there's Ashnod's AltarAshnod's Altar. Dolmen GateDolmen Gate instead of Iroas. You get the idea.

As for Game Changers, we want to find our synergy enablers quickly, and cast them when we've got them, so that'll lead you in a certain direction:

These four cards won't immediately put you at Bracket 4 tables, but they'll certainly elevate Mardu Surge away from its stock Bracket 2 home.

Since we're not tutoring for combo pieces or mass land denial, or any other "win the game" style card, these Game Changers aren't going to be as impactful as they might be elsewhere.

Archetype Change

Realistically, the fact that our deck makes such a wide variety of tokens is better for Neriv at the helm, not Zurgo.

Both commanders provide us with card advantage, but it's Neriv who really wants us to lean into having a menagerie. What if, instead, we take a cue from a card we just cut?

With this list, we're trying to retain the spirit of Mardu Surge, but refocus on Warriors and Warriors only. To that end, as you can see, we've stripped out anything that makes tokens that aren't Warriors, because we're not cowards.

Currently, this deck would sit in Bracket 3, but there's plenty to add if you want to bump up its power. This is just a launching pad.

Monetary Value vs. MSRP

Mardu Surge offers us a good value for our dollar right now, but we never know how significantly inclusion in a preconstructed deck will impact the individual card prices. Of reprints, the most expensive currently are:

As of this writing, the deck's actual value is around $170, which is pretty solid for a deck with an MSRP of $45. Around $40 of that value is tied up in the pair of commanders, however, so keep that in mind when evaluating how worthwhile this purchase may be for you.

Overall Rating

All things considered, Mardu Surge earns itself a B+ rating.

It's well thought-out, crafted with synergy and versatility in mind, and packs two very interesting commanders. We could do a lot worse.

Like most preconstructed Commander decks, we've got some holes to patch, cards to swap out and decisions to make, but Mardu Surge offers us very solid footing as a foundation.

Will you be snapp

Nick Wolf

Nick Wolf is a freelance writer, editor, and photographer based in Michigan. He has over a decade of newsmedia experience and has been a fan of Magic: The Gathering since Tempest.