“It’s a little early for a best of 2024 list, isn’t it?” Yes reader, there’s still a whole three months left in the year. But, barring any surprises, there are no more Magic sets that will have precons this year. So we may as well get to the ranking right away! 

This was a banner year for precons, with six sets of four each, for a total of 24 decks. And as with any year, some of the precons were great, some were not so good, and many were in between. Now it’s up to us to determine the best of the best.

So here’s our list of the five best precons of 2024.

#5 - Death Toll

Let’s kick off of our list with the fifth best deck of the year. It’s Death Toll from Duskmourn. This black and green deck is led by Winter, Cynical Opportunist, a 2/5 Human Warlock with deathtouch that mills you for three when he attacks.

He also has a delirium effect at the end of your turn which allows you to exile cards from your graveyard that add up to four different card types. Then you put one of those cards on the battlefield with a finality counter.

This deck is all about throwing stuff in the yard just to get it back for free, or cheap, later on. Cards with multiple card types are at a premium, so the deck is full of stuff like:

• Solemn Simulacrum
• Dryad Arbor
• Demonic Covenant

There’s plenty of self-mill to fill your graveyard:

• Deadbridge Chant
• Nyx Weaver
• Crawling Sensation

You also have a couple ways to get those cards back, like Reanimate and Whip of Erebos.

There’s also a large token sub-theme:

• Grist, the Hunger Tide
• Giant Adephage
• Formless Genesis

We got some really fun new cards in this deck, especially Shriekwood Devourer and the backup commander Rendmaw, Creaking Nest.

The reprints are great, with cards like

• Whip of Erebos
• Titania, Nature’s Force
• Professor Onyx

All of it comes together into one of the best graveyard precons we’ve seen.

Here's my full review of the deck.

#4 - Creative Energy

You’d be forgiven for being surprised that 2024 offered us not one, but two Jeskai energy precons. After all, we went more than a decade without a proper energy commander, so to suddenly have them in two sets was unexpected. Even more unexpected was how big the gap in quality was between the two decks.

The first energy deck of the year was Science!, from Fallout. This deck was so poorly built that it got a rare F grade from me.

So when I finally laid eyes on Creative Energy from Modern Horizons 3, it was like Listerine rinsing out the bad aftertaste of the previous deck.

Creative Energy is led by Satya, Aetherflux Genius, a 3/5 Human Artificer with menace and haste. When he attacks, you can create a tapped and attacking token copy of another nontoken creature you control, and you get two energy. Then at your end step, you sacrifice the token unless you can pay energy equal to its mana value.

As you’ve no doubt already guessed, this deck is all about making and using energy. Aetherstorm Roc, Aethersquall Ancient, and Roil Cartographer all do a great job of making large amounts of energy, while Lightning Runner, Aetherworks Marvel, and Stone Idol Generator provide some of the best uses for it.

Science! stumbled so that Creative Energy could run. This is the energy precon we’ve been wanting for years, and it’s a blast to pilot.

It also held great value, with excellent reprints:

• Gonti’s Aether Heart
• Goldspan Dragon
• Akroma’s Will

Check out my full review here.

#3 - Miracle Worker

The Duskmourn set of precons was truly exceptional - the lowest grade I gave to a deck in this set was a B. And having already played a couple pods of Duskmourn precons, I can tell you that these decks don’t mess around.

So it should come as no surprise that my list of best precons of the year has two decks from the set. Coming in at number three is Miracle Worker, led by Aminatou, Veil Piercer.

This new de-sparked Aminatou is a 2/4 Human Wizard that surveils 2 at the beginning of your upkeep. She also gives enchantment cards in your hand miracle, with a cost reduction of 4, meaning if the first card you draw in a turn is an enchantment, you can immediately cast it for four generic mana less.

Card advantage and ramp on a commander can be kind of boring, as we’ve seen with a few Simic legends (you know who you are). But that’s not the case with this deck. Aminatou is far more intricate, and a lot more fun to pilot.

Her miracle ability leads to some absurd plays, like getting One with the Multiverse and Shark Typhoon on the board way earlier than normal, leading you to huge advantages and a board full of tokens far earlier than anyone would ever expect from a precon.

Your non-green enchantment all-stars are all here:

• Sigil of the Empty Throne
• Doomwake Giant
• Archetype of Imagination

There are also several fantastic new cards:

• Fear of Sleep Paralysis
• Ancient Cellarspawn
• Metamorphosis Fanatic

And don’t forget the excellent reprints:

• Inkshield
• Hall of Heliod’s Generosity
• Extravagant Replication

Here's my full review of the deck.

#2 - Animated Army

If you’re looking for a big green stompy deck, Bloomburrow has you covered with Animated Army. It’s led by the powerhouse Bello, Bard of the Brambles, a 3/3 red and green Raccoon Bard that turns all of your non-Equipment artifacts and non-Aura enchantments with mana value four or more into 4/4 creatures on your turn.

And not only that, he gives those creatures indestructible and haste, and when they deal combat damage to an opponent you draw a card. That’s a hell of a lot of commander, and a lot of damage coming at your opponents.

The deck is packed full of great artifacts and enchantments for Bello to animate:

• Unnatural Growth
• Gratuitous Violence
• Warstorm Surge

You can even animate your pricier mana rocks:

• Gilded Lotus
• Thran Dynamo
• Hedron Archive

We also have an exceptional backup commander in Wildsear, Scouring Maw, who gives all the enchantments spells you cast from your hand cascade.

This precon gave us some phenomenal new cards:

• Pyreswipe Hawk,
• Alchemist’s Talent,
• and my personal favorite, Rolling Hamsphere

And it didn’t skimp on the reprints either, with hits like:

• Tendershoot Dryad
• Greater Good
• Grothama, All-Devouring

Check out my full review here.

#1 - Mutant Menace

Our number one precon of the year comes from Fallout, the set which also holds the worst precon of the year (seriously, Science! is awful). Mutant Menace is led by The Wise Mothman, a 3/3 Insect Mutant with flying that gives each player a rad counter when it enters or attacks. And whenever one or more cards are milled, we can put a +1/+1 counter on as many creatures as nonland cards that were milled. 

The synergy in this deck is off the charts. There’s so much going on with enhancing counters:

• Winding Constrictor
• Branching Evolution
• Hardened Scales

In addition to cards with proliferate:

• Contagion Clasp
• Radstorm
• Recon Craft Theta

You might be losing life when you mill from the rad counters, but so will your opponents. And you can even gain some of that life back with cards like Glowing One and Lily Bowen, Raging Grandma.

The deck also cares a lot about Zombies and Mutants. The Zombies, in particular, gave a lot of new toys to other Zombie decks, with Hancock, Ghoulish Mayor and Jason Bright, Glowing Prophet.

The deck plays like a dream, with very few cards that don’t work to use radiation to grow your creatures to stomp your opponents down.

Several new cards have gotten a lot of love since release, including Power Fist and Radstorm.

And the reprints are great as well, with hits like:

• Guardian Project
• Inexorable Tide
• Branching Evolution

Check out my full review here.

Was 2024 a Good Year for Precons?

In a year when we have this many precons, it’s hard to argue that it wasn’t a good year for it. But the year certainly had its ups and downs.

We started out with the somewhat lackluster sets Karlov Manor and Thunder Junction, both of which failed to land any decks on this list, and Fallout, which, as we’ve seen, was an extremely mixed bag.

Modern Horizons 3 didn’t quite live up to expectations, or, more importantly, the price tag, for its Commander precons. But we ended the year with two really strong and popular sets of precons with Bloomburrow and Duskmourn.

I’m excited to see what 2025 has to offer for precons. Currently very little is known about the 2025 slate until it gets revealed at MagicCon Vegas in a few weeks.

We do know to expect Final Fantasy as our next big Universes Beyond set, as well as some possible Marvel products. Whether or not those sets will have precons is currently unknown, but we can hope. And let’s also hope that Wizards can keep up the quality that we’ve gotten in precons with these last two sets.

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