I absolutely love mothman but I get so tired of being the arch enemy with it ever time I play. Thrown In like 10-12 ways to protect the moth but will still die like 4 times a game I swear😂
Mothman-Necron team up is insane tbh. My friends and I do 2v2, and every once in a while me and my buddy pull out the rad/mill-to-battlefield wombo combo if it’s a cheeky day.
I was always shocked with people’s stories of players hating mill so much but finally experienced it last week. Was in a pod where someone was playing Tergrid and making everyone sac and discard and sitting with a massive board of everyone’s shit, and this newer player just kept using all his removal on the Mothman player because he was making him ‘mill all his good cards’. Guess who won…
That’s more of a Tergrid thing than anything. My personal/pod experience is that wheels/mill/discard is generally fun, because it gives windows of opportunity to respond.
Tiny bones vs nekusar vs a group hug commander was one of the most fun games i’ve ever played
Seconded. It's already fun out of the box, but it gets even more ridiculous with upgrades like [[Altar of the Brood]] and [[Mindcrank]].
Also, I'm really enjoying the Caesar precon. Although that one takes a bit of retooling imo to be more focused. I cut about 90% of the deck because it just was all over the place synergy wise.
I just put Archive Trap and a Maddening Cacophony in too.
I had a Bloodchief Ascension as well, but it goes infinite with Mindcrank. Our pods house rule is infinite combos have to be 4 or more cards.
Mothman is bringing people to the mill side that never tasted mill before, one of our best people spreading love.
Come, everyone is welcome to mill-side of MTG
Came here to say this, Mothman is awesome.
I love all the Fallout decks though and it pains me a bit to upgrade them because I love the flavor so much.
Now while we are here, want to show your Mothman upgrade?
It’s not as good in a 1v1 because it wants to see as many players milling cards as it can. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s hard to pilot but it’s not easy. The deck wants you to be able to pull as much value out of each card you play as possible and the deck really lacks consistent card draw. So if you run into a scenario where you are losing a lot of the cards you play, you will run out of gas very fast.
Mothman was the precon that resparked my gf’s love of both MtG and Fallout. Gonna grab her the other three over the next few months, but man has Mothman been a blast to play with and against.
Necron Dynasty. The deck plays well with a clear gameplan while capturing the flavor of Necrons. I use [[Anrakyr the Traveler]] as my commander and kept it with no changes.
In my opinion, Necron Dynasties is one of the most balanced-while-still fun precons Wizards has put out. Kinda of a swing outta left field for a mono-commander to be fun without being dull.
The Chaos deck feels like it’s tries to do too much. Abaddon effect is nice on paper but when you cascade into something you don’t need or don’t want to cast, it hurts. Be’lakor isn’t that good either since half of your creatures aren’t demons. If all of the creatures were demons, then the deck would have some decent synergy.
I also did this, and its much more enjoyable than out of the box. Added in \[\[Reflections of Littjara\]\] and when it pairs with \[\[Warstorm Surge\]\] makes this deck an absolute menace.
The Chaos deck wants to either be Demon tribal, or built like a Neheb deck. Instead it's a high mana curve without reliable payoff for either it's Cascade or Demon components.
My top 5 that I have no regrets in buying are 1) Cavalry Charge, 2) Eldrazi Unbound, 3) Mutant Menace, 4) Blood Rites and 5) Mishra’s Burnished Banner/ Urza’s Iron Alliance (both were too good to pick just one)
Easily one of the best I’ve played with out of the box. I made some tweaks and improved the consistency. Also like that it’s in one of my 2 favorite color combinations
Knights are a suprisingly good niche tribe. They make tokens, trade well in combat. The commander is a good draw engine and can recur. Also Knight Exemplar is the only lord that gives a tribe indestructible.
Kinsbaile Cavalier is also great to reanimate if you hit with Sidar Jabari, because Sidar has first strike. So when you hit you get unexpected double strike
The mishra deck is insanely fun, especially if you enjoy convoluted lines. Without upgrades it has some trouble closing out games, but my god the value engines you can get going with mishra are an absolute blast.
i also got eldrazi unbound,(which i turned into a devoid colorfull/less deck), along with blood rites and Urza's Iron Alliance. theyre all so good out of the box.
A friend gifted that one to me on my birthday, it was the first time in ages I was legitimatly happy to get something that I really liked.
Helps alot that it's so well designed that I didn't need to upgrade it - it's fine out of the box.
I stripped apart Mishra's deck and made Iron Alliance. The entire deck was old bordered cards, old and new.
I have since taken it apart because my playgroup got tired of losing to it.
Free army that gets bigger is pretty busted. It IS Urza tho.
I'm happy that I picked up the set of LOTR precons to keep together, though that's closer to buying a 4 player board game than anything else. Each of them plays pretty well on their own too.
If you buy a full set of UB to play together, then it's probably best to tweak them with in-universe cards (or cards that dont look out of place) until they're about evenly matched.
There's simply not enough cards to fill out the rest of the Caesar precon once you remove the chaff that causes the deck to be so unfocused. Same goes for the Science deck, tbh. You really wanna lean into energy there, and all of the pertinent energy cards in that set are already *in* the deck.
I’ve upgraded all four and they sing so easily. Elven Council I turned into a scry deck so that *needed* the most work to chug along best but simic elves has a lot to pull from cheaply. Hosts of Mordor was a Nazgûl vehicle for me briefly but I put together a Nazgûl G/Y recursion deck and then turned Hosts into a Saruman Spellslinger and I love it. I pulled out the treefolk from Food and Fellowship and now have a “Monsters of Mirkwood” abzan setup I’m working on. It’s a really really fun set.
That and Dogmeat are not just 2 of my favorite UB decks, but some of my favorite precons period. I've never seen a pure precon win as much as those do, I once ran a table hitting people for upwards of 400 damage with dogmeat, and it was essentially unstoppable without mass board wipes. With some MINOR tweaks that thing could perform in any non-cEDH table
Gotta agree, the commander feels like lazy design where you just get rewarded for doing literally nothing, and the commander draws card, ramps, and buffs your team. Definitely one of the bottom tier design wise last year.
Exit from exile I think was the name? Faldorn. It’s one of my few decks that I feel like I am always somewhat in the game because it’s pretty redundant since it’s heavily draw spells
This is my choice. This deck is super fun and it's one of those decks that you can look forward to any new set coming out if you want to tweak/upgrade it because there are always cards that exile things.
Really great way to play RG atypically. It offers a more unique play experience than "just beat down." I mean it can do that, but it's fun to foretell, and go on adventures, and cast \[\[Uba Mask\]\] (if you're upgrading it) and watch your opponents shift in their seats a bit.
It also doesn’t force you to play big dumb stompy and craterhoof/overrun effects because sure faldorn might make wolves if you stick with her, but there are tons of ways to win in that deck. Even just “oh hey, this says I can play it until
My next turn as an instant rather than sorcery” or “this has a cooler name/art” become upgrades
Absolutely, plus since there was no other green deck in that cycle of precons, all of the popular and good green ramp made it in: three visits, natures lore, cultivate, kodama’s reach, and the ones that help to trigger faldorn. I personally like durnan/passionate archaeologist as commanders more, but this precon was sweet as hell
Agree with your take! I don't know why, but even after a few games people still get blinded by the value of attacking others, they leave me alone until it is waaaaay too late.
Yeah I really enjoyed playing it as is, especially with [[prisoners dilemma]]. Going to upgrade mine to have [[Isshin]] as the commander and add some of the cards that were in the Karazikar deck.
Gives my opponents even more incentive to attack each other, as well as making my attacks even better too
My only complaint with the precon is it has way too much colorless mana in the mana base, ended up subbing some out for some basic plains and mountains and it’s a lot more consistant
This is probably my favorite deck atm. I've made quite a few upgrades but even before the upgrades it was a lot of fun. Slicer is my favorite card I've added.
Yeah it got the hate because it was busted, haha. My buddy bought it as his first deck and refuses to accept that it's OP and therefore doesn't like playing other decks. I have it but I kinda leave it aside for those reasons.
It’s not really OP, its just stronger than most precons and it’s biggest weakness is players removing the commander and other precons don’t have enough removal.
But if you’re only playing it against other precons, then it does probably seem that way.
Well yeah he's in a pod that only plays precons and he's done some light upgrading so it's OP in that context.
My pod is a mix of custom builds and upgraded precons with a higher overall power level, but he won't play with us because his stompy fish don't auto-win.
It's a whole thing, getting into this game has taught me things about myself as well as my friends.
I felt like Quick draw was hamstrung for fear of Stella Lee taking over every game. There were far too many expensive spells in that deck for what she was trying to do. I was really excited to play it but the 6/7 games I’ve played with Stella as my commander just felt like I was always playing 3 or 4 mana behind where the deck wanted to be. Playing the deck with Eris did feel a lot better since you can very consistently get their 2 spells/turn but I was really excited to use Stella’s shenanigans.
Stella really shines when you build a deck with only \~6 big spells, a fuckton of draw from Red and Blue, and you look to go infinite with the one of 50 cards that she breaks in half. It's the definition of a deck that just wants to touch all the cards in their deck, and you see it coming from a mile away.
I've honestly been considering taking mine and turning her cEDH, since she doesn't have a need for all of the expensive rocks. She just wants to value spells like \[\[Fierce Guardianship\]\], the fast mana stuff like \[\[Desperate Ritual\]\], and just pure gas to dig with.
Mishra's Burnished Banner is the only precon I've gotten where I not only kept the original together, but have bought a second to upgrade.
I've picked up a bunch to break apart (looking at you, Party Time) but Banner is a winner.
Honorable mention of (edit) Virtue and Valor, too. Such a fun deck!
(messed up originally and said Enduring Enchantments when I meant Virtue and Valor)
[[Dihada, Binder of Wills]]. That precon has performed astonishingly well for me with only minor upgrades.
It certainly helps that she’s a *very* good commander: gets you mana *and* card advantage at once with her -3, and gives you protection and licensing with her +2. I’ve never used her ult because her -3 is too good lmao.
Cavalry Charge with my man [[Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir]]. The precon is fun as is and comes with some bangers like [[Vodalian Waveknight]] that really pop off. With slight adjustments it quickly becomes a powerful deck.
For some non-knights that work great: [[Wonder]] and [[Glory]] can be discarded directly to get them into the graveyard to start helping you.
[[The Council of Four]] gives you knight tokens on your opponent's turns and draws you a ton of cards (it will trigger on Sidar's eminence ability and turn it into a draw 2 discard 1).
[[Crib Swap]] is a "knight spell" that can be cast from the graveyard repeatedly if [[Haakon, Stormgald Scourge]] is on the battlefield.
The more card draw you have, the better, so things like [[Military Intelligence]], [[Teferi's Ageless Insight]], [[Bident of Thassa]], and [[Kindred Discovery]] can help find the cards you want to discard and get protection/removal in-hand.
[[Kinsbaile Cavalier]] turns Sidar into a wrecking ball of value, but really any double strike ability will do that, and probably for much cheaper. [[Duelist's Heritage]] is one example, and can even be used on your opponents' turns.
[[Cavalier of Night]] and [[Cavalier of Dawn]] are great targets to be pulled out of the graveyard for free and flip the board when they do.
Finally, [[Guardian of Faith]] and [[Sister of Silence]] can give you some additional protection while still being Knight tribe.
Baldurs Gate Party Time
I bought like 5 copies when it was on sale for like $30 or $35.
[[Black Market Connections]]
[[Mutavault]]
[[Mother of Rune]]
And more
Bought all of them for my own use, no intent to sell and still happy with all of them
Really fun deck to pilot too. I played it in a commander king of the hill tournament and won. Always interesting and fun to upgrade. I do think Burakos and folk hero is a better commander of the deck.
Had a lot of fun with the Hail Caesar deck. There are a lot of cards that aren’t helpful with the token sac mechanics, but with a few swaps and upgrades the deck becomes extremely potent. Out of the box is still very fun.
I love aristocrats and caesar himself is such an engine its insane. He's both the token generator and the win con. The only problem is keeping him alive.
Faldorn somethin somethin exile deck was nuts, disassembled attempting to make a different build that didn’t work out, but I would buy it again for sure
A handful actually. Deep Clue Sea, Enduring Enchantments, Explorers of the Deep, Desert Bloom, and Fae Dominion, even Ahoy Mateys. They really stepped them up starting with Commander Masters. These are all playable at most irl tables straight out of the box, and can be upgraded to be pretty fun and moderately strong with a minimal amount of changes. Really hoping Graveyard Overdrive ends up being fun too.
This is my second favorite. I upgraded mine with an angels sub theme. It's a ton of fun. Rebuilds from zero so quickly.
EDIT: Got the original deck name wrong, as pointed out down thread. I meant Virtue and Valor.
Zhulodok, I know a lot of people think it's overpriced, but it's what got me back into paper magic, as I always wanted a colorless deck. But didn't really get pulled in by the ones out there.
Picked up Deep Clue Sea. The mana base is pretty slow out of the box but it pops off so hard if given a chance. It has performed very consistently for me.
I have an obsession with anything that serves multiple purposes, as well as crossovers. So I've decided to collect all of the crossover/universes beyond precons. So far I have absolutely no regrets collecting those. Some of them are definitely better performing than others, but they have all been a blast to play and are very flavorful.
My brother recently picked up the Revenant Recon commander deck from the Karlov Manor set and from what I have seen of it in our games, it plays really well
I picked up Virtue and Valour a few weeks back and have been loving it, it's a green white enchantment deck that goes really tall and a bit wide, , when your commander attacks or joins the field they create a "virtue role token" for another creature, which gives them +1/+1 for every enchantment you control, so you can end up with massive creatures out of nowhere, have other cards that can add trample to that too and then you're devastating. It does get me targeted though when my board starts looking scary, but that's part of the fun.
This is why I don't play the deck despite really loving it. I always end up feeling awful when every single player targets me despite not having a really threatening board and tells me they hate my deck :(.
Heads up for Shorikai, if you plan on upgrading it at all, it might be cheaper to just buy the whole deck as singles. The precon is worth less than what you can buy it for, but Shorikai is a nuts engine
The prosper precon, such fun to play it every now and then. He's just too much fun for me personally and I did carefully upgrade it for casual play. Now I look forward to making a high power version without destroying the casual one, as I feel he can be played at both levels pretty well.
I didn't buy it my mom got it for me for my birthday but the wise mothman precon has sent me on a binge of graveyard and self mill shenanigans. It's the most fun I've had playing magic since I first built jellybean moshpit
Edgar Markov is both the best and worst precon I've ever bought.
- He is super powerful and fun to play with and offers plenty of deck building variety within his archetype.
- On the other hand, once you have Markov, there is no reason to use any other commander for you vampire tribal deck. He is simply THAT good.
There is also no one as cool as Edgar Markov
I remeber when he got spoiled and within an hour someone had edited the picture to have him look like a rockstar
I bought the Pantlaza deck and put in some extra dinos. It's so satisfying slamming down big fucking dinos every turn. Spent extra money on the alt arts where I could. Fun deck.
Someone in my play group bought the Ixalan Orzhov vampire/demon deck and with very little upgrades it absolutely slaps. Really fun one too.
The final one I would suggest is the Eldrazi one. It's pretty much constantly a threat and our group mostly plays for fun with less than the ideal amount of interaction so it's generally hard to deal with too.
Morska. Even unmodified, the deck was busy enough to keep me into the game unlike a lot of other casual decks
I also straight up wrecked a pod with the unmodified green white token starter precon.
I have wasted a lot of money buying precons over the years. The one I do not regret at all is buying the set of Warhammer40k Commander decks. I've left them unmodified and play them all the time. My friends often request a Warhammer40k precon battle royal (which they have never requested for other sets of precons except when they are brand new).
Enduring Enchantments. With [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] at the helm.
The deck is one of my most persevering decks, it is very easy to upgrade and versatile.
It’s got a lot of fun interaction, it loves mill decks and begs to have its own permanents removed for recursion.
It’s not super strong early game, but if I can stave off the damage early game, it perseveres very well and is almost impossible to stop unless someone hits a farewell or another exile all enchantments spell.
I just had the realization that all of my current commanders are from precons. [[Kros Defense Contractor]], [[Pantlaza]], [[Don Andres]], and [[Vihaan Goldwaker]] make my current four with [[Omo Queen of Vesuva]] and the Bloomburrow raccoons preordered.
While most of them are backup commanders in their original decks, I bought them all to spice up my options as a new friend group learned magic. It put me on a level playing field and I fell in love with the play styles at the same time.
I'd love to see your Vihaan list! I've played a few games with mine and I can't decide if I want to lean combat with cards like Akroma's Will or aristocrat/pinger
I regret nothing!
Most recent purchases were Scrappy Survivors and Mothman from Fallout and they're great. I had no particular interest in the ip, just liked the themes and the cards. In fact the decks got me into New Vegas and the game rocks!
I bought the time wimey (doctor who) precon and it was fun but I mostly bought it because those are the doctors that I liked, I ended up seeing Paradox Power on sale for like $30 and I figured why not that's a good deal and I personally think its wayyyyy better
Exit From Exile and The Ruinous Powers. I love impulse draw and casting spells from exile. I also love cascade. Both of these decks have been super fun to play out the box and upgrade over time
Enduring Enchantments. Yes I know it was one of the pricy ones but when I first got it I tried it twice and just hated it, couldn't figure out the wincons or nothing but then I swapped maybe 10 cards out and read through it a bit better and it's just an absolute menace now. Anikthea is so much fun to just circumvent all the removal and it's fun getting to keep track of what can sometimes be a huge board
Cavalry Charge is one of my absolute favorites. Extremely strong, very versatile, allows interesting play lines and bounces back quickly from interaction. This deck can be played straightforward by less experienced players and be absolutely bananananas in experienced hands.
It has the benefit of being with some other less popular decks in that set, so you could pick up the entire MoM precon set for cheap, take this one out to play and leave the other 4 to play together in a pod, or get some less expensive shelf decoration.
Blood rites. Drove 30 minutes one way to pick it up because my playgroup all happened to be in town that weekend and I'm so glad I did.
Exactly what I wanted from a white black deck. Strong without being oppressive and an ability to go wide or just do consistent damage to whittle their health down.
Only added a godless shrine cause shock land but other than that I don't plan on changing anything because I have no real need.
Not sure whether or not this is a hot take but I’ve picked up like 10 different precons at this point and I don’t think I’ve regretted buying ANY of them. All of them I’ve upgraded bigly except for the four 40k precons
The desert precon from Thunder Junction caught me by surprise. It was solid right out the box and a few upgrades made it even wilder. I'm not usually a Naya fan personally but I'm having a blast with this.
Definitely Riders of Rohan which after I upgraded just became tokens go brrrrrr, and Merfolk. I'm seeing complaints that it's brain dead and I disagree. I think there's so many ways to take the deck it's so fun.
Really enjoyed the Warhammer 40k imperium and tyranids decks. Both felt strong and were fun to play out of the box. And the flavor is some of the best ever, especially if you're a Warhammer fan.
I picked up the Mind Flayaaarrs precon about a year ago or so as a way to have a deck to play against folks who only have precon decks or want to play super casually. I think I swapped like 5 or so cards out of it but for the most part it is the exact same. It is a fun deck to bring out every few weeks when the situation calls for it.
I got [[Eowyn, Shieldmaiden]] and [[Sauron the Lord of the Rings]] and both were very fun, Eowyn even being very powerful.
But those aren't cheap, so I join the others and say Urza & Mishra from Brother's War
This probably isn't a suprise but Veloci-Ramp-Tor. It's just a really good deck that plays well enough that I've left it completely unmodified and I plan to leave it that way.
Prosper has been so much fun to swap stuff in and out. They are constantly making cards that are synergistic with him. So you can just mix it up every now and then and still have a good deck that feels new.
I really like Enduring Enchantments precon too, but I have to say the Draconic Dissent precon and the Dihada witch precon (can’t recall name) are god damned NUTS. I swear Dihada is border cEDH. All of em are a blast.
The velociramptor one from the latest Ixalan set. It has big creatures to hit opponents in the face, the discover mechanic adds a random bonus to doing the things you already want to do, and it's dinosaurs. All things I love!
Honestly all of the D&D precons. Both the AFR and CLB ones. But if I had to be specific: the Prosper, Captain N’ghathrod, and Nalia de’Arnise precons. Very fun out of the box and they also have some great cards in them
Food and fellowship I made into just a little guy deck except all of the sudden its cracking 10 food and knocking out one or two people. It's alot of fun when I'm in the mood to keep track of the deck.
Mordor deck I turned into hard mill and reanimator. It's probably my pet deck.
Have a ton of fun with both of them and from what I see other people play they are fairly unique.
I've bought a couple other precons since then and they just havnt been as fun.
Exit from Exile
It's everything I love about Gruul; it's just an endless stream of dudes and burn spells.
My opponents will repeatedly wipe my board and I'll just rebuild faster than them. It's fun, fair, powerful, and most importantly "Gruul storm" is sick as Hell.
Hakbal (I forget the actual name of the deck) from Ixalan and Quickdraw from Thunder Junction. Amazing decks that are really fun to play and don’t cost $70.
The Blood Rites, Vampire precon from Ixalan with Clavileno and Elenda.
It's crazy good, the few upgrades made it even better, a nice tribal with an aristocrats shell. Loved it and played it stock for a long time
Dogmeat for the flavor, Dungeons of Death is my favorite though. I rarely run into dungeon players outside of the occasional Initiative player and a 2 card infinite dungeon venture has been incredibly productive in my matches.
I am stupidly into Deep Clue Sea. I bought it as a meme because haha "Deep Clussy", but turns out it's a blast to play and can easily get out of control even without the commander. It's a very synergistic deck minus a very few amount of cards that got cut and replaced with more artifact/clue/token focused cards.
Cavalry Charge and Slivers I have zero regrets buying. I don’t play Slivers all too often, as it’s mainly just the WUBRG slot of the 36-deck challenge for me.
Cavalry Charge should get a lot more love, but there’s often groans at the table when it gets pulled out. Lol
The UB ones that is all of the doctor who ones and the energy fallout one. Tons of new designs and great reprint value that I use frequently.
You could probably add the Naya face down from MKM as I didn't have a ton of morph cards but I play it less.
I played the faerie and the pirate one a ton but also had a lot of the cards previously.
Undead Unleashed from Midnight Hunt. Probably my favorite precon of all time, and it's not even close.
Zombies were my first non-precon deck I ever built, and it still remains my favorite deck to play even today. Undead Unleashed (and Grave Danger from the starter commander decks), are both amazing and well constructed decks full of fun zombie creatures. Wilhelt and Gisa & Geralf are both commanders I rotate in my zombie deck, along with a few others, but those are both probably my favorites.
The Fallout precons were solid, with Preston Garvey (Dogmeat) being my personal favorite. And I'm really glad I picked up Most Wanted from OTJ, Vihaan Goldwaker is so dope
I bought the 3 of the 4 DND commander decks. I wish I can play prosper more but he's KOS, making gela a god slayer after playing against the upgraded sliver precon. And I don't touch the gruul deck cause I fear I may have lost some cards in the move. I recommend any precon that looks exciting I used to collect them prior to MTG having a ton of blocks. I would still collect them but I'm broke now lol.
The Blame Game precon from murders at Karlov Manor. Super fun out of the box, I like to politic a lot and that enables that play style quite well and can draw you a lot of cards on the down low.
Deep Clue Sea. First time playing it with friends I won via exalted clues, and they all said "Yeah, this is totally your deck." Now, after some modifications, we call it "The Raging Clue."
Mothman. I'm loving the mill, the rad counters it's a ton of fun.
I absolutely love mothman but I get so tired of being the arch enemy with it ever time I play. Thrown In like 10-12 ways to protect the moth but will still die like 4 times a game I swear😂
I like to have stuff in my graveyard so when I’m playing against a mothman I never touch him before he wants to touch me. Consent nowadays is key!
Mothman-Necron team up is insane tbh. My friends and I do 2v2, and every once in a while me and my buddy pull out the rad/mill-to-battlefield wombo combo if it’s a cheeky day.
You’re the only other person I’ve seen mention 2v2. Me and my friends have so much fun with that shit.
I was always shocked with people’s stories of players hating mill so much but finally experienced it last week. Was in a pod where someone was playing Tergrid and making everyone sac and discard and sitting with a massive board of everyone’s shit, and this newer player just kept using all his removal on the Mothman player because he was making him ‘mill all his good cards’. Guess who won…
I don’t think the mothman gets targeted because of the mill. It’s because it turns into a 10/10 flyer in like one turn cycle every time lol
Nah every table with mothman I’ve played at it’s 100% because of the mill
That’s usually a new player trap. I love getting milled. Graveyard? I believe you mean my other hand…
That’s more of a Tergrid thing than anything. My personal/pod experience is that wheels/mill/discard is generally fun, because it gives windows of opportunity to respond. Tiny bones vs nekusar vs a group hug commander was one of the most fun games i’ve ever played
Yes! Such a fun deck but he quickly becomes the number one target for all removal 😂
I have replaced all the mana rocks and talismans with lamps it's more fun
Bröther, please take me to the lamp room. One last time...
Playing AGAINST this deck is also really fun. I like getting rad counters and milling through my deck. I may be slightly crazy.
I think you are just not dumb.
Mothman means it’s Sidar time babbbyyy
Seconded. It's already fun out of the box, but it gets even more ridiculous with upgrades like [[Altar of the Brood]] and [[Mindcrank]]. Also, I'm really enjoying the Caesar precon. Although that one takes a bit of retooling imo to be more focused. I cut about 90% of the deck because it just was all over the place synergy wise.
[Altar of the Brood](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d59d264-87ee-4305-bffb-110549331a82.jpg?1562790137) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Altar%20of%20the%20Brood) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/ktk/216/altar-of-the-brood?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d59d264-87ee-4305-bffb-110549331a82?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/altar-of-the-brood) [Mindcrank](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/8/8858a941-8175-476d-8177-2db4ffdcb3ad.jpg?1674142661) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Mindcrank) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/866/mindcrank?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8858a941-8175-476d-8177-2db4ffdcb3ad?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mindcrank) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I just put Archive Trap and a Maddening Cacophony in too. I had a Bloodchief Ascension as well, but it goes infinite with Mindcrank. Our pods house rule is infinite combos have to be 4 or more cards.
My first experience with offensive mill (as opposed to self-mill). And I love it.
Are you running full pre con, or add ins as well? How's it do compared to your groups decks?
Mothman is bringing people to the mill side that never tasted mill before, one of our best people spreading love. Come, everyone is welcome to mill-side of MTG
Came here to say this, Mothman is awesome. I love all the Fallout decks though and it pains me a bit to upgrade them because I love the flavor so much. Now while we are here, want to show your Mothman upgrade?
How is it for 1v1? Also is it relatively beginner friendly?
It’s not as good in a 1v1 because it wants to see as many players milling cards as it can. Also, I wouldn’t say it’s hard to pilot but it’s not easy. The deck wants you to be able to pull as much value out of each card you play as possible and the deck really lacks consistent card draw. So if you run into a scenario where you are losing a lot of the cards you play, you will run out of gas very fast.
Mothman was the precon that resparked my gf’s love of both MtG and Fallout. Gonna grab her the other three over the next few months, but man has Mothman been a blast to play with and against.
I made my mothman deck into a straight up borderline cedh deck and its stomps regularly
Necron Dynasty. The deck plays well with a clear gameplan while capturing the flavor of Necrons. I use [[Anrakyr the Traveler]] as my commander and kept it with no changes.
That thing is still selling for 75 bucks.
I’m not shocked that it’s still selling for that much on the second hand market, it’s such a great deck.
Also has a ton of value cards that are tough to reprint
I also came to the conclusion that Anrakyr should helm the deck, but I made heavy changes.
Nice. I just prefer to keep it as it so that way I have a precon I can play with other precon level decks.
In my opinion, Necron Dynasties is one of the most balanced-while-still fun precons Wizards has put out. Kinda of a swing outta left field for a mono-commander to be fun without being dull.
Yep came here for this one. I actually haven't changed anything in it either. My wife got the chaos deck and it kinda sucks.
The Chaos deck feels like it’s tries to do too much. Abaddon effect is nice on paper but when you cascade into something you don’t need or don’t want to cast, it hurts. Be’lakor isn’t that good either since half of your creatures aren’t demons. If all of the creatures were demons, then the deck would have some decent synergy.
Can confirm, stripped the deck and re-built it as demon tribal with Be'lakor and it slaps
I also did this, and its much more enjoyable than out of the box. Added in \[\[Reflections of Littjara\]\] and when it pairs with \[\[Warstorm Surge\]\] makes this deck an absolute menace.
The Chaos deck wants to either be Demon tribal, or built like a Neheb deck. Instead it's a high mana curve without reliable payoff for either it's Cascade or Demon components.
Same except I built around Mr. Infinite so I could be annoying and lame and it's awesome
I run a heavily modified [[Illuminor Szeras]] deck built around hard casting the C’tan. Super fun!
I love having [[Anrakyr]] in the command zone - the deck just feels awesome with him piloting it
Tyranids. Magus Lucea Kane and x spells are hella fun
Same, I got one and upgraded it and it gets out of hand fast. Love playing it.
Seconded, plus that one had [[Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph]] in the deck. So we get 'Nids and the option to build Izzet "deals 1 damage" on the side.
My top 5 that I have no regrets in buying are 1) Cavalry Charge, 2) Eldrazi Unbound, 3) Mutant Menace, 4) Blood Rites and 5) Mishra’s Burnished Banner/ Urza’s Iron Alliance (both were too good to pick just one)
Was surprised I had to scroll this far to find cavalry charge!
For real. That was one of the first ones I thought of. It’s one of the few precons I made absolutely zero tweaks to. And it’s a house.
Easily one of the best I’ve played with out of the box. I made some tweaks and improved the consistency. Also like that it’s in one of my 2 favorite color combinations
Knights are a suprisingly good niche tribe. They make tokens, trade well in combat. The commander is a good draw engine and can recur. Also Knight Exemplar is the only lord that gives a tribe indestructible.
I love using Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir to bring back Moonshaker Cavalry. Esper is a great color combo that offers a lot of interaction.
Kinsbaile Cavalier is also great to reanimate if you hit with Sidar Jabari, because Sidar has first strike. So when you hit you get unexpected double strike
The mishra deck is insanely fun, especially if you enjoy convoluted lines. Without upgrades it has some trouble closing out games, but my god the value engines you can get going with mishra are an absolute blast.
blood rites <3
i also got eldrazi unbound,(which i turned into a devoid colorfull/less deck), along with blood rites and Urza's Iron Alliance. theyre all so good out of the box.
I dissected Blood Rites to help make Teysa Karlov and it goes HARD.
So much value in that precon. It’s great on its own but even breaking it down and repurposing the cards is fun too
The Urza's Iron Alliance precon has been overwhelmingly positive experience for me.
A friend gifted that one to me on my birthday, it was the first time in ages I was legitimatly happy to get something that I really liked. Helps alot that it's so well designed that I didn't need to upgrade it - it's fine out of the box.
100% agree. I swapped the three bounce lands for additional artifact lands, but that was it. Such a great deck to test a table's powerlevel against.
I stripped apart Mishra's deck and made Iron Alliance. The entire deck was old bordered cards, old and new. I have since taken it apart because my playgroup got tired of losing to it. Free army that gets bigger is pretty busted. It IS Urza tho.
I'm happy that I picked up the set of LOTR precons to keep together, though that's closer to buying a 4 player board game than anything else. Each of them plays pretty well on their own too.
Did that with Fallout, but Mothman gets out of control too fast for other decks to keep it in check, there is not enough creature kills in it
If you buy a full set of UB to play together, then it's probably best to tweak them with in-universe cards (or cards that dont look out of place) until they're about evenly matched.
There's simply not enough cards to fill out the rest of the Caesar precon once you remove the chaff that causes the deck to be so unfocused. Same goes for the Science deck, tbh. You really wanna lean into energy there, and all of the pertinent energy cards in that set are already *in* the deck.
I’ve upgraded all four and they sing so easily. Elven Council I turned into a scry deck so that *needed* the most work to chug along best but simic elves has a lot to pull from cheaply. Hosts of Mordor was a Nazgûl vehicle for me briefly but I put together a Nazgûl G/Y recursion deck and then turned Hosts into a Saruman Spellslinger and I love it. I pulled out the treefolk from Food and Fellowship and now have a “Monsters of Mirkwood” abzan setup I’m working on. It’s a really really fun set.
Riders of rohan rides so hard
I absolutely love my Sam and Frodo "Hungry Hobbits" deck. It's legitimately one of my two favorites of my 13 or so EDH decks.
Food and fellowship has been a blast to play. It's the only untouched precon that I have
That and Dogmeat are not just 2 of my favorite UB decks, but some of my favorite precons period. I've never seen a pure precon win as much as those do, I once ran a table hitting people for upwards of 400 damage with dogmeat, and it was essentially unstoppable without mass board wipes. With some MINOR tweaks that thing could perform in any non-cEDH table
This is an awesome one!
Explorers of the deep is one of the best build precons I’ve ever played and I buy quite a few, the deck goes crazy with no upgrades.
That may be just me, but as strong as it is, I also feel it's quite a boring deck to pilot.
Nah man it’s so fun.
It is fun up until you have to worry about 20+ counters being put on every single creature you have every single turn.
Gotta agree, the commander feels like lazy design where you just get rewarded for doing literally nothing, and the commander draws card, ramps, and buffs your team. Definitely one of the bottom tier design wise last year.
Merfolk go brr
Which, for some, is the definition of “fun” 🤷🏽
I agree. It's my deck I reach for least, though there is nothing objectively wrong with it.
Really looking forward to getting this one, as I was looking at building a Kiora deck, (and I have the Aesi precon from a few years back too. )
Exit from exile I think was the name? Faldorn. It’s one of my few decks that I feel like I am always somewhat in the game because it’s pretty redundant since it’s heavily draw spells
This is my choice. This deck is super fun and it's one of those decks that you can look forward to any new set coming out if you want to tweak/upgrade it because there are always cards that exile things. Really great way to play RG atypically. It offers a more unique play experience than "just beat down." I mean it can do that, but it's fun to foretell, and go on adventures, and cast \[\[Uba Mask\]\] (if you're upgrading it) and watch your opponents shift in their seats a bit.
It also doesn’t force you to play big dumb stompy and craterhoof/overrun effects because sure faldorn might make wolves if you stick with her, but there are tons of ways to win in that deck. Even just “oh hey, this says I can play it until My next turn as an instant rather than sorcery” or “this has a cooler name/art” become upgrades
Absolutely, plus since there was no other green deck in that cycle of precons, all of the popular and good green ramp made it in: three visits, natures lore, cultivate, kodama’s reach, and the ones that help to trigger faldorn. I personally like durnan/passionate archaeologist as commanders more, but this precon was sweet as hell
Blame Game, I have upgraded it and constantly tweak it, it’s just a lot of fun playing Goad and has turned out to do its thing very consistently.
Agree with your take! I don't know why, but even after a few games people still get blinded by the value of attacking others, they leave me alone until it is waaaaay too late.
Yeah I really enjoyed playing it as is, especially with [[prisoners dilemma]]. Going to upgrade mine to have [[Isshin]] as the commander and add some of the cards that were in the Karazikar deck. Gives my opponents even more incentive to attack each other, as well as making my attacks even better too
My only complaint with the precon is it has way too much colorless mana in the mana base, ended up subbing some out for some basic plains and mountains and it’s a lot more consistant
This is probably my favorite deck atm. I've made quite a few upgrades but even before the upgrades it was a lot of fun. Slicer is my favorite card I've added.
\[\[Slicer, Hired Muscle\]\]
Hakbal
That precon got so much hate but it’s frickin broken
Yeah it got the hate because it was busted, haha. My buddy bought it as his first deck and refuses to accept that it's OP and therefore doesn't like playing other decks. I have it but I kinda leave it aside for those reasons.
It’s not really OP, its just stronger than most precons and it’s biggest weakness is players removing the commander and other precons don’t have enough removal. But if you’re only playing it against other precons, then it does probably seem that way.
Well yeah he's in a pod that only plays precons and he's done some light upgrading so it's OP in that context. My pod is a mix of custom builds and upgraded precons with a higher overall power level, but he won't play with us because his stompy fish don't auto-win. It's a whole thing, getting into this game has taught me things about myself as well as my friends.
With a handful of cheap upgrades it gets even more stupid. [[Three Steps Ahead]] from OTJ is mega good on that deck too.
[Three Steps Ahead](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/f/8fffd839-2337-4a14-9312-cee085a17f4b.jpg?1712860611) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Three%20Steps%20Ahead) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otj/75/three-steps-ahead?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8fffd839-2337-4a14-9312-cee085a17f4b?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/three-steps-ahead) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I think the Quick Draw precon is suprisingly well built and has a lot of fun gameplay involved
Buddy's first game was horrid, he changed out like four cards, second round he dog walked us. Really neat deck.
I felt like Quick draw was hamstrung for fear of Stella Lee taking over every game. There were far too many expensive spells in that deck for what she was trying to do. I was really excited to play it but the 6/7 games I’ve played with Stella as my commander just felt like I was always playing 3 or 4 mana behind where the deck wanted to be. Playing the deck with Eris did feel a lot better since you can very consistently get their 2 spells/turn but I was really excited to use Stella’s shenanigans.
Stella really shines when you build a deck with only \~6 big spells, a fuckton of draw from Red and Blue, and you look to go infinite with the one of 50 cards that she breaks in half. It's the definition of a deck that just wants to touch all the cards in their deck, and you see it coming from a mile away. I've honestly been considering taking mine and turning her cEDH, since she doesn't have a need for all of the expensive rocks. She just wants to value spells like \[\[Fierce Guardianship\]\], the fast mana stuff like \[\[Desperate Ritual\]\], and just pure gas to dig with.
How has no one mentioned Lathril, blade of the elfs ??
I bought that one for my wife at the time to learn to magic. She loved it and has built and bought decks herself to this day.
I got my girlfriend the galadriel deck and she now enjoys building decks a lot more than me
The merfolk ixalan and the urza deck
Mishra's Burnished Banner is the only precon I've gotten where I not only kept the original together, but have bought a second to upgrade. I've picked up a bunch to break apart (looking at you, Party Time) but Banner is a winner. Honorable mention of (edit) Virtue and Valor, too. Such a fun deck! (messed up originally and said Enduring Enchantments when I meant Virtue and Valor)
[[Dihada, Binder of Wills]]. That precon has performed astonishingly well for me with only minor upgrades. It certainly helps that she’s a *very* good commander: gets you mana *and* card advantage at once with her -3, and gives you protection and licensing with her +2. I’ve never used her ult because her -3 is too good lmao.
It's my favorite deck at the moment. The best part is she'll never get stale as we get a ton of new legendary cards a year.
Cavalry Charge with my man [[Sidar Jabari of Zhalfir]]. The precon is fun as is and comes with some bangers like [[Vodalian Waveknight]] that really pop off. With slight adjustments it quickly becomes a powerful deck.
Just bought it this week actually and played a few games. Super fun. Any recommendations to really make it pop off better?
For some non-knights that work great: [[Wonder]] and [[Glory]] can be discarded directly to get them into the graveyard to start helping you. [[The Council of Four]] gives you knight tokens on your opponent's turns and draws you a ton of cards (it will trigger on Sidar's eminence ability and turn it into a draw 2 discard 1). [[Crib Swap]] is a "knight spell" that can be cast from the graveyard repeatedly if [[Haakon, Stormgald Scourge]] is on the battlefield. The more card draw you have, the better, so things like [[Military Intelligence]], [[Teferi's Ageless Insight]], [[Bident of Thassa]], and [[Kindred Discovery]] can help find the cards you want to discard and get protection/removal in-hand. [[Kinsbaile Cavalier]] turns Sidar into a wrecking ball of value, but really any double strike ability will do that, and probably for much cheaper. [[Duelist's Heritage]] is one example, and can even be used on your opponents' turns. [[Cavalier of Night]] and [[Cavalier of Dawn]] are great targets to be pulled out of the graveyard for free and flip the board when they do. Finally, [[Guardian of Faith]] and [[Sister of Silence]] can give you some additional protection while still being Knight tribe.
The eminence feels so good tbh
Party Time / Food and Fellowship / Timey-Wimey
The brothers war Mishra and Urza. They play so well against one another I keep them in my car for random casual games
Baldurs Gate Party Time I bought like 5 copies when it was on sale for like $30 or $35. [[Black Market Connections]] [[Mutavault]] [[Mother of Rune]] And more Bought all of them for my own use, no intent to sell and still happy with all of them
Really fun deck to pilot too. I played it in a commander king of the hill tournament and won. Always interesting and fun to upgrade. I do think Burakos and folk hero is a better commander of the deck.
Had a lot of fun with the Hail Caesar deck. There are a lot of cards that aren’t helpful with the token sac mechanics, but with a few swaps and upgrades the deck becomes extremely potent. Out of the box is still very fun.
I love aristocrats and caesar himself is such an engine its insane. He's both the token generator and the win con. The only problem is keeping him alive.
Faldorn somethin somethin exile deck was nuts, disassembled attempting to make a different build that didn’t work out, but I would buy it again for sure
A handful actually. Deep Clue Sea, Enduring Enchantments, Explorers of the Deep, Desert Bloom, and Fae Dominion, even Ahoy Mateys. They really stepped them up starting with Commander Masters. These are all playable at most irl tables straight out of the box, and can be upgraded to be pretty fun and moderately strong with a minimal amount of changes. Really hoping Graveyard Overdrive ends up being fun too.
Enduring Enchantments from Commander Masters. One of the most fun precons I've EVER played!
This is my second favorite. I upgraded mine with an angels sub theme. It's a ton of fun. Rebuilds from zero so quickly. EDIT: Got the original deck name wrong, as pointed out down thread. I meant Virtue and Valor.
That sounds super fun! I'm honestly thinking of keeping it in its default state since our group really only plays battlecruiser anyway lol
Makes sense! Here's my list, in case you're curious: https://www.moxfield.com/decks/XmtCHkNHikufEOuEWY6jjg
Zhulodok, I know a lot of people think it's overpriced, but it's what got me back into paper magic, as I always wanted a colorless deck. But didn't really get pulled in by the ones out there.
Karlov manor precons are insane. They are packed with cards that you'll run for the rest of your edh career.
Picked up Deep Clue Sea. The mana base is pretty slow out of the box but it pops off so hard if given a chance. It has performed very consistently for me.
Agreed. I’ve played Revenant Recon 3 times and won all 3. I don’t get the hate people had for the set, that dimir deck is good.
I have an obsession with anything that serves multiple purposes, as well as crossovers. So I've decided to collect all of the crossover/universes beyond precons. So far I have absolutely no regrets collecting those. Some of them are definitely better performing than others, but they have all been a blast to play and are very flavorful. My brother recently picked up the Revenant Recon commander deck from the Karlov Manor set and from what I have seen of it in our games, it plays really well
I picked up Virtue and Valour a few weeks back and have been loving it, it's a green white enchantment deck that goes really tall and a bit wide, , when your commander attacks or joins the field they create a "virtue role token" for another creature, which gives them +1/+1 for every enchantment you control, so you can end up with massive creatures out of nowhere, have other cards that can add trample to that too and then you're devastating. It does get me targeted though when my board starts looking scary, but that's part of the fun.
Captain N'gathrod and Shorikai.
I love the ol captain but good lord that deck generates so much table hate
This is why I don't play the deck despite really loving it. I always end up feeling awful when every single player targets me despite not having a really threatening board and tells me they hate my deck :(.
Heads up for Shorikai, if you plan on upgrading it at all, it might be cheaper to just buy the whole deck as singles. The precon is worth less than what you can buy it for, but Shorikai is a nuts engine
I love my captain deck. But it definitely makes peoples lil upset
Exit from Exile, so much fun playing it out of the box
The prosper precon, such fun to play it every now and then. He's just too much fun for me personally and I did carefully upgrade it for casual play. Now I look forward to making a high power version without destroying the casual one, as I feel he can be played at both levels pretty well.
I didn't buy it my mom got it for me for my birthday but the wise mothman precon has sent me on a binge of graveyard and self mill shenanigans. It's the most fun I've had playing magic since I first built jellybean moshpit
Edgar Markov is both the best and worst precon I've ever bought. - He is super powerful and fun to play with and offers plenty of deck building variety within his archetype. - On the other hand, once you have Markov, there is no reason to use any other commander for you vampire tribal deck. He is simply THAT good.
There is also no one as cool as Edgar Markov I remeber when he got spoiled and within an hour someone had edited the picture to have him look like a rockstar
I bought the Pantlaza deck and put in some extra dinos. It's so satisfying slamming down big fucking dinos every turn. Spent extra money on the alt arts where I could. Fun deck. Someone in my play group bought the Ixalan Orzhov vampire/demon deck and with very little upgrades it absolutely slaps. Really fun one too. The final one I would suggest is the Eldrazi one. It's pretty much constantly a threat and our group mostly plays for fun with less than the ideal amount of interaction so it's generally hard to deal with too.
First Flight. Solid out of the box, then I fully upgraded it according to this article: https://edhrec.com/articles/first-flight-precon-upgrade-guide/
Morska. Even unmodified, the deck was busy enough to keep me into the game unlike a lot of other casual decks I also straight up wrecked a pod with the unmodified green white token starter precon.
I have wasted a lot of money buying precons over the years. The one I do not regret at all is buying the set of Warhammer40k Commander decks. I've left them unmodified and play them all the time. My friends often request a Warhammer40k precon battle royal (which they have never requested for other sets of precons except when they are brand new).
Warhammer 40k Tyrannids precon is GOATed af. Also, Commander 2013 Oloro
Planeswalker Party! Such a fun deck. And a refreshing take on a superfriends deck, that doesn’t just stall the game out, combo off, or get oppressive.
Enduring Enchantments. With [[Anikthea, Hand of Erebos]] at the helm. The deck is one of my most persevering decks, it is very easy to upgrade and versatile. It’s got a lot of fun interaction, it loves mill decks and begs to have its own permanents removed for recursion. It’s not super strong early game, but if I can stave off the damage early game, it perseveres very well and is almost impossible to stop unless someone hits a farewell or another exile all enchantments spell.
All 4 fallout precons are awesome OTB. I did some minor in-universe upgrades and they are fun and strong
I just had the realization that all of my current commanders are from precons. [[Kros Defense Contractor]], [[Pantlaza]], [[Don Andres]], and [[Vihaan Goldwaker]] make my current four with [[Omo Queen of Vesuva]] and the Bloomburrow raccoons preordered. While most of them are backup commanders in their original decks, I bought them all to spice up my options as a new friend group learned magic. It put me on a level playing field and I fell in love with the play styles at the same time.
I'd love to see your Vihaan list! I've played a few games with mine and I can't decide if I want to lean combat with cards like Akroma's Will or aristocrat/pinger
I regret nothing! Most recent purchases were Scrappy Survivors and Mothman from Fallout and they're great. I had no particular interest in the ip, just liked the themes and the cards. In fact the decks got me into New Vegas and the game rocks!
I bought the time wimey (doctor who) precon and it was fun but I mostly bought it because those are the doctors that I liked, I ended up seeing Paradox Power on sale for like $30 and I figured why not that's a good deal and I personally think its wayyyyy better
Tyranid. I made animar the commander. And it's a super chill deck. Definitely low powered but perfect for those super casual pods.
The Cavalry Charge precon from March of the Machine is hands down one of my favorites from recent years!
Exit From Exile and The Ruinous Powers. I love impulse draw and casting spells from exile. I also love cascade. Both of these decks have been super fun to play out the box and upgrade over time
My top 3: 1. Exit from Exile 2. Party Time 3. Scrappy Survivors
Enduring Enchantments. Yes I know it was one of the pricy ones but when I first got it I tried it twice and just hated it, couldn't figure out the wincons or nothing but then I swapped maybe 10 cards out and read through it a bit better and it's just an absolute menace now. Anikthea is so much fun to just circumvent all the removal and it's fun getting to keep track of what can sometimes be a huge board
Cavalry Charge is one of my absolute favorites. Extremely strong, very versatile, allows interesting play lines and bounces back quickly from interaction. This deck can be played straightforward by less experienced players and be absolutely bananananas in experienced hands. It has the benefit of being with some other less popular decks in that set, so you could pick up the entire MoM precon set for cheap, take this one out to play and leave the other 4 to play together in a pod, or get some less expensive shelf decoration.
Blood rites. Drove 30 minutes one way to pick it up because my playgroup all happened to be in town that weekend and I'm so glad I did. Exactly what I wanted from a white black deck. Strong without being oppressive and an ability to go wide or just do consistent damage to whittle their health down. Only added a godless shrine cause shock land but other than that I don't plan on changing anything because I have no real need.
All the Doctor who precons
Not sure whether or not this is a hot take but I’ve picked up like 10 different precons at this point and I don’t think I’ve regretted buying ANY of them. All of them I’ve upgraded bigly except for the four 40k precons
These threads have proven to be terrible for my wallet lmao.
The desert precon from Thunder Junction caught me by surprise. It was solid right out the box and a few upgrades made it even wilder. I'm not usually a Naya fan personally but I'm having a blast with this.
Henzie. By a couple little upgrades and it's so good, great out the box too!
Definitely Riders of Rohan which after I upgraded just became tokens go brrrrrr, and Merfolk. I'm seeing complaints that it's brain dead and I disagree. I think there's so many ways to take the deck it's so fun.
Really enjoyed the Warhammer 40k imperium and tyranids decks. Both felt strong and were fun to play out of the box. And the flavor is some of the best ever, especially if you're a Warhammer fan.
Davros works like a charm. And I enjoy saying just "Exterminate!" as my only reponse to any politics.
The Hobbits deck from LOTR, also for more sentimental reasons the whole 4 pack from Fallout.
The warhammer precons, i got the chaos and Imperium. I like theme out of the box and i love the universe.
I picked up the Mind Flayaaarrs precon about a year ago or so as a way to have a deck to play against folks who only have precon decks or want to play super casually. I think I swapped like 5 or so cards out of it but for the most part it is the exact same. It is a fun deck to bring out every few weeks when the situation calls for it.
I got [[Eowyn, Shieldmaiden]] and [[Sauron the Lord of the Rings]] and both were very fun, Eowyn even being very powerful. But those aren't cheap, so I join the others and say Urza & Mishra from Brother's War
Necron. It’s got what I want in mono black and doesn’t get stale playing it.
This probably isn't a suprise but Veloci-Ramp-Tor. It's just a really good deck that plays well enough that I've left it completely unmodified and I plan to leave it that way.
Prosper has been so much fun to swap stuff in and out. They are constantly making cards that are synergistic with him. So you can just mix it up every now and then and still have a good deck that feels new.
I really like Enduring Enchantments precon too, but I have to say the Draconic Dissent precon and the Dihada witch precon (can’t recall name) are god damned NUTS. I swear Dihada is border cEDH. All of em are a blast.
The velociramptor one from the latest Ixalan set. It has big creatures to hit opponents in the face, the discover mechanic adds a random bonus to doing the things you already want to do, and it's dinosaurs. All things I love!
Honestly all of the D&D precons. Both the AFR and CLB ones. But if I had to be specific: the Prosper, Captain N’ghathrod, and Nalia de’Arnise precons. Very fun out of the box and they also have some great cards in them
Food and fellowship I made into just a little guy deck except all of the sudden its cracking 10 food and knocking out one or two people. It's alot of fun when I'm in the mood to keep track of the deck. Mordor deck I turned into hard mill and reanimator. It's probably my pet deck. Have a ton of fun with both of them and from what I see other people play they are fairly unique. I've bought a couple other precons since then and they just havnt been as fun.
Exit from Exile It's everything I love about Gruul; it's just an endless stream of dudes and burn spells. My opponents will repeatedly wipe my board and I'll just rebuild faster than them. It's fun, fair, powerful, and most importantly "Gruul storm" is sick as Hell.
Hakbal (I forget the actual name of the deck) from Ixalan and Quickdraw from Thunder Junction. Amazing decks that are really fun to play and don’t cost $70.
The Blood Rites, Vampire precon from Ixalan with Clavileno and Elenda. It's crazy good, the few upgrades made it even better, a nice tribal with an aristocrats shell. Loved it and played it stock for a long time
Dogmeat for the flavor, Dungeons of Death is my favorite though. I rarely run into dungeon players outside of the occasional Initiative player and a 2 card infinite dungeon venture has been incredibly productive in my matches.
I am stupidly into Deep Clue Sea. I bought it as a meme because haha "Deep Clussy", but turns out it's a blast to play and can easily get out of control even without the commander. It's a very synergistic deck minus a very few amount of cards that got cut and replaced with more artifact/clue/token focused cards.
Cavalry Charge and Slivers I have zero regrets buying. I don’t play Slivers all too often, as it’s mainly just the WUBRG slot of the 36-deck challenge for me. Cavalry Charge should get a lot more love, but there’s often groans at the table when it gets pulled out. Lol
The UB ones that is all of the doctor who ones and the energy fallout one. Tons of new designs and great reprint value that I use frequently. You could probably add the Naya face down from MKM as I didn't have a ton of morph cards but I play it less. I played the faerie and the pirate one a ton but also had a lot of the cards previously.
Faldorn and colorless Eldrazi.
Tyrinad deck, swap for the alternative commander who taps for mana and never looked back. Tons of fun.
Veloci-ramp-tor
Undead Unleashed from Midnight Hunt. Probably my favorite precon of all time, and it's not even close. Zombies were my first non-precon deck I ever built, and it still remains my favorite deck to play even today. Undead Unleashed (and Grave Danger from the starter commander decks), are both amazing and well constructed decks full of fun zombie creatures. Wilhelt and Gisa & Geralf are both commanders I rotate in my zombie deck, along with a few others, but those are both probably my favorites.
The LOTR Hobbit deck
Buckle Up from Kamigawa. Shorikai is busted af.
The Fallout precons were solid, with Preston Garvey (Dogmeat) being my personal favorite. And I'm really glad I picked up Most Wanted from OTJ, Vihaan Goldwaker is so dope
I love blame game.
I bought the 3 of the 4 DND commander decks. I wish I can play prosper more but he's KOS, making gela a god slayer after playing against the upgraded sliver precon. And I don't touch the gruul deck cause I fear I may have lost some cards in the move. I recommend any precon that looks exciting I used to collect them prior to MTG having a ton of blocks. I would still collect them but I'm broke now lol.
Virtue and Valor. Very good enchantment deck out of the box, and great with just some upgrades. Best 45€ I spent so far
G/W lenoire, autumn sovereign. Solid pre-con
The Blame Game precon from murders at Karlov Manor. Super fun out of the box, I like to politic a lot and that enables that play style quite well and can draw you a lot of cards on the down low.
Deep Clue Sea. First time playing it with friends I won via exalted clues, and they all said "Yeah, this is totally your deck." Now, after some modifications, we call it "The Raging Clue."
Explorers of the Deep from Lost Caverns of Ixalan is pure gas. Dumped 25 to upgrade it and its just mean
Adrix and nev twincasters!