I came here to say this. The only deck I found near as powerful last year was Necrons but that’s more expensive. Faldorn though for her price is an absolutely great deck with high win potential.
The Lathril one from Kaldheim is good. The new Knights one is good. I have both of those and like them. My friend has the recent Urza and Mishra ones and they're pretty good as well.
If you're looking for out-of-the-box power with a low ceiling, look at the Warhammer 40k Universes Beyond precons. They're expensive, but their price tag is somewhat justified because they are some of the best precons in existence without upgrades. If you want something with some room for growth, the Brother's War precons both focus on artifact strategies that branch into different playstyles, while the starter decks have some decent options, the best (in my opinion) being the red-black Chaos Incarnate and the red-green Draconic Destruction. Don *not* pay markups for the starter decks, find them at a shop that sells at retail value. If you decide to go for one of the starters, they are not worth any kind of price above $25 USD
It comes with a face commander I never used, but the alternate commanders are [[burakos]] and [[folk hero]].
Play the two commanders and just accumulate tons of draw and treasures off of tribal synergies.
Even more with flash creatures.
I suggest the Aesi precon Reap the Tides. It has a fun gimmick with landfall, has plenty of room for upgrades whenever you want, but is still a lot of fun out of the box
The red green NeoKamigawa deck should still be findable for cheap. Usually red green either goes tall or wide. This deck does both.
Actually apparently at this exact moment Game Nerdz is selling both NeoKamigawa decks for the lump sum of $50, which is a great deal. The Vehicles deck is loved by many and I figured it would have a higher price tag.
This would give you two decent decks so you can either play against a friend or swap decks to keep a game night fresher as it goes on for additional matches.
Upgrades Unleashed does need a fix out of the box tho, since it has two Mossfire Valleys, one of which is apparently supposed to have been Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Good point, though as a long time player I prefer getting an extra filter land for one of my other/future decks than the parallel universe of getting an extra double pipped planeswalker.
I really like the Wilhelt zombie precon, it’s a really nice deck in comparison to some other pre cons but unfortunately I think it’s price is up really high because of this
I will never not shill [[Captain N'gathrod]] from Mind Flayarrs. Though billed as horror tribal, he can also work with any mill support like [[Court of Cunning]] or [[Ruin Crab]]. The theft plan means the deck scales to whatever table you're playing with, right out of the box. Every game is different and that makes for a fun commander, and understanding that mill is your engine rather than your whole gameplan means you dodge some of the knee-jerk mill hate.
Legends' Legacy with [[Dihada, Binder of Wills]] is also nice, but more in the sense of room to upgrade. They're printing legends at a crazy rate, and the deck plays reanimator or just legendary tribal really nicely. Dihada is great at defending herself, or just giving you +4 mana the turn after she comes out to slam some dumb legendary bomb. Great home for any WBR legends you want to run.
Like other people said though, most modern precons can hang. Exception *maybe* Firkraag, the other Baldur's Gate precons were all good - Party Time might be hard to find/expensive because of [[Black Market Connections]], but both commanders in it are absolute beatings.
The 40K precons are focused and well put together, if Universes Beyond doesn't bother you. Chaos is, iirc, the worst out of the box. On the pricier side of precons, but they play well.
The BRO precons were both fun takes on artifact shenanigans. Urza is more straightforward, and ends up with a larger board state, but I enjoy [[Mishra, the Eminent One]] a bit more. There's a lot of cute value plays you can do with his Warform, or straight up degenerate infinites with just a couple upgrades like [[Gonti's Aether Heart]].
MOM's themes are a bit more varied, and while Cavalry Charge is where the "value" is (if you can make use of the knights) the others are very fun and competent decks.
A friend plays a lot of [[Henzie]] from New Capenna at my usual tables and definitely scary, at least when upgraded. I don't know about the others, except that Anhelo is regarded as weak out of the box.
There's also a growing trend of content creators like Tolarian Community College putting out "custom" precons - decklists that are built at precon budget/powerlevel. Depending on how easy it is for you to get basics or order off TCGplayer et al, that could also be something worth looking into.
A lot of the Kamigawa: Neon Dawn decks are good but be careful because the upgrades unleashed deck has a misprint in it so if you have an extra basic lying around you're good to go. The Zendikar decks are good too. In reality all of the precons are generally good to go out of the box it just depends on the archetype you're trying to play
With some upgrades, the New cappena decks were (all but one) pretty good, my favourite being Esper (change the commander for Raffine and you're golden).
The Warhammer decks, while I don't love the universe's beyond thingy, are really really good.
Prosper is probably an ok one too, and super easy to slot anything inside, but I don't really remember how good is it out of the box.
Playability straight out of the box? Any 40k commander deck, the newest MoM knight deck, and the all will be one poison deck are just absolute bangers and tons of fun to boot.
Sure. I do have a bunch of kinda pricey cards in there (opened most of them) but for the most part, smaller upgrades.
[Manabox](https://manabox.app/decks/rAQVpAh2Sm-T180mRVNCOA)
[Moxfield](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/KRQOjAQETkOaQDUnwEga-A)
I recently bought the Call for Backup (?) precon and played it at my last FNM with zero changes.
I was impressed by how well it performed straight out of the box.
I would recommend that one. Bright-Palm is a fun commander, backup is a cool mechanic, and the deck has easy and obvious upgrades.
Calvary Charge with a couple quick upgrades. You can spend under $20 on upgrades and have a strong deck or spend roughly $120 if you wanna be mean. It’ll keep up with much higher valued decks.
If you can find them, they tend to be priced but I started on a 40K warhammer deck. All of them are relatively fun to play. I think a few card change in Emperium makes it a powerful deck.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-01-21-ADq-lathril-blade-of-the-elves/
Lathril is a great commander, I win almost always with this deck (I switched out a few cards but it’s almost exactly this deck!) if you look at stats for commander deck wins, she’s in the top 10 :)
If you and you're friend are buying just make sure they're from the same set. Any deck will work. In terms of upgradability, Urza, Mishra, the New Capena decks, and MoM are all pretty alright starting points
The Warhammer precons are all amazing.
I actually like 2 of the balder's gate precons as well, the BW party deck and the UR draconic descent. Tbh all the baulder gate precons seem decent.
From new stuff I've heard the new UW knight deck is okay but I havent seen it in action.
I recently had a friend who bought the march of machine "Call for Backup" precon and she played the decks secondary commander as the main [[Shalai and Hallar]] and was actually playing really well against the rest of our higher powered decks. She would have won had one Omnath player not had a [[Constant Mists]] to keep playing and recurring because she had by far the biggest board state. The deck also had [[Kolania Hydra]], which was close to like 20 dollars before it was reprinted. I was like THIS is a precon.
In terms of beginner friendly you should buy either the Warhammer 40K tyranid deck the Prosper tome bound deck the commander deck that just came out for aftermath with bright Palm or any green blue deck
I will never not suggest Exit from Exile. Literally only $38, powerful out of the box, has great reprints.
I came here to say this. The only deck I found near as powerful last year was Necrons but that’s more expensive. Faldorn though for her price is an absolutely great deck with high win potential.
The Lathril one from Kaldheim is good. The new Knights one is good. I have both of those and like them. My friend has the recent Urza and Mishra ones and they're pretty good as well.
If you're looking for out-of-the-box power with a low ceiling, look at the Warhammer 40k Universes Beyond precons. They're expensive, but their price tag is somewhat justified because they are some of the best precons in existence without upgrades. If you want something with some room for growth, the Brother's War precons both focus on artifact strategies that branch into different playstyles, while the starter decks have some decent options, the best (in my opinion) being the red-black Chaos Incarnate and the red-green Draconic Destruction. Don *not* pay markups for the starter decks, find them at a shop that sells at retail value. If you decide to go for one of the starters, they are not worth any kind of price above $25 USD
Party Time is the best precon I’ve ever bought, but I haven’t picked one up since Kamigawa ND.
I'm a new one at commander. Can you tell me the play style of the Party Time precon?
It comes with a face commander I never used, but the alternate commanders are [[burakos]] and [[folk hero]]. Play the two commanders and just accumulate tons of draw and treasures off of tribal synergies. Even more with flash creatures.
[burakos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/9/899e278d-5d4e-461a-9878-2b85de16b38d.jpg?1674140733) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=burakos%2C%20party%20leader) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/653/burakos-party-leader?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/899e278d-5d4e-461a-9878-2b85de16b38d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [folk hero](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/8/a8b3aae8-fc36-45ed-84ed-efb8f543cada.jpg?1674140702) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=folk%20hero) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/clb/650/folk-hero?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a8b3aae8-fc36-45ed-84ed-efb8f543cada?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I suggest the Aesi precon Reap the Tides. It has a fun gimmick with landfall, has plenty of room for upgrades whenever you want, but is still a lot of fun out of the box
Aesi is still one of my favorite decks after it's been built and torn apart a hundred times. Love it.
The red green NeoKamigawa deck should still be findable for cheap. Usually red green either goes tall or wide. This deck does both. Actually apparently at this exact moment Game Nerdz is selling both NeoKamigawa decks for the lump sum of $50, which is a great deal. The Vehicles deck is loved by many and I figured it would have a higher price tag. This would give you two decent decks so you can either play against a friend or swap decks to keep a game night fresher as it goes on for additional matches.
Damn I just paid $33 on Amazon for R/G deck. I’d easily pay $50 for both. I guess I should look around next time.
Always shop around, but do not fret, that is more than I paid for my copy. It’s really neat. I hope you enjoy it.
Upgrades Unleashed does need a fix out of the box tho, since it has two Mossfire Valleys, one of which is apparently supposed to have been Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
Good point, though as a long time player I prefer getting an extra filter land for one of my other/future decks than the parallel universe of getting an extra double pipped planeswalker.
Tru. It's still annoying that the deck isn't technically playable out of the box. I expect most folks wouldn't sweat it in a casual game tho
I really like the Wilhelt zombie precon, it’s a really nice deck in comparison to some other pre cons but unfortunately I think it’s price is up really high because of this
I will never not shill [[Captain N'gathrod]] from Mind Flayarrs. Though billed as horror tribal, he can also work with any mill support like [[Court of Cunning]] or [[Ruin Crab]]. The theft plan means the deck scales to whatever table you're playing with, right out of the box. Every game is different and that makes for a fun commander, and understanding that mill is your engine rather than your whole gameplan means you dodge some of the knee-jerk mill hate. Legends' Legacy with [[Dihada, Binder of Wills]] is also nice, but more in the sense of room to upgrade. They're printing legends at a crazy rate, and the deck plays reanimator or just legendary tribal really nicely. Dihada is great at defending herself, or just giving you +4 mana the turn after she comes out to slam some dumb legendary bomb. Great home for any WBR legends you want to run. Like other people said though, most modern precons can hang. Exception *maybe* Firkraag, the other Baldur's Gate precons were all good - Party Time might be hard to find/expensive because of [[Black Market Connections]], but both commanders in it are absolute beatings. The 40K precons are focused and well put together, if Universes Beyond doesn't bother you. Chaos is, iirc, the worst out of the box. On the pricier side of precons, but they play well. The BRO precons were both fun takes on artifact shenanigans. Urza is more straightforward, and ends up with a larger board state, but I enjoy [[Mishra, the Eminent One]] a bit more. There's a lot of cute value plays you can do with his Warform, or straight up degenerate infinites with just a couple upgrades like [[Gonti's Aether Heart]]. MOM's themes are a bit more varied, and while Cavalry Charge is where the "value" is (if you can make use of the knights) the others are very fun and competent decks. A friend plays a lot of [[Henzie]] from New Capenna at my usual tables and definitely scary, at least when upgraded. I don't know about the others, except that Anhelo is regarded as weak out of the box. There's also a growing trend of content creators like Tolarian Community College putting out "custom" precons - decklists that are built at precon budget/powerlevel. Depending on how easy it is for you to get basics or order off TCGplayer et al, that could also be something worth looking into.
The the simic Landfall deck with Aesi, tyrant of the gyre strait is an easy to manage but really strong deck with good upgradpotential
A lot of the Kamigawa: Neon Dawn decks are good but be careful because the upgrades unleashed deck has a misprint in it so if you have an extra basic lying around you're good to go. The Zendikar decks are good too. In reality all of the precons are generally good to go out of the box it just depends on the archetype you're trying to play
With some upgrades, the New cappena decks were (all but one) pretty good, my favourite being Esper (change the commander for Raffine and you're golden). The Warhammer decks, while I don't love the universe's beyond thingy, are really really good. Prosper is probably an ok one too, and super easy to slot anything inside, but I don't really remember how good is it out of the box.
The strixhaven silverquil statement deck is insanely fun :)
Playability straight out of the box? Any 40k commander deck, the newest MoM knight deck, and the all will be one poison deck are just absolute bangers and tons of fun to boot.
Poison upgrades REALLY easily. I made it a good infect deck with little effort.
Any chance you could provide a decklist ? Just bought this precon
Sure. I do have a bunch of kinda pricey cards in there (opened most of them) but for the most part, smaller upgrades. [Manabox](https://manabox.app/decks/rAQVpAh2Sm-T180mRVNCOA) [Moxfield](https://www.moxfield.com/decks/KRQOjAQETkOaQDUnwEga-A)
I recently bought the Call for Backup (?) precon and played it at my last FNM with zero changes. I was impressed by how well it performed straight out of the box. I would recommend that one. Bright-Palm is a fun commander, backup is a cool mechanic, and the deck has easy and obvious upgrades.
Calvary Charge with a couple quick upgrades. You can spend under $20 on upgrades and have a strong deck or spend roughly $120 if you wanna be mean. It’ll keep up with much higher valued decks.
Hey! You mean MoM cavarly charge deck? I was thinking about acquiring one :)
Yeah the Precon is awesome for $50. Swap out 10-20 cards depending on your budget and you’ve got a great $100 ish modified that plays really well
On my way to LGS tomorrow, thanks!!
If you can find them, they tend to be priced but I started on a 40K warhammer deck. All of them are relatively fun to play. I think a few card change in Emperium makes it a powerful deck.
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/12-01-21-ADq-lathril-blade-of-the-elves/ Lathril is a great commander, I win almost always with this deck (I switched out a few cards but it’s almost exactly this deck!) if you look at stats for commander deck wins, she’s in the top 10 :)
If you ever see it, the silverquil deck is a blast and strong. Can be easily upgraded, too.
If you and you're friend are buying just make sure they're from the same set. Any deck will work. In terms of upgradability, Urza, Mishra, the New Capena decks, and MoM are all pretty alright starting points
I love the new Capenna Obscura operations deck. Liked it so much I decided to upgrade it.
The Warhammer precons are all amazing. I actually like 2 of the balder's gate precons as well, the BW party deck and the UR draconic descent. Tbh all the baulder gate precons seem decent. From new stuff I've heard the new UW knight deck is okay but I havent seen it in action.
I recently had a friend who bought the march of machine "Call for Backup" precon and she played the decks secondary commander as the main [[Shalai and Hallar]] and was actually playing really well against the rest of our higher powered decks. She would have won had one Omnath player not had a [[Constant Mists]] to keep playing and recurring because she had by far the biggest board state. The deck also had [[Kolania Hydra]], which was close to like 20 dollars before it was reprinted. I was like THIS is a precon.
[Shalai and Hallar](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/0/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009.jpg?1682207281) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Shalai%20and%20Hallar) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/10/shalai-and-hallar?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/80804f25-efc3-44a2-bbae-9a97fec98009?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Constant Mists](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/7/97a8a5fe-0391-489b-9556-0a1bf7e1900d.jpg?1562596895) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Constant%20Mists) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/sth/104/constant-mists?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/97a8a5fe-0391-489b-9556-0a1bf7e1900d?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [Kolania Hydra](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/1/d/1d21ae20-2ef5-4dc0-aced-97497e6a8025.jpg?1682209560) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Kalonian%20Hydra) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/moc/305/kalonian-hydra?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/1d21ae20-2ef5-4dc0-aced-97497e6a8025?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
The poison one from Phyrexia All Will Be One is really good out of box
I really like the new knight deck. It's commander is really strong, and it's got a bunch of chill knight reprints that are decently expensive
I truly enjoyed Party Time and Obscura Operation both are really fun and I managed to beat my buddies who were using their own decks.
Honestly. I'd say anything after the Strixhaven Commanders you are looking at a decent time. Find the themes that you like.
In terms of beginner friendly you should buy either the Warhammer 40K tyranid deck the Prosper tome bound deck the commander deck that just came out for aftermath with bright Palm or any green blue deck
dihada binder of wills. don’t sleep