MTG Salvation

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/feature/commander-2018-edition-decklists-and-tokens-2018-07-27

They look introductory. I presume the lowered power level is to complement Battlebond and Dominaria since all three products cater to EDH format.

Though I’m surprised that many (cheap) older cards that’d fit the themes didn’t show up.

Either I have to pick one, Esper is the most interesting of the bunch, while the Jund deck least so.

Maybe down the line I'll end up regretting it (again) but I don't see the need for me to pick one of these decks up. There's only like 2-3 cards I'm somewhat interested in, so likely will pick those up as singles.

There's no Life from the loam in lands matter and there's no copy enchantment in the enchantment deck. Whoever is making these lists failed miserably.

What's the reason they have gone to four decks of late?

So, I dunno for others, but for me I don’t see these lists and power level / reprints any greater than previous years, but didn’t WotC mention that they’ve increased the MSRP because they were going to include higher power level out of the box and higher valued reprints?

Edit:
For example, the Esper Subjective Reality deck doesn’t include a reprint of Sensei’s Divining Top, which could arguably be the best card for the intended strategy of he deck, and otherwise the highest valued reprints are Sol Ring and Entreat the Angels, both under $5 to begin with? Seems lame to me.

The jund deck even has Seer's Sundial instead of Horn of Greed

I think I'll just pass on that one and buy the 4-ish cards I want from it in the aftermarket.

The others are all good enough for me.

Quote from MRdown2urth »

What's the reason they have gone to four decks of late?

A game of EDH usually consist of four people, which is why having five decks might led to one deck not used. Hence, they changed from color-pie based decks to theme-based decks. No complaints from me.

Quote from turtlerock »

So, I dunno for others, but for me I don’t see these lists and power level / reprints any greater than previous years, but didn’t WotC mention that they’ve increased the MSRP because they were going to include higher power level out of the box and higher valued reprints?

Do you have a source for this?

I always buy all decks from Commander series, since I could lend them out to people who wants to try out the format.

Quote from Anachronity »

The jund deck even has Seer's Sundial instead of Horn of Greed

Personally I'd rather have the higher cost than a symmetrical effect. Plus horn doesn't trigger off ramp.

Reprints are definitely a bit underwhelming. Seems like in years past we've had more exciting stuff - plus none of the new cards are eternal viable (at least, from what I can tell) so the price on these seems like it's likely to tank. Slightly annoying, since I already preordered 2 sets =/ (not that I wouldn't buy them - traditions are traditions - but I'll be annoyed if I could have waited and gotten them cheaper) Maybe it's the same excuse as the international decks - trying to keep the precons in the hands of filthy casuals? Although really, printing enough copies to ensure that anyone can pick them up has always been part of the precons since the 2011 debacle.

What I think is really the worst part, though, is that we have so, so few new arts on reprints. I only counted one. That to me says they had fewer resources than last year, which worries me.

Quote from cyberium_neo »

Quote from turtlerock »

So, I dunno for others, but for me I don’t see these lists and power level / reprints any greater than previous years, but didn’t WotC mention that they’ve increased the MSRP because they were going to include higher power level out of the box and higher valued reprints?

Do you have a source for this?

Nope, no source, just me casually remembering reading “something” on the internet. Doing a quick Google search didn’t yield anything concrete other than others’ reactions to the MSRP price increase leading to that conclusion. *\_(‘_’)_/*

Woulda been nice, but oh well.

I have to agree with the others, with the bump to 40 BUCKS each, these should have some better reprints. The original cards are great, and I will buy all 4 because getting all the originals is almost that much, but its disappointing. Seems like a little cash grabby with the ramp up in EDH players recently.

Quote from MRHblue »

I have to agree with the others, with the bump to 40 BUCKS each, these should have some better reprints. The original cards are great, and I will buy all 4 because getting all the originals is almost that much, but its disappointing. Seems like a little cash grabby with the ramp up in EDH players recently.

Without a doubt, many of WotC's recent products have EDH players in mind, evident by Battlebond and Dominaria, even M19/I25 have some EDH stuff.

I don't mind the decks themselves being average as long as lands are above average so players could rebuild more easily.

I'm very happy with about three cards from the set,

I was originally excited with developments goal of making thematic decks built around a function. But after seeing the actual cards put in, and the legendaries worked in, I feel that they should not have advertised these decks as lands/topdeck/something matters.

It made a large amount of hype that, everywhere I look, I see complaints about.

They should have just given the decks fun names and ignored any sort of archetype label. That way we can still enjoy the clever new legends without wondering how they were supposed to be in x-matters strategy

There's some really neat new cards introduced in this set. While I'm not silly enough to expect things like good duals, Sensei's Diving Top, Greater Auramancy, and Scroll Rack the reprints aren't too great. The deck design is kinda underwhelming. Still grabbing them because might as well continue to collect all the commander precons.

The reason that these decklists are underwhelming, in addition to the lack of good reprints, is because they all play one-dimensionally due to the lack of reprint of cards that make each archetype stand out.

For example, for artifacts, even the 2016 Breya deck came with Daretti, Scrap Savant as well as Trash for Treasure or Goblin Welder. These are easy reprints that aren't worth much but contribute heavily to the identity of what blue-red artifacts can do. Sure, you can also throw a Fabricate in there, but it makes the deck unique in a way with those two mentioned cards alone.

Lands doesn't have a Burgeoning, Ghost Quarter, or even Ramunap Excavator. Those are critical misses with respect to the identity of the power of lands decks, which is to maximize the power of utility lands. There should be more utility lands and even a Realms Uncharted would be fine.

Enchantments can do funky things by just having them sit there. They uniquely could have thrown in Skybind and Starfield of Nyx because cards like those make enchantment decks stand out. An Idyllic Tutor would not have hurt.

As for the last one, well they could have thrown a Soothsaying and a Future Sight to help with the theme. Miracles are pretty neat but the decks seem pretty reliant on the commander. If they wanted a "weak tutor" that promoted the deck's focus of planning ahead then Long-Term Plans would be a good one.

As it stands, most of the decks are not interesting out of the box.

It's a shame that we didn't get Colossal Dreadmaw. It's been a while since it saw a printing.

Quote from MRHblue »

I have to agree with the others, with the bump to 40 BUCKS each, these should have some better reprints.

Just accounting for inflation on the price of the C14 precons (the first ones priced at $34.99), these decks would be at $37.24 today

I like a lot of the new cards, but with a few very notable exceptions, the reprints range from obvious but not particularly inspiring to downright awful, and that makes me have zero interest in playing any of these decks as actual decks. Plushpenguin summarized things very well, noting how one-dimensional these decks are within their themes, to the extent they have themes at all. Plushpenguin notes several cards that aren't super-pricey that could have been reprinted to make them vastly more interesting to play and to play against, and I think we could all think of lots of others.

Two of the decks feature almost no ramp. None of them are running adequate amounts of card draw.

And please, can't we get some more lands that are actually playable in the precons? I'm not expecting Wasteland or Ravnica duals, but a pile of crappy CIPT duals is not an acceptable land base even for an introductory product.

Pretty underwhelming to be honest. If I didn't already have a lands-style deck, Windgrace might have been interesting but as it is, the only card I'm interested in is Myth Unbound just because it's a neat effect. I also wouldn't mind picking up a Kestia, the Cultivator at some point just because that art is sick.

Pretty disappointed. I was quite hopeful after they announced the colors and themes, but most of these decks are only tangentially related to the themes they were announced as. Guess I'll wait for next year.

Quote from plushpenguin »

Lands doesn't have a Burgeoning, Ghost Quarter, or even Ramunap Excavator. Those are critical misses with respect to the identity of the power of lands decks, which is to maximize the power of utility lands. There should be more utility lands and even a Realms Uncharted would be fine.

While those are nice, I honestly wasn't really expecting them to come to play in the Jund deck. We all know the power of Lands decks, what they do and what they're trying to do. However, as an introductory product to the idea of Lands Mattering, I think they could have easily made a fun and unique precon without making it so one dimensional.

As I said in the other thread, by simply taking cards like Drown in Filth, Borborygmos Enraged, and Sasaya, Orochi Ascendant, and made more cards caring about what lands were where, they would have made an excellent precon that was not only a great entry to a style of deck, but a pre-con powered one at that. As it is, our "Lands Matter" deck is a stupid "Ramp into fatty, turn fatty sideways" deck that has next to no finesse to playing it :/

I wasn't expecting much when the Hydra and Spider were spoiled, tbh.

Quote from illakunsaa »

It's a shame that we didn't get Colossal Dreadmaw. It's been a while since it saw a printing.

I know, especially when it fits right into the actual theme of the Jund deck, being ramp-battlecruiser and all...

Honestly, I have nothing to pick up. At least Karador got Mirri, Weatherlight Duelist last year thanks to the Legendary-Theme (and Sisay) in the deck despite every tribe being irrelevant to me. I have a lands deck, but even Lord Windgrace doesn't appeal to me (granted partially it's my fault since I tuned the deck to concentrate on library-exile to get Oblivion Sower kick-started instead). If his last ability animated 6 lands (for bigger stats) instead I might be tempted to try him on basis on-theme flavor completely, but as it stands he isn't that useful (that first ability might be utility but then I again I usually ramp fast enough into other card draws that it isn't that necessary at all).

The other cards that appeal to me (Varchild, Atixmethes) aren't in foil so I'm in for the long haul (guess who's still waiting for that Teferi's Protection Judge Foil I'm confident will be a thing...)

I am glad to see that I am not th only one who feels this way. This is a total bust of a set, which is a super let down when the yearly commander product is what I look forward to the most over the last 5-6 years.

We always used to get something interesting to different players, yet I haven't found anyone really excited about any of these decks.

There have been plenty of duds in the past, but never the whole set.

I simply don't care what any of the commanders or alternate commanders do. I don't care about the reprints. I don't care about the new cards much at all either.

Quote from Lithl »

Quote from MRHblue »

I have to agree with the others, with the bump to 40 BUCKS each, these should have some better reprints.

Just accounting for inflation on the price of the C14 precons (the first ones priced at $34.99), these decks would be at $37.24 today

Thats not a real consideration when packs cost what they cost 10 years ago. This is the second bump in MSRP, it should come with some sort of value added.

I guess Wizards was getting tired of selling commander decks

Quote from TetzaHexloq »

I guess Wizards was getting tired of selling commander decks

No, I think they intended these decks to be easier for new EDH players to join the format. There's no way from business point of view to jeopardize a huge crowd of commander players, and eager players will always be potential buyers, what they need are NEW EDH players who want to join but don't have starting decks with a theme.