Best Cheap Pickups from the Warhammer 40k Precons

Last week was full of twists and turns in the world of Magic news, from pack changes to Darkhold Destinies' reveal at NYCC. On top of everything else, a Wizards spokesperson announced that the Warhammer 40k Commander precons are getting another print run, per IGN. This is exciting for several reasons, though chief among them is the much-needed reprinting of several high-value cards from these decks, some of which have soared as high as $30 USD. Here are some of the best cards to look for as their price tags settle down to a reasonable range.

Necron Dynasties

Canoptek Scarab Swarm

While only around $10 at the time of writing, Canoptek Scarab Swarm is a powerful graveyard hate spell for any deck that likes artifact creatures or tokens, in my experience a combination of those effects can be worth a lot more money. Not only does this blow out a player looking to Splendid Reclamation a graveyard full of lands or Wake the Past out a full board of artifacts, but it can immediately reward you with a big batch of artifact tokens. Even if you don’t need graveyard hate, or you need tokens and there isn’t an opposing player with a decent graveyard, you can always exile your own graveyard filled with fetchlands or artifacts that you’re willing to give up in exchange for tokens. It’s often hard to justify including graveyard hate — or really just vegetables-style effects in general — when building a deck, so having it stapled to an ability with a synergistic payoff is a huge upside.

You can do pretty much anything with mass artifact creature token creation abilities. Damage-and-drain-style effects like Mirkwood Bats, Arbaaz Mir, Impact Tremors, and Marionette Apprentice with a sacrifice outlet can pressure your opponents’ life totals, while Displaced Dinosaurs or Moonlit Meditation transform these bugs into big, beefy beaters. There’s also the option to use any manner of artifact- or creature-centric enters triggers, like Cathars’ Crusade, Gonti’s Aether Heart, Sarinth Steelseeker, or Champion of Lambholt. The applications are extensive; check out the artifactfall and creaturefall tags on Scryfall for a taste of the menu.

Cryptothrall

This protection piece needs little explanation. Cryptothrall is a relatively cheap way to give your artifact creatures hexproof, providing a solid layer of protection for your other mechanical monstrosities. Just bear in mind that it doesn’t give itself any protection, so it’s still susceptible to spot removal itself.

Canoptek Spyder

Canoptek Spyder is a powerful card advantage engine for any deck that utilizes artifact creatures or Vehicles, which grow more popular by the day. At a mana value of five, this creature might seem expensive at first, but with several ways to cheat artifacts into play across different colors, you should have few issues getting this creature into play. It works especially well with mass artifact reanimation spells, of which there are several options depending on your colors.

Sceptre of Eternal Glory

In recent years, several colors like white and red have gotten some interesting ways to address their difficulties with ramping. Sceptre of Eternal Glory is a great solution to similar issues for any color, being a colorless artifact itself. Ironically, given that this card has risen to nearly $20, this mana rock works great in budget mono-colored decks that run plenty of basic lands, as opposed to multicolor decks or high-budget decks that tend to include more nonbasic lands for color fixing or utility.

Darkness

This fog spell may not be original to this deck, but it’s still a fantastic card. Darkness is one of the few fog effects available in black, and as a $13 common spell it can be a tough card to justify spending money on. Regardless of where this spell settles in respect to its price tag, as long as it’s below its current price, it’ll be well worth the pickup.

Forces of the Imperium

Commissar Severina Raine

While aggro decks in Commander are often maligned as unplayable or “too mean,” depending on your perspective, it’s hard to argue with the efficiency and strength of some of the most aggressive creatures available. Commissar Severina Raine is not only a highly efficient creature, coming down early to maximize its attack trigger, it also has a variety of uses. Two mana for a sacrifice outlet isn’t exactly cheap, but it provides you with something else to do with this creature once boards start to develop, stymieing attacks. Further, backup sacrifice outlets that stay under the threat-detection radar are a smart deckbuilding strategy, given the strength of commonly-known free sacrifice outlets like Carrion Feeder or Viscera Seer which often meet their demise to targeted removal.

Celestine, the Living Saint

Lifegain decks are already a force to be reckoned with even on a low budget. Still, why not have easy access to another fantastic payoff piece? Celestine, the Living Saint is one of the strongest reanimation pieces in decks that gain even middling amounts of life per turn. She herself is a 3/4 with flying and lifelink, letting her fuel her own triggered ability fairly easily. Plenty of creatures with powerful abilities and easy ways to get themselves into the graveyard are at or below a mana value of three. Sakura-Tribe Elder, Selfless Spirit, Boromir, Warden of the Tower, Insidious Fungus are all great targets, and that’s just scratching the surface. There are also some powerful ways to both gain life and get creature cards into the graveyard at the same time, like Martyr of Sands, Trading Post, and Peace of Mind. You can even pick up another valuable reprint from this same deck in Sister Hospitaller, which reanimates any creature in your graveyard *and* gains you life equal to its mana value, setting you up nicely for a solid one-two reanimator punch. Suffice it to say, if your deck puts things in graveyards or gains life in any capacity, Celestine is at least worth considering.

And They Shall Know No Fear

Beyond just having one of the most badass names for a Magic card out there, And They Shall Know No Fear is a broadly-applicable mass protection spell for any creature type you like, and its +1/+0 anthem effect means this spell can double as a combat trick. White has accumulated a solid selection of different protection spells with different upsides, and having another option in that pool become more affordable is a great benefit.

The Golden Throne

Another powerful mana rock with a mana value of four, The Golden Throne is a good option for decks that like to sacrifice creatures, which is a lot of decks. Even if your deck isn’t strictly focused on sacrificing creatures, the likelihood you have a stray 1/1 Soldier token or a spare creature with a spent enters trigger is higher than you might expect. Whatever fuel you may have available to feed into it, a four-mana rock that creates three mana is a strong rate for ramp.

Thunderhawk Gunship

Huzzah! All three of my fellow Vehicles deck enjoyers can rejoice now that Warhammer 40k is being reprinted. Some of the most powerful top-end Vehicles available come from these decks. Thunderhawk Gunship is likely the best of the best, as it does everything that a Vehicles deck wants to do. It provides not one, but two 2/2 creatures to serve as potential crewmates, and its attack trigger gives your entire Vehicle fleet flying for a good alpha strike. The best part is that it’s a colorless spell, so you can play this card in any Vehicle deck you want, regardless of what color suits your fancy. Exile heaps of cards from your opponents’ libraries with The Omenkeel, make mounds of Treasure tokens with Setzer, Wandering Gambler, or use Bello, Bard of the Brambles to make all of your expensive Vehicles into hasty creatures for free; the world is your steering wheel.

Reaver Titan

Two in a row! Reaver Titan is a behemoth of a Vehicle at a statline of 10/10, and with protection from mana value three or less, it can be very difficult to remove or chump block this monster. Not only that, but it also deals five damage to each opponent when it enters, which is a tremendous amount of pressure to apply with just one creature. A crew cost of four isn’t particularly high, either, so if you can cheat this into play early — Greasefang, Okiba Boss players in particular — you can get the ball rolling very, very quickly.

Tyranid Swarm

Biophagus

When considering ways to be efficient with mana, be it by using abilities that discount mana costs, or conventional ramp methods, you should always consider potential upsides, synergies, and rider effects. Some of the best mana-efficiency creatures in the format are ones with a specific attribute that makes them a better choice than others. Biophagus is easily one of the best examples of this — +1/+1 counter decks often count on creating as many triggers for placing +1/+1 counters on creatures as possible, and this mana dork starts that process immediately. Creatures entering with counters on them is the same as putting a counter on that creature, so using the mana from Biophagus will trigger cards like Mikey & Leo, Chaos & Order, Ant-Man, Colony Commander, Axgard Artisan, or Dusk Legion Duelist. Just pick your favorite +1/+1 counter synergy piece, and Biophagus will cook for you.

Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph

As much as I hate to give this card publicity, Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph is easily one of the most powerful — and aggravating as sin — creatures to come from 40k. Pingers are already a menace across several deck types, like Firebrand Archer, Kessig Flamebreather, or Agate Instigator, and this three-armed Tyranid Human triples the potency of each of those one-damage effects. There are also sweeping single-damage spells like End the Festivities that get that much more powerful. Even worse, it isn’t just a flat damage increase; Ghyrson Starn actually deals the damage added to each instance. Basilisk Collar is obviously a juicy inclusion, as is Curiosity. If you really want people to hate your guts, toss Vivi Ornitier into your Ghyrson Starn brew of choice and watch the sparks fly as you laugh all the way to hell. You sick freak.

Shadow in the Warp

Speaking of hate, Shadow in the Warp is a fun and valuable cost reducer that also hates out your opponents’ noncreature spells. Gruul decks love these gorey, generic-y spells that enhance your creatures and make your opponents sad to play Magic — just see Ruric Thar, the Unbowed.

The Ruinous Powers

Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch

Spellslinger decks may not need the help, but Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch is a keystone piece for decks that cast a lot of instant and sorcery spells. Its pinger effect isn’t the best rate for the mana cost, but the recursion that happens every turn makes this creature very worthwhile. This creature works best in decks that cast high-impact instant and sorcery spells, so trade in your Counterspell s and Arcane Denial s for splashier effects like Cryptic Command and Plasm Capture that will provide significantly more value for repeated casts.

Magnus the Red

If you’re a Prismari enthusiast, you might remember that Magnus the Red spiked hard earlier this year with the spoiling of the Prismari Artistry decklist back in early April. While the price has settled back down to around ~$9, this creature has a unique effect that puts it in high demand for certain types of decks. It can work well with Spellslinger decks as well as it can with token-centric decks, and its ability is open-ended enough that it’ll see applications well into the future when other blue-red-inclusive commanders with abilities in the same vein come out.

Bloodthirster

Extra combat effects can be terrifying and lethal with the right setup, and I’d consider “stapled to a flying, trampling 6/6” as a good start. Bloodthirster doesn’t just give you one extra combat, though; each time it deals combat damage to a player, you’ll get another combat phase, though it only untaps itself, and can’t attack a player you’ve already attacked this turn. Fortunately, combat damage triggers are easily abused, so this restriction can be circumvented. Double strike and Roaming Throne are the best ways to stretch out your extra combat phases, as long as you can find other ways to untap your creatures. If you want to be super spicy, though, there’s one way to give only the triggered abilities of a creature to something else. First, turn your Bloodthirster into an artifact with Liquimetal Torque or Mycosynth Lattice, then use Shuri, Wakandan Inventor to have your artifact-Bloodthirster become a copy of either Eye of Vecna or Hand of Vecna, making sure to sacrifice the original permanent to the legend rule, then activate The Book of Vile Darkness. The Vecna token gains all triggered abilities of the cards exiled with the Book’s activated ability, regardless of whether the cards exiled with that ability are actually the Hand and Eye of Vecna or not, meaning you can get an 8/8 indestructible creature with Bloodthirster’s triggered ability without its pesky restriction.

Blood for the Blood God!

As a wheel spell castable at instant speed, Blood for the Blood God! is a great spell to cast after a boardwipe has reduced its casting cost down to just three mana. It’s also a great spell to use in Aristocrats decks that have plenty of bodies to toss on the pyre. This spell is flexible, draws eight cards guaranteed regardless of your hand size, and eight damage to each opponent is not an amount to sneeze at. Budget-friendly Rakdos Aristocrats lists or Reanimator strategies will love to get easier access to this spell.

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