Four Heroes, Seven Mana: The Fantastic Four Precon Upgrade Guide

Four and five-color precons are ambitious. Heck, four and five-color decks in general are ambitious. If your mana generation doesn't line up perfectly with the cards you draw, you're left playing the bystander and hoping the rest of the table has pity on you. But then, when you finally start catching up, you've got the best of what those four colors have to offer at your fingertips.

With some tweaks, the four-color Marvel Super Heroes' The Fantastic Four precon can accelerate quickly into casting several big, impactful spells a turn. Instead of slowly ramping and waiting for your mana pips to line up with the cards in your hand, you'll be guaranteed to start curving out early.

First, let's look at the default configuration of this four-color, four-hero ensemble. Here's what comes in this precon, and the stock decklist:

• 1 Ready-to-play 100-card Commander deck
• 4 Traditional foil face commanders with borderless art
• 96 Non-foil cards, including 26 new-to-Magic cards
• 10 Non-foil double-sided tokens
• 1 Reference card
• 1 Deck box

Family Matters

This deck comes with six potential commanders, with a slight nudge towards the stretchy guy in blue.

Mister Fantastic is a blue 2/4 with vigilance and reach for three mana with a couple of powerful abilities. Reach as a keyword is usually outside of blue's color pie, but come on, look at those limbs, what can't he reach? Like the rest of the team of four, he has a beginning of combat trigger if you've cast a noncreature spell this turn: in this case, his trigger has you draw a card. His activated tap ability, for WURG, lets you copy any triggered ability you control twice. This includes his own card draw trigger, so for an additional four mana you could draw three cards nearly every turn. But the cost adds up and a deck with Mister Fantastic at the helm isn't very proactive, nor very prescriptive as to what the deck's gameplan should be. Triggers? Everyone's got those. How many included in this precon are worth copying twice for such a hefty mana cost? Not many. He'll play a valuable role in the 99 of this deck, but he doesn't have what it takes to be the leader.

Our next contender, Invisible Woman, is a white 3/3 for three mana with a more interesting pair of abilities. Her combat trigger, if you've cast a noncreature spell this turn, is to create a 0/3 colorless Wall with defender and reach. At first, I underestimated this ability; the Wall tokens are colorless, so they can't be part of an artifact strategy. They have defender, so you can't buff them and attack. They do, however, provide you with a constant source of protection, including from creatures with flying. Based on that alone she's irreplaceable in this deck because you need to grow a defensive barrier to keep you alive while you ramp and start casting big spells. Her second ability, which triggers when you attack, is great for pushing through some massive damage by buffing a single creature's power and making it unblockable. The only problem is that this deck is light on those massive attackers. It has a couple of them, but not the critical mass that would make her ability truly impactful. She does a great job keeping you alive while you set up a better board state, but she'll do it just fine from the 99.

Next we have The Thing. Here's the thing about The Thing: six mana commanders are very hard to justify. They should at least have an enters trigger, or be part of a synergistic combo of cards that will quickly put you ahead of your opponents. The Thing, for six mana, is a green 5/5 with trample and he has the standard two triggered abilities that his other teammates have. At the beginning of combat, if you cast a noncreature spell this turn, he gets four +1/+1 counters, making him a 9/9 hopefully on the first turn you cast him. Then, whenever The Thing attacks, you can pay WURG to double the number of counters on any number of permanents you control. The only bearers of +1/+1 counters in this deck are The Thing himself, Medusa, Inhuman Queen, and whoever got counters from Nova Flame or Flame On! or Path of Discovery. His second ability is extremely lackluster in this deck for anything besides buffing his own power, and he has no ward or indestructibility to protect him (I guess Stoneskin isn't what it used to be), so The Thing is not the thing you want in the command zone.

Finally there's Human Torch. Despite starting as a red vanilla 3/2 for four mana, if you cast a noncreature spell before combat, he gains flying, double strike, and haste until end of turn. That's a nice upgrade for when his torch is lit. Then when he attacks, you can pay WURG and give him a group slug effect in the vein of other Universes Beyond cards like Vincent, Vengeful Atoner, Amarant Coral, and Super State; whenever he deals combat damage to an opponent, he deals that much damage to each other opponent. A six-damage swing at the table is, for this cost, just ok. With some Voltron-style power-ups he could be huge, hasty, and damage each of your opponents for a hefty amount in a single attack. The problem is that there are just three cards that will immediately buff his power in this deck. His kindling isn't here. He's the least attractive of the Fantastic Four to lead the deck.

So that's all four of our options, and we still don't have — wait, what's that up in the sky? A bird? A plane? A legally-distinct super-powered alien that looks just like a human? Well, the last one is kind of true, but — no, it's a mana dork!

Crystal, Inhuman Princess is a 2/3 flier for Gruul and one generic mana. She can tap to add red, green, white, or blue mana. Whenever you cast a noncreature spell, she deals damage equal to the number of that spell's colors to each of your opponents. She's the glue that holds this team together. She's also a contender for a style of deckbuilding that's all the rage these days called 2-4-7 (but in this case, it's more like 3-5-7). The idea is to have a cheap mana dork as your commander, cast it as soon as possible, cast a big mana rock the following turn for four or five mana, and every subsequent turn you should have access to around seven or eight mana to cast big haymakers. Besides roughly following the 3-5-7 plan, we can take advantage of Crystal's ping ability by enchanting her with Curiosity or its green equivalent, Keen Sense. Then any time you cast a noncreature spell that has one or more colors, if you have three opponents, you'll draw three cards. This kind of repeat card advantage is hard to beat!

With Crystal, we've found our pilot, and the rest of the family can come along for the ride.

Stay Rubbery

Rebound is a strong theme in this deck, which includes eight instants and sorceries with rebound in the stock list. Rebound spells may be a little over-costed for their effect, but getting the second cast trigger on the subsequent turn is vital for enabling all of the noncreature spell payoffs.

It's important to understand the intricacies of how rebound works: on resolution, a spell with rebound gets exiled. On your next upkeep, a rebound trigger will go on the stack. When that trigger resolves, you're given the option to cast the spell with rebound. If you don't want to, or can't, the spell remains in exile permanently, never to be triggered again. If you do cast it, you cast it from exile and it goes on the stack. When it resolves the second time, it goes to your graveyard. This means cards that pick up instants and sorceries from your graveyard to your hand are especially valuable.

Make a Splash

These are some of the powerful — and costly — noncreature spells that this deck comes with. Mind's Dilation, renamed here to The Watcher's Warning, gives you a chance to cast a card off the top of an opponent's deck for free when they cast their first spell each turn. This not only triggers on their turn when they're building up their board, but on any player's turn, in case they decide to cast an instant or a spell with flash. There's some luck involved because if their top card is a land, the trigger does nothing, or you might flip into a board wipe when you're the one who's ahead. It's a "may" ability so you can always decline to cast the spell you find.

Genesis Ultimatum, or The Five Arrive, has you look at the top five cards of your library and put any number of permanent cards from among them straight into play. At its worst, it's a seven mana draw five spell, which isn't great, but isn't terrible. At its best, it can put huge threats like Galactus, Devourer of Worlds directly into play as well as some lands to ramp you even further. The balance of this deck leans towards noncreature spells, so the average resolution of Genesis Ultimatum will put a threat or two onto the battlefield and draw you some fuel for future turns.

Nova Flame is an impressive card. It's a damage-based board wipe that has one of your creatures deal damage equal to its power to each other creature (including your own), but the additional X cost lets you add X +1/+1 counters to that creature before it burns every other creature in play. In the late game with loads of mana available, you will be able to turn one of your creatures into an Avengers-level threat, wipe out all possible blockers, then swing at an opponent for a big chunk of their life total. A good target for this spell is The Thing, who can double those counters for WURG when he attacks, or your commander since she has flying and only needs to deal 21 combat damage to take an opponent out, or Galactus who starts at 12/12, and has flying, trample, and indestructible.

One, Three, Five, Seven

These new additions, along with Firemind Vessel, Vastwood Surge, and Tablet of Discovery, allow you to jump ahead on the ramp ladder. Rather than just add one land or one mana, these all increase your mana production by two or three in just one spell. The commander is part of this plan; cast Crystal on turn three, then on turn four, whether you have a fourth land or not, you can cast Thran Dynamo, Firemind Vessel, or Vastwood Surge. Then on turn five, you can start deploying big, expensive, splashy spells.

Here's why we count to seven. Improvisation Capstone is a cascade-esque effect that repeats every turn; best of all, each subsequent turn for the rest of the game, it will recast from exile and trigger all your noncreature spell payoffs while finding you more spells to cast for free. It's not a budget card, but it's a perfect fit in this deck and works in many other decks you may build in the future.

One of the best payoffs for noncreature spells, Ovika, Enigma Goliath creates a number of 1/1 Phyrexian Goblin creature tokens with haste equal to the mana cost of any noncreature spell you cast. Ovika doesn't check whether you actually spent mana to cast the spell, it only checks its mana value, so rebound spells will give you their full value in Phyrexian Goblins twice. This will flood the board in a few turns' time and then Namor, Atlantean King can lead the Goblin horde into battle, giving them +2/+0 until end of turn as long as you're attacking a player with more life than you.

Volcanic Vision is an expensive way to get a spell back from your graveyard, but it's for a good reason; it deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to each creature your opponents control. One-sided board wipes are hard to find and they're incredibly powerful.

You vs The Guy She Tells You Not to Worry About

I was somewhat scathing in my assessment of the Fantastic Four's ability to be the commander of this deck. Well, time to turn up the heat; in my precon upgrade, I cut Human Torch from the roster. He's an easy swap for a much more powerful and synergistic card from Marvel Super Heroes: Thor, God of Thunder. When it comes to board presence, Human Torch can't hold a candle to Thor's ability to smite foes. Thor's enters trigger has you exile an instant, sorcery, or equipment card from your graveyard and lets you cast it until the end of your next turn. His more impressive ability is his second ability; whenever you cast a noncreature spell, Thor deals damage equal to that spell's mana value to any target. That includes rebound spells, Improvisation Capstone's repeated casts, and so on. He keeps the board clean of the biggest threats, and as a 5/5 flier, puts pressure on opponents' life totals as well.

If you want to keep the Fantastic Family together, this is a swap you can skip, or you can find some other cut for Thor, but in my assessment, Human Torch needs a lot more Voltron-style stat buffs to be worth the inclusion. There are powerful decks that can be made with Human Torch at the helm, but they require an entirely different theme than the one presented to us in this precon, and his ideal decklist may not even include Mister Fantastic or The Thing since there's little synergy between them.

Fifteen Swaps

Here's the full list of cards cut in this precon upgrade:

• Cleansing Nova, Ultimate Nullification, Collective Effort: Somewhat clunky removal spells in a deck that can afford paying for better ones
• Flame On!: A risky and expensive buff to a single creature. The rebound is nice, but its impact on the game is pretty minimal.
• Negative Zone Portal: Somewhere between graveyard hate and card advantage, this card does neither of them very well, and after four uses has a recurring 50% chance to sacrifice itself and return one of the exiled cards to that opponent's hand. That's a negative from me.
• Mirage Mirror: Did you ever wish you were somebody else? Most of this deck's creatures are legendary, and its bombs are instants and sorceries, so this card's inclusion makes little sense to me other than giving you the ability to temporarily copy someone else's card.
• The Fantasticar: As of right now, before any ban announcements have taken place, my understanding is that every Vintage player is trying to get their hands on a playset of these. In Commander, its statline is underwhelming, and if you manage to cast four noncreature spells in one turn (which this deck is not designed to do), getting four 4/4 tokens with flying and haste isn't the huge payoff that it is in a 1v1 format.
• First Family, Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards, Cut a Deal: Being in four colors, you have a deep well of card draw engines to pick from, and these fall short of the standards of this deck.
• Galvanic Iteration: Not at all a bad card for this deck, but it's hard to find the right spell and the right moment for it.
• Unstable Molecule Suit: Crystal doesn't make good use of this and it's a terrible rate for any other creature. Human Torch should take it with him to his new decklist.
• Path of Discovery: This seems to point to a go-wide creatures strategy that this deck doesn't accommodate.
• Black Bolt, Inhuman King: Fairly unimpressive stats with decent protection. He really doesn't synergize with this deck's plan.
• Human Torch: I've flamed this poor guy enough. I'm sure he'll get his revenge on me at the helm of a Voltron deck that slugs the table for 36 damage in a single turn. This deck just didn't have what it takes to make that dream happen.

Here are all the cards to add:

Six cards to help you achieve the 3-5-7 dream.

Three more noncreature bombs.

Curiosity and Keen Sense turn on Crystal's super-power to draw three cards per noncreature spell cast with one or more colors, and Open the Armory helps you find them.

Ovika and Thor are powerful synergistic creatures with your noncreature spells. Frantic Search is a bread-and-butter spellslinger card that immediately refunds you its entire casting cost by untapping three lands.

Staying with Aunt Crystal

Below is the upgraded decklist!

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