Opinion: 5 Color Precons Need to Change
The precon formula has vastly improved, but it still isn’t enough.
Today is February 18, 2026, and my heart was just shattered by Wizards of the Coast.
I have played Magic: The Gathering since 2018, famously one of the worst years in memory for Commander precons for a variety of reasons, when the MSRP was $35 USD for one “ready-to-play” Commander deck. If you don’t remember the decklists from that time, those quotation marks are doing some very heavy lifting. While the approximate values of these lists have fluctuated with time and various reprints, currently the most expensive deck is Exquisite Invention, somewhere in the neighborhood of $70 USD, almost entirely on account of Unwinding Clock costing nearly $20. Aside from the clock, nearly every other card in the deck is worth what amounts to pennies in terms of modern precon value, with some specific exceptions.
In 2020, the Commander format as a whole received one of its hugest changes at the time: Commander precons would now be tied to a specific set as opposed to being released in one cycle per year, with the intent being that Wizards wanted players to be able to release more precons per year as Commander took over as their darling format, while also providing players with the opportunity to have more incentive to buy product related to Standard sets that could contain a bomb mythic that would slot right into their brand new Commander deck. I fondly remember purchasing the Enhanced Evolutions precon tied to Ikoria, and opening a prerelease foil of Dirge Bats that I immediately crammed into the deck.
Then, in 2021, one of the craziest things in the history of the format happened. Commander Legends hit the scene and saw the format being injected with an absolutely massive amount of new technology. New monocolored Partner Legendary Creatures, Jeweled Lotus (may it never be unbanned), etched foils, the first-ever reprints of the Partner cycle from Commander 2016, and more all came crashing into view, and it was glorious. I remember spending half of an entire paycheck on Commander Legends booster boxes, cracking several copies of chase mythics, and feeling absolutely on fire.
So where has the format gone since then?
Many Magic: The Gathering players have many opinions on the state of Commander and Magic as a whole these days, and I won’t bore you with a salt-filled recounting of the existence of Hullbreacher wheels locks, so here’s the gist: Commander precons are better now than they’ve ever been. Solid reprint value, good mana bases, and inventive new mechanics. What’s the problem with this? There’s one area of precons that hasn’t gone anywhere, and that would be the issue of 5 color precon mana bases.
This is on display extremely prominently with the recent release of Lorwyn Eclipsed, which saw the bombastic new Ashling, the Limitless added to the format, alongside a pretty interesting precon with some seriously cool reprints. The problem, however, lies in the mana base for the deck.
While there are several interesting includes in this land package, I see several issues.
- A pretty high volume of lands that always enter tapped. This slows your deck down considerably.
- The inclusion of the Thriving lands cycle. In addition to always being tapped, these are a huge pain to track in paper play and don’t fix your mana forever.
- Very little in the way of interesting lands that reward you for your deck’s strategy.
Why is this such a problem?
Cut to today, when Wizards of the Coast announced the new 5 color precon associated with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles set.
Immediately, we see several improvements to the mana base in comparison to that present in the Dance of the Elements precon. In addition to having far more unconditionally-untapped multicolor lands, there are several notable reprints: City of Brass, Spire Garden, and Undergrowth Stadium, each of which was over $10 USD when this decklist was announced.
A large and vocal part of the community has been bemoaning Wizards’ prioritization of Universes Beyond over in-universe settings for a good chunk of time now, and this type of favoritism does not bode well for those players.
On top of that, an even larger part of the community has been banging the drum that Wizards should be printing the so-called Bondlands, a cycle of untapped multicolor lands dependent on number of opponents, directly into Commander precons for several years. For whatever reason, Wizards has refused to take this course of action until now. Not only is the 5 color Turtles precon more expensive than a typical Commander deck from an in-universe set, but it is also associated with a Universes Beyond property that many players are convinced will not sell particularly well that is coming on the heels of a return to one of the most beloved in-universe sets in the Magic universe, that had its own 5 color precon — the aforementioned Dance of the Elements.
I consider this a slap in the face to the community, personally. I even bought my own copy of Dance of the Elements, and have been anxiously awaiting an opportunity to buy Animar, Soul of Elements for something considerably less than — hold on — $42?! Speculated cards aside, I am now completely out of enthusiasm to do any sort of work on that deck. Worse, I’m starting to feel leery about buying Commander precons in general. Why should I bother buying an in-universe precon for a set I really enjoy if that satisfaction may be taken away from me when a new precon in the same colors released for Star Trek has significantly better reprint value and a better mana base?
At the end of this article, I want to write personally to whomever from Wizards may be reading this article. Please try to do something about the disparity between mana bases for in-universe Commander precons against Universes Beyond precons. I will genuinely be more likely to spend money on Commander products when I can feel more confident that I will not have my legs taken out from under me by a “better” product upstaging my new precon a mere month after I get excited about building a new precon Commander.
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When Ben Alban-Berth isn't taking awkward promotional selfies and casting Craterhoof Behemoth on empty boards, he plays roguelikes and Dota 2 and promises people that he will finish his novel soon (he won't).
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