Scheming Synergy: Doom Prevails Precon Upgrade Guide

If you've ever felt a kinship with the anti-heroes or antagonists in movies, novels, or Magic's own story, to their unique way of viewing the world, or empathized with the tragedy of their origin story, then this deck is for you. Villains from across Marvel's many storylines come together in this deck to empower each others' efforts to bring chaos and destruction — or maybe just their own unique version of order and justice.

Here's a Little Lesson in Trickery

The Villains of Doom Prevails are an odd, mismatched bunch, both in flavor and function. We'll focus their efforts in the right places. First, here's what comes in the box, and the stock decklist:

• 1 Ready-to-play 100-card Commander deck
• 1 Traditional foil face commander with borderless art
• 99 Non-foil cards, including 29 new-to-Magic cards
• 10 Non-foil double-sided tokens
• 1 Reference card
• 1 Deck box

The face commander is Doctor Doom, King of Latveria. He may not know it yet, but his time as the leader of this cadre of villains is about to be cut short. For four mana in Grixis colors, Doctor Doom is a 3/3 that causes each opponent to lose 2 life every time you discard a land card, and has a mandatory connive trigger on combat for himself or any other Villain creature. For someone who once spurned godhood because his ego was even bigger, this card sure is humble. His abilities are a torturous slow-burn plan unless you tailor your deck around filling your hand with lands and discarding them. If you could trigger his ability more than once per turn cycle this group slugger could dish out a lot of pain, but the stock list doesn't come equipped with enough fuel for that fire.

Meet this deck's new lead mastermind: Loki, the Deceiver. For the same casting cost as Doctor Doom, Loki is a 4/4 that, when he attacks, creates a temporary non-legendary copy of another Villain you control that sacrifices itself at the end of turn, allowing you to abuse enters triggers and death triggers. Even when there's no safe attack for the Deceiver, he has a static pseudo-Coastal Piracy ability for Villain creatures. He enables some flashy and tricky plays with his attack trigger, and gives you constant card advantage, drawing up to three cards each turn if you still have three opponents to slap around. For a Kindred strategy, Loki is the clear winner in the battle for the throne against Doctor Doom.

Stealing the Spotlight

I would be remiss not to mention some of the most notable and powerful cards in this precon. Black Market Connections is a card that can always use a reprint. It's sometimes hard to keep up with the life loss, but when you can afford to pay the full six life for a 3/2 Shapeshifter with changeling, a Treasure token, and an extra card, it helps you catch up or stay ahead in a way few other cards can.

Archnemesis is a card that reflects the way lots of the saltiest Commander players already play.

"Did you attack me for 1 damage on turn 2? You'll pay for that! I'll stop at nothing to destroy you!"

The immersion breaks a little when a different opponent attacks you and becomes your archnemesis. Personal experience tells me this never happens. This card immediately caught people's eye for being a fun and impactful card that will encourage you to spread the hate around.

Kindred Dominance is a pricey reprint, and fits perfectly in this Villain Kindred deck. This deck already comes with an impressive suite of removal cards, and this is the cherry on top: a one-sided board wipe.

Conniving and Thriving

First, we'll cover cards that connive. You'll find lots of creatures with connive abilities in this deck. Even without Doctor Doom to reward you for discarding lands, connive lets you filter your draws and put a +1/+1 counter on the conniving creature if you discard a nonland card. There are payoffs for every part of the connive ability; payoffs for drawing a second card in one turn, payoffs for discarding a card, and even payoffs for having a creature connive in the first place.

Baron Strucker, HYDRA Overlord reduces the cost of your Villain creature spells, and once per turn, gives you a connive trigger on any Villain that enters under your control. He'll provide you with lots of mana discounts and connive triggers if you can get him out early and keep him around.

Prowler, Clawed Thief and Kang, Temporal Tyrant provide more repeated instances of connive triggers. This is a good start, but when we get to the card additions, we'll add even more.

Conniving for Fun and Profit

Red Ghost, Intangible Genius grows his army of 3/3 red Ape Villain creature tokens with your second draw each turn. A single connive trigger on your turn is enough to have him create a respectably large red primate. The best part is that since his Apes also carry the Villains creature type, they will benefit from our many Villain anthem effects.

Ultron, Unlimited provides his own connive triggers and also lets you create a 2/2 Robot Villain artifact creature token by paying one generic mana whenever a creature you control connives. Later in the game, this could provide multiple 2/2 Robot Villains in a turn cycle. Just like the Ape Villains, the Robot Villains may not have a great stat line to start, but later on they'll get plenty of help becoming larger threats.

The most straightforward connive payoff, Glorious Purpose is one of the new Plan enchantments that accrues a plan counter each time a creature you control connives. It also provides an additional +1/+1 counter to that creature when you do. After you've connived six times and have six counters on this enchantment, you sacrifice it and exile the top four cards of your library and you can cast any number of spells among them for free. If you draw this early and get conniving quickly, this will — with a little luck — provide a big boost to your boardstate.

Villainous Alliances

When you can connive and discard The Squadron Sinister, they're one of the best Kindred anthems on a creature in the game. If you don't find the window to cast them for their mayhem cost of five mana, they're a seven-drop 5/5 with flying and haste that give other Villains you control +2/+2, flying, and haste. Those respectably large primates Red Ghost made become 5/5 flying monstrosities.

Madame Hydra will help you grow a Villain army for The Squadron Sinister to make bigger, faster, and more evasive. Each time you cast a Villain spell, you get a bonus Villain in this maniacal two-for-one special with no once-per-turn cap.

Once you have a sizable boardstate, Iron Monger, Sadistic Tycoon quickly grows your army of Villains' stat lines each time you connive. Just remember the ABC rule of this deck:

Always be conniving!

Too Angry to Die

We have ways to benefit from conniving, ways to benefit from drawing a second card from your connive triggers, and now we'll look at ways we benefit from discarding cards to the graveyard through your connive triggers.

Awesome Android (usually known by its in-universe name, Containment Construct) and Moonstone, Harsh Mistress both let you exile a card from your graveyard when you discard it and then play it the same turn, or in Moonstone's case, until the end of your next turn. In this way, it's like you didn't have to discard it at all. Try to connive before you make your land drops if you have either of these two in play, so you can discard a land and play it from exile.

One of several cards with mayhem costs, Abomination, World Ravager is a surprisingly huge creature. He comes with menace and trample so he's incredibly hard to block effectively. If he's allowed to stay on the board for several turns, he will put serious pressure on opponents' life totals, especially if he is enhanced by The Squadron Sinister's flying and +2/+2 buffs.

New Management

Here are the 15 cards added to the deck:

Doctor Octopus, Master Planner is another Villains anthem, but he also fills your hand up to eight cards at the beginning of each of your end steps. He's well worth his hefty seven mana casting cost.

Another doctorate holder, Doctor Doom is a medium-sized army-in-a-can, bringing two 3/3 Robot Villain artifact creature tokens with him when he enters. He also has a Phyrexian Arena ability at the beginning of your end step as a small bonus. Doctor Doom is a great target for Loki's copy ability because the extra 3/3 tokens will stick around even after the Doctor Doom copy gets sacrificed.

Crimson Cowl, Master of Evil makes more modest 2/1 Villain tokens each time you attack an opponent with one or more nontoken Villains.

While you're giving all of these doctorate-holding Villains spots in this deck, it only seems fair to include the man who's something of a scientist himself: Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn // The Green Goblin is a perfect fit in this deck. On his front side, as Norman Osborn, he can't be blocked and connives each time he deals combat damage to a player. Sometimes that's all you will need from him: a once-per-turn conniving machine. As The Green Goblin, though, the ceiling is much higher; while wearing the mask of his alter ego, he gives all the cards in your graveyard mayhem, meaning that when you connive something away, you can cast it that turn — with a two generic mana discount.

Leader, Super-Genius is a great source of card advantage and repeating connive triggers.

Mysterio, Master of Illusion rivals Loki's own ability to make Illusion Villain tokens, except Mysterio doesn't copy their abilities or stats. When he enters, he creates a 3/3 Illusion Villain token for each nontoken Villain you control. When he gets removed, all of his Illusions go with him, so be sure to use them aggressively and trade them away in attacks when you can push some damage through, because they won't be around forever.

Fang, Fearless l'Cie, Grim Reaper's Scythe, and Teval's Judgment reward you for removing cards from your graveyard. This deck has many ways to make that happen, such as Awesome Android, Moonstone, Harsh Mistress, The Green Goblin, Tombstone, Career Criminal, and any spell you cast for its mayhem cost.

In a deck full of Villains that create more Villains, Vulture, Scheming Scavenger is a great way to push an alpha strike through. He's a bit expensive at six mana but he has a decent statline and has flying himself, and you only want to cast him towards the end of the game when you have a villainous army ready to take flight.

As previously mentioned, this deck comes with a terrific removal package, but some of that removal can cause collateral damage, or your opponents might cast a sweeper to try and hold off your inevitable victory. Bloodline Bidding is a Kindred mass reanimation spell with convoke to help make it cheaper. Besides losing your creatures to natural causes, you might have discarded them to connive triggers, and Bloodline Bidding brings them all back, hungry for revenge.

Victimize is a faster way to recur creatures from your graveyard for more value. There's sufficient token generation in this deck that you'll most likely be trading a lowly token henchmen for two mighty Villains that you connived away early.

Finally, these three creatures bring different kinds of value. M.O.D.O.K. puts an oppressive -1/-1 static effect on all your opponents' creatures. Anyone who played limited or block constructed during Innistrad will remember the terror that was Curse of Death's Hold. Now, built with Commander in mind, M.O.D.O.K. applies this effect symmetrically to all your opponents. He can also connive repeatedly on your turn for 3 life per connive trigger. There's no lifegain to offset repeated activations, so I don't recommend using this ability more than once in a turn to trigger your connive payoffs, most of which are limited to once-per-turn bonuses in the first place.

Black Cat, Cunning Thief is, perhaps, the greatest thief in the multiverse. Her theft ability has you look at the top nine cards of a target opponent's library, exile two of those cards, and keep them face-down, ready to cast for the rest of the game. She's a perfect use of Loki's attack trigger for repeated value. Nine cards is a noticeably big improvement over similar effects like Gonti, Lord of Luxury, and two cards is so much better than one.

Elektra, Daughter of the Hand is a Ravenous Chupacabra with some limitations on who she can destroy with her enters trigger. You won't find many situations where you want to use her sneak ability — maybe to recast Doctor Doom or Black Cat to get their enters triggers a second time — but she's another good target for Loki's attack trigger, helping you prune your opponents' boards one creature at a time.

The Expendables

I'll quickly cover the cards being cut from this list:

• Age of Ultron - costly removal in a deck already replete with removal, and the extra saga chapters are underwhelming
• Damocles Base, Sword of Kang - a powerful vehicle but notably not a Villain
• Endless Ranks of HYDRA - recurring Villain token creation is great, but six mana per 2/1 Villain is far too expensive
• Extract Power - speaking of too expensive, six mana for a single Etali, Primal Storm flip is too costly for something that can easily whiff
• Helmut Zemo, Mastermind - too few targets in this decklist for his sweet instant and sorcery recursion ability
• Kang Prime - I know Villains love to implement long-term plans with dubious payoffs, but this Villain deck also likes winning
• Killmonger, Ruthless Usurper - the artifact focus doesn't synergize with anything the deck currently does
• Klaw, Master of Sound - underwhelming rate for this effect
• Lady Loki, Agent of Chaos - too much chaos on an expensive creature card
• Living Laser - more like Living Loser! But actually, he's a pretty good card in the right deck, specifically a wheels strategy or a self-discard deck, but this deck doesn't do enough of either of those things
• Stilt-Man, Towering Terror - so this guy's super-power is wearing stilts? He should be disqualified based on that alone. There's no synergy in this deck with his unique combat damage-triggered ability to steal noncreature, nonland cards for an entire turn cycle, so he can stilt-walk his way on out of here
• Superior Foes of Spider-Man - underwhelming rate and there aren't that many cards that fit the four mana value or greater theme
• Syphon Mind - a generically average card draw spell that can sometimes miss in the late game when hands are getting empty. This card has absolutely no synergy with this deck
• The Frightful Four - this deck doesn't take advantage of noncombat damage being dealt, and outside of that one ability they're just a 4/4 with menace for four mana
• Titania, Proud Pummeler - it's interesting to see Adriana, Captain of the Guard's melee-granting ability on a monocolored creature now, but this isn't the best deck for melee. If there were any card I might keep, however, it would be this one

The Master Plan

Behold! The upgraded decklist is below in all its Kindred synergistic glory:

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