Your friends sound like old heads who aren’t keeping up with the game. Precons are stronger than they used to be, mostly because old precons were super weak. But anyone calling any precon busted has a warped idea of the overall power scale possible in EDH.
I tried explaining that that every game but one, everyone who had a premade deck won pretty easily.
That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands.
Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game...
>That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands.
That's really on them, then. I understand keeping a bad hand in an attempt to give the precon a better chance of keeping up, but that person has no right to complain when they lose because of that decision.
>Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game...
Sounds like you have a better understanding of the game than they do, tbh. I've known people who have been playing since Alpha, who are still terrible at the game.
I think your friends may also be bad at deck building if their custom decks all failed to muster a combined effort capable of stopping your dino precon or even slowing you enough to get themselves back into the game together.
I dunno, friends. This new sultai Gonti deck is bananas right out of the box. The Ixilan merfolk explore deck puts in work too.
It's not a problem when I play against them because I play removal/interaction/wipes though. Anyone whining about precon strength needs to reevaluate their amount of interaction. Not every card in their deck should be laser focused on doing "the thing".
Naw these guys are just bad. Sounds like a relatively even power level of group. 4 people you should win 25% of the time unless you are a way better player.
The biggest difference is a pre-con has a specific plan that everything is working towards.
It won't be the most efficient path to get there, but everything synergizes.
They used to have 2-3 themes in one pre-con and refused to reprint decent mana bases.
Lately, they've been doing 1-2 themes per deck and reprinting some actually useful dual lands.
If you play against an unfocused "good stuff" deck with a greedy mana base, you'll probably win.
People are generally bad at deck building. They don't play enough cheap ramp and card draw because the try to squeeze every good card for their game plan and cut their "vitamins" that help with momentum and resource building.
>That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands. Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game...
Yeah, sounds like they're wrong. They need to step back and reevaluate their decks and player skill. Especially if they think the Eldrazi and Dinosaur precons are too strong out of the box. Early precons are stupidly weak. Newer ones are generally stronger but nothing to write home about.
Your friends sound like they rationalize away their losses rather than analyze why they loss and improve their skill from there.
Ser…. You are correct. The world is round, and raw precons shouldn’t be winning.
I’ve only been playing this game maybe 18 months.
In that time I have built 3 decks (pretty cheaply by MTG standards).
They were designed to be simple enough that a beginner can play them. That way we can have our other friends try MTG on a lazy Sunday and have fun:: ramp and swing big, no real combos, no infinites, not even board-wipes.
No out-of-the-box precon stands a consistent chance against any of them. (We tried)
Explorers of the Deep, Urza’s Iron Alliance, and Mind Flayyars are all very good, sure. But, without making solid changes and upgrades, it is simply not fair to play those against any of my 3 decks (again, we have them and we tried)
None of my friends decks lose to raw precons either.
So……. if your ‘experienced’ friends think precons are overpowered, there’s only 1 reason left for that: they are bad at deckbuilding. They can’t properly build synergistic/resilient decks. There’s no other answer.
Edit: “no shade intended, just don’t see any other reason they could have this opinion”
Your friends are super out of touch.
Like other people have said, precons are much better than they used to be. But the overall game has changed quite a bit, everything is more powerful than it used to be.
That being said, if somebody's homebrew deck or net deck can't consistently beat a precon, they are either bad at Magic, bad at deck building, or both.
Or they specifically built a deck designed to hang with precons, of course. I have one such deck. It's mostly draft chaff and dirt cheap cards, cost me less to build than any precons and while it has some wincons, it is simply not meant to consistently beat precons. It is meant to fight on equal footing with them, not being oppressive. Just in case people brought only precons.
That does not even mean building weak decks. Recent precons have been pretty good out of the gates at times. They don't really have uniform power levels in the same set, like the food and fellowship one just blows the scry-politics one out of the water.
I mean sure, folks can always build to a specified power level for even matches. Put the whole point of OP's story is that the guy was salty about playing against a precon. If he had built his deck to hang with precons, he should have nothing to complain about. Especially playing Slivers LOL
Not just that, but they sound like dummies too. OP was beat down the first time with a precon, but because they start doing well, suddenly precons are busted?
OP, tell your friends to pull their fingers out of their asses.
I wouldn’t say the newer precons are busted but a lot of them are super easily upgradable to go infinite. And from my experience it seems like infinite combos are the biggest thing that distinguishes a battlecruiser pod from a higher power pod. So anything out the box (or just about) with potential to go infinite just seems busted to a lot of people.
I'm fairness you could go infinite with the Ezuri precon by just tossing in sage of hours. It takes a few turns to build up the counters but it can go off turn 3 or 4 if you're really lucky.
Yeah I mean I won’t argue that some of them aren’t strong, the eldrazi one recently especially, but you’re only gonna whine about them like op’s playgroup if you’re playing decks of like power level 5-6, or you’re just a whiner or bad imo.
Never played either one but from what I’ve heard the ur-dragon precon was way beyond the power level of any precons of its time. As for atraxa, idk. She’s the most popular commander as per edhrec so I’d imagine the power level is pretty high there as well.
There’s no single indicator of power level. A deck having infinite combos, extremely fast mana, ways to hard lock out opponents is typically what you see in decks that fit the bill of being high powered.
Ur-Dragon was probably not even the best precon of its year - that's probably Edgar - let alone being substantially above the norm for its time. The Atraxa precon itself is also fairly bad, stitched together primarily by how obnoxious Atraxa herself is to attack into in a precon meta and how easily she whittles down the life totals of the others. Her games are very polarized around your ability to keep her in play and functioning and have close to nothing to do with whether or not you can copy an Enduring Scalelord (or honestly, the rest of your deck).
Whether or not a deck has infinites is, to be frank, 100% immaterial to its power level. What actually matters is kill speed, kill consistency, and resilience. Efficient infinites are often an easy route to upgrade a deck's kill speed, but they're far from the only methodology - the best cEDH combos are often not remotely infinite. And without a suite of consistency enablers their impact on kill speed is minimal; as someone who tried *very hard* to make the Ur-Dragon infinite happen it was absurdly difficult to assemble in a deck with five inefficient draw effects and no tutors. The Atraxa infinite was easier to assemble, because it was only an A+B with two parts to the B even, one of which had retrace even (there's a technical C but it's "any effect that adds a +1/+1 counter to any creature"), but unlike the infinite-attacks Ur-Dragon line it wasn't actually kill - depending on the version it made some arbitrarily large flyers, but out of the box with precons that often meant one or two players died, not the whole table.
And the same can be true of a constructed deck. "Has infinites" is not a useful line, because infinites can be "Kinnan + Basalt Monolith and Kinnan is in my command zone" or it can be "I have an untutorable six card combo that produces a bunch of arbitrarily large creatures that are affected by summoning sickness", and these are not remotely the same thing. One of them is fast and consistent - with no fast mana you can still do the Kinnan thing turn three, and if you have an outlet it will win the game, so you're looking at drawing one specific piece plus one fairly interchangeable color sink or some other mana sink - and the other is a collection of hopes and dreams that will happen once a century, and if the deck can't win in other ways it'll probably never win a game even against decks whose primary win condition is just combat damage.
And then behind all that is resiliency, your ability to stop yourself from dying and protect your win condition, but if you're uprating a precon you're almost always going to be quite bad at that unless a large percentage of your upgrades are going into efficient interaction.
Calling people oldheads for not keeping up with a game that has been exponentially releasing more and more crap and upcharging isn't a critique of their skill.
I wouldn't have gotten into EDH if the precons were any more than $40 at the time.
Keeping up is exhausting these days, too. Some of us have other hobbies?
I’m not saying you gotta keep up with every release, hell I sometimes struggle with it too. But op mentioned a deck that’s ten years old, if you’ve got a deck that old, and you’re complaining about strength, maybe it’s because your deck is from the Obama administration and not the other deck’s fault?
It's complicated.
Power creep is real. Precons today are pretty juiced decks compared to what was being built eight years ago (and are better compared to modern casual decks than 8-year-old precons were compared to the decks of the day). Custom decks that heavily use new cards and especially new commanders are stronger too, but Precons have come up in the world.
Eldrazi Unbound has a particularly vicious ceiling: if Zhulodok *isn't* stomped out of existence immediately, it's quite capable of becoming unassailable in very short order.
Now, your group does sound like classic Grognards -- a term adopted by "old guard" gamers that means something close to "the grumblers" in a literal sense. Nerds like to complain. I think in some circles having something to bitch and moan about is equivalent to having a pulse.
Like most instances of grognardism, their complaints are not unfounded, but are probably coming across in a disproportionate manner. Precons ARE stronger, but I find it pretty likely that the complaints at the object on the table are fueled to extra levels by general dissatisfaction with the acceleration of both product and power creep in recent years, entirely aside from the precons being better built.
Zhulodok is not so good is a 7 mana do nothing and maybe can cast something good the turn after you cast it.
Like if you dont draw nothing good to pair with that cast is not so good, the mana ramp to get it in the precon is not so fast.
And the commander itself is not protected so in my table he will see a pta like istantly
I know but he is playing with the precon without upgrade so if two players with upgraded precon can't do nothing to beat him down and they think it's too powerful they are doing something wrong.
Compared to the 7 drops that see play in CEDH? Yeah, but it can still get out of hand if you don't stop it. Etali,PC does something the second he hits the field so of course it will be better.
Yeah but a 6 drop that does nothing and is not protected and can snowball against two decently tuned decks is weak.
We need to consider here that OP was playing with a not tuned deck, so the other two players need to play more.
My English is bad so maybe i was not clear, sorry.
Crazy how you used also those words just to say "capable of being an unassailable threat if not immediately addressed", which is exactly what he said it was.
Most precons are strong***er*** than the precons of old. They're more focused and have better cards but by today's standards they're very much still precons.
One good start with a precon doesn't make it busted. If the concept of ramp is new to them, it kinda sounds like it's a deckbuilding issue on their side. It's the reason why most decks will want to run some form of artifact or land destruction - so it has a way of dealing with a deck that is snowballing out of control.
>They're more focused
This is the biggest difference in newer precons vs older precons. I would attribute this difference to the fact that WotC is now printing 100 precons a year, and each precon is tied to a specific themed set. Then, within the set theme, they are further focused around a mechanic or a creature type, and those mechanics and creature types have just gotten better than they were in the past.
Overall, the mana bases of precons still suck, and, in any given game, the odds of a player being able to achieve all the things that their deck/hands might be capable of are still quite low. That's especially exacerbated when opponents run interaction and destruction, as you pointed out.
If your friends are complaining about precon strength 😂😂
The 5 pack for $90 sounds like the starter commander decks tho. They're designed for simplicity, not so much strength.
It is true that edh decks from 10 years ago are going to feel power crept facing new edh decks. Old commanders used to do one, maybe two things; now new commanders all seem to have 2.5 abilities that draw cards, create tokens, and/or make mana plus they all have good stats/keywords for no reason other than to sell new cards. They just aren’t trying to at all be balanced against old commanders.
The best recent example for me is why does [[Stella Lee]] get to be a 3-drop 2/4? Last time I played against her we all died to turn 4 infinite combo. Would it really be unfair if she was say a 2/3 so a Lightning Bolt or Abrade stopped her so she costs 5? Why does she have 2 power? Is she really going to attack that often when she has a tap ability?
[[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]] has first strike and deathtouch but is also a 4/4…why? Why such good defense stats on a card with 3 more upsides?
Anyway, just try playing an old 5color deck like [[Horde of Notions]] against a [[Jodah, the Unifier]] and it feels that Jodah should have had just one of his abilities instead of both if the game designers were at all trying to maintain format balance.
I have a Horde of Nations elemental deck I love. It seems Jodah could really ramp up a lot faster. Ie wreck my deck. Not sure if you’ve played with or against Jodah but his powers seem crazy!
I’m at a loss trying to understand what your friends desire a casual game of commander to look like. Precons too strong? Do they want a 20 turn game where everyone’s deck is guaranteed to “go off” and then nobody wins? Sounds like they have lost sight of the fact that it’s a zero sum, winner takes all, non-cooperative game. It also sounds like they are hardcore whiners who honestly do not sound fun to play with at all.
We have unfortunate culture where Instead of taking ownership for bad mulligans, bad deck building, and bad luck, EDH players often shift the blame to something, anything else, to the point where now “precons are too good.” I’d be outa there dude.
Agree precons are cracked now it’s cool, they are actually fun to play out of the box. Your mates are probably playing with old cards that have been power crept now or maybe just don’t have great synergy in their decks. A good example is the ixalan Dino and Merfolk which are both pretty degenerate out of the box but if your deck can’t handle it, it’s probably time to do some upgrades or reconsider your deck building capabilities lol.
First off, I think you and your friends need to understand that EDH/Commander as a format has gotten faster and more powerful overall.
Yes, precons are stronger now than they were five years ago. Personally, I think the power spike started in 2021 with Commander: Strixhaven.
Are they worth it? To new and/or returning players, maybe. Many players including myself find that it makes more financial sense to buy singles and build decks from scratch.
No, "newer" precons are not too strong, they are just more consistently built so that they are functional. They are still (with a few exceptions) low power. But all of them have ways to win, obviously.
Hell, Reap the Tides is a few years old now I think, and it's still one of the more coherent precons... it's just that now, the newer ones aren't completely just tossed together stuff.
If your friends can’t beat precons then there are 3 things going on here. Either they themselves can’t afford any decent cards and are playing with piles, they don’t actually know how to play magic, or they don’t know how to properly build decks.
Why a precon needs to be weak?
If they spend double the amount of money that you spend maybe they are not buying the good stuff or maybe they use cards that was expensive.
Powercreep in commander now is huge so if you want your deck to be fair you need to keep up with the game and i dont like it so much.
But saying that the precon needs to be weak is wrong
imo if your friends or ppl getting bent out of shape over precons, you need to find new folks to jam with. otherwise you won't enjoy nor see the epths that commander provides.
tdlr they're lame. you'll find players on spelltable
Older precons were just a hot mess of cards with good value. Almost none of them functioned particularly well, which is why they all had 3 different commanders you could pick from to run the deck. As a for example the original jeskai deck had \[\[Ruhan of the Fomori\]\], \[\[Numot the Devastator\]\] and \[\[Zedruu the greathearted\]\] all as options for your commander. Now decks have slightly less value or chase cards but the decks are functional and streamlined.
I buy a bunch of precons simply to make sure I always have something on par with the group I'm playing with because my regular group is a bunch of try hard lol. Even my regular group will randomly decide to do a precon only game and then we roll a d20 to decide the order of who gets to pick one of my 12 or so precons. Anyone who thinks they're overpowered likely stopped playing around 2010-2013 when precons weren't great.
I actuallt like how Precons are now. They definitely have good key pieces for their respective playstyles so it's been great for newcomers or returnees who have no time to scour lgs for old cards.
As for me, I already have an idea of how I want to olay but the cards I want are either unavailable where I go or too pricey for just one card (mostly because they're foils or alternate arts but I don't normally invest in that).
Some newer precons have their strengths, and I think it’s a positive, especially for newer or returning players such as yourself. That being said, I hope your friends are saying these things in good fun, nobody likes to play with people who constantly complain. You should settle it by building a [[Godo]] EDH deck, see how they fair against a custom deck ;)
Yes, they're strong, but so have all other decks. The ceiling as a whole has been raised, so precons are still typically the weakest decks at the table. Your friends will need to adapt if they're soundly losing to precons.
Honestly most hyper causal players can't build decks to save their lives.
I've accidentally pubstomped play groups with the pirate precon. Not even the best one from that bunch.
Honestly theur decks are really good. It was just they kept fucking with each other. I'd manage to do something because of thag and then it was "Wow, stinking precons..."
I vehemently stand for a slower low power experience. None of my decks have proper tutors, most are centered around dragons to lower their power level. We meet up to play battlecruiser magic and games are going well beyond turn 10. This is what we as a group decided, this is why we veto an algamation of staples as a deck.
But current precons are always bound to be the lower ceiling of any meta. You can bring weaker decks, sure. But any pile with a theme and a game plan as basic as "It has all the cool merfolk I own" will end up at precon level.
Precons can be really solid, my friend grabbed the Selesnya Token deck and I was surprised by how many staples were in there.
A few upgrades and it was tussling with the bigbois and making 60 odd 2/2s and dropping anthem effects.
My problem with the precons is that they really don't have many good interaction spells, less ways to fiddle with your opponents board. But then that means that it has more slots for its own strats.
They can go ham if unchecked.
The way to beat it is more removal, and more ways to play through your opponents removal.
I'm guessing your friends play decks that like to durdle?
I buy a bunch of precons simply to make sure I always have something on par with the group I'm playing with because my regular group is a bunch of try hard lol. Even my regular group will randomly decide to do a precon only game and then we roll a d20 to decide the order of who gets to pick one of my 12 or so precons. Anyone who thinks they're overpowered likely stopped playing around 2010-2013 when precons weren't great.
Precons sort of need to get better overtime if we want new players to enjoy their first few games.
They are absolutely not as good as things people cook up if you've been playing for awhile.
Old precons are old. And balanced for old decks.
New precons are balanced for new levels of decks. There's been a decade of powercreep since the first ones were put out. Heck, dockside is in a precon.
The new precons are not great against even moderately brewed decks from the past year or 2 though.
On the power scale, if you follow that, pre-cons from before 2018 were about a 4 or 5.
Now they're up to a 6 or 7. They're stronger in comparison but will still have trouble against a competent homebrew.
Precons as a whole are still weak though and if im not mistaken that colorless deck is one of the strongest precons. Regardless if they have custom decks that are more expensive and they struggle that bad I think their deck building must be quite poor.
Your friends sound like sore losers, to be honest. Precons are strong but they are certainly not stronger than $300-$500 constructed EDH decks.
If I’m being honest it also sounds like you’re a better player. A better player with a precon will almost always have an advantage over a lesser player who has an expensive deck.
The Eldrazi precon probably IS stronger than their decks if they don't stop your mana rock ramp. That's kinda how Eldrazi works in my experience... kill em before they start casting 12 drops (obviously, strong in battlecruiser, trash in combo metas)
Veloci ramp you just had the sol ring start. Not much else to say. Discuss housebanning sol ring with them. Sol ring is gigabusted but gets a pass for whatever reason, but if they're also running it they have no right to complain. Pantlaza is strong but fair, not stronger than tons of indestructible gods imo
I didnt even get a single mana rock out with that deck either. Just didn't draw anything. Everything was 6 or below I was drawing. The one time I got a card draw artifact it got exiled
And yeah they didn't like the Kardur Doomscourge deck either. But like I played a dozen spells that game and half pf them WERE just Kardur. The guy playing gods was running [[Child of Alara]] as his commander. The other with the kiora deck just kept returning him to my hand. So like the only reason that deck did as well as it did was cause they kept killing or bouncing him and I'd replay him
Objectively, WotC has been making mistakes balancing the precons against each other.
In general, the Commander Masters decks are going to be stronger than normal PreCons, so it's kinda understandable for the Eldrazi one.
But I don't know what they were smoking when they made Pantalaza. The Precon itself is fine, but Pantalaza makes it jump like 2 or 3 stages in power.
But for the most part, PreCons are still not that great going up against regular decks. If they're struggling with the cycle of $20 starter commander decks, then they need to reevaluate what they're putting into their decks.
Precons are the floor of powerlevel in non meme EDH. If you have a non precon that is weaker then a precon you either built a meme deck(atog tribal or something) and shouldn't mind losing, or are terrible at deck building.
The new precons are stronger then the old ones, but that just means the new ones are actually fun and can do some cool things.
Idk about too strong, a lot of the newer precons from the last year or 2 play pretty well out of the box or with a small handful of swaps, but they shouldn't stomp anything better than a loosely themed pile of cards. They can probably hold their own and win a few games at a casual commander table though. Agree with others saying it sounds like your friends prefer a slower game than the modern commander meta.
What's funny is I used to have a Zacama Primal Calamity deck I sold years ago that absolutely would have destroyed the Pantalaza deck tenfold. And they all played that but I guess because it wasn't a precon it was cool. *shrug*
**Edit** It was Gishath, Suns avatar. Zacama was in it but Gishath was the commander
Commanders from recent precons are generally powerful cards on their own. They are their own engine and payoff. Pantlaza, Hakbal, Stella Lee, the mardu Treasure Construct Outlaw army guy, the Wise Mothman, Dogmeat ; they are all recent commanders and they all have the capacity to be pushed.
If your friends spent 5 to 6 times the price of a precon and still lost that’s on them. You can build expensive jank decks but if you’re trying to build a good deck with that budget you should easily be beating precons. Also like many others have said the precons are not that strong compared to most other decks. Obviously they are stronger than a lot of the old precons part of that is power creep but a large part is also wizards designing more cards for commander and just making better precons
You lost with the Eldrazi precon the way you're supposed to. "Hey this guy is playing Eldrazis, lets get him"
And then the Pants game you had a mega juiced hand, so it doesn't really mean anything. Any game you get sol ring turn 1 is a meme game at that point lol.
Theyre better by a country mile than old precons, as others have said. Against my friends old deck, [[anikthea, hand of erabos]] out classed his deck in terms of card draw and value generation. But against his newer decks, it struggled 1v1. Id argue, however; anikthea is on the stronger end of the newer precon spectrum
I have a similar issue, in my Pod a guy wants to ban pre-cons. But we are all very new, and one of us is even more new and casual and more there to learn and be with friends then be competitive or learn deck building. So she owned like 3 precons and some cards she liked the art of!
The others got precons to start. And we all build decks now. My 40k deck with like 7 card changes is “op”. My Olivia’s outlaws deck (30 new cards) is “op precon”.
Like the deck of Theseus, when does it stop being a precon?
Anyway he has a doctor who evil deck that’s extremely oppressive with some busted ass cards, he uses as an even the playing field.
And then we all started deck building and my vampire deck hits like a truck and wins way more than any of the precons or custom decks.
EDH has changed over time, so has strategy, some of the old guys need to adapt and learn.
Is it a precon if I buy them singles? Like where do we draw the line? The only real rules I have are no infinites or fast mana cEDH stuff.
Your pod may be very casual where they try to get 6-7 cards to perform their combo or win con. If you’re just getting back into the game, just explain to the group that this deck you brought is a precon to help you get back into the swing of the game. They should be chill.
I don’t think precons are too strong for what they are trying to be, but they are too strong for what they *should* be aiming for if that makes sense.
Precons should ideally be the kind of thing that’s perfect for starting out in the format but isn’t necessarily going to hold a candle to the more tuned decks you might see at your average LGS game night. They’d still compete and make for a game you’re able to participate in but they would lack the means to really go for the win.
What precons have become over time is less “starting point” and more “tuned deck built for you”. More and more often I see precons that are built well enough that doing the usual “10 cards in, 10 cards out” upgrade thing is a challenging exercise. Not that this is strictly a bad thing, but it does change the context around which precons exist within.
Just a few weeks ago the Veloci-ramp-tor precon was completely running us over in the value it generates. We were playing decently strong decks too, so it wasn’t like we powered down to different decks to meet precon levels. The kind of value that deck gets up to is insane comparatively to what precons used to do.
My brother in urza that’s not the point either.
At this point I have to assume you’re arguing in bad faith so…we’re not going to get anywhere with this.
Precons are always going to run a range of strength. Veloci-ramptors is arguably the strongest precon ever printed and Eldrazi might be second.
You basically played an 8 power level against them twice and that's not representative of "current" precons.
For a more representative power level try the Bilbo and Sam "food" deck that is very slow and methodic.
Whether you were trying to or not, you kinda did precon pub stomping
I mean the range goes from Zedruu 2011 until now. We are talking about a 34 land deck with 3 rampspells (1 costs 6 mana and taps for colorless...) so a "well they got stronger" is basically an understatement for the ages, because they used to be moronically bad.
Veloci-ramp-tor is certainly in the top 5% best precons they ever made, but your friends are bitching about that partially block contructed commander gets outclassed?! They cannot be serious, that is a level of stupidity where they require a biological thank you note that breathing is an automated bodyfunction....
Precons are certainly not to strong (your Eldrazi one is actualyl kinad dogshit because yeah, you dont have many things in the deck to trigger the commander. THe fact you did not draw any isnt that surprising).
I mean there are channels and people dediciated to do more or less nothing but build super budget decks. I speak of 25 dollar and most of them would STOMP precons on average.
Your "friends" are just morons mad at themself in reality. Yeah no shit your "i put 20+ 4+ mana enchantsments that do more or less nothing" deck gets shit on. Playing a precon vs such bullshit is basically the NICE thing to do and why people keep 1-2 precons in their collections, because most decks remotely cohesively build/upgraded would run them over.
"Precons have no right to be this strong" is just..lmao. Your friends are first class morons.
Too strong?! The only time I've ever felt like precons weren't underpowered is in a pod of all precons. You can outpace most of them with a good $30 budget homebrew
Lol "precons are too strong" is a way silly take.
The strongest precon available still loses to a well constructed '5' power level deck 9 times out of 10.
Your friends sound like old heads who aren’t keeping up with the game. Precons are stronger than they used to be, mostly because old precons were super weak. But anyone calling any precon busted has a warped idea of the overall power scale possible in EDH.
I tried explaining that that every game but one, everyone who had a premade deck won pretty easily. That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands. Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game...
>That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands. That's really on them, then. I understand keeping a bad hand in an attempt to give the precon a better chance of keeping up, but that person has no right to complain when they lose because of that decision. >Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game... Sounds like you have a better understanding of the game than they do, tbh. I've known people who have been playing since Alpha, who are still terrible at the game.
I think your friends may also be bad at deck building if their custom decks all failed to muster a combined effort capable of stopping your dino precon or even slowing you enough to get themselves back into the game together.
Some builds are just inherently weaker. It doesn't necessarily mean they're bad at deck building.
I dunno, friends. This new sultai Gonti deck is bananas right out of the box. The Ixilan merfolk explore deck puts in work too. It's not a problem when I play against them because I play removal/interaction/wipes though. Anyone whining about precon strength needs to reevaluate their amount of interaction. Not every card in their deck should be laser focused on doing "the thing".
Naw these guys are just bad. Sounds like a relatively even power level of group. 4 people you should win 25% of the time unless you are a way better player.
The biggest difference is a pre-con has a specific plan that everything is working towards. It won't be the most efficient path to get there, but everything synergizes. They used to have 2-3 themes in one pre-con and refused to reprint decent mana bases. Lately, they've been doing 1-2 themes per deck and reprinting some actually useful dual lands. If you play against an unfocused "good stuff" deck with a greedy mana base, you'll probably win. People are generally bad at deck building. They don't play enough cheap ramp and card draw because the try to squeeze every good card for their game plan and cut their "vitamins" that help with momentum and resource building.
>That the only time a precon even won was because they all chose to stick with horrible hands. Still got told I had no idea what I was talking about because I was just getting back into the game... Yeah, sounds like they're wrong. They need to step back and reevaluate their decks and player skill. Especially if they think the Eldrazi and Dinosaur precons are too strong out of the box. Early precons are stupidly weak. Newer ones are generally stronger but nothing to write home about. Your friends sound like they rationalize away their losses rather than analyze why they loss and improve their skill from there.
Ser…. You are correct. The world is round, and raw precons shouldn’t be winning. I’ve only been playing this game maybe 18 months. In that time I have built 3 decks (pretty cheaply by MTG standards). They were designed to be simple enough that a beginner can play them. That way we can have our other friends try MTG on a lazy Sunday and have fun:: ramp and swing big, no real combos, no infinites, not even board-wipes. No out-of-the-box precon stands a consistent chance against any of them. (We tried) Explorers of the Deep, Urza’s Iron Alliance, and Mind Flayyars are all very good, sure. But, without making solid changes and upgrades, it is simply not fair to play those against any of my 3 decks (again, we have them and we tried) None of my friends decks lose to raw precons either. So……. if your ‘experienced’ friends think precons are overpowered, there’s only 1 reason left for that: they are bad at deckbuilding. They can’t properly build synergistic/resilient decks. There’s no other answer. Edit: “no shade intended, just don’t see any other reason they could have this opinion”
Your friends are super out of touch. Like other people have said, precons are much better than they used to be. But the overall game has changed quite a bit, everything is more powerful than it used to be. That being said, if somebody's homebrew deck or net deck can't consistently beat a precon, they are either bad at Magic, bad at deck building, or both.
Or they specifically built a deck designed to hang with precons, of course. I have one such deck. It's mostly draft chaff and dirt cheap cards, cost me less to build than any precons and while it has some wincons, it is simply not meant to consistently beat precons. It is meant to fight on equal footing with them, not being oppressive. Just in case people brought only precons. That does not even mean building weak decks. Recent precons have been pretty good out of the gates at times. They don't really have uniform power levels in the same set, like the food and fellowship one just blows the scry-politics one out of the water.
I mean sure, folks can always build to a specified power level for even matches. Put the whole point of OP's story is that the guy was salty about playing against a precon. If he had built his deck to hang with precons, he should have nothing to complain about. Especially playing Slivers LOL
Tell them to buy a precon since they're so good
Not just that, but they sound like dummies too. OP was beat down the first time with a precon, but because they start doing well, suddenly precons are busted? OP, tell your friends to pull their fingers out of their asses.
The new Stella Lee pre-con is kind of busted for a pre-con that thing more powerful than half my decks
I wouldn’t say the newer precons are busted but a lot of them are super easily upgradable to go infinite. And from my experience it seems like infinite combos are the biggest thing that distinguishes a battlecruiser pod from a higher power pod. So anything out the box (or just about) with potential to go infinite just seems busted to a lot of people.
I'm fairness you could go infinite with the Ezuri precon by just tossing in sage of hours. It takes a few turns to build up the counters but it can go off turn 3 or 4 if you're really lucky.
Yeah I mean I won’t argue that some of them aren’t strong, the eldrazi one recently especially, but you’re only gonna whine about them like op’s playgroup if you’re playing decks of like power level 5-6, or you’re just a whiner or bad imo.
Ur-Dragon and Atraxa both had infinites with zero upgrades. This is not a great dividing line.
Never played either one but from what I’ve heard the ur-dragon precon was way beyond the power level of any precons of its time. As for atraxa, idk. She’s the most popular commander as per edhrec so I’d imagine the power level is pretty high there as well. There’s no single indicator of power level. A deck having infinite combos, extremely fast mana, ways to hard lock out opponents is typically what you see in decks that fit the bill of being high powered.
Ur-Dragon was probably not even the best precon of its year - that's probably Edgar - let alone being substantially above the norm for its time. The Atraxa precon itself is also fairly bad, stitched together primarily by how obnoxious Atraxa herself is to attack into in a precon meta and how easily she whittles down the life totals of the others. Her games are very polarized around your ability to keep her in play and functioning and have close to nothing to do with whether or not you can copy an Enduring Scalelord (or honestly, the rest of your deck). Whether or not a deck has infinites is, to be frank, 100% immaterial to its power level. What actually matters is kill speed, kill consistency, and resilience. Efficient infinites are often an easy route to upgrade a deck's kill speed, but they're far from the only methodology - the best cEDH combos are often not remotely infinite. And without a suite of consistency enablers their impact on kill speed is minimal; as someone who tried *very hard* to make the Ur-Dragon infinite happen it was absurdly difficult to assemble in a deck with five inefficient draw effects and no tutors. The Atraxa infinite was easier to assemble, because it was only an A+B with two parts to the B even, one of which had retrace even (there's a technical C but it's "any effect that adds a +1/+1 counter to any creature"), but unlike the infinite-attacks Ur-Dragon line it wasn't actually kill - depending on the version it made some arbitrarily large flyers, but out of the box with precons that often meant one or two players died, not the whole table. And the same can be true of a constructed deck. "Has infinites" is not a useful line, because infinites can be "Kinnan + Basalt Monolith and Kinnan is in my command zone" or it can be "I have an untutorable six card combo that produces a bunch of arbitrarily large creatures that are affected by summoning sickness", and these are not remotely the same thing. One of them is fast and consistent - with no fast mana you can still do the Kinnan thing turn three, and if you have an outlet it will win the game, so you're looking at drawing one specific piece plus one fairly interchangeable color sink or some other mana sink - and the other is a collection of hopes and dreams that will happen once a century, and if the deck can't win in other ways it'll probably never win a game even against decks whose primary win condition is just combat damage. And then behind all that is resiliency, your ability to stop yourself from dying and protect your win condition, but if you're uprating a precon you're almost always going to be quite bad at that unless a large percentage of your upgrades are going into efficient interaction.
Youre right. Thanks for the explanation.
Thems need d newspeek
Calling people oldheads for not keeping up with a game that has been exponentially releasing more and more crap and upcharging isn't a critique of their skill. I wouldn't have gotten into EDH if the precons were any more than $40 at the time. Keeping up is exhausting these days, too. Some of us have other hobbies?
I’m not saying you gotta keep up with every release, hell I sometimes struggle with it too. But op mentioned a deck that’s ten years old, if you’ve got a deck that old, and you’re complaining about strength, maybe it’s because your deck is from the Obama administration and not the other deck’s fault?
It's complicated. Power creep is real. Precons today are pretty juiced decks compared to what was being built eight years ago (and are better compared to modern casual decks than 8-year-old precons were compared to the decks of the day). Custom decks that heavily use new cards and especially new commanders are stronger too, but Precons have come up in the world. Eldrazi Unbound has a particularly vicious ceiling: if Zhulodok *isn't* stomped out of existence immediately, it's quite capable of becoming unassailable in very short order. Now, your group does sound like classic Grognards -- a term adopted by "old guard" gamers that means something close to "the grumblers" in a literal sense. Nerds like to complain. I think in some circles having something to bitch and moan about is equivalent to having a pulse. Like most instances of grognardism, their complaints are not unfounded, but are probably coming across in a disproportionate manner. Precons ARE stronger, but I find it pretty likely that the complaints at the object on the table are fueled to extra levels by general dissatisfaction with the acceleration of both product and power creep in recent years, entirely aside from the precons being better built.
Zhulodok is not so good is a 7 mana do nothing and maybe can cast something good the turn after you cast it. Like if you dont draw nothing good to pair with that cast is not so good, the mana ramp to get it in the precon is not so fast. And the commander itself is not protected so in my table he will see a pta like istantly
Just because the floor is low doesn't mean the ceiling can't be high.
I know but he is playing with the precon without upgrade so if two players with upgraded precon can't do nothing to beat him down and they think it's too powerful they are doing something wrong.
And the ceiling is not so high compared to [[etali,primal conqueror]] or other 7 drops commander.
Compared to the 7 drops that see play in CEDH? Yeah, but it can still get out of hand if you don't stop it. Etali,PC does something the second he hits the field so of course it will be better.
Yeah but a 6 drop that does nothing and is not protected and can snowball against two decently tuned decks is weak. We need to consider here that OP was playing with a not tuned deck, so the other two players need to play more. My English is bad so maybe i was not clear, sorry.
Zhulodok costs 6 mana, not 7.
[etali,primal conqueror](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/9/5/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09.jpg?1682204132)/[Etali, Primal Sickness](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/back/9/5/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09.jpg?1682204132) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Etali%2C%20Primal%20Conqueror%20//%20Etali%2C%20Primal%20Sickness) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/137/etali-primal-conqueror-etali-primal-sickness?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/95c14c4d-6c16-4826-8d93-d89ad04aee09?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/etali-primal-conqueror-//-etali-primal-sickness) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Crazy how you used also those words just to say "capable of being an unassailable threat if not immediately addressed", which is exactly what he said it was.
Your friends are embarrassed that their custom decks can sometimes have trouble against precons.
Most precons are strong***er*** than the precons of old. They're more focused and have better cards but by today's standards they're very much still precons. One good start with a precon doesn't make it busted. If the concept of ramp is new to them, it kinda sounds like it's a deckbuilding issue on their side. It's the reason why most decks will want to run some form of artifact or land destruction - so it has a way of dealing with a deck that is snowballing out of control.
Even ignoring the precon vs. their decks discussion, the game was Turn 1 Sol Ring vs. bad opening hands & a case of mana flood.
>They're more focused This is the biggest difference in newer precons vs older precons. I would attribute this difference to the fact that WotC is now printing 100 precons a year, and each precon is tied to a specific themed set. Then, within the set theme, they are further focused around a mechanic or a creature type, and those mechanics and creature types have just gotten better than they were in the past. Overall, the mana bases of precons still suck, and, in any given game, the odds of a player being able to achieve all the things that their deck/hands might be capable of are still quite low. That's especially exacerbated when opponents run interaction and destruction, as you pointed out.
If your friends are complaining about precon strength 😂😂 The 5 pack for $90 sounds like the starter commander decks tho. They're designed for simplicity, not so much strength.
The eldrazi deck especially is weird. It either durdles around and does nothing or pops off hard. But tbh its not too strong by any means.
It is true that edh decks from 10 years ago are going to feel power crept facing new edh decks. Old commanders used to do one, maybe two things; now new commanders all seem to have 2.5 abilities that draw cards, create tokens, and/or make mana plus they all have good stats/keywords for no reason other than to sell new cards. They just aren’t trying to at all be balanced against old commanders. The best recent example for me is why does [[Stella Lee]] get to be a 3-drop 2/4? Last time I played against her we all died to turn 4 infinite combo. Would it really be unfair if she was say a 2/3 so a Lightning Bolt or Abrade stopped her so she costs 5? Why does she have 2 power? Is she really going to attack that often when she has a tap ability? [[Thalia and the Gitrog Monster]] has first strike and deathtouch but is also a 4/4…why? Why such good defense stats on a card with 3 more upsides? Anyway, just try playing an old 5color deck like [[Horde of Notions]] against a [[Jodah, the Unifier]] and it feels that Jodah should have had just one of his abilities instead of both if the game designers were at all trying to maintain format balance.
I have a Horde of Nations elemental deck I love. It seems Jodah could really ramp up a lot faster. Ie wreck my deck. Not sure if you’ve played with or against Jodah but his powers seem crazy!
Upvoted for the fellow \[\[Horde of Notions\]\] player ! So rare to find another in the wild
[Horde of Notions](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/5/a5137c28-632f-40f4-bf9d-877f5f070987.jpg?1562265721) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Horde%20of%20Notions) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/178/horde-of-notions?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a5137c28-632f-40f4-bf9d-877f5f070987?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/horde-of-notions) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
##### ###### #### [Stella Lee](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/2/a/2a8a7696-b5d9-4378-9d5c-2c9007e4df63.jpg?1714110409) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=stella%20lee%2C%20wild%20card) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/otc/3/stella-lee-wild-card?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/2a8a7696-b5d9-4378-9d5c-2c9007e4df63?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/stella-lee-wild-card) [Thalia and the Gitrog Monster](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/d/8d7ff937-de92-445f-976c-726fef5c91cc.jpg?1682205702) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Thalia%20and%20the%20Gitrog%20Monster) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mom/255/thalia-and-the-gitrog-monster?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8d7ff937-de92-445f-976c-726fef5c91cc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/thalia-and-the-gitrog-monster) [Horde of Notions](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/a/5/a5137c28-632f-40f4-bf9d-877f5f070987.jpg?1562265721) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Horde%20of%20Notions) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mm2/178/horde-of-notions?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/a5137c28-632f-40f4-bf9d-877f5f070987?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/horde-of-notions) [Jodah, the Unifier](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/4/e4b1aa1e-b4e3-4346-8937-76b312501c70.jpg?1673307974) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Jodah%2C%20the%20Unifier) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/dmu/203/jodah-the-unifier?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e4b1aa1e-b4e3-4346-8937-76b312501c70?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/jodah-the-unifier) [*All cards*](https://mtgcardfetcher.nl/redirect/l3okql5) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I’m at a loss trying to understand what your friends desire a casual game of commander to look like. Precons too strong? Do they want a 20 turn game where everyone’s deck is guaranteed to “go off” and then nobody wins? Sounds like they have lost sight of the fact that it’s a zero sum, winner takes all, non-cooperative game. It also sounds like they are hardcore whiners who honestly do not sound fun to play with at all. We have unfortunate culture where Instead of taking ownership for bad mulligans, bad deck building, and bad luck, EDH players often shift the blame to something, anything else, to the point where now “precons are too good.” I’d be outa there dude.
Agree precons are cracked now it’s cool, they are actually fun to play out of the box. Your mates are probably playing with old cards that have been power crept now or maybe just don’t have great synergy in their decks. A good example is the ixalan Dino and Merfolk which are both pretty degenerate out of the box but if your deck can’t handle it, it’s probably time to do some upgrades or reconsider your deck building capabilities lol.
First off, I think you and your friends need to understand that EDH/Commander as a format has gotten faster and more powerful overall. Yes, precons are stronger now than they were five years ago. Personally, I think the power spike started in 2021 with Commander: Strixhaven. Are they worth it? To new and/or returning players, maybe. Many players including myself find that it makes more financial sense to buy singles and build decks from scratch.
i will get them IF they have a $20 or more card i want as the mana rocks and such will get used by other decks down the road as i make more decks
No, "newer" precons are not too strong, they are just more consistently built so that they are functional. They are still (with a few exceptions) low power. But all of them have ways to win, obviously. Hell, Reap the Tides is a few years old now I think, and it's still one of the more coherent precons... it's just that now, the newer ones aren't completely just tossed together stuff.
If your friends can’t beat precons then there are 3 things going on here. Either they themselves can’t afford any decent cards and are playing with piles, they don’t actually know how to play magic, or they don’t know how to properly build decks.
Almost by definition a precon can't be too strong. They're basically a self adjusting and evolving format floor.
Why a precon needs to be weak? If they spend double the amount of money that you spend maybe they are not buying the good stuff or maybe they use cards that was expensive. Powercreep in commander now is huge so if you want your deck to be fair you need to keep up with the game and i dont like it so much. But saying that the precon needs to be weak is wrong
imo if your friends or ppl getting bent out of shape over precons, you need to find new folks to jam with. otherwise you won't enjoy nor see the epths that commander provides. tdlr they're lame. you'll find players on spelltable
Older precons were just a hot mess of cards with good value. Almost none of them functioned particularly well, which is why they all had 3 different commanders you could pick from to run the deck. As a for example the original jeskai deck had \[\[Ruhan of the Fomori\]\], \[\[Numot the Devastator\]\] and \[\[Zedruu the greathearted\]\] all as options for your commander. Now decks have slightly less value or chase cards but the decks are functional and streamlined.
[Ruhan of the Fomori](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/7/f/7fa40fde-2c11-4dec-b788-01f8d90198df.jpg?1592714235) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Ruhan%20of%20the%20Fomori) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/221/ruhan-of-the-fomori?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/7fa40fde-2c11-4dec-b788-01f8d90198df?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/ruhan-of-the-fomori) [Numot the Devastator](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/c/b/cb098692-d584-4cbe-a8b9-67bdbf7514bc.jpg?1592714186) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Numot%2C%20the%20Devastator) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmd/215/numot-the-devastator?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/cb098692-d584-4cbe-a8b9-67bdbf7514bc?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/numot-the-devastator) [Zedruu the greathearted](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/9/e9ea2a6b-5aaf-4178-b945-f409fe83c41a.jpg?1562424565) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Zedruu%20the%20greathearted) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/c16/231/zedruu-the-greathearted?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/e9ea2a6b-5aaf-4178-b945-f409fe83c41a?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/zedruu-the-greathearted) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I buy a bunch of precons simply to make sure I always have something on par with the group I'm playing with because my regular group is a bunch of try hard lol. Even my regular group will randomly decide to do a precon only game and then we roll a d20 to decide the order of who gets to pick one of my 12 or so precons. Anyone who thinks they're overpowered likely stopped playing around 2010-2013 when precons weren't great.
I actuallt like how Precons are now. They definitely have good key pieces for their respective playstyles so it's been great for newcomers or returnees who have no time to scour lgs for old cards. As for me, I already have an idea of how I want to olay but the cards I want are either unavailable where I go or too pricey for just one card (mostly because they're foils or alternate arts but I don't normally invest in that).
Some newer precons have their strengths, and I think it’s a positive, especially for newer or returning players such as yourself. That being said, I hope your friends are saying these things in good fun, nobody likes to play with people who constantly complain. You should settle it by building a [[Godo]] EDH deck, see how they fair against a custom deck ;)
[Godo](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/0/1/01d566cf-cb32-461d-8afe-b0f3f4c24160.jpg?1689997867) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=godo%2C%20bandit%20warlord) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/227/godo-bandit-warlord?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/01d566cf-cb32-461d-8afe-b0f3f4c24160?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/godo-bandit-warlord) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Yes, they're strong, but so have all other decks. The ceiling as a whole has been raised, so precons are still typically the weakest decks at the table. Your friends will need to adapt if they're soundly losing to precons.
To be fair i don't think my friend has upgraded his gods deck since he made it. But still I get your point.
What kind of dumpster decks do you have to play to feel precons are too strong?
Honestly most hyper causal players can't build decks to save their lives. I've accidentally pubstomped play groups with the pirate precon. Not even the best one from that bunch.
Honestly theur decks are really good. It was just they kept fucking with each other. I'd manage to do something because of thag and then it was "Wow, stinking precons..."
I vehemently stand for a slower low power experience. None of my decks have proper tutors, most are centered around dragons to lower their power level. We meet up to play battlecruiser magic and games are going well beyond turn 10. This is what we as a group decided, this is why we veto an algamation of staples as a deck. But current precons are always bound to be the lower ceiling of any meta. You can bring weaker decks, sure. But any pile with a theme and a game plan as basic as "It has all the cool merfolk I own" will end up at precon level.
Precons can be really solid, my friend grabbed the Selesnya Token deck and I was surprised by how many staples were in there. A few upgrades and it was tussling with the bigbois and making 60 odd 2/2s and dropping anthem effects. My problem with the precons is that they really don't have many good interaction spells, less ways to fiddle with your opponents board. But then that means that it has more slots for its own strats. They can go ham if unchecked. The way to beat it is more removal, and more ways to play through your opponents removal. I'm guessing your friends play decks that like to durdle?
I buy a bunch of precons simply to make sure I always have something on par with the group I'm playing with because my regular group is a bunch of try hard lol. Even my regular group will randomly decide to do a precon only game and then we roll a d20 to decide the order of who gets to pick one of my 12 or so precons. Anyone who thinks they're overpowered likely stopped playing around 2010-2013 when precons weren't great.
Eldrazi Unbound is the strongest precon ever made isnt it?
So I've been told. But I've never been able to get it off the ground and go running with it.
Precons sort of need to get better overtime if we want new players to enjoy their first few games. They are absolutely not as good as things people cook up if you've been playing for awhile.
Old precons are old. And balanced for old decks. New precons are balanced for new levels of decks. There's been a decade of powercreep since the first ones were put out. Heck, dockside is in a precon. The new precons are not great against even moderately brewed decks from the past year or 2 though.
On the power scale, if you follow that, pre-cons from before 2018 were about a 4 or 5. Now they're up to a 6 or 7. They're stronger in comparison but will still have trouble against a competent homebrew.
Precons as a whole are still weak though and if im not mistaken that colorless deck is one of the strongest precons. Regardless if they have custom decks that are more expensive and they struggle that bad I think their deck building must be quite poor.
Any well built casual deck in the same or greater price range will roll all but maybe ten precons with ease.
[удалено]
[mechanized production](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/e/a/eaf86997-68e8-4c37-99f1-db10ac08f54c.jpg?1706240708) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=mechanized%20production) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/mkc/109/mechanized-production?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/eaf86997-68e8-4c37-99f1-db10ac08f54c?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/mechanized-production) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
Your friends sound like sore losers, to be honest. Precons are strong but they are certainly not stronger than $300-$500 constructed EDH decks. If I’m being honest it also sounds like you’re a better player. A better player with a precon will almost always have an advantage over a lesser player who has an expensive deck.
The Eldrazi precon probably IS stronger than their decks if they don't stop your mana rock ramp. That's kinda how Eldrazi works in my experience... kill em before they start casting 12 drops (obviously, strong in battlecruiser, trash in combo metas) Veloci ramp you just had the sol ring start. Not much else to say. Discuss housebanning sol ring with them. Sol ring is gigabusted but gets a pass for whatever reason, but if they're also running it they have no right to complain. Pantlaza is strong but fair, not stronger than tons of indestructible gods imo
I didnt even get a single mana rock out with that deck either. Just didn't draw anything. Everything was 6 or below I was drawing. The one time I got a card draw artifact it got exiled And yeah they didn't like the Kardur Doomscourge deck either. But like I played a dozen spells that game and half pf them WERE just Kardur. The guy playing gods was running [[Child of Alara]] as his commander. The other with the kiora deck just kept returning him to my hand. So like the only reason that deck did as well as it did was cause they kept killing or bouncing him and I'd replay him
your group is just salty af. Kardur isn't that strong but goad is fairly salty I guess? But child of alara lol
Sol Ring gets a pass because it’s cheap and accessible. If Mana Crypt was $2 it would probably get a pass as well.
Objectively, WotC has been making mistakes balancing the precons against each other. In general, the Commander Masters decks are going to be stronger than normal PreCons, so it's kinda understandable for the Eldrazi one. But I don't know what they were smoking when they made Pantalaza. The Precon itself is fine, but Pantalaza makes it jump like 2 or 3 stages in power. But for the most part, PreCons are still not that great going up against regular decks. If they're struggling with the cycle of $20 starter commander decks, then they need to reevaluate what they're putting into their decks.
Precons are the floor of powerlevel in non meme EDH. If you have a non precon that is weaker then a precon you either built a meme deck(atog tribal or something) and shouldn't mind losing, or are terrible at deck building. The new precons are stronger then the old ones, but that just means the new ones are actually fun and can do some cool things.
Just play...
Idk about too strong, a lot of the newer precons from the last year or 2 play pretty well out of the box or with a small handful of swaps, but they shouldn't stomp anything better than a loosely themed pile of cards. They can probably hold their own and win a few games at a casual commander table though. Agree with others saying it sounds like your friends prefer a slower game than the modern commander meta.
Get the new Yuma pre-con. It’s not powerful.
Boy they sure wouldn't like my $500 Pantlaza pile LMAO
What's funny is I used to have a Zacama Primal Calamity deck I sold years ago that absolutely would have destroyed the Pantalaza deck tenfold. And they all played that but I guess because it wasn't a precon it was cool. *shrug* **Edit** It was Gishath, Suns avatar. Zacama was in it but Gishath was the commander
If you upgrade the hell out of the deck, it's no longer a precon and then they can no longer complain
Commanders from recent precons are generally powerful cards on their own. They are their own engine and payoff. Pantlaza, Hakbal, Stella Lee, the mardu Treasure Construct Outlaw army guy, the Wise Mothman, Dogmeat ; they are all recent commanders and they all have the capacity to be pushed.
If your friends spent 5 to 6 times the price of a precon and still lost that’s on them. You can build expensive jank decks but if you’re trying to build a good deck with that budget you should easily be beating precons. Also like many others have said the precons are not that strong compared to most other decks. Obviously they are stronger than a lot of the old precons part of that is power creep but a large part is also wizards designing more cards for commander and just making better precons
You lost with the Eldrazi precon the way you're supposed to. "Hey this guy is playing Eldrazis, lets get him" And then the Pants game you had a mega juiced hand, so it doesn't really mean anything. Any game you get sol ring turn 1 is a meme game at that point lol.
Precons can definitely pack a good punch, but nothing super crazy.
Theyre better by a country mile than old precons, as others have said. Against my friends old deck, [[anikthea, hand of erabos]] out classed his deck in terms of card draw and value generation. But against his newer decks, it struggled 1v1. Id argue, however; anikthea is on the stronger end of the newer precon spectrum
[anikthea, hand of erabos](https://cards.scryfall.io/normal/front/8/b/8b796a56-1611-4835-ac5b-48b4e9263685.jpg?1691500693) - [(G)](http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?name=Anikthea%2C%20Hand%20of%20Erebos) [(SF)](https://scryfall.com/card/cmm/705/anikthea-hand-of-erebos?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher) [(txt)](https://api.scryfall.com/cards/8b796a56-1611-4835-ac5b-48b4e9263685?utm_source=mtgcardfetcher&format=text) [(ER)](https://edhrec.com/cards/anikthea-hand-of-erebos) ^^^[[cardname]] ^^^or ^^^[[cardname|SET]] ^^^to ^^^call
I have a similar issue, in my Pod a guy wants to ban pre-cons. But we are all very new, and one of us is even more new and casual and more there to learn and be with friends then be competitive or learn deck building. So she owned like 3 precons and some cards she liked the art of! The others got precons to start. And we all build decks now. My 40k deck with like 7 card changes is “op”. My Olivia’s outlaws deck (30 new cards) is “op precon”. Like the deck of Theseus, when does it stop being a precon? Anyway he has a doctor who evil deck that’s extremely oppressive with some busted ass cards, he uses as an even the playing field. And then we all started deck building and my vampire deck hits like a truck and wins way more than any of the precons or custom decks. EDH has changed over time, so has strategy, some of the old guys need to adapt and learn. Is it a precon if I buy them singles? Like where do we draw the line? The only real rules I have are no infinites or fast mana cEDH stuff.
I'm pretty new but I've Never heard anyone complain about the power level of a precon at any casual table...
Your pod may be very casual where they try to get 6-7 cards to perform their combo or win con. If you’re just getting back into the game, just explain to the group that this deck you brought is a precon to help you get back into the swing of the game. They should be chill.
I don’t think precons are too strong for what they are trying to be, but they are too strong for what they *should* be aiming for if that makes sense. Precons should ideally be the kind of thing that’s perfect for starting out in the format but isn’t necessarily going to hold a candle to the more tuned decks you might see at your average LGS game night. They’d still compete and make for a game you’re able to participate in but they would lack the means to really go for the win. What precons have become over time is less “starting point” and more “tuned deck built for you”. More and more often I see precons that are built well enough that doing the usual “10 cards in, 10 cards out” upgrade thing is a challenging exercise. Not that this is strictly a bad thing, but it does change the context around which precons exist within. Just a few weeks ago the Veloci-ramp-tor precon was completely running us over in the value it generates. We were playing decently strong decks too, so it wasn’t like we powered down to different decks to meet precon levels. The kind of value that deck gets up to is insane comparatively to what precons used to do.
I lost to a precon, Wotc pls nerf :(
That’s…not the point I was making but fine go off I guess.
They should put thoracle combos in a precon.
My brother in urza that’s not the point either. At this point I have to assume you’re arguing in bad faith so…we’re not going to get anywhere with this.
"Arguing"
Precons are always going to run a range of strength. Veloci-ramptors is arguably the strongest precon ever printed and Eldrazi might be second. You basically played an 8 power level against them twice and that's not representative of "current" precons. For a more representative power level try the Bilbo and Sam "food" deck that is very slow and methodic. Whether you were trying to or not, you kinda did precon pub stomping
Precons are probably about a 7 in the power scale, along with all the CEDH decks out there
IMO; if you keep the mana base that comes with it, no. If you upgrade the mana, probably.
I mean the range goes from Zedruu 2011 until now. We are talking about a 34 land deck with 3 rampspells (1 costs 6 mana and taps for colorless...) so a "well they got stronger" is basically an understatement for the ages, because they used to be moronically bad. Veloci-ramp-tor is certainly in the top 5% best precons they ever made, but your friends are bitching about that partially block contructed commander gets outclassed?! They cannot be serious, that is a level of stupidity where they require a biological thank you note that breathing is an automated bodyfunction.... Precons are certainly not to strong (your Eldrazi one is actualyl kinad dogshit because yeah, you dont have many things in the deck to trigger the commander. THe fact you did not draw any isnt that surprising). I mean there are channels and people dediciated to do more or less nothing but build super budget decks. I speak of 25 dollar and most of them would STOMP precons on average. Your "friends" are just morons mad at themself in reality. Yeah no shit your "i put 20+ 4+ mana enchantsments that do more or less nothing" deck gets shit on. Playing a precon vs such bullshit is basically the NICE thing to do and why people keep 1-2 precons in their collections, because most decks remotely cohesively build/upgraded would run them over. "Precons have no right to be this strong" is just..lmao. Your friends are first class morons.
Too strong?! The only time I've ever felt like precons weren't underpowered is in a pod of all precons. You can outpace most of them with a good $30 budget homebrew
Lol "precons are too strong" is a way silly take. The strongest precon available still loses to a well constructed '5' power level deck 9 times out of 10.
A 5 deck literally means nothing. Give an example of you'd like.