"Eldrazi Unbound" Precon Upgrade Guide | Commander Masters
Commander Masters preconstructed decklists have been revealed and with it comes another round of my precon upgrades. We're going to do a thorough analysis of each deck, highlighting its goals and how well it accomplishes them, check out its deckbuilding fundamentals, identify its strongest and weakest cards, then use all that information to create an optimized $50 upgrade path!
Check out all the Commander Masters precon upgrades here:
Eldrazi Unbound is a Colorless Matters deck and in fact the first ever Colorless preconstructed deck ever made! The deck rewards you for being fully colorless with powerful ramp engines like Forsaken Monument and Darksteel Monolith to cast big colorless haymakers like Kozilek, the Great Distortion and Rise of the Eldrazi!
So if you're looking for a big ol' Timmy deck that ramps hard into huge splashy spells with a Colorless twist, Eldrazi Unbound is the deck for you!
The Precon List
Before we talk upgrades, let's take a look at the stock list to see what we're working with:
Despite its name, Eldrazi Unbound isn't actually focused primarily on Eldrazi: I only count 12 cards that make eldrazi, and only 1 card that supports eldrazi specifically (Eldrazi Temple). The deck is actually a Colorless Matters deck: the entire deck is colorless, of course, but also we have 15 cards that support colorless matters (Calamity of the Titans, Ugin, the Ineffable, lands like Tomb of the Spirit Dragon). So really the deck name is misleading and should've been called something like Colorless Calamity or whatever.
The misleading name has drawn ire from folks in the community and honestly fair enough: I'd be bummed if I bought the precon expecting an Eldrazi deck only to find out my top-end is filled with cards like Metalwork Colossus and Ancient Stone Idol. The deck itself sticks to its real theme pretty well, but it's not the theme that has been advertised.
Choosing Our Commander
Eldrazi Unbound comes with three potential commanders to lead the precon: two new options with Zhulodok, Void Gorger and Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate, and the reprint Kozilek, the Great Distortion. Which to choose as our commander?
- Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate eliminates itself from the competition due to not having enough support cards: I think there's like 4 cards total that deal with +1/+1 counters in the entire deck and only 1 can repeatedly put counters (Hangarback Walker). What is this card even doing in the deck? Why did it waste one of the only ten new card slots? It's even a terrible cascade flip with the face commander!
- Zhulodok, Void Gorger is easily identified as a crazy sweet value engine. The card is essentially a souped up Imoti, Celebrant of Bounty for Colorless, providing a ton of card advantage and mana advantage from the command zone. This is a great choice to lead the deck, but it's not even the strongest choice!
- Kozilek, the Great Distortion remains the BEST Colorless commander in my opinion. This card is absurdly good, immediately replenishing your hand after you spent your early turns depleting it by vomiting out mana rocks, and then you have a free counterspell engine chucking those excess mana rocks at people's spells! And it's a 12/12 menace that 2-shots opponents! And if Kozilek dies you just play more mana rocks, casting Kozilek, and refill your hand again! I'd say that Kozilek is even TOO GOOD for most playgroups, as either he gets destroyed by artifact hate or he just takes over games.
My recommendation to lead the deck is ... both Zhulodok and Kozilek, actually! Zhulodok is a very powerful value engine, but it's a "friendly" value option since it doesn't stop your opponents' game plans. Meanwhile Kozilek is an oppressive value engine, keeping your opponents from stopping you just long enough for you to obliterate them with commander damage. So the choice is yours! I'll be going with Zhulodok for this article, but feel free to swap over to Kozilek, the decks are very similar it's just that Kozilek benefits more from a few key Voltron cards.
Analyzing the Precon & Identifying Weaknesses
Now that we've glanced at the stock list and settled on our commander, let's take a closer look at the deck itself to identify what parts benefit the most from upgrades.
As I often explain in my Budget Commander articles, every time I build a rough draft of a deck, I make sure I have a certain ratio of mana, interaction, card advantage, etc. This gives me a reference point to compare to the deck and see which areas may need improvement. My general ratio is:
- 50 mana; lands and ramp, usually a 37–13 split
- 10 card draw; cards that net you 2+ cards in hand
- 8 targeted removal; split between creature / artifact / enchantment removal and countermagic
- 3 board wipes; creature-light decks might want one more, creature-heavy decks might want one less
- 2 graveyard recursion
- 2 flexible tutors; higher budgets I recommend more tutors
- 1 graveyard hate; since you need to keep Graveyard decks honest
That's always my starting point, which is then tweaked to suit the individual deck's strategy and further tweaked with playtesting. I always find it immensely useful to figure out some quick ways to improve the deck in question.
Let's see what the rough ratios are for Eldrazi Unbound and how it compares. I count:
- 57 mana; 38 lands and Ornithopter of Paradise, Burnished Hart, Palladium Myr, Scaretiller, Solemn Simulacrum, Geode Golem, Oblivion Sower, Ugin, the Ineffable, Everflowing Chalice, Sol Ring, Mind Stone, Thought Vessel, Unstable Obelisk, Worn Powerstone, Hedron Archive, Thran Dynamo, Forsaken Monument, Dreamstone Hedron, Darksteel Monolith
- 13 card draw; Zhulodok, Void Gorger, Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate, Endbringer, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Ugin, the Ineffable, Rise of the Eldrazi, Endless Atlas, Investigator's Journal, Mazemind Tome, Mystic Forge, Ugin's Mastery, bleh to Hedron Archive and Dreamstone Hedron
- 11 targeted removal; Duplicant, Meteor Golem, Kozilek, the Great Distortion, Ugin, the Ineffable, Spatial Contortion, Warping Wail, Titan's Presence, Desecrate Reality, Rise of the Eldrazi, Unstable Obelisk, Steel Hellkite
- 3 board wipes; Calamity of the Titans, All Is Dust, Perilous Vault
- 1 graveyard recursion; Desecrate Reality; Phyrexian Triniform and Metalwork Colossus recur themselves
- 0 flexible tutors;
- 1 graveyard hate; Scavenger Grounds
The amount of mana in this deck might seem overboard but I can tell you from experience that this is the correct amount: this deck is all about ramping into huge haymakers, so if you want to be hardcasting things like Rise of the Eldrazi you're going to need a LOT of mana!
The rest of the ratios look good, though I would prefer another board wipe or two: board wipes are good because your early turns are spent ramping, not developing a board presence, so a board wipe is a great catchup mechanic before you start dropping your haymakers.
Unlike the other precons from the set, the lands are surprisingly decent, probably because you really don't need to spend much on a good colorless manabase: anything that taps for colorless and enters untapped is good enough. Still we got some nice reprints with Arcane Lighthouse, the really good Eldrazi Temple, War Room, heck even the basic Wastes have been creeping up to $1 so 15 of them is welcome!
Overall the ratios are quite good!
$50 Upgrade
Disclaimer: Card prices are volatile and may be different at the time you read this article.
Eldrazi Unbound offers a great base for a Colorless Matters deck, already including nearly all the Colorless payoffs for the archetype. It's also a solid start to an Eldrazi deck since despite missing like 6 expensive staples the rest of the deck has all the stuff you'd be looking for. That said, this is where I'm taking the deck:
- Add another staple board wipe
- Add more Eldrazi
- Add GY hate
- Start upgrading the lands
Additions:
The single best upgrade the deck isn't actually any of the Eldrazi Titans, it's Ugin, the Spirit Dragon: this is yet another one-sided board wipe for our deck, allowing us to spend the early turns ramping, drop Ugin to wipe our opponents and catch up on board, then start dropping our haymakers. I've also powerful top-end Eldrazi with Conduit of Ruin, Void Winnower, and Pathrazer of Ulamog. I really love Thaumatic Compass as an early play / mana sink that makes sure we keep hitting lands -- in a deck with 12mv spells this is important -- and then doubles as protection, Wandering Archaic slows down opponents or generates value early on, Stonespeaker Crystal is a great ramp that doubles as powerful GY hate when needed.
Cuts:
All the X spells are trash in the deck, none being particularly exciting by themselves and while they can trigger Zhulodok, Void Gorger if we cast them for 7+ mana they are complete whiffs if we cascade into them. They'd be better if Omarthis if they were our commander but nowhere else.
Here's how the deck looks like with the changes made. Note that you can replace Zhulodok with Kozilek and the deck gets more powerful but also more oppressive.
Further Upgrades
If you make Kozilek, the Great Distortion your commander then I recommend adding a couple more mana rocks and then just a few Voltron pieces like Commander's Plate and Shadowspear to make commander damage strategy more potent.
But if you're on Zhulodok or Kozilek you'll want the following:
- Lands Ancient Tomb, Eye of Ugin, Urza's Saga, Demolition Field, The Mycosynth Gardens, Vesuva, Thespian's Stage
- Ramp Mana Crypt, Mana Vault
- Card Draw The One Ring, Palantir of Orthanc
- Removal Portal to Phyrexia, Cityscape Leveler
- Eldrazi Kozilek, Butcher of Truth, Ulamog, the Ceaseless Hunger, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre, Emrakul, the Promised End
3 Down, 1 To Go!
Enduring Enchantress is the last deck and as someone who has built many different Enchantress decks over the years I'm still impressed with this precon! Check back soon for its upgrade guide!
