Cabaretti Cacophony Precon Upgrade Guide | $50 | Go Wide | Politics | Kitt Kanto | Streets of New Capenna
Streets of New Capenna preconstructed decks 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 a high-impact list of upgrades for under $50.
Cabaretti Cacophony is a Go Wide Tokens deck with a strong Politics subtheme: the deck wants to make tons of tokens, making tokens whenever you play a land off Scute Swarm and Felidar Retreat, rewarding you with tokens when you blow up things with Aura Mutation and Artifact Mutation, even making tokens at instant speed while also protecting your army with Grand Crescendo. You're then rewarded off having lots of creatures, such as drawing cards with Shamanic Revelation or buffing your army off Beastmaster Ascension.
However, what makes this Go Wide Tokens deck unique is the Politics subtheme: the deck has cards that benefit both you and an opponent, with you always coming out on top. You can generate tokens with opponents using Sylvan Offering, buff opposing creatures and your own with Orzhov Advokist, and then eventually goad your opponents' creatures into killing each other with Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva. So not only are you smashing for huge damage, but your opponents are also doing the dirty work for you!
In some ways this feels like the spiritual successor of the C13 deck Gahiji, Honored One, who had the exact same theme and even shows up in the 99 of this list. It's been nearly a decade since that precon, so let's see how things have changed since then!
If you want a Go Wide Tokens deck with a Politics twist, then Cabaretti Cacophony 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:
Cabaretti Cacophony is tasked with merging together the themes of Go Wide Tokens and Politics, and it does a fair job of that: I count 29 cards that make tokens, 22 cards that reward you for having lots of creatures, and 13 political cards that either give opponents resources or goad them into action. So it's a Tokens deck first and Politics deck second, which as someone who has made this exact style of deck with Gahiji, Honored One back in the day I can tell you is the correct ratio: Politics is great when it works, but you still need to be able to get things done yourself!
Choosing Our Commander
There's actually three different cards in the deck that could be swapped in as the commander for this deck: Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva, Phabine, Boss's Confidant, and Gahiji, Honored One. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, and I think there's a decent argument for having any of them as your commander:
- Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva is the face commander of the precon and I think is the strongest of the bunch. She makes a token and merges both Go Wide and Politics together by letting you tap your creatures to goad opposing creatures into fighting for you. This is a strong effect and even opens the door for untap effects to get even more value out of it. As an added bonus she also costs the least at 4mv, which makes her the most consistent of the bunch.
- Phabine, Boss's Confidant gives your team haste while also providing a random mix of token generation and +1/+1 buff for combat. I'm not a fan of this card though since the mass draw ends up netting your opponents more cards than you, but worst of all is she's just way overpriced at 6 mana. Honestly if she was 3 mana she'd be good but not busted; she's just a bad deal at 6.
- Gahiji, Honored One is another card with a powerful on-theme effect, buffing all creatures so long as they aren't attacking you. This is both great at pumping your own Go Wide team but also encouraging your opponents to attack each other, dealing even more damage indirectly. I had a lot of success with it back in the day and while it's weaker in comparison to 2022 Commander it still does a great job supporting what this deck wants to do. I still think Kitt is a bit stronger, but Gahiji is still a fine alternative commander and something I'm happy to keep in the 99.
So after looking at our options, Kitt is my choice for our commander.
Analyzing the Precon
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
- 1 finisher; something that can win games the turn you cast it without too much setup
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 Cabaretti Cacophony and how it compares. I count:
- 50 mana; 38 lands and Leafkin Druid, Sakura-Tribe Elder, Selvala, Explorer Returned, Wood Elves, Rose Room Treasurer, Cultivate, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Fellwar Stone, Commander's Sphere, Awakening Zone, Prosperous Partnership
- 10 card draw; Magus of the Wheel, Rumor Gatherer, Selvala, Explorer Returned, Phabine, Boss's Confidant, Harmonize, Shamanic Revelation, Camaraderie, Vivien's Stampede, Idol of Oblivion, Outpost Siege
- 7 targeted removal; Rose Room Treasurer, Path to Exile, Artifact Mutation, Aura Mutation, Beast Within, Cabaretti Charm, Cabaretti Confluence
- 3 board wipes; Martial Coup, Fell the Mighty, False Floor
- 0 graveyard recursion; wait, what?
- 0 flexible tutors;
- 0 graveyard hate;
- 7 finishers; Bess, Soul Nourisher, Gahiji, Honored One, Phabine, Boss's Confidant, Cabaretti Confluence, Vivien's Stampede, Beastmaster Ascension, Felidar Retreat
No graveyard hate is a bummer, but I'm surprised at the total absence of graveyard recursion; did I miss any? Weird.
Now let's take a deeper dive and check out the individual cards!
38 Lands. This is the correct number of lands for a casual deck. There's some good untapped duals like Exotic Orchard but honestly too few. We've been getting subpar schlock like Naya Panorama for literally a decade now despite the format being power crept far beyond what it was back then.
Oh, and hot take time: I think both Castle Ardenvale and Castle Embereth are subpar, especially in a tricolor deck. I know they're thematic but spending five mana to make a 1/1 token is terrible and the situation where you'd actually want to activate it in a game of Commander is so rare that it's simply not worth running it over a different land. Castle Embereth is at least a tiny bit cheaper but again too low-impact. Replace these with mana-fixing lands.
12 Ramp. Unlike the land choices, the ramp here is above-average: we've got the staples you'd expect such as Sakura-Tribe Elder and Arcane Signet, plus some thematic ramp cards like Leafkin Druid and Awakening Zone which I don't mind at all. It can be upgraded of course, but it's not a bad start.
10 Card Draw. The card draw is mostly stellar with some stinkers: we have some amazing burst draw options such as Camaraderie and Shamanic Revelation to instantly refill our hand if we have an army, incremental token draw with Idol of Oblivion, and the classic generic draw Harmonize as all solid options. However I'm far less thrilled at the Group Hug options here: Master of Ceremonies draws your opponents more than you and only if they choose it, and the parley cards Selvala, Explorer Returned and Phabine, Boss's Confidant also are net card disadvantage but at least make up for it with other useful effects.
Now some folks might enjoy the Group Hug options, not caring about how powerful they are and instead being happy to get new toys to play with, but this article is focused on optimization so I have to bring up my criticisms here.
7 Targeted Removal. The targeted removal here is very good. We've got staples like Path to Exile and Beast Within, plus thematic and powerful options like the flexible Cabaretti Charm and Cabaretti Confluence, or the removal + token producers Artifact Mutation and Aura Mutation. It's a good mix and I have no real complaints.
3 Board Wipes. Martial Coup and Fell the Mighty are solid and thematic wipes. The new card, False Floor, is very interesting: while it may look like a slow and bad board wipe, it's actually a sneaky way to force your opponents to attack, since any untapped creature may be taken out on your turn. So it's more like a Grand Melee that can punish opponents for having untapped creatures. I really like the design and I'm excited to try it out!
0 Graveyard Recursion. Unless I'm missing something, I count 0 graveyard recursion cards in the deck, which is unusual. Not every deck needs a lot of recursion, but having one or two cards can be worth their weight in gold especially in the lategame when the best "draw" in your deck is sitting in your yard. If I was in charge of this precon I'd have added Skullwinder since it's both recursion and political. Ah well, something to do in the upgrade section.
0 Flexible Tutors. Tutors are super helpful for any Commander deck to help you find the right card for any situation, but I'm fine with them not showing up in precons. These are decks that are meant to pick up and play without being intimately aware of the deck's contents so tutors would only serve to confuse new pilots.
0 Graveyard Hate. Every deck should have at least one piece of graveyard hate to shut down enemy recursion. Another thing we'll need to fix in the upgrade section.
7 Finishers. This deck has no shortage of ways to end the game through combat damage, either by bumping your team up with cards like Beastmaster Ascension or by forcing your opponents to kill each other with Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva. The deck has only a single way to win outside of combat damage -- slowly pinging with Outpost Siege -- which can be awkward when combat damage isn't a viable way to end the game, but for most games it'll suffice.
The Verdict. Cabaretti Cacophony is a great precon right out of the box: it's a focused Go Wide Tokens deck with a fun Political twist to keep things interesting, and it accomplishes its goals very well. Its pros are its focused themes and great ramp, targeted removal, card draw, and finishers. Its cons are its subpar lands and complete lack of graveyard recursion and graveyard hate, which are easily fixed with just a few card swaps.
Upgrade Goals
I have some specific goals when upgrading Cabaretti Cacophony:
- Upgrade the ramp
- Add one or two graveyard recursion and graveyard hate cards
- Upgrade the board wipes
- Upgrade the Go Wide Token strategy
- Upgrade the Politics subtheme
We're going to strengthen our Go Wide Token strategy by adding one of the best draw spells for the archetype, Toski, Bearer of Secrets, one of the best burst ramp with Harvest Season, and some of the best anthems with Jetmir, Nexus of Revels.
For our Goad theme we're adding Marisi, Breaker of the Coil and Vengeful Ancestor to help with goading and Drumbellower so we can get more Kitt Kanto, Mayhem Diva activations and pseudo-vigilance. Speaking of our commander, Emmara, Soul of the Accord is amazing with her, becoming a very efficient token generator when tapped.
I'm tossing in Skullwinder for political GY recursion and Scavenger Grounds for land-based GY hate.
$50 Upgrades
Disclaimer: Card prices are volatile and may be different at the time you read this article.
Here's how I'd swap in $50 worth of upgrades. If you want to upgrade on a smaller budget then just makes less swaps:
Additions:
Cuts:
And here's the deck with the upgrades installed:
3 Down, 2 To Go!
I hope you liked this upgrade to Cabaretti Cacophony. We'll be back with the other two precons soon!
