Maestros Massacre Precon Upgrade Guide | $50 | Spellslinger | Aristocrats | Casualty | 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.
Maestros Massacre is a Blue / Black / Red precon that combines two archetypes: Spellslinger and Aristocrats. The goal of this deck is to flood the board with sacrificial creatures such as Bloodsoaked Champion and Dread Summons, then sacrifice those creatures to make double the potency of the new instants and sorceries with the casualty mechanic, which are sprinkled into the 99 with cards like Xander's Pact but are mostly provided by our face commander, Anhelo, the Painter. These powerful doubled instants and sorceries will flood the board with creatures and steal your opponents' spells, eventually overwhelming the opposition with the value you generate.
If you want to play a Grixis Maestros deck that combines both Spellslinger and Aristocrats archetypes into a single cohesive deck, then Maestros Massacre 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:
Maestros Massacre is tasked with combining Aristocrats and Spellslinger together into a cohesive, focused deck. In order to do so, it will need to have a heavy representation of both Spellslinger and Aristocrats cards, but most importantly it needs payoff cards that rewarding you for combining the two themes, or else there would be no point in combining them. The stock list doesn't have that many payoffs for this: I count just 10 cards that reward you for this specific "Spellslinger Aristocrats" combination, mostly casualty cards like A Little Chat but less direct synergy cards like Cryptic Pursuit. This isn't the fault of the precon designers: there's simply not a lot of cards currently printed that merge the two archetypes. However, the designers compensated for this by making the face commander, Anhelo, the Painter, more than make up for this deficit, by giving all your instants and sorceries casualty! With Anhelo on the battlefield -- and he's only 3 mana, so he'll be there pretty consistently -- the entire deck comes together beautifully. So the precon is overly reliant on its commander to really showcase its theme, but the commander is so good that it makes everything work.
Choosing Our Commander
There's actually four different cards in the deck that could be swapped in as the commander for this deck: Anhelo, the Painter, Cormela, Glamour Thief, Kess, Dissident Mage, and Parnesse, the Subtle Brush. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but after analyzing the deck list, Anhelo really is the only good choice for the stock list and minimal upgraded versions. Still, here's a rundown on the options:
- Kess, Dissident Mage is amazing for Spellslinger, but has zero synergy with Aristocrats beyond her ability to recur cards with casualty on them. She's great in pure Spellslinger brews but would feel wasted as the commander here.
- Cormela, Glamour Thief provides ramp for Spellslinger and wants to be sacrificed, both things our deck wants to do. She's also part of an easy and flexible combo win condition with Cormela + any instant / sorcery that returns her to the battlefield untapped like Demonic Gifts + any sac outlet that produces mana like Phyrexian Altar + any finisher like Blood Artist for an easy win. The combo is highly modular and easy to set up so she's a strong contender for a more competitive version of the deck, however this would take the deck into a focused Combo direction, which a (very vocal) part of my viewers would loudly complain about if I took the deck this direction, so let's not.
- Parnesse, the Subtle Brush lives up to her "subtle" title as most folks skip past her without even understanding what you're supposed to do with her: basically, Parnesse is "Grixis Politics" or "Grixis Group Hug," utilizing the copy ability of our casualty spells and other copy effects to assist other people at the table. We have full control of who we want to help and when, so we can use the ability politically to gain favors or team up against archenemies at the table. The ability is undoubtedly strong, but unfortunately the stock list simply doesn't have that many spells to utilize her ability properly since there's relatively few copy spells, and she also costs a whopping 5 mana which is a lot for a commander in 2022.
- Anhelo, the Painter is the face commander of the precon and in my opinion the clear best pick to lead the precon: he best supports the deck's goal, adding casualty to all of our instants and sorceries. Anhelo is the best payoff in a deck that is low on those, so having him always accessible in the command zone and aggressively costed at just 3 mana is fantastic and basically essential for making the stock list function as intended. This is hands-down the strongest commander for the stock list and the easiest to upgrade with a limited budget.
So after looking at our options, Anhelo is an easy 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 Upgrades Unleashed and how it compares. I count:
- 48 mana; 37 lands and Goblin Electromancer, Spellbinding Soprano, Cormela, Glamour Thief, Sol Ring, Wayfarer's Bauble, Arcane Signet, Dimir Signet, Fellwar Stone, Izzet Signet, Rakdos Signet, Commander's Sphere
- 11 card draw; A Little Chat, Damnable Pact, Body Count, Deep Analysis, Drawn from Dreams, Fact or Fiction, Mystic Confluence, Xander's Pact, Dig Through Time, Cryptic Pursuit, Smuggler's Buggy, along with some card selection that I didn't count like Ponder
- 9 targeted removal; Sinister Concierge, Syrix, Carrier of the Flame (unreliable in the stock list), Feed the Swarm, Bedevil, Maestros Charm, Audacious Swap, Sever the Bloodline, Maestros Confluence, Mystic Confluence
- 5 board wipes; Chain Reaction, Make an Example, Hex, Reign of the Pit, River's Rebuke
- 5 graveyard recursion; Cormela, Glamour Thief, Kess, Dissident Mage, Puppeteer Clique, Flawless Forgery, Maestros Confluence, though there's far more self-recursive cards such as Bloodsoaked Champion and I suppose even flashback such as Deep Analysis
- 0 flexible tutors;
- 1 graveyard hate; Waste Management
- 3 finishers; Army of the Damned, Clone Legion, Dread Summons
- 17 Anhelo sacrifice fodder; Bloodsoaked Champion, Dogged Detective, Sinister Concierge, Skyclave Shade, Squee, the Immortal, Woe Strider, Cormela, Glamour Thief, Rekindling Phoenix, Syrix, Carrier of the Flame, Puppeteer Clique, Spellbinding Soprano, Dread Summons, Waste Management, Army of the Damned, Clone Legion, Cryptic Pursuit, Rite of the Raging Storm
Things look great in terms of ratios. Now let's take a deeper dive and check out the individual cards!
37 Lands. We're slowly but surely seeing a shift in precons adding more and more untapped duals: we've got filter lands like Cascade Bluffs, some reveal lands like Choked Estuary which while not amazing are still better than any tapped dual, and battlelands like Sunken Hollow. This is good, and significantly better than the manabases we got the last time we had 3C precons, but I think in the year 2022 it's about time we start jamming the real good lands in these products. Gimme bondlands like Luxury Suite, which were made for multiplayer products! Gimme a shockland and a fetchland! Especially since WOTC is raising the price of all their products this year. What's the excuse?
11 Ramp. Unlike the lands, the ramp truly has most of the best options you could ask for: we've got the usual staples like Sol Ring, all the best 2C mana rocks in our colors such as Rakdos Signet, and even some solid Spellslinger ramp options such as Goblin Electromancer. The only card I'd look to upgrade out is Commander's Sphere, and even that is a low priority for me. Very good!
11 Card Draw. The card draw is a mixed bag: we have some solid thematic options such as A Little Chat and Xander's Pact mixed in with some poor options that don't fit our theme like Smuggler's Buggy. I'd prioritize swapping out the weaker options in our upgrade section.
9 Targeted Removal. The targeted removal is great, with lots of flexible options like Maestros Charm and Mystic Confluence letting us get maximum value out of our cards no matter the situation. They all get even better by fitting our theme, with one notable exception being Syrix, Carrier of the Flame, which has too few cards in the stock list to reliably trigger its abilities.
5 Board Wipes. While Chain Reaction and Reign of the Pit are symmetrical, the other 3 wipes are asymmetrical: I actually like the new Make an Example, I find Hex to be too clunky in practice, and River's Rebuke is fine but ... just reprint Cyclonic Rift.
5 Graveyard Recursion. The recursion is another high point of this precon. We've got powerful thematic options such as Cormela, Glamour Thief and Kess, Dissident Mage, plus a whole bunch of cards that can cast themselves from the graveyard. The deck's high amount of card advantage means it's well-equipped to grinding out a longer game.
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.
1 Graveyard Hate. Waste Management is way overcosted for what it does: the base should cost just B, not 2B, and even then I'd still not be excited to play it. We need a Bojuka Bog here at the very least, and probably a better nonland graveyard wipe like Ashiok, Dream Render.
3 Finishers. Dread Summons, Clone Legion, and Army of the Damned can all flood the board with tokens to beat face with. That may not be enough on its own, but copy the spell with Anhelo, the Painter, or copy it multiple times with stuff like Twinning Staff and Double Vision, and that should be enough to close out games if your opponents can't find a board wipe immediately. It's not great but it works.
17 Anhelo Sac Fodder. Anhelo, the Painter in our command zone basically covers our "sacrifice payoff" in the deck all by himself. However, we'll need a steady stream of 2+ power creatures to reliably sacrifice to his casualty ability. The stock list provides a ton of fodder for Anhelo -- which is good, we need a ton to reliably use his ability -- but the actual cards are a mixed bag. We're looking for sac fodder that are mana-efficient and offer useful utility. Cards like Cormela, Glamour Thief and Sinister Concierge fit the bill perfectly, whereas other options like Squee, the Immortal and Puppeteer Clique are just a bit too janky for what we want.
Precons intentionally leave out some obvious key cards to make you want to spend more money upgrading them and feel smart about figuring it out, so it's no surprise that perfect Spellslinger token producers like Talrand, Sky Summoner have been left out of the stock list. These are the first cards that we'll look to add in our upgrade section.
The Verdict. Maestros Massacre is one of the best stock precons I've reviewed. The deck nails the deckbuilding ratios and a focused theme that is carried perfectly by its powerful face commander. The individual cards included are above-average, with highlights being the ramp package, flexible targeted removal, graveyard recursion, and most of its card draw options. The end result is a consistent deck that will yield its intended gameplay experience most times that you shuffle up to play. The deck isn't perfect, and I'm really tired of not seeing some staple lands getting reprinted in precons, but in terms of play experience, this is one of the best precons out there.
Upgrade Goals
I have some specific goals when upgrading Maestros Massacre:
- Upgrade the sac fodder
- Add better card draw
- Add better Spellslinger support
- Add more instants to take better advantage of Anhelo
- Upgrade the lands a bit
The most obvious upgrades to the precon is adding Spellslinger token produces that create 2+ power creatures to fuel our commander: Talrand, Sky Summoner, Deekah, Fractal Theorist, and Poppet Stitcher are going to be the highest impact additions to the list. Magecraft cards like Storm-Kiln Artist and Archmage Emeritus are going to be huge additions too since they trigger off copied spells as well, which works perfectly with Anhelo, the Painter.
Since Anhelo, the Painter's ability works each turn, not just your own, the best way to maximize his value is to move the deck towards cheap instants so you can potentially utilize his ability multiple turns per turn cycle. Anhelo is also particiularly great when copying spells with additional casting costs, such as Unexpected Windfall and Village Rites, which allow you to copy them without having to pay the additional cost a second time. This means Village Rites essentially draws you 4 cards by sacrificing 2 creatures for a single black mana! That's insane value!
$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:
The upgraded deck is even more focused and way faster than the stock list. Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, Talrand, Sky Summoner, Metallurgic Summonings, Poppet Stitcher, and Deekah, Fractal Theorist are the best sac fodder engines for the deck and work perfectly with our Spellslinger strategy. Docent of Perfection initially makes 1/1's, but eventually buffs them when it flips, doubling as a win condition. Our Spellslinging options our streamlined, cheaper so we can more easily cast them while still being more flexible -- I love Rakdos Charm here -- and we have cards that are just busted when copied by Anhelo, like Big Score net gaining us cards while making 4+ treasures when we copy it. Magecraft cards like Storm-Kiln Artist and Archmage Emeritus are ridiculously good when we regularly copy our spells, and both Professor Onyx and Octavia, Living Thesis are huge win conditions.
The deck is SWEET! Probably my favorite precon in a while!
1 Down, 4 To Go!
I hope you liked this upgrade to Maestros Massacre. We'll be back with the other four precons soon!
