Upgrading Mardu Surge With The Spiciest Tech | Tarkir Dragonstorm Commander Precon
Dragonstorm Commander precons have arrived 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 $25 upgrade path and beyond!
Today we're talking about Mardu Surge, a White / Black / Red deck focused on Attacking, Creature Tokens, and Sacrifice! The goal of the deck is to flood the board with creature tokens and attack with them, and use their inevitable deaths to fuel powerful spells! It's basically the most Mardu deck that has ever Mardu'd, focusing on the bread and butter themes of this color wedge.
So if you want to play a classic Mardu deck focused on what the color wedge does best, Mardu Surge is the precon 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:
Mardu Surge has a pretty easy objective -- do the classic Mardu things of Go Wide Token Combat with a dash of Sacrifice -- and unsurprisingly meets that objective: I count 18 cards that reward attacking with attack triggers (e.g. Legion Loyalty) or combat triggers (Mindblade Render), 29 cards that create creature tokens, and 13 cards that benefit from your creatures dying, which are the numbers I'd expect in this kind of deck. So the deck plays exactly how you'd expect it to.
The Good
There are two main things I really like about this deck:
1. The new cards are sweet. All the new cards reinforce the main themes of the deck while also being exciting additions to other decks as well. I think the single most powerful new card is Ainok Strike Leader which is an incredibly mana-efficient way of generating creature tokens and protecting a large chunk of your board from wipes. Personally I'm most excited to add Goldlust Triad to my Dragons deck! The fact that these cards are generic enough to also be fun in other decks is a big plus for me.
2. Lots of great reprints. There's a ton of great staples to be excited about here: Grand Crescendo is a major highlight and absolutely excellent in any Tokens strategy, but there's plenty of other cards to love here like Tocasia's Welcome which finds its way into a bulk of White decks these days or Shattered Sanctum which is a staple land in basically any Orzhov or 3C deck that can run it.
The Bad
Like all of the precons, Mardu Surge isn't perfect. There are some things I wish this list did better:
1. A lot of the token generators suck. It's weird that we have a few top-tier token generators like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar right beside complete stinkers like Lingering Souls. Siege-Gang Commander feels particularly egregious since this isn't a Goblin deck and the mana spent to get these tokens, let alone activate its underwhelming ability, is way too ambitious for this deck's weak manabase, which leads me to my next point!
2. A lack of evasion / haste. Sure, Zurgo Stormrender wants creature tokens to die, but what about Zurgo himself? That lowly 3/3 ain't attacking after like turn 4 or so once everyone has a few creatures on board. And what about the other nontoken creatures that want to attack? How the heck are they surviving combat? The deck doesn't really have an answer for blockers, which means a lot of the time you'll be stuck sitting around not attacking, which is the last thing a Combat-focused deck wants to be doing.
3. The manabase is weak. The land choices are overall quite good, with lots of untapped 2C mana-fixing lands and some tapped 3C fixing lands -- though a land count of just 37 seems too low. The ramp options here are very bare-bones though: we've got some signets and talismans but, like, that's it? Where's the creativity here? Where's the exciting ramp cards that kick your deck into overdrive? I honestly think the designers phoned it in here, and that's going to lead to worse play experiences.
4. The interaction is weak / missing. Arguably the greatest strength Mardu has as a color combination is its absolute peak removal: this is the color of Ruinous Ultimatum, Crackling Doom, Anguished Unmaking! So why are there so little removal goodies in this deck? I just covered the lack of evasion in this deck and well, removing potential blockers is one way to keep attacking too!
So those are the things I'm seeking to address with my upgrade guide.
$25 Upgrades
First let's upgrade our token generators. There's a lot of great ones to choose from, with the absolute best being Secure the Wastes -- flooding the board with an instant 1-card army at instant speed will often lead to game-winning turns that catch your opponents totally by surprise. Caesar, Legion's Emperor is another goat'd token generator in this deck, since he supports everything this deck wants to be doing, surprise surprise Mardu Fallout deck is essentially the exact same as this one! There's other goodies here too: Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon, Skyknight Vanguard, Indulge // Excess.
Next let's beef up the interaction. Mardu's main strength is unquestionably it's insanely strong removal and protection spells, with Ruinous Ultimatum being THE reason to play Mardu. I'm also a huge fan of Crackling Doom and flexible targeted removal like Despark. Also we're in White, the absolute top-tier in protection spells, so let's make it even more difficult to shut us down by adding the new Duty Beyond Death.
The ramp package in this deck is super lackluster, just some of the same ol' boring mana rocks. We can do SO much better! Pitiless Plunderer is obviously absurd in any deck with a Sacrifice theme, but also Rose Room Treasurer is super underplayed in Go Wide decks it essentially makes 2 treasures a turn! Rose, Cutthroat Raider is another nontraditional "ramp" source, you sac Junk and then get mana to spend casting those spells!
But the REAL spice is these two "removal" spells: Path to Exile and Settle the Wreckage. These are the best ramp cards in the deck! I'M NOT CRAZY! Here me out: you're making a lot of tokens, right? And Zurgo Stormrender wants those tokens to leave the battlefield while attacking to draw cards, right? So if Zurgo is out then Path to Exile reads "exile an attacking 1/1 token you control to Rampant Growth and draw a card" which is amazing?! Or Settle the Wreckage = exile like 5 attacking tokens, ramp out 5 lands, draw 5 cards?! That's insane! Also keep in mind you can cast these at end of combat after damage is dealt, since the tokens are still attacking until you leave combat!
To give our creatures an easier time to attack, the best of the best has to be Reconnaissance, you can even wait until after damage is dealt to untap your creatures and give them pseudo-vigilance! I've also added Hammers of Moradin to tap down blockers and myriad works great with our deck anyway. Finally there's Sundering Eruption which is extra nice since the deck needs an extra land or two.
I added a bunch of card draw and other stuff as well, put it all together and this is what we've got:
Cut these to make room for the upgrades:
$50 Upgrades
Doubling our budget allows us to pick up some more top-tier Token cards, notably Call the Coppercoats and Song of Totentanz, which both immediately drop down game-winning armies. I've also added another game-winning Tokens finisher with Warleader's Call.
More importantly though I've started morphing the manabase into a White Catchup Ramp package, aka the Commander Clash Special! Loyal Warhound, Knight of the White Orchid, and Claim Jumper are here, plus the ravnica bouncelands to help make them more consistent. I've also added a Token Ramp card Legion's Landing, it's essentially a 1 mana Rampant Growth that comes with a token, so good!
I've cut these cards to make room:
Further Upgrades:
Here are the final tokens I'd consider adding to the list: Charismatic Conqueror is fantastic, especially if your opponents are bad at Magic and give you unlimited tokens, General Kreat, the Boltbringer is an Impact Tremors that adds a token each turn, Forth Eorlingas! is another army in a can with haste, and Season of the Burrow makes tokens plus has flexibility. Dollmaker's Shop // Porcelain Gallery are all great too. I think some of the token doublers are fun if a bit too win-more, but Mondrak, Glory Dominus is my favorite because it can easily make itself indestructible. And Inkshield! It's soooo good!
Dragonstorm hasn't been fully revealed yet, but the new All-Out Assault is amazing here: extra combats are potent in this deck and giving your small creatures a power boost plus deathtouch is very nice too. And to get attackers through combat I recommend Iroas, God of Victory and Dolmen Gate.
And that's basically it! The rest is generic goodstuff like Teferi's Protection, Vampiric Tutor, and of course better lands like Bloodstained Mire and stuff.
One Down, Four To Go!
So many precons so little time! Let me know what you think about this one and I'll see you soon with another upgrade guide!
