Brewing with the Battle for Baldur’s Gate Commander Preconstructed Decks

By: Tyson Bollinger

This weekend marks the official release of Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate.  On top of the set itself being released in the form of Draft Booster Boxes, Set Booster Boxes, Collector Booster Boxes, and Bundles – we also get access to four new Preconstructed Commander Decks.  For fans of the format, these products tend to offer good value in form of reprints as well as new cards for brewing in Magic’s most popular format.  Each deck comes with multiple new legendary creatures and are built around a theme.  While the decks can be played right out of the box, it’s always fun to customize and streamline - so let’s dive in and take a look at what these decks can do and how we can improve them!

 

Exit from Exile

Up first is the Red/ Green “Exit from Exile” deck, captained by Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald.  This is perhaps my favorite of the new decks because it has a strategy in mind that is both clear and unique. Faldorn rewards you for casting spells from exile by creating a 2/2 Green Beast creature token.  The second half of her text box helps power her own ability. In the last few years, red has leaned into cards like Light up the Stage that provide you with a conditional form of card advantage, and there of plenty of options. Something like Harnfel, Horn of Bounty can become a one card engine all on its own and can turn bad draws into more fuel for Faldorn.  Recent set Streets of New Capenna had many cards that could feed into Faldorn’s Strategy – Unlucky Witness, Rob the Archives, Professional Face-Breaker, Urabrask, Heretic Praetor and Arcane Bombardment all seem like strong options. There are also several keywords that “cast” from exile which you can exploit to get extra triggers.  Rebound, Cascade, Suspend, Foretell, Adventure, and even Madness all cast cards from exile.

Once you are able to generate a large number of wolf tokens, you are going to want something to do with them.  Hollowhenge Overlord, Immerwolf, Nightpack Ambusher, and Master of the Wild Hunt helps give us value with our tokens.  Finally, look to finish the game with a something like End-Raze Forerunners or Overwhelming Stampede.

One of the coolest thing about the Exit from Exile deck is that many of the strongest upgrade options for the deck all come from sets in the last few years.  Outside of a few of the keywords discussed above, playing cards from exile has become prevalent only in the last few years. Players that are new to the game should be able to find interesting upgrade options just by looking through their decks.

Before moving on – a quick shout out to Durnan of the Yawning Portal, a new legend in this deck that probably would make for a very interesting commander on his own.

 

 

Draconic Dissent

If the Exit from Exile deck has a tight, concise strategy, then the Blue/Red “Draconic Dissent” is a bit looser.  With Firkraag, Cunning Instigator at the helm, this deck is primarily built around Goading your opponents. A small dragon subtheme is built into the deck – Firkraag’s ability can trigger once every combat for each opponent, but you will need a dragon that can attack each of your opponents.  For this reason I actually think the more interesting commander in this deck is Baeloth Barrityl, Entertainer.  With the “Choose a Background” text, Baeloth can be paired with the background of your choice to turn turn him into a two color deck.  We can pair him with a background that helps pump his power so that we can attempt to goad all of our opponents creatures at the same time, and by extension, prevent them from attacking us.  Inside the Draconic Dissent deck you get access to an excellent option in Clan Crafter, which Baeloth Barrityl can help fuel with the treasure tokens he creates. If you are willing to branch out into other colors Raised by Giants, Noble Heritage, or even Cultist of the Absolute could be powerful options.  It turns out there are a lot of Backgrounds that can pump up your commander’s power or interact with treasures.

We don’t necessarily have to use a background to enhance his power though.  Equipment like Blackblade Reforged, Commander’s Plate, and Hero’s Blade are efficient options.  Running it with a white background and a Stoneforge Mystic package could allow you to voltron your commander without worrying about the swing back – because your opponents are goaded!

Like Faldorn in the “Exit to Exile” deck, Baeloth Barrityl can get us a token engine going in the form of treasures - and we will need a way to use them.  Shimmer Dragon and Professional Face-Breaker seem to fit here as well (when isn’t this card good?).  Also consider Academy Manufactor as a good value option.

 

Party Time

Black/ White’s offering comes in a party theme deck featuring new commander Nalie de’Arnise.  For those unfamiliar with the party mechanic, it rewards you for having one each of the Warrior, Cleric, Rogue, and Wizard creature types on the battlefield. While some creatures like the new Burakos, Party Leader may count more than one creature type, you will still need to have at least four creatures on the field to have a “full party”. 

Changelings like those created by the included Black Market Connections can help fill out the party, but the fragile nature of trying to keep so many “combo” pieces on the field at the same time and protect them means that the deck should place a premium on cards like Giver of Runes that both fill a role in the party AND protect other party members.  Another option is using something that can fill a party role and last through a board wipe – think Bitterblossom, 

When building around Nalie, you will want to keep a high creature count to maximize your chance at reaching a full party but being able to search out the last party member you need is important and a card like Coveted Prize should certainly make the final cut. 

 It is worth noting that as of the writing of this article, the black/white is the best “value” of the four precons with several reprints and multiple new cards preordering at high prices.  Along with the before mentioned Black Market Connections buyers will find chase cards in Deep Gnome Terramancer, Grime Hireling, Skullclamp, Multiclass Baldric, Sevinne’s Reclamation, and Mutavault.

 

 

Mind Flayarrrs

While the Blue/ Black deck bills itself as a Tribal Horrors and Pirates deck, it looks to play more as a Tribal Horrors deck with a milling subtheme.  It also looks like it may be the most powerful of the four decks out of the box. Commander Captain N’ghathrod has a lot going on in his text box, so lets break it down:

“Horrors you control have Menace”. This makes it easier to safely attack opponents.  A lot of Horror creatures like the Nemesis of Reason and the captain himself have high toughness, which makes them difficult to destroy with combat damage.

“Whenever a horror you control deals combat damage to an player, that player mills that many cards”.  This grants all horrors the ability to also mill our opponents. While some like Consuming Aberration already can, this vastly improves cards like Hunted Horror.

On our endstep, the final text on Captain N’ghathrod allows us to chose one target creature or artifact that was put into an opponents graveyard this turn and put it into play under our control.  Commander decks tend to be dense with large threats, so milling even a small number of cards is likely to net us something good.  But interestingly, this commander does not care HOW the cards were milled – only that they were milled during our turn. This means repeatable mill like Altar of Dementia, Altar of the Brood, Psychic Corrosion, Ruin Crab and Court of Cunning all become super efficient in our deck.

This deck looks incredibly fun, and there are a lot of options in how you want to build it.  For example, if you want to lean into the reanimation side of it, cards like Geth, Lord of the Vault can benefit you.  You could also look to use spells that exploited your milled opponents like Spelltwine and Memory Plunder. Worth noting, this deck includes new card Aboleth Spawn, which I predict will be a blue commander staple for a long time to come.

 

Gamers Grove

Gamers Grove will have all four of these preconstructed decks available starting this Friday, June 10th.  I can’t wait to see what new and exciting decks people come up with.  Preorders are available online and in person!