Tuvasa the Sunlit | Illustration by Eric Deschamps
I find Commander precons endlessly fascinating. Many new players are introduced to Magic with them given Commander’s popularity, and it’s easy to pick one up and pop it out of the box.
Yet precons are often built strangely, if not just poorly, and can lead new players astray. Today, I’m ranking all the Bant () precons to give you an idea of which might be worth picking up, and which you ought to leave on the shelf.
What Are Bant Precons?
Chulane, Teller of Tales | Illustration by Victor Adame Minguez
Bant precons are preconstructed Commander decks with a Bant () or green-white-blue color identity. Bant covers a variety of archetypes, including counters, historic, enchantments, and even group hug, but you can bet on one thing: Your Bant deck loves creatures.
I’m ranking these based on the qualities I expect to see in a good EDH deck: I want a clear game plan with achievable win conditions, access to plenty of card draw and interaction, a strong identity, and either a low curve or a deck with the ramp to support something high. I consider these elements crucial to Commander decks that engage in a game of Magic, let alone win one.
#9. Evasive Maneuvers
No products found.No products found. was printed in Commander 2013, helmed by Derevi, Empyrial Tactician.
Deck Themes
This deck has an activated abilities theme with cards like Kazandu Tuskcaller and Azami, Lady of Scrolls that require tapping creatures—abilities you can use multiple times thanks to Derevi.
It has a distinct flicker subtheme with cards like Farhaven Elf and Dungeon Geists present to support one of the deck’s back-up commanders, Roon of the Hidden Realm. These aren’t the worst themes to pair together; they don’t sync in any meaningful way, but they’re both different flavors of creatures with good value.
Commanders
This deck has three potential commanders: Derevi, Empyrial Tactician, Roon of the Hidden Realm, and Rubinia Soulsinger.
Rubina doesn’t make the cut, as too many of the deck’s cards care about untapping or flickering for a creature that doesn’t enable either strategy.
Derevi or Roon are both reasonable choices; the creature base is pretty evenly split between cards with tap abilities and creatures with enters abilities. Deveri is the stronger option as it ramps by untapping lands and mana rocks, but I could see running either.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck has excellent mana production, especially with Derevi untapping Basalt Monolith or Karoo lands like Azorius Chancery.
That helps make up for one of the deck’s bigger weaknesses: The curve kinda sucks. It sits heavy at 3 mana, and the more expensive cards aren’t quite worth their weight—which ties into the other weakness: This deck is like, 13 years old. Some of the cards have held up to time, but the majority are just dated and overly slow for Commander in 2025. That’s not really the deck’s fault, but it’s a consideration if you want to play it. The mana also sucks, but that’s just true of precons as a whole.
Notable Cards
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician terrorized Commander for years as a fundamentally broken commander that ignored the commander tax while enabling stax decks with cards like Winter Orb and Static Orb.
Darksteel Mutation is a great removal spell for EDH that shuts down opposing commanders pretty much forever, unless they can sacrifice it or destroy the enchantment.
Roon of the Hidden Realm is another once-popular commander whose luster has faded with time, but it’s still worth remembering.
As for reprints, there are some awesome cards that hold up to this day, including Mirror Entity, Wonder, Bane of Progress (which is questionable in a deck with 21 combined artifacts and enchantments, but whatever), Blue Sun's Zenith, Basalt Monolith, and Conjurer's Closet.
The premier reprint here is undoubtedly Thousand-Year Elixir, which is always valuable and often powerful.
No products found.
#8. Wild Bounty
No products found.No products found. came out in 2019 with Throne of Eldraine as a Brawl precon commanded by Chulane, Teller of Tales. Note that this isn’t Commander-legal because it has 60 cards.
Deck Themes
Wild Bounty’s only real theme is ramp. There are some ETB cards that benefit from Chulane’s activated ability, but the deck just wants to play its commander and dump creatures into play.
Commanders
Chulane, Teller of Tales is the only available commander in the deck. But even if there were other options, it would still be the best.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This card’s greatest strength is Chulane. It provides oodles of card draw and mana, which is the recipe for a broken commander.
As for the weaknesses… I wish it had more ramp. Chulane provides mana, but it still costs 5 itself, and I want to power it out more effectively. Beyond that, this was a Standard Brawl deck and it suffers from that restrictive card pool. The card quality just isn’t there, and Standard lacked some of the better Chulane cards like Shrieking Drake and Whitemane Lion.
Notable Cards
The only significant card here is Chulane, Teller of Tales, and what a significant card! You can construct about a thousand Bant-oriented combos from it. Even if you play it fairly, can you really consider a creature that tacks a free Growth Spiral onto every creature you cast “fair?”
No products found.
#7. Adaptive Enchantment
No products found.No products found. was part of Commander 2018, a Commander product that added more planeswalkers that could be your commander, and it’s led by Estrid, the Masked.
Deck Themes
Adaptive Enchantment is an enchantress deck with an emphasis on auras. A planeswalker as the commander makes this deck less of a Voltron strategy than a go-wide enchantment deck. This deck’s themes are fairly focused, with a good mix of enchantments and enchantment payoffs. It has a few outliers, like the lieutenant cycle (Loyal Drake, Loyal Guardian, Loyal Unicorn), but no conflicting themes.
Commanders
This deck has three potential commanders: Estrid, the Masked, Tuvasa the Sunlit, and Kestia, the Cultivator.
Kestia comes up short here. It isn’t an exciting build-around, and you have a better option for card advantage in the command zone.
Estrid is unique, as few planeswalkers can be your commander, but it’s underwhelming. I’d be more interested in it if the deck had more enchantments for your lands, but as is, this reads awfully close to a planeswalker that upticks to give your team vigilance.
The clear choice here is Tuvasa. An enchantress in the command zone makes your enchantment deck ludicrously more powerful and consistent, and it’s just a better commander than the other two.
Strengths and Weaknesses
I like this deck’s access to card advantage, especially if you swap Estrid for Tuvasa; it doesn’t have every enchantress, but it has enough of them plus additional sources of card draw that you can reliably out-draw your opponents.
But that’s greatly overshadowed by one of the worst curves I’ve seen in a precon. The deck has eight cards that cost less than 3, and they aren’t even all ramp! This deck basically never casts more than a spell a turn. If it played against equally messy decks, I could see Adaptive Enchantment’s card advantage giving it a huge edge, but it falls apart against anything more competent than itself.
Notable Cards
Tuvasa the Sunlit is an exceptionally powerful enchantress commander. Recent releases like Anikthea, Hand of Erebos and Sythis, Harvest's Hand have overshadowed Tuvasa, but it’s still plenty reasonable.
Nylea's Colossus is an exceptionally powerful finisher for enchantment decks, especially aura-based ones. Myth Unbound is more niche, but reducing the command tax provides a tangible mana advantage, and it goes nuts with flicker decks.
The most significant reprint is Bear Umbra as a powerful mana doubler that works as a protection spell; we also have some great reprints for enchantment decks in general like Herald of the Pantheon, Enchantress's Presence, and Eidolon of Blossoms.
No products found.
#6. Aura of Courage
No products found.The No products found. came out alongside Adventures in the Forgotten Realm in 2021 with Galea, Kindler of Hope as its commander.
Deck Themes
Aura of Courage can be best described as a buff deck that splits the difference between auras and equipment to make its creatures stronger and wring the most value from Galea, Kindler of Hope.
Commanders
The deck technically has two potential commanders in Galea and Storvald, Frost Giant Jarl, but it’s not a competition: You should run Galea. Storvold is a weak commander that doesn’t interact with 50% of the deck.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Aura of Courage gets points for having a reasonable curve, the first one on this list! It has a bunch of cheap cards, and some of them even ramp and draw more cards! It has pretty good card advantage between the commander, cantrips, and spells like Puresteel Paladin and Sram, Senior Edificer. But it’s still not perfect.
A glaring flaw in this deck is its creature to enchantment/aura ratios. You have 16 creatures, including the commander, compared to 22 auras and enchantments (excluding auras that don’t enchant creatures). It’s easy to find yourself with one creature and a bunch of cards reliant on that creature, only for it to die, leaving you staring at two auras and an equipment that do nothing. You’ll always have access to Galea, but it’s also a removal magnet.
The equipment/aura split itself seems suspect, as well; I think Galea plays best when you pick a path and fill your deck with abundant support for enchantments or artifacts.
Notable Cards
Robe of Stars and Winged Boots debuted in this deck, and they have become incredibly popular equipment thanks to their strong protective abilities.
But most of this deck’s value lies in reprints. Sword of the Animist, Swiftfoot Boots, Colossus Hammer, and Basilisk Collar are stellar equipment with varying levels of staple-dom in the format. Puresteel Paladin and Sram, Senior Edificer are fantastic support pieces for equipment.
There are also more generally good reprints, like Greater Good and Heroic Intervention.
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#5. Blast from the Past
Blast from the Past is one of the Doctor Who decks from 2023. This one depicts events and characters from classic Doctor Who, before the 2005 reboot. It’s led by The Fourth Doctor and its companion Sarah Jane Smith. This deck contains Planechase cards, but I’m not factoring those into this ranking.
Deck Themes
This deck revolves around historic permanents and is chock full of them: 24 of its 25 creatures are legendary, plus this deck has a pile of sagas and artifacts. The historic grouping helps make cards like Sergeant John Benton and The Second Doctor relevant even though their textboxes don’t interact with historic cards.
Commanders
Because the doctor’s companion mechanic allows you to have partner commanders, and most of the creatures in the deck are doctors or companions, it has way more possible commanders than the average EDH deck. Instead of going over every possible combination, I’m highlighting the most impactful options.
The face commanders Sarah Jane Smith and The Fourth Doctor are quite powerful as a duo of card advantage engines. Some of your creatures care about tokens, so SJS has more synergy that it might seem at a glance.
Susan Foreman and The Second Doctor lets you jury-rig that all-important combination of card advantage and mana production in the command zone, and it guarantees a good opening curve. The deck has a staggering number of 4-drops, which makes a turn 2 ramp spell every game quite appealing.
Peri Brown or Romana II pair well with The Sixth Doctor to ensure you have late-game inevitability.
SJS and The Third Doctor could be interesting if you want to take a more aggressive stance.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The Sixth Doctor, Displaced Dinosaurs, and Heroes' Podium are individually powerful and could be convincing finishers considering the sheer amount of value this deck gets from all its sagas and creatures with impactful abilities.
But it can be glacially slow. The deck’s curve gets stuck at 4 mana, and while it has one of the better ramp packages on the list, it still falls short of exciting. It also has lots of cards that don’t interact with the main game plan, like half of the doctors. They’re legendary creatures so they aren’t exactly anti-synergistic, but it makes this feel less like a streamlined deck than a grab-bag of Doctor Who cards to brew with on your own time.
Notable Cards
The deck’s reprint value primarily lies in Three Visits, Heroic Intervention, and Talisman of Progress + Talisman of Unity—only two of the three on-color Talismans, because Wizards can’t make that mana base too consistent.
As for new cards, Displaced Dinosaurs made a splash as a great way to turn Treasure and similar tokens into a win condition while K-9, Mark I and Barbara Wright are exceptional cards in niche strategies.
- BIGGER ON THE INSIDE—Bring your favorite Doctor Who characters, villains, and adventures to life at your table with this Magic: The Gathering Commander Deck; each deck introduces 50 never-before-seen Magic cards with art and game mechanics inspired by the beloved BBC series
- TRAVEL THE STARS WITH A GAME THAT FUSES ART, STORIES and STRATEGY—Magic: The Gathering is a collectible card game that weaves deep strategy with art and mechanics that explore the themes of a particular world and story—whether you want to play a casual game with friends, collect cool cards, or get competitive, Magic welcomes you to The Gathering
- COMPANIONS WELCOME—This ready-to-play deck allows you to jump right into Magic’s most popular format. Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
- TIME LORD NOSTALGIA—The Blast from the Past MTG Commander deck showcase the first Eight Doctors and their companions with a 100-card deck featuring 2 Traditional Foil Legendary cards and 98 nonfoil cards
- TRAVEL THROUGH TIME and SPACE WITH PLANECHASE—Every deck also comes with 10 Planechase cards, each featuring a different place (and time) in the Doctor Who universe; roll the included planar die and you may travel to a different place or trigger a chaotic effect.
#4. Bedecked Brokers
No products found.No products found. brings the Brokers of New Capenna to Commander with this precon led by Perrie, the Pulverizer, released in 2022.
Deck Themes
Bedecked Brokers focuses on counters, specifically on flooding the board with numerous types of counters to support Perrie. This has one of the more focused themes on the list.
Commanders
Besides Perrie, you could use Kros, Defense Contractor as your commander. Enough of this deck’s cards put counters on opposing creatures to support Kros if you want to play it. Perrie will always be the safer choice because you aren’t helping your opponents, but you could play whichever you want.
Jenara, Asura of War is also here, but it’s completely outclassed by the other two.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The only systematic weaknesses plaguing this deck are a bad mana base, which you can’t really do anything about in a precon, and a frightening lack of removal. It’s overall a well-constructed deck, with a tight curve, plenty of synergy, and a clear win condition.
There are some outlier cards that could be cut; Exotic Pets is a Draft card that got misplaced, and a unique counter type isn’t worth playing Oracle's Vault; otherwise, Bedecked Brokers plays very well out of the box.
Notable Cards
The marquee card of this deck is Damning Verdict. Asymmetrical board wipes are incredibly powerful in Commander, and it takes very little to turn this into Plague Wind. It’s the most expensive card in the deck and one of the most impactful.
The deck also introduced Slippery Bogbonder, a great defensive creature that works well with counter strategies and flicker effects.
The deck has some pretty notable reprints centered around counter-support cards like Incubation Druid, Fathom Mage, Forgotten Ancient, Evolution Sage, and Devoted Druid. Rishkar's Expertise doesn’t interact with counters specifically, but it’s a green staple.
No products found.
#3. Deep Clue Sea
Deep Clue Sea and its terrible pun came out alongside Murders at Karlov Manor in 2024 with Morska, Undersea Sleuth as the commander.
Deck Themes
This deck’s themes are the closely interlinked mechanics of creating Clues and drawing two cards in a turn. It’s a value-oriented midrange deck with scattered token and artifact synergies, which makes for a pretty robust deck that functions well as a baseline.
Commanders
Besides Morska, you can use Chulane, Teller of Tales or Sophia, Dogged Detective as your commander.
Sophia’s definitely the weakest link. The deck doesn’t have other dogs, so playing this effectively becomes Tiny Voltron, which is quite weak.
Chulane has more raw power than Morska, but the deck has enough synergy with investigate that it’s worth keeping your Clue engine in the command zone—though Chulane is so overwhelmingly strong that you could probably run it without much issue.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck is quite strong, largely because its themes boil down to “draw cards.” The ramp package is a little scant for the curve, but not to the point it cripples the deck—a cheap commander that draws cards really helps there.
There’s a scattering of weak cards, like Graf Mole and Whirler Rogue that fail to the scale in Commander, and it has lots of symmetrical board wipes for a deck with 32 creatures. It might be a bit clunky, but mulligan aggressively for ramp in your opening hand, and you’ll definitely play a game of Magic.
Notable Cards
Deep Clue Sea lacks exciting new cards, with On the Trail being the main stand-out card as a neat if unreliable ramp engine.
The reprints are far more interesting. Academy Manufactor is an incredible card for any deck that makes its noted tokens, while Adrix and Nev, Twincasters and Bennie Bracks, Zoologist have much broader applications. Thought Monitor and Kappa Cannoneer are great inclusions in lots of artifact decks, and we have a few generally great cards like Farewell, Wilderness Reclamation, and Koma, Cosmos Serpent that tie everything together.
- LAUNCH A FULL-SCALE INVESTIGATION—Generate Clue tokens and draw your own conclusions (with extra cards) with this Green-White-Blue deck that’s ready-to-play right out of the box
- EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
- INTRODUCES 12 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 12 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 2 foil Legendary Creature cards
- COLLECT SPECIAL TREATMENT CARDS—Each deck also comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 alt-border cards from the Murders at Karlov Manor set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare and at least 1 Traditional Foil card
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Deep Clue Sea Murders at Karlov Manor Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 1 Foil-Etched Display Commander, 10 double-sided tokens, 1 life tracker, and 1 deck box
#2. Counter Blitz
No products found.No products found. was kicked our way by the Final Fantasy crossover in 2025, captained by Tidus, Yuna's Guardian.
Deck Themes
We have yet another counters deck, this time built around +1/+1 counters. It’s incredibly focused; this might be the most concise precon I’ve seen.
Commanders
Instead of Tidus, you could run Yuna, Grand Summoner in the command zone, but I wouldn’t recommend it. The deck has plenty of ways to get counters on its creatures, and the curve is responsible enough that a mana dork in the command zone seems unnecessary.
Tidus is just cheaper and more interesting, and it snowballs harder.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Counter Blitz is very strong because it has almost every meaningful +1/+1 counter staple in the format. All the cards that make the archetype good are present here, plus it has a bundle of new cards I expect to become staples in their own right like O'aka, Traveling Merchant and Tromell, Seymour's Butler.
The weaknesses are slight; we have plenty of card draw, decent interaction, and a fine curve supported with an adequate amount of ramp. The weaknesses have more to do with underpowered cards like Altered Ego and Auron, Venerated Guardian. You’re playing lots of Magic with this deck, and you’re winning some of it.
Notable Cards
Tidus, Yuna's Guardian is an excellent counters commander, in large part because Bant is the perfect shard to exploit years of support. Beyond Tidus, I expect cards like O'aka, Traveling Merchant, Lord Jyscal Guado, and Lulu, Stern Guardian to be staples in counters decks for years to come.
The deck also has Summoner's Sending, a deceptively powerful bit of graveyard hate.
And the reprints are great, if you like counter decks. Gyre Sage, Incubation Druid, Fathom Mage, Hardened Scales, Together Forever, Damning Verdict… the best elements of +1/+1 counter decks in EDH were reprinted here.
No products found.
#1. Peace Offering
Wizards gave us the Peace Offering deck in 2024, headed by Ms. Bumbleflower as an accessory to Bloomburrow.
Deck Themes
Peace Offering is a group hug deck that gives your opponents boons like +1/+1 counters, card draw, and additional land drops to curry political favor before winning with its own large creatures. Within the group hug umbrella, the deck cares about +1/+1 counters and making your board big.
Commanders
You have two possible commanders: Ms. Bumbleflower and Mr. Foxglove.
Ms. Bumbleflower is the clear winner as the stronger and more synergistic commander. Mr. Foxglove can be strong in the right deck, but that deck requires much larger creatures than what Peace Offering offers; you want to be less group hug and more Sneak and Show.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Peace Offering is one of the stronger Commander decks, due in large part to its concise theme and focused curve. It helps that Ms. Bumbleflower is a ludicrously powerful commander that draws a ton of cards while it enables you to attack your opponents. And the fools welcome it in exchange for card draw!
The deck has some questionable cards, like Broken Wings and Riot Control that you could easily upgrade into better interactive spells, and the mana could be improved. But overall, this one performs excellently out of the box.
Notable Cards
Ms. Bumbleflower is notable all on its own, becoming one of the most popular Bant/group hug commanders despite its recent printing. Communal Brewing can be an astonishing counter engine if your opponents don’t destroy it, and Twenty-Toed Toad provides lots of card advantage for aggressive blue decks.
The reprints aren’t bad either. Swords to Plowshares and An Offer You Can't Refuse are great, cheap interactive spells, Thought Vessel and Swiftfoot Boots are excellent staples, and you have some great counter support cards like Forgotten Ancient and Kalonian Hydra.
- TINY TAILS, BIG ADVENTURE—Put your best paw forward and enter the world of Bloomburrow. Battle your friends with armies of adorable critters and prove that bravery comes in all sizes!
- KILL THEM WITH KINDNESS—Win friends and influence players with Ms. Bumbleflower, building up +1/+1 counters along the way, then watch the table crumble under your kindness!
- EPIC MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—This deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering, including 3 foil cards (one of which is Borderless!)
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Peace Offering Bloomburrow Commander Deck, a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack, 10 double-sided tokens, and 1 deck box
Commanding Conclusion
Derevi, Empyrial Tactician | Illustration by Michael Komarck
Bant precons have some pretty impressive options. I honestly didn’t realize there were so many; we got one every year for a little bit there. While they encompass multiple themes, these decks all center around creatures in one way or another, and they’ve introduced some of the strongest and most popular commanders in the format.
What’s your favorite card introduced in a Bant precon? Would you play any of these yourself? Let me know in the comments below or on the Draftsim Discord!
Stay safe, and thanks for reading!
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