Last updated on September 21, 2026
Command Tower | Illustration by Ryan Yee
Foundations Commander is a product releasing just after Reality Fracture featuring five mono-colored decks aimed at new players. While it’s far from the first starter product like this, these decks represent a massive step forward for cheap, newbie-friendly precons with a host of powerful reprints that include packages of powerful cards that are excellent staples for their colors.
Calling All Angels – Giada, Font of Hope
The typal focus of Calling All Angels does surprisingly little to prevent the deck from having plenty of staples. It’s worth considering that Giada, Font of Hope is the most popular mono-white commander and this deck contains that archetype’s staples. Cards like Starnheim Aspirant and Sephara, Sky's Blade are vital to angel decks.
Not all the angels are forced into angel typal, either. Exemplar of Light and Firemane Commando are excellent white draw spells and Archangel of Tithes is a classic pillowfort piece.
Norn's Choirmaster is one of Commander’s best proliferate spells, and Metallic Mimic is used in all manner of typal decks, not just angels and not just mono-white.
Endless Atlas and War Room are excellent rewards for running a mono-colored commander.
- WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
- BECOME AN ANGEL ... OF DEATH!—Hope arrives in full force with Giada and her ability to strengthen any angels you cast. Play a whole host of angels, reap the divine benefits, and ascend to victory!
- FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Calling All Angels Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card
Keen Engineering – Sai, Master Thopterist
Sai, Master Thopterist leads Keen Engineering, an artifact deck with some pretty sweet tech.
It starts strong with excellent artifact support. Etherium Sculptor and Foundry Inspector are widely played in fair decks as a ramp card and unfair decks as a combo enabler, Thought Monitor and Thoughtcast are excellent draw spells, and Vedalken Archmage provides more of a card advantage engine.
Master Transmuter is one of the better cards to cheat artifacts into play, even if the deck lacks exciting cards to pair with it.
Artifact creatures get specific support in lords like Steel Overseer, Chief of the Foundry, and Master of Etherium.
Not all the staples are restricted to artifacts. All Is Dust and Forsaken Monument are incredible in any colorless deck (typically artifacts or eldrazi) and cards like Propaganda, Counterspell, and Aetherize are viable in any blue deck.
- WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
- DESIGN THE BLUEPRINT FOR PAIN—Work with Sai to engineer useful artifacts and generate flying thopters as a bonus. Make unexpected plays and draw additional cards to let the cogs of your strategy click into place!
- FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Keen Engineering Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card
Wretched Ranks – Ghoulcaller Gisa
Wretched Ranks starts off strong with the important zombie lords: Cemetery Reaper, Death Baron, Lord of the Accursed and especially Undead Warchief.
Ayara, First of Locthwain, Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Consuming Corruption, and Mutilate are all staples of mono-black commanders, no zombies necessary. Bontu's Monument is particularly scary.
There are also a few nice synergy pieces. Undead Butler is great for self-mill, I could write an entire article about everything Gravecrawler does, and Midnight Reaper sees format-wide play in sacrifice decks as card advantage.
- WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
- RISE WITH THE FALLEN—Overrun the table’s defenses with Ghoulcaller Gisa, who can rapidly build a zombie army. Once your shambling horde reaches critical mass, boost their attack and send everyone else to the graveyard!
- FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Wretched Ranks Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card
Reign of Dragons – Lathliss, Dragon Queen
I want to commend Wizards on reprinting archetype staples in these decks. Much like the zombie lords or the angels, Reign of Dragons has key dragon ramp: Dragonlord's Servant, Dragonspeaker Shaman, Orb of Dragonkind, and Carnelian Orb of Dragonkind are played with practically every dragon commander, no matter how many colors they run.
It also has busted dragons. Scourge of the Throne and Hellkite Charger are great finishers thanks to their extra combats, Skyline Despot and Thundermane Dragon generate excellent card advantage, and Tyrant's Familiar picks off opposing creatures.
Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest is particularly exciting as one of red’s strongest draw engines since it outputs so much damage.
Herald's Horn is one of the stronger typal support cards as it represents both card advantage and cost reduction, and War Room shows up once again.
- WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
- RULE FROM YOUR THRONE OF TREASURE—Your reign over the table begins with Lathliss, who creates a dragon when a non-token dragon enters. Use treasure tokens and cost-reduction effects to send out your fiercest dragons early and drown the world in fire!
- FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Reign of Dragons Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card
Tramplesaurus Rex – Ghalta, Primal Hunger
Looking at these decks strictly on number of staples they contain, Tramplesaurus Rex is the easy winner. Starting with mana dorks, you have Birds of Paradise and Llanowar Elves, plus its functional reprints. Looking at more expensive cards, Llanowar Tribe is sweet in decks that can handle the daunting mana cost, Hulking Raptor bridges the early game and the late, and Goreclaw, Terror of Qal Sisma is one of the strongest cost reducers in green.
More importantly, this deck has (almost) all the good green card draw. Garruk's Packleader, Shamanic Revelation, Rishkar's Expertise, Beast Whisperer, Elemental Bond, Garruk's Uprising…basically everything but Toski and Up the Beanstalk.
There are also plenty of individually good cards. Surrak and Goreclaw enables aggressive turns, Arasta of the Endless Web is great for token commanders, Unnatural Growth is an incredible mass pump effect. And War Room, again. If you’re looking for a pile of staples to flesh out into a proper collection, this is the clear choice.
- WELCOME TO THE MULTIVERSE—The perfect way to start playing Commander with your friends. Bring this 100-card deck to the table and square off against up to three other combatants!
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Battle your friends with powerful creatures and spectacular spells in Commander, Magic’s most popular multiplayer format
- ONE GOOD STOMP IS ALL IT TAKES—Tower over the rest of the food chain with Ghalta and let high-power creatures run wild on the battlefield. Higher attack power reduces Ghalta’s casting cost, so unleash her as soon as possible and trample the competition!
- FOIL LEGENDARY CARD—Every Foundations Commander Deck includes 1 Mythic Rare Legendary Creature card with a shiny Traditional Foil treatment to command your deck in style
- CONTENTS—1 ready-to-play Tramplesaurus Rex Foundations MTG Commander Deck (100 cards), 1 deck box, 10 double-sided token cards, 1 strategy guide, 1 reference card
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