Wretched Ranks Upgrade Guide: 18 Easy Changes You Can Make

Ghoulcaller Gisa | Illustration by Karla Ortiz

Wretched Ranks is a black Commander precon, and it’s one of five mono-colored Foundations Commander decks aimed at beginners. This is a budget zombie EDH precon with Ghoulcaller Gisa at the helm, and everything included is a reprint.

The Wretched Ranks deck is a great product if you want to start dipping your toes into Commander, and today I’m going to suggest some card changes to improve the overall experience of the deck.

Wretched Ranks Deck Overview

This deck is very interesting right out of the box. There’s a clear zombie typal theme with many zombie staples, like Lord of the Undead and Cemetery Reaper. Many cards in this deck can be used to give +1/+1 to all your zombies, and most creatures are also zombies. Plus, the commander Ghoulcaller Gisa can sacrifice other creautres and make X 2/2 Zombie tokens based on the power of the sacrificed creatures. You’ll always have both token and nontoken zombie creatures floating around.

The deck’s plan feels solid out of the box, and the “foundations” are all there already. We just need to improve a bit on the card quality, and we’re good.

Magic: The Gathering Foundations Commander Deck - Wretched Ranks | 100-Card Deck + Accessories

• 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

$49.99

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Upgrade Plan

Black zombie decks usually work like this: You’ll have a lot of zombies, some cards make 2/2 zombie tokens, which will often be 3/3 or higher thanks to zombie lords and other payoffs, and then some graveyard synergies or death triggers. If your zombies die, you draw more cards, fill your graveyard, get them back, or drain your opponent’s life. And if they don’t, you just attack.

Ghoulcaller Gisa’s main ability lets you sacrifice a creature to dump some extra zombies on board. This is one aspect I want to upgrade in the deck, and black has some high-power creatures for this commander to make good use of. Also, some cards in this precon are very context-specific or mill-dependent, so I’ll want to cut some of those. We also have some older Commander staples from the 2010s to upgrade.

Since the target of this precon is players looking for an experience on a budget, I’m not suggesting ridiculously expensive cards here, and most upgrades will be in the $1-5 range. I’m also avoiding needlessly complicated cards that a beginner player would have trouble playing or understanding. With that in mind, let’s see what upgrades we can do to improve Wretched Ranks.

Honorable Mention: Expensive Cards

All the upgrades I’m suggesting are on a low budget, but if money isn’t a problem at all, here are some cards that fit what this deck is trying to do.

Phyrexian Tower, Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, and Three Tree City are nice lands to add to this deck. You can use Phyrexian Tower to sacrifice creatures and add mana, while the other two just make a lot of mana in a mono-black zombie deck. Agadeem's Awakening is excellent to resurrect a lot of dead zombies.

As for powerful enchantments, we have The Meathook Massacre, Grave Pact, and Black Market Connections. The Meathook Massacre is an insane board wipe that also rewards you constantly when creatures die. Grave Pact forces your opponents to sacrifice just as many creatures as you do. Black Market Connections just generates stuff you can use, like Treasure or changelings that count as zombies.

Some of the most powerful and expensive zombies in MTG include Bone Miser, Warren Soultrader, and Relentless Dead. Sidisi, Undead Vizier is also a consideration. While Bone Miser is a more discard-oriented zombie, the other ones all fit the theme of sacrificing zombies for profit.

The Mana Base

Suggested Additions: War Room + Crypt of Agadeem

Suggested Cuts: 2x

Look, if there’s a classic problem with Commander precons, it’s a bad mana base out of the box. Either we have more lands than needed or not enough strong color fixing. Here, we have a mono-black deck, so we can cut some basic lands to add more utility.

The deck’s curve isn’t that high, and we don’t need 33 basic Swamps at all. I’m going to play only 27 swamps in the final version; three are giving way to nonbasics, while I’ll replace the others with spells.

War Room doubles as card draw, while Crypt of Agadeem boosts your mana, and both fit our budget requirements.

Crowded Crypt

Suggested Cut:

Crowded Crypt is nice in a deck where creatures are going to die. Late in the game, you can cash this card in for some 2/2 zombies. Infernal Idol does basically the same, but it draws two cards instead. I’m opting for zombies.

Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia

Suggested Cut:

When you have ways to sacrifice creatures, look no further than Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia. This card gives you a 2/2 zombie token for free every turn if you don’t control another decayed creature, and it incentivizes you to kill the token and get a little benefit. Moan of the Unhallow is just an over-costed zombie-maker.

Rotting Regisaur

Suggested Cut:

Rotting Regisaur is an excellent zombie in this deck. You can use it to beat down, and later when you have your commander online, you can use Gisa to sacrifice this card and make seven tokens. This is especially useful when you don’t want to discard cards anymore. I’m taking out Undead Butler, a lower-impact mill card.

Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant

Suggested Cut:

Kalakscion, Hunger Tyrant, like Rotting Regisaur, is a synergy piece. It’s not even a zombie, so I’m playing it for the 7 power alone. Don't take it at face value, think of it like 6 mana for six zombies when combined with the commander. Josu Vess, Lich Knight can be explosive when you pay its kicker cost, but most of the time, it’s a 4/5 on the battlefield.

Mirkwood Bats

Suggested Cut:

Here, I’m trading a 4-mana card for another one. Mirkwood Bats will deal a lot of damage to your opponents as you create and sacrifice your 2/2 tokens. Vengeful Dead serves a similar purpose, but Mirkwood trades out a relevant creature type for a way more potent ability.

Accursed Marauder

Suggested Cut:

Accursed Marauder is a 2-drop Fleshbag Marauder, kind of, and it’s another tool to control the board and make our opponents sacrifice real creatures. Mire Triton is okay as a defensive card, but I’m not that keen on the mill aspect in this deck because we have few ways to properly use our graveyard, so that’s what I’m cutting here.

Archghoul of Thraben

Suggested Cut:

Archghoul of Thraben is an excellent source of card advantage in this deck, considering how many zombies will die during the course of the game. It doesn’t say nontoken zombie, so it's good recovery after a board wipe. Even if you just draw one card for every two dead zombies, that's solid.

Wight of Precinct Six can be a very big stick and thus very synergistic with Gisa, but sometimes it’ll be a small creature that we’re not supporting with mill. If we had more mass mill cards, then I’d have kept the Wight.

Grim Haruspex

Suggested Cut:

Grim Haruspex is a zombie that draws cards whenever a nontoken creature dies. While it’s not ideal in this deck due to the amount of zombie tokens we want to sacrifice, this deck has a lot of creatures. Soulless One is rarely great and often awful, so it's an easy cut.

Ebondeath, Dracolich

Suggested Cut:

While not strictly a budget card, Ebondeath, Dracolich is excellent in this deck. A 5-power flying zombie that you can cast from your graveyard, and that you can also sacrifice for five 2/2 zombies, is great in this deck. You have many ways to ensure creatures die, so you can keep casting the Dracolich. I don’t like Marchesa's Decree or the monarch mechanic in this deck, so I’m cutting it.

Deadly Dispute

Suggested Cut:

Deadly Dispute is an excellent instant-speed trick that you can use to sacrifice a creature, or to kill a soon-to-be-dead creature, and you get two cards plus a Treasure token. This is less raw card draw than Ambition's Cost, but a much more efficient card.

Defile

Suggested Cut:

In a mono-black deck, Defile is just an excellent removal spell at 1 mana, and it's replacing a 4-mana spell, Tendrils of Corruption, which basically does the same with added lifegain. The lifegain will indeed matter sometimes, but we don’t have any ways to profit from lifegain in this deck.

Lost Monarch of Ifnir

Suggested Cut:

Lost Monarch of Ifnir gives all your zombies afflict 3, which is basically 3 direct damage to your opponent if they block. This creates a real problem for your opponents, because your 2/2 zombies will hit harder if blocked, and your larger ones can’t get chump blocked easily without doing some damage. Eternal Taskmaster is just clunky, slow, and it’s an easy cut for a much better card.

Umbral Collar Zealot

Suggested Cut:

Umbral Collar Zealot isn’t a zombie, but it’s one of the best cards that sacrifice other creatures for free. Many cards in this deck trigger when creatures die, and with this card, you can choose when that happens. I’m removing one of three basic Swamps to make room for additional spells.

Archenemy’s Charm

Suggested Cut:

Archenemy's Charm is very versatile, and it can be powerful removal, card draw, or even a combat trick. And the triple black mana cost isn't a detriment in this deck. This replaces another basic Swamp.

Fell the Profane / Fell Mire

Suggested Cut:

Here we trade a basic land for a removal spell that can also be a land. Fell the Profane is a nice piece of removal you’re not embarrassed to play, and it replaces a basic Swamp.

Heraldic Banner

Suggested Cut:

You know what’s better than a lot of 2/2 zombie tokens that are about to attack or to be sacrificed? 3/2s! Heraldic Banner is a +1/+0 bonus plus mana ramp. 3/2 zombies hit a lot harder than 2/2 ones, and if this commander sacrifices any of your black creatures, you’ll get an extra zombie out of it. I’m taking out Commander's Sphere to make room for it, since it's just a strange addition to a mono-colored deck.

The Final Deck and New Cards

Here’s the new decklist with the swaps above. It’s got a more solid and streamlined plan, with higher card quality and no crazy expensive additions either.

If you want to get all these cards, just click on the shopping cart button in the decklist below to buy them in just a click, plus you’ll also be helping us out!

Commanding Conclusion

Gisa and Geralf | Illustration by Karla Ortiz

And that’s about it for Wretched Ranks. I don’t think this deck is better than a Bracket 2 even without the changes; we would have to probably change the commander and slot in more combo-oriented cards as well as more expensive finishers to climb the ranks.

You can tune this deck with a stronger mill component to be a more value-oriented deck with cards going to the graveyard. In this case, you’d focus less on the zombie creature type and more on sacrificing creatures for value. Many black cards in MTG get stronger the more your graveyard grows. The other interesting route is to fill your deck with cards like Blood Artist and slowly bleed your opponents to death when your creatures die.

Will you guys be upgrading your Wretched Ranks precon? Let me know which changes you like and which ones you don’t in the comments section below. And for more Commander precon tips, please check Draftsim’s YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep.

Thanks for reading, and until the next time.

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