Karador, Ghost Chieftain | Illustration by Todd Lockwood
Commander precons have become an important part of Magic’s ecosystem. They help introduce new players to some foundational themes. They allow Wizards to print new cards for the format that wouldn’t fit in a Limited or Standard environment, and they’re a chance to reprint staples and keep their prices reasonable on the singles market.
You barely need two hands to count the number of Abzan () precons we have, but they cover a surprising amount of ground. Tokens, counters, reanimation, and lifegain are recurring themes, but these decks often do interesting and unique things with them.
Which of these Abzan precons should you pick up, whether to play in your pods or plunder for value? Let’s find out.
What Are Abzan Commander Precons
Kathril, Aspect Warper | Illustration by Mathias Kollros
Abzan Commander precons are sealed Magic: The Gathering products that contain a full preconstructed, 100-card Commander deck in an Abzan, or white , black , and green color identity. These pull from all three colors and their intersections for a few common themes, like tokens, counters, or reanimation.
Precons have a few typical weaknesses that I’ll try not to mention for every entry. They tend to have budget mana bases and a lack of removal and interaction. They often feature disjointed or even under-supported themes. And they tend to include weak cards that you’ll want to swap out immediately if you plan to upgrade them.
#6. Symbiotic Swarm
As constructed, you could argue that this isn’t even a Bracket 2 deck. You know, the Bracket that’s supposed to be for precons? Symbiotic Swarm has great upgrade potential between cards like The Ozolith, the surveil lands, and Sire of Seven Deaths, but it takes a lot of work to get this deck off the ground.
Deck Themes
Keywords are the primary theme, with lots of creatures with multiple keywords, creatures that hand out keyword counters, and creatures that take advantage of those keywords and spread them around. There are some abilities to fuel the graveyard so that Kathril, Aspect Warper can do its thing when it enters, plus some reanimation abilities to bring creatures back.
Commanders
Kathril, Aspect Warper is a fun keyword soup commander that wants you to have a fully stocked graveyard before you cast it. It works well enough with most of the pieces in this deck, but there are powerful support cards you can use to upgrade it.
Tayam, Luminous Enigma gives your creatures a vigilance counter when they enter, then you can trade in those counters (and others) to reanimate your permanents. The issue is that you don’t have a lot of great targets. You can bring back your mana rocks, a few of the Impetus auras, and some creatures like Sakura-Tribe Elder, but most of the good enters abilities in this deck are out of reach.
Nikara, Lair Scavenger can partner with Yannik, Scavenging Sentinel to lead this deck too, although it’s not supported particularly well. You can see a path with Nikara and Yannik that either flickers or sacrifices and reanimates the hyena to spread +1/+1 counters around and maximize ETB abilities, and there’s a decent amount of reanimation in the deck. No sac outlets, though.
Strengths and Weaknesses
I’ll give Symbiotic Swarm some points for doing something interesting, even if it isn’t doing it particularly powerfully.
This is one of the worst curves I’ve seen among precons. A quarter of this deck has a mana value of 5 or higher, which is just bonkers. You want to chuck a bunch of the creatures in your graveyard anyway for Kathril’s enters ability, but that’s still a lot.
Some of the keyword soup cards go in opposing directions. You want to exile creatures from your graveyard to give Soulflayer a bunch of abilities, but the face commander and Cairn Wanderer want those creatures to stay in the graveyard.
And while it’s a budget mana base, it needs more green.
Notable Cards
Slippery Bogbonder is one of the most powerful cards that allow you to move counters around, and at instant speed.
Karametra, God of Harvests helps you to build your mana pool in creature-focused decks. Akroma, Angel of Wrath gives you a flurry of keywords; it’s nice to see a card from all the way back in Legions continue to provide value.
Obscuring Haze is somewhat of a format staple as one of the Commander free spells. Gavony Township sees peaks and valleys in its value depending on how long it’s been since the last reprint and what kinds of Selesnya+ (+) counters or go-wide decks are in vogue.
- Choose from three fierce Commanders from Ikoria Lair of Behemoths (IKO) to lead your deck to victory—four legendary creatures including two that share a magical bond and can command your deck together
- Commander is a Magic The Gathering (MTG) multiplayer format where alliances are formed friends are betrayed and grudges are repaid with a vengeance
- The Symbiotic Swarm deck leverages your creatures’ many abilities—give your living creatures the abilities in your graveyard with Kathril Aspect Warper reanimate a swarm of small creatures with Tayam Luminous Enigma and draw cards when your buffed creatures leave the battlefield with Nikara Lair Scavenger and Yannik Scavenging Sentinel
- Symbiotic Swarm is one of five Commander Decks from Ikoria Lair of Behemoths (IKO) Each includes exclusive cards tailored to that deck—pick your favorite mechanics and dive in to battle.
- Battle your way through the plane of Ikoria with monster-themed mechanics that grow your creatures build your bond and crush your opponents
#5. Counterpunch
Commander 2011’s Counterpunch isn’t the most powerful Abzan precon, but it has some of the most expensive and most powerful individual cards.
Deck Themes
Uh, it’s an Abzan deck. You’ve got +1/+1 counters, you’ve got Saproling tokens, you’ve got sac outlets, and you’ve got reanimators. Counterpunch has a little bit of every flavor of what this wedge does.
Commanders
Ghave, Guru of Spores plays into some core Abzan themes with activated abilities that pump out tokens and +1/+1 counters, and one of those abilities is a sac outlet no less. This deck predates Rivals of Ixalan, and it shows.
Teneb, the Harvester actually plays fairly decently at the head of this deck. There are a few creatures with respectable enters abilities, and extra enablers for your enters triggers are exactly what you want with Aura Shards around.
Karador, Ghost Chieftain is always intimidating with its whopping 8 mana value. It takes a lot of setup to get the cost reduction online in this deck: If you don’t want to rely on combat, you really need to stick your sacrifice outlets. This isn’t how I’d support Karador if I were to build a deck.
Strengths and Weaknesses
While the deck contains some cards that are powerful in isolation, it also has quite a hefty curve. There’s a lot of cards in the 5+ mana category, and some of them are also very color intensive, like Celestial Force and Symbiotic Wurm. Or you have cards like Chorus of the Conclave that come in too late to have the impact you’d want them to. With a curve like this, Storm Herd is basically discard fodder.
There’s some non-synergy here too between the cards that want to sacrifice and reanimate creatures for value and the ones that want to exile creature cards from your graveyard. The inclusion of three on-color Vow auras to prevent an opponent’s creature from attacking you is a cute idea over a decade later. The mana base is a precon mana base, but it could also use a little more green to make it more consistent.
But this isn’t a totally bad deck, overall. I could buy this to turn it into a modern Bracket 2 deck with cards like Pitiless Plunderer and Tribute to the World Tree. You have the bones of a graveyard deck with either Teneb, the Harvester or Karador, Ghost Chieftain at the helm, especially if you add some sacrifice outlets or self-mill.
Notable Cards
You don’t see Game Changers in precons all that much, but Aura Shards is in this list. It’s incredibly oppressive in go-wide decks, and it can lock some decks out of the game entirely.
Alliance of Arms is a fun symmetrical effect that helps everyone go a little wider, and it can be a good mana sink.
Skullclamp is a Commander staple that isn’t going away, and it’s perfectly at home in token decks like this. Attrition is a really good sacrifice outlet that gives you as many Doom Blades as you can buy.
- Magic the Gathering - Commander Deck - Commander - Counterpunch
- Three Oversized foil commander cards & A 100-card singleson deck
- Deck Strategy insert with rules for the commander format
- 5 New Commander Decks (Each Sold Separately)
- NOTE: This product can ONLY be shipped the United States, Puerto Rico, APO/FPOs and USVI.
#4. Abzan Armor
Abzan Armor from Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander is the newest Abzan precon as of mid-2025, and it’s all about big butts. Queue the worn-out Sir Mix-a-Lot tape.
Deck Themes
You’re cruising in a comfortable lane here; this deck doesn’t have the problem of discordant themes as much as many other precons do. Abzan Armor is primarily a toughness-matters deck with a tiny bit of lifegain. As a treat.
Commanders
Felothar the Steadfast is perfect casting as the face commander of Abzan Armor. Its ability isn’t symmetrical like Doran, the Siege Tower, so you aren’t hosing your opponents’ glass cannons, but you get so much more value. With a lot of the 0-power creatures in this deck, that activated ability is often a sac outlet that gives you pure card draw.
Betor, Ancestor's Voice has an end step trigger that cares about the life you gain and lose, and it plays well with Felothar’s activated ability to bring back the creatures you sacrifice or discard. You could build a much better lifegain deck around Betor, but you could respectably run it at the head of this precon to change things up.
Abzan Armor also reprints both Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper and Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa. They make a decent on-color toughness-matters partner pairing, but it’s missing the Doran, the Siege Tower text or the ability that lets defender creatures attack to get it over the top. Those cards are in this deck, but you’d need tutors to grab them consistently.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The theming is strong here. Cards like Expel the Interlopers and Slaughter the Strong act as one-sided board wipes in this deck, and Reunion of the House is mass reanimation here.
As you’d expect from a deck with high toughness as a theme, this precon has a high curve, but that shouldn’t matter if you’re grabbing this for a precon-only league or something. It should be fairly playable out of the box. Seedborn Muse also technically makes this a Bracket 3 deck.
The defender theme does make this deck rely a fair bit on its commander, though. You have a few abilities that allow your defender creatures to attack and deal combat damage based on their toughness, but you need to cast your commander or its backups to enact your game plan.
Notable Cards
Will of the Abzan is a modal reanimate effect or mass edict that’s sometimes both. It works well in this deck, but it’s more punishing when you use Baldin, Century Herdmaster (a.k.a. E. Honda, Sumo Champion) to make all creatures deal combat damage based on toughness.
Seedborn Muse is yet another Game Changer in a precon. It gives you a massive mana advantage and almost acts as a vigilance enabler, not to mention that it resets activated abilities.
Dragonlord Dromoka is a good way to protect your win condition in a dragon deck, and anything else that can support it on the curve.
Abzan Armor introduces Canopy Gargantuan, a dragon that has potential homes all across Commander. Any dragon deck, big creature, or toughness-matters deck can give this a look, but I like it alongside Shalai and Hallar.
Staff of Compleation acts as a synergistic Trading Post in this deck, since you can pay life to help Betor to reanimate something.
- FIGHT DRAGONS WITH DRAGONS—Return to Tarkir for an epic battle between dragons and clans; discover which clan fits your playstyle with distinct three-color gameplay, and add draconic power to your collection
- LET YOUR SHIELD BE YOUR SWORD—Ally with the Abzan clan to play defenders and turn toughness into power with this White-Black-Green Commander deck
- 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Command your army with Abzan’s Mythic Spirit Dragon, Betor, or Felothar, khan of the Abzan clan; every deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Legendary Creature cards featuring gorgeous Borderless art
- BATTLE ALONGSIDE YOUR CLAN—The Abzan are stalwart warriors with strong familial bonds who summon their ancestors’ spirits; they preserve the history and lineage of their clan through impenetrable defenses and sacred ancestral Kin-Trees
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering
#3. Food and Fellowship
Everyone’s coming to Hobbiton to celebrate Bilbo’s 111’s birthday, including some ents… and those Sackville-Bagginses, too.
Buyer beware: If you want to buy Food and Fellowship, listen to Smokey Robinson’s mother and shop around. There were price spikes when the product was the hot new thing, and some individual cards like The Gaffer and Farmer Cotton have had individual price volatility based on their own ability and the archetypes they support. The cards in the deck aren’t worth over $100 combined any more, but some retailers might still ask at least that much.
Deck Themes
Wizards certainly picked the right name for a deck that’s focused on Food tokens and halfling creatures. You have two “partner with” pairings for the iconic hobbit duos in Lord of the Rings, and plenty of cards that interact with or pay you off for making Food tokens. To go along with all the Food tokens, there are payoffs for your lifegain, including the extremely fun Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant.
Commanders
Frodo, Adventurous Hobbit and Sam, Loyal Attendant are the face commanders of this deck, as they darn well should be. They curve nicely into each other from turn 2 to turn 3, and Sam gets the Food production starting early and makes it easier to crack them. And you do want to consume your Food because Frodo likes a good meal before going into combat.
Merry, Warden of Isengard and Pippin, Warden of Isengard also curve nicely into each other, and you can use Pippin’s activated ability to gain a Food and Soldier token if both are on the field. Merry only gives you a Soldier once per turn, but Pippin gives you a mass pump at sorcery speed. You can play the deck with these two at the helm, but I don’t think it’s quite as good.
Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant’s activated ability is one that you’ll probably never achieve, but it’s fun to try to build around it. In this deck, you’re basically using it to gain 4 life from Food tokens, and that’s about it.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Theming is a big win here. There’s lots of hobbit flavor, and this deck has lots of Food token production and food payoffs, including some creatures that serve as win conditions.
This deck could use some more card draw, both in general and in terms of consistency; it runs enough nontoken creatures that Guardian Project would slot in nicely if you want a quick fix.
Notable Cards
Not going to lie, this is one of those precons where the asking price may not be worth the sum of its parts anymore, depending on the seller. Of the Tales of Middle-earth cards, The Gaffer has occasionally seen price spikes as a lifegain payoff that draws you cards.
This deck’s most notable reprints include Toxic Deluge, Sanguine Bond, Birds of Paradise, and Chromatic Lantern, which are all staples of various stripes. The bolt-able bird is the most valuable card in the deck, which makes this fairly underwhelming if you’re looking for a deck to scrap for parts.
#2. Enduring Enchantments
Enduring Enchantments offers you a fairly strong enchantment deck (you don’t say!), but it’s also somewhat slow. I can’t deny the enchantress value here, and the reprint value is the main reason I rate this higher than Food and Fellowship.
Deck Themes
The alliterative name on the tin gives the game away: Your enchantments may die, but they’ll come back. Enduring Enchantments is so focused that it gets a lot of its ramp and interaction from sagas and constellation abilities.
Commanders
Anikthea, Hand of Erebos is a commander for enchantment creatures, no doubt. This deck has 40-something enchantments for Anikthea to exile and bring back as zombie tokens, including a lot of enchantment creatures. The curve and the mana base concern me, though, and I’m not sure how frequently you could cast your commander on turn 5 out of the box.
Narci, Fable Singer isn’t supported super well in this deck, but you can build around it separately, and it’s in demand for anyone that wants to build around Tom Bombadil or Terra, Magical Adept. It saw a price spike in mid-2025 with the release of Final Fantasy, likely due to the popularity of Terra as a new 5c saga commander.
Strengths and Weaknesses
There’s a lot of enchantments and enchantresses in here, so this deck gets points for staying on-theme. Anikthea also helps your enchantresses attack; in other decks, they may sit back in support, but you may be more willing to take a swing if you’ve given them menace.
Enduring Enchantments has another hefty Abzan () curve, and the mana base could once again use a little more green.
Notable Cards
This deck is stuffed with enchantresses, which are always in demand considering how often we get new enchantment commanders and payoffs. Some of the best ones include Herald of the Pantheon, Eidolon of Blossoms, Composer of Spring, Sanctum Weaver, Setessan Champion, Sythis, Harvest's Hand, and Verduran Enchantress.
Dryad of the Ilysian Grove is a staple of lands-matters decks, and you can use it in multi-color decks as a color fixer. Mirari's Wake is a solid combination of a ramp enchantment and an anthem, which can be important in big creature decks like dinosaurs.
Battle at the Helvault was only printed in this precon, and it’s another card that has increased in value with a new 5-color saga commander. Ghoulish Impetus is another card that debuted in this precon, though it has an extended art print that was available in Commander Masters Collector boosters and a Secret Lair reprint in the 20 Ways to Win precon.
Starfield of Nyx is an enchantment reanimator in more ways than one. Besides general enchantment decks, it works really well in saga decks since those go to the graveyard all the time and this can turn them all into summons like in Final Fantasy. Even if it ignores the enchantment animation, I like this with Eriette, the Beguiler to give all my creature-stealing auras some resilience.
- POWERFUL RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX—Take your Commander game to the next level with a high-powered, ready-to-play deck
- PLAY WITH COMMANDER’S GREATEST HITS—Turn heads with a deck stacked with reprints of some of the greatest cards to grace Magic’s most popular format
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each Commander deck also introduces 10 never-before-seen Magic: The Gathering cards
- WHITE-BLACK-GREEN COMMANDER DECK—get the Enduring Enchantments Commander Deck, a White-Black-Green 100-card deck containing 2 Foil Legendary cards and 98 nonfoil cards, and battle your friends in epic, multiplayer games
- COLLECT SPECIAL TREATMENT CARDS—Each deck comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 special treatment cards from the Commander Masters set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare
#1. Corrupting Influence
Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander’s Corrupting Influence deck is fun and thematic out of the box, but it has some open lanes to improve it. It’s exactly what I want out of a precon: You can play it as-is, you can tinker with it and upgrade it, or you can take it apart entirely, and each avenue has its own value.
Deck Themes
This is the designated deck to represent the beginning of the Phyrexian Invasion during Phyrexia: All Will Be One, so naturally, it’s full of Phyrexian creatures and infect, toxic, and proliferation abilities. Notably, many cards in this deck are also found in the main ONE set.
Commanders
Ixhel, Scion of Atraxa and Vishgraz, the Doomhive are fairly interchangeable in this deck given that they both reward you for the poison counters you’ve placed on everyone. Vishgraz is the more aggressive, combat-oriented commander, while Ixhel lets you kick back and steal stuff once you reach its corrupted threshold.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck has a solid design. The theming is so good; I have a friend who has said he wouldn’t upgrade a Universes Beyond precon because he’d want to keep the flavor and cohesion, and I think that Corrupting Influence fits that mold.
This deck wants to get poison counters onto your opponent and start proliferating, but it can also win by going just wide enough to take everyone out over the course of one or two combat phases. I wish the deck had a little more help with the aggression with evasion enablers (Rogue's Passage for unblockable, perhaps?) and Overrun effects.
It’s a precon mana base with a precon curve, but it’s not the worst curve out there. There’s enough mana to satisfy each of this deck’s colors, which is appreciated.
Notable Cards
Glistening Sphere is the perfect 3-mana mana rock for a poison deck. Norn's Choirmaster is the type of card that almost any Phyrexian commander wants, plus there’s some secondary applications in decks that use all sorts of counters.
Phyresis Outbreak is such a good card for infect decks. It can get you the last bit of poison that you need to win, or it can act as a synergistic -X/-X sweeper.
Contaminant Grafter is a really good card for an aggressive poison deck, and the fact that it’s mono-green means that it’s a good card to support your Fynn, the Fangbearer deck.
- 100-card ready-to-play Phyrexia: All Will Be One Commander Deck—Corrupting Influence
- 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack—contains 1 Traditional Foil Showcase Ichor card + 1 Borderless or Extended-Art card
- White-Black-Green deck—includes 2 Traditional Foils + 98 nonfoil cards
- Accessories—10 double-sided tokens, life tracker, deck box, and 1 foil-etched Display Commander
- Introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to MTG
Commanding Conclusion
Narci, Fable Singer | Illustration by Miranda Meeks
With just six Abzan precons as of Edge of Eternities, it’s one of the least consistent color combinations to get decks. I don’t mind that. I’d rather that each new precon do something novel than have more precons but less creativity.
Which is your Abzan precon of choice? Which do you want to buy to upgrade? Which ones would you buy just to take them apart? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord.
Thanks for reading, and stay safe!
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