Last updated on November 28, 2025
Ranar the Ever-Watchful | Illustration by Kieran Yanner
Most MTG sets have Commander precons nowadays, and these are interesting products with powerful cards. As a result, they’re highly anticipated, sometimes more than the Standard sets themselves. But with only four offerings, Azorius received the short end of the Commander precon decks. So, white and blue fans often have to dip into a third color for their precon needs. But what if all these precons are good? Is quantity equal to quality? Let’s find out!
What Are Azorius Commander Precons?
Millicent, Restless Revenant | Illustration by Denman Rooke
Azorius Commander precons are Commander preconstructed decks with the blue and white color identity. That means you can buy it and play it right out of the box, and your commander will be blue and white. Regarding themes, blue and white often have a strong tempo, evasion, or control theme, but in the precons, we’ll find that WotC explored some unconventional themes, or themes specific to the sets these precons were printed in.
#4. First Flight
First Flight is an Azorius precon from the 2022 Starter Commander Deck series, featuring a classic fliers theme with Isperia, Supreme Judge as the face commander. As classic as it can be, this product is aimed at beginners.
Deck Themes
This is a flying-matters deck, with all the cards you’d expect here. All your possible commanders fly, you have cards like Empyrean Eagle and Thunderclap Wyvern to boost fliers, and many ways to make flying tokens. Sephara, Sky's Blade is a huge payoff for having fliers around. Furthermore, 90%+ of your creatures have flying in the first place.
Commanders
Isperia, Supreme Judge is the face commander. Kangee, Sky Warden is a competent replacement, and I’d say it should be the main commander, so you can be more active with your flying creatures. Isperia, Supreme Judge is an ok commander, but it’s expensive for what it does. Most of the time, you won't draw cards because people won't attack you, or it just eats a removal spell.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Overall, this precon answers the question: “If I were to build a blue and white deck, where do I start?” The deck offers you plenty of tools and staple Azorius cards like Swords to Plowshares, Counterspell, Arcane Denial, plus good sweepers like Time Wipe and Cleansing Nova. It’s very focused on fliers, and as a starter product, it gives you nice value for what you’re paying with staples to use in other decks.
As for weaknesses, besides the huge amount of basic lands WotC loves to put in precons (30 basics?), the card selection isn’t very strong, especially on the creature side. It looks very 2014-2018 MTG, and creatures have power crept a lot since then. No one is dying to put Sharding Sphinx, Skyscanner, or Windreader Sphinx into their Commander decks.
Notable Cards
As this is a starter Commander precon, no new cards were printed here, and it’s sad because cards only printed in EDH precons are usually the strongest offerings, as they’re designed to work with the format in mind, and they bypass the typical Standard power level.
As for reprints, many WU format staples are here, including removal spells, counterspells, the eternal Solemn Simulacrum, or good staple cards like Sephara, Sky's Blade and Bident of Thassa.
- READY-TO-PLAY COMMANDER DECK FOR NEWCOMERS AND FANS: Join friends in epic battles! This Magic: The Gathering Starter Commander Deck, First Flight (White-Blue), is ready to play straight out of the box
- INTRO TO MAGIC’S MOST POPULAR FORMAT: Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic! Learn how to play with your own deck, easy-to-follow rules, strategy tips, and reference card
- 100 CARD WHITE-BLUE DECK: With the First Flight deck, take wing with the sphinx Isperia, Supreme Judge, and overwhelm foes with a squadron of flying friends
- FOIL-ETCHED LEGENDARY CREATURE CARD: Includes 1 legendary creature card with gorgeous art and a foil-etched treatment. This card serves as your "commander" with unique abilities that make plays even more powerful
- INCLUDES ACCESSORIES AND DECK BOX: Also comes with 10 two-sided tokens, a deck box for storage, and punchout counters to keep track of creature buffs
#3. Spirit Squadron
Spirit Squadron is the Innistrad: Crimson Vow precon, featuring a typal spirit theme. Its face commander is Millicent, Restless Revenant, and it cares about the number of spirits you have in play.
Deck Themes
Millicent, Restless Revenant is a 7-mana commander, but it has affinity for spirits, and the deck has many spirit creatures or ways to make spirit tokens. Your commander also makes spirit tokens when a nontoken spirit deals combat damage or when it dies. Spread across the deck are themes that blue-white players will enjoy, like blinking, flash creatures, or tapping enemy creatures. Since you’re going wide with spirits, the deck also rewards flying creatures and wide boards. This deck combines many different themes united by the commander’s special abilities, something very typical of precon decks.
Commanders
Millicent, Restless Revenant is the face commander, and the one that best fits into the precon decklist. Another option is the partner duo Timin, Youthful Geist, and Rhoda, Geist Avenger, which care about tapping opposing creatures. Geist of Saint Traft, a reprint from the first Innistrad set, can be a commander that usually cares about Voltron and aura builds.
Strengths and Weaknesses
The best aspect of this deck is its strong incentive to go all-in on spirit typal, but at the same time go wide with fliers. The cost reduction from Millicent, Restless Revenant is already good, but then we have Drogskol Captain and Drogskol Reinforcements as interesting ways to capitalize on spirits. Cards like Promise of Bunrei make a lot of spirits quickly, and Distant Melody fills our hand with cards.
As far as Azorius precons go, we have the best mana base here, or at least the most diversified one. Considering weaknesses, the deck is filled with cards that require a wide board of spirits to work, and fall flat if we have none because of a board wipe or something. You might end up paying upwards of 11 mana for your commander, considering commander tax. The deck could use more brute force, relying less on synergy to be more effective.
Notable Cards
Wedding Ring is an interesting “politics/partnership card”, allowing you to establish a bond with other player, and when they draw or gain life on their turns, you do the same, and vice versa.
Donal, Herald of Wings is a powerful card that bridges the flying and spirit themes in a coherent way. Priest of the Blessed Graf capitalizes on white’s lack of ramp, so even if you’re behind on land, you’ll get a creature reinforcement.
As for reprints, Drogskol Captain is awesome as a spirit lord. Kami of the Crescent Moon is an interesting reprint from the original Kamigawa set, as a creature with the Howling Mine text.
Finally, the duo of Ghostly Prison and Windborn Muse fit thematically into a spirit deck that wants you to attack in the air, helping you survive.
#2. Phantom Premonition
Phantom Premonition is the Kaldheim Commander Azorius precon, released in 2021, with Ranar the Ever-Watchful as its face commander. The main theme of this deck is exile and casting spells from exile due to the foretell mechanic from Kaldheim.
Deck Themes
The main theme from this deck is exile, personified in Ranar the Ever-Watchful. First, it allows us to foretell a card for free, instead of paying the 2 mana the mechanic requires. Second, whenever we exile a spell, foretell a card, or blink a permanent, we’ll get a 1/1 flying spirit token. This allows us to get a lot of value from permanents with good enters abilities, like Cloudblazer, and blink staples like Soulherder and Brago, King Eternal.
The deck has a few foretell spells (around 10 or so) that work well with our commander. Since then, MTG has created other mechanics that work from exile, like plot, so I’d look for these to spice things up in this deck if needed. Finally, there’s a minor flying-matters theme to enhance Ranar’s tokens; Thunderclap Wyvern boosts them while cards like Storm Herd make a lot of fliers.
Commanders
Ranar the Ever-Watchful is the main precon commander, while Vega, the Watcher and Brago, King Eternal are other suitable options for commanders. It’s interesting that the deck is indirectly built around blinking and casting from exile, which are options that Vega and Brago can explore, were they to be the main commander.
I’d say that Ranar is the main commander with the way the deck is built, as there aren’t that many spells to trigger Vega’s card draw. Brago, on the other hand, always blinks plenty of permanents, though this deck’s ETB creatures can be a bit clunky.
Strengths and Weaknesses
One thing that’s positive about this precon is that cards that enter and give us value, like Mulldrifter or Sun Titan, are already solid, and they become even better with flicker synergies. Blinking a Mulldrifter, drawing two cards, and getting a 1/1 flying token on top of it is strong.
The thing is, decks that play cards like MTG’s famous flying fish don’t have blink as an afterthought, but as the main mechanic of the deck, usually tied to the commander. Aside from Ethereal Valkyrie, a card clearly tailor-made for this deck, too many themes are mixed incoherently.
You have cards that blink others, like Flickerwisp and Soulherder, and you add cards that enter and do interesting stuff like Sea Gate Oracle, but these cards are odd alongside Ranar the Ever-Watchful.
There also aren’t enough foretell cards, or good foretell cards like Alrund's Epiphany or Starnheim Unleashed, considering that our commander foretells cards for free. At least there's potential for immediate upgrades.
Notable Cards
Some of the best foretell cards are exclusive to this precon, like Cosmic Intervention and Spectral Deluge.
The deck has many blink staples like Soulherder, Brago, King Eternal, and Mistmeadow Witch. Also of note is Windfall, a card that gets reprinted now and then in Commander precons but retains value.
- 100-card ready-to-play KHM Commander deck
- 1 foil Commander card
- 8 Viking-inspired Magic cards make their debut
- 10 double-sided tokens + life tracker and deck box
- Create a horde of spirits to do your bidding!
#1. Buckle Up
Buckle Up is the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Commander Azorius precon, released in 2022, featuring Kotori, Pilot Prodigy at the helm. The deck is themed around vehicles, the main WU theme of Neon Dynasty.
Deck Themes
The main theme of the deck is artifacts and vehicles, no questions asked. You have plenty of vehicle cards in blue and white, creatures that crew vehicles as though their power is increased by 2, and a commander that lowers the crew cost of vehicles to only 2 power, no matter what. It has an artifact and artifact creatures subtheme as well, as we see in Master of Etherium and Cyberdrive Awakener.
Commanders
Kotori, Pilot Prodigy is the face commander, and Shorikai, Genesis Engine is an alternative. Having Shorikai as a crew 2 vehicle is great with Kotori, and although Shorikai is a great commander, it’s not the best for this decklist. Hanna, Ship's Navigator and Raff Capashen, Ship's Mage round up the possible commanders for this deck, but you’re better off playing them in the 99.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Unlike the other Commander decks on this list, this one is juiced up. It’s a 2022 MTG product through and through, with a strong and cohesive theme and many cards that became Commander staples. As such, the best aspect of this deck is its powerful cards. As for a minor critique in its weakness, the “vehicle” deck has only 15 vehicles in it, and most of them are cards you’d play in a Limited deck. Yes, Kotori, Pilot Prodigy helps any artifact creature, but the vehicle side could be more prominent. The deck is very proactive but short on interaction, which can be a downside.
Notable Cards
Shorikai, Genesis Engine is the most popular Azorius commander out there, with almost 20k lists posted on EDHREC. It’s a very versatile commander that can run a lot of styles, including wrath-based control, looting and reanimation, stax/prison, graveyard-matters, or just vehicles.
Other strong cards that became staples from this precon are Cyberdrive Awakener and Kappa Cannoneer. Swift Reconfiguration is a nice removal spell for just 1 mana, and we also have Organic Extinction as a nice one-sided wrath for artifact decks.
As for reprints, we have powerful cards like Cataclysmic Gearhulk, Emry, Lurker of the Loch, and Parhelion II, just to cite a few.
- 100-card ready-to-play Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Commander deck
- Deck includes 2 traditional foils plus 98 nonfoil cards
- 1 foil-etched Display Commander, 10 double-sided tokens, 1 life tracker plus 1 deck box
- Introduces 15 MTG cards not found in the main set
- Bring your Vehicles to life and pilot futuristic mechs
Commanding Conclusion
Isperia, Supreme Judge | Illustration by Maxime Minard
And that’s about it for all the Azorius precons. Aside from Buckle Up, which is a powerful Azorius precon right out of the box with format-defining cards, they’re kind of misses.
White and blue fans will have to search for decks with powerful 3-color commanders Chulane, Teller of Tales and Y'shtola, Night's Blessed, or even 4-color offerings, like Atraxa, Praetors' Voice or Breya, Etherium Shaper.
Now I want to hear from you. Do you have any Azorius precons? What are your experiences with it? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over on Draftsim's Discord.
Thanks for reading, guys, and stay safe out there.
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