Kalamax, the Stormsire | Illustration by Nicholas Gregory
Mirror Mastery was released in Commander 2011, the first Temur Commander precon product, and at that time, wedge colors like blue, red, and green didn’t have many commander options, or even a clear identity. WotC decided to support Commander with annual releases, which then became set releases, and we now have some Temur decks to talk about, not to mention all the other legends released in regular sets.
While most Temur precons are creature-centric, there are some curveball decks out there. Today, we’re examining all seven Temur Commander precon decks to see what makes them tick, the iconic cards they’ve introduced to MTG, and of course, to rank them.
What Are Temur Commander Precons?
Riku of Two Reflections | Illustration by Izzy
Temur Commander precons are pre-constructed Commander decks with a blue, red, and green color identity. To be classified as a Temur precon, the deck needs to have a URG face commander. Over the years, this color combination established itself as the color of ramp, big creatures, flashy spells, and dragons. If you’re interested in casting 12-mana spells, big X spells, or just attacking with 7/7 trample monsters, here’s a good place to start.
#7. Mirror Mastery
Riku of Two Reflections pioneered the Temur precons, as a legendary creature that can copy an instant, sorcery, or creature you control. The better the spell you cast, the more value you’re going to get from the copy.
Deck Themes
Mirror Mastery is all about casting expensive spells and copying them with Riku of Two Reflections. Why content yourself with one Vengeful Rebirth or one Hydra Omnivore when you can have two? We also have some sweepers to keep the board clean, like Firespout, Savage Twister, and Disaster Radius.
Commanders
Riku of Two Reflections is the face commander, and probably rightfully so. With Animar, Soul of Elements as the commander, you’d focus more on creatures and less on flashy spells, but Riku synergizes with both. Nothing against Intet, the Dreamer as a card, but there’s no incentive to run it as your commander.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This is a long-game deck that aims at casting expensive spells and doubling them with Riku. The most glaring weakness in this deck is that the cards are very old, and MTG has power crept them since their release. Nobody is thrilled to cast cards like Aethersnipe or Faultgrinder in modern EDH. You’re probably not running 28 basic lands in your 3-color deck, and all the nonbasics are bad by today’s standard, not to mention they all ETB tapped. Considering the huge power creep MTG had in 2018+, this deck shows its age.
Notable Cards
Besides the face commanders that are still considered iconic Temur commanders, the bulk of the deck is mainly okay to replaceable reprints, or straight up bad cards. This deck debuted Edric, Spymaster of Trest, which was for a long time one of the only cards that gives everyone a saboteur draw effect and saw play in many Eternal formats, and Homeward Path, an interesting way to fight Mind Control effects or Zedruu the Greathearted decks, and probably the most expensive card in the original list.
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- welcome ask us for help if have commercial problems, tell me with this_item --- Mirror Mastery Commander Deck Original 2011 - ENGLISH Sealed New MTG ABUGames
Tinker Time
Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy leads this weird Temur precon deck from March of the Machine Commander, and it cares about differently named artifact tokens–which, as you may imagine, is a hard theme to support. Or is it?
Deck Themes
Tinker Time wants different artifact tokens: Clue, Food, Treasure, Thopters, you name it. Blue-red and blue-green often synergize with this theme. Of course, as a Commander precon, the designers were allowed to introduce new token producers, as well as reprint cards like Everquill Phoenix that makes a Feather token, or a card like Bloodforged Battle-Axe that creates tokens of itself.
Commanders
Gimbal, Gremlin Prodigy is the face of the deck, and it’s recommended if you can make differently-named artifact tokens. Rashmi and Ragavan (R&R) wants quantity over quality, and it’s easier to pilot when you don’t care about which kind of artifacts you control, and many will argue that R&R is the more powerful commander in a vacuum (not the coolest to play, though).
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck is a much more recent product, and you have a lot of interesting cards. That said, it’s frequently pointed out by the community as one of the worst commander precons out of the box. Sometimes you’ll pay 5 mana for your commander and make a 2/2 every turn or so. The decklist is somewhat divided between synergizing with Gimbal’s different tokens, or providing a lot of artifacts for Rashmi and Ragavan, so upgrading this deck should focus more on one line than the other. This deck also has some tacked-on cards that care about Planechase, a casual mode that the March of the Machine decks were promoting.
Notable Cards
There aren’t many interesting and notable cards in this deck either, since too many of them were made to support Gimbal’s main gimmick. Curse of Opulence is interesting as a way to put a target on a player’s head. Everquill Phoenix is an interesting take on mutate, and Academy Manufactor was reprinted for the first time, a card that fits this deck, besides being a heavily played card in token/combo decks.
- Tinker Time (Green-Blue-Red deck)—100-card ready-to-play March of the Machine Commander Deck with 2 Traditional Foil Legendary cards and 98 nonfoil cards
- 10 Planechase cards and 1 planar die to trigger unique abilities and jump across the Multiverse
- 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack—contains 2 special treatment cards from the March of the Machine main set, including 1 Rare or Mythic Rare and at least 1 Traditional Foil card
- Deck introduces 10 never-before-seen MTG cards to Commander
- Accessories—1 Foil-Etched Display Commander, 10 double-sided tokens, Life Tracker, and deck box
#5. Arcane Maelstrom
With Arcane Maelstrom and Kalamax, the Stormsire, it’s all about copying instant spells. Stormsire? Storm? Not quite, but a little similar. Let’s see what this Commander 2020 precon has in store for us.
Deck Themes
This deck has a mix of themes thanks to its two main commanders caring about different things (not a good sign). Kalamax, the Stormsire wants you to cast instants while it's tapped, and you should do it on your turn and on your opponents’ turns as well to reap the most benefits. The deck packs a punch when copying some of its more expensive spells with the commander, and you have the typical cards that care about instants, like Talrand, Sky Summoner.
Xyris, the Writhing Storm, on the other hand, wants players to draw extra cards, a theme that's reinforced by cards like Glademuse. For a Xyris build to work, you need to focus on attacking with it to reap the benefits. It’s more of a value card in the deck, as an improved Ohran Viper.
Commanders
Kalamax, the Stormsire is the de facto leader of this bunch, and all it requires is that you attack with it (or tap it using other means), copying instants while it's tapped.
Xyris, the Writhing Storm goes for another approach. With Xyris, you want to be more of a group hug deck that makes players draw extra cards so you can create Snake tokens. You could also run the partner duo of Haldan, Avid Arcanist and Pako, Arcane Retriever.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck is strong in the late game, but you need to get there first. This deck wants mana, but it’s poor at generating it. It’s obviously good when you’re copying Prophetic Bolt and Channeled Force, but what about copying simple spot removal spells? The lack of ramp for a Temur deck with so many cards that cost 6+ mana is its biggest weakness, next to the divided themes.
Decks that are divided between themes are usually problematic. Outside of attacking with Xyris, there’s not that many cards like, say, Howling Mine that make everybody draw, and for a spellslinger deck, you’ll probably just copy an instant or two with Kalamax. There’s no alternative way to tap it either; a card like Springleaf Drum would've been useful.
Notable Cards
Arcane Maelstrom gave us Deflecting Swat, a red staple in Commander and cEDH. Nascent Metamorph is super cool as a little creature that becomes a huge threat when attacking. Twinning Staff is also an interesting addition to MTG from this deck, for people that build around copying spells. Notable reprints include Crop Rotation and Dualcaster Mage.
- 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
- Turn the tide of any battle with the Arcane Maelstrom deck—copy spells with Kalamax the Stormsire draw cards when you do damage with Xyris the Writhing Storm or exile your opponents’ resources and cast them yourself with Haldan Avid Arcanist and Pako Arcane Retriever
- Arcane Maelstrom 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
#4. Living Energy
Living Energy is the Temur Aetherdrift Commander deck, themed around energy, with Saheeli, Radiant Creator as the face commander with an artifacts subtheme.
Deck Themes
This deck has so many themes. The loudest of them is artifacts, and you want to have them, copy them, cast them, or hit your opponent with artifact creatures or vehicles. Of course, energy is a glue that makes this deck more powerful, giving you more tools to activate your commanders. Maybe you want to take a Reckless Fireweaver approach and burn your opponents down slowly, or attack with the tokens produced by Loyal Apprentice. You can also go big with cards like Aetherwind Basker and spin the wheels with Aetherworks Marvel, hoping to find a big creature in the top six cards of your library.
Commanders
Saheeli, Radiant Creator supports a great deal of themes. You can cast artificers or artifacts and get energy, and then trade 3 energy for a copy of a permanent you control with haste, except it’s also a 5/5. Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic gives you a chance to get energy counters and spend them to make flying X/X vehicles. Of these, Pia Nalaar is the most combat-centric, and you can take a vehicle typal approach. Saheeli, on the other hand, allows you to go full Johnny and create more interesting combos and interactions. And both complement each other well and synergize with energy. Saheeli gets the upper hand on my preferences alone, because copying permanents that enter with energy counters is pretty powerful.
Strengths and Weaknesses
We have a very playable mana base, with a mix of mana fixing and utility lands. This deck has many Temur staples like Arcane Denial and Explosive Vegetation, while also having good artifact creatures like Combustible Gearhulk or Triplicate Titan, good energy cards like Aetherwind Basker, and Saheeli planeswalkers to power things up. They even managed to fit a Panharmonicon to double triggers.
The deck could, however, use more of the Modern Horizon 3 energy cards instead of reprinting “weaker” Kaladesh cards. MH3 managed to intertwine artifacts and energy together, and these cards would fit this deck’s themes pretty well. Also, some weaker cards are there just for Pia Nalaar’s version of the deck, so these should be easy cuts if you plan on using only Saheeli.
Notable Cards
Aetherflux Conduit is a nice parallel to Aetherflux Reservoir, giving you a game-ender to use all that energy on. Nissa, Worldsoul Speaker is another interesting energy enabler and payoff, easy to combo with off infinite landfall triggers.
- READY, SET, CHARGE!—Join artificer extraordinaire Saheeli to stockpile energy, then charge up your artifact creatures for a big finish with this Red-Green-Blue Aetherdrift Commander Deck
- 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Every Aetherdrift Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Legendary Creature cards featuring Borderless art
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering
- COLLECT SPECIAL TREATMENT CARDS—Each deck also comes with a 2-card Collector Booster Sample Pack containing 2 alternate-border Aetherdrift cards
- THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue
#3. Paradox Power
Paradox Power is the Doctor Who Temur precon, with a weird theme: casting spells from anywhere but your hand. The lead commander for this deck is not one, but two partners (or companions): The Thirteenth Doctor and Yasmin Khan.
Deck Themes
Paradox Power wants you to use the paradox mechanic to its fullest. The loudest theme here is playing spells from anywhere but your hand. You can suspend them, rebound them, foretell them, use impulse draw, or cascade the spells. Cards like The Flux allow you to feed paradox, while cards like Iraxxa, Empress of Mars and Flaming Tyrannosaurus are the payoffs. The synergies are all over the place. Spells have flashback and retrace, or cascade and rebound, mechanics that let you cast spells from other zones. Lunar Hatchling is a clever design, allowing us to landcycle and escape it to trigger paradox. Adventure cards are also a clever way to mix paradox and value.
Commanders
One of this deck’s features is that, due to the sheer amount of legendary creatures, doctors, partners, and the Doctor’s companion mechanic, you can realistically have dozens of commander combinations here. The Thirteenth Doctor + Yasmin Khan are the main commander partners, or companions, if you will. The deck revolves around ways of triggering paradox and counter synergies, and the cards interact with this in different ways.
Me, the Immortal works synergistically with The Thirteenth Doctor, allowing you to put +1/+1 counters on “Me” with the paradox triggers, and once the card dies, you cast it from the graveyard, triggering paradox again. But it’s not a good main commander option regarding this decklist.
Madame Vastra + Jenny Flint are partners focused on the synergies between creating and sacrificing Food or Clue tokens.
You can also replace Yasmin Khan for Dan Lewis or Ryan Sinclair, keeping the Temur identity. Another option is The Twelfth Doctor + Graham O'Brien.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Here we have a solid deck right out of the box, with a very playable mana base and a good plan. Cards like Ponder and Preordain prove that this deck isn’t messing around, as you have some of the best cantrips in MTG. Cards like Into the Time Vortex and Twice Upon a Time are powerful and fit with the main theme. And each time you play this deck, you discover new ways to interact with your cards. As far as weaknesses are concerned, I’d say the worst one is trying to settle on the various partners and commanders and making all of them possible, which obviously dilutes the deck’s focus. For example, there are many cards that make Clue tokens to synergize with Madam Vastra, but they don’t contribute to paradox at all.
Notable Cards
Cards from the Doctor Who set are all very wacky. River Song allows you to play cards from the bottom of your library, so here, scrying to the bottom actually sets up your next draw. The Twelfth Doctor allows you to demonstrate spells you’ve cast from outside your hand. Simic +1/+1 counter decks can draw some cards with Danny Pink, while Clone decks have an interesting tool in Quantum Misalignment. This deck also reprinted Carpet of Flowers back from Urza’s Saga.
- BIGGER ON THE INSIDE—Bring Doctor Who characters, villains, and memorable episodes 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
- EMBRACE THE POWER OF PARADOX—The Paradox Power MTG Commander deck showcases the Twelfth and Thirteenth 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.
#2. Temur Roar
When returning to Tarkir, people expected wedges to be big again, and WotC didn’t disappoint. Temur Roar is the Tarkir: Dragonstorm Temur precon, and while it’s not exactly about dragons, it has a bunch of them. Eshki, Temur's Roar is the face commander, and it enjoys creatures with power 4 or greater.
Deck Themes
Step 1: Play creatures with 4 power or greater. Step 2: Profit. Ideally you’ll play Eshki, Temur's Roar on turn 3, then play a medium-sized dragon on turn 4, draw a card, and attack with a 3/3 commander. Later, you’ll cast something like Dragonlord Atarka, draw a card, pump your commander, and even deal massive damage.
Commanders
Eshki, Temur's Roar is the better of the two commanders to use here, right off the bat. It’s cheaper to cast, and it benefits the most from all the 4- to 6-mana dragons there are in the decklist. Ureni of the Unwritten is excellent in the 99, and if you want to build around it, you probably need more ramp (8-mana commander, after all), and more impactful creatures.
Strengths and Weaknesses
This deck provides the foundations for playing dragon tribal. You have lots of powerful dragons, a good curve, and many of the best enablers and payoffs. One little weakness of the deck is that they’ve tried so hard to make dragons that cost less with power 4 or greater to synergize with Eshki, and sometimes you just need a card like a regular 4/4 for 3 mana to trigger your commander. And these dragons don’t work very well with Ureni of the Unwritten, because you’d rather have more Dragonlord Atarka-esque dragons if Ureni was your commander.
Notable Cards
Nogi, Draco-Zealot is a very interesting dragon enabler and payoff. Zenith Festival is a cool way to turn mana into cards. Parapet Thrasher and Thundermane Dragon are great, cheap dragon designs and work very well if you cast them after Eshki. The deck also has good reprints like Hellkite Courser, Temur Ascendancy, and Sarkhan, Soul Aflame.
- A NEW AGE OF TARKIR—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
- HARNESS THE FURY OF THE DRAGONS—Join the Temur clan to ramp mana and summon dragons with this Green-Blue-Red Commander deck
- 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Command your army with Ureni, spirit dragon of wisdom, or Eshki, leader of the Temur clan; every Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Legendary Creature cards featuring gorgeous Borderless art
- BATTLE ALONGSIDE YOUR CLAN—The Temur are a semi-nomadic people who thrive in the northern mountain terrain by living in concert with their environment. They are expert hunters, gatherers, and herders, working alongside their formidable animal companions.
- INTRODUCES 10 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 10 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering
#1. Tyranid Swarm
In Warhammer 40k, we got a Commander precon deck representing the Tyranid Swarm, with The Swarmlord as the main commander. This is a deck themed around monsters, beasts, and spending big mana on your spells.
Deck Themes
With 11 X-spells in the deck thanks to the ravenous mechanic, it’s clear that this is a big mana deck. You know, the kind of deck you build around Rosheen Meanderer. Ravenous draws you a card when you spend 5 or more mana on X while adding scalability to creatures–a linear kicker. The deck also has a +1/+1 counter subtheme, which synergizes with The Swarmlord.
Commanders
The Swarmlord is the face commander, and Magus Lucea Kane is a decent commander for the Tyranid Swarm. The Swarmlord is a mix between a beatstick and a card draw engine. Many of the creatures in this deck enter with counters, so you will draw cards for sure. Magus is just a 1/1 for 4 mana, but when you’re adding 2 mana each turn for your many ravenous spells and copying them, you’re in business.
Strengths and Weaknesses
Warhammer 40k upped the level of Commander precons, and this one might be the best of them. This deck doesn’t suffer from Divided Commander Syndrome, as both commanders care about the same thing in different ways. The card quality is top-notch, as many strong cards were designed for the Warhammer 40k expansion. The mana base is solid, but it could be improved, as many of the lands are slow taplands.
Notable Cards
Ghyrson Starn, Kelermorph is one of the more popular Izzet commanders out there, if you build around it with pinging effects. Mawloc is a heavily played card in Cube if players need a good RG gold card. Shadow in the Warp is nice ramp for creatures, especially in a deck full of X-spell creatures. Bone Sabres is a nice +1/+1 counters equipment. Biophagus is a very reliable mana dork in counters decks. Finally, Nexos makes all your basics generate 2 mana for X creatures.
- 100-card ready-to-play Warhammer 40,000 Commander Deck—Tyranid Swarm
- Green-Blue-Red Deck—contains 2 legendary traditional foil cards plus 98 nonfoil cards
- Every card features Warhammer-themed art—including 42 cards that are new to Magic
- 1 foil-etched Display Commander
- 10 double-sided tokens, 1 life tracker, and 1 deck box
Commanding Conclusion
Saheeli, Radiant Creator | Illustration by Ernanda Souza
And that’s about it for Temur precon decks, guys. Temur is a hard color combination, as these colors don’t share many themes together. UR wants spells, RG wants creatures, and GU cares about ramp, or some niche set theme. But at least when we’re talking about Commander decks, the color combo converges into a ramp theme, for the most part.
What’s the best Temur precon? Do you own any of these? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over Draftsim Discord.
Thanks for reading, and until the next time!
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1 Comment
Fun thing: technically, Ureni is the Temur Roar face commander. Wizards didn’t make it clear in promotion, but when you pull out their little “guide to the deck” insert, it and the Sultai Arisen deck both use their dragons as face. Not that I disagree that Eshki is better for the deck.
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