Quandrix Unlimited Upgrade Guide: 17 Easy Changes to Level Up Your Deck

Primo, the Unbounded | Illustration by Aldo Domínguez

Quandrix Unlimited takes Strixhaven’s mathematics school and pressures it to solve for X in a variety of problems—those problems namely being your opponents, and how big X needs to be to bury them in value.

Sale

Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven Commander Deck - Quandrix Unlimited (100-Card Deck, Deck Box + Accessories)

• FACE YOUR GREATEST TEST YET—The hallowed halls of Strixhaven welcome you back to school! Choose your college of magical study and expand your education in the greater world of Arcavios as you stand against mysterious threats plaguing the plane
• RUN THE NUMBERS—Formulate the equation for victory with Zimone as your constant variable. Cast X-spells for +1/+1 counters and ever-increasing discounts, supercharging your brainy brawling to towering new tiers!
• 2 FOIL BORDERLESS COMMANDERS—Every Secrets of Strixhaven Commander Deck includes 2 Traditional Foil Mythic Rare Legendary Creature cards featuring Borderless art that can be played as your commander
• INTRODUCES 12 COMMANDER CARDS—Each deck introduces 12 never-before-seen Commander cards to Magic: The Gathering
• THRILLING MULTIPLAYER BATTLES—Commander is a multiplayer way to play Magic, an epic, free-for-all battle full of strategic plays and social intrigue

$45.99

Buy on Amazon

Zimone, Infinite Analyst leads a relatively tough Simic () brew that has lots of good ideas and more than a few shaky proofs that require additional evidence to support. Today, I’m advising you how to shore up those weak points for a more powerful, enjoyable play experience.

Quandrix Unlimited Deck Overview

Quandrix Unlimited focuses on casting X-spells, as you’d expect from a deck built around Zimone, Infinite Analyst. There’s also a strong, very understandable +1/+1 counter theme meant to support Zimone and the X-spell creatures that enter with counters, though I find it underwhelming. There’s also a notable lack of ramp, despite the archetype demanding lots of mana, and questionable interaction choices—a lack of X-based counterspells, bad board wipes, etc.

Upgrade Plan

The core of the deck—play Zimone and follow it up with increasingly large X-spells—looks solid. Zimone offers immense cost reduction and is overall quite strong as a commander. Rather than messing around with this, I want to look at the cracks surrounding the idea, with three notable areas that need work:

• Lack of Ramp: The low ramp count harms the deck twice over. Firstly, it makes it less likely to have big explosive turns. Secondly, the deck becomes overly reliant on Zimone as a primary source of mana, to the point that it hits the red zone: It doesn’t function without the commander in play. It’s rather disappointing to look at a deck’s upgrades and realize it needs mana accelerants because there are so many more interesting choices you could make, but we need to work with what Wizards gives us.
• +1/+1 Counter Support: Though the +1/+1 counter stuff is only a small subtheme in the greater deck, it’s not a strong enough theme to warrant some of the support cards. Several of them are just okay or lack the engines required to really pop, and you can cut them to flesh out the underdeveloped ramp and interaction.
• Interaction: The interaction in the deck is sorely lacking. It falls into the classic precon trap of too many symmetrical board wipes, plus it ignores synergistic, X-spell based interaction. I’ll replace bad board wipes with better interactive tools, including these that synergize with all the X-spell support in the deck.

Beyond these three core areas, I’m adding a few odds and ends here and there, staples that Wizards seems to have overlooked; most of the cuts are either subpar versions of something I’m adding in or just the weak cards Wizards adds to precons.

Birds of Paradise

Suggested Cut: Mana Bloom

I dislike Mana Bloom on two counts: Firstly, any mana rock you invest a bunch of mana into ought to make more than a single mana a turn. Secondly, it doesn’t really help you to accelerate into Zimone. Birds of Paradise comes down turn 1 for Zimone on turn 2, which is a far more explosive start than anything Mana Bloom could produce.

Utopia Sprawl

Suggested Cut: Kami of Whispered Hopes

I like Kami of Whispered Hopes, I really do, but it’s awfully lackluster in a deck with so few ways to spread +1/+1 counters around. That weakens both halves of the card; it’s less likely to add counters to other permanents or ramp meaningfully. Thus, it gets the axe in favor of a much cheaper and more explosive ramp spell in Utopia Sprawl.

Wild Growth

Suggested Cut: Ozolith, the Shattered Spire

Wild Growth is basically a redux of the above point; Ozolith, the Shattered Spire is marvelous with Zimone, but I’d rather have the commander come down a turn early than have a random artifact that does little except add a counter to a hydra without Zimone in play.

Elvish Mystic

Suggested Cut: Elusive Otter

I see the vision with Elusive Otter; it has an X-spell adventure, then comes back as an evasive creature to carry the +1/+1 counters distributed by… like two other cards. If I were trying to upgrade the +1/+1 counter theme I’d keep it in, but I’m not, so let’s get Elvish Mystic in to make the good X-spells more impactful.

Llanowar Elves

Suggested Cut: Stonecoil Serpent

Stonecoil Serpent isn’t terrible as big beaters go, but it’s also less exciting than the hydras already in the deck or the expensive X-spells I’m adding; another bit of chaff to ditch for ramp consistency in Llanowar Elves.

Talisman of Curiosity

Suggested Cut: Quandrix Apprentice

While I appreciate Quandrix Apprentice helping us hit land drops, it’s a pretty mid card in most decks. That goes double for this one; if it isn’t an X-spell or a card that meaningfully supports the deck like card draw, ramp, or removal, why run it? Better to run an actual mana rock in Talisman of Curiosity.

Nexos

Suggested Cut: Zimone, All-Questioning

The last mana accelerant I added to the deck, the exclusion of Nexos also feels like the most egregious since it’s such an amazing support piece for X-spell decks. I suppose that’s a weakness of Universes Beyond cards with IP-exclusive creature types. As for this iteration of Zimone, all I’m questioning is why they added it in the first place.

Syncopate

Suggested Cut: Fractal Harness

Fractal Harness feels like a throwaway card for the players who want to stick the backup commander, Primo, the Unbounded, in the command zone; I’d much rather have an X-spell counterspell like Syncopate. Frankly, I’m shocked Wizards excluded these cards; they’re fantastic with Zimone and even support the sorcery-speed X-spells by giving you a chance to trigger Zimone multiple times a turn cycle.

Condescend

Suggested Cut: Quandrix Charm

Quandrix Charm is too smallball for Commander unless you’re doing something specific with it as a modal spell or something. Better to run Condescend, which also functions as an early-game counterspell while synergizing with the commander and scaling into the late game.

Repulsive Mutation

Suggested Cut: Decisive Denial

Repulsive Mutation lacks the fight spell on Decisive Denial, but we’re adding enough interaction to settle for just a counterspell. Mutation works extremely well with Zimone’s cost reduction; it effectively doubles its counters, which provides additional cost reduction for future X-spells.

March of Swirling Mist

Suggested Cut: Tanazir Quandrix

Tanazir Quandrix is the last of those cards that really wants a dedicated +1/+1 counter theme to be exceptional. This deck just doesn’t use it.

March of Swirling Mist was the first card I thought of when I saw Zimone, Infinite Analyst. It’s a wonderfully versatile card. It often defaults to an extremely cheap protection spell that phases out your best threats but also doubles as a finishing move or interaction spell since it can phase out opposing creatures as easily as your own.

Reality Spasm

Suggested Cut: Elementalist's Palette

Laugh at me for cutting mana rocks after complaining about a lack of ramp if you want; Elementalist's Palette is just meh. Why play a mana rock that competes with your commander on curve? Much better to mess with Reality Spasm, which can be a Fog of sorts by tapping opposing creatures, but it does so much more. This hits lands, so you can mess with an opposing Cabal Coffers or even tap all of a player’s lands for a sketchy extra turn spell. Or you can untap your creatures for surprise blockers, even untap your lands to filter Zimone’s cost reduction into colored mana. The decision tree it inspires is worthy of a Quandrix mage.

Icy Blast

Suggested Cut: Perplexing Test

Symmetrical board wipes suck in decks that want to build out a board. Perplexing Test could get a pass with Primo in the command zone and a greater focus on creating fractals, but that’s not the chosen path. Icy Blast isn’t quite a board wipe, but it does a decent impression by removing creatures from combat, likely for multiple turns.

Wave Goodbye

Suggested Cut: Oversimplify

Now this is a proper board wipe! Not all your creatures will have +1/+1 counters, so it isn’t truly asymmetrical, but Wave Goodbye shouldn’t hit Zimone or any big creatures you’ve invested in since they all enter with or gain +1/+1 counters. Most of your board will survive, which is more than enough reason to ditch Oversimplify.

Distorting Wake

Suggested Cut: Altered Ego

Altered Ego looks pretty unimpressive in this deck, and really most decks; it’s a classic case of playing a subpar card because it “does the thing”—in this case, has “X” in the top corner.

Distorting Wake does far more for the deck as a mass bounce spell. I love that it selectively targets creatures rather than hit everything; it provides lots of choices and options. For example, you could remove all of one player’s blockers and leave the others open to attack them, or stop a Craterhoof Behemoth from hurting you while your opponents get overrun.

Mass Manipulation

Suggested Cut: Nexus Mentality

I might be underrating Nexus Mentality here, but it looks decidedly unimpressive. Mass Manipulation, on the other hand, looks fantastic. It acts as removal and a threat and is exactly the card you want a cost-reducing commander to enable.

Blue Sun’s Zenith

Suggested Cut: Eureka Moment

Eureka Moment isn’t a bad card by any means; but I like to replace a generic draw spell with one that synergizes with the total package, so Blue Sun's Zenith feels like a natural inclusion.

The Final Deck and New Cards

This is what the final deck looks like with my changes applied, plus a list of all the cards I added. If you want to pick them up, just use the shopping cart button below to head to TCGPlayer with all the cards added to your cart!

Commanding Conclusion

Zimone, Infinite Analyst | Illustration by Carly Milligan

While Wizards has upped their precon game in recent years (precons are increasingly bad or flawed rather than unplayable), they still need work to come together into a cohesive whole. Once Wizards learns basic deckbuilding skills like ramp is useful and don’t blow up your board, precons might even be pretty decent.

Personally, I look forward to messing around with Quandrix Unlimited in the future. It’s definitely the Secrets of Strixhaven precon I’m most interested in. Which precon do you want? How would you upgrade the list? Let me know in the comments below, and check out Draftsim’s YouTube channel, The Daily Upkeep, for more SOS coverage.

Stay safe, and thanks for reading!

Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you'll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.