(Zhulodok, Void Gorger | Art by Lius Lasahido)

Hello friends! Andy from the Scrap Trawlers here. As always, there’s a new set coming out next week, and that means we’ve got precons to talk about!

In the last article we looked at the new colorless precon, Eldrazi Unbound, from Commander Masters. We saw that the deck is very slow due to its top-heavy mana curve. Unfortunately, high mana value cards are necessary to make the deck work. So how can we fix it? Spoiler alert: not easily. Dear reader, this is the most difficult precon upgrade I’ve ever done.

Here’s the original decklist:

Gotta Be Big

This colorless monstrosity is led by Zhulodok, Void Gorger, a 7/4 Eldrazi that gives our big spells Cascade twice. So we’re trying to get value out of casting our big mana spells, which unfortunately means we have to have a lot of them in the deck to function. The precon packs 15 spells with mana value seven or higher, plus a few X spells. 

The backup commander doesn’t make things any easier. Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate costs XX and has power/toughness X, and gets a +1/+1 counters occasionally. Then some other stuff happens when Omarthis dies. But we’re not worrying about that, because we’d have to completely revamp the deck to make Omarthis work as the commander. Which we’re not doing. In fact, let’s just get this out of the way. Omarthis is getting cut. But we’ll talk more about that later.

The deck needs to go faster. But to do that, especially without spending a ton of money, we need to lower the mana curve, which means taking out some high-cost spells, which means triggering Zhulodok less often, which means less value. It’s a real tightrope we’re walking on here, reader. But I’m gonna do my best, because I just love you all so much. 

Gorging

So let’s talk about the cards we’re adding. One thing the precon was lacking was cheap and efficient card draw. But since we’re colorless, we can’t get cheap and efficient without some kind of drawback. Eye of Vecna can draw us an extra card every turn, but at the cost of life and mana. Zenith Chronicler will also draw us a bunch of cards (your whole deck if you’re playing against Aragorn, the Uniter), but it’ll draw cards for your opponents as well.

The precon had a bit of a copy sub-theme, with Mirage Mirror and Abstruse Archaic, so I thought we’d benefit from playing into that a little more. So in goes Lithoform Engine and Strionic Resonator. Both cards will require extra mana, but with all the triggered abilities in the deck, I think they’re going to be worth it. And for getting value from copying your opponents’ spells, we’re also adding Wandering Archaic. Cuz sometimes we wanna Cultivate too, you know?

Sanctum of Ugin just seems like a no-brainer, and a weird thing to exclude from the precon. Wondrous Crucible gives our stuff some extra protection, while also getting us value out of the graveyard. And in the “I just think it’s neat” category, we’ve got Spectrum Sentinel. Why? Cuz he’s gonna gain you a ton of life, and he can block multicolored creatures all day long.

That’s eight cards added, and we only spent about $11.

Purging

Now it’s time to see what we’re cutting. If you read the Primer, you know that I was a bit miffed at the inclusion of X spells in this Cascade deck. So, you know what? They’re all gone. Endless One. Hangarback Walker. Stonecoil Serpent. Even Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate. All gone. See ya.

Exiling everything leads to very unfun games. So Calamity of the Titans and Perilous Vault are getting the axe. And because the removal suite is still overstuffed even after these are taken out, I’m tossing out Duplicant as well.

And last up for the purge is one Wastes, to make way for Sanctum of Ugin.

Here’s the updated decklist:

Big Spenders

Unsurprisingly, this deck is a lot easier to upgrade without a budget. With no restrictions, we can flesh out the land package with winners like Ancient Tomb, Field of the Dead, Inventors’ Fair, and Eye of Ugin.

We can control what we Cascade into with Sensei’s Divining Top and Scroll Rack.

We can protect our commander against pretty much everything with Commander’s Plate.

We can make all of our artifacts way cheaper with Mycosynth Golem.

And we can even make a bunch of extra mana with Reserved List all-star Metalworker.

Look Into the Void

Did we improve this deck? Hard to tell. By taking out the X spells, we actually raised the average mana value up to 4.74. That’s kinda the opposite direction from where we wanted to go, but we did add some more card draw and more ways to copy Zhulodok’s Cascade triggers. So the value is most definitely improved. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this deck, there’s almost no way to make it faster on a budget. But if you wanna throw in your Mana Crypts and Mana Vaults, be my guest. You do you, my friends.

That’s it for Eldrazi Unbound! What did you think of this deck? Was I too harsh on it? Is it an overpriced lump of colorless junk? Hit me up in the comments and let me know. 

Don’t forget to check out all of our other precon guides. And remember to budget…before you buy it.

Scrap Trawlers

Scrap Trawlers is a Magic: The Gathering budget EDH streaming and video group, with gameplay, deck techs, chats, and more. Catch our videos at youtube.com/scraptrawlers. Andy, Lenny, and Bert.