(Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor | Art by Ekaterina Burmak | Obyra, Dreaming Duelist | Art by Evyn Fong | Sanguine Bond | Art by Harry Conway)

Hey friends, Beth, Queen of Cardboard here with the Precon Upgrade Guide for Fae Dominion, the Faerie typal deck from Wilds of Eldraine Commander. If you read my primer on this deck, you already know that I'm not the biggest fan of the precon right out of the box. Now, before you pull out your wings and pitchforks, I have nothing against the Fae themselves. I think Faeries are adorable and the deck has a lot of promise to be very good. Personally, out of the box, while it can be very annoying, the deck feels like it could be pretty easily overcome opponents with a board wipe and some well-placed removal. However, it doesn't have a lot of recursion and seems to be all over the place with its actual win condition.

With Great Sacrifice

Without replacing our face commander, Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor, our deck wants to focus on the death of our creatures, and in doing so we're rewarded with card draw and punished with life loss. Knowing this, I want to replace our life lost and add to our ability to kill our creatures. It won't be long until our opponents figure out our master plan and refuse to kill our creatures for us, or worse; exile our board.

So what do we need in the deck to help murder our board for our benefit? Staying in the deck are Rankle, Master of Pranks, Glen Elendra Archmage, and Quickling. We also would be remiss if we didn't leave in Faerie Bladecrafter.

For additions, Faerie Impostor and Old Flitterfang help a little bit with the sacrifice goal and stay in our Faerie typal theme. Old Flitterfang is my favorite of these two options, because he's got a sacrifice outlet right on the card and a little pump is never a bad thing. We're also going to get some value from death triggers by adding Flitting Guerrilla, Ringskipper, and Surveilling Sprite.

But we're still missing some valuable sacrifice outlets. I know I'm going to need to cut some of our other instant and sorcery spells, so I want permanents that give me value while also doing the job I need for my ultimate goal. The following enchantments are a little nasty, just like this deck is going to be when we're done with it. While Grave Pact technically isn't a sacrifice outlet, it will give us extra value for our creatures dying. And for more creatures to kill, we're adding Bitterblossom, another card I can't believe wasn't put in the precon.

A few other permanent options to kill off our cute little Faeries are Skullclamp, Altar of Dementia, Ashnod's Altar, and Phyrexian Altar.

Drawing an Answer

Card draw is a secondary function of this deck. It's already on our commander and included in the text of Faerie Formation and Rankle, Master of Pranks. While we've mastered the sacrifice function, we're missing the ability to draw on more than one body. I'm honestly surprised that cards like Faerie Mastermind, Talion's Messenger, and Talion, the Kindly Lord were missing from this deck. In addition to those cards I also like Surveilling Sprite, Likeness Looter, and Faerie Vandal.

While we're not running any tutors, the ability to draw is going to take some questions out of the deck and allow us to find the cards we need to finish the game. Card draw isn't the win condition, so I haven't included cards that punish our opponents for your card draw, but it would be pretty easy to include some.

Turning Loss Into Life

So at this point we've got sacrifice and a little bit of life loss. We need to turn all these negatives into positives. Life is a resource, but if it's gone you're dead, and we don't want that.

I also suggest the combo of Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood, as well as Wound Reflection and Fraying Omnipotence. If you're not about infinite combos, then leave these on the side. You do need to consider some life-gain options though, so make sure to check out the cards included.

The great thing about these tactics is that they go hand in hand, even if you don't include the combos. The cards that I've included benefit each other. At this rate we've got a good engine going and now it's time for the hardest part, removing cards that don't work in the deck now that we've added more streamlined options.

Cut It Out

Coming out of the deck are a lot of cards that just don't work for me. I removed several Faerie creatures, like Brazen Borrower, Mocking Sprite, and Nightveil Sprite, which aren't necessarily bad cards, they just don't work in our deck.

I also removed good cards that didn't feel thematic to me. Hullbreaker Horror is the biggest problem in the deck, but it just doesn't fit thematically. I excluded this from my list because if I'm building a typal Faerie deck, there are plenty of options. It feels like it was included as an "automatic good card" in the deck, and that didn't work for me.

The one card I wanted to keep but didn't feel I had space for was Misleading Signpost. I love this card; it's silly, on theme, and tricksy. Once you've played it, you can use it as a mana rock, which is always useful. Another card you may want to reconsider that I cut is Reconnaissance Mission. While it gives us card draw, it's a little expensive, and we're not really looking to do combat damage.

Check out the entire cut list below:

Fae Dominion Cut List

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Creatures (15) 1 Alela, Cunning Conqueror 1 Blightwing Bandit 1 Brazen Borrower // Petty Theft 1 Cloud of Faeries 1 Glen Elendra Liege 1 Halo Forager 1 Hullbreaker Horror 1 Malleable Impostor 1 Mocking Sprite 1 Nettling Nuisance 1 Nightveil Sprite 1 Picklock Prankster // Free the Fae 1 Scion of Oona 1 Sower of Temptation 1 Spellscorn Coven // Take It Back Instants (5) 1 Dig Through Time 1 Perplexing Test 1 Run Away Together 1 Snap 1 Theoretical Duplication Artifacts (4) 1 Fellwar Stone 1 Midnight Clock 1 Misleading Signpost 1 Wayfarer's Bauble Enchantments (1) 1 Reconnaissance Mission

What's Left

One of the things I think this deck did right was copying the Faerie spells. We don't have a lot of recursion in the deck still, so while it's heavy on sacrifice, we want to make sure that we get the most bang for the buck for our losses. In fact, if you don't want to include those infinite combos listed above, I highly suggest adding some recursion spells to the list. Without them, you're relying on cards like Archmage of Echoes and Reflections of Littjara to copy your Faeries so that you've not sacrificed something super important.

When not making copies, token creation is your next best bet. We've got our new additions Old Flitterfang and Bitterblossom doing some work here, as well as Faerie Formation and Oona, Queen of the Fae, which were in the deck previously.

Fae Dominion Precon Upgrade

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Commander (1) 1 Tegwyll, Duke of Splendor Artifacts (12) 1 Alhammarret's Archive 1 Altar of Dementia 1 Arcane Signet 1 Ashnod's Altar 1 Bubbling Cauldron 1 Dimir Signet 1 Mind Stone 1 Phyrexian Altar 1 Robe of the Archmagi 1 Skullclamp 1 Sol Ring 1 Talisman of Dominance Instants (12) 1 Arcane Denial 1 Consider 1 Fact or Fiction 1 Frantic Search 1 Illusionist's Gambit 1 Keep Watch 1 Opt 1 Reality Shift 1 Reckless Spite 1 Repulse 1 Spell Stutter 1 Thrilling Encore Creatures (23) 1 Archmage of Echoes 1 Faerie Bladecrafter 1 Faerie Formation 1 Faerie Impostor 1 Faerie Mastermind 1 Faerie Seer 1 Faerie Vandal 1 Flitting Guerrilla 1 Glen Elendra Archmage 1 Hypnotic Sprite // Mesmeric Glare 1 Likeness Looter 1 Nymris, Oona's Trickster 1 Obyra, Dreaming Duelist 1 Old Flitterfang 1 Oona, Queen of the Fae 1 Puppeteer Clique 1 Quickling 1 Rankle, Master of Pranks 1 Ringskipper 1 Shadow Puppeteers 1 Surveilling Sprite 1 Talion's Messenger 1 Talion, the Kindly Lord Enchantments (9) 1 Arguel's Blood Fast // Temple of Aclazotz 1 Attrition 1 Bitterblossom 1 Exquisite Blood 1 Grave Pact 1 Reflections of Littjara 1 Sanguine Bond 1 Vampiric Rites 1 Wound Reflection Sorceries (8) 1 Blood Tithe 1 Consuming Vapors 1 Distant Melody 1 Exsanguinate 1 Fraying Omnipotence 1 Kindred Dominance 1 Nightmare Unmaking 1 Tegwyll's Scouring Lands (35) 1 Bojuka Bog 1 Choked Estuary 1 Command Tower 1 Darkwater Catacombs 1 Dimir Aqueduct 1 Exotic Orchard 1 Faerie Conclave 10 Island 1 Myriad Landscape 1 Path of Ancestry 1 Secluded Glen 1 Sunken Hollow 11 Swamp 1 Tainted Isle 1 Temple of Deceit 1 Temple of the False God

In Conclusion

Fae Dominion has some great cards in it. The legends are all fun and do their own thing. But at the end of the day there were some serious misses in this precon, and with as many reprints as the deck had, it seems silly that it had such huge misses, with Bitterblossom and fan favorite Faerie Mastermind not making the cut. I also feel that you've got several different options to go with this deck. It's definitely a more challenging build for me because Faeries aren't really combat-based, which tends to be my favorite win condition.

If you liked this upgrade guide, please check out the next guide on the other Wilds of Eldraine deck, Virtue and Valor.

Beth Queen of Cardboard

Beth is an casual Commander player who's passionate about silly decks, creating safe community spaces, and crowns. She loves to travel and play magic with friends. When not playing Magic, she's probably snuggling her dogs or playing some video games.