Masters of Evil - Precon Upgrade Guide
October 25, 2023 by
Beth Queen of Cardboard 
(Davros, Dalek Creator | Art By Simon Dominic |Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer | Art by Daarken | Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge | Art by Chase Stone)
Hey friends, Beth, the Queen of Cardboard here, with the Precon Upgrade Guide for Masters of Evil, the Doctor Who Commander Deck. These decks are incredibly powerful and synergistic untouched, so I've chosen to focus on the face commander, Davros, Dalek Creator, and use Daleks and Cybermen with a little artifact help from the Universes Within.
With the changes we're making, we'll overtake our opponents with an army of artifact creatures, while using their abilities to frustrate our opponents and stall their decks.
Exterminate!
Davros is looking for you to make your opponents lose life, but by creating Daleks with menace it swings towards being a combat-based deck that focuses on artifact token creation. In this deck, we're not primarily looking to drain the board via spells or abilities, instead we're going to swing in for big beats and overtake our opponents with a wide board state. Keeping in mind cards like Dalek Squadron, The Dalek Emperor, and Cult of Skaro, I've included Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer as a necessary card for this deck.
Brudiclad gives all our creature tokens haste and creates Myr tokens as well. The best part of this card, however, is the ability to turn all tokens into a copy of any token you control. This means the tokens that Brudiclad and Oni-Cult Anvil create can also become 3/3 Daleks with menace, or you could choose to lean even further into token creation and turn everything into Dragons, Angels, or even Pegasi. With tokens, there is a myriad of options to choose from.
Ashad, the Lone Cyberman can create a token copy of the first nonlegendary artifact spell we cast each turn, giving more options for Brudiclad to transform every token into. Imagine a board full of Auton Soldiers; or don't, it's a little scary, to say the least.
Artificers Through Time and Space
With all of the scary things happening on our board, we'll need to be prepared to act quickly and have a defense plan. To lower the cost of our artifact spells I've added in Etherium Sculptor and Enthusiastic Mechanaut. Because these creatures are also artifacts themselves, it will only add synergy to what the deck is trying to do.
For some protection, we have Padeem, Consul of Innovation. Padeem is extremely helpful in not only giving almost the entire board hexproof, but also allowing us to draw if we control the artifact with the highest mana value each upkeep. Workshop Elders, the only other non-artifact creature I added to the deck, gives our artifact creatures flying. If I've learned anything from Limited, it's that flying is good. Many decks struggle to deal with flying, and since we plan to create a large board state, this will help us swing in and kill faster.
Master Transmuter allows us to pick up any artifact we control and replace it with one in our hand. It's going to feel extremely good to replace a 1/1 Construct with a Karn, Legacy Reforged. Finally, we have Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. While not an artifact himself, Tezzeret helps us cast every other creature spell we have for little to nothing, as well as deal damage to each opponent equal to the number of artifacts we control. Did I say we weren't doing that? Oops. While this isn't the primary goal of the deck, Tezzeret is just too good not to be included here. In addition to the +2 ability, his -3 recurs any artifact from the graveyard to hand, and if we're so lucky as to get to -8 we'll be able to exile the top 10 cards of our library and put any artifact within straight to the battlefield. There's a good chance for big drops here as most of the spells in this deck are, in fact, artifacts.
Rounding out the additions to the deck are our support spells. I focused on adding spells that would provide value without detracting from the overall focus of the deck. Kuldotha Forgemaster tutors any artifact directly to the battlefield. Because we'll have to sacrifice something to do so, we also have the additional recursion from Scrap Trawler and Silas Renn, Seeker Adept. Mystic Forge allows us to cast off the top of the library or help us by exiling a card to get through the deck faster. Lithoform Engine can copy any spell, ability, or permanent, because one thing is great, but two is better. Finally, I added mana rocks, but these are optional slots that you could choose instead to include even more powerful options.
Masters of Evil Cards Added
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Parting of the Ways
Removing cards from a deck is always hard, especially from decks in this series as they're so synergistic and have meaning and a story within the deck itself. For this deck, I chose to focus on artifacts as the main theme of the deck, which meant that while Cybermen and Daleks had a home, 17 cards in the deck had to go.
I chose to remove most of the Masters, as they felt like commanders to their own decks, each with a unique talent and theme. An argument could be made to include The Master, Multiplied in this upgraded deck, but I'll leave that up to you.
Masters of Evil Cards Removed
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What Remains
With only 17 changes in this deck, there's a lot of flavor left to be had. All of the original spells are still in the deck as well as our Cybermen. This gives the deck a Cybermen vs. Dalek feel, which flavorfully is fun and interesting. The land base is set to 37, and this is the first time I didn't drop any basics in a precon upgrade. Some things could be tweaked to make this deck even more unique or powerful, and I'd love to see your deck lists below.
Masters of Evil Precon Upgrade Guide
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Let me know in the comments what you think, and make sure to check out my precon primer for this deck. In the next few weeks, I'll have the other three Doctor decks for you to check out. Thank you for reading. If you liked this article make sure to check out some more.
Read more:
Commander VS - Doctor Who Precons | Commander VS | Magic: the Gathering Gameplay
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.
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