Welcome to the Nitpicking Nerds Precon Upgrade Guide for the Planar Portal deck, where you’ll learn which cards don’t pull their weight in the precon and which adds will power up the deck!

When upgrading a precon, or any commander deck, it’s important to build around the commander’s strengths and stick to a core theme so the deck doesn’t become unfocused. Cutting cards of wildly differing strategies will help focus the deck and increase synergy. It’s also crucial to address the deck’s win conditions, and to make sure you have slam-dunk finishers outside of combat damage when possible.

This deck’s game plan will be to generate value by casting spells from exile and amassing a large amount of Treasure, and it will win by weaponizing its massive stack of Treasures during a big turn of spellslinging to wipe out all of its opponents at once!

Now that we have a main strategy to stick to, we can figure out which cards to cut.

• The first thing to address with this deck is the seemingly random rat subtheme it has. Piper of the Swarm, Chittering Witch, and Ogre Slumlord have absolutely nothing to do with what Prosper wants, so they’re all easy cuts. 
• The next batch of off-theme underperformers is Karazikar, the Eye Tyrant, Disrupt Decorum, and Death Tyrant. This deck isn’t looking to enter combat hardly at all, so these cards are of little use to you. Fiendlash is a decent card, but it doesn’t belong here for similar reasons. 
• Lastly, Hellish Rebuke is just absolutely terrible. I can’t imagine this card doing work in any Commander deck, let alone this one.

• Next on the chopping block are the cards that cast spells from exile, but are too inefficient. Fiend of the Shadows requires untapping and gives opponents a choice even after connecting.
• Phthisis is much too slow to warrant a slot in the deck.
• Consuming Vapors cannot reliably answer threats, even with rebound, so it’s getting cut.
• Chaos Channeler and Tectonic Giant are not cards that meet the power demands of the Commander format.
• Chaos Wand is good for a precon battle, but paying 7 mana for a random spell that might not be effective isn’t worth the risk.

• When looking to make extra Treasures without Prosper, Shiny Impetus and Bucknard’s Everfull Purse just won’t cut it. Shiny Impetus is too slow of a removal spell, and Bucknard’s Everfull Purse helps everyone else! Why would we want to do that?

• The removal in this deck could certainly use a boost. Danse Macabre is too expensive to play without much synergy, and Hex is just too expensive for any deck. 

When cutting cards, never forget the manabase! This one can use a makeover, so we’re cutting a lot of basic lands (7 Swamps and 5 Mountains) and Zhalfirin Void for a solid roster of lands that we’ll feature later on.

That completes the list of cards to cut from this deck! We now have plenty of spots open to make major improvements, increase power, and help this deck win games more reliably!

Let’s start by adding powerful cards that can let us cast spells from exile to trigger Prosper:

• Dream Devourer is awesome in this deck; it allows you to exile any spell to cast for cheaper on a later turn, all while netting you Treasure each time.
• Jeska’s Will is already a Commander staple, but you get even more mileage out of playing those three cards off of it than other decks. Profane Tutor is a little slow, but is perfectly on theme, and creating a Treasure for free on your upkeep can help those late game spellslinging turns we’re looking to set up. 
• Outpost Siege and Stolen Strategy provide nice access to ediled cards each turn. Laelia, the Blade Reforged will take advantage of other exile effects and add her own to the mix.
• Uba Mask is a spicy addition to this list; it disrupts opponents’ card drawing by turning it into impulse draw, and gives us access to at least one Treasure-maker per turn with Prosper out.
• Author of Shadows and Modern Horizons 2 all-star Dauthi Voidwalker hate on opposing graveyards while also letting you cast spells from exile. They’re both extremely annoying to deal with and will generate a lot of value.
• Opposition Agent is a nice way to hate out tutors and ramp, but takes on a whole new role when you can make Treasures off of the spell you steal. If it wasn’t already obvious, this deck is going to have a massive stack of Treasures at all times.
• Birgi, God of Storytelling and Valki, God of Lies round out the exile synergy by letting you turbo through either your library or opponents’ libraries, and provide you with tons of fantastic card advantage.

Now that we have all these Treasures, let’s squeeze even more value out of them.

• Brass’s Bounty, Xorn, and Dockside Extortionist will help your Treasure pile grow even further; you’ll have so many Treasures you won’t know what to do with them all.
• Goldspan Dragon doubles the output of all of these Treasures, and Academy Manufactor turns each Treasure into a Treasure, food, and clue! Once you get that engine going, it will be hard for anyone to stop you.

• The last thing to upgrade before getting into win conditions is the removal. Blasphemous Act and Volcanic Torrent serve as amazing board wipes, and we also have Deadly Rollick and Hagra Mauling to clean up any individual threats.

Now, let’s turn our giant mountain of Treasure into a surefire victory. 

• Reckless Fireweaver and Nadier’s Nightblade are going to deal damage to opponents whenever our Treasure tokens enter or leave the battlefield, and we can also chip away at players with Ghirapur Aether Grid. With enough Treasures, opponents can die to small payoffs like these, since this deck can have storm-like turns of continuous impulse draw.
• If you’re looking to absolutely bury opponents, this deck is also gaining Torment of Hailfire and Revel in Riches. Torment with a stack of treasures and maybe even a Goldspan Dragon is an instant knockout, and Revel in Riches just needs to survive until your next turn to win you the game, as long as you can save up enough treasures.

Finally, don’t forget to upgrade the lands. We added Myriad Landscape, Temple of Malice, Sulfurous Mire, Canyon Slough, Luxury Suite, Blood Crypt, Haunted Ridge, Bloodstained Mire, and even found room for land destruction with a Ghost Quarter.

That’s all the upgrades for Planar Portal! Use this upgraded Treasure-making powerhouse to amass tons of resources, cast as many spells from exile as you can, and finish off your opponents by slinging spells.