Welcome to the Nitpicking Nerds Precon Upgrade Guide for the Undead Unleashed deck, where we cut the chaff and add synergy, power, and consistency to make a deck capable of amassing a threatening horde of zombies!

When upgrading a Commander precon, it’s important to stick to this basic checklist:

• Focus on the strengths of your commander.
• Stick to one main strategy to avoid having an unfocused final product.
• Cut the cards that belong to other strategies altogether.
• Increase the deck’s overall power by including win conditions that don’t rely solely on combat.

Wilhelt’s Undead Unleashed precon will be looking to assemble a full board of Zombies and filter them into new Zombies with Wilhelt to gain card advantage. Once you’ve accrued enough resources, use your massive stack of zombies to attack for lethal, or assemble an infinite loop of zombies with Wilhelt to drain out every opponent!

With that strategy in mind, let’s take out the cards that won’t fit in or are just plain bad.

• Butcher of Malakir, Eater of Hope, Ruthless Deathfang, and Overseer of the Damned are too expensive for what they do, and none of them are Zombies.
• Syphon Flesh, Aetherspouts, and Go for the Throat are not on the level you want to be at when it comes to removal. They are all extremely lackluster and can easily be cut from this deck.
• Sky Diamond and Charcoal Diamond aren’t unplayable, but we get to cut them for better mana rocks.
• Shadow Kin, Eloise, Nephalia Sleuth, and Curse of Unbinding just don’t belong in a Zombie tribal deck. They were put in the precon to spark interest in other archetypes.

Here are the Zombies and Zombie makers that didn’t make the cut.

• Dark Salvation and Dread Summons are decent ways to make Zombies, but are too unreliable to make it into this higher power deck.
• Spark Reaper and Forgotten Creation are too expensive for the effects they provide.
• Hour of Eternity, Army of the Damned, Curse of the Restless Dead, Crowded Crypt, Endless Ranks of the Dead, and Open the Graves all qualify as token makers that are too slow, unreliable, or ineffective.

Even though this is a Zombie tribal deck, some of the weaker payoffs need to be cut.

• Gleaming Overseer and Eternal Skylord provide bonuses for your tokens, but they aren’t important enough to stay in the deck.
• Undead Alchemist is basically unplayable, unless you’re in a different style of Zombie tribal.
• Merely granting +1/+1 to your creatures usually isn’t worth a card by itself, and Liliana’s Devotee, Tomb Tyrant, Lord of the Accursed, and Liliana’s Mastery don’t provide enough value beyond that to remain in the deck.

When upgrading a preconstructed deck, never forget the land base!

• Mortuary Mire is a slow tapped land that isn’t worth your time.
• Unclaimed Territory doesn’t grant enough upside for being in a tribe and is worse than a regular dual land.
• 5 Swamps and 3 Islands round out the land cuts.

That’s 39 cards cut in total from the Undead Unleashed deck that are now turning into fantastic ways to advance your game plan!

Here are a few off-tribe staples that help supercharge the deck.

• Skullclamp is one of the best cards in the entire format, and Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver can take advantage of it better than most commanders out there.
• Yawgmoth, Thran Physician is definitely one of the best black cards in Commander, and will dominate boardstates nearly every time he is cast.
• Dictate of Erebos and Grave Pact provide one-sided board wipe opportunities with all of the decayed Zombies you’ll have laying around.

Here are a few Zombies that will carry out various utility roles in the deck.

• Carrion Feeder is a crucial free sacrifice outlet that has the right creature types and will enable lots of decayed Zombie production. Cards like Liliana’s Standard Bearer will gain you massive advantage from these plays.
• Stitcher’s Supplier supplies some nice incidental mill and is a fine one-drop.
• Gray Merchant of Asphodel, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, Sidisi, Undead Vizier, and Fallen Shinobi are all individually powerful Zombies that can swing games in your favor, especially with all the decayed corpses you have access to.

These Zombie tribal payoffs really tie the deck together and crank up its power as well.

• Lich Lord of Unx and Cryptbreaker become more threatening the more Zombies you put in play, and can each be activated multiple times.
• Undead Warchief and Lord of the Undead are both anthem effects worth playing; cost reduction, an extra power boost, and recursion make them well worth it over the other mediocre lords. Relentless Dead also does a nice job of recurring threats when paired with a sac outlet, as does Rot Hulk, one of the best Zombie top-end cards ever printed.
• Plague Belcher and Vengeful Dead punish opponents when Zombies die, which will happen about every five seconds.
• Noxious Ghoul paired with Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver and a sac outlet gives you yet another one-sided board wipe!
• Kindred Discovery is one of the greatest tribal payoffs ever, and is a literal auto-include in any deck that can afford it. Play it and be happy!

These next cards have special purposes in the deck: they can all achieve combo-kills out of nowhere!

• Poppet Stitcher, once transformed, works in tandem with Wilhelt, the Rotcleaver to generate an infinite amount of non-decayed Zombies with a sacrifice outlet. Add in a Plague Belcher effect for an instant win!
• Gravecrawler and Rooftop Storm (already in the deck) are classic partners in crime, enabling lots of broken shenanigans.
• With any of these engines chugging along, Pitiless Plunderer, Phyrexian Altar, and Altar of Dementia will provide you with potentially endless mana or mill for opponents!

Lastly, the lands and mana rocks are getting a boost.

• Dimir Signet, Mind Stone, and Wayfarer’s Bauble round out the last of the ramp.
• Agadeem’s Awakening, Sea Gate Restoration, Malakir Rebirth, Hagra Mauling, and Glasspool Mimic are all fantastic MDFC’s that prevent flooding and mana screw at the same time.
• Polluted Delta, Watery Grave, Morphic Pool, and Shipwreck Marsh will help make sure you always have access to as much blue and black mana as you could ever need.
• Phyrexian Tower is a silly land. Any black deck with expendable creatures can take huge advantage of it.

That wraps up the Undead Unleashed Precon Upgrade Guide! Once you make these changes, you’ll be ready to continuously tear down your Zombie horde to build a stronger one in its place!