The Precon Upgrade Playbook: Fix Any Commander Deck for Under $10

You can upgrade any Commander precon with the same fifteen colorless cards for about $8.27, then fix its mana base for roughly $10 more. The fifteen break down as five ramp pieces ($2.46), three card-draw pieces ($1.02), four removal spells ($2.12) and three utility cards ($2.67), and none costs more than $2. Because every card is colorless, the same package works in any precon in any color combination.

Your precon is not bad. It is built to lose slowly against other precons, which is a different thing.

Wizards designs these decks to play a long, swingy, fifteen-turn game against three other precons out of the same box. That is a reasonable goal and it makes for a fine first night of Commander. It also means every precon ships with the same predictable weaknesses: not enough ramp, not enough card draw, too many expensive creatures that do nothing when they land, and a mana base held together with basics and hope.

This is the fix. It works on every Commander precon ever printed, in any colors, and the core package costs less than a Play Booster.

Here is what you get:

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Every card here is colorless. That is the whole point. You buy these once and they work in the deck you own now, the deck you build next year, and every precon you ever crack.

Nothing on this list costs more than $2.

Precons run four or five mana rocks. They should run eight to ten. This is the single biggest reason your deck feels slow.

Our take: If you only buy five cards, buy these five. Going from five rocks to ten is the difference between casting your commander on turn four and casting it on turn seven, and turn seven is usually too late.

Precons run almost no card advantage. You will run out of gas around turn eight and spend the rest of the game topdecking.

Our take: Mask of Memory is the most underpriced card on this entire list. Put it on anything with evasion and the game changes.

Most precons can answer creatures and nothing else. Then somebody resolves an enchantment that says "players can't win the game" and you all sit there.

Our take: Nevinyrral's Disk is the important one. If your colors are green and red you probably have no way to reset a board you are losing to, and this is the cheapest fix in Magic.

Fifteen cards, $8.27.

Prices are TCGplayer market via Scryfall, checked July 26, 2026. Singles move, and shipping or seller minimums will push a small order higher. Buying all fifteen from one seller is usually cheaper than chasing the lowest price on each.

Everybody publishes cards to add. Almost nobody tells you what to take out, which is the part people actually get stuck on. Here is the method.

Go through your 99 and mark every card with the first rule it breaks. You will find twenty to twenty-five. Cut the worst fifteen and keep the rest on a flex list for later.

Cut anything that costs six or more and does not immediately end the game or replace itself twice over.

Ask one question: if I cast this and an opponent kills it on their turn, did I just lose? If the answer is "no, I just wasted a turn," cut it.

Precons love a seven mana 6/6 that draws a card. At a four player table, seven mana is turn nine or ten. The card needs to win the game on the spot to be worth that.

This rule alone usually finds four to six cards.

Cut anything that only matters when you are already winning.

The mass pump spell in a deck with nine creatures. The "if you control five or more artifacts" payoff when you run eleven artifacts. The card that reads "whenever you win a fight."

Ask: does this card do anything when I am behind? If it does nothing, it is a blank in exactly the games where you needed help.

Two to four cards.

Most precons are secretly two half-decks. Pick one and cut the other.

Open your decklist and sort by what each card is trying to do. Nearly every precon has a main plan and a shadow plan supporting a different build. That shadow plan exists so the deck has "options" out of the box, and it is why your draws feel incoherent.

Commit to one. This is the highest-yield rule on the list and it usually finds five to eight cards by itself.

Cut sorcery speed removal that costs four or more and kills exactly one thing.

A four mana "destroy target creature" is a fine card in a two player game. At a four player table you spent a full turn to answer one third of one opponent's board, and the other two players did whatever they wanted.

Keep cheap removal. Keep instant speed removal. Keep anything that hits multiple permanents. Cut the rest.

Two to three cards.

Cut creatures with no relevant text that are not the right size.

A five mana 4/4 with no abilities is not a Commander card. If a creature's entire contribution is a body, that body needs to be enormous or it needs to cost almost nothing.

One to three cards.

Cut cards that are dead unless a specific condition is true.

Graveyard hate in the main deck. Cards that only work against one color. Anything that says "target opponent" and needs them to be playing a particular way. These are sideboard cards in a format with no sideboard.

One to two cards.

Our take: The hardest part is Rule 3, because cutting the shadow plan means cutting cards that look good. They are good. They are good in a different deck. A focused deck with slightly worse cards beats a scattered deck with better ones almost every time.

The least understood upgrade in Commander and the one that changes the most games. A precon mana base is mostly basics plus a handful of lands that enter tapped, which means you are a turn behind roughly every game and colorscrewed a few times a night.

You do not need fetch lands or shock lands. You need about ten dollars of unglamorous fixing.

Plus Myriad Landscape from Part 1. Running total: about $2.67.

Add the four budget dual cycles for your color pair. Every pair has all four and they run about twenty to thirty five cents each:

About $1.10 for all four. Two color total: roughly $4.

Buy all four cycles for each of your three color pairs. That is twelve lands at roughly $1.10 per pair.

Three color total: roughly $6.

Our take: Cap your lands that enter tapped at about six. That is the real rule. Precons routinely run ten or twelve, and each one is a turn where you cast nothing. The pain lands and Exotic Orchard are the cards doing the heavy lifting here, because they enter untapped.

If you have twenty dollars rather than ten, spend the difference on the Karoo and pain land for your pair before you buy anything flashier.

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Six Commander decks ship with Reality Fracture. Quick sheets go live here the week decklists are revealed.

The five mono-color decks are Foundations Commander Decks, built and priced by Wizards for players new to the format. If one of these is your first Commander deck, the Universal 15 above is a complete upgrade path on its own. Mono-color means you can skip Part 3 almost entirely and put that money into Part 1.

Deck names and pricing per Wargamer and Draftsim. Decklists are not public yet, and we will not guess at them.

Skip the shopping. Each cart loads the full list into TCGplayer Mass Entry.

That is the whole system. Same fifteen cards, same six rules, every precon you will ever own. Next read: the ten Commander etiquette hills the community voted hardest for.

Do three things in order. Add the Universal 15, fifteen colorless cards totalling about $8.27 that fix the ramp, draw and removal every precon is short on. Then cut fifteen cards using the six-rule cut list. Then spend about $10 on budget dual lands and utility lands. The whole system costs under $20 and works on any precon.

The five ramp pieces first: Arcane Signet ($0.52), Commander's Sphere ($0.28), Mind Stone ($0.34), Fellwar Stone ($0.98) and Wayfarer's Bauble ($0.34), about $2.46 together. Precons run four or five mana rocks and should run eight to ten. Then Mask of Memory ($0.40), Tome of Legends ($0.30) and Solemn Simulacrum ($0.32) for card draw.

Run six rules over the 99 and mark the first rule each card breaks: cut six-plus mana cards that do not end the game, win-more cards, the deck's off-theme shadow plan, sorcery-speed one-for-one removal costing four or more, vanilla creatures, and situational hate cards. Expect twenty to twenty-five hits; cut the worst fifteen. Never cut lands, ramp, or your commander's direct support.

For about $10. Every deck wants Command Tower ($0.28), Exotic Orchard ($1.09), Path of Ancestry ($0.32), Terramorphic Expanse ($0.28), Ash Barrens ($0.33) and Blast Zone ($0.37), roughly $2.67. Two-color decks add the four budget dual cycles for their pair, about $1.10 total: the gain land, the Temple, the Karoo and the pain land. Three-color decks buy all four cycles for each pair, about $6.

Cap tapped lands at about six. Precons routinely ship with ten or twelve, and each one is a turn where you cast nothing, which is the main reason a stock precon feels a turn behind every game. Pain lands and Exotic Orchard do the heavy lifting in a budget fix precisely because they enter untapped.

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