@@theplaguedoc1997 I would personally use MTGGoldfish, but only so that we can use their price tracking feature to see how the card statistics have changed since the video was made.
I wanna make a comment here, and it might get lost among all the others, but I feel it's important. The cardboard deckboxes included in these products and products of the past are a good thing. As someone who's never had much money, deckboxes and sleeves are something I've only been able to afford occasionally, for my most precious decks (financially or sentimentally). A cardboard box isn't much, but it helps keeps things organized for poor players, it gives poor players the ability to be mobile in their hobby, and it incentivizes using deckboxes over worse options. When I was a kid, I kept my pokemon/yugioh decks organized by rubber banding them, and I'm sure you can imagine the results. A deckbox would have helped me to avoid that, even a cheap cardboard one. I can't imagine they cost WotC hardly anything to include, and so I gently ask that we not mock them in every product, lest WotC take them out to save a few pennies per product. They're incredibly beneficial to poor and young players. I don't know if the professor or even any other fans will read this or agree, but I feel very strongly about this.
@@TheKingNaesala Don't mind the troll. He's just being a dick. You shared your opinion and feelings and that's fine. I agree with you also. WOTC could give us absolutely nothing to keep the deck in so there's that. I'm thankful for whatever they wanna give me. I'm more into Pokemon than MTG since I'm pretty much brand new to MTG but I have my Pokemon decks in Ultra Pro deck boxes that are like $2/box. I purchased 2 Planeswalker decks and use the deck boxes that came with them and they actually hold the 60 card deck sleeved. I was surprised. Lol
As someone who just picked up MTG and commander again. These deck boxes are awesome. I had extra dragon shield sleeves from when I played Pokemon. You can fit a fully sleeved deck into the cardboard box.
The one thing that irks me about the Commander Legends decks specifically, is the lack of an Arcane Signet. Yes, I know it was in the main set, but it should be like Sol Ring.
These decks were actually made before arcane signet was a card actually according to Gavin. Due to multiple Commander Legends delays it came out after the Zendikar ones.
I got Wyleth, having never played a Boros deck before, and man is it satisfying to just plow into players like a steam train and refill your hand on the way back
I ended up using one of the extra combat spells and dual-caster mage to pull off 3 combat phases in one turn, it was really fun, but then discard was a bitch afterwards
@@cjd2889 Sounds like a fun combo to pull of. I have put in the swords to give the commander at least some protection and some heavy effect when combat damage is dealt.
@@KelvinTrading I am looking at making a few adjustments. I was just playing with it out of the box because it was an early Christmas present from a good friend. The mana base is a lil slow, especially for a voltron beat down style deck, and some of the equipments could be better. Also, I didn't like that they put sunforger in, but then put very few spells that are worth it to use. There were a few x spells and high cost spells I would have LIKED to slam down for free, but the X would equal 0 and anything above four cmc can't be used.
@@faerie7dragon Don't forget the landfall Secret Lair. That was pretty reasonably priced (compared to the secondary market price at the time) and the art is awesome.
I appreciate the lack of chase reprints in these decks. It makes them easily accessable for new players and keeps them affordable so that I'm not asking my friends that are new to magic to invest $40+ in a game they don't know they even like yet. When referring to players that can't afford the collectors boosters, secret lairs, etc, wizards said something along the lines of "this product wasn't made for you." I offer the same words to any established magic player that complains about the lack of value in precon commander decks. This isn't for your value. This is for people that don't have the money to blow on your game but still want to enjoy it as much as you. As long as the gameplay is enjoyable, that's all I care about. Just be happy knowing your playerbase is growing and don't buy it if it isn't valuable to you.
Many magic the gathering players also ask: Why is the only foil just hanging out in the box? Why can't they put it in plastic or in a protective sleeve of some sort?
That was definitely one of my favorite things when I picked up the Zendikar ones, was the packaging. And the fact that the deck box actually fits a sleeved deck 👌
It is an improvement, but they are still far bulkier than they need to be. I don't know why the boxes are so wide when there's no oversized card. Guess just for the insert?? Fold it up more, please!
They should reprint things like " Dockside extortionist", "Teferi's protection", and other Commander ultra expensive cards in these PreCons. Or in products like... Dunno... Commander legends?
I legit bought the sevinne precon a few days ago for dockside (basically the same price), and I wound up building a pretty solid $100 Sevinne underworld breach deck out of it too, and still got the dockside. But yes Teferi’s Protection could use a easier to access reprint than Edgar precon or the secret lair.
@@xgxwills2857 The problem is that cards like dockside, teferi's and the new free counterspell from commander 2020 are cards that WILL rise in price even further as years passes. This remembers True Name Nemesis in Jeleva's PreCon. I got my 1st commander deck for free because a friend of mine bought 4 PreCons for a playset of TNN.
I mean on one hand Commander Legends was a shit show of development and I still think forcing it to be draft did more harm then good, but it should not be the only place where to put cards they knew would be bombs in the format.
I bought reap the tides just to upgrade my budget tatyova deck, and the value of most of the cards from it really boosted my deck! Greetings from the Philippines, Professor :)
I do find Reap the Tides at least has a very clear and simple upgrade path that will make it a very successful deck once optimized. I'd say it's a perfect starting off point, since it sows the seeds of what makes a good commander deck.
Yeah I agree I upgraded mine with the cards I have that seem to mesh with it. It's totally working bad ass deck now. The boros deck was a lot harder to fix. I've put a bunch of planes Walker in it and a lot of Angel's. Made it a life gain deck. It's not as good but it's now playable.
while a lot of the cards in the simic deck are worth less, its due to heavy reprints. I saw in that list many many cards that last year where worth more than 2 bucks.
Yeah, this is something that is beginning to irk me about these videos. We all (Prof included) clamor for popular cards to be reprinted so they can be cheaper, then when that happens it gets held against WOTC because the "value isn't there". Sunforger is a great example, it wasn't a cheap card because it is a staple in Boros, not just Boros equipment decks but Boros. It was a $5+ card, and not its considered chaff by Prof because its been reprinted aggressively recently. Why reprint things often when the price drops from being reprinted often will be a negative mark?
Don't usually write comments like this but I think it'd important! My playgroup has been playing for about 5 years now, and we love the game of Magic but have little money to put into it. We buy precons, and then purchase some singles to give our decks some more oomf. I bought the reap the tides precon recently and I think this video kind of puts it in a worse light than it deserves. I love the video regardless and thank you for the effort you've put into it, but the decks hold up better than you might think. I've played the deck against upgraded versions of the precons with Atraxa, The Ur Dragon, Kalamax, Mirri (Arahbo is the intended commander), Gavi nest warden, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Ezuri Claw of progress and the deck holds up GREAT! I've won multiple games (about a 33% winrate with the deck, in 4 player games, after over 20 games.) I can't speak for the other deck but Aesi is a great commander, who in my opinion is just almost always better than tatyova (1 extra mana for a bigger body, and an exploration effect which is amazing especially because it synergizes with the draw effect.) The decks ramps into its big bombs like avenger of zendikar. Yes, there are flop cards like the elder deep fiend which i'll probably never play and am switching out as soon as my upgrade cards arrive but EVERY precon has these cards. If you're playing in a playgroup that uses precons, like mine does, even though the precons are upgraded, these decks hold up very well. Landfall is a deck I've wanted to build for a very long time but never had the cash to do so, and if you're at all interested in the mechanic I'd highly recommend this. People need to keep in mind that no, the deck may not have the best bang for your buck, and if you intend to buy the deck only to flip every card by selling them individually then this probably isn't for you but if you want a good precon that's more than playable out of the box with a ton of upgrade options, then this is perfect for you.
I feel like these decks were two reprints short of being more positively received. Steelshaper's gift for the boros deck, and maybe Oracle of Mul Daya for the simic deck?
honestly anything less than the zendikar precons would lead to people being unhappy with the product, so they prolly needed an extra $50 worth of reprints per deck.
So yesterday my fiance picked up the Aesi deck for me on a whim from our lgs. I just got done playing three matches with him, and wanted to check out what you had to say about it. I have to say I'm really surprised at the video, because this was the most fun I've had playing MTG in my entire life. Professor, you mentioned that the games were a lackluster experience, but I can only say that for me it's juuust right. The deck plays in a style I love, I love ramp, I love getting resources so I can play more and bigger things in basically any game I play, card games, video games, tabletop games, whatever. I felt like the deck was working to do exactly what I wanted instead of having to fight it to make it work. And it's not the first Commander precon I've gotten. I've bought 3 in the past, and had decent fun with them, but this is definitely the most fun I've had. I'll admit, I'm a novice. You call most of the cards chaff but to me they seem pretty good at synergism and accomplishing what the deck wants to do. I don't care if a land enters tapped, it entered the battlefield under my control and triggered Landfall, what more do I want? More mana immediately available? Good thing my commander lets me play an extra land each turn so I can play a basic land in addition to it. Plus things like Cultivate. And I don't say this to dispute what you're saying; I'm sure if I played some people with optimized decks, even if they were at my skill level, the deck wouldn't do so hot. I'm sure there's better cards. But, it still felt fun to me. I liked playing a land, drawing a card, playing that land I just drew, playing Urban Exploration to draw three cards and then play a third land and drawing *another* card, and then spending those three lands' mana to play Cultivate and oh my I just got 4 lands into play under my control, guess that's foul 4/4 beast tokens from one of my monsters with that as a Landfall ability! So uh, yeah. Fun time. I hope I never develop enough skill or taste that this seems underwhelming.
Apparently, these decks were designed before the Zendikar Rising decks, so hopefully the quality of these decks are an anomaly. We'll see with Kaldheim!
even though they under 2 bucks, you have to at least concede that counterspell, FOF, mulldrifter, acidic slime, rampant growth, kodama's reach, beast within, cultivate, harmonize, khalni heart expedition, rec sage, search for tomorrow, coiling oracle, simic charm, urban evolution, growth spiral and explore are all really nice staple reprints that might not resell for much, but are very playable as chaff goes-fantastic to take apart and use to build your own deck with or even just upgrade with the same commander. signets too! perhaps they are a beginner commander product (hence the reduced price) but they're still above the planeswalker decks and a fun gameplay experience can at least be a springboard to go from. a shockland would've been nice though eh? good video though prof- never stop putting these out, they're still as informative as ever!
Hey Prof, some buddies and I just started MTG this year and thought sticking around to Standard was a good way to get into. But we recently decided to see what the Commander hype was about. We got all 4 pre con decks, both Commander Legend and both Zendikar Rising. We played our first first ever Commander game with the 2 Commander Legends decks and the Land’s Wrath from ZR. Man, I can’t tell you how much fun we had despite the slow start. But honestly, the slow go may have contributed to helping us learn the new format and the new cards we had never seen before. The combos we were able to play were really big and fun. While I know you said some of the games with these decks can be fun, I still want to point out that fun is a huge factor for my buddies and I, and perhaps for many others. Again, we had a blast with these decks and look forward to constructing our own commander decks with what we learned.
For what it's worth, I played the Simic deck this weekend against two "real" commander decks; the only change I made was fixing the manabase a little and it stomped them pretty badly. Turns out, slightly more expensive Tatyova: still good. The Boros deck with also just manabase fixes did not do as well but I think there is a decent shell in there somewhere.
I wouldn't call the majority of those decks chalf... Cultivate, Farseek, Arcane denial, fact or fiction, beast within and so on -- they're all "cheap" commander staples you can always reuse elsewhere
I agree, many of those cards might be cheap but they are playable, upgrade the manabase and replace the really crappy creatures with better bombs and you have a very strong deck Edit: I am getting serious Challenger Deck vibes from these, in that they seem like a solid 80% of a tier deck out of the box, with good potential for upgrades
@@fastydave hes just being critical, I also think his audience is mixed and its very hard to know what his audience is, plus magic has been old for a very long time dont you think its time that wotc actually put decent cards in these decks and not these crappy cards with lil to no purpose, to me I think thats y hes very cynical to these products
indeed: they are good cards with many homes, but since they have been frequently reprinted lately, their financial value has diminished due to larger supply. I see a contraddiction in the attitude towards reprints here: we want staples to be reprinted aggressively to make them accessible and lower the cost of playing the game, but when they ARE being reprinted aggressively then there is the complaint that the financial value of the deck in terms of secondary market is not there.
when I first saw the prices on amazon, I thought they were common, uncommon entry level garbage that sometimes wiz makes. After looking at the decklists, I prefer this so much. Nobody really uses oversized so I am glad that is gone, and saving money by excluding foils is fine by me.
Ramunap Excavator was heading towards $20 while both Sram and Sigarda's aid were in the $5 range prior to this reprint. I think that is important for the value of these decks. Overall an extra "big" reprint in each would have been welcome.
I bought the Simic one, but already had the upgrades in my collection and got it for a cheap price. Played it for the first time a couple of days ago and it completely destroyed the table, so I’m very happy with my decision to buy this product
Wyleth deck owner here, and my box is good, plus the life wheel is perfect for me. I don't like carrying dice for it, and so something that can fit in a deck box is great
Ok, real talk. Aesi is genuinely one of the most busted precon commanders I have ever seen. My dad bought the precon, and after only a few budget upgrades for, like, $15-$25 (for example, cards that increase your max handsize, a board wipe or two, just some fine tuning), it is an insanely solid engine that won't stop basically as soon as you play Aesi. It is a ramp *and* card draw engine in one, and it is a looming threat every single game. I would *highly* reccomend buying it.
My friend has a few commander decks and I own the Aesi own, Maybe because I have years more knowledge of card games but I consistently win over and over, granted I'm new to magic but the way I can spam lands and draw and draw so easily whilst making so many tokens or powerful creatures is insane, it backs itself with 2 counterspell like cards which have saved me from being board wiped a few times but in the case that happens I can summon Aesi back them the spam continues, not to mentioned the cards that send all my opponents cards from field into hand is just as busted. I have yet to look into upgrading but it feels unfair to my friend to upgrade it further
I really wish they had included some of the equipment tutors in arm for battle, that would've made it well worth it. Also rip AoZ price down below 5 bucks after 2 big reprints this year.
I'd say it is worth it if you're going to be playing with other precons. Not quite as high power level as some of the older ones, but the boros one became a real threat very quickly in the games I've used it in
I have not bought a single MTG paper product in well over a year. I rely on the Professor to give me my "Magic Fix" in the meantime. When the pandemic is resolved and the world goes back to "normal", I look forward to going to my local game store's Magic and D&D nights with my friends again.
Tremendous video. Excellent assessment of the product, plus an informative explanation of the secondary market, PLUS gameplay feedback. All in under 20 mins.
Professor, I greatly appreciate your videos and honestly they showed me to drop the standard format at my local games store. While I understand that is fun for some you showed me what commander as well as draft is and I thank you for showing me the best formats for casual and wonderful MTG gameplay to me personally that I'm happy to take to my local game store. I just want to thank you and while I don't think you will see this comment with all the thanks you likely get I just want to give you my thanks, from someone who is looking forward to a long term goal for commander play with my first commander deck as I grow into a better player and upgrade it along side me.
Sadly I think their strategies were rlly badly built or too badly cycling is basically worse madness, kalamax is solid but the copy while tap is way to specific (plus there r WAY MORE better copy spell decks) mutate was a failure for most colors besides the black blue green but still was a super underpowered deck, and kathril was creative but also underpowered nobody wants them if your trying to be competitive
@@zarock61 but is the purpose of pre-con deck to be competitive? Of course they should still provide an engaging and pleasant playing experience, but I don't think that they are a product targeted at players that want to sit at a table where powerful and optimized decks are played. Just my thoughts anyway.
@@ROMANTIKILLER2 yes, but these were ikoria $50 dollar commander boxes, are you saying players should spend that on a precon thats not optimized, one negative thing about this set U hate was that even when you bought the boxes they left either decent or the best support cards that would have made those products better in the main sets which is more money being spent I rather spend that 50+ just buying the cards online and getting the deck more optimal and cheaper, idk if im right but based on the comments for commander videos I deduce majority of players are either very old with the game and people with money to spend who prob have their own home made decks so I dont think they are the type to just focus on out of the box products, but even then shouldnt new players atleast get set up properly to do atleast well against other players, it could be a difference between a fun match and a one sided slaughter and otherwise a boring experiance.
The music choice and tone when you come back from technical difficulties is great. Yes its a song and tone you use all the time, but the abrupt return to normalcy is well executed
I think they leaked the names of the kaldheim decks already, "Elven Empire" and "phantom premonition" some sites put up listings too early i guess, no pictures yet though.
I happen to have bought all four of the latest and agree on most of your evaluations, I used the kraken deck out of the box to make a new deck with Brinelin and Gilanra as their commander and a certain Dino Hippo as their puppy(Companion) and I’m happy with all I bought! Happier with the Zendikar decks for sure. But my brand new “Release the Kraken” deck is so much fun and doing silly powerful stuff starting from turn 3 it’s great! I dig this product! I dig this professor!
Great review as always prof! I always find it interesting to watch these videos from a outside perspective as I am a Canadian viewer. I found these decks EXTREMELY worth it in Canada for a couple of reasons: 1. though our retail price is higher at about $25.00, many of the cards with in the list go for much higher in Canadian markets. Ramumap Excavator alone is about a $5 card here and adds to the value. 2. I live in a pretty big city and have access to multiple LGS but many of these cards are just out of stock everywhere. I was happy to pick up these decks for some extra stuff, some new cards, and Sunforger and Ramumap Excavator alone, let alone some of the other nice reprints needed to help fill out some of my decks. The Zendikar decks were better but from my perspective here, these were still a great grab.
I got Wyleth for under $15 (including tax) with a store discount I had access to. I already have a ~$60 upgrade plan to turn it into a 1v1 commander deck to play against my friend in our low-power level casual commander games. Boros Equipped Allys was my favourite deck in Oath of the Gatewatch Standard and I'm looking forward to getting a similar vibe from this deck.
I think the value is fine. Whenever I build my own deck I only have around a 50 dollar budget so I also only have 5 or 6 cards above even a dollar let alone 2. For budget brewers this is fine tbh
I got the Aesi, Tyrant of the Gyre Strait and man do I love it!! Ramps like there is no tomorrow and then start swinging out giant sea monsters!! A nice deck to get me into commander. Now to build my Angel Commander Deck from scratch!!
While I do agree that the Simic deck's manabase is ridiculously big (44 lands, more than any pre-con Commander deck I've seen), I feel like we're missing an important point here : value is indeed important for the deck price-to-card ratio, but focus and functionality are equally, if not more important. And the biggest reason for this is that unlike most of the previous +40$ EDH precons we had in the past, the decklists for the 20$ precons only had to focus on ONE commander's ability rather than to fit a blended playstyle for up to three potential commanders (looking at you, Xyris the Writhing Storm, aka SNEKusar. You're a good snek, but you were clearly not intended to be a commander for a deck focused on copying spells) Also, it's worth mentionning that "Arm for Battle" might be the only precon I know that was clearly intended to be built as a Voltron-style deck. A Voltron deck that actually rewards you with card draw if you play the deck as intended. IN BOROS ! Meanwhile, the "Land's Wrath" deck actually feels all over the place : Obuun's abilities clearly wants you to use your lands to attack, but you won't get enough landfall triggers to actually power up your lands, so you're mostly stuck with powering up one land, or Obuun himself. Heck, out of the 20$ precons we got thus far, it's the one with the least amount of lands (only 37). tl;dr, my overall message is, dissing precons for having slightly less value for its price is like dissing a slightly overpriced car because it's not shiny enough to one's taste. Not the best comparaison I could come up with, but you get the idea.
So glad I got the Zendikar decks for my birthday last October :D Haven't played them with anyone yet but i love theorycrafting with them and rummaging through my vault to try and improve them. I got them right after the Prof's stellar recommendation since I was missing a lot of commander staples and choices :)
Thank you! I wanted to buy Arm for Battle deck to start, as I liked the decklist, but now I want to buy ZNC decks more.To defend them, they look to be great starting points, as both of them are playable out of box and have a obvious upgrade path and have strategies that are getting upgrades quite often
My playgroup built commander decks where every card including the commander was $1 or less. I enjoyed the building process, it made me use cards i would never normally use and made for some hilarious and fun interactions.
The Non-bulk value for the cards here over at the LGS in Canada.. cards like Ramunap Excavator, Avenger of Zendikar, Sigurda's Aid, Sram were in the $6-10 range each, with the Commander decks at $25 CAD (Sol Rings are $4)
Using my Jedi foresight, I see a future where they release a commander precon premium versions for about 60-80$ price range and these 20$ are for common folk. We shall see..
A follow-up video on what cards The Professor would replace in these decks to improve them for a better gameplay experience (ie so they would stand up to optimised Commander decks) would be an interesting.
Let me be the one to tell you that you showing off and talking about the cards that you played with in high school would make for an amazing video I'd watch in a heartbeat.
I purchased the armed for battle pre-con deck as a way to get into voltron and see if I enjoy it. This is my 10th Commander deck. While I agree with a lot of what the Professor has to say, I still believe that these decks are an affordable option for new and older players to try out a different kind of gameplay strategy and find out if it is right for you. I love Tolarian Community College. Thanks for the great content.
My Fiancé got the Simic Deck and replaced the commander with Arixmethes. She always wanted a sea monster EDH deck and this seemed like the perfect jumping off point for her! After some fixing and replacements of course :)
Hey prof, one thing I ask you take in account for later videos: price of some reprint cards before announcement of reprint. The reason for this is because launch day prices have already drastically been warped by those prices, and will still be warped more. I'm aware you may not consider it important, due to you trying to calculate it based off of just buying the singles at the time of launch, but knowing how a card was trending before reprint is valuable knowledge when considering picking one of these up as well, in my opinion.
Depends on where you are. In canada they're 250-300 CDN for all 5 so I think that's 200 is USD. That whole "paying your employees and having a storefront" thing costs a bit more but it honestly wouldn't if they had a higher volume of local sales.
If wizards would supply the lgs' like Amazon there wouldn't be that issue. I still shop at my lgs weekly. Also my lgs hasn't had these in stock in a little while.
Thanks Prof, another on point review :) It's strange that these were developed first & should have been out during the summer, but were pushed back .. shows that they had an ok concept then made it better with the Zendikar decks, but most people won't realise that sadly. Lets hope the next ones are better with less chaff! Thanks again, as always, you're on the money.
My LGS had the decks up for 18.99 so I snapped up the Wyleth to build up my voltron suite to build Rograkh and Ishai. It's pretty fun to have Sunforger read to answer anything.
I always trust your reviews, they are fair and balanced. I even purchased the MTG arena kit on your recommendation and couldn't have been happier with the value.
Reap the tide is such a powerful deck out the box, I have changed 5 cards and it rivals some of my most tuned decks. Such a well built deck out the box
Professor, I think you forgot to add the swiftfoot boots in reap the tides to the price, if you're counting the swiftfoot boots in arm for battle. (Just a bit of nit picking but I honestly love your channel and all that you do for the community, so personally I thank you.)
I bought both, the zendikar rising and the commander legends decks and put them in the planechase anthology box (together with the planes). I now offer them as a board game version of commander, as they seem well balanced and do not include any broken synergies or hard to grasp interactions. Two weeks from now I will be teaching three friends how to play commander with these and I am really looking forward to it. Having an out of the box set of decks like these is - at least in my opinion - way better than using my optimized decks to showcase the format. And given the price of the usual precons, I would have never bought 4 decks just to offer a board game experience to friends who are new to magic.
I have to say I love my Aesi deck - I had a lot of cards I didn't play (Crucible of Worlds, Greenwarden, etc.) that allowed for me to make some fun upgrades relatively easily.
The Commander Arms Race: ruclips.net/video/0gt7s-vQE0E/видео.html
I feel like it's kinda important to acknowledge that this set was designed BEFORE zendikar, so it makes sense it was a down grade.
I loved this episode! You did a great job!
Hey prof, what website/source do you use to get card prices that you show in your videos?
I will say that I loved the episode, Prof!
Now, let me go watch the episode and edit this with something insightful to say...
@@theplaguedoc1997 I would personally use MTGGoldfish, but only so that we can use their price tracking feature to see how the card statistics have changed since the video was made.
I wanna make a comment here, and it might get lost among all the others, but I feel it's important. The cardboard deckboxes included in these products and products of the past are a good thing. As someone who's never had much money, deckboxes and sleeves are something I've only been able to afford occasionally, for my most precious decks (financially or sentimentally). A cardboard box isn't much, but it helps keeps things organized for poor players, it gives poor players the ability to be mobile in their hobby, and it incentivizes using deckboxes over worse options. When I was a kid, I kept my pokemon/yugioh decks organized by rubber banding them, and I'm sure you can imagine the results. A deckbox would have helped me to avoid that, even a cheap cardboard one. I can't imagine they cost WotC hardly anything to include, and so I gently ask that we not mock them in every product, lest WotC take them out to save a few pennies per product. They're incredibly beneficial to poor and young players.
I don't know if the professor or even any other fans will read this or agree, but I feel very strongly about this.
@@blaxtopolition7140 lol? You wanna follow that up with anything, or are you just laughing at poor people?
@@TheKingNaesala Don't mind the troll. He's just being a dick. You shared your opinion and feelings and that's fine. I agree with you also. WOTC could give us absolutely nothing to keep the deck in so there's that. I'm thankful for whatever they wanna give me. I'm more into Pokemon than MTG since I'm pretty much brand new to MTG but I have my Pokemon decks in Ultra Pro deck boxes that are like $2/box. I purchased 2 Planeswalker decks and use the deck boxes that came with them and they actually hold the 60 card deck sleeved. I was surprised. Lol
When I first got started with mtg having the deck boxes and life die come with these types of premade decks were so valuable to me
As someone who just picked up MTG and commander again. These deck boxes are awesome. I had extra dragon shield sleeves from when I played Pokemon. You can fit a fully sleeved deck into the cardboard box.
May God bless you with wealth.
The one thing that irks me about the Commander Legends decks specifically, is the lack of an Arcane Signet. Yes, I know it was in the main set, but it should be like Sol Ring.
ah yes commander, the 97 card format xD
@@ich3730 96 card format if you include Command Tower.
These decks were actually made before arcane signet was a card actually according to Gavin. Due to multiple Commander Legends delays it came out after the Zendikar ones.
Wel said. They are giving reprints after all. Kust give us the signet its not a chased card anymore.
@@finks1 no excuses. If the product is not ready then dont release it.
I got Wyleth, having never played a Boros deck before, and man is it satisfying to just plow into players like a steam train and refill your hand on the way back
That's exactly the feel the deck gives.
I ended up using one of the extra combat spells and dual-caster mage to pull off 3 combat phases in one turn, it was really fun, but then discard was a bitch afterwards
@@cjd2889 Sounds like a fun combo to pull of. I have put in the swords to give the commander at least some protection and some heavy effect when combat damage is dealt.
@@KelvinTrading I am looking at making a few adjustments. I was just playing with it out of the box because it was an early Christmas present from a good friend. The mana base is a lil slow, especially for a voltron beat down style deck, and some of the equipments could be better. Also, I didn't like that they put sunforger in, but then put very few spells that are worth it to use. There were a few x spells and high cost spells I would have LIKED to slam down for free, but the X would equal 0 and anything above four cmc can't be used.
Welcome to the legion
Gavin said that these decks were designed before Zendikar Rising ones, so the Kaldheim decks could be decent
Well esp. If they have snow permanents.
Was about to say the same thing. Small side note he said the architecture of them was done before.
Well. This are still pretty bad. Just buy the singles.
The were spoiled in some stores.
They will also cost 20 each
Well, I don't believe anything Gavin says.
Before the deck lists were announced the Excavator was $12 and Sigarda’s Aid was pushing $10-11
Right? That’s what I thought, excavator was for sure over 10 dollars
And Avenger is only so low because it was reprinted twice this year, in this product and in Double Masters.
@@faerie7dragon Don't forget the landfall Secret Lair. That was pretty reasonably priced (compared to the secondary market price at the time) and the art is awesome.
Yes, agree totally here! Prof did not make an apples to apples comparison between these decks' value and the zendikar ones...
Yeah, almost all those cards were above 2 dollars. With ramunap being 12+ at least.
I appreciate the lack of chase reprints in these decks. It makes them easily accessable for new players and keeps them affordable so that I'm not asking my friends that are new to magic to invest $40+ in a game they don't know they even like yet. When referring to players that can't afford the collectors boosters, secret lairs, etc, wizards said something along the lines of "this product wasn't made for you." I offer the same words to any established magic player that complains about the lack of value in precon commander decks. This isn't for your value. This is for people that don't have the money to blow on your game but still want to enjoy it as much as you. As long as the gameplay is enjoyable, that's all I care about. Just be happy knowing your playerbase is growing and don't buy it if it isn't valuable to you.
Your LGS is scalping you. Go to WalMart and don't get scalped.
Many Magic the Gathering players ask the question:
Is it worth it to watch this video?
Hell yeah!!
Many magic the gathering players also ask: Why is the only foil just hanging out in the box? Why can't they put it in plastic or in a protective sleeve of some sort?
I like that the packaging isn't as needlessly bulky when compared to the usual commander product.
Definitely a win.
That was definitely one of my favorite things when I picked up the Zendikar ones, was the packaging. And the fact that the deck box actually fits a sleeved deck 👌
@@Gshadewolf14 it can't be noted enough that the old style boxes can not be used for much
It is an improvement, but they are still far bulkier than they need to be. I don't know why the boxes are so wide when there's no oversized card. Guess just for the insert?? Fold it up more, please!
@@Meldon44 yeah it shouldn't be to hard to size it down to the size of a planeswalker deck or challenger deck package.
Ngl I really dig these 2 decks. They're a little less money value but I think the decks themselves play well.
Thats exectly what I though as well
Yes, I did just play 6 lands. You don't have a problem with that, do you?
0:52 congratulations to your acting skills!
I really thought it wasn't planned, that you drop the packages! ;)
They should reprint things like " Dockside extortionist", "Teferi's protection", and other Commander ultra expensive cards in these PreCons.
Or in products like... Dunno... Commander legends?
I legit bought the sevinne precon a few days ago for dockside (basically the same price), and I wound up building a pretty solid $100 Sevinne underworld breach deck out of it too, and still got the dockside. But yes Teferi’s Protection could use a easier to access reprint than Edgar precon or the secret lair.
@@xgxwills2857 The problem is that cards like dockside, teferi's and the new free counterspell from commander 2020 are cards that WILL rise in price even further as years passes. This remembers True Name Nemesis in Jeleva's PreCon. I got my 1st commander deck for free because a friend of mine bought 4 PreCons for a playset of TNN.
I mean on one hand Commander Legends was a shit show of development and I still think forcing it to be draft did more harm then good, but it should not be the only place where to put cards they knew would be bombs in the format.
@@xgxwills2857 TP was in mystery boosters, but that didn't last very long.
I wouldnt care about dockside all I care about is teferi's protection
I bought reap the tides just to upgrade my budget tatyova deck, and the value of most of the cards from it really boosted my deck!
Greetings from the Philippines, Professor :)
CardKingdom should make their own commander decks. Like they made their cubes.
I do find Reap the Tides at least has a very clear and simple upgrade path that will make it a very successful deck once optimized. I'd say it's a perfect starting off point, since it sows the seeds of what makes a good commander deck.
Yeah I agree I upgraded mine with the cards I have that seem to mesh with it. It's totally working bad ass deck now. The boros deck was a lot harder to fix. I've put a bunch of planes Walker in it and a lot of Angel's. Made it a life gain deck. It's not as good but it's now playable.
This is why it was recommended to me as a perfect starter
This exactly, I spent $20 CAD on upgrades and it outperformed most of my friend’s established mid range decks.
Thanks for the content Prof/Brian, whenever I've had a bad day at work, your content is a little ray of sunshine.
Sincerly thank you.
My pleasure!
@@TolarianCommunityCollege The Precons of Commander Legends are even cheaper here in Germany, you pay about 30 bucks for both of them.
WotC needs an intervention. They have a serious addiction to reprinting Simic Sky Swallower and Sphinx of Uthuun.
They definitely have quite a few go-to splashy jank rares that they use time and time again to bulk up their products.
I have sooo many gd Sphinx of Uthuuns. I'll be going through trying to figure out where the hell they all came from.
Haha me too. Have like 7 sphinx. Still love em
while a lot of the cards in the simic deck are worth less, its due to heavy reprints. I saw in that list many many cards that last year where worth more than 2 bucks.
Honestly that's a good thing. The overall cost of the format should be going down and this is a good sign.
@@elijahdavila3684 hell yeah. I mean the simic deck has a lot of cards you will never not use! and is still chaff value!
Yeah, this is something that is beginning to irk me about these videos. We all (Prof included) clamor for popular cards to be reprinted so they can be cheaper, then when that happens it gets held against WOTC because the "value isn't there". Sunforger is a great example, it wasn't a cheap card because it is a staple in Boros, not just Boros equipment decks but Boros. It was a $5+ card, and not its considered chaff by Prof because its been reprinted aggressively recently.
Why reprint things often when the price drops from being reprinted often will be a negative mark?
Don't usually write comments like this but I think it'd important! My playgroup has been playing for about 5 years now, and we love the game of Magic but have little money to put into it. We buy precons, and then purchase some singles to give our decks some more oomf. I bought the reap the tides precon recently and I think this video kind of puts it in a worse light than it deserves. I love the video regardless and thank you for the effort you've put into it, but the decks hold up better than you might think. I've played the deck against upgraded versions of the precons with Atraxa, The Ur Dragon, Kalamax, Mirri (Arahbo is the intended commander), Gavi nest warden, Meren of Clan Nel Toth, Ezuri Claw of progress and the deck holds up GREAT! I've won multiple games (about a 33% winrate with the deck, in 4 player games, after over 20 games.) I can't speak for the other deck but Aesi is a great commander, who in my opinion is just almost always better than tatyova (1 extra mana for a bigger body, and an exploration effect which is amazing especially because it synergizes with the draw effect.) The decks ramps into its big bombs like avenger of zendikar. Yes, there are flop cards like the elder deep fiend which i'll probably never play and am switching out as soon as my upgrade cards arrive but EVERY precon has these cards. If you're playing in a playgroup that uses precons, like mine does, even though the precons are upgraded, these decks hold up very well. Landfall is a deck I've wanted to build for a very long time but never had the cash to do so, and if you're at all interested in the mechanic I'd highly recommend this. People need to keep in mind that no, the deck may not have the best bang for your buck, and if you intend to buy the deck only to flip every card by selling them individually then this probably isn't for you but if you want a good precon that's more than playable out of the box with a ton of upgrade options, then this is perfect for you.
I feel like these decks were two reprints short of being more positively received. Steelshaper's gift for the boros deck, and maybe Oracle of Mul Daya for the simic deck?
Oracle Is far too strong, but a courser of kruphix and a better mana base and I'm in
Or even include azusa
honestly anything less than the zendikar precons would lead to people being unhappy with the product, so they prolly needed an extra $50 worth of reprints per deck.
So yesterday my fiance picked up the Aesi deck for me on a whim from our lgs. I just got done playing three matches with him, and wanted to check out what you had to say about it. I have to say I'm really surprised at the video, because this was the most fun I've had playing MTG in my entire life. Professor, you mentioned that the games were a lackluster experience, but I can only say that for me it's juuust right. The deck plays in a style I love, I love ramp, I love getting resources so I can play more and bigger things in basically any game I play, card games, video games, tabletop games, whatever. I felt like the deck was working to do exactly what I wanted instead of having to fight it to make it work.
And it's not the first Commander precon I've gotten. I've bought 3 in the past, and had decent fun with them, but this is definitely the most fun I've had. I'll admit, I'm a novice. You call most of the cards chaff but to me they seem pretty good at synergism and accomplishing what the deck wants to do. I don't care if a land enters tapped, it entered the battlefield under my control and triggered Landfall, what more do I want? More mana immediately available? Good thing my commander lets me play an extra land each turn so I can play a basic land in addition to it. Plus things like Cultivate.
And I don't say this to dispute what you're saying; I'm sure if I played some people with optimized decks, even if they were at my skill level, the deck wouldn't do so hot. I'm sure there's better cards. But, it still felt fun to me. I liked playing a land, drawing a card, playing that land I just drew, playing Urban Exploration to draw three cards and then play a third land and drawing *another* card, and then spending those three lands' mana to play Cultivate and oh my I just got 4 lands into play under my control, guess that's foul 4/4 beast tokens from one of my monsters with that as a Landfall ability!
So uh, yeah. Fun time. I hope I never develop enough skill or taste that this seems underwhelming.
Apparently, these decks were designed before the Zendikar Rising decks, so hopefully the quality of these decks are an anomaly. We'll see with Kaldheim!
even though they under 2 bucks, you have to at least concede that counterspell, FOF, mulldrifter, acidic slime, rampant growth, kodama's reach, beast within, cultivate, harmonize, khalni heart expedition, rec sage, search for tomorrow, coiling oracle, simic charm, urban evolution, growth spiral and explore are all really nice staple reprints that might not resell for much, but are very playable as chaff goes-fantastic to take apart and use to build your own deck with or even just upgrade with the same commander. signets too! perhaps they are a beginner commander product (hence the reduced price) but they're still above the planeswalker decks and a fun gameplay experience can at least be a springboard to go from. a shockland would've been nice though eh?
good video though prof- never stop putting these out, they're still as informative as ever!
Is it just me, or is the “many magic players ask the question” intro sounding more and more sarcastic
Hey Prof, some buddies and I just started MTG this year and thought sticking around to Standard was a good way to get into. But we recently decided to see what the Commander hype was about. We got all 4 pre con decks, both Commander Legend and both Zendikar Rising. We played our first first ever Commander game with the 2 Commander Legends decks and the Land’s Wrath from ZR. Man, I can’t tell you how much fun we had despite the slow start. But honestly, the slow go may have contributed to helping us learn the new format and the new cards we had never seen before. The combos we were able to play were really big and fun. While I know you said some of the games with these decks can be fun, I still want to point out that fun is a huge factor for my buddies and I, and perhaps for many others. Again, we had a blast with these decks and look forward to constructing our own commander decks with what we learned.
For what it's worth, I played the Simic deck this weekend against two "real" commander decks; the only change I made was fixing the manabase a little and it stomped them pretty badly. Turns out, slightly more expensive Tatyova: still good. The Boros deck with also just manabase fixes did not do as well but I think there is a decent shell in there somewhere.
I wouldn't call the majority of those decks chalf...
Cultivate, Farseek, Arcane denial, fact or fiction, beast within and so on -- they're all "cheap" commander staples you can always reuse elsewhere
I agree, many of those cards might be cheap but they are playable, upgrade the manabase and replace the really crappy creatures with better bombs and you have a very strong deck
Edit: I am getting serious Challenger Deck vibes from these, in that they seem like a solid 80% of a tier deck out of the box, with good potential for upgrades
I'm starting to get sick of Prof being overly cynical. It's getting tiring.
@@fastydave hes just being critical, I also think his audience is mixed and its very hard to know what his audience is, plus magic has been old for a very long time dont you think its time that wotc actually put decent cards in these decks and not these crappy cards with lil to no purpose, to me I think thats y hes very cynical to these products
indeed: they are good cards with many homes, but since they have been frequently reprinted lately, their financial value has diminished due to larger supply.
I see a contraddiction in the attitude towards reprints here: we want staples to be reprinted aggressively to make them accessible and lower the cost of playing the game, but when they ARE being reprinted aggressively then there is the complaint that the financial value of the deck in terms of secondary market is not there.
@@ROMANTIKILLER2 well, Magic Players can and will complain how and when they want to
Yeeeees.
Today is my B-day and I was waiting for this video.
Happy birthday
Happy birthday. ✌😄
when I first saw the prices on amazon, I thought they were common, uncommon entry level garbage that sometimes wiz makes. After looking at the decklists, I prefer this so much. Nobody really uses oversized so I am glad that is gone, and saving money by excluding foils is fine by me.
Hey prof! You are breathtaking!
Thank you! 😃
@@TolarianCommunityCollege you were supposed to say :"no you!" Xd. Btw you're a great guy!
@@ejinathan what else should he be, a girl? :P
@@josuanachname1914 umm... Did i say something wrong? Im not american so i dont rly see the issue.
@@ejinathan No, you didn't, everything is fine! I just misunderstood you on purpose to be funny but obviously failed. Never mind ;-)
Ramunap Excavator was heading towards $20 while both Sram and Sigarda's aid were in the $5 range prior to this reprint. I think that is important for the value of these decks. Overall an extra "big" reprint in each would have been welcome.
I bought the Simic one, but already had the upgrades in my collection and got it for a cheap price. Played it for the first time a couple of days ago and it completely destroyed the table, so I’m very happy with my decision to buy this product
Wyleth deck owner here, and my box is good, plus the life wheel is perfect for me. I don't like carrying dice for it, and so something that can fit in a deck box is great
At the end where you told us about your collection ... that was one of the most real moments i have ever seen you. Realy nice and sympatic. Thumbs up
Ok, real talk.
Aesi is genuinely one of the most busted precon commanders I have ever seen. My dad bought the precon, and after only a few budget upgrades for, like, $15-$25 (for example, cards that increase your max handsize, a board wipe or two, just some fine tuning), it is an insanely solid engine that won't stop basically as soon as you play Aesi. It is a ramp *and* card draw engine in one, and it is a looming threat every single game. I would *highly* reccomend buying it.
My friend has a few commander decks and I own the Aesi own, Maybe because I have years more knowledge of card games but I consistently win over and over, granted I'm new to magic but the way I can spam lands and draw and draw so easily whilst making so many tokens or powerful creatures is insane, it backs itself with 2 counterspell like cards which have saved me from being board wiped a few times but in the case that happens I can summon Aesi back them the spam continues, not to mentioned the cards that send all my opponents cards from field into hand is just as busted. I have yet to look into upgrading but it feels unfair to my friend to upgrade it further
@@J-roll1 this is what I'm talking about. That's 100% the same for me
I really wish they had included some of the equipment tutors in arm for battle, that would've made it well worth it. Also rip AoZ price down below 5 bucks after 2 big reprints this year.
open the armory would've been nice
I love the low volume background music
As someone trying to find a budget copy of Reap The Tides that I can only find at 85+, this is kinda funny in hind sight
I'd say it is worth it if you're going to be playing with other precons. Not quite as high power level as some of the older ones, but the boros one became a real threat very quickly in the games I've used it in
I have not bought a single MTG paper product in well over a year. I rely on the Professor to give me my "Magic Fix" in the meantime. When the pandemic is resolved and the world goes back to "normal", I look forward to going to my local game store's Magic and D&D nights with my friends again.
I’d say yes, especially for new players. Not the best but a very good start at $20.
Yeah reminds me of profs conclusion of commander 2018. It's worse than normal but normal is great so these are still okay
@@drongobrat6471 Yep, that sounds about right.
Ehhhhhh Id still say zendikar considering their performances were better than this precon
Dude you can't go wrong for 20 bucks for a pre built precon let's see someone build there own for less.
I bought the boros precon for the boros staples I needed for my akari deck. I’m actually excited to playtest Wyleth.
Tremendous video. Excellent assessment of the product, plus an informative explanation of the secondary market, PLUS gameplay feedback. All in under 20 mins.
The oversized card apparently cost 20$+ for Wizard
I'm thinking of doing the same, how did it go?
Professor, I greatly appreciate your videos and honestly they showed me to drop the standard format at my local games store. While I understand that is fun for some you showed me what commander as well as draft is and I thank you for showing me the best formats for casual and wonderful MTG gameplay to me personally that I'm happy to take to my local game store. I just want to thank you and while I don't think you will see this comment with all the thanks you likely get I just want to give you my thanks, from someone who is looking forward to a long term goal for commander play with my first commander deck as I grow into a better player and upgrade it along side me.
Supply issues. lol my LGS can't get rid of the Ikoria commander decks neither can either local walmart and target.
Sadly I think their strategies were rlly badly built or too badly cycling is basically worse madness, kalamax is solid but the copy while tap is way to specific (plus there r WAY MORE better copy spell decks) mutate was a failure for most colors besides the black blue green but still was a super underpowered deck, and kathril was creative but also underpowered nobody wants them if your trying to be competitive
@@zarock61 but is the purpose of pre-con deck to be competitive? Of course they should still provide an engaging and pleasant playing experience, but I don't think that they are a product targeted at players that want to sit at a table where powerful and optimized decks are played.
Just my thoughts anyway.
@@ROMANTIKILLER2 yes, but these were ikoria $50 dollar commander boxes, are you saying players should spend that on a precon thats not optimized, one negative thing about this set U hate was that even when you bought the boxes they left either decent or the best support cards that would have made those products better in the main sets which is more money being spent I rather spend that 50+ just buying the cards online and getting the deck more optimal and cheaper, idk if im right but based on the comments for commander videos I deduce majority of players are either very old with the game and people with money to spend who prob have their own home made decks so I dont think they are the type to just focus on out of the box products, but even then shouldnt new players atleast get set up properly to do atleast well against other players, it could be a difference between a fun match and a one sided slaughter and otherwise a boring experiance.
The music choice and tone when you come back from technical difficulties is great. Yes its a song and tone you use all the time, but the abrupt return to normalcy is well executed
I think they leaked the names of the kaldheim decks already, "Elven Empire" and "phantom premonition" some sites put up listings too early i guess, no pictures yet though.
So Elves and Spirits? Seems fun, I bet they will sell like hot cakes unless they are really bad
I happen to have bought all four of the latest and agree on most of your evaluations, I used the kraken deck out of the box to make a new deck with Brinelin and Gilanra as their commander and a certain Dino Hippo as their puppy(Companion) and I’m happy with all I bought! Happier with the Zendikar decks for sure. But my brand new “Release the Kraken” deck is so much fun and doing silly powerful stuff starting from turn 3 it’s great! I dig this product! I dig this professor!
I put in a single smothering tithe in my Whyleth deck and won like 90% of the commander games on a gamenight. One card can do so much.
I've stopped playing magic for a few months now and youre the only MTG youtuber I watch. Keep it up with the entertaining content brotha 🙏🙏
"Preconstructed for your pleasure" 😳
😂😂😂
I love it when the Prof talks dirty to me.
Just remember to double sleeve!
Great review as always prof! I always find it interesting to watch these videos from a outside perspective as I am a Canadian viewer. I found these decks EXTREMELY worth it in Canada for a couple of reasons:
1. though our retail price is higher at about $25.00, many of the cards with in the list go for much higher in Canadian markets. Ramumap Excavator alone is about a $5 card here and adds to the value.
2. I live in a pretty big city and have access to multiple LGS but many of these cards are just out of stock everywhere. I was happy to pick up these decks for some extra stuff, some new cards, and Sunforger and Ramumap Excavator alone, let alone some of the other nice reprints needed to help fill out some of my decks.
The Zendikar decks were better but from my perspective here, these were still a great grab.
Why is this commander so expensive? The deck is $20 but the commander is like $12. I just want that one card.
I got Wyleth for under $15 (including tax) with a store discount I had access to. I already have a ~$60 upgrade plan to turn it into a 1v1 commander deck to play against my friend in our low-power level casual commander games. Boros Equipped Allys was my favourite deck in Oath of the Gatewatch Standard and I'm looking forward to getting a similar vibe from this deck.
I think the value is fine. Whenever I build my own deck I only have around a 50 dollar budget so I also only have 5 or 6 cards above even a dollar let alone 2. For budget brewers this is fine tbh
I got the Aesi, Tyrant of the Gyre Strait and man do I love it!! Ramps like there is no tomorrow and then start swinging out giant sea monsters!! A nice deck to get me into commander. Now to build my Angel Commander Deck from scratch!!
I liked the Zendikar ones way more than this commander decks. Greetings from Mexico, professor.
Agreed. However these decks were designed before the Zendikar rising ones
@@nicholasstavash7880 ,
I did not know that. I guess that can be seen as an improvement on the product ... I think.
@@TxarlesN Gavin verhey said that on one of his videos
While I do agree that the Simic deck's manabase is ridiculously big (44 lands, more than any pre-con Commander deck I've seen), I feel like we're missing an important point here : value is indeed important for the deck price-to-card ratio, but focus and functionality are equally, if not more important. And the biggest reason for this is that unlike most of the previous +40$ EDH precons we had in the past, the decklists for the 20$ precons only had to focus on ONE commander's ability rather than to fit a blended playstyle for up to three potential commanders (looking at you, Xyris the Writhing Storm, aka SNEKusar. You're a good snek, but you were clearly not intended to be a commander for a deck focused on copying spells)
Also, it's worth mentionning that "Arm for Battle" might be the only precon I know that was clearly intended to be built as a Voltron-style deck. A Voltron deck that actually rewards you with card draw if you play the deck as intended. IN BOROS ! Meanwhile, the "Land's Wrath" deck actually feels all over the place : Obuun's abilities clearly wants you to use your lands to attack, but you won't get enough landfall triggers to actually power up your lands, so you're mostly stuck with powering up one land, or Obuun himself. Heck, out of the 20$ precons we got thus far, it's the one with the least amount of lands (only 37).
tl;dr, my overall message is, dissing precons for having slightly less value for its price is like dissing a slightly overpriced car because it's not shiny enough to one's taste. Not the best comparaison I could come up with, but you get the idea.
Sometimes you're in the right place at the right time....
And with the right people. In this case, the professor Lewis.
So glad I got the Zendikar decks for my birthday last October :D Haven't played them with anyone yet but i love theorycrafting with them and rummaging through my vault to try and improve them. I got them right after the Prof's stellar recommendation since I was missing a lot of commander staples and choices :)
I bought every one this year.
Me: 😁😎
My wallet: 😳😭
Don't say that out loud. People will say you're a Whale, and part of the problem! 😞
Same, trying to keep my LGS in business during the pandemic.
Hey, I have both and can say reap the tides is a great deck. I put like 20 bucks into it and it's a deck that's unstoppable
So what you're saying is to just buy the Zendikar Rising precons. Sounds like a plan to me.
Thank you! I wanted to buy Arm for Battle deck to start, as I liked the decklist, but now I want to buy ZNC decks more.To defend them, they look to be great starting points, as both of them are playable out of box and have a obvious upgrade path and have strategies that are getting upgrades quite often
I basically built Aesi right before they released this. Whoops
My playgroup built commander decks where every card including the commander was $1 or less. I enjoyed the building process, it made me use cards i would never normally use and made for some hilarious and fun interactions.
Well I woke up at the right time I guess. Let’s see how good these commander decks are!
The Non-bulk value for the cards here over at the LGS in Canada.. cards like Ramunap Excavator, Avenger of Zendikar, Sigurda's Aid, Sram were in the $6-10 range each, with the Commander decks at $25 CAD (Sol Rings are $4)
Using my Jedi foresight, I see a future where they release a commander precon premium versions for about 60-80$ price range and these 20$ are for common folk. We shall see..
A follow-up video on what cards The Professor would replace in these decks to improve them for a better gameplay experience (ie so they would stand up to optimised Commander decks) would be an interesting.
I’m glad I just watched a few minutes of prof explain to me that better cards are more expensive lmao
Let me be the one to tell you that you showing off and talking about the cards that you played with in high school would make for an amazing video I'd watch in a heartbeat.
Yeah these are kind of a bummer. Still getting the boros one basically for parts to build either Akiri or Syr Gwyn
Dude not a bummer they are great for 20 bucks and play very well.
Thank you for taking some of my advice from facebook. This video was tops!
I am going to assume while this video plays in the background that the underlying result of this video is "Just buy singles"
I purchased the armed for battle pre-con deck as a way to get into voltron and see if I enjoy it. This is my 10th Commander deck.
While I agree with a lot of what the Professor has to say, I still believe that these decks are an affordable option for new and older players to try out a different kind of gameplay strategy and find out if it is right for you.
I love Tolarian Community College.
Thanks for the great content.
Hitting that like button after 1 second of intro. Doesn't matter what is in the video, it'll be good anyways.
My Fiancé got the Simic Deck and replaced the commander with Arixmethes. She always wanted a sea monster EDH deck and this seemed like the perfect jumping off point for her!
After some fixing and replacements of course :)
Every time The Prof mentions Sygg, WotC pushes back it's reprint date by a month. :P
Hey prof, one thing I ask you take in account for later videos: price of some reprint cards before announcement of reprint.
The reason for this is because launch day prices have already drastically been warped by those prices, and will still be warped more.
I'm aware you may not consider it important, due to you trying to calculate it based off of just buying the singles at the time of launch, but knowing how a card was trending before reprint is valuable knowledge when considering picking one of these up as well, in my opinion.
I like buying these and having fun with them. I just doctor them up with some better cards.
Awesome video Professor! I'm glad I wasn't the only one underwhelmed by the deck lists.
**ATTENTION** If anyone hasn't seen: c20 commander decks set of all 5 on Amazon for 89.99 for cyber Monday. Very nice deal IMO
That's really good considering the price of cards like Fierce Guardianship and Deflecting Swat make up about half that price tag alone
And all it'll cost you is the gradual decline of local gaming stores and your local economy in general
How much do they cost at a local game store?
Depends on where you are.
In canada they're 250-300 CDN for all 5 so I think that's 200 is USD.
That whole "paying your employees and having a storefront" thing costs a bit more but it honestly wouldn't if they had a higher volume of local sales.
If wizards would supply the lgs' like Amazon there wouldn't be that issue. I still shop at my lgs weekly. Also my lgs hasn't had these in stock in a little while.
Thanks Prof, another on point review :)
It's strange that these were developed first & should have been out during the summer, but were pushed back .. shows that they had an ok concept then made it better with the Zendikar decks, but most people won't realise that sadly.
Lets hope the next ones are better with less chaff!
Thanks again, as always, you're on the money.
We need a squirrel commander deck jot just a secret lair
My LGS had the decks up for 18.99 so I snapped up the Wyleth to build up my voltron suite to build Rograkh and Ishai. It's pretty fun to have Sunforger read to answer anything.
The new commanders aren't even etched foils!
My cards in the precon are worth more than what I spent on the precon
Why is that or is my card scanner innacurate
I always trust your reviews, they are fair and balanced. I even purchased the MTG arena kit on your recommendation and couldn't have been happier with the value.
“Preconstructed, for her pleasure.”
Just remember to double sleeve
always great to see a professor video pop up in my sub box!
Answer: Yes I have had a blast battling my younger brother with them
Though I agree with you that these decks are fun for the casual player. I think he is talking financial value.
Reap the tide is such a powerful deck out the box, I have changed 5 cards and it rivals some of my most tuned decks. Such a well built deck out the box
Which cards did you add??
I swear, WotC is genuinely trying to give you gray hair, Prof.
Professor, I think you forgot to add the swiftfoot boots in reap the tides to the price, if you're counting the swiftfoot boots in arm for battle. (Just a bit of nit picking but I honestly love your channel and all that you do for the community, so personally I thank you.)
Yeah I was somewhat disappointed in these lists as well. You'd think they'd print a decent commander deck for the "Commander" focused set.
I bought both, the zendikar rising and the commander legends decks and put them in the planechase anthology box (together with the planes). I now offer them as a board game version of commander, as they seem well balanced and do not include any broken synergies or hard to grasp interactions.
Two weeks from now I will be teaching three friends how to play commander with these and I am really looking forward to it. Having an out of the box set of decks like these is - at least in my opinion - way better than using my optimized decks to showcase the format. And given the price of the usual precons, I would have never bought 4 decks just to offer a board game experience to friends who are new to magic.
Many Magic the Gathering players are asking the question why aren't the Bob Ross basic lands the mana base of a core set instead of a 30 dollar drop.
Super quick one year later the the boros wyleth deck is so easy to make stronger and becomes much better
The more WotC pushes products for EDH players, the less I want to play EDH.
I have to say I love my Aesi deck - I had a lot of cards I didn't play (Crucible of Worlds, Greenwarden, etc.) that allowed for me to make some fun upgrades relatively easily.