Precon Commander decks: which one to buy, and how to try it before you do

Precon Commander decks are 100-card Commander decks sold, built and sealed, ready to shuffle the day you buy them. This guide covers this year's releases, a five-minute check for picking one, and how to play a precon with your pod before you buy it. My first deck was a precon, and I build EDHMat, the free browser table the testing section uses.

Picking your first deck? Start with what's in a precon and the five-minute check.

Looking for this year's decks? See every precon released in 2026.

Already have one? Try it with your pod, or upgrade it without outgrowing your pod.

Not sure a precon is right for you? My guide to Commander Magic the Gathering decks compares buying one, copying a list and building your own.

What are precon EDH decks?

Precon EDH decks are ready-to-play, 100-card Commander decks that Wizards of the Coast sells sealed in a box. Each is built around a legendary commander and one theme, comes with tokens and a deck box, and plays at Commander Bracket 2 (Core) out of the box, the level the brackets use as their baseline.

Wizards puts out a handful of them with most new sets. Many come in two versions: the regular deck, and a Collector's Edition with every card in Surge Foil, which costs more and plays the same. Wizards' shop page lists the current precons set by set, with a short description of each deck's theme.

Because precons are built to roughly the same strength, the Commander Format Panel uses them as the measuring stick for its brackets. That makes a sealed precon a safe deck to bring to a table of strangers. Otherwise it follows the normal Commander deck rules, which I explain in my beginner's guide to the Commander rules.

What's in the box

Open a precon and this is what you'll usually find:

• The face commander, often as a foil card, and in many decks one or two other legends that could lead the deck instead.
• A handful of new cards made for that deck, next to reprints of older ones.
• Staples such as Sol Ring, Arcane Signet and Command Tower, which you'll reuse in later decks.
• Tokens and a deck box to keep it in.

My first deck was Veloci-Ramp-Tor from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, led by Pantlaza, Sun-Favored, a five-mana Dinosaur in red, green and white. Whenever it or another Dinosaur enters, discover digs through your library for a free spell, and the tougher the Dinosaur, the bigger the spell. I picked it because I like getting extra cards, though in hindsight five mana is a long wait.

Precon Commander decks released in 2026

Wizards released over twenty precon Commander decks in 2026, most of them alongside a new set. The table lists every one with its face commander and colors, so you can see at a glance what's on the shelf this year.

Deck	Set	Face commander	Colors	Released
Dance of the Elements	Lorwyn Eclipsed	Ashling, the Limitless	All five	23 Jan
Blight Curse	Lorwyn Eclipsed	Auntie Ool, Cursewretch	Black, red, green	23 Jan
Turtle Power!	Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles	Leonardo, the Balance	All five	6 Mar
Lorehold Spirit	Secrets of Strixhaven	Quintorius, History Chaser	Red, white	24 Apr
Prismari Artistry	Secrets of Strixhaven	Rootha, Mastering the Moment	Blue, red	24 Apr
Quandrix Unlimited	Secrets of Strixhaven	Zimone, Infinite Analyst	Green, blue	24 Apr
Witherbloom Pestilence	Secrets of Strixhaven	Dina, Essence Brewer	Black, green	24 Apr
Silverquill Influence	Secrets of Strixhaven	Killian, Decisive Mentor	White, black	24 Apr
Avengers Assemble	Marvel Super Heroes	Captain America, Team Leader	White, blue, red	26 Jun
The Fantastic Four	Marvel Super Heroes	Mister Fantastic	White, blue, red, green	26 Jun
Wakanda Forever	Marvel Super Heroes	T'Challa, the Black Panther	Green, white	26 Jun
Doom Prevails	Marvel Super Heroes	Doctor Doom, King of Latveria	Blue, black, red	26 Jun
Multiverse Reforged	Reality Fracture	Jace, Multiverse Architect	White, blue, black, red	2 Oct
Calling All Angels	Foundations Commander	Giada, Font of Hope	White	2 Oct
Keen Engineering	Foundations Commander	Sai, Master Thopterist	Blue	2 Oct
Wretched Ranks	Foundations Commander	Ghoulcaller Gisa	Black	2 Oct
Reign of Dragons	Foundations Commander	Lathliss, Dragon Queen	Red	2 Oct
Tramplesaurus Rex	Foundations Commander	Ghalta, Primal Hunger	Green	2 Oct
Federation Fleet	Star Trek	Jean-Luc Picard, Luminary	White, blue, red	13 Nov
Klingon Fury	Star Trek	Worf, Defiant Commander	White, black, red	13 Nov
Landing Party	Star Trek	Commander Spock	Green, white, blue	13 Nov
We Are the Borg	Star Trek	The Borg Queen	White, blue, black	13 Nov

The four Star Trek decks were still upcoming when I wrote this, and I'll update the table once they're out. Older precons stay on sale for a while after release. If you're after one of those, the tier list I link in the section on the best precon also has a directory of every precon since 2022.

Precons made for beginners

Most precons are made to sell a new set, so they bring several new cards and often more than one theme. Wizards also sells two series made only for people new to Commander: the Starter Commander Decks from 2022 and the Foundations Commander decks from October 2026. They leave things out on purpose: fewer colors, one plan per deck and a lower price.

Magic Online also gives every new account a ready-to-play Commander deck, so a digital precon costs nothing. If your group hasn't decided yet how to play together online, I compare webcams, browser tables and Wizards' own apps in my overview of where to play Commander online.

Already own a paper precon, and your friends live in other cities? You can still play it with your real cards over webcams. I've compared those webcam tools in my guide to SpellTable alternatives.

How to pick a precon in five minutes

Open the decklist on Wizards' site, Moxfield or Archidekt and go through these five questions. They take a few minutes, and they catch most of the reasons a precon ends up in a drawer.

1. Would you cast this commander every game? Read the face commander and the other legends in the list, since many precons can be led by a second card. Pick the commander you want to see on the table, not the box with the best reprints.
2. How many colors does it play? Every extra color is another kind of mana your lands have to make. A precon has only a few lands that make more than one color, so in a three- or five-color deck you'll often hold a spell you can't cast because the right color is missing, and many of those multicolor lands enter tapped, which costs you tempo. One or two colors play more smoothly out of the box.
3. Can you say how it wins in one sentence? "Make tokens, then pump them" is a plan. If it takes three themes to describe the deck, expect games where half your hand doesn't fit.
4. Is there a Game Changer in the list? A few precons ship with a card from Wizards' Game Changers list: Planeswalker Party and Creative Energy each include one, and Deadly Disguise includes two. That's neither good nor bad, but it makes the deck Bracket 3 out of the box, so it can be the strongest deck at a table of untouched precons. Tell your pod before the game, or take the card out to stay in Bracket 2 and keep it for a later deck.
5. What does your pod play? Next to other untouched precons, any precon is fair. Next to upgraded decks, pick a focused one and plan a few upgrades early.

Is there a best precon Commander deck?

Not one that's best for everyone. Playgroup.gg, a site that tracks Commander games, publishes a precon tier list ranked by real win rates from games played with the unmodified decklists. Most precons land near or below the 25% you'd expect in a four-player pod.

A win rate tells you which box is strongest straight away, not which deck you'll enjoy for fifty games. I don't publish a ranking of my own, because I don't have game data for it. Pick with the five questions above, then use the tier list to check the precon isn't far weaker or stronger than your friends' decks.

Try a precon with your pod before you buy it

Precon decklists are public: Wizards posts them around release, and players copy them to Moxfield and Archidekt. A list is all a browser table needs, so you can play a precon against your friends' decks this evening and decide afterwards. I found my own first deck in a similar way: a few games with my friends' decks showed me roughly which mechanics I liked.

1. Find the precon's list on Wizards' site, Moxfield or Archidekt. Upcoming precons work too, once Wizards has revealed the list and the new cards are on Scryfall.
2. Copy the list as text. For a public Archidekt deck you can paste the link instead.
3. Open a table, send the link to your pod, and paste the list in the lobby. If a card doesn't show up after pasting, here's how to fix the usual decklist problems.
4. Play it against the decks your friends actually bring.

I built EDHMat so my own pod could keep playing Magic EDH online when we can't sit at one table. Nobody needs an account or the cards, and if your group has never played in a browser before, I've written a step-by-step walkthrough of a first game.

Most pods keep talking over Discord while they play, and I explain how to run the call and the table side by side. If your pod hasn't settled on a way to play online yet, I also compare the three ways to play Commander online, from webcams to apps that enforce the rules.

What to watch in your first games

The table logs every draw and cast, so after the game you can scroll back instead of relying on memory. These are the questions worth answering:

• Did the commander show up? On which turn could you cast it, and did it do what the deck needs?
• Did the deck keep up? Compare it with your friends' decks, not with a deck tech on YouTube.
• Which cards did nothing? Cards that sat in your hand all game are your first upgrade slots.
• Did you enjoy playing it? You'll play a deck you like losing with more often than one that wins in a dull way.

Upgrading a precon without outgrowing your pod

I upgraded my Pantlaza deck with 14 single cards from Cardmarket, picked after watching YouTube videos and reading community posts about that exact precon. It started at Bracket 2 and now plays at the high end of Bracket 3, without a single Game Changer in it.

My friends play completely different decks, one built around Final Fantasy and one around Sauron, and the upgrades made my deck clearly stronger (a lucky Etali, Primal Conqueror helped too). The catch in multiplayer: once I've drawn well, the whole table turns on me, and that lead is hard to hold. Some games I'm knocked out entirely.

So a stronger deck doesn't automatically mean better games. Agree on a target bracket with your pod before you order cards, so the upgrades make games closer instead of one-sided.

Where most upgrades start

Precons share the same weak spots, so upgrade guides in the community tend to start in the same places: the lands, the removal and the card draw. Tapped lands and lands that don't fit the colors go first, then slow removal, then one-off draw spells that a repeatable draw engine can replace. My own 14 cards for the Pantlaza deck fall into similar groups:

Change a few cards at a time and play a game or two in between, so you can tell which swap made the difference. Cards you're thinking of buying can go straight into the pasted list, which lets you try them with your pod before you order them.

One Game Changer changes the bracket

Wizards' Game Changers list names cards strong enough to tilt a casual game. Brackets 1 and 2 allow none of them, Bracket 3 allows up to three, and from Bracket 4 there's no limit.

So a single Game Changer moves an untouched precon out of Bracket 2, even if the rest of the deck stays as it came. Check every upgrade against the current list before you buy it, because the list changes and an older deck guide can be out of date.

Pick the precon whose commander you want to see every game, play it with your pod, and let those games decide what you change.

More guides on Commander decks

• Commander decksWhat goes into a Commander deck, three ways to get one, and how to test it for free.
• Importing a decklistWhich export to use, and what to do with cards that don't resolve.
• Commander online: your first gameYour first game on EDHMat, step by step, with a table you can open on the page.
• Where to play Commander onlineEvery place I know of, grouped by what each one asks of you.

Frequently asked questions