What mechanics would you like to see in future Commander precon decks?

[5colorsrainbow]

Honesty at the moment I want an WUG- Adventure commander besides Chulane and more adventure cards that could make an actual deck.

Also more food and clue support.

[materpillar]

And a spellshaper deck would be insane (throw in Madness, Threshold, and Delirium for good measure).

I change my answer, I want this one.

[Venedrex]

Honesty at the moment I want an WUG- Adventure commander besides Chulane and more adventure cards that could make an actual deck.

Also more food and clue support.

Yeah! Chulane may have been flavored as a teller of tales, but he's just a goodstuff engine with no incentives to run adventure creatures over staple creatures.

[DirkGently]

Paint-by-numbers mechanics commanders don't interest me in the slightest

I'd say it depends on how they're enabling, and to a certain extent how explicit it is. For example, Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer enabling morph? Yawn, lame. It's too obvious and the payoff is too boring. Feather, the Redeemed enabling heroic? Yes, please.

Another important element I think is how many cards fit into the mechanic. Something like morph, there aren't all that many good ones, and their effects are pretty varied so it's hard to make a kadena deck based around anything more specific than just "playing the morphs that don't suck". Whereas with feather, there are a lot of options and a lot of available redundancy, so you can do things like feather blink, feather spell-voltron, feather heroic, feather spellslinger (i.e. Guttersnipe), etc. or some combination of those.

[Cyberium]

Splice would be a good one, especially if you can splice onto creatures (so the spliced effects happens when you cast the creature as it would an Eldrazi). Spiritcraft/Channel would be great ones to focus on too (since Channel also fuels discard-oriented themes).

Chroma and Devotion as always would be welcomed.

I want to see more cards dedicated to -1/-1 counters.

[5colorsrainbow]

Honesty at the moment I want an WUG- Adventure commander besides Chulane and more adventure cards that could make an actual deck.

Also more food and clue support.

Yeah! Chulane may have been flavored as a teller of tales, but he's just a goodstuff engine with no incentives to run adventure creatures over staple creatures.

I'm pretty sure Chulane was made to be the adventure (brawl) commander since he has the right colors and his abilities do synergies with adventures (rewards you for casting and lets you return back to your hand to go on another adventure) which is the other end of the spectrum "Paint-by-numbers mechanics commanders " since as you said Chulane really doesn't give incentives to run adventure creators other than generic rewards.

Other issues is Eldraine just didn't give enough adventures or adventure pay offs to make a commander deck so a precon deck would be nice as it could help with that.

[Dunharrow]

Atraxa is just too independently powerful. You almost can't make a truly casual deck with her because of how she dominates combat.

OK, sure, but I was generally suggesting a commander that seemed to fit what Dunharrow was talking about mechanically, not power level wise. I don't know their meta or what power level they play in, I was just pointing out that something like what they were asking for may already exist.

If I were to make an energy deck now it would be Atraxa. I just don't want another 4 color deck, especially these colors, since I have a Reyhan, Last of the Abzan + Ishai, Ojutai Dragonspeaker deck already.

[TheGildedGoose]

Paint-by-numbers mechanics commanders don't interest me in the slightest

I'd say it depends on how they're enabling, and to a certain extent how explicit it is. For example, Kadena, Slinking Sorcerer enabling morph? Yawn, lame. It's too obvious and the payoff is too boring. Feather, the Redeemed enabling heroic? Yes, please.

Another important element I think is how many cards fit into the mechanic. Something like morph, there aren't all that many good ones, and their effects are pretty varied so it's hard to make a kadena deck based around anything more specific than just "playing the morphs that don't suck". Whereas with feather, there are a lot of options and a lot of available redundancy, so you can do things like feather blink, feather spell-voltron, feather heroic, feather spellslinger (i.e. Guttersnipe), etc. or some combination of those.

Well, Feather doesn't have the word "Heroic" on it, for one thing.

[onering]

Shadow. It would encourage attacking while leaving the pilot a bit open to crack backs. I'm thinking an Esper shadow deck featuring a legend that unites the three shadow tribes and allows you to pay a cost to add or remove shadow from a creature.

Phasing. Phasing is a great way to deal with problem commanders and we could use an influx of that. Its also relatively unexplored when it comes to phasing matters. A commander that grants bonuses or triggers based on things phasing in, or out (one or the other, not both) would be cool. I could actually see a Teferi PW commander fit this role, gaining loyalty as things phase in (or out) and either having only negative loyalty effects. Gives you an incentive to run even the weaker phasing creatures as they help him grow. I'd say have him gain loyalty when things you control phase out, so it happens sooner, and his first ability could be -1 and cause something to phase out (so it costs loyalty to use against an opponent's thing but is loyalty neutral when used on your own stuff). Then have some things that care about stuff phasing in or out, and have some of the things with phasing have triggered abilities for when they phase in or out.

Soulshift: Its a fun mechanic that just needs better cards. It could support a very fair grindy gy deck with spirit craft support. Rather than being set up to just recur the same thing all the time, it would be about grinding out value from etb/ltb and casting spirits, fueled by soul shifting things back when your stuff dies. Nice, old fashioned grindy value deck that doesn't keel over when Rest In Peace shows up.

Vehicles. Does this even need explanation?

Werewolves: Need a commander that actually supports the tribe.

Heroic/Strive: A multicolor commander not in Boros that gives your instants and sorceries Strive where the cost is equal to the spell's CMC, and then counters any copy that targets a permanent you don't control. I want the focus to be on getting a lot of heroic triggers, so this limits it to things that target your dudes and the cost attached keeps it from just being a combo engine.

Splice: Build giant spells using smaller ones!

Battle Cry: Lets go aggro!

Cumulative upkeep: This has had some cool riffs in coldsnap and time spiral, and I'd want to see it explored further. It presents a choice to the controller of how long to commit to a card, and when the effect gets stronger the more counters are on it that choice becomes really interesting. There's also room for strictly upside cumulative upkeep where the "cost" you pay is something that benefits you, like gaining life or putting counters on creatures or tokens onto the battlefield or srcying. These could get very strong but you'd have to wait for them to snowball.

Echo: Another old downside mechanic that has a lot of design space left. Its simplest and original iteration was cool, get creatures at a discount at the cost of paying their mana cost the next turn or sacrificing them. But Time Spiral showed us there is a ton of cool space to work with here, from higher/lower echo costs to off color costs to focusing on etb/ltb triggers that basically make the creatures function like evoke that sticks around for a turn. Like with Cumulative Upkeep, there's also the option to do strictly upside echo costs, which could be used to essentially create delayed etb effect tp let wizards creature under costed etb creatures where the downside is you have to wait a turn and keep them alive. Imagine this "2BB, Creature 3/3 Echo: You may destroy target creature an opponent controls", or "2U: creature, flying 2/2 Echo: Draw 2 cards." Those are off the cuff designs intended only to show how it would work, not suggestions of cards that should be printed.

[RxPhantom]

I'm going with soulbond. I loved this mechanic, and I was so disappointed to hear Maro say that players just couldn't grok it. I'd love to make a deck revolving around resetting bonds via blinking or some such.

[illakunsaa]

I would love to see Winter Orb style stax cards. There are bunch of effects that would be fun like torpor orb, cursed totem, spirit of the labyrinth etc.

[Venedrex]

Some interesting (to me anyway) developments have arisen from my early exploration of some of yalls suggestions.

1. Mardu Vehicles has more flavor than I anticipated. A hint. The face commander is neither human, dwarf, or aetherborn but still one of the races from Kaladesh.

2. Splice is wordy. Even just Splice onto instant or sorcery with reminder text takes a good chunk of the textbox. Debating between Izzet Splice onto instant or sorcery, or Temur/Esper splice onto something.

3. A lot of these mechanics overlap either by plane or flavor. I.E. I don't think Energy AND Vehicles should be in this custom precon. Nor do I think Adventure and Explore make sense in one set since they have such similar flavor.

4. Right now I'm thinking Izzet Splice, Azban Explore, and Mardu Vehicles. Not sure about the fourth deck just yet.

[JWK]

Atraxa is just too independently powerful. You almost can't make a truly casual deck with her because of how she dominates combat.

Yeah, one of my friends has an Atraxa thallid deck. Even something a limited as thallids goes crazy with Atraxa.

I am not sure about decks based on specific mechanics, as I find those pretty limiting and one-dimensional, but I would love to see more individual cards with things like jump-start, transmute and overload, and not just in the colors already associated with those mechanics. I am a big fan of what they have done with old mechanics in the Modern Horizons sets and would love to see more cards like that in commander sets.

[PrimevalCommander]

Paint-by-numbers mechanics commanders don't interest me in the slightest, but I would love to see the following two archetypes enabled:

Abzan spellslinger control
Temur or Grixis tempo

Kalamax, the Stormsire plays a pretty solid Temur Tempo game if you build the deck to work with him. I have a combat trick package with "draw a card" stapled to them so early game I can punch through blockers and keep cards flowing.

Think

• Fists of Flame
• Charge Through
• Shadow Rift
• Psychotic Fury
• Leap
• Berserk
• Prophetic Bolt
• Kessig Wolf Run

[Treamayne]

Keywords I would like to see get support: Banding*, Rampage, Shadow, Fateseal

Mechanics I would like to see get support: Reverse Trample (Cunning Giant, Farrel's Mantle), Power-up (like level up but without the restrictions/counters like Figure of Destiny), Turn off (remove/prevent <something> based on <something> like Kulrath Knight).

Decks ideas:
-WUB Exalted (possibly BGW - just not Bant)
-BGW Keyword Manipulation: Nature's Blessing, Phyrexian Splicer type cards with some Keyword counters and manipulation and creatures like the original Chimera (Lead-Belly Chimera, Tin-Wing Chimera , etc.)
-RW (RWU) self-bounce/suicide: Dash, Ball Lightning type creatures, Sneak Attack type effects
-UR (UBR) Tims: The deck Nin, the Pain Artist should have had. Not just tap for damage, but Guttersnipe, Harsh Mentor types. Triggers on dealing noncombat damage.

Werewolves: Need a commander that actually supports the tribe.

Quote for Truth - Ditto Walls

*Since many players have problems with banding, even a new keyword/ability word half of the ability would be awesome. E.g. "When this creature blocks, you assign combat damage: (a la Defensive Formation) - or - "If <this> attacks and isn't blocked, you may have <this> deal combat damage to a blocking creature instead."

[Sinis]

I kind of got my wish for this with Ninjutsu when Yuriko was printed.

I want to see:
- Adventure
- Monstrosity
- Splice
- Cipher

[Gamazson]

This is probably a hot take, but I want to see a snow themed commander deck. Preferably in Temur colors.

[Hermes_]

am i the only one who cares about horsemanship?

[Sanity_Eclipse]

This is probably a hot take, but I want to see a snow themed commander deck. Preferably in Temur colors.

am i the only one who cares about horsemanship?

I'd be down with both.

[TheGildedGoose]

Kalamax, the Stormsire plays a pretty solid Temur Tempo game if you build the deck to work with him. I have a combat trick package with "draw a card" stapled to them so early game I can punch through blockers and keep cards flowing.

Think

• Fists of Flame
• Charge Through
• Shadow Rift
• Psychotic Fury
• Leap
• Berserk
• Prophetic Bolt
• Kessig Wolf Run

Interesting. I briefly considered Kalamax before I gave Temur Omnath a try and got bored with the concept, but the dinosaur just might do the trick.

[Dragoon]

am i the only one who cares about horsemanship?

The problem with horsemanship is that it's basically "can't be blocked" with a random downside from time to time. It is basically the equivalent of flying so there is no new design space. It might be cute to see one new card with horsemanship, but there is no real interest in bringing the mechanic back imo.

[PrimevalCommander]

Keywords I would like to see get support: Banding*, Rampage, Shadow, Fateseal

Mechanics I would like to see get support: Reverse Trample (Cunning Giant, Farrel's Mantle), Power-up (like level up but without the restrictions/counters like Figure of Destiny), Turn off (remove/prevent <something> based on <something> like Kulrath Knight).

Fateseal... That would be a good one. Maybe it is too invasive to have a deck built around manipulating your opponent's decks, but it is similar to mill or counter spells. At least you can draw out of a fateseal lock, as long as they don't make it too obnoxious.

What if Hullbreacher was printed with "Whenever an opponent would draw a card outside of the first card they draw each turn, instead Fateseal 1, then that player draws a card" . Or to save game time, "Fateseal X where X is the number of cards they would draw, then they draw that many cards." This would save time with wheels by only triggering once per opponent instead of 7 times. This would not stop the drawing, but give the controller information about the draws and mitigate the quality of said draws. Would be an interesting hate piece. MUCH better than the card we actually got.

Banding is weird, but so is phasing, and that came back. So who knows. I'm not the biggest fan of either.

Need a Devotion themed deck so we get a reprint of Nykthos. I need a couple of those and have none

I think Trample needs to be eratta'd to include "Trample over Planeswalkers". I was thinking about that mechanic, and it seems fitting that Trample could do this as a base ability, instead of needing it as an adder.

[Sinis]

Need a Devotion themed deck so we get a reprint of Nykthos. I need a couple of those and have none

Theros block was one of my favourites, and I'm not even into the faux Greek theme. The monocolour rewards program was just such a change of pace from the usual more colours=better that I absolutely adored it. I wish there were more Devotion or Chroma cards.

[PrimevalCommander]

Devotion has plenty of design space left to explore, and shouldn't need to be tied to Theros block exclusively. Boosting the power level of devotion would be a good way to incentivize running fewer colors. Even broken abilities tied to devotion keeps the power level in check since high power games typically play less permanents and more spells.

White draw potential:
Draw cards equal to your devotion to white, then discard 3 cards.
add a drawback to keep the mana value low, but don't make it unplayable.

[pokken]

I really like devotion though I am not a huge fan of monocolored decks in general I have started to develop a bit of appreciation for them in the last few years.

I'd definitely be excited to see 5 monocolored devotion decks, or 5 2-color devotion decks focused on ally or enemy colored gods - new takes on Ephara/Karametra/Phenax/Klothys/mogis would be dope