“Dance of the Elements” Precon Upgrade | Lorwyn Eclipsed | 724

Greetings, humans. You have entered the command zone. Your destination for all aspects of Elder Dragon Highlander. Enjoy your stay. Hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Command Zone Podcast. I'm your host, Rachel Weeks. And it's me, Jake Boss. Here's always, every time I'm in the seat, right? Yeah. Once in a while. Every time you're in that seat, you're Jake Boss. That's true. What that means is today we're doing a pre-con upgrade guide. We'll be upgrading the brand new Elementals pre-con dance of the elements from Lorwyn Eclipse. This pre-con kicks a whole lot of butt. This is a hard upgrade. It's five colors. It's a can of powerful magic cards. Yeah. It's such a good deck right out of the box. It really is. But today we're going to endeavor to make it better. We're going to add 10 cards. We're going to take 10 cards out using a budget of only $50. And we'll give you some of the stats, how everything looks inside the box and what we wanted to do to change it. Let's get right into it. The first thing that you do when you meet a new Commander deck. Let's meet the band. Meet his face, Commander. The lead singer. Go ahead. He's Ashling the Limit List. Elemental spells you cast from your hand have evoke four. And whenever you sacrifice a non-token Elemental, create a token that's a copy of it. That token gains haste until end of turn. And at the beginning of your end step, sacrifice it unless you pay Wooberg. Actually, this first line on Ashling is more complicated than it looks. They had to errada it to make it work a little bit better. It's Elemental Permanent spells you cast from your hand gain evoke as you cast them is the new text. Three cost, two three, Elemental Sorcerer. There's a lot to talk about with Ashling. First of all, this is a very powerful Commander. It allows you to cheat on mana and it gives you a copy of the thing you just cheated into play. So that is a lot of value on a very small Commander. The first thing is evoke. You can cast a creature spell for its evoke cost, in this case four generic mana. It comes into play and you immediately sacrifice it, which triggers the second ability, giving you a token of the Elemental you just sacrificed and likely giving you two E.T.Bs, the original one and the token E.T.B. So we're sort of doing like an Elemental Panharmonicon thing. Two and a half for one. Yeah, it's a two and a half for one. Yeah, it's really nice because why are you playing those Elementals? It's for the E.T.Bs. Absolutely. One of those creature types that it's all about when at E.T.Bs it does something cool. Something that the Precon itself doesn't take a huge advantage of but's worth noting is Ashling doesn't care why the non-token Elemental was sacrificed. She'll still make a copy of it, even if you sack it to like an Achanod's Altar or a High Market or something like that. So if you sacrifice an Elemental for any reason, you will get a token copy of it. Which is pretty sweet. You can take this in a lot of directions. You can take it in a blink direction, in a sacrifice direction, in a token direction. We're going to really follow what the box says and really juice that up a little bit from there. But it's got a lot of cool support for Ashling. Yes, it's a super neat deck and had said two and a half for one, but really it's two and a half for four mana. And some of these cards on the top end of the curve, what is it? Seven mana? It's some big Elementals on this deck. Big sticky for very cheap. The other thing that's easy to under evaluate on Ashling is it lets you cheat on color cost. This is a five color Precon, so it doesn't have like the sturdiest mana base, especially when you're trying to cast Elementals, which often come in multiple colors or multiple pips. But Ashling says you can cheat them into play for just four generic mana, no matter what their actual cost is. That actually makes it a lot easier to play your spells and cast them on curve. Yeah, you can rent Elemental for a turn for just four mana with the added bonus of a double DTP. Pretty nice. Pretty stinking. Pretty nice. All right, let's talk about the backup commander. This is a real squibbly, squirrely, goofy boy. It's mass of mysteries. The mana cost is Wooberg, white, blue, black, red, green for a five, Elemental with first strike, vigilance, and trample. At the beginning of combat on your turn, another target Elemental you control gains Myriad until end of turn. Myriad is an ability when that creature attacks. You make copies for each other opponent that isn't being attacked, and it enters tapped and attacking that player. So it's sort of a different way to abuse ETBs. It gives you two copies when they attack rather than one copy when they enter from Ashling. Yeah, it's like the Elemental has a family, which is nice. And that family is named the Woobergs. That's, you know, adorable. I watched that show. All the Woobergs and Trove sit calm from the 80s. They're going to have to do that, Jake. You can't just say that stuff. I can't just say it. The editors don't just magically bring up that pre-prepared thing. But there are sort of two horses of a different color. You picture mass of mysteries is also once a lot of ETBs, but are sort of more efficiently costed Elementals that come down before you cast your commander. So when you play your commander, you can attack right away with an Elemental with Myriad. If you're playing within your means, you're playing Massive Mysteries. That's true. Ashling is a greedy, greedy deck. Oh my goodness. It's a spending mana that you don't have to keep stuff like, yeah, two very different strategies. If you're as excited about this pre-con as we are, you can pick up all the cards we're going to talk about in this episode from cardkingdom.com slash command. And when you shop with them, you will be supporting this show. We're going to be talking about this pre-con, which you can buy from Card Kingdom. We're going to be talking about 10 cards to add, which you can also get from Card Kingdom. And you could sell the 10 you cut back to Card Kingdom. They've got a great buy listing process. If you have a bunch of cards lying around, you can take your deck list, paste it in, find out how much it could all be roughly worth, and then you ship it to them and get a ton of store credit, upgrade all your bulk into something cool and fancy. It's my favorite way to buy a cool new magic card is to trade in a bunch of magic cards. But Card Kingdom is the best. They're true professionals. When they ship you cards, it's going to show up in one package. It's going to show up safe and it's going to show up on time on your doorstep. Plus, you're supporting the command zone when you do it if you use our affiliate link at cardkingdom.com slash command. Yeah. You know, if cheating mana cost is the first most powerful thing you can do in magic, cheating on real costs is the second. And once those cards are in your hand, of course, you need to sleeve them up. You need to protect them. You go to ultra pro.com slash command and you're supporting the show as well. They've got all of the sleeves, the binders, the deck boxes, the play mats that you need to be a well-accessorized magic player. I love to have a set that matches. Like I want my sleeves to match the vibe of my deck, to match the vibe of my play mat, to match the vibe of the deck box. I really, I really like my deck looking all dressed up. And I like that there's a ton of different options when you shop at ultra pro. All of their products are really high quality, especially their apex sleeves. They're my favorites now. I'm a huge fan. I just bought one of each of the mana eight lines so I can put my mono colored decks in the, in they have a mana symbol on them. And they're looking spiffy. They're looking sharp and they shuffle really, really well. Plus when you buy them and you use our affiliate link, you're supporting the show at ultra pro.com slash command or buying any of the new final fantasy stuff. Those are cool too. So if you want to support the show directly, of course you can go to patreon.com slash command zone. All of our patrons are the best. You really keep the lights on around here. Plus you get some cool perks for being a patron as well. You get access to extra turns and game nights a day early without ads. So no spoilers for you. You're going to be the first to see it. Plus you get access to the discord where you can talk to me, Josh, Jimmy and all members of our staff directly in our ask the hosts channel. You can tag people and ask questions to your hearts content. We get in there and try and answer all those questions. Plus we shout out one lucky patron every single podcast episode and this one is dedicated to 32 bit. I bet this is an audio person. Yeah. For sure. All right. We'll find out 32 bits and just a message. We're talking audio bits. All right. Let's get into it. We're going to talk about what you can find in this deck off the shelf starting with the reprint value. Keep in mind, wizards did increase the price of these products this year. It used to be 45 last year was 45. This year it is $50 to buy a precon. So when we're doing all of our math, that number is slightly adjusted. Hopefully you can find something on the shelf that's close to that price or even better. All of that out of the way. The total reprint value in this box is $177.75. That's all right. Keep in mind that like the average reprint value from last year was $152.71. So we're talking $20 above the average from last year. Those numbers were taken at the time of recording. So it's a little after they were announced, but they tend to go down after they're announced. So it's a little bit of an inexact science, the reprint value. But we try and make things as clear as possible. The reprint value only represents the 69 reprints in the deck, not the 12 new cards, the three main sets, main set cards, or any of the basic lands of which there are 16. It also doesn't represent the assembly tax of you can grab a box and get going to commander night tonight. That's true. No matter what city you're in. Yeah. If you buy this deck at $50, you will be getting $3.56 of your bang for your buck value. So that is the amount of reprints, $3.56 worth of reprints for your $1 cash spent. So pretty good. You're tripling your value. If you're after the cards in this box, you're getting them at a very good price. All in one place. All very easy. Keep in mind that it was like $3.06 was the average BFYB from last year. It is worth noting. I want to make sure everybody saw this before they pick up their pre-con. Wizards did remove the little collector booster sampler that has come in pre-cons in the past. So they increased the price of the box, but did take the sampler out. Not our favorite. At least there's a lot of good value in here for elemental deck builders. Yeah, if that's going to be the case, at the very least, we look at the numbers and it does, you know, it doesn't make you feel bad. It truly does. It's not our favorite. Right. But let's talk about what cards are in the box. Starting with the notable reprints. There are eight in this deck that are worth $5 or more, starting with a doozy that hasn't seen a reprint because this is pricey. Can I read it like Macho Man Randy Savage? Please do it. Oh yeah, this one is the cream of the crop. $24 for cream. I mean, that's pretty nuts for the like this card is really cool. But the fact that it has risen to $24 is wild and it's very cool that it is in this deck and is getting you some pretty cool value. Yeah, good for them. Up next, a $20 card is timeless lotus. This is a five mana legendary artifact. It has for Wuberg. So hypothetically, it is there to pay to keep your tokens around from Ashlyn. If you don't mind spending five mana to do nothing today. Yeah, it's not the best mana rock in the world, but it can only and it can only go in five color decks. But there is a time for it. Yep. Up next, sitting at $12. Omnath, Lucas of the Royal. We love an Omnath. This is a good one. It's perfect place for it. It's a $12 card that you're going to want to put in this deck anyway. So it's nice to see those high value powerful cards in there. Up next is at $11. Endurance? Endurance with brand new art here. We got a little turtle tree having a little snack. I love him. Just in time for turtle time coming up. That's true. Turtles right around the corner. Endurance is a really powerful elemental and it has flash and it comes in and eats somebody's graveyard and their trees. Curse you, turtle. And it's probably free. Pretty nice. At $11 is a big ol' instant. It's kindred summons. Oh. Big honkin' instant, seven mana. Seven mana. You get some elementals off the top. Assuming you have a lot of elementals on the battlefield. Of course. Up next, this is a big one too. Fury? No, not yet. Oh. Wait, what? No, it is. It is. I didn't put it on the sheet. It is fury. You need to be deal four to something? Yeah, you can split it up if you want to. It's got double strike, right? It does. It's a 3-3 with double strike. So it comes in. You can deal two to that, one to that, one to that. Kill a whole bunch of stuff and attack with your 3-3 double strike for your trouble. Plus with the commander. Oh, my goodness. Eight damage on an ETV. That's pretty good. The big one that I was talking about is up next. A walking house. Titan of industry. That is a big one. It's seven mana. This is the one that enters and can blow up artifacts and enchantments, two shield counters, give you rhinos, gain life, I think. All sorts of things. Going to be a really scary thing for you to cheat into play on turn four. And it's a house that repossesses itself. I love that. It doesn't even wait for the final notice. Elementals can kind of be anything and that's always fun. Yeah. They're like, I don't know, it's sort of squishy and doesn't really have any defined edges. It's an elemental. Just, you know, like the vibe of industry. All right, Sylvala, heart of the wilds, five bucks. Pretty good. I can't believe how cheap Sylvala is these days. All the way down to $5. This is a great reprint. It goes in any deck that has really high power stuff and could draw you some cards as long as you're the biggest bad baddest act in town. Yeah. Okay. Well, those are the financial stats of this deck, but we're going to break down the mechanical ones in just a second, which means it's time for the stats. That's right. We're going to break down the stats starting with the vegetables, the nuts, the bolts, the stuff that goes into every commander deck. We're going to be talking about it using the tools from the commander template, the deck building template that came out a few months ago. If you haven't seen that, go check it out. But let's start with the amount of ramp spells in the deck. You're feeling pretty healthy. Pretty healthy. 18 pieces of ramp. That is a ton. Yeah. That is so much ramp. I was like sort of blown away. Yeah. You don't feel like you need to redesign how the deck works. And I think it's going to be a theme going forward because our friend Ellie Rice had a major hand in these. Absolutely. Fun fact, I had Ellie on MTG tonight. It was my last unreleased episode. Never got around to finishing it, but Ellie wanted to talk about her Memnarch deck. Ellie's got a dark side. Yeah. So that is the person who designed these. I love this number 18. I mean, it's really, really high, but you're trying to activate your commander multiple times to kind of flood the board with value all at once. This is an explosive deck. So ramp makes a ton of sense. You're trying to go over the top of your opponents, trying to outvalue them. We want to hit nine mana eventually probably. Absolutely. So we start keeping some of these bodies. So it's a little bit more than I would put in this deck, but it makes sense and it tells you a lot about what this deck is doing. Up next is card advantage. Anything that puts more cards in your hand or in XL, someplace you can access it for the one card. So you spend one card, you get multiple back. 13 pieces of card advantage. Pretty good. That's about where the template wants you to be is like, at least 12, at least don't skimp on this number. So 13 feels pretty good, especially if you're going to be doubling up on these triggers with your commander and play. Up next is targeted disruption. You spend one card to answer one card. That's 11 pieces of targeted disruption. It's pretty good. That's a little bit lower than what we recommended in the template, but it makes sense for a deck that's so heavily in the creature strategy. I will say that a lot of the targeted disruption that comes in this deck is sorcery speed and is like, come stapled to an elemental. So you can get, you can double up on those targeted disruptions. So you may not need a super high number, but you do kind of want a little bit more disruption that can handle something that comes out of nowhere. And this is one of the easiest categories to up your game in because those tools are so available. Up next is mass disruption. So this is you spend one card to answer multiple threats like board wipes or bandle blast type effects. One card answers a lot of cards. We got four pieces of mass disruption. Okay. So this is a little bit lower than I would expect, especially for a deck that we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but it doesn't have a ton of board presence. It like you put your commander into play, you cheat elementals, you get a ton of value, but ultimately it all kind of goes to the graveyard. So you need to figure out how to have more on the battlefield. So I'd expect a little bit more mass disruption to make sure you just don't get run over. Yeah. Cause you're visiting a lot and, you know, people will come in and smack you when you got your wide open board. Well, hopefully they left themselves tapped out so we can smack up with an elemental and return. You're going to have those hasty elementals on the next one. Finally, this is an important category for a five color deck. There are lands in the deck. 40 lands. That's a ton, but in this deck, it makes a ton of sense. Yeah. You don't want to be without. You have to hit all of your land drops. You have to play your commander on turn three. You have to be able to activate Ashling on turn four. And it is a five color deck. So the more specific, the more you're asking from your mana base, the more lands you need to include. So I don't think 40 is too much, especially considering there are 16 basic lands in this deck. It is worth noting that there are 14 lands that cannot come in untapped. There are some that are like will come in untapped if you meet a stipulation. So it is a bit of a clunky mana base. It is going to be pretty slow off the blocks. It makes sense that you're going to be playing at least your first land tapped, maybe your second land tapped as well. And if you're playing this right out of the box, you and I were talking about this upstairs, the play patterns of when you do what, what you're doing on turn one, two, three and four, the tapped lands do fit into your turn three plan. So it could be worse. You know, just gold fishing this deck and getting reps in, you might find room for more tapped lands than you think. Yeah. All right. Those are the general stats, the stats that we expect in any commander deck. Now we're going to get a little bit more specific and find out what's going on with this deck that, what makes it special, starting with the number of elementals in the deck. There are 34 elementals in this deck, which is a great amount because you always want to have them in your hand. Your commander is a bit of a lightning rod. So you want to make sure that you can definitely use Ashling the turn that you get to. And they need to be good ones. And I tell you, it was hard to cut in this deck. I agree. Up next is elemental payoffs. So this is stuff that's really focusing on the types synergy and how it all works together. And there's a fair amount of these as well. We've got 20 of them. Yeah, that's including the face commander and the backup commander. That's a lot. What that says to me is, this is a type of deck through and through. It cares about elementals and can't really be pivoted into another strategy super easily. Yeah. Well, it focuses on its primary and secondary strategies. A lot of the time we can be like, well, if I'm already doing this, I might as well have an aristocrats, backage or something. Right. You have these tertiary things that keep piling on, but I don't mind staying focused. Very focused here. The next section is a section that is suggested by a couple of the cards in the deck, but didn't really show up in the rest of the deck. So we're talking about colors matter cards. Yeah, there's three of these here. Yeah, there's a couple from the main set and there's a new card that have the new vivid mechanic on it that care about the number of colors you have in play. But we wanted to see how supported that actually was other than the deck just being naturally a five-color deck. So we checked to the number of multicolored cards in the deck. So that's gold or higher, anything with two colors or more. We have 12 multicolored cards here. Some, but not enough to really justify a theme. Certainly not enough to justify cards in there that are paying you off for having multiple colors. So this just says, okay, we wanted to print these cards. They go best in this product. They're not going in the main set. So we want Commuter Players to have these cards. It's a bit of a side quest, I think. It's probably an okay side quest. You're in five colors. You're going to have naturally have a lot of different colors, but you may not necessarily always have five, especially if you have Ashling in the command zone, who's only one color herself. Now if the other commander's in the command zone, ooh, now you have five. Those would become a lot more fun. Now you're built into five colors. Finally, we wanted to check the recursion. So Josh built this deck for game nights and you'll see that soon. But we definitely noticed that the deck can be low on board presence and can dump its elementals really fast, but sort of needs to make sure it can either reach into the graveyard or keep digging through the library. So we checked this number as well. Five recursion pieces. Okay, it's a little bit low, but like it says it's not a primary theme or focus, but it can get stuff out of the graveyard, certainly. A lot of our game pieces are going to pass through the graveyard at one point or another. So it would be nice to see a little bit more. Like if we cast the same spell over and over again, you're not going to get bored because you're going to keep stomping. As long as it's a good one. Yeah. Finally, we check the average mana value in the pre-con. And this one is a bit of a doozy. It's very high. It's misleading though. It's 4.2. So 4.2 is an interesting number because you expect a high curve. You're cheating mana on your commander. So you do want some six drops, some seven drops that you're cheating into play ahead of schedule. Yeah. So we look at those nine cost cards or whatever it is at the top of the curve. And they really are four cost. Right. And potentially nine later on down the line, if we want to keep it, we're really casting a bunch of stuff for four. So I'd be interested to see the curve if we adjusted the things we're only ever going to cast this for four, what that does to the number. That was definitely what I looked into after seeing this number because 4.2 makes sense in a deck that where you're cheating stuff into play. My Ractos deck, for example, has a very high curve. But you want to make sure that you have proactive plays that you can do on the first three to four turns. We know we're going to try and cast our commander on turn three. We know we have a fair amount of tapped lands. So I check to see how many two drops we have and how many one drops we have, just to see how flexible this mana is. And the answer is not very. There's only three one drops in the deck. One of them is a path to exile. So it's not exactly an early game play. And there are nine two drops, which is very low for a deck that I expect should be playing something before it gets its commander into play. Yeah, the rhythm that we always want with this deck is probably going to be turn one play a land and pass turn two. We ramp or do something meaningful turn three cast the commander. We've got an extra mana there that can be a tapped land slot or a one drop slot. Then on three or excuse me on four, we're evoking something. Right. You definitely want to be casting your commander on curve and evoking on curve and finding a little bit of extra mana is getting wasted is fine again, because of all those tapped lands. Anytime you can sneak in a tapped land and it doesn't upset what you're trying to do is going to be perfect. But you really don't want to play tapped land on one tapped land on two commander on three. It just feels a little too slow in today's commander style. Yeah, if you're somebody who's getting into upgrading these decks and this is sort of new for you, give this list a shot first. Yeah, definitely play test it. Yeah. Before you decide, oh, this tool needs to be only untapped lands. I remember doing that as a newer commander player. It's not always the right move. Yeah. It might seem strictly better, but You can work with what you have in this box for sure. But let's talk about the goals that we had in upgrading this deck. So it was definitely the first thing. Oh, starting with what commander you would like to keep in the command zone. It's going to be Ashlyn. I love Ashlyn. Yeah, I am the same way. I think this Ashlyn is just sort of leagues better than massive mysteries. And I do think the deck supports Ashlyn much better, especially with that high curve. Yeah, it's flexible. And I feel confident that I'm going to hit my colors every time. Yeah, that is only have to hit red. That is helpful too. With Ashlyn in the command zone and with the high curve, I think one of the first goals that I had when looking at this deck was bulking up this number of cheaper plays, making sure you had some kind of stuff to fit and make you more mana efficient. Give you something to do on turn two that's proactive. Give you something to do when you're wasting a little bit of mana after ramping or when you waste a little bit of mana if you've ramped and you're evoking and have one mana up. Just making sure that you have those little cards that fit into your curve and you're keeping up with your opponents. Yeah, a lot of the time we'll see stuff. We added feel like, oh, why do I always see that across the table? But I'm never adding it because I love to play bigger, bombier stuff. This is a little bit more nuts and bolts veggie stuff. Up next, we've already mentioned it, but a little bit of instant speed interaction would be nice, especially in a deck that doesn't have a ton of blockers naturally. You want something in your hand to be able to be like, you're not hitting me with that. Because Ashlyn isn't a great deterrent for keeping people from attacking you. So instant speed, creature disruption will keep your life total safe. Yeah, Ashlyn leaves the house without locking the doors. She does. She's not worried about it. She needs to keep some one drop instance in the bedroom. The other thing that we added, it really ups the power level of the deck, I think. Yeah, the cost reducers. The evoke cost is a cost that we can reduce by the colorless cost. So if we can get that down a couple, then we're going to be double spelling, potentially even triple spelling, depending on how low we can get it. Absolutely. This deck is explosive. You want to make sure that you're using your mana really efficiently and you're dumping a ton of stuff all at one turn. Because when your commander's on the battlefield, you need to be able to take advantage of it. The turn you cast it, ideally, but the next turn for sure. So cost reducers just mean that you can up the likelihood that you're going to be able to cast Ashlyn and evoke an elemental the same turn. Yep. Okay. And finally, with all those cost reducers, you need to make sure that you have plenty of card draw to keep your hands full. Because the more you're dumping onto the battlefield, the less that you have in your hand. So making sure you're taking advantage of all of your opportunities to draw cards so you can keep putting more onto the battlefield. Yeah, you got to empty the hopper of cards. Like, it's going to be such a big pipe that we can send the cards through. Bring them in. Back up the dump truck of cards, please. That's true. Ashlyn is just sort of a dump truck for cards. So you need to keep filling the dump truck. Otherwise, what is there to dump? Right. That's the most important thing, Commander, is to dump as early as possible. All right, let's talk about the best cards that are in this deck. Before we start adding new things, I really want to highlight this stuff that when you draw them, you're like, okay, I know what my game plan is. I know what I'm doing. And so we can use the cards we're adding to sort of support that powerful plan. First one is jubilation, aka overrun on a stick. Oh, man, what a good stick to five in a green, I'd say five five elemental incarnation says when this creature enters creatures you control get plus two plus two and gain trample until end of turn and has on core for seven green green. So it brings out tokens based on how many opponents you have. I mean, this is a pretty serious card, especially with Ashlyn who makes two copies of jubilation. So if you have Ashlyn and a couple of tokens on board, you get jubilation trigger number one plus two plus two jubilation trigger number two plus two plus two and you have like a hasty seven seven with trample and everything else says plus four plus four and trample. That's great in the early game. And then in the late game, once you've gotten all your value, this on core cost is in reach. Yeah, you've sent it to the boneyard and it's not dead there. It's not just chilling. It's waiting for your moment and you've kind of broadcast to the table. Oh, I'm going to pay nine mana and just stomp everybody with plus six plus six and trample. But what are you going to do about it? And you're attacking with these are naturally five five. So it gives you 33 power. Yes, 33 hasty power for nine mana because they're they all buff each other when it enters creatures you control. Yes. So they all buff each other. They're 11 11s. You can send one at each opponent. They've got haste pretty good. That is a very powerful late game push for damage not to and that's just if you have no creatures on the battlefield. The other one I wanted to mention for sure is the backup commander works very well with Ashling. The Ashling makes the hasty token, which massive mysteries can get myriad to. It just means anytime you have an ETB, your force multiplying the value you're getting from it. So we get what is that for ETB triggers? Yes, something that's pretty good. Yeah, I mean if you like if you have Ashling and you have a massive mysteries on the battlefield at the same time and you evoke a jubilation, it's like jubilation one jubilation two go to combat two more jubilations they're all attacking like this is a card that's easy to read too quickly and be like oh this goes in a different deck because it doesn't say when massive mysteries enters the battlefield. Yeah, it's not a blink card. Yeah, we don't care about that part with the evoking here. This is about doubling up the effectiveness of your commander. Right, so it's effectively like a super panharmonicon. Yeah. Finally, I wanted to draw attention to two cards. One of them is an oldie, one of them is from the main set, but is naturally in the deck. It's flame braider and smoke braider. These are two mana elementals that tap to add two mana of any combination of colors. Spend this mana only to cast elemental spells or activate abilities of elemental sources. So two mana creatures that give you two mana back. Pretty good. This is a great play on turn two before you cast your commander. On turn three, yeah, we'll have five mana. Yeah. And so you'll be able to get your commander in play and you have two mana to spare, but at the turn after that you have six so you can evoke. You can evoke with some of these two drops that we add. Yeah, you can make this mana work better, but this is like these are really powerful mana creatures that give you a ton of resources really fast and add to the explosiveness of your deck. Plus your opponents really have to answer your commander, so any ramp you can put on the battlefield that gets your commander easier to recast. Yes, thank you. Finally, there's one real scary one. Maelstrom wanderer. Uh-huh. Woo-wee. Eight mana, legendary creature elemental. He's a classic. Creatures you control have haste. Nice. And then this spell has cascade cascade and it says seven five. Pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah, this is a good old classic commander deck from, gosh, what was that? It must have been like 13 or 14 or something like that, yeah? I don't remember. This was like one of those commanders that if you see a cross from here you're like, okay, we're dying. But the funny thing about this, about Ashling is you can cast Maelstrom wanderer on turn four and get two cascade triggers. Yeah, you spend four mana for two cascade. Yeah, and you don't get the second cascade cascade because obviously when you sacrifice and make a token you don't get a cast trigger, but you do have a seven five with haste that just smacks the daylights out of somebody. Plus whatever we got off a cascade. Four mana for two free spells and a seven five body is just like so terrifying. Yeah, it basically says on ETB rip until you get two spells that are less than eight. Yeah, pretty good. We'll take it. One of the more powerful elementals that come in the deck, this deck is awesome. It's really, really powerful. It's really scary to play against. You're like, what happens if they untap with Ashling? Do we die? It feels like we might die. But let us know what you think about this elementals deck in the comments, what cards you're excited to add to it. Maybe we will have it on our list, which we will get to in just a few moments. What a scream. We installed telephone wires across rural Britain over a century ago and you're still paying to use them for your broadband today. If it ain't broke, what? Stop. Your days of selling phone age broadband are over. I've spilled the beans. Upgrade to 100% full fiber. Gigaclear faster broadband for rural Britain from only 19 pounds a month. Price may rise during contract. T's and C's apply. Check availability at gigaclear.com. Aha, psych rift. Yeah, this deck feels like a three. Updating your decks? No, I'm just sorting them into commander brackets. Oh, just use architect. It's the easiest way to get an estimate of your deck's bracket. Plus, you can click the number and it'll lay out the reasoning. It takes things like tutors, extra turns, and land destruction into account and game changers are all clearly marked. It even recognizes two card combos. See, it's saying your deck is actually a four. It'll be a three if you've got RISC to study. Huh. Okay, four it is. Architect is the best place to browse, brew, and check your deck's commander brackets. Just go to architect.com slash command zone to get started. That's archdekt.com slash command zone. Welcome back, everybody. We are upgrading the elementals precon from Lorwin Eclipse. Dance of the elementals. That's dance of the elements. That's it. I thought it was dance of the elephants like in Winnie the Pooh, but I guess not. See, when I saw this, I thought it said dance off the elements, but I just can't read. So that's it. It's a very different deck. You're covered in the elements. You've got to dance them off. Yeah, I'm going to go for a five mile dance after this. All right, we're going to get to the upgrade. We're going to give you 10 cards to add, 10 to take out using a budget of only $50. Let's not further delay. What's this first one you wanted to add? It's $1.75 for Flamekin Harbinger. It's a one drop. It's one red for a creature elemental shaman. It's a one one. And when it enters the battlefield, you may search your library for an elemental card and reveal it and put it on top of your library. That's pretty good. Pretty good. Pretty neat. This having a nice cheap creature that you can play and set up some of these hugely explosive turns with your commander, there are some element, elementals that your commander goes nuts with. So having Flamekin Harbinger to come down before your commander, set up that creature, that elemental that's going to help your commander really get off the blocks fast. It means you're going to have a really smooth, really powerful to view turns. I feel like when I'm playing against my play group, it's going to be drop this. Okay, let me go find an answer for whatever is going on. That too. I'm going to get my shriek maw. I'm going to kill that. I'm going to kill that too. This card is great. It's only $1.75. Nice way to lower the curve. Not mana efficient. We could evoke it and get two triggers. Really need it. You could. Not a good idea because you shuffle in between them. Even worse idea. I'm going to spend four mana to just get the same thing. To just get one and lose this. But this next card is great and you're definitely going to want to cheat it in with your commander. It's Gravesifter. Gravesifter. He's such a little cutie. He's a perfect example of we don't know what elementals are. He's like a big toad. Five in a green for an elemental beast. He's a 5-7. When he enters the battlefield, each player chooses a creature type and returns any number of cards of that type from their graveyard to their hand. Now, that's a little bit of value to give to your opponents, but the thing is your graveyard is going to be full of elementals. Not just the first time either. Uh-huh. Because we're going to get two of them. You get Gravesifter. You come in, you return all your elementals to your hand. Great. Or do you, yeah, each player chooses a creature type. Sure. Yeah. And then the second time it enters, you can get the original Gravesifter back. So you can keep all of your elementals in your hand basically permanently, which goes really well with the cost reducers that we're going to add to the stick. So fun. Because you can just dump your entire hand. Yeah. And it feels so smart and heads up to be like, okay, get all the elementals. Oh no, there's no elementals. But wait, there's one more. It's Gravesifter and he's back. And they all say the same thing. You can do that again? Yeah. I mean, if you can get like, this is a little bit of a Magic Christmas land, but if you can get the evoke cost down to just one or zero and you have a Gravesifter loop, if it's zero, you can Gravesifter infinite times with all the elementals in your graveyard. That is so cool. We didn't add that many, but you can at home. You can. And that's cool. Or you can just pay one each time and do it like a whole bunch of times. Anyway, it's very cool. And Gravesifter is only a buck 25. Yeah. I got a story for you on this one. When I was 12 years old, my girlfriend who lived across the street suddenly vanished and there was a sign on her door that said, if anybody knows where these people move to, they owe me X amount of money. And it would be greatly appreciated if you could put me in contact with them. So when it comes to our elementals, they do the same thing with sundial of the infinite. It's too manifold and artifact and it has one in tap to end the turn, activate this ability only during your turn. So when you can't land and your opponents turns, that's not nice. Right. But when that Wuber tax cometh, we end the turn and we skip town. That's the best. Yeah. So that's the cool trick that you can do is you get you get those sacrifice abilities on the stack. You're like, everything is like, all right, I'm out of here. And you're like, no, you're not end the turn. And they stay on the battlefield because you clear the stack of all of the triggers that are there. And they've already triggered. So they think that they've been sacrificed. Your GTA star level is at zero. It's safe forever now. Pretty sweet. Gives you the body that you've just cheated in now. So now you can keep your maelstrom wanderer. That's a seven five that gives all your creatures haste. And it hits that vital two drop slot that we're trying to fill out. Huge. Really good. $6 for sundial of the infinite, because it got a reprint in avatar. Cool. All right. Up next, this is a real cheap one. It's 25 cents for muster the departed to and a white for an enchantment. When muster the departed enters the battlefield, create a one one spirit creature token with flying. And I know you're like spirits. That's not what we're here to do. It's okay. Morbid at the beginning of your end step. If a creature died this turn populate. Another way to keep it without skipping town. Absolutely. So this is very similar to your sundial of the infinite ability. It even works with sundial of the infinite. You just have to resolve your muster the departed first. But you're going to have an elemental dying because that's the whole thing. And you'll have a really sick token at the end of your turn because that is the other part of the whole thing. And you get that ETB again. You'll reuse the ETB. You'll get a token that sticks around. And even if you have to sacrifice the old one, you still have a blocker up. You still have a little bit of board presence. So for the same manner that sundial of the infinite, I was so excited about you could track down this card that does the same thing plus way more. No, I just give you a spirit. But it's 25 cents. Pretty nice. The worst thing about this one is it's three mana. So it's a little awkward with your commander. Sure. But for three mana, we get the extra ETB. It deserves to be a little extra. It's going to be really good. All right. Let's we wanted to add a little bit of instant speed interaction so you don't get caught with your pants down. Let's talk about some disruption that we added. S words to plowshares. Oh, yeah. One white for an instant exile target creature. It's controller gains life equal to its power. Classic. One drop slot. Perfect. Pop, pop. It's going to be pretty easy for you to hold a little bit of mana up. Four mana makes your mana awkward sometimes and you have all these tapped lands. So you've got little windows to spend one drops and you're going to need a way to defend yourself. You look really free to attack. Make sure your opponents think twice. Yep. We always love a swords. Two bucks for a sword to plowshares. And you've got a bunch of them in the box somewhere, you know. For sure. All right. I love this card. I keep trying to find places for it. And I think this is a good one. It's $2 for mystic reflection. It's one in a blue for an instant that has four tell, and it can foretell for just one blue. It says choose target non-legendary creature. The next time one or more creatures or planeswalkers enter the battlefield this turn, they enter as copies of the chosen creature. So let's say Rachel's about to cast a big commander, a chroma. And I've got a rogue rock over here. Classic, Rachel. Classic. Oh, non-legendary. Excuse me. That's your... I've got a kobold token over here. Oh, yeah. So I cast my mystic reflection targeting the kobold with Rachel's commander on the stack, and it enters as a kobold. But let's say I've got just doofy stuff over here. I've got no answers, but you've got a big stinker over there. Like, I don't know, vigor or something cool. I can cast my doofy thing and then have it enter as whatever you've got that's really cool. Mystic reflection is those kinds of cards that's super flexible and you can always find a cool thing to do with it. And in this deck, there's actually two really cool tricks you can do with it. It comes with both... In the pre-con naturally, is both Avenger of Zendikar and Belonging. So these are big creatures that enter and make a ton of tokens all at once. Belonging makes three 1-1 shapeshifters, and Avenger of Zendikar, of course, makes plants equal to the number of lands you control. So with your mystic reflection, you can cheat one of these things into play. So you cheat Belonging into play for four. You put the ETB trigger, the making three shapeshifters on the stack, cast Mystic Reflection, choosing Belonging, and now your three shapeshifter tokens enter as Belonging and gives you nine shapeshifter tokens after that. It's a whole family tree. It's pretty cool. So there's actually two cards that Mystic Reflection works really, really well with already in the deck, and it gives you a little bit of disruption and a little bit of tricks. And it's a pseudo-removal spell. That's one of those weird things where you can enchant somebody's commander and make it go away, but not really. You can kind of do the same thing with Mystic Reflection if you're playing defensively. But yeah, it's a cool offensive card and a fun little combo piece. Yeah, it's a good way to stop a crater hoof, which is fun too. Not a lot of cards do that. All right, so those are our two pieces of disruption, swords, and Mystic Reflection, both $2. Next, we're going to get into the promised cost reduction section. It's good. It's good. It's going to be great. And this first one is the best end you have to pay for it. It is $16 for this friend, and you might recognize him. And it sounds like a metal band, Animar Soul of Elements. It's a legendary creature elemental 1-1 classic commander card, protection from white and black. And whenever you cast a creature spell, put a 1-1 counter on Animar Soul of Elements. And creature spells you cast cost one less to cast for each 1-1 counter on Animar. You get 4 on there. We're evoking for free. Gross. Hooey. This is the card. You've got to pick this one up. This is the one that goes infinite with Gravesifter pretty easily, and it's a really neat combo that you don't get to see every day. Plus, you're giving your opponent stuff back from the graveyard. So I think this one's cool. Animar in the 99 is such a cool flex. Because this card is so fun. It's a real deck on its own. But when it's in the command zone, everybody goes, oh, it's an Animar deck, and this is like a perfect place for it. You could play him. I think you get a little bit of admiration for this, you know? I agree. Oh, that's too cool. That's what magic's all about. That's magic, baby. And he's an elemental. Getting two of them doesn't help so much. Don't don't evoke him. No, that's not a good idea. Yeah. Not today. But he's really good with your commander's ability. Up next, I am shocked this card isn't in the deck. It's Brighthearth Bannerette. One in a red for a creature elemental warrior, elemental spells, and warriors you play cost one less to play. It has reinforced, but we're not here for that. This is a two-mana elemental that reduces the casting cost of 41 cards in your deck. It's like being a Costco member. It pays for itself right away. Such a good play on turn two. Such a good play on even later, where it's going to save you so much more mana than it costs. Yeah, we love that on turn two especially because Ashling's an elemental too. It comes in cheaper. It's so good. And only $1.25 to pick up a Brighthearth Bannerette. I think it's Bannerette. I think I've heard the professor say it before. Bannerette. Well, the professor always gets it right. He's an English professor. He probably knows. Yeah, he's Bannerette English. Bannerette might be. I don't know. Bannerette. Up onto the next card. Heartless summoning. I love this in this deck. This is cool. It's one in a black for an enchantment. Creature spells you cast cost two less to cast, and creatures you control get minus one, minus one. Oh no. Oh, well, I'm not really concerned too much with the power and toughness of my creatures anyway. It's not about that. Yeah, your deck is about ETBs. It's about ramping and drawing and getting more value. And this is so much value. You don't care if they're a little smaller. I think I'd prefer two mediums to one large. Yeah, it is not a good combo with Brighthearth Bannerette, but don't play them both at the same time. It'll be fine. Just be smart, okay? You got two cost reduced right here. You can evoke twice. You're fine. Just play smart. Don't be greedy. I mean, Harleys Summoning is such a cool card, and I love that this deck is five colors, because it means you can sneak it in here. It's going to feel awesome when it's on the battlefield. Yeah. Finally, we are adding one of the most famous draw engines of all time. If you're ever trying to trap Rachel Weeks in like a hole or something in the forest, you can bait her out with a skull clamp. That's the one. I'll come running. I added this, and I'm like, yeah, she's going to have no issue with that one. No, it's great. Skull Clamp is awesome. We need, with all the cost reducers, you need more bursts of card advantage. You need stuff like Gravesifter. You need stuff like Skull Clamp that says, when stuff dies, I draw a whole bunch of cards. What problems do we have? We have a little bit of extra mana here and there, because our mana is awkwardly rounded. So Skull Clamp is a great place to put it, of just an extra one here or there to drop it and equip same turn or just to equip to something. But if we can equip to that token that we made, it's for sure dying. So now you grab two cards on top of that. It's pretty good. This is sweet. It's a great Skull Clamp deck. It's not necessarily one that you look at and you're like, this is a Skull Clamp deck either, which I really love, because I'm all about jamming Skull Clamp into any deck that it can go in. This is about as tertiary as it gets of like, okay, well, I'm going to be doing this. So I might as well do this, and then I'll do this. I think with Skull Clamp, yeah, we're going to be dying. So let's grab some cards. Great. All right. That's the ads. It totals to $36.75. So keep a little for yourself. That's for you. Buy yourself something nice. Buy yourself something nice. Maybe a foil, maybe like it was a Zincubator that didn't fit the budget. Get yourself something nice. Untapped lands. Get yourself fetch land. The deck will thank you. And $14 for fetch land. It's a good time to be alive. All right. So those are the 10, but there's some cool cards that you can add from the main set. We don't usually have them in the official upgrade, because we don't typically know the prices when we're recording this. So you get some bonus additions that you can add if you'd like. I love this one. Twin Flame Travelers, two, a blue and a red for a creature elemental sorcerer. It's got flying. It's a 3-3. And if a triggered ability of another elemental you control triggers, it triggers an additional time. Classic. You get another Ashling. Yeah. I mean, anytime an elemental enters the battlefield, you're already getting two with your commander in place. So you might as well get four. Wait, does Ashling give you two? Whenever you sacrifice a non-token elemental, create a token that's a copy of it. I think you get two whenever an ability of an elemental controls trigger. Yeah. Yes. When you have this in play with Ashling, you cheat a creature into play and you get double the ETBs. Then you sacrifice it on a Vogue, which triggers Ashling. Oh, triggers her again. So you get two tokens, which both trigger twice when they enter. Never saw it coming. Gnarly. Gotta add this card to your deck. On a flying 3-3. Come on. Pretty nice. You gotta add this one too. It's Sunder Flock. Seven blue blue for a creature elemental. It costs X less to cast where X is the greatest mana value among elementals you control. When this creature enters, if you cast it, return all non-elemental creatures to their owner's hands. Good thing you have all elementals. Yeah. This is not really a thing that we care about doubling the trigger of, but we might be able to pay cash price for it. Yeah. If we've evoked something out and then, oh, it's got seven mana value, pay two for this. Yeah. Cool. And you get to keep your Sunder Flock around. Yeah. This card's great. It's going to be perfect for your deck. If you open one, you definitely slam it into your Ashling deck. Yeah. Up next is Irdu, Carrier of Dawn, or Isilu, Carrier of Twilight. They're the transforming ones. So Irdu on the front, Isilu on the back. Irdu says, creatures spells you cast have convoke, and then it flips into Isilu. Each other non-token creature you control has... Persist. That's the one we care about. Yep. To get them back. They pass away, they come back to life. With a minus one, minus one counter on it. It's pretty good. You get to reuse that ETB an additional time. We love it. It's three off of that, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's another one that's perfect to add. Honestly, it really should have come in this pre-connets and uncommon land that when this land enters, choose Elemental Elf, Fairy, Giant, Goblin, Kid... We choose Elemental, and it taps for one mana of any color as long as it's used to cast Elemental spells. It comes in untapped. It's a five-color Elemental land, and adding that redundancy to your mana base, having one more untapped land, is going to make a big difference. Love it. Oh, finally, I had an idea that if you cut... After our cuts, there's only one or two cuts that you need to make to make Kaheera the Orphan Guard your companion, because each creature guard in your deck is an Elemental, so it meets that companion stipulation. So you get a free Kaheera if you cut the one guard that we're going to suggest and the Faberow Elder. And how do you feel about the companion mechanic? I know you love it. I love it. I'm a commander player. It's never hurt me. It's basically a three-mana tutor for this card specifically. Free kitty? I accept. We talk a lot about Ashling actually in the most powerful commander's episodes. If you want more cards to add or a more in-depth conversation about building Ashling from scratch, go watch that episode. We go into this card a lot. We don't usually include face commanders in that episode, but because Ashling can be built in so many ways, we dove down that rabbit hole pretty deep. So let's talk about the cards to cut. We've added 10 cards. We must shoot 10 into the sky and light their boats on fire. Yeah, first is Hoth Prince of the Stag. It's one in a white for an enchantment. And when you draw a card, you put a counter on it and you spend three to remove four counters and make an Elemental with it. Slow. No. Too slow. Too slow. It's like two mana, four draws, and an additional three mana to get one 4-4. We're in the business of 4-4s, baby. We don't need this. Yeah, I'm not about that. Up next is Shimmer Creep. This is one of the vivid cards. We're just sort of cutting back on the color matter stuff. It's not super well supported in the deck and doesn't really need to be in there. Yeah, and it just drains. It's not light in the world on fire. Okay. Okay. Next, Elemental Spectacle. 500 for a sorcery and you create a number of 5-5 Elementals equal to your vivid count. Nice. We're cutting down on the vivid payoffs once again. And you gain some life of it too. Kindred Summons. This is a seven mana instant that gets Elementals into play. We've got lots of ways to get Elementals into play and we've increased our card draw. We don't really need a seven mana instant to do so. Yeah, I'm not waiting for one card to kind of explode my board in that way. Our mana is also pretty stressed as it is. I wouldn't spend seven mana on an instant. Yeah, just working in such large denominations. Not great. Next is Spring Leaf Parade. It's X, Green, Green for an enchantment. When it enters, we make X-11 Shape Shifters and creature tokens you have tapped for mana now. This is a cool card. I think it goes in a lot of decks, but this isn't really a go wide deck. You're not going to have a ton of stuff on the battlefield, so you're not super well positioned to take advantage of this ability unless you put a ton into X. And that's just a very expensive way to get you a sort of tentative ramp. Yeah, it's probably nicer with the other commander. It's got a home because they're all shape shifters. So keep your eye on this card, but probably not for this deck. Yeah, I think this card's sweet. Up next is Impulsivity. This is seven mana for an elemental incarnation. It's a seven-five. When it enters, you may cast Target Instant or Source Recard from a graveyard without paying its mana cost if that spell will be put into a graveyard excelling instead. So it's a very powerful ETB in some decks, but you cannot reliably assume that your opponents have something that is worth you actually casting this spell, especially if you're getting more ETBs off of it. If you're populating, you're just going to run out of targets, and it's going to be kind of a big dumb guy. And the on-core ability is fun because it hangs out until you're ready for it, but you're just going to end up with this clogging your hand quite a bit. Feels that way. Next is Gigantha, the Wellspring for an a hybrid mana, green or red. It's a legendary creature, elemental elk. It's a five-five and has companion, and the restriction is no card in your starting deck can have more than one mana symbol of the same type. Yes. So we can't have five green-green or something. It's got to be all different spells. Then it taps for Uberg, and this mana can't be spent on generic mana costs. Yeah, Gigantha is sweet, and I like the idea here because Gigantha is an elemental, but your commander asks for a lot of generic mana. Two mana in its casting cost, at least that unless you're recasting it, of course, it's even more, or in that four generic mana to evoke. So this is a five mana ramp piece that doesn't necessarily give you the mana you need to do your commander more. It comes in as like a worse timeless lotus too, which by the way, sorry, we're cutting timeless lotus. Yeah. It had to happen. We've got better ways to keep the tokens around. You just don't... We're getting them in corporate. Paying Uberg to keep one token in play when you could populate it or do something easier to keep the token around just doesn't make a ton of sense. Let's say you untap on turn five. My turn. I tap out and cast timeless lotus. It enters tapped. I'm so relieved. Oh my gosh. I've got two mana to spare and nothing in hand. Yeah. Do you move? Like, that's boring. You just can't really pass the turn like that with this card. I think it's too expensive. It's too slow. It's gonna feel pretty bad. Yeah. Finally. Oh no, not finally. Up next is... And ultimately. And ultimately is Selvala Heart of the Wilds. This is a very powerful magic card that gives you a lot of mana if you have high power creatures. But we're cutting a couple of high power creatures in this list of cards to cut. So you're not guaranteed to really have anything that's going to give you a ton of mana. She's gonna make you like three mana, which... Yeah. Which seven in some situations. Like, it could be... It's just... You don't know what you're gonna get. Selvala's really good in power matters decks and this deck can't reliably produce that much power. It does help with fixing, which is cool. And it might help us pay for that Wuburg trigger on end step. But it's just... I don't want to be saving myself all for... All right, I'll spend five on the Wuburg. Let four fizzle or whatever the number is. Big burst of mana is definitely good. I just don't... It doesn't work with enough cards in the deck for me to want to put a Selvala in it. If I was building it from scratch, I wouldn't put it in, which means this is a free Selvala. You can put in another deck. We love that about this box. Good cards for elsewhere. Like, Bane of Progress. Yeah, Bane of Progress is an elemental. He's good, but we're adding some cooler ones. And you do have kind of a fair amount of artifacts and enchantments that you like. So don't blow them up. And the first... The first ETP is going to go off. So you're going to destroy all artifacts and enchantments. The next one comes in, destroys nothing and gets no counters. That's true. If we're evoking it, then it's just a 2-2 swimming. That is true. If you use it with your commander's ability, your big one dies immediately. It's not that card. It's not bad to include. Yeah, that just doesn't work exactly the way that you want it to in this deck. So there's plenty of mass disruption. And you'd rather your mass disruption be on creatures anyway. So, okay, those are the 10 that we chose to cut. Let us know if you think we're crazy in the comments. We know you will. I'm not crazy. Listen, I don't rock with people who haven't screamed. I'm not crazy. That is the upgrade. Those are the 10 to add, 10 to cut. But we're going to talk about how this deck plays. Some tips that we recommend for piloting it in just a couple of minutes. So stick around. If you want to pick up this pre-con or any of the cards we talked about in this episode, go over to cardkingdom.com slash command and get the dance off the elements pre-con or the dance of the elephants pre-con, whichever you'd prefer. Plus, we have the list for this upgrade in the show notes. If you go down and click on the deck list, you can copy directly from there. You can go straight to card kingdom, paste it into their advanced deck building tool, pick all of the versions that you want, pick all of the printings and conditions that you want, all of the foils, hit check out and you don't have to spend all day doing it. I don't like shopping for cards forever. I just want the cards to show up on my doorstep. So I trust card kingdom because I know they're going to get them to me safe and I know they're going to get me the right version. Plus, you can support the show if you use your affiliate link at card kingdom.com slash command. Finally, once those cards are in your hand, you've got to protect them. Get them sleeved, get them in a deck box, put them on a play mat, go to ultra pro.com slash command. They just released a new line of Final Fantasy sleeves like apex sleeves with the art from Final Fantasy and a new play mat. Go check it out. They're very cool and I know the last time they did Final Fantasy stuff, they sold out really fast. So if you're a Final Fantasy fan, go check out their website and if you don't want to miss this drop or other one sign up for their newsletter, they'll let you know what stuff is coming out on their website when and when they have big sales. If you're like me and you go on a deck building frenzy, you buy a ton of deck boxes and play mats all at once, all the sleeves you need all at once. So it's nice when they're on sale and ultra pro's got some great ones. So sign up for that newsletter and support us when you shop at ultra pro.com slash command. Yes, sorry. All right, let's talk about how this deck plays. We've seen a little bit of it. We've done a little bit of playing with these pre cons. Let's give the kids some tips. I think have a plan. Number one, like we always break this down whenever it comes up of what are you doing on one? What are you doing on two? Know your script and you know, you deviate as necessary, obviously, but what are you trying to do? So for me, it's basically nothing on one. We don't, anything that's a one drop in this deck, apart from a couple of cases, we probably don't want to play it on one. So play land pass, turn two, ramp, do something to reduce those costs. And then three, we cast commander four, we have an elemental to do something. So when you're mulligining, you make sure you see the pieces you need to get through those first couple turns in that way. I would also say the first elemental that you hit the board either needs to be really sweet and gets you a ton of value or should be pretty innocuous and get you a little bit of value because you really rely on your commander in this deck. You don't want your opponents to freak out, remove your commander right away because that's going to set you back a ways. So you want something that's just kind of going to get you a little bit of value and is going to set you up for the next turn where maybe then you can go nuts and make it clear they need to remove your commander. You lay low. You don't get that label as the guy who comes over and just starts punching people. This is a slapping contest. When you cheat a thing into play and they're both gone and then they remove your commander, you're like, great, I have nothing on my board and I'm spending five mana on a two, three. You just can't afford to lose your commander that early in the game, especially with the curve being this high. You'll end up paying more for the elemental stand over time than just hard casting them. Don't run her out lightly, have a plan like Jake said that's going to help, but and definitely figure out how you're going to defend yourself because you're going to get a lot of value, which means you're going to flag as a threat at smart tables and you're going to need to defend yourself from attacks, especially when you only have your Ashland commander in play. So figure out how you're going to have a board presence, figure out how you're going to defend yourself and or figure out how to kill your opponents faster than they can kill you. Before they know what's even going on, it's a raid. Yeah, we added all these cost reducers. Honestly, you might be able to just get under them. Yeah, game's over. Thanks for coming by everybody. Door's over there. I mean, that is an absolutely fair way to build this is just be straight aggressive, get as much value as you can super fast, overwhelm your opponents. And I think that's how this deck is going to feel the best. Otherwise, you definitely need a way to block. Those cost reducers are going to be so nice. So cool. Because let's say things don't go our way. A lot of times in life, that's what we got to deal with is making some lemonade. So if the commander keeps getting removed, cost reduction is going to handle all the high end curve stuff that's loaded in this deck. Absolutely. All right. That's the episode. That's the upgrade. We're going to move to the cleanup step and thank everybody in the office for making this episode and all of our episodes possible. Thank you to Sebastian Salazar, Karina Cruz, Josh Diaz, John Schneider, Garov Galati, Jamie Block, Jordan Pridgen, Becky Bell, Rachel Kendra, Eric Lem, Manson Lung, Josh Murphy, Evan Limburger, Sam Waldo, Josh Lequie, Jimmy Wong, and of course to Jake Paws for taking time out of his busy schedule to come talk about Magic the Gathering with me and you. We love cards. Bye.