The Evolution of Precons and the Death of Casual

    I have noticed a new trend lately that I was wanting to test out. Over the past few weeks, I told players in rule zero to play their worst deck they had with them from a power level perspective. Against those opponents, I would grab a preconstructed deck at random and play and track the results. When I played a strict precon against random players in casual/low power pods, those decks would win over half the time. Most of the precons are ones I was given as gifts or had bought to play as precons specifically and I did not have a lot of experience knowing what good hands would look like or the order I should plan out my turns. I really wish I could say that with my amazing piloting skills, I was able to expertly navigate the ins and outs of the boardstate toward victory and won the games with a grandmaster level of intuition… but that would absolutely, one hundred percent be a lie. The real reason is much simpler. But before I get to that, a brief history on the precons.


    In 2011, Wizards of the Coast announced that Commander would be an official Magic: The Gathering format. With this announcement came the very first pre constructed decks with cards specifically designed for commander. This product brought us some amazing commanders, such as Animar, Riku, and Kaalia. The problem with these decks was the focus was very scattered. In a way it was almost like Wizards of the Coast took two or three deck ideas and stitched them together to create one singular deck that was pulled in multiple directions. In the grand scheme of things this was beneficial to the player base as a player could pick up the deck and build 2-3 decks out of the parts and also provided Wizards of the Coast a way to reprint cards that were needed for the health of the format. Around 2016-2017, things got interesting with the release of the partner commanders and the typal commander decks.


    The partners were powerful commanders with relatively vague abilities that could bring another commander along for additional synergies or more importantly, extra colors. We still several of these partner commanders in cEDH. 2017 was the year we started seeing universally good EDH staples with Teferi’s protection. These cards were so powerful and desired that in most decks it didn't make sense to NOT run them. This put the market in a scarcity where it made financial sense to buy an entire precons for the $60 card than to buy the single. This made it extremely difficult for new MTG players that were simply wanting to buy the vampire deck to find it unless they wanted to pay a significantly higher price on the secondary market. This became the model for the precons until more recent precons in which wizards tried to resolve the scarcity issue.


    Wizards was put in a very interesting position. How do you provide value to precons so they would sell, but not add enough value that creates scarcity? The answer that Wizards came up with was in the cards they designed. For example, in past sets, if a deck was needing a board wipe, wizards would usually add a card like Austere Command or Wrath of God. Now, we’re getting cards like Damning Verdict, and Hour of Reckoning. Hour of Reckoning is a sweeper that has convoke, allowing a player to take advantage of tokens. Damning Verdict is a sweeper that leaves behind all creatures that have counters on them. These cards are good cards for the specific decks that they are being built for rather than universally. So if you have a very powerful card that works in the deck, players want to pick up the deck to get that card. But, since the cards are not good in every deck like Dockside Extortionist and Fierce Guardianship, it doesn’t sell to the point where the price of the card exceeds the cost of the precon so the precons aren't being snatched up by sellers on the secondary market.

    By adding these powerful cards to sell the precons while reducing the subthemes and also improving the ratio of removal, ram, and draw to the decks, we’re at a point where upcoming precons are actually at a higher power level then your average lower power “fair” deck. Now, the issue isn’t with having quality for the precons you’re paying for, but when the entry level product is coming in at a higher power level than the average lower power deck, we’re entering a time where lower power level is going to become harder to find players that actually have decks. This could potentially hurt the health of the format if it hurts players’ ability to find games to play IF we are not able to adapt. Powerful cards are being printed every set. Curves are getting lower, games play faster, and bombs are more frequent. Players need to adapt to this. Lowering your mana curve is important. Playing enough ramp and card draw is important. Having answers for game ending threats is important. If not, the phrase “It’s just a precon” might become “Be careful, it's a precon.”