Magic: the Gathering preconstructed commander decks have always been a favored product in the community. Over the years, they have become more powerful and fun, often being very playable right out of the box. Even still, a great thing to do is to pick up some upgrades. There’s usually always some under powered cards in the deck and even cheap upgrades can bring the power level up quite a bit. Today, we’ll cover 10 must buy upgrades for the new “Aura of Courage” precon commander deck that releases with Adventures in the Forgotten Realms.
Cheap Upgrades (Under $10)
Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist – ~$0.29
The first card that we recommend looking at is Ardenn, Intrepid Archaeologist. This creature allows you to shift any number of auras and equipment to a creature or player at the beginning of combat. This can allow you to move curses around to different players, or various removal enchantments to blockers. This is also a quick way to suit up an unblockable creature to push in for a lot of damage. At 29 cents, it’s definitely worth the pick up.
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Open the Armory – ~$0.44
Next up is Open the Armory. Having a cheap way to search for an equipment or aura card from your deck can be a really powerful thing. Having the ability to pick and choose between an enchantment to remove a permanent or an equipment to push through more damage gives you an edge to deal with various situations in the game. Another cheap pick up here as well and under 50 cents.
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All That Glitters – ~$0.75
The first aura that we’d recommend picking up is All That Glitters. This powerful aura is an all-star in Standard and Historic and can help you create a big creature very quickly. Between your other auras, equipment, artifacts and enchantments, whatever creature this is enchanted on will be massive. If you bought into Throne of Eldraine, you may already have a copy lying around, and even if not, it’s under a buck so it’s an easy buy.
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Sigarda’s Aid – ~$4.00
One of the most powerful spells for this deck that you can get is Sigarda’s Aid. When you can flash in Auras and Enchantments, and essentially instant speed equip in the middle of combat is incredibly strong. Also you get the best equipment paring in the deck already in Colossus Hammer. For 4 dollars, this is an upgrade that brings up your deck’s power up quite a bit.
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Halvar, God of Battle / Sword of the Realms – ~$8.00
Last on the cheap upgrades is Halvar, God of Battle. This creature doubles up as an equipment as well, and both sides of the card are good. Usually, equipment will have abilities that trigger when the creature damages a player. Havlar giving equipped or enchanted creatures double strike triggers those abilities twice. We also get a similar effect to Ardenn, where we can move an equipment or aura to a new creature. This is on the upper end of the cheap upgrades, but you can find the showcase version for the same price to bring a little flair to your deck as well.
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Expensive Upgrades ($10+)
Kaldra Compleat – ~$11
Our first expensive pick is Kaldra Compleat. The new power house living weapon equipment from Modern Horizons 2 is definitely one of the most powerful equipment out there. Living weapon is a strong ability, but the keyword soup that this equipment gives is incredible. Couple this with some of our cheaper picks, and you have a powerful combination.
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Esper Sentinel – ~$14.00
Next up is Esper Sentinel. Another Modern Horizons 2 all star, this card pairs up well with our equipment and enchantment theme. If we can beef up this creature, our opponents will have to play quite a bit differently, as we can counter their first noncreature spell each turn if they don’t have the extra mana to pay for our tax.
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Blade of Selves – ~$20
Our 3rd expensive pick is Blade of Selves. This powerful equipment lets us create copies of the equipped creature when we attack, which can yield some powerful results. Some key creatures in the precon that this could do well with would be Knight of Autumn, Cold-Eyed Selkie, or Acidic Slime. If you trade out some of the other creatures in the deck, this card gets even better.
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Smothering Tithe – ~$30
It goes without saying that Smothering Tithe is one of the most powerful enchantments in the commander format. While this isn’t an aura, it definitely plays well with our other artifact and enchantment synergies. There’s very little that needs to be said, but at $30, it is a bit of a pricey pick up, but definitely worth it.
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Stoneforge Mystic – ~$65
The last pick of the list is Stoneforge Mystic. If there’s ever a deck that has equipment in it, this card goes hand in hand with it. This card is a combination of parts of Open the Armory and Sigarda’s Aid. It’s really expensive because of it’s playability in Modern and Legacy, but it’s worth the upgrade. This also works really well with Blade of Selves, which can let you get more equipment when the tokens enter the battlefield.
The new commander decks look awesome! We’ll be doing upgrade articles for each of them, so stay tuned for those! These commander decks release on the 23rd when Adventures in the Forgotten Realms releases in Paper. You can preorder these decks here! There’s a bunch of other cards to put into this deck, what ones would you track down first? Let us know in the comments!
