Preview Season for Magic: the Gathering‘s newest set, Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, is finally over. The last things previewed are the new Commander Precon decks. We saw yesterday our recommendations for “upgrades” for the “Upgrades Unleashed” deck, and today, we’ll look at the other deck, “Buckle Up”. We’ll break down some awesome upgrades that you can pick up to power up this deck!
The Mana
Upon looking at the deck list, one of the clear stick out things is that there’s SO many basic lands in this deck. There are 30 total basics which is WAY too many. There’s a few great lands that we’d recommend picking up to diversity the mana a bit more, as well as provide great utility.
Right out of the gate, we can diversify our mana by adding in a few dual lands. The price of these lands have come down quite a bit, so it’s a fairly easy pick up. Here’s a few other duals that are pretty inexpensive that you can pick up.
- Deserted Beach | Buy on TCGPlayer
- Glacial Fortres | Buy on TCGPlayer
- Adarkar Wastes | Buy on TCGPlayer
- Mystic Gate | Buy on TCGPlayer
- Hengegate Pathway | Buy on TCGPlayer
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There’s a few more, but these are the best. Additionally, there’s a few really good utility lands that work very well with this deck.
First up on the list is Academy Ruins. This is great as a way to recur our powerful vehicles from the graveyard. Next is Inventors’ Fair. This is incidental life gain, but also allows us to fetch up a vehicle from our library. Lastly, Command Beacon is a generally good land, letting us cheat a little bit on commander tax.
Vehicle Upgrades
There’s quite a few vehicles that have been added to the game, and honestly, WotC nailed a bunch of the really good ones. There are a few that I really like, and would definitely recommend picking up.
First up we have Consulate Dreadnought. This is a REALLY high power creature, but is held back by it’s high crew cost. In our deck, that’s hardly an issue, as we can cheat on that cost very easily. Next up is The Omenkeel, or the flip side of Cosima, God of the Voyage. Another cheap vehicle that can steal some of our opponent’s lands, which can be useful.
Lastly, Phyrexian Metamorph is an honorary vehicle, as it can become any vehicle that we have in play, as well as any creature, which is always a great tool to have at our disposal.
Other Upgrade Consideraions
As always, there’s a bunch of cards that can be changed out for this deck, so we’ll highlight some of the top picks, and list of the rest.
Each of these cards here give us some benefit to the deck. Tezzeret the Seeker lets us untap 2 of our vehicles, allowing them to possibly be crewed to block, but more importantly is another tutor for our vehicles. Darksteel Forge gives our artifacts (and artifact tokens) staying power through board wipes. Lastly Vedalken Orrery is a great card for any deck, but will allow us to cast spells at instant speed.
Here’s a list of some of the other cards that we considered for this deck.
- Padeem, Consul of Innovation
- Whir of Invention
- Enlightened Tutor
- Thought Monitor
- One With The Machine
- Refurbish
- Rise and Shine
- Wonder
- Skilled Animator
- Manifold Key
- Unwinding Clock
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READ MORE: Vehicles Are About To Become Absurd In Commander
Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Upgrades
Obviously, since this is a Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty preconstructed deck, you’d want to play some of the cards from the main set in the deck. While there’s a handful of them already here, there’s a few that definitely should make the cut.
Here’s just a few of the highlights for cards we’d recommend for this deck from the main set. While we got a good number of the good vehicles from the main set, Mechtitan Core was left out. This is a fantastic boss creatures to really put some hurt on our opponents.
Both Brilliant Restoration and Invoke Justice are reanimation spells for our artifacts, which is great for us to get back into a game. Hotshot Mechanic is a another great way to cheat on crew costs, and can give us a little one-two punch with Consulate Dreadnought. Born to Drive is a super interesting card, as it’s a almost like a All That Glitters, which if we’re making a bunch of tokens, can beef up a creature to immense heights.
READ MORE: An OP Aura Tutor In the Command Zone Will Kill Opponents in One Blow
The Buckle Up deck is really sweet, and definitely cool seeing support for an often forgotten archetype. What upgrades would you add to this deck? Let us know in the comments!
