2023 has been a big year for Magic. This is mostly for good reasons, but a lot has undeniably taken place. We’ve had a new format introduced to MTG Arena, a bunch of new sets and Universes Beyond crossovers, and even had a new ‘most expensive’ MTG card introduced to the TCG, a One-of-one serialized Ring now owned by Post Malone.
With Christmas coming up and everyone preparing New Year’s resolutions to ignore a month later, players may be looking for some MTG goodies to open. Sadly, with sealed product prices going up, and singles starting to stagnate in price changes, buying sealed MTG products is becoming worse and worse… for the most part.
There are still some amazing gifts to find in recent sealed MTG products, but a majority of them have guaranteed hauls. We recently looked at the most valuable Commander preconstructed decks on the secondary market, and two of the top five happened to be released this year. It is rather easy to recoup your value by purchasing these Commander pre-cons, but it’s tough to get ahead.
That, however, is if you’re buying it. To celebrate the beginning of a new year, we happen to be giving it away!
The Best Pre-Con of 2023
Two preconstructed Commander decks blow the rest out of the competition this year, in both a value and a gameplay sense. If you’re looking at unlocking some seriously powerful Commander decks out-of-box, Hosts of Mordor and Eldrazi Unbound are your best answers.
Between the two, Hosts of Mordor, at least in personal experience, is a little bit better right out-of-box in terms of gameplay, as it bests a wider range of common Commander strategies. Eldrazi Unbound, while commonly retailing for a bit more, also offers a bit more value.
Not only are we giving away a Commander pre-con from the most expensive set of pre-cons of the year, but we’re giving away the best one! Let’s take a look at Eldrazi Unbound!
Best Cards
Eldrazi Unbound consists of 90 reprints and ten new-to-MTG cards introduced alongside the release of Commander Masters back in August. Many of the deck-exclusive cards from Eldrazi Unbound are rather popular. Players looking to construct a colorless Commander deck, an artifact deck, or decks that otherwise have an Eldrazi theme will want more than one of this deck’s exclusives in their collection.
Typically, face Commanders aren’t some of the most expensive cards on the secondary market, but Eldrazi Unbound breaks this trend wide open.
Zhudolok, Void Gorger is one of the most desirable cards in the deck. Turning one of your colorless bombs into three different cards is an absolutely incredible amount of value. You can even trigger Zhudolok’s Cascade ability multiple times in a turn, but do remember that you need to cast your colorless spells from your hand, so your Cascaded cards will not trigger Zhudolok again.
Rise of the Eldrazi is another incredibly valuable exclusive card from Eldrazi Unbound. Able to refill your hand, destroy the biggest threat on the board, and take an extra turn, Rise of the Eldrazi is definitely worth the 12 mana you need to spend to cast it.
Breaking this down a tad bit more, Rise of the Eldrazi is a sorcery version of each of the original Eldrazi Titan’s cast triggers. Kozilek, Butcher of Truth draws four cards, Ulamog, the Infinite Gyre destroys a permanent, and Emrakul, the Aeons Torn takes an extra turn.
While these are the most expensive, and otherwise most sought-after cards in the deck, there are multiple other powerful cards that can impact your Commander games as well. Flayer of Loyalties can deal a ton of damage to your opponents out of nowhere. It that Betrays helps convert your Annihilator payoffs into something that furthers your board presence even further. Darksteel Monolith can provide a ridiculous amount of value alongside something like Vedalken Orrery.
It may not seem like it, but the Wastes that come in the Eldrazi Unbound deck are worth a surprising amount of money. Other basic land cards are widely available at any LGS for draft purposes, and therefore do not hold any value outside of fancy variants. Wastes, however, have a bit of value attached regardless of the copy because of how comparatively scarce they are.
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Total Value?
According to MTGgoldfish.com, the contents of the Eldrazi Unbound Commander deck still retail for about $122, which makes it the most valuable preconstructed deck of 2023, and one of the most valuable preconstructed Commander decks in Magic’s 30-year history.
Because there is so much value contained within the Eldrazi Unbound preconstructed deck, it can be difficult to find the product for a good deal. This deck aged much better than the rest of the Commander Masters preconstructed decks, which makes it just that much more desirable.
If you want to win a copy of Eldrazi Unbound in our MTGRocks giveaway, here’s what you need to do to win!
MTGRocks Giveaway: How to Enter
Entering the giveaway is actually pretty easy. A popup should appear if you’re eligible for the giveaway. All you need to do is create a free account on MTGRocks by putting your email down! If you’re reading our content a lot already, this will help keep you updated with everything Magic-related in the days to come.
If you haven’t seen the popup yourself, you can give this link a try.
Depending on how you found this article, you may have even seen the MTGRocks giveaway pop up on your screen on your way to it.
As an important note: this giveaway is only available to readers in the US. If you’re located outside of this region, the pop-up will not appear.
We’ll be sure to announce the winners of the MTGRocks giveaway on our Facebook page. If you aren’t a part of that now, we encourage you to join to keep an eye out for the lucky winner.
Best of luck, and a happy holiday season to everyone, and a huge thanks to all who took the time to read our ramblings throughout 2023!
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