In the annals of iconic Magic planes, Mirrodin is a tier-one contender for sure. The idea of an all-artifact plane still resonates today, and its slow corruption into New Phyrexia remains one of the game’s most tragic, compelling narratives. The plane’s lasting appeal is bolstered no end by its huge suite of fantastic MTG cards, too, including the highly underrated Precursor Golem. With its unique suite of abilities, this is an excellent piece for a wide range of different archetypes.
Precursor Golem MTG
Right out of the gate, Precursor Golem builds you an impressive board presence, bringing in three 3/3 creatures for just five mana. Even by current Commander standards, that’s not bad at all, and it gets even better when paired with ways to reuse the enters trigger.
Blink effects like Conjurer’s Closet are great picks here, as are cheap reanimation spells like Animate Dead. You can even double the trigger with cards like Panharmonicon, too, to overwhelm your opponents with your Golem army. Used this way, Precursor Golem also becomes a great way to put a ton of artifacts in play at once, opening up synergies with cards like Inspiring Statuary and Mechanized Production.
As if this wasn’t enough, Precursor Golem also multiplies your instants and sorceries you cast on it, allowing for some huge value plays. This ability is particularly good with cheap cantrips, like Leap, which become incredible draw spells even with just the base three Golems around. You can also turn Snap into a massive ritual spell by bouncing your Golem board with it. To lean harder into this ability, you can play additional Golem generators, like Golem Foundry. Alternatively, just make all of your creatures Golems with Maskwood Nexus, and watch your spell copies pile up.
Unfortunately, this spell-copying ability is a double-edged sword, as it works for your opponents’ removal, too. For this reason, you’ll want to include some protection to stop your five-mana investment dying to a single Abrade. The best solution here is to run mass Hexproof granters, like Cryptothrall and Asceticism, but more traditional protection like Heroic Intervention also works a treat.
Go Go Golems!
As useful as Precursor Golem is in a fair game of MTG, it’s even better as a combo enabler. Pair it up with Nim Deathmantle and Ashnod’s Altar, for example, and you have a recipe for infinite mana and infinite creature tokens. Simply sacrifice Precursor Golem and one of the Golems it came with for four mana, Then pay four to activate Deathmantle, bringing Golem back. From here you can rinse and repeat, generating infinite 3/3 tokens that can win with a Haste granter like Mass Hysteria. If you’d rather make infinite mana instead, you can cash the Golems in with Altar to pay for a Walking Ballista win.
Precursor Golem also lets you cast your entire deck in one turn with Urza, Lord High Artificer and Deadeye Navigator. Urza lets you tap Precursor Golem and the two tokens for three blue mana, two of which you can use to blink Golem with Navigator, assuming the two are paired. You can repeat this infinitely for infinite blue mana, which you can then sink into Urza’s ability to exile everything in your deck, and cast it in the order of your choosing. There’s no shortage of ways to win like this, but Thassa’s Oracle is an easy, on-color option.
While less definitive as a combo, Precursor Golem also interacts extremely well with Rite of Replication. Assuming you have the mana to cast it Kicked, Rite can make you a staggering 45 Golem tokens for nine mana. Paired with something that can convert all those tokens into damage, like Warstorm Surge or Rite of Consumption, this can take down entire tables with ease.
A Treasure Of The Ancient World
Since Precursor Golem is fully colorless, it’s incredibly flexible in terms of decks you can run it in. It can slot into Token decks, Artifact decks, and Spellslinger decks alike, regardless of Commander, with no issues at all. Heck, you can even add it to a deck that’s simply playing some of its combo pieces already, and use it as a solid creature that can occasionally win you the game.
Despite this flexibility, and despite its range of powerful combos, Precursor Golem doesn’t get a lot of love in Commander at the moment. According to EDHREC data, in fact, just under 7,800 decks in total run the card, which feels particularly low for a powerful colorless creature. The decks that do run it tend to be the more obvious homes, too, like Orvar the All-Form or Brenard, Ginger Sculptor, leaving the wider sweep of decks that could benefit from the card neglected.
While it’s never good to see a great card go unappreciated, Precursor Golem’s relative obscurity at least means it’s cheap to pick up. Whether you want to grab the base version or the retro frame printing, you won’t pay more than $0.14 for this banger on TCGplayer right now. At this price, the card is a no-brainer purchase, providing a flexible, exciting addition to all sorts of Commander decks.
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