With supplemental sets banished from Magic, at least for now, Jumpstart is one one of the few remaining places Wizards can flex its design chops beyond Standard. Fortunately, these sets have always had some great exclusive cards, as seen recently with the pricey Marvel Jumpstart legends. Jumpstart 2022 was particularly spicy, bringing us powerhouse MTG combo legend Preston, the Vanisher.
Preston, The Vanisher MTG
The bulk of Preston’s power comes from its first ability, which copies your creatures for free on entry as long as they weren’t cast. The easiest way to harness this ability is to blink your creatures in play with cards like Teleportation Circle and Conjurer’s Closet. Alternatively, you can make token copies of creatures reanimated with the likes of Sun Titan or Sevinne’s Reclamation.
With abilities like this in the mix, you can essentially get double value out of creatures with enters effects, like Loran of the Third Path and Solemn Simulacrum. Throw in some ability doublers like Panharmonicon and Delney, Streetwise Lookout, and all of your blinks will turn into big events.
Since Preston makes token copies of your creatures, you can take things even further with token doublers such as Anointed Procession and Mondrak, Glory Dominus. You can also easily create extra copies of those creatures, with Populate cards like Muster the Departed, or token copiers like Dutiful Replicator. Since these cards aren’t designed to copy ‘real’ creatures like this, they punch far above their rate here.
Maxing out on token copies like this will also give you plenty of fuel for Preston’s potent removal ability. While five Illusions is a steep cost, getting to take out everything from Orcish Bowmasters to Rhystic Study at instant speed is fantastic.
If you’d rather build a board than cash one in, Preston’s easy token generation makes it a good fit for an aggressive go-wide strategy too. While your tokens start at zero power, anthem effects like Renewed Solidarity and Inspiring Leader can quickly get them up to speed. You can also lean hard on other token generators, like Hare Apparent, which really go hard when copied a few times with Preston.
And For My Next Trick…
Though Preston is excellent when played straight, it really shines when it comes to dishing out combos. In fact, it’s trivially easy to go infinite with Preston using any blink creature, be it Felidar Guardian or Fiend Hunter.
If you can have your blink creature enter play without being cast, by resurrecting it with Karmic Guide, for example, then Preston will make a token copy of it. You can then blink something with the original, then blink the original with the copy, creating another copy as it returns. This will net you infinite tokens, as well as infinite blinks of whatever your chosen blink creature can target.
With Felidar Guardian, you can blink a land and use this combo to generate infinite mana. This can then be sunk into Preston’s ability to exile every nonland permanent your opponents own, or just into Walking Ballista for an immediate win. Creature-specific blink creatures don’t give you this option, but you can still turn the infinite tokens into a win with Altar of the Brood or Blasting Station.
Underplayed, But Not Underpriced
Despite Preston’s huge potential for value and combo plays, it actually doesn’t see a ton of play as a Commander. In fact, according to EDHREC data, just 3,056 decks run this Rabbit Wizard at the helm currently. It does fare better in the 99, with around 37,600 lists using it there, but even that feels low for such a powerful, flexible legend.
Unfortunately, Preston’s low popularity as a Commander doesn’t mean this is a cheap card to pick up. If you’re looking for a near-mint copy, you’ll need to shell out $30 at least to grab one from TCGplayer. Given the card’s unique, powerful effect, and its innate scarcity as a Jumpstart exclusive, this price is sadly unlikely to come down without a reprint.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew, and our brand new MTG Rocks Podcast!