Upgrading Commander Precon - Quick Draw (Stella Lee, Wild Card)

Draw your weapons and get ready for the duel! Outlaws of Thunder Junction's precon decks are already here, so, as usual, we ran to work on our guides to show you how to upgrade these decks! Today, we chose to tackle Quick Draw, with Stella Lee, Wild Card as our commander in a spellslinger deck!

Quick Draw is an Izzet deck. It showcases the classic Spellslinger/Storm archetype. It also has incredible new cards, like Crackling Spellslinger and Thunderclap Drake, which help us cast the several spells we need to cast while playing this deck.

As commanders, we can either use Stella Lee, Wild Card or Eris, Roar of the Storm. This time, we picked Stella Lee as this deck's commander: she costs less and gives us more variety because of her ability.

The main list we'll cover doesn't have any combos, but we added a whole section dedicated to her combos if you want to go through that route. There, you'll find explanations for each combo, and which cards you should replace to play her combos.

We'll also give you a list that focuses on Eris, the other commander option, later on. This list will focus more heavily on creating creature tokens through other effects, and on winning with them. Don't worry, though: you can also use this same strategy to play with Stella Lee as your commander if you use cards like Young Pyromancer, Shark Typhoon, Elemental Eruption, and other cards from the original list that also create tokens. Without further ado, let's check out how to upgrade Quick Draw!

Cards We Removed

We started by removing 3 lands - a Spellslinger/Storm deck with many low-cost spells doesn't need 38 lands. So, we removed a land of each, and Ferrous Lake - a "signet land". This land cycle makes turn-1 plays a bit messy.

A few other cards didn't seem to impact the match that much, or made very little sense, like Pteramander and Tezzeret's Gambit, respectively. We have practically no targets to Proliferate with Tezzeret's Gambit, and the only card that would make some sense with it was Bloodthirsty Adversary, which we also removed.

Cursed Mirror needs creatures on the board to be effective, so we replaced it. Leyline Dowser seems like a good card in theory, but, in practice, may lose you creatures, lands, and even important enchantments in the worst times.

We removed the other cards for similar reasons - they're often good in theory, but in practice don't perform as well as we'd like them to. Kaza, Roil Chaser, Baral's Expertise, and Deep Analysis are a few examples of these cards.

Creating More Mana and Value

The original list has great mana generators - Rousing Refrain and Storm-Kiln Artist create a lot of value with sorceries like Finale of Promise and Finale of Revelation. We added a few other cards that have a similar effect to copy them with Stella Lee's ability. They'll create even more mana and value.

Mana Geyser is one of them - even though it will only give you mana if your opponent has any tapped lands, you just need one opportunity to create a dozen red mana with it.

We couldn't forget Jeska's Will, considering it will also exile three cards from the top of your deck, and let you play them on that same turn. If you copy it with Stella Lee, you'll exile six cards and create even more mana. That is a lot of value.

We also added Talisman of Creativity, a low-cost, efficient mana rock for your early game.

Electrostatic Field and Guttersnipe are great sources of Burn and also possible win conditions, but, clearly, you'll have to see how the game goes. We added more redundancy in this sense: Fiery Inscription. The fact it is an enchantment makes it slightly harder to remove than Guttersnipe, and it also deals the same amount of damage. "The Ring Tempts You" is superficial in our build, but don't worry about which creature will be your ring bearer.

Blasphemous Act, as a global removal, is efficient, and works almost every time. Mainly because you'll cast it, most times, for a fraction of what it really costs.

More Low-Cost Spells

We added a few other spells that are cheap and will draw you more cards so you can use Stella Lee's ability without further issues.

Brainstorm lets us control our next draws, and we added Consider to complete our cycle of 1-cost spells, like Ponder and Opt.

Gitaxian Probe is also in this list - you can cast it by its original cost, or by a phyrexian blue mana: 2 life. You'll cast it this way most times. Besides card draw, we may get information on an opponent's hand and plan our plays better based on the cards we see there.

An Offer you Can't Refuse is another 1-cost spell that will serve us as an extra counter. The original list only had Arcane Denial as a counter, so having at least another line of defense that costs very little and hits 100% of cards is a great answer. After all, you never know when you need to stop a combo, save one of your permanents, or counter another counter.

We have a few spells that are basically "free" thanks to their effects, which untap a number of lands equal to the mana you use to cast them. These are Frantic Search, which also draws you cards, and Snap, which returns creatures to the hands of their respective owners. You'll extract more value out of these spells if Izzet Boilerworks or Temple of the False God are in play because they'll create 2 mana each. The best-case scenario would be to have these two lands on the board.

This play works really well with a Thunderclap Drake, which you'll sacrifice with its ability or cast after a significant number of spells, and then cast Crackling Spellslinger. Frantic Search also works as an engine to grow our graveyard, and will interact with Mizzix's Mastery and Finale of Revelation really fast. Snap was also a must - in this same sense, it will return multiple creatures to your opponents' hands.

Alternative Version with Combos

This was an upgraded version of the precon list, and not a completely optimized deck, so I decided to leave out a few possible combos with Stella Lee, as we mentioned before. However, if you prefer this game style, we brought you a few further upgrades to win matches for once and for all.

First, we'll remove Volcanic Torrent, Forger's Foundry, Murmuring Mystic, Octavia, Living Thesis, Midnight Clock, Arcane Bombardment, and Smoldering Stagecoach. Then, we added the cards that make Stella Lee copy other cards infinitely: Refocus, Cerulean Wisps, and Twitch.

Just play either of these three spells as your third spell that turn. Stella Lee will copy one of these spells and untap, and, as she untaps, you'll be able to activate her ability again. By copying one of these spells, you'll start an infinite cycle, copy many cards, and untap Stella Lee basically as many times as you want. As these cards also draw you cards, you can draw your entire deck.

So, cards like Archmage Emeritus will accelerate this process even more, or you might create a lot of mana with Storm-Kiln Artist. You'll end the game with all the resources you need in your hand, or with Laboratory Maniac, and destroy your opponents for good.

Another possible win condition is Twisted Fealty. You'll also be able to add it to your loop and copy it infinitely, just like the other cards we listed because of Stella Lee and her "untapping" effect. Then, your Wicked Role will end the game. When you put Wicked Role's aura in your graveyard, each opponent will lose 1 life. As each of your creatures can only have one Role, when another Role is created on a creature, the previous one destroys itself, and that's how you'll win the game.

Finally, we added tutors to look for these cards without any issues. That's what Mystical Tutor and Solve the Equation are for. This is an entirely optional list; Stella Lee has a lot of potential for a simple, fast Spellslinger strategy, so you can just choose how you want to play with her. With just Stella Lee and a few spells, you can combo quite fast with this game plan on earlier turns, if you start with Sol Ring and another 2-cost mana rock in your starting hand.

This is our list after our upgrades. As we mentioned before, you can make it more combo-centric and, consequently, stronger, but it's up to your taste and how you like to win the game and pilot this deck.

You can just add Twisted Fealty as your win condition, if you would rather not rely on just Burn and combat damage. You can take out any of the cards we mentioned before to add these.

Alternative List with Eris, Roar of the Storm

As we said before, the Eris, Roar of the Storm list is quite similar to the Stella Lee list. However, for this list, we focused entirely on creating creature tokens as our win condition. We also added a few options with Haste and non-legendary copies of Eris to create even more tokens.

This is perhaps the strongest precon deck out of all 4 Outlaws of Thunder Junction decks. I had a chance to pilot it on tabletop against the other 3 decks, and on this single game I won the match with the Dragon tokens created by Elemental Eruption. Particularly, I prefer to win with creature tokens - it is quite fun to see our Dragons grow and put a lot of pressure because of their Prowess!

Did you like our Upgrade? Do you prefer Eris as your commander? Do you prefer the combo strategy? Tell us your thoughts down below!

See you next time!