Upgrading Commander Precon: Urza's Iron Alliance (Urza, Chief Artificer)

Urza is undoubtedly the most important and controversial figure in Magic: The Gathering.

Connected to the events of several Sagas from the offshoots of the novel The Thran to the recent events of The Brothers' War, its legacy permeates the vast majority of the game's sets.

The Brother's War Commander decks were divided into two different proposals based on artifacts, which can be seen here.

Our article will discuss the Esper deck based on artifact creatures, Urza's Iron Alliance. This deck is for all those who like aggressive strategies utilizing amps and synergies based on enraged machines.

The preconstructed deck is finely crafted within the theme centered completely on synergies between artifacts and artifact creatures. Urza's war machines fulfill all the functions from acceleration, using reducers like Etherium Sculptor, to removals with Ethersworn Adjudicator, and card advantage, where we can mention Chrome Courier.

Urza's Iron Alliance Commander Decklist

Urza, Chief Artificer is the legendary creature that names the precon, and his choice among the legends that make up the deck is obvious given the vast superiority of his qualities within the theme, creating powerful constructs every turn and supporting artifact creatures.

The ability Affinity for artifact creatures (This spell costs less to play for each artifact creature you control.) allows him to quickly enter the battlefield, pressuring opponents with your large board presence.

A 4/5 creature for mana and that creates large tokens, in addition to granting evasion, needs to be respected. Its resilience is very high, as additional commander costs can be paid with affinity.

The standard construction of precon is quite solid, but within the pillars that make up the format's deckbuilding: mana sources, card advantage and removals, we can reinforce the packages for better development of the game.

The selection of board wipes has some problematic cards, given the fact that our presence on the field is important.

Another point to be reinforced is the card advantage, due to the need for more consistent and regular draws. Adding accelerators so that we can quickly develop the battlefield is also crucial.

Mana Sources

The mana sources package has mana rocks, ramps and dorks having just over 10 cards, which are additions to the 36 lands, many of them utility lands, artifact lands, and others capable of correcting the colors within our mana curve. Let's look at the list:

Mana Sources

The bounce lands, although very efficient in mana correction, have the disadvantage of not being able to be used in the turn they hit the board, and considering Urza's entry between turns 3 and 4, they were removed by more dynamic options.

Scholar of New Horizons is an excellent card, however the lack of more space for its theme underuses its capabilities. Wreck Hunter relies heavily on opponents to find its usefulness, its dependence on numerous variables makes it excessively fragile, outside specific builds.

We have the addition of some Talismans and a larger group of Mana Dorks, as these in addition to generating mana accelerate Urza's affinity.

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Card Advantage

's colors has a wide range of options available. The package present in precon has more than a dozen cards for this purpose.

However, some are inferior to others, either because of their low cadence or their reduced effect.

The Mystic Forge is a pretty aggressive buy when most of the cards in the deck are artifacts. Mirrodin Besieged filter is a fairly useful win condition with the deck's themes.

Whir of Invention acts as a tutor to seek out a silver bullet or threat. Padeem, Consul of Innovation protects our creatures and draws simple and efficient cards.

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Interactions and Removals

Yet another wise choice by the Wizards of the Coast product development team; some of the best spot and global removals are present in this deck. The famous spells Swords to Plowshares, Austere Command, alongside Ethersworn Adjudicator and Steel Hellkite make up the versatile options.

The flavor choices are undoubtedly the problematic cards — Phyrexian Rebirth and Urza's Ruinous Blast are outstanding for narrative purposes, but eliminating our artifact creatures causes damage that can often be definitive.

Substituting cards that don't see our artifacts allow us to control the game without affecting the smooth running of our strategy, and Scourglass and Their Name Is Death are perfect for this purpose.

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Other Changes

The vast majority of precons have the characteristic of featuring a wide range of finishers and pumps that have great individual power and varied synergies.

Alela, Artful Provocateur which has immense potential, but by generating fairies instead of Thopter ends up having its position questioned in the proposed artifact creature deck, being much stronger in a line of tokens. Several interactions with this theme have been replaced.

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When defining the suggestions for the deck, we tend to generalize information, but remember that there is no correct answer here, after all the format is casual and there are several other viable options like Emry, Lurker of the Loch, Vedalken Archmage and Research Thief that cannot be ignored.

Urza's Iron Alliance Upgraded

The Urza's Iron Alliance deck is excellent, with a linear strategy, being superior to the Mishra's deck in this regard, entertaining the brother and rival of the artificer presents a resourcefulness and explosiveness that we don't see in Urza before the upgrades. These are balanced decks where we see clearly the difference between the Grixis and Esper identities.

Finally, we'll talk about Tawnos, present in Urza's deck. It's a powerful addition to the 99, but in a deck dedicated to exploring its abilities. Tawnos, Solemn Survivor is a strong commander capable of creating powerful interactions and combos with his ability to create tokens that are copies of artifact tokens, tokens that he can create using his second ability. The main line here is the combination of Isochron Scepter and Dramatic Reversal for infinite activations of his abilities.

Tawnos, Solemn Survivor Commander Decklist - High Power

I hope you found some interesting ideas to improve your deck and participate in this intense battle that is The Brothers' War, choose your side and enjoy the best of Commander. Thanks for reading and good games!

Any questions, I'm available in the comments!