Upgrading Commander Precon - Master of Evil (Davros, Dalek Creator)

Another Universes Beyond was released and the crossover this time involved the iconic TV show Doctor Who, with 4 new decks in this collab released by our beloved TCG. The deck we chose to upgrade this time was Master of Evil!

Master of Evil List and Strategy

This precon brings the Grixis color combination , with a main mechanic involving artifact creatures, the famous Daleks in this version, and with a few subthemes involving Mill, Goad and Villainous Choice, which is a new mechanic, by the way.

We decided to keep Davros, Dalek Creator as the commander and work with its mechanic: making your opponents lose health and creating Dalek tokens.

In this upgrade, we bring to this deck more acceleration with artifacts, more options to drain your opponent's health, besides more answers and other interactions with artifact creatures.

We changed just a few cards, in this case, 14. The list is quite pleasant to play, particularly when playing against other Doctor Who decks that use Planechase. So, we added cards that interact with the commander we chose, but that can also work without him.

The cards we removed had a very high mana cost or even effects that are too specific and would only work when facing a certain group of cards. Like so, they were removed to open space for the upgrades we chose.

Mana Base

We haven't changed much in this part: we removed a few lands, to complete a total of 35, and added only one Bojuka Bog: some cards mill opponents, so a land like this one is interesting depending on the opponent to avoid possible problems with Reanimators or decks that use the graveyard a lot.

In

Out

Accelerators

The original list already has good artifacts, such as Arcane Signet, Sol Ring, Thought Vessel, Mind Stone, and others, and others are not so interesting, such as Commander's Sphere and Laser Screwdriver.

As Grixis decks struggle when it comes to acceleration, we added the signets, Izzet Signet, Rakdos Signet and Dimir Signet, alongside the talisman we were missing: Talisman of Creativity. Also as a discounter, we added Nightscape Familiar.

Out

Dealing Damage and Other Interactions

Davros' ability checks any damage source that has made opponents lose 3 or more health. With that in mind, we added Loyal Subordinate, Court of Ambition and Maestros Charm, which is somewhat versatile as it has its other modes.

Not necessarily making our opponents lose health, but giving us an advantage when it comes to card draw, we have Sygg, River Cutthroat. Considering its effect happens at the beginning of each final step, Sygg can create value each time an opponent is dealt damage. Court of Ambition also has its value, considering that, even if you lose the Monarch status, it still, possibly, keeps forcing your opponents to lose 3 health.

Once again, the cards we removed had too high a cost, or they played a role that is best executed as a singular idea, such as The Beast, Deathless Prince or The Valeyard, for instance.

In

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Interacting with Artifacts

Also causing your opponents to lose health and guaranteeing you some sustain, we have Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge. Besides being extremely versatile, it works well with the commander, besides discounting the cost of your creature spells: after all, this deck mostly has artifact creatures, so big costs can be reduced thanks to Tezzeret.

And speaking of artifact creatures, we also added Brudiclad, Telchor Engineer. This deck creates numerous tokens, so increasing its production with Brudiclad or even transforming Clue tokens into Daleks seems quite interesting.

To protect your artifact creatures even more, we count with Padeem, Consul of Innovation, which, besides giving your Daleks Hexproof, can provide you with card draw if its condition is met. Even though it isn't part of this theme, and last but not least, we have the addition of one of my favorite charms: Rakdos Charm. As I said before, this deck interacts with mill, so having an answer like this for something of that kind or even for an opponent's infinite creature combo is interesting and can catch many players off guard.

We removed more conditional cards, such as Time Reaper and Don't Blink, and other "slower" ones, such as Clockwork Droid.

In

Out

And this is how my upgraded Master of Evil list turned out! We only changed a few things, but they were enough to make this deck a bit stronger.

The base list already has interesting creatures and very cool interactions in its subthemes, particularly with alternative commanders. And speaking of alternative commanders, we also have a list fully dedicated to The Valeyard, focused on Voting.

This is a deck based on politics, as The Valeyard allows you to have additional votes, so cards such as Expropriate shine. It is a very different list from the precon base, with a bit more consistency and staples that you'd usually see in tables with a stronger power level.

There are many new cards here that came in the precon, but also stronger answers, such as Cyclonic Rift and Toxic Deluge, for instance.

It was quite fun to research new things for this deck, after all, Grixis is my favorite green-less color combination, so working with that was quite cool. The list is quite interesting and this great variety of new cards can create numerous strategies, not only in the Grixis combination, but also in Dimir and Rakdos as well, with quite different commanders than the ones we have today.

Would you change something in the list? Play with another commander? Exterminate your opponents with an army of Daleks? Comment down below!