Upgrading Commander Precon: Upgrades Unleashed

Hello, Commander Readers!

In my last article I brought up the “vehicle deck”, Buckle Up, analyzing its strengths and weaknesses and how to improve it as far as possible.

In this episode, we will continue our series on the preconstructed decks of Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty, and we will discuss the green and red deck: Upgrades Unleashed.

Upgrades Unleashed is an essentially aggressive, creature-based deck that mixes a number of themes related to the modification mechanic. Initially, this should be a Voltron deck — focused on turning creatures into major threats through auras, equipment, and +1/+1 counters — but the commander Chishiro, the Shattered Blade also suggests a strategy focused on numbers, creating tokens and spawning more counters as you control more modified creatures.

Therefore, the idea here is not to concentrate auras and equipment in a single powerful creature, but to distribute them among several creatures to control as many modified creatures as possible.

Despite the deck having a considerable number of auras and equipment, the easiest way to exploit Chishiro's ability is via +1/+1 counters. Because of this, effects that place counters on multiple creatures at the same time — such as Grumgully, the Generous, Loyal Guardian, Silkguard and Primeval Protector — are especially well-used, instead of just those that accumulate counters on a single creature, as is the case with Taurean Mauler and Forgotten Ancient.

However, auras and equipment are important to maintain the token production with the commander. Among these, equipment with reconfigure are quite useful, as in addition to creating tokens with the commander, they are also creatures by themselves while not equipped and, therefore, can also receive counters and count towards your board numbers.

Living Weapons are even better, as they come into play already equipped and count as modified creatures. Unfortunately, we only have three cards of this type in precon — Tanuki Transplanter, Komainu Battle Armor and Bonehoard — which could already indicate something to be modified when we think about upgrades.

The deck also has a good amount of ramps and draws, which in addition to being functional, take advantage of the issue of +1/+1 counters and modifications in general, making the deck very synergistic and easy to play. However, the deck lacks in interactions, with few cards dedicated to the removal function.

I don't have many criticisms about the construction of this precon. I like synergistic decks and I believe that Wizards of the Coast did a good job here in this regard, as I said before. Its curve looks nice for a deck that intends to be aggressive, although I would fill a few more slots with two mana cards.

In my view, the deck has two difficulties when it comes to executing what it proposes to do. The first one is the breadth of its focus, which is divided between auras, equipment and tokens: 3 themes that at times are conflicting and end up causing the deck to get lost in what it wants to do. I think the performance would be better if it focused more on counter and tokens production, leaving the voltron part (equipment and auras) a little or completely; Which brings us to the second difficulty: commander dependency.

Chishiro is pretty much the only good token creator on this deck. The tokens created by Elemental Mastery disappear at the end of the turn, Concord with the Kami plays more of a draw role, and Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin... well, Krenko is also competent. The fact is that this scarcity makes the part of the game plan that involves creating a critical mass of creatures almost 100% up to the commander.

Fortunately, all these issues can be resolved with a few tweaks.

Upgrades Unleashed has much more room for modulation and boosts. While the precon is not poorly constructed, there are many good cards outside it that could add a lot to your game plan.

Counters

As I said earlier, counters are the easiest way to tap into the commander's potential. Effects that distribute or place counters on multiple creatures — like Renata, Called to the Hunt, which is better than Grumgully, the Generous — are great, as they do so passively as soon as new creatures come into play (including tokens), while Avabruck Caretaker can do so globally with creatures already in play. Effects like these make many creatures become modified and therefore accessible to the commander's second ability.

Like any counter-based deck, it's hard not to think about effects like Hardened Scales, Branching Evolution, Doubling Season and Vorinclex, Monstrous Raider. I would consider at least one or two of these cards as a booster for the deck, with a slight preference for Hardened Scales because of its low cost, and Doubling Season for also being excellent for spawning more tokens.

The Ozolith is the ultimate piece to protect your board from removals, restoring counters that would be lost when your modified creatures leave play. It's a must-have upgrade for any counters-based deck.

As you can see, there are many options for upgrades relating to counters, there is no room for all of this in the deck, simply because there is not much to take out of it, so it's up to you to decide what deserves to go in or out. I would particularly make the following choices:

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Auras and Equipment

In my view, the auras and equipment in this deck should serve the primary purpose of making tokens with the commander's ability. Therefore, they should have low costs (between 1 and 2), and if possible some ability that allows them to have some redundancy — like Bloodforged Battle-Axe that creates copies of itself; or Crown of Flames, Whip Silk and Rancor that can return to your hand and be cast again, creating more tokens in the process.

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I like the idea of ​​including more equipments with Reconfigure and Living Weapon, as I explained above. Among the options available, the ones I like the most are Lizard Blades, Ogre-Head Helm, Nettlecyst and Scytheclaw.

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I also find it interesting to explore the auras that serve as removals, especially Lignify and Song of the Dryads. Since interactions with opponents' creatures are necessary in any strategy, nothing more convenient than some of them also create tokens when they are cast.

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Tokens

In case you also decide that tokens are the best bet for the deck, some reinforcements can be considered. I would consider three in particular.

The first and second are Avenger of Zendikar and Phylath, World Sculptor, which are incredibly good here, as they not only create many tokens when coming into play, but can also farm counters with their Landfall ability (and if you have Kodama of the West Tree it gets even better).

The third is Iridescent Hornbeetle, which can be incredibly synergistic with not only the commander, but many of the other reinforcements mentioned as well.

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Ramp

This precon is well served with ramps, but that doesn't mean there isn't something better outside. Song of Freyalise, Gyre Sage, Jiang Yanggu, Wildcrafter are some examples of synergistic accelerators with the proposal of this deck. But the best options for me are Incubation Druid, Kodama of the West Tree and The Great Henge.

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Note: It seems strange for a Commander deck giving up an Arcane Signet to put a dork in its place, but the fact is that this particular deck makes much better use of creatures (which can be modified and synergize with the commander) than mana rocks. The only reason to keep Sol Ring as the deck's only mana rock is that it's an extremely efficient accelerator.

I hope you found some interesting ideas to improve your precon Upgrades Unleashed. If so, or if you had even better ideas, let me know in the comments below.

See you in the next article!