MTG: Brothers War Precons’ Decklists Revealed

The new Magic: The Gathering Brothers War expansion is right around the corner, which means new Commander Precons!

Not long has passed since the release of Magic: The Gathering’s latest expansion, Dominaria United and the first Universes Beyond the title, Warhammer 40k; the Brothers’ War is upon us! In this expansion, legendary siblings Urza and Mishra will clash again – so it’s only natural that they will be the stars of the Commander Preconstructed Decks of this expansion. The face Commanders, Urza, Chief Artificer and Mishra, Eminent One, were spoiled a few weeks ago.

Urza’s Iron Alliance

The new Urza card will be a 3WUB, so 6 overall mana for a 4/5 Human Artificer creature. While the stats are not exceptional, his abilities are. Urza has Affinity for artifact creatures, which means he costs one generic less for each artifact creature under your control, so his mana cost will usually be just a White, a Blue and a Black, as his deck, Urza’s Iron Alliance, relies heavily on artifact creatures. He also gives artifact creatures menace, and at the beginning of your end step, he creates a 0/0 colorless Construct, which gets +1/+1 for each artifact under your control.

The backup Commander included in the deck is Tawnos, Solemn Survivor. He is a little less costly at 1U for a 1/3 Human Artificer. He has 2 tap abilities: first, he can create a token that’s a copy of up to one target artifact creature under your control for 2 generic mana – but you have to mill 2 cards. For 1WUB, you can sacrifice two artifact tokens and exile an artifact or creature card from your graveyard. If you do, you create a token copy of the exiled card, except it becomes an artifact in addition of it’s other types. He seems to be an interesting Commander, but for the deck's gameplan, Urza should be the stronger of the two.

The Iron Alliance boast a huge amount of creatures, coming with 36 in the Precon. From these, only 14 are not artifact creatures, but the majority of those cards interact with artifacts, such as Sai, Master Thoptherist, who creates a 1/1 flying Thopter with every spell you cast. The deck also has 11 instants and sorceries, 13 regular artifacts, 3 enchantments and 36 lands with some notable reprints like Preordain, Thopter Spy Network, Thought Vessel, Liquimetal Torque and Skullclamp. The deck has 9 new cards, one of which is Tawnos himself. The other cards are Sanwell, Avenger Ace; Scholar of New Horizons; March of Progress; Wire Surgeons; Wreck Hunter; Hexavus; Kayla’s Music Box and Thopter Shop. While all the new cards are great, the best are March of Progress, which lets you copy all of your artifacts, and Kayla’s Music Box, which let’s you store your cards to play them on a later turn.

Mishra’s Burnished Banner

On the other side of the war, Mishra, Urza’s brother, rallies his army. The second commander deck of the two is a Grixis artifact deck, relying more on regular artifacts, rather than artifact creatures. The new Mishra card, Eminent One, is a 2UBR Human Artificer with 5 power and 4 toughness. He has one lengthy ability: at the beginning of combat on your turn, you can create a token that’s a copy of a noncreature artifact you control, except it’s called Mishra’s Warform, and it’s a 4/4 Construct artifact Creature along with its other types. It gains haste, but you must sacrifice it on the next step.

The backup Commander is a character whose debut has been long awaited: it’s Ashnod the Uncaring! She also costs 2UBR, and is a 1/4 with Deathtouch. She also doubles your artifacts’ non-mana abilities on the condition that you can only double abilities that are activated by sacrificing one or more permanents. You can also choose new targets for the copy. She also has a rules text at the end of her ability which states that sacrificing an artifact for mana to activate an ability doesn’t count, to eliminate the problem of Treasures – but if you have to sacrifice an artifacts to activate an ability, you can most definitely use a treasure for that.

The Burnished Banner has a fairly different composition from the Iron Alliance. It contains 21 creatures, 11 instants and sorceries, 30 artifacts and 37 lands. It’s no wonder that the artifacts are on the heavier side in the Precon, as both Mishra’s and Ashnod’s ability is about doubling artifacts, either as a 4/4 creature, or just doubling it’s activated or triggered ability. While there are some nice staples to copy, such as Wayfarer’s Bauble, some Signets, Nihil Spellbomb, Idol of Oblivion and most notably Cursed Mirror, it has some great new cards as well. Other than Ashnod the Uncaring, the new cards are Glint Raker, Terisiare’s Devastation; Blast-Furnace Hellkite; Farid, Enterprising Salvager; Machine God’s Effigy; Scavenged Brawler; Smelting Vat and Wonrdous Crucible.

The most interesting card is the Machine God’s Effigy, which can enter the battlefield as a copy of any creature, except it’s an artifact that can tap for a Blue mana. Smelting Vat works great with Ashnod, but Mishra can make wonders with it as well, being able to use the ability twice with the Warform. While Ashnod’s ability seems to synergize better with the Precon, Mishra seems more universally useful, which is definitely an important thing when looking at Preconstructed Decks.

While 9 new cards in both decks seem a bit low, this set is a throwback to the early days of magic, so the number of reprints is no surprise. Because of the retro aspect, all the cards in these decks are Old Bordered, looking like the first cards of Magic: The Gathering.

Catch the newest MTG expansion, Brothers War, on the 18^th of November, and get the new Precons at your local games store!