How to Upgrade an MTG Precon: A Commander Deck Guide
August 20, 2026
Every Commander precon plays fine out of the box, but "fine" gets boring after a few games. If you want to upgrade an MTG precon without gutting what made you pick it up, the fix isn't buying whatever's expensive. It's cutting the roughly fifteen weakest cards and replacing them with better ramp, removal, and draw in the same colors, aimed at the same plan.
Play the precon before you touch it
Run the deck as printed for three or four games first. Note which cards sat dead in your hand, which turns felt slow, and where you wanted an answer you didn't draw. That list is more useful than any generic tier list, because it comes from your actual playgroup and your actual games, not a stranger's meta.
Read what the precon is actually trying to do
Check the commander's abilities and the deck's stated theme, usually printed on the strategy insert. A precon wasn't shuffled together at random, it was built around one plan, so your upgrades should sharpen that plan rather than replace it. If the commander cares about counters, upgrade toward counters. If it's a sacrifice deck, add sacrifice payoffs and fodder, not generic value creatures that just happen to share its colors.
If you're not sure a given precon fits how you like to play in the first place, browsing Commander precons by strategy before you commit to upgrading one can save you from fighting the deck later.
What to cut first
Every precon carries filler, usually fifteen to twenty cards that do nothing for the deck's actual plan. Look for:
- Overcosted vanilla creatures with no relevant keyword and no synergy with the commander.
- Narrow combat tricks that only matter in combat you're not built to win.
- One-for-one removal that only hits creatures, when your table sees just as many enchantments and planeswalkers.
- Tap lands that exist mainly because the precon needed cheap color fixing.
Cut in two or three passes instead of all at once. Pull the ten worst offenders first, playtest, then go back for the next batch. You'll catch cards that look weak on paper but actually pull weight at your table, and precons also tend to bunch several cards at the same mana value, which is part of why turns four and five often feel clunky.
The four categories every precon is short on
Most precons are built to a price point, so they skimp in predictable places: ramp, removal, card draw, and the mana base. A rough target for a 99-card Commander deck looks like this.
| Category | Typical in a precon | Target after upgrading |
|---|---|---|
| Ramp | 6 to 8 pieces | 10 to 12 pieces |
| Removal / interaction | 4 to 6 pieces | 8 to 10 pieces |
| Card draw / advantage | 4 to 6 pieces | 8 to 10 pieces |
| Lands | 35 to 37, several tapped | 36 to 38, mostly untapped |
You don't need rare cards to hit these numbers. Widely stocked staples like Sol Ring and Arcane Signet, plus a color-appropriate signet or talisman, cover most of the ramp gap on their own. For removal, a flexible answer that hits more than one card type, in the vein of Swords to Plowshares or Beast Within, replaces two or three narrow precon cards at once.
Match the upgrade to a Commander bracket
Wizards of the Coast's Commander Brackets system gives you a shared language for how far to push this. Bracket 1 is Exhibition, bracket 2 is Core, bracket 3 is literally called Upgraded, bracket 4 is Optimized, and bracket 5 is cEDH. Most precons ship as bracket 2 out of the box, and a sensible round of upgrades, the kind this guide walks through, usually lands you in bracket 3, which is fitting since that bracket exists for exactly this.
The bracket system also caps something called Game Changers, a list of especially powerful cards. Brackets 1 and 2 allow none, bracket 3 allows up to three, and brackets 4 and 5 have no cap. See EDHREC's guide to Commander brackets for the full list and criteria. If your playgroup agreed on bracket 2 or 3 for a casual night, don't quietly stack five Game Changers into your precon. It changes the game you all agreed to play, even if every individual card felt like a reasonable pickup.
Grimoria has a walkthrough on how bracket scoring works if you want to check where a specific build lands before you bring it to the table.
How much it costs to upgrade an MTG precon
You don't need to spend big to feel the difference. Three honest tiers:
- Weekend fix, no purchase. Cut the worst ten cards and replace them with staples you already own from other decks or your bulk box. Swapping in basic lands you already have for the precon's tap lands alone is a real upgrade.
- Solid upgrade, one modest order. Fill the ramp, removal, and draw gaps from the table above with efficient, widely stocked staples. This is where most players land, and it's usually enough to make the deck feel like yours.
- Fully optimized, bracket 3 territory. Spend one or two of your remaining Game Changer slots, move the mana base to untapped duals, and pick a cleaner win condition. Stop here unless your table has explicitly agreed to bracket 4.
Card prices move week to week, so check current listings before you order rather than trusting a number from any article, including this one.
Keep the upgrade on-theme
The fastest way to ruin a precon is to swap in whatever ranks highest for your commander's colors, regardless of what it actually does. Generic goodstuff wins games, but it also makes every deck in those colors feel the same. Before you add a card, ask whether it does something the commander specifically wants, not just something that's good in a vacuum.
A synergy graph, like the one built into Grimoria's deckbuilder, is a fast way to see which of your current cards actually connect to the commander's plan and which ones are just floating in the same colors.
Tools that speed this up
Doing this by hand with a spreadsheet works, but it's slow, and the four-category count from earlier gets tedious to track across a 100-card list. Grimoria's precon upgrade tool reads a precon's decklist, flags the weak slots by category, and suggests swaps that fit the commander's actual strategy and your target bracket without making you leave the page. It grew out of one player's own upgrade spreadsheets, which is at least a decent sign it solves a real problem.
Frequently asked questions
How many cards should I cut when upgrading a precon?
Most Commander precons carry roughly fifteen to twenty cards that do little for the deck's plan, things like overcosted vanilla creatures, narrow combat tricks, and off-theme filler. Cut them in two or three passes, playtesting between rounds, rather than replacing the whole pile in one sitting.
What's the single best first upgrade for a Commander precon?
The mana base. Precons often include several tap lands purely to hit a price point. Swapping four or five for untapped lands in your colors, plus a couple of cheap fixing pieces, does more for consistency than almost any spell you could add.
Do I need expensive cards to upgrade a precon?
No. Widely stocked staples like Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, and efficient one-mana removal cover most of the gap in ramp and interaction. A modest, focused order usually beats a scattered pile of expensive cards that don't actually support the commander's plan.
What Commander bracket does an upgraded precon usually land in?
Most precons ship as bracket 2, called Core. A standard round of upgrades, the kind covered in this guide, typically pushes a deck into bracket 3, called Upgraded, which allows up to three Game Changers. Stacking more than that risks pushing a casual table into a game they didn't agree to.
Should I upgrade a precon or build a Commander deck from scratch?
Upgrading a precon is faster and usually cheaper, since it skips building a mana base and a card pool from zero. Building from scratch makes more sense once you already know exactly which commander and strategy you want and can't find a precon close enough to start from.
Pull up your precon's decklist and run it through Grimoria's precon upgrade tool to see which of those fifteen to twenty cuts it flags on its own, then spend your first order on the ramp and removal gaps above.