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Review of Commander Precon Exclusive Cards in 2025

Hey there!


I wanted to get another article out before the end of the year to look back at the cool cards we’ve gotten in commander precons this year. With 13 precon releases, there’s a lot of new tech that may have flown under the radar if it wasn’t one of the ones you picked up this year. We’ll look at the 13 precons and pick out the best exclusive cards that came out of each. Best will be broken into two categories. Category one is which card I think has the most utility in other decks and category two is my personal favorite card design. Be sure to let me know what you think on any of my socials that I’ll be putting up over the next few days talking about these new cards.

Here we go!!


Aetherdrift: Living Energy & Eternal Might (20 new cards)

The start to the year was definitely a slow one. Not many people look back on the Aetherdrift set favorably due to the theming, the force-feeding of Loot as a character in all of the art, and the lackluster cards with the exception of maybe Ketramose. It still has some pretty interesting designs with one precon outshining the other by a very large margin.


Living Energy

The Living Energy precon wasn’t really loved by many as the theme was really narrow. There aren’t too many sets to pull energy cards from so it just felt like the only people excited for this precon were existing energy players. Regardless, there were some pretty cool designs in here.



This three-drop can slot into any artifact token generating deck and gives you free value in buffed thopters. If you’re making clues, treasures, maps, blood tokens, or any kind of artifact creature tokens like Karn-structs, getting a free thopter is a wonderful addition. Consider this card like an Academy Manufacturer at home. Super solid and still really cheap at time of writing ($3.56 TCGPlayer Market Price)




My Favorite: Aetheric Amplifier

An easy way to activate every neuron in a Magic player’s brain is to slap the word “double” on any card. Magic players will find a way to break that card instantly. This is a bit tougher to break as it’s 4 mana per activation. You can still obviously double +1/+1 counters and other useful counters like shield counters, but also double up experience counters or energy counters as it’s originally intended. Just be careful when playing against an infect player!



Eternal Might

The Eternal Might precon originally made a huge stir with the backup commander, Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist. This precon also completely eclipsed the Living Energy Precon and if we’re being honest, also eclipsed the Aetherdrift main set completely. And it did so with good reason since this deck slaps right out of the box!



Everyone got ultra hyped for this card as a commander and it can do some ultimately disgusting lines of play when paired with cards like Tortured Existence. This was a kind of obvious choice but you can’t fault me since this commander hits like a truck.



My Favorite: On Wings of Gold

This is just generically good even in non-zombies decks. As long as you’re making tokens, having them all get flying is an easy way to get in and close out the game. Four mana for a “give your tokens flying” effect is on rate and the anthem effect they get is a bonus!



Tarkir: Dragonstorm Commander Precons (50 new cards)

These five precons are all really amazing to play against each other and pretty strong relative to other stock precons. Of course in a world themed around 5 clans, we needed to get 5 precons showcasing how each clan can do some serious damage. Before diving in, a special shout out to the cycle of “Wills” cards. (Will of the Mardu, Will of the Abzan, etc…) All five of these cards are super impactful. They are all generically good and can all fit into a bunch of precons since they are all one color. My favorite of these is Will of the Temur. You get to copy the biggest mana value creature on the board and then draw a ton based on it’s mana value.


Abzan Armor

Another classic “Toughness Matters” commander deck. It’s really straightforward but it’s really good at what it does compared to others. Where this precon shines is in its way to close out games. Your creatures are generally more resilient and make for great blockers meaning when it’s time to close the game out you still have a board able to do so.



Most Utility: Arbor Adherent

It’s kind of unassuming but in any green commander deck you can get a simple line like the following. Don’t miss a land drop, turn three play another creature with at least 3 toughness like an average 3/3, play this dog druid on 4, and on turn 5 you have access to 7 mana. 8 if you make your land drop. This can rocket your curve up if you get it when you need to and even late in the game it’s a great blocker.



My Favorite: Canopy Gargantuan

It’s really easy to make me go “Woah.” Just let me put a butt-load of counters on my creatures and I’m a happy camper. Seriously, it’s just that easy.


Jeskai Striker

This precon cares about extra spells and prowess triggers. It’s a headache to track with how many things you can do but it’s a lot of fun to try and do it all. 



Most Utility: Aligned Heart

In most decks you are double-spelling around turn 4 or 5. While that may mean you’re getting counters super slowly, if you are manipulating the amount of counters on it by proliferating, you can get some pretty ridiculous amounts of tokens all at once for just playing normally. I highly recommend playing this in a deck with white and blue so you can get more proliferate abilities in.



My Favorite: Transcendent Dragon

A big meaty counter spell that comes with a free spell is just plain awesome. Especially late game when players think you’re all out of plays to make, wait until someone casts a haymaker and take it for yourself!


Sultai Arisen

I don’t think I’ve ever snap-bought something as fast as I snap bought this when it got released. If you know me, you know I love insidious roots and this deck is just begging for it to be included into the deck. It hits like a truck and has some of the coolest cards out of the whole set. 



Most Utility: Floral Evoker

Most golgari decks want something like this. It’s a way to put creatures in the bin and get back some of the lands you may have accidentally milled over.


Not only is it a cute play on the name of such a legendary card, it hits like a tank and is definitely a great late game finisher for when you have a bunch of leftover cards in your graveyard. At the best, you can get four massive creatures for just 3 black mana and exiling some cards you didn’t need from your graveyard anyways.


Mardu Surge

This precon strikes a very particular niche because aggro decks usually don’t work in a format with three opponents but this deck finds a way to make it work. It’s an aggro, tokens, aristocrats build which perfectly fits the three color combination and it encourages you to attack with creatures that you would lose anyways. You can use those expendable creatures for sacrifice synergies or for just overwhelming your opponents.



Most Utility: Goldlust Triad

Getting in with this card lets you keep up the pressure by getting enough treasures to empty out your hand consistently. Getting three extra mana a turn especially late in the game is a great way to overwhelm your opponents in value as mentioned before. 



My favorite: Infantry Shield

I like playing Voltron strategies and I feel that most great Voltron decks are in red. The bigger you can make one attacker, the more you can overwhelm your opponents with expendable tokens to throw at them as well. Like I've mentioned in other articles when it comes to Voltron builds always keep in mind PEG, you want to Protect your commander, give it Evasion, and Grow your commander. This card perfectly falls in line with Growth as you can around problematic board states with the crazy amount of tokens you can generate.


Temur Roar

Big dumb creatures getting in for damage is the definition of this deck. You ramp aggressively and use all that mana to cast game ending threats every single turn. And with Ureni at the helm, you just get to have those big splashy dragon spells for free.



Most Utility: Thundermane Dragon

The real utility here is that you don’t need to reveal the top card of your library until you want to cast it. Especially with so many giant creatures/dragons in red, you can surprise everyone with some massive creatures coming in with haste.



My Favorite: Broodcaller Scourge

Another big obnoxious creature that can end games by itself. Especially in this precon where you have access to blue to keep your hand filled and access to red to get the game’s best dragons.


Final Fantasy Commander Decks (50+ New Commander Cards)

The full Universes Beyond treatment of commander decks lead to some of the best designed products around. I firmly believe that these four along with the Dr. Who, Fallout, and Warhammer 40k commander products are some of the best precons released with some of the coolest exclusive cards.


Final Fantasy VI: Revival Trance

This deck has an interesting tradeoff where there aren’t many good finishers in the deck but the deck does have some incredible staying power to make up for it. Post-boardwipe I believe this deck can do the best job at building back up if you can recast Terra, Herald of Hope. This deck definitely wins through a war of attrition where you can rebuild your board like nothing happened, even with an empty hand.



Most Utility: Gogo, Mysterious Mime

There are some truly disgusting lines that can come up while playing with this card either as your commander or just in the 99 of a commander whose ability you want more of. If you’re building around another commander with a great tap ability you can activate both abilities at the beginning of combat and keep them both safe while getting massive value.



My Favorite: Kefka, Dancing Mad

I love a little bit of chaos in my games and getting to cast my opponent’s spells for free and drain them out while doing so is a perfect mix of both. Definitely a build around commander with a lot of mill and ramp to get to this 7-drop but it’s worth it for an effect this flashy. Also it having indestructible is a great way of making sure it gets to your end step to guarantee the effect goes off.


Final Fantasy VII: Limit Break

The precon hits like a tank. No other way to put it. It cares about attacking with high power creatures and there’s a plethora of options to do so. This deck will garner a lot of hate from the table since no one wants to deal with a doublestriking 9/9 commander with trample on turn 5 or 6.



Most Utility: Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER

It’s very fitting that the face of the game, and arguably the whole Final Fantasy Series is the stand out card from this deck. I pick this one because it has no business being able to draw cards in its color identity for just having big attacking creatures. There’s a host of ways to get a bunch of equipped creatures in this precon. One interesting way you could build the deck is to focus on all of the equipment that come in attached to a creature it creates (For Mirrodin & Living Weapon.) And it’s no worry if they don’t survive combat since you’re drawing enough cards to refill/repair your boardstate and then you can just attach all the leftover equipment to Cloud or any other equipment-matters creatures.



It’s an interesting design space for a Boros legendary creature. You can make a board of crazy 7/5s for very little investment. The card wants you to do it with the otherwise-useless cell counters but you can just as easily use really cheap equipment, auras, or just put useful counters on your creatures like +1/+1 counters or keyword counters. A 1/1 with an incidental +1/+1 counter becomes an 8/6 beater on your turn. And all of this value is without even taking into account that you can sacrifice these tokens to bring Sephiroth back essentially dodging the commander tax.


Final Fantasy X: Counter Blitz

This is personally my favorite deck of all the precons that came out this year. This deck hits really hard right out of the box and even features a three-card infinite combo. If you think dice are an essential part of Magic The Gathering and you love showing your dice off, you’ll feel right at home with this deck with the ridiculous amount of counters this deck can make.



Making creatures unblockable is a really slept on ability. If you are putting a +1/+1 counter on your biggest threat that is now guaranteed to get in for damage, you can very easily close out games. Any deck that makes a bunch of counters in blue should be running a copy of this card.



A 4/4 with reach and trample is already pretty solid. Add to that the ability to grow it and your whole team each turn and you have a ridiculously fun and ridiculously strong commander. You can just sit back with one of the countless cards that let you add a counter each turn like Innkeeper’s Talent and grow your whole board for free with Wakka’s second ability.



Honorable Mention: Sphere Grid

If you have a creature that can get in for damage once, getting in for damage becomes significantly easier with the creature becoming bigger and gaining trample.


Final Fantasy XIV: Scions & Spellcraft

Easily the most exciting of the four Final Fantasy precons, Scions & Spellcraft is all about getting incremental value for taking normal game actions. It functions as a normal Esper control deck with value pieces that are all unassuming on their own but become menacing when linked all together.



The face cat lady is a menace in any deck. As mentioned before you get value for just sitting back and casting spells. As long as your opponent’s life totals are dwindling, you get free cards. And you get to cause the life total to fall by just casting noncreature spells like your counter magic or utility artifacts/enchantments. In this precon Y’shtola is a really good card, but in a custom deck built around Y’shtola, this card is almost as remove-on-sight as a Rhystic Study. Anyone who doesn’t agree clearly hasn’t sat across from this commander



My Favorite: White Auracite

It’s a little expensive to be a temporary removal spell, and it’s a little over costed to be a mana rock at four mana. But to be able to do both for four mana is a huge bonus. Especially in this deck where you want to be double-spelling as often as possible, removal and ramp in one slot is very flexible and super useful.


Edge of Eternities Commander Decks (24 New Cards)

With no precons coming out for Avatar the Last Airbender or Spiderman, these precons are how we end the year, and we definitely end the year on a high note. Special shout out to the Battle Land cycle that got the first enemy colored pair in these precons. Vernal Fen and Radiant Summit are very welcome additions to every mana base in their colors. And I love that the names are generic enough that they could get reprinted in other sets instead of having a name that forever ties them to Edge of Eternities themed sets.


Counter Intelligence

Players love putting counters on things so having a precon that just focuses on charge counters and proliferating them is incredible. And this deck is also a perfect precon for players who just love flooding the board with artifacts that synergize with other artifacts. A lot of the cards are unassuming when they only have 1-3 charge counters but get real menacing once they get 5+ counters on them and the struggle has always been how to get more counters on them at a faster rate than just one a turn. This deck turbos that strategy by having 9 cards with proliferate (one of which that can be your commander) and a bunch more that put counters on themselves in other ways. 



Most Utility: Insight Engine

A lot of people were really high on this card for a while by being a safer and cheaper alternative to The One Ring. It’s easy to set aside two mana a turn to be able to draw some extra cards and in the late game you can get a whole new grip of seven or more cards for just two mana. And in this precon you don’t even have to wait for the late game with all the ways you have to proliferate and dump extra charge counters onto cards.


My Favorite: Depthshaker Titan

I think it’s a bit risky to turn all of your artifacts into 3/3s but it’s definitely a way to surprise everyone and close out the game when they all get melee, trample, and haste. If you have a ton of artifact creatures, I think it’s completely reasonable to hang back with this creature and just send in all your other artifact creatures to close out the game. 


Honorable Mention: Long-Range Sensor

In any deck where you want to attack every player every turn, it is super easy to get almost free spells by Discovering 4 for just one mana. Definitely falls into my favorite category of card which is, “Unassuming card that’s not worth removing until you have accrued so much value it’s too late to remove.”


World Shaper

Many players will say that this is the best deck to come out of this year since it does so  many things so well. In most cards, the bigger the drawback is, the bigger the value generated is. This leads to decks that focus on minimizing the potential drawback to capitalize on all of the value (Like Aristocrat Synergies for example.) There are very few things more detrimental than sacrificing your mana production so the value that these cards give you is insane! And in a deck that focuses on getting all the lands back anyways and minimizing the negatives, you’re left with a precon that definitely punches way above its weight class right out of the box.



Most Utility: Horizon Explorer

Like I mentioned before, a lot of these cards only work together well when you have a bunch of ways to minimize the loss of resources. This card is just awesome. With a ton of utility lands and lands that tap for multiple colors that have to come in tapped, you can get ahead of your opponents by just having a better and more useful mana base than your opponents. This is on top of the fact that you get free artifact tokens for just attacking your opponents.



Getting to play additional lands each turn usually costs 3 - 4 mana. You can get it for just one mana and holding tapping a creature you didn’t want to attack with anyways. The 8+ station ability is really good in this precon but is kind of risky elsewhere unless you can guarantee your lands entering from your graveyard.


And that’s 2025 Commander Exclusive Cards in Review!

Astute readers will notice that I didn’t look at the scene boxes from Final Fantasy and I didn’t look at those because they aren’t preconstructed decks you can play with right out of the box. They are super strong and very useful but for the purposes of this article we’re just looked at the precon decks.


Be sure to follow me on my other social media platforms where I’ll be talking about these cards and providing different examples of all the cool things you can do with these cards. 


Thanks so much, Happy Holidays, and as always,

Play Nice & No Shoving!



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