Willowdusk, Essence Seer V2
- Leo De Jesus
- Jun 28, 2023
- 10 min read
Updated: Jul 2, 2023
Month 1 of Upgrading Witherbloom Witchcraft
Hello! This is the first upgrade article for the channel and I’m super grateful for any and all interactions with Precon Playground. But let’s jump right in!!!!
The most exciting bit is to see what direction we are taking the deck in. As of now, the precon does a little too much. Some cards are there for life loss, some for lifegain, some sac outlets, some sub themes, etc… Even in streamlining the deck by focusing on only one theme, we have a ton of options for what to add and remove from the deck. All in all these changes are going to help smooth out Willowdusk’s game plan and make the deck more fun to play.
The New Game Plan
Lifegain. Short, sweet, and straight to the point we want to be focusing on lifegain. If there is any lifeloss, we have to make sure that it’s the best value we can get on a card. The one subtheme we may dip into is +1/+1 counters. There are some cards in here that get better as their power and toughness creep up. Willowdusk can turn our creatures into giants really quickly so there are some +1/+1 counter synergies that can make Willowdusk’s ability a little more worthwhile.
Also super important to aim for is streamlining the mana values in this deck. There are a lot of large splashy spells but it’s my personal belief that unless it is a game winner or a flavor win (if that matters to you) it shouldn’t cost 5 mana (MV) or more. With a properly crafted deck you should be able to get more value from two solid MV3 cards than from a single clunky MV6 card. When removing cards from the deck I sort by MV and start trimming from the top. I may remove a cheaper card if I feel it’s doing nothing useful to the game plan but as we start and can remove only a few at a time, the expensive stuff has got to go.
Reminder on Budget Constraints
As mentioned in the first article, each monthly upgrade is going to cap out at $15 dollars worth of cards. (Depending on your shipping this may creep up to $20) If we need a card that costs more than $15 we have to wait to pool that money. I feel this is a responsible way to upgrade the deck and maintain the hobby while also feeling like you are still making valid & substantial changes. If you can safely and responsibly afford to pour more money into the hobby, you can increase your budget and if $15 a month is too much, you can always lower your monthly budget and continue just fine. $15 a month over the course of a year will come out to $180 dollars of upgrades! There’s a lot of value to be had but the only thing it takes is a bit of time making little changes at once.
The Upgrades - What's going in?!
If in the early game we can get at least one activation of Willowdusk targeting Fertilid, we can consistently have all the mana we'll need for the rest of the game as long as it sticks around and we keep 2 mana open to remove a counter. Even in the late game when we have more impactful targets for Willowdusk, 2 extra lands off of just the original counters is very useful at 2 mana a piece. Best part is the price is dirt cheap with its common Ikoria printing so it doesn't chip away at the budget too much.
At just 2 generic mana, this artifact guarantees that every colored spell in our deck will generate some lifegain. These small passive gains are crucial in the early game as we want to be activating Willowdusk every turn.
The first two modes are going to be the main focus when only being able to pick one. Either buffing some evasive lifegainer for more value or gaining life off of an already huge creature are both ideal. If we get into the late game, assuming Willowdusk has had some time to work, getting both and the bonus of potentially removing a creature is pretty decent for 5 mana.
Here's our first card over a dollar and it is a doozy. The static ability lets us play this on turn 3 instead of our commander but then get Willowdusk and the activation on turn 4 anyways with the potential for an extra activation! The +1 is really what we want to be using more than anything while we are in the early stages of our upgrades. The -2 ability could come into use if there's something already in our graveyard that we want back. I also can't stress enough, that since Tyvar doesn't have a true threatening ultimate it is a Planeswalker worth playing. Especially in the early game while everyone is setting up, Tyvar doesn't flag any immediate danger and can stick around for a while.
We need access to a lot of mana in this deck to gain enough life to get to meaningful Willowdusk activations. After Willowdusk targets Viridian Joiner, we should be good on mana to cast whatever else we want in the deck.
In a similar vein as Viridian Joiner, Accomplished Animist will gain us large busts of mana but based on our lifegain instead of power. This leaves Willowdusk able to target something more meaningful. It goes hand in hand with what the rest of the deck wants to do. What I really love about it is that no one knows exactly how much you’ll be tapping it for. It could be just one off of the 1st ability or it could be 7 - 8 after connecting with some meaningful lifelink damage further continuing an awesome turn in your second main phase.
Since Willowdusk’s ability costs only one mana to activate, being able to activate it twice in one turn is not only great but optimal. And being able to do that every turn at the cost of one green mana once is WILD. In a world where commander only ever gets faster and faster, getting to activate your commander more than anyone else is a sure fire way to get closer to a victory
This is our first more expensive card and it literally takes a third of our budget so I am really going to lean into all the reasons why this card is SUPER worth it. Starting from the top of the card and working our way down, K’rrik comes out for 4 mana. We will NEVER pay the full 7 as we can gain it back almost instantly. Also paying the 6 life to get it out is good for Willowdusk if we have a turn with not all of our lifegain set up yet. It has lifelink! The card funds its own discounts! It makes for a perfect Willowdusk target to attack in for a lot of lifegain at once. The next ability makes all of our black spells cost 1 less as this deck has no problem paying the extra 2 life for any card. Most cards will earn that right back right away and as mentioned before, it can also assist in getting a larger Willowdusk trigger. The last ability on it helps K’rrik grow itself too! You may not even need to target it with Willowdusk as just playing black spells is enough to make it a threatening beater. Every line of text on this card lines up with what our commander wants to do and as such it is worth every penny.
Spike Feeder is another card like K’rrik in the same way every line of text is just more of what you want to be doing anyways! It combos perfectly with Willowdusk to stabilize your life total. 1 counter off = 2 life. 2 life = 2 counters with Willowdusk. If you are in a state where players are alpha striking each other trying to close out, using Willowdusk and Spike Feeder is a great way to stick around for a few more turns.
This is more of a utility pickup than a haymaker combo piece. There is always someone running B/G graveyard shenanigans and as such every deck should have 1 - 2 pieces of grave hate. I think that every deck that runs Bojuka Bog should do so and with the theme of lifegain in this deck, Erebos’s Intervention doubles as a solid removal as well. Remember that you can always sink mana into it and over kill a creature to get a larger lifegain amount if you want to also activate willowdusk or other lifegain matters cards.
This land is a perfect fetch for the deck. While it still is a tapped basic, the benefit of going through your deck to fish out another card is deck thinning even if only by one card. It is another land you won’t be drawing after all. And that 1 life gained on the activation is nice in this deck too! I love this cycle of lands in general, especially if you pair them with playing lands out of your graveyard as it is just a free fetch every turn.
It is absurd that a multi-color precon would be shipped without the appropriate signets. The price is low and they are played almost exclusively in commander. I really can’t understand why this isn’t in the deck. Mini rant aside, it is really good and really cheap. Getting ahead on mana in this deck is really important to getting Willowdusk out sooner and activating more… It’s like shipping a deck without a Command Tower!!!....
On the day of writing, these 12 cards total up to $13.27 USD on CardKingdom.com. The extra $1.73 will go into next month’s budget as we save up to buy a few more powerhouse pieces. Now onto the hardest part of upgrading…
What’s Coming Out?
I couldn’t remove this card fast enough. It costs too much at mv5, he won’t live for more than 2 turns so drawing one card and killing one creature isn’t worth the mana, and lastly, the ultimate is too threatening to every stick around for more turns. Not a good card draw source and not a good card for this deck. Tyvar is much more useful, isn’t as threatening, and is 2 mana cheaper. This is one of the most straightforward 1-for-1 trades/upgrades
Too much mana. Plain and simple. Even with big ramping creatures coming in, 7 for these abilities just isn’t worth it.
5 mana and the effect isn’t really worth it. It doesn’t serve as much of a finishing role as you’d think in the deck. Also it has no evasion & no lifelink. It’s just an expensive minimally incremental value creature.
We have 40 lands in the deck and I feel that is too many. We can afford to run at 37 or even 35. I usually start deck building at 37 lands so I don’t feel bad about cutting 3 - 4 of the ones here. I especially don’t feel bad if the land is as bad as this. It requires colored mana to activate, activates at 4 mana, and is miles worse than Myriad Landscape even though it comes in untapped. 3 lands can afford to go and this one HAS to.
This one hurts as I really love this card but as the deck stands now, it can’t churn through enough cards to guarantee that you can play this without being down on mana temporarily. When we fix the deck’s card draw rate, we can consider putting this back in.
We aren’t a token or a pest focused deck. In either of those decks this card is gas but we can afford to move out the pest package of the deck and have a much more streamlined mission.
1 Basic Swamp and 1 Basic Forest
This trims us down to 36 lands which I think is a perfect spot with how we plan to pull the average MV lower and lower.
It’s such a cute card but making one singular food just isn’t enough to cover up that it can come in tapped a lot and makes only one color. We are bringing in Riveteers Overlook so to keep the land count at 36 this can go.
While being able to two-for-one the board and lose some life for Willowdusk’s ability is cool, Erebos’s Intervention can guarantee kill a creature with no color restriction, and gain life instead of losing it all with the bonus flexibility of some graveyard hate.
We aren’t a heavy G/B Aristocrats build so paying 5 mana to wait to draw a single card and gain one life is a bit of a slog. Yeah it’s nice before board wipes but in general it’s really not that great of a value at 5 mana.
Goldfishing & Conclusion
So I’ve goldfished the deck as I wait for the cards to come in and it flows much smoother. Hitting one of the mana tappers feels amazing. I haven’t felt the effects of running 4 less lands and knowing my luck I’ll end up getting mana screwed at 36 lands when I put it together in paper. But the test plays, at least now, feel great. The biggest improvement that I could easily note in the 12 new cards is in the flexibility of the cards. I don’t feel like these cards are single purpose and as such it feels like you have more options at hand even with the same grip of cards.
I’ll write another blog post on what I look for when goldfishing decks but what I was most happy with was my ability to cast cards on time. I make a list of the cards I’ve replaced and when I draw one in testing (or in an actual game), I take a moment to think, “Do I wish I had one of the cards I removed from the deck.” If I consistently wish I had one of the removed cards, I’ll go back and reconsider my decision. If it happens enough I’ll switch cards back in and out.
So in conclusion, I like my changes because I was the one who made them. Lol. Seriously though, I feel really great with how the deck handles. Thank you so much for reading this lengthy precon upgrade article!! The next batch of changes are going to be very exciting and as a bit of a teaser, the next card I want to play rhymes with Colas’s Bitadel… It could be anything!
Remember,
Play Nice & No Shoving.
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