Commander 2015
Nov 2015
Five two-color Commander decks introducing experience counters — a landmark mechanic where commander damage grows permanently regardless of whether the commander leaves the battlefield.
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Commander 2015 Precon Decks — click to analyze
The Experience Counter Revolution
Commander 2015 introduced experience counters, a new Commander mechanic where your commander's effectiveness grows permanently through the course of the game rather than resetting when the commander returns to the command zone. This design addressed a fundamental tension in Commander: powerful commanders that die repeatedly become prohibitively expensive to recast, while experience counters ensure that commander actions taken in early turns pay dividends even after repeated deaths.
Each of the five decks explored a different path to experience counter accumulation — enchantment casting, big creature casting, small creature casting, creature sacrifice, and spell casting — and different payoffs for accumulating experience. The mechanic created decks where the early game of building experience translates into a fundamentally different late game compared to opponents without that investment.
Plunder the Graves — Meren's Recursive Engine
Meren of Clan Nel Toth gains an experience counter whenever a creature you control dies and at the beginning of each end step either returns a creature from your graveyard with CMC less than or equal to your experience total to your hand, or puts it directly onto the battlefield. This creates a snowballing engine: sacrifice creatures to gain experience, then experience enables returning increasingly expensive creatures at end step.
The Golgari deck is built around sacrifice outlets and graveyard synergies that generate experience while returning those same sacrificed creatures for additional value. The deck rewards building experience to five or six quickly, at which point Meren can return nearly any creature in the deck for free each end step. This recursive advantage generates such consistent value that the deck has become one of the most influential precons in Commander history.
Seize Control — Mizzix's Cost Reduction
Mizzix of the Izmagnus gains an experience counter whenever you cast an instant or sorcery with a mana cost greater than your current experience total, and each experience counter reduces the cost of your instants and sorceries by one. The progression creates an accelerating discount: casting a three-cost instant and a four-cost sorcery gives two experience, which reduces costs by two, enabling casting a five-cost spell as a three-cost next turn.
The Izzet deck sequences spells at increasing mana values to build experience efficiently, then leverages the accumulated discount to cast enormous spells at a fraction of their cost. At six or seven experience counters, many of the deck's most powerful spells become effectively free — countermagic, draw spells, and board wipes that normally cost five or six mana become one or two mana plays, generating a tempo advantage no opponent can match.