Commander Legends
Nov 2020
Commander's first draftable set also shipped two preconstructed decks: one built around Equipment synergies and one around landfall and land-play.
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Commander Legends Precon Decks — click to analyze
Commander's First Draftable Set
Commander Legends represented a landmark moment in Magic history — the first set designed specifically to be drafted in Commander. Rather than the usual four-player, each-draft-a-deck approach, Commander Legends drafts seated eight players who each built a hundred-card singleton Commander deck from the pack pool. The design required completely rethinking how to balance a booster set, with two legendary creatures in every booster to ensure each drafter could find a commander.
Alongside the draftable boosters, Commander Legends shipped two preconstructed Commander decks representing the set's thematic pillars: Equipment mastery embodied by Wyleth, Soul of Steel, and the sprawling landfall engine of Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait. Both decks captured the set's Commander-first design philosophy by building around reliable, recurring value engines rather than one-shot haymakers.
Arm for Battle — The Heroic Equipment Master
Wyleth, Soul of Steel is built around one of Commander's most satisfying mechanical loops: stack Equipment on a single powerful attacker, then draw a card for each piece attached whenever that creature attacks. A fully-kitted Wyleth can draw five to ten cards in a single combat step, refilling your hand faster than opponents can respond. The Boros deck pairs this draw engine with efficient Equipment tutors and protective auras to keep Wyleth suited up and swinging.
The deck rewards aggressive deckbuilding decisions — every Equipment choice is also a cantrip potential, and keeping Wyleth alive through targeted removal becomes a strategic priority for the entire table. The payoff for threading that needle is one of the most explosive mid-game card advantage engines in any precon, enabling turns where you play out half your hand from Equipment draws alone.
Reap the Tides — The Landfall Value Machine
Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait combines two of green-blue's most powerful effects — playing an additional land per turn and drawing a card on each landfall trigger — into a self-perpetuating cycle of land drops and card advantage. Playing a land draws a card, which might be another land, which triggers Aesi again. The Simic deck accelerates this loop with land-fetching creatures, land recursion spells, and bounce effects that allow replaying lands repeatedly.
What makes Aesi uniquely powerful is that the additional land and card draw apply to every landfall trigger, not just the first each turn. With enough land ramp and fetch effects, Aesi games can reach turns where ten or more lands enter the battlefield, drawing ten or more cards in the process. The deck builds toward these explosive turns through careful resource management and patient accumulation of land-manipulation effects.