Originally written May 27, 2024 by King Kookus for HappyHomarid.com & edited 11/02/2025).
Time and time again I’m asked “Why would anyone buy a deck from you?” often followed by “You’re famous then? A judge? Ex-Judge?”
I don’t take it personally. It’s a valid question that I find incredibly hard to answer with any semblance of conviction – why would anyone want to buy a pre-con?A pre-con made by a deep-sea delving spongehead even, rather than the trusted, respected and loved Papa Hasbro.
Well, pre-cons offer convenience. You crack it out of the packaging and shuffle. Within a few minutes you can be playing the game that all of us here love. There’s no thought required, no prerequisite for a deep understanding of deck building, synergies, or archetypes.
It’s a shortcut to an enjoyable experience, particularly if others in your pod are on the same wavelength and are using relatively equal strength decks. Papa Hasbro’s official Commander products offer some semblance of interaction when used against each other, though I’m not going to go too deep into if they’re particularly amazing in this department. Let’s just say there’s a reason why some specific Commander pre-cons can find themselves massively discounted, sitting at the bottom of the bargain basement barrel.
Quality issues and valid concerns regarding balance aside, we have deep sea delved into another arc entirely; fairness, equality – some sort of thinly veiled attempt to provide a level playing field.
Four players buying four precons is the pod’s attempt to achieve this. Making things feel fair in a game as complex as Magic the Gathering, in a singular card format like EDH is…well let’s file that topic right next to the “Requests to Explain Banding” folder.
So, just like that; we’ve concisely answered why the market for pre-constructed EDH decks exists (at least we’ve scratched the surface). In a perfect world, perhaps the pod of four players who have all happily purchased their pre-cons wander home and make no further changes to the decks. They remain as balanced in power as they ever were (!).
The epiphany here is that there’s a market for the decks that I build because the products offered by WOTC are not actually of high quality as decks go. The need for preconstructed EDH decks is to remove effort, maybe even financial expenditure, from the equation in order to enjoy the experience of playing Commander. The fairest Commander experience within reach.
Yet, the value of the product plummets as soon as you open the packaging. The chase cards (for various reasons) are often of lower value than other printings of the same card, and roughly 35 of the cards included are essentially worthless – basic lands. Non-Basic lands included that splash for multiple colours are often clunky and/or come into play tapped. I don’t think this necessarily provides any value.
You buy the pre-con, and watch your hard earned money turn to dust, while you sit across the table from your opponent, licking their lips as they scope you as the easy target you’ve made yourself, ready to run through the motions with a deck they’ve spent time honing and playtesting – removing the stinkers over time and replacing them with higher power EDH “staples”. Even if the opponent started out with a Hasbro precon, the deck at this point in time has been butchered and flayed – innards ripped out and tossed. The deck wears the same skin, but for all intents and purposes is now Frankenstein’s Monster.
How much money has your opponent sunk into the deck since initial purchase? With the birth of collector boosters, sealed product cracked and used for parts have never been so pricey. Even the smarter player who’s bought specific & synergistic cards have done so at cost. A dollar here and there adds up. The pre-con wielding opponent you are facing is no longer a fair, equal adversary.
When I started building decks with the intention to sell them, I took the aforementioned into account, and factored in a few other things that I feel influence the quality of the game & the outcome of the winner; Things like politics, threat analysis, and colour fixing at an affordable price. An unassuming commander is key. One colour is wonderful for budget brews, 1-4CMC is almost essential. Multicolored legendaries that have mammoth CMC are off the menu. The fewer the colours, the more of the budget that becomes freed up to use on exciting, non-land cards. An unassuming commander is just a mask. Ertai Corrupted? No sir, this is a disguised Zur the Enchanter deck. You’re taking it easy on me because I’m the underdog. I confused you by remaining silent during times of chickenhead politik – confusion and mystery ensues. Subsequent misplays are inevitable – whether or not the opponent is aware of that at the time or not.
Decks built to be autonomously apolitical allow the pilot to skip the squabbling and focus on the actual task at hand; using the cards in your hand and library to defend against scheming opponents and if required, return fire with such force that they reconsider you as a target the next time an “Eeny Meeny Miney Mo” scenario rises. Ultimately the product is unique in its selling point – I’m offering decks built with purposive intent. To reduce the impact of and the frequency of EDH games wrecked by cringeworthy bargaining and begging.
We’re all seeking a fun, engaging game of Magic the Gathering – I’m doing my bit to help y’all be a little less salty, and keep the barnacle babbling to a minimum. In a strange twist, one of many “special sauces” of mine…make the deck as salty and horrible as possible! All of these deep sea flavours, and I choose to be salty.
Enjoy a future filled with autonomously apolitical games, by engaging in a never-ending scorched earth policy. Go get ‘em, Tiger.
Night Night,
Josh / King Kookus.