It’s time for the 3rd installment of our picks for 10 must buy upgrades for the Adventures in the Forgotten Realms Precon commander decks! This time we’re looking at the Planar Portal deck, which is a Black and Red deck that focuses on playing cards from exile. In a similar fashion to our other lists, we’ll do 5 cheap picks under $10, and 5 expensive picks over $10.
Cheap Picks (under $10)
Laelia, the Blade Reforged – ~$0.50
The first cheap pick is
Laelia, the Blade Reforged
Laelia, the Blade Reforged
Haste
Whenever Laelia attacks, exile the top card of your library. You may play that card this turn.
Whenever one or more cards are put into exile from your library and/or your graveyard, put a +1/+1 counter on Laelia.
. This is a nice hasty creature that can fuel exile engine and gets bigger whenever we do exile a card from our library. It comes down fairly early in the game and can get in some nice early damage, as well.
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Cunning Rhetoric – ~$3.75
The next card is
Cunning Rhetoric
Cunning Rhetoric
Whenever an opponent attacks you and/or one or more planeswalkers you control, exile the top card of that player's library. You may play that card for as long as it remains exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast it.
, which is an enchantment that can makes our opponents question whether or not they want to attack us. If they do, we get to exile a card from the top of their library. We get to cast it, and the important thing is that we can cast it as long as it’s exiled, and we have full access to mana to cast the spell.
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Stolen Strategy – ~$5.00
Next up is
Stolen Strategy
Stolen Strategy
At the beginning of your upkeep, exile the top card of each opponent's library. Until end of turn, you may cast spells from among those exiled cards, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast those spells.
. Similar to Cunning Rhetoric, this card lets us exile the top card of each opponent’s library every turn. This can net us a lot of value of the course of the game, since it’s an enchantment, it could be a bit more difficult to deal with.
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Revel in Riches – ~$6.50
The first “treasure” focused card in the list is actually another win condition, in
Revel in Riches
Revel in Riches
Whenever a creature an opponent controls dies, create a Treasure token. (It's an artifact with "{T}, Sacrifice this token: Add one mana of any color.")
At the beginning of your upkeep, if you control ten or more Treasures, you win the game.
. A lot of the cards in our deck make treasure tokens, and with this out, at the beginning of our upkeep, if we have 10 or more treasures we win the game! We also can get tokens when our opponent’s creatures die, so we can potentially get to this win condition pretty easily.
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Chandra, Torch of Defiance – ~8.00
Our last cheap pick is
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
Chandra, Torch of Defiance
+1: Exile the top card of your library. You may cast that card. If you don't, Chandra deals 2 damage to each opponent.
+1: Add {R}{R}.
−3: Chandra deals 4 damage to target creature.
−7: You get an emblem with "Whenever you cast a spell, this emblem deals 5 damage to any target."
. This powerful 4 mana planeswalker does a lot for our deck. Both +1 abilities are useful for us, allowing us to exile a card from our library and also make extra mana for us. It deals 4 damage to any creature, and it’s ultimate can be game ending. This is a great addition to our game plan.
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Expensive Picks (~$10+)
Dauthi Voidwalker – ~$10
Dauthi Voidwalker
Dauthi Voidwalker
Shadow (This creature can block or be blocked by only creatures with shadow.)
If a card would be put into an opponent's graveyard from anywhere, instead exile it with a void counter on it.
{T}, Sacrifice this creature: Choose an exiled card an opponent owns with a void counter on it. You may play it this turn without paying its mana cost.
is a power house card in Modern, and can be a really great addition here. It attacks well, since it has shadow, and there’s most likely going to be cards that go to our opponent’s graveyards, so we can exile them and we’d get to cast one of them for free.
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Opposition Agent – ~$10-$11
Next up is
Opposition Agent
Opposition Agent
Flash
You control your opponents while they're searching their libraries.
While an opponent is searching their library, they exile each card they find. You may play those cards for as long as they remain exiled, and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast them.
. This powerful creature lets us control our opponents while they’re searching their libraries, which happens quite often. We can utilize this to exile and cast our opponent’s best spell and benefit from our other synergies. The best part of this card is that it has flash, so we can surprise our opponent with it.
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Valki, God of Lies / Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor – ~$14.00
Valki, God of Lies[tooltips] itself is pretty underwhelming for our purposes, but [tooltips]Tibalt, Cosmic Impostor is quite good in our deck. The emblem that he gives us synergies perfectly with our deck, and all of his abilities help fuel this. If we can ultimate Tibalt, we have a huge fuel of cards that we can cast and help trigger our synergies.
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Grenzo, Havoc Raiser – ~$15
Next up is
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
Whenever a creature you control deals combat damage to a player, choose one —
• Goad target creature that player controls.
• Exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card and you may spend mana as though it were mana of any color to cast that spell.
, which has some really strong abilities. Goad makes a creature an opponent controls attack someone other than us, which can help draw some heat off us. Additionally, we can exile cards from the top of our opponent’s library. It’s also only 2 mana which lets it come down early and get these abilities rolling.
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Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer – ~$70
Our last pick is a hot one.
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
Whenever Ragavan deals combat damage to a player, create a Treasure token and exile the top card of that player's library. Until end of turn, you may cast that card.
Dash {1}{R} (You may cast this spell for its dash cost. If you do, it gains haste, and it's returned from the battlefield to its owner's hand at the beginning of the next end step.)
is one of the best cards from Modern Horizons 2. It commands such a high price tag that this one is a bit iffy, but if you have one of these guys, it’s worth it. Coming down on turn 1, or dashed on turn 2, it plays heavily into both of our deck’s synergies. It’s possible that it does eat removal, but early on in the game, this can get quite a few cards from our opponent’s decks and we can ramp pretty quickly. This sets us up nice and early to get our game plan underway and generating us a bunch of value
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