Now that we're between sets, with Spider-Man behind us, and Avatar rapidly approaching, I thought it would be a good time to spotlight one of the decks I've been playing lately. I've played in a few groups in recent years, and there is a pretty wide range of feelings about Universes Beyond. One of the groups, where decks skew a little towards lower bracket play, has some players with very strong anti-UB feelings.

We recently started experimenting with a subformat of Commander as a way to get away from Universes Beyond. That subformat is PreDH, where all cards must have been first printed before the first Commander deck hit the shelves back in 2011.

Power creep is real in Magic: the Gathering. Playing with old cards doesn't mean you have to build weak decks, but it is a big limitation to only play with cards printed before New Phyrexia. To make it easy, many online decklist apps have a PreDH setting so you can load in a list and see which cards in your deck aren't legal in that format. Most modern EDH staples aren't legal in PreDH, so you'll find that your removal is a little more expensive, your card draw is a little harder to come by, and so on.

PreDH decks are commander legal, as preDH uses the same banlist but just has an additional restriction to deckbuilding. If you've struggled with building decks that are too strong for your playgroup, building a PreDH deck might be a way to make sure you have a deck that has a few added limitations that pull it down in power. Winning with a PreDH deck against a table of regular EDH decks, especially if it's a higher-powered table, will feel like a real accomplishment, and to some extent it is.

One of the greatest things about Commander is the incredible range of legendary creatures you can build around. PreDH has a card pool that will never grow, and if you build a PreDH deck you'll have to choose from one of the 444 legendary creatures first printed before New Phyrexia. You'll probably find half of those creatures to actually be worth building around. Apologies to Bartel Runeaxe, but anyone used to playing Commander will probably want a commander that actually brings something to the table.

The top PreDH commanders are all names you'll recognize, in part because they see play in EDH. A list from EDHRec.com in 2023 listed Doran, the Siege Tower, Rhys, the Redeemed, Shirei, Shizo's Caretaker, Omnath, Locus of Mana, Sen Triplets, Reaper King, Grand Arbiter Augustin IV, Sliver Overlord, Marrow-Gnawer, and Zur, the Enchanter as the top 10 PreDH commanders, though they may have been looking at raw commander decklist data when making this list. If you want read more details from their 2023 list you can do that here (https://edhrec.com/articles/too-specific-top-10-predh-commanders)

I have the bones of an old Slivers deck to build around but decided Slivers might be a little too sweaty for the playgroup I'd be playing this deck with. I ended up deciding to take an elf-themed Varis, Silverymoon Ranger deck and convert it over to a PreDH elfball deck, led by the commander that appeared as the 18th most popular PreDH commander in EDHRec's list.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader is the OG of elfball commanders, able to take huge amounts of mana and turn it into a win, so long as you have at least one Elf that can attack each opponent and they don't have a fog or a way to remove the attacking creature. This 3 mana Elf Warrior has two abilities. For a Green mana you can regenerate another target Elf. For five mana, including at least 3 Green, you can give your Elf creatures +3/+3 and trample until end of turn. That second ability doesn't require him to tap, so you can easily activate it multiple times in a turn.

I've been leaning away from building with game changers and tutors in recent years, but I still wanted to start out with a deck that I knew would be capable of winning games. I ended up deciding to run infinite mana combos as they pair perfectly with Ezuri's ability to let me close out games. I decided to run Worldly Tutor, Chord of Calling, and Fauna Shaman, but left out Elvish Harbinger. I might load that in if I upgrade the deck, but I didn't have a spare copy when I threw this list together in paper.

Elf Combo

Modern high-powered Elf Commander decks lean on cards like Marwyn, the Nurturer, Selvala, Heart of the Wilds, Karametra's Acolyte, Gyre Sage, Circle of Dreams Druid, and Priest of Titania to make huge amounts of mana. All of those mana dorks, most of which are Elves, can tap to make a significant amount of mana in a single activation. When you combine them with one of the artifacts shown below, you can untap and do it again (and again, and again).

The good news is that the three artifacts shown above are ALL legal in PreDH. Sword of the Paruns was printed in Guildpact. Umbral Mantle was printed in Shadowmoor. Staff of Domination was printed in Fifth Dawn.

The bad news is that of the mana dorks I listed, only Priest of Titania is legal in PreDH. I'm also running Viridian Joiner, which taps to make Green mana equal to its power, but that's about it for big mana dorks. If I am able to go off, make ridiculous amounts of mana, and have an equipment that can untap a creature with said mana, I've got a few elves that are going to be very helpful.

Wellwisher will be happy to tap to have me gain life equal to the number of Elves I control. In a normal game that can help me have a buffer to keep from getting too close to death. If I make infinite mana and can untap her, I'll be able to gain an arbitrary amount of life. I'll still need to worry about commander damage, infect, mill, and combo, but it's nice to not need to worry about regular combat damage.

If I've got Bloodline Shaman in play, I can tap her to choose a creature type and then reveal the top card of my library. If the revealed card is an Elf, I can put it into my hand, otherwise it goes into the graveyard. That's pretty good if I'm in need of more Elves, and if I combo off, I can dig through my library to get as many Elf cards as I want. I'll be naming Elf of course, though I do have a few other creature types in my library.

If I've managed to combo off, but I don't have Ezuri, Renegade Leader available, Wildheart Invoker will let me spend my Green mana to give a creature +5/+5 and trample until end of turn. A single activation costs a whopping 8 mana, but if I've got 8 million mana, I should be able to swing lethal on all of my tablemates.

Odds and Ends

One of my favorite things about PreDH is that you end up finding and playing cards that you don't normally run, simply because you no longer have access to familiar staples. I'm not running Arachnogenesis, Jaheira's Respite, or Obscuring Haze, but I am running Constant Mists, Moment's Peace, and for the first time in ages, an actual, bona fide Fog. Most of you don't look at any Fog spells as staples, but there are a few cards worth putting a spotlight on.

The card I most want to use to win a game with this deck is probably Seedtime. This two-mana instant can only be cast on my turn, and it only makes sense to cast it if an opponent has cast a Blue spell. If they have, and if Seedtime resolves, I'll take an extra turn. That's all. It's not flashy, but I long to have a moment where some Blue player's poorly timed instant spell lets me get the extra turn I need to close out a game.

Card draw is much harder in PreDH than in regular Commander, but I fully expect to have games where Slate of Ancestry keeps the party going. This four-mana artifact costs another four to activate. I'll tap it, discard my hand, and draw a card for each creature I control. If I'm at that rare table with few boardwipes, I could have games where this is drawing me a pretty nice grip of cards.

Primitive Etchings is a four-mana enchantment that will give me a decent chance of drawing an extra card on my turn. I'll reveal the first card I draw and if I reveal a creature I'll draw another card. That's good, in that I'll get a few more cards in hand if I'm lucky. It's less good if I'm revealing combo pieces or wincons, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.

Getting to the end game isn't always easy. Hall of Gemstone is the kind of card that can either help a lot by slowing down other players, or it can get them to kill you first so they can actually play their decks. When this old enchantment is in play each player will choose a color on their upkeep. For their turn, each mana-producing land produces mana of the chosen color instead of its normal color. This affects everyone, so it's a great way to lock a Blue player out of meddling with your spells on your turn. It also can stop players from playing their multicolored commanders if they don't have the right mana rocks or mana dorks in play.

Beastmaster Ascension was printed in Zendikar, so it's fair game for PreDH. I'm running it along with Coat of Arms, which can backfire as easily as it can rocket you to victory. The card I really wanted to show off is Tribal Unity, which will let me pour big mana into a big instant speed combat trick. Even if I'm just tapping Priest of Titania to make a dozen mana, I can still pay X2G with X equal to 9. The more mana I can pour into this spell, the more likely I'll either wipe out a ton of blockers, or possibly wipe out a bunch of my tablemates. None of these cards give trample, so they are good but there will be times where they aren't enough to get the job done.

Triumph of the Hordes not only gives +1/+1 and trample, it also gives infect. If you want to win a game with infect and also do it through combat, Triumph of the Hordes is here for you. This four-mana sorcery won't win you many friends, but it sure does the job. All you need is 10 poison counters to kill a player, and if you're able to combine it with an Ezuri activation or another damage amplifier, it's not hard to see why more casual players get frustrated with infect.

PreDH Ezuri

I ended up running a lot more tutors than I usually run, figuring that the downsides of building with only cards from before New Phyrexia was enough of a limitation that I might need some extra help. I seriously thought about throwing in Gaea's Cradle, and I may still include one in the list eventually, but I don't proxy and don't love sharing lists with cards that are that expensive.

When I first started building this deck I actually wanted to only include old-style bordered cards. I thought that would be the coolest vibe to have for my PreDH Ezuri, but I quickly ran up against cards that I only had in a modern card frame. You can run a recent copy of a card in a PreDH deck if the first printing was from before New Phyrexia, as the format cares about card legality, not which printing you are sleeving up for your deck.

Ezuri, Renegade Leader PreDH | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Ezuri, Renegade Leader

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Arbor Elf
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Bloodline Shaman
• 1 Civic Wayfinder
• 1 Copperhorn Scout
• 1 Elvish Eulogist
• 1 Elvish Herder
• 1 Elvish Skysweeper
• 1 Elvish Vanguard
• 1 Elvish Visionary
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Farhaven Elf
• 1 Fauna Shaman
• 1 Gamekeeper
• 1 Heart Warden
• 1 Leaf Gilder
• 1 Llanowar Elves
• 1 Llanowar Empath
• 1 Priest of Titania
• 1 Quirion Ranger
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scattershot Archer
• 1 Scute Mob
• 1 Skyshroud Ranger
• 1 Spore Frog
• 1 Sylvan Messenger
• 1 Sylvan Ranger
• 1 Taunting Elf
• 1 Thornweald Archer
• 1 Viridian Emissary
• 1 Viridian Joiner
• 1 Viridian Shaman
• 1 Wellwisher
• 1 Werebear
• 1 Wildheart Invoker
• 1 Wirewood Herald
• 1 Wood Elves

• Spells (16)
• 1 Chord of Calling
• 1 Constant Mists
• 1 Decree of Savagery
• 1 Fog
• 1 Moment's Peace
• 1 Provoke
• 1 Seedtime
• 1 Tribal Unity
• 1 Worldly Tutor
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Green Sun's Zenith
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Overrun
• 1 Rampant Growth
• 1 Skyshroud Claim
• 1 Triumph of the Hordes

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Beastmaster Ascension
• 1 Hall of Gemstone
• 1 Overwhelming Instinct
• 1 Primitive Etchings

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Coat of Arms
• 1 Emerald Medallion
• 1 Slate of Ancestry
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Staff of Domination
• 1 Sword of the Paruns
• 1 Umbral Mantle

• Lands (35)
• 33 Forest
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Wirewood Lodge

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to tune this list down, you might start by dropping out the combo pieces. Making a ton of mana without a combo, and without Gaea's Cradle, makes it much harder to just crush a table out of nowhere. I'm already leaving out some key cards like Concordant Crossroads and the old school card draw staple, Sylvan Library, but you might also remove Triumph of the Hordes for lower-powered play.

To increase this deck's power level while staying in the PreDH format, you'd probably throw in that Cradle along with Concordant Crossroads, but it won't take long before you're tempted to just convert the list into a regular Commander deck. That gives you access to all of the mana dorks I mentioned earlier, along with Craterhoof Behemoth, Heroic Intervention, Beast Whisperer, Guardian Project, and a ton of other cards that can make Ezuri a real powerhouse.

Early Results

I was able to get this list into a few games before writing this column, and even managed to win one of them. The win was memorable, as I was playing in a five-player pod and I was the only one on a PreDH deck. The following may well have inaccuracies but this is the gist of how its most recent game went down. I wasn't taking notes as I played, and didn't realize at the time that I'd need to remember how the game went down.

The most notable players were a newer player on a fairly well tuned Nekusar, the Mindrazer deck and his buddy who was on a Captain America deck. Both players weren't super familiar with the bracket system and weren't particularly interested in it. There was also a Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant deck so we knew we were up against some hefty lifegain. My last opponent was on Klothys, God of Destiny.

The Nekusar player was very much still learning the format and the game, and fairly early on they used Mystical Tutor to go get Cyclonic Rift even though they didn't have the mana to cast it for its overloaded cost of 7 mana.

Early in the game I drew into an Umbral Mantle and played out a Wirewood Herald, which is a 1/1 Elf Scout with a death trigger that lets me tutor up an Elf card and put it into my hand. I grew my board and before long there was a boardwipe. WIth five players, the amount of interaction and the number of boardwipes is generally higher, which helps those games go longer than you might expect. When Herald died I tutored for Priest of Titania, revealed it, and put it in my hand. It could combo with the Umbral Mantle in my hand to make infinite mana and let me threaten a win.

I think I played out Priest of Titania, as it would have to not have summoning sickness to be able to tap for mana. It's a well-known and powerful card, so it got removed before too long. Fortunately, I was able to get it back into my hand from the graveyard with an Eternal Witness, which would end up being relevant a few turns later.

The trouble was that I was up against a Nekusar player with a Cyclonic Rift in hand. I couldn't risk both of my combo pieces getting wheeled away. I can be a bit of a pessimist sometimes, but I was sure they wouldn't make it past all four of my tablemates. The table knew they would have to deal with one or both of the combo pieces.

Sure enough, the Captain America player, who is a great player and builds strong decks, had the answer and blew up Umbral Mantle, sending it to the graveyard. I couldn't complain, and I think it was a turn cycle later when everyone had continued to build up their boards that the Nekusar player got involved.

They hadn't played Nekusar, and I don't think they had wheeled us yet, but they did decide to cast that Cyclonic Rift. They had finally gotten to seven mana and it's possible they just wanted to do something. Rather than wait for a threat, or for the end step before their turn, they just went for it and even stuck to their guns when we tried to suggest better timing than rifting on their turn.

I suddenly had Priest of Titania in hand, Umbral Mantle in the graveyard, and Eternal Witness as a way to get Umbral Mantle back. I played out Priest and Witness, put my combo piece in hand, and I think I may have played Umbral Mantle out rather than risk it getting wheeled.

The threat was in play again, and it was getting late (for me) so I was keen to get the game wrapped up. The Bilbo player and Klothys player both played out their turns and didn't have an answer to the problems. The Nekusar player intimated that they might have an answer, so I suggested that if they left my board intact I could swing out and kill the three other players and give them a turn before they would be in danger od being attacked. They seemed to like that idea.

The Captain America player ended up swinging at the Nekusar player, not killing them but clearly a little annoyed that the Nekusar player would entertain such a deal. It wasn't a good deal for anyone but me.

When the turn cycle got back to me, I held up my part of the deal. I had a Wellwisher and a Bloodline Shaman in play, so I was able to combo off, make a ton of mana, play Ezuri and swing for lethal on anyone not playing a Nekusar deck. After that, I used Wellwisher to gain a ton of life, and used Bloodline Shaman to get and then play out a bunch of elves. I didn't play out my whole deck, as I had no Elf "magic bullet" to dig for.

I was poised to win - I just needed a little luck to get there. The Nekusar player didn't have an answer, so after a short turn, they passed back me and I closed out the game.

It's possible I've got some of my details muddled, but that's basically how things played out. Eternal Witness isn't an Elf, but that Human Shaman and a poorly timed Cyclonic Rift were the keys to being able to put together the win. It wasn't early, and it wasn't easy, but to be honest - that made it feel that much better.

Final Thoughts

If you're interested in finding ways to both avoid Universes Beyond products and play at a lower power level, you might want to look into preDH. It can also be a way for you to challenge yourself if you are consistently winning way more than your fair share of games in a casual playgroup. If you're truly aiming for a lower powered deck, Elf combo might not be the way to go, but there are hundreds of other preDH commanders that are not as easy to break wide open. Ezuri preDH is still weaker than an Elf combo deck built with all of the cards available in a regular Commander deck, but preDH Ezuri can still pack a punch.

The best thing about preDH is probably that you do end up finding obscure cards that you'd never consider running in a regular Commander deck. It's also fun to have an added restriction when deckbuilding, but this format isn't for everyone. It's hard to build without your familiar staples, and it can be frustrating to know that if you're playing against Commander decks you may be playing at a disadvantage.

PreDH isn't necessarily a cheaper format than Commander. Older cards are often cheap, as many aren't being played heavily, but they can sometimes have a surprisingly high price tag. Ezuri is a $10 card, but if you wanted to play Slivers you might be looking at buying a $50 Sliver Overlord, a $70 Sliver Legion, or a Sliver Queen at well over $100.

I'd advise that you still pay attention to power levels even if you aren't using the bracket system. Ideally we all want fun, balanced games, so if you're playing a fully tuned preDH Slivers deck against a Barktooth Warbeard list full of commons and bad choices, it probably won't be fun for anyone. Try to have that discussion ahead of time, even if it just means letting your tablemates know you're way above (or below) the power level of the decks they're playing.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!