What our precon upgrade guides cut and add most

Every upgrade guide on this site ends in a list of cards to cut and cards to add. This page counts all 145 of those lists together: the cards our guides cut most, the cards they add most, and the staples none of them cut.

This is what our guides recommend, not what players do. Every guide counted here was written for this site to the same standards, so a card that keeps turning up may reflect a habit of ours as much as a verdict on the card. Each guide explains its own swaps for its own deck, and the full list of guides is at the bottom of this page.

• 145Upgrade guides counted
• 1,648Swaps, one card out and one in
• 1,121Different cards cut
• 779Different cards added
• 11Swaps in a typical guide

Last recounted October 15, 2026.

The short version

A “guided deck” on this page is one of the 145 precons with an upgrade guide.

• The card our guides cut most is Temple of the False God: cut in 33 of the 55 guided decks that ship it (60%).
• The card our guides add most is Swords to Plowshares, added in 30 guides, which is 30 of the 44 guided decks that could take it (68%).
• Sol Ring ships in 144 of the 145 guided decks, and not one guide cuts it.
• Lands are 31% of everything our guides cut and 28% of everything they add.
• The card our guides disagree about most is Swiftfoot Boots: cut in 8 guides and added in 6.

The cards our guides cut most

Ranked by how many guides cut the card. “Ships in” is how many of the 145 guided decks have the card in the box, and the share is the fairer comparison: a card that comes in three decks cannot be cut in thirty. Ties are ordered by that share.

The cards our guides add most

Ranked by how many guides add the card. “Could add” counts the guided decks where the card fits the commander’s colour identity and is not already in the box, so it is the number of guides that had the option.

Staples no guide cuts

Cards that ship in at least 10 guided decks and that no guide has cut. Basic lands are left out of this list: they ship in almost every deck, and 12 of our 145 guides do cut at least one.

Where our guides disagree with each other

Cards that at least one guide cuts and at least one other guide adds. That is not a contradiction in itself, because a card that earns its slot in one deck can be the weakest card in another, and each guide makes its case for its own deck. It is also exactly where a habit of ours would show, so these are the swaps most worth reading on both sides.

Lands and spells

Of the 1,648 cards our guides cut, 507 (31%) are lands. Of the 1,648 they add, 460 (28%) are lands. The land cut most is Temple of the False God, in 33 guides, and the land added most is Steam Vents, in 15 guides, not counting basics.

How many swaps a guide makes

The typical guide makes 11 swaps. 85 of the 145 make between 10 and 13, the lightest makes 6 and the heaviest 18. Every guide adds exactly as many cards as it cuts, so the deck stays at a hundred.

Every guide in this count

The 145 upgrade guides these numbers come from, by set, newest first. Each one gives its reasons for every card it cuts and adds.

How this page counts

• Only upgrade guides are counted. The 8 Secret Lair Commander deck reviews recommend no swaps by design, so they are left out of every number rather than shrinking every share.
• A Collector’s Edition is the same deck as the one it reprints and shares that deck’s guide, so each deck is counted once.
• A guide counts once per card. 5 guides cut more than one copy of a basic land, and every copy counts in the swap total, but each of them counts once toward the card.
• “Ships in” and “Could add” come from each deck’s official decklist. Colour identity comes from Scryfall.
• The count reruns whenever a guide is added or its swaps change. How often a card is cut says how it compares with what replaced it in these particular decks, by one site’s standards, not how good the card is.

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