Reap the Tides precon upgrade guide

Aesi costs six mana to grant a second land play, and only two other cards in the box grant one.

Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait lets you play an additional land each turn and lets you draw a card whenever a land enters under your control. Commander Legends builds around Aesi with 44 lands, 30 of them basic, and eight other cards that pay out when a land arrives. What it leaves out is a cheap way to play more than one land a turn. The only extra land plays besides Aesi's own are on Explore and Urban Evolution, and 14 of the box's 56 nonland cards cost seven mana or more. My eleven swaps cost about $42. Six of them are cards that do Aesi's job for between two and six mana. They replace five seven- and eight-drops, three smaller spells and three lands.

What are the best Reap the Tides upgrades?

1. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove ($9.31). Three mana for an extra land play, and every land you control becomes every basic land type, so each one taps for green or blue. While it lives, it solves the double-pip problem below on its own.
2. Ancient Greenwarden ($12.39). Landfall abilities and a land's own enters triggers happen an extra time, so Aesi draws two cards for every land. It also lets you replay lands from the graveyard.
3. Tatyova, Benthic Druid (23 cents). Gain a life and draw a card whenever a land enters. Next to Aesi, every land is two cards.
4. Lotus Cobra ($5.70). A land entering adds one mana of any color, so every land play adds a mana the turn it is made, even a land that enters tapped.
5. Oracle of Mul Daya ($2.01) and Courser of Kruphix ($1.74). Both let you play lands off the top of your library, and Oracle grants an extra land play on top of that.
6. Arcane Signet (38 cents) and Talisman of Curiosity (31 cents). The box has two mana rocks, Sol Ring and Simic Signet. These make four.
7. Breeding Pool, Hinterland Harbor and Yavimaya Coast ($10.12 for all three, $9.52 of it the Pool). Three green-blue lands that can make mana the turn they arrive, in place of three that can't.

Every price here is for the cheapest printing that has been released, read in October 2026, and for a few cards that printing is a promo or a The List copy. The full list of what leaves is further down.

Six mana before the deck does anything with lands

Look at what the box does with its first five mana. Explore and Urban Evolution each grant one extra land play, and that is the whole supply. Rampant Growth, Cultivate, Kodama's Reach and Search for Tomorrow fetch basics, and Growth Spiral puts a land from your hand onto the battlefield. Those ramp you and trigger landfall, and none of them gives you a second land play. Aesi costs six.

So the first job of the swaps is a set of cards that do Aesi's job without waiting for Aesi. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Oracle of Mul Daya each grant an extra land play, at three and four mana. The extra plays are cumulative, which the rulings on both Aesi and the Dryad confirm, so with Aesi, the Dryad and Oracle all on the battlefield you can play four lands in a turn. Courser of Kruphix and Oracle both let you play lands off the top of the library. The library starts with 44 lands in 99 cards (Aesi sits in the command zone), so a random card from it is a land about 44 percent of the time. Playing one from the top still uses a land play, but it is a land you didn't have to draw, and with Aesi out it lets you draw a card as well.

Lotus Cobra is the cheapest of them at two mana, and the one that turns a land play into spell mana. Tatyova is the one that makes land plays worth having. Both are landfall cards, the same family as Sporemound, Rampaging Baloths, Avenger of Zendikar and Retreat to Kazandu already in the box, and I picked the adds to stack on those instead of starting a second plan.

Ancient Greenwarden doubles more than the draw

Ancient Greenwarden is the six-mana top of the list and I think it earns the slot. Any triggered ability that starts because a land entered happens twice, so Aesi draws two cards per land, Tatyova draws two, Sporemound makes two Saprolings and Rampaging Baloths makes two 4/4 Beasts. It also lets you play lands from your graveyard, so Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse, Blighted Woodland and Memorial to Genius cost you a land play to reuse instead of a card. Terastodon sits well next to it, for the reason further down.

The doubling cuts both ways on lands with their own enters trigger. Simic Growth Chamber returns two lands instead of one, and Jungle Basin and Coral Atoll each ask for a second untapped Forest or Island or the land is sacrificed. Aesi's extra land play covers the replays, so I don't think that is a reason to leave the card out, but play those lands before the Greenwarden arrives, not after.

Two colours, and both are short on double pips

Thirteen spells in the box carry two green pips and twelve carry two blue. To have two sources of a colour by turn three on the play, 90 percent of the time, the site's calculator asks for 36 of them. The box has 27 green sources and 28 blue ones, with Evolving Wilds, Terramorphic Expanse and Blighted Woodland counting for both, which gives 76.4 percent and 78.5 percent. A 44-land deck can't reasonably reach 36 in both colours.

The swaps lift the sources to 31 green and 32 blue. The upgraded list carries a double green pip on 14 spells and a double blue pip on 9, and the same turn-three check puts it at 83.9 and 85.5 percent. Lotus Cobra is counted in those figures and its mana only arrives when a land does, so read them as 30 and 31 sources if you want the cautious number. The six adds that count are Breeding Pool, Hinterland Harbor, Yavimaya Coast, Arcane Signet, Talisman of Curiosity and the Cobra. The Pool and the Coast cost life to use, two for an untapped Pool and one for each coloured mana from the Coast or the Talisman. Hinterland Harbor enters untapped whenever you control a Forest or an Island, and with 30 basics that is nearly always.

The Dryad is the real fix. It isn't counted in either figure, because it is a creature that has to survive, but with it on the battlefield every land in the deck makes either colour. It also feeds the cards that ask for an Island or a Forest: Scourge of Fleets counts every land you control, and Jungle Basin and Coral Atoll accept any untapped land as the one to return.

Nine tapped lands become seven, and the bounce lands aren't the ones to blame

Three lands go. Reliquary Tower makes colourless mana in a deck short of coloured mana, and the one thing it does, removing your maximum hand size, is something Nezahal already does in the box. Simic Guildgate and Woodland Stream are plain green-blue taplands, and Hinterland Harbor and Yavimaya Coast make the same two colours without the tempo loss.

The seven tapped lands that stay are not equal. Simic Growth Chamber, Jungle Basin and Coral Atoll are the bounce lands, and Aesi is what makes them fair. Play one, return a land, replay that land with the second land play, and you have drawn twice. The bounce land then taps for two mana from the next turn on. Vivid Creek and Vivid Grove each make a mana of any colour twice before they run out. Memorial to Genius draws two for five mana late in the game, and Thornwood Falls gains a life each time it enters, which is the only reason it survived over Woodland Stream.

A tapped land also costs less in a deck that plays two lands a turn, because the second one can be the untapped one. That is part of why I kept 44 lands rather than the 35 to 38 most Commander decks run. Molimo's size is the number of lands you control, Avenger of Zendikar makes a Plant for each, Scourge of Fleets counts Islands, and the landfall cards want lands arriving more than they want spells. If you disagree, two basics are the next cards I would cut for spells.

Five cards at the top that cost too much for what they do

Meteor Golem is seven colourless mana for one removal spell, in a deck that already has Beast Within at three. Verdant Sun's Avatar is seven mana for life gain equal to each creature's toughness, and that is its entire effect. Elder Deep-Fiend costs eight, or seven less the mana value of a creature you sacrifice with emerge, to tap four permanents once. The cheap version costs you a creature.

Stormtide Leviathan is the one that works against the deck. Creatures without flying or islandwalk can't attack, whoever controls them. That stops opposing ground creatures, and it also stops the 4/4 Beasts from Rampaging Baloths, Molimo, Aesi and every other creature on your side but the Leviathan and the fliers. It makes every land an Island, which helps Scourge of Fleets, and the Dryad does that without the lock.

Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep returns every creature to hand except Merfolk, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents, and only if you paid the kicker, which makes it a ten-mana spell. Aesi is a Serpent, so it would survive. Whelming Wave does nearly the same thing in the same deck for four mana, and it isn't going anywhere.

Nine cards at seven mana or more remain, down from fourteen. Avenger of Zendikar and Molimo scale with lands, and Scourge of Fleets with Islands. Nezahal can't be countered and draws when an opponent casts a noncreature spell, Sphinx of Uthuun is a flier that gives you one of two piles made from your top five cards, and Simic Sky Swallower has flying, trample and shroud. Tromokratis and Trench Behemoth are the evasive body and the landfall one. Terastodon is the odd card at eight mana. It destroys up to three noncreature permanents and gives each controller a 3/3 Elephant, and nothing says those have to be an opponent's. Point it at three of your own lands and you get three Elephants, with Greenwarden or Ramunap Excavator ready to let you replay the lands afterwards.

Three smaller cuts, and the creatures that stay anyway

Wickerbough Elder enters with a -1/-1 counter and spends it to destroy an artifact or enchantment once. Reclamation Sage does the same job for one mana less and Acidic Slime covers the same targets plus lands, so the Elder is the third copy of an answer, not the first. Swiftfoot Boots protects one creature at a time in a deck whose engine is spread across Aesi, the landfall permanents and the tokens, so the hexproof usually covers the wrong card. Shipbreaker Kraken is six mana for a 6/6, plus eight more to tap four creatures later, which is fourteen mana for one play.

Sharktocrab and Retreat to Kazandu both look like cuts, because each buffs or taps a single creature in a deck full of them. They stay together. Retreat to Kazandu can put a +1/+1 counter on a target creature whenever a land enters, and Sharktocrab taps down an opposing creature each time counters are put on it. Aim the first at the second, and every land you play also freezes an opposing creature. Spitting Image looks expensive at six, and it is, but retrace lets you recast it from the graveyard by discarding a land. Copy Avenger of Zendikar with it and the new Avenger makes a Plant for every land you control.

What I left off, and the order to buy

Cyclonic Rift ($30.10) is the answer the deck is missing, a bounce at two mana that hits any nonland permanent you don't control and overloads for seven, but it is a Game Changer. The upgraded list sets no bracket floor as written, and I would rather you chose that than inherited it. Rhystic Study ($59.58) is a Game Changer too, at about twice the price. Misty Rainforest ($35.63) gives two landfall triggers in one card and costs most of what the eleven swaps cost together. Exploration ($29.66) is another extra land play, and the Dryad gives that and more for about a third of the price. Azusa, Lost but Seeking ($11.57) grants two extra land plays for three mana and is the card I'd buy next, but with Aesi, the Dryad and Oracle already in the list the deck is limited by lands in hand, not by land plays.

If you're buying in order, take Tatyova, the two rocks and the three lands first, which is about $11 and makes the deck steadier on its own. Then the Cobra, Oracle and Courser. The Dryad and the Greenwarden come last because they're the two that cost real money. Breeding Pool has a reprint in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, which may bring the one expensive land down.

The upgraded decklist

Hover any card name to see the card. The list below is the full hundred after the swaps.

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“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

FAQ

How many lands can I play in one turn with the upgraded Aesi deck?

Four, once Aesi, Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Oracle of Mul Daya are all on the battlefield: your normal land play plus one from each. The extra plays are cumulative, and Explore or Urban Evolution adds one more for a single turn. Without those two creatures it is two, from Aesi alone, and only from turn six. That is the argument for the cheaper enablers.

Do Tatyova and Aesi stack, or do they compete?

They stack. Each is its own landfall trigger, so a land is a card from Aesi and a card from Tatyova, and Tatyova's is not optional. With Ancient Greenwarden on the battlefield both trigger twice, which makes four cards for a single land.

What does the whole Reap the Tides upgrade cost?

About $42 for the eleven adds, at the cheapest released printing of each. Dryad of the Ilysian Grove and Ancient Greenwarden are $21.70 of that, and the other nine cost about $20.49 between them. Breeding Pool, at $9.52, has a reprint in Star Trek on 13 November 2026 and may fall. Prices were read in October 2026 and a few are promo or The List copies.

Is 44 lands too many for Aesi?

44 is high against the 35 to 38 most Commander decks run, and I kept it. Twelve cards in the upgraded list, Aesi included, pay out when a land enters and Ancient Greenwarden doubles them, and Molimo, Avenger of Zendikar and Scourge of Fleets all scale with the number of lands. If you want to trim, two basics are the first cards I would swap for spells.

Why cut Slinn Voda, the Rising Deep when Aesi survives its kicker?

Because the kicker is where the card costs ten mana. Slinn Voda returns every creature except Merfolk, Krakens, Leviathans, Octopuses and Serpents to hand only if it was kicked, and Aesi is a Serpent. Whelming Wave does nearly the same thing for four mana and is already in the box.

Which Game Changers did you leave out of the Reap the Tides upgrades?

Cyclonic Rift ($30.10) and Rhystic Study ($59.58), two blue cards the deck would use. The upgraded list has no Game Changers, so it sets no bracket floor, and adding either would. Cyclonic Rift is the one I would add first if you want a one-sided answer.