Multiverse Reforged precon upgrade guide

Ten spells in this box want two white pips by turn three, and the deck has 24 white sources to find them with. The upgrade can’t fully fix that, so it fixes what it can.

Jace, Multiverse Architect costs five and asks for all four colours, so the box was always going to be hungry for mana. It ships 39 lands and 14 ramp pieces, well past the usual 35 to 38 lands, and still stumbles. Three of those lands enter tapped every time and ten more enter tapped unless a condition is met. The worst offenders are the three Turbulent lands: each enters tapped unless your opponents control eight or more lands, which means they are tapped for most of the game and only behave once it has gone long.

The rest of the argument is about what the box forgot. It has a stack of board wipes, Sunfall, Martial Coup and White Sun's Twilight among them, and only four spot removal spells: Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Stroke of Midnight and Despark. That's a deck that can reset a table, but can't answer one problem permanent on turn three without spending a wrath on it.

What are the best Multiverse Reforged upgrades?

1. Add four cheap removal spells. Go for the Throat, Anguished Unmaking, Generous Gift and Vandalblast take spot removal from 4 to 8, for $4.40 together.
2. Replace the slow lands with ones that come in ready. Godless Shrine, Sacred Foundry and Hallowed Fountain take the place of the three Turbulent lands, Smoldering Marsh and Dragonskull Summit replace the two tapped manlands, and the two Talismans add white. Path of Ancestry is the only land left that always enters tapped, and it stays for its fixing. The three shocklands are $26.11 of the total.
3. Cut the four most expensive creatures that do nothing the turn they land: Omnath, Venser, Jhoira and Dack Fayden. The reasoning is below.
4. Remove the two cards that fight the creature count: Mass Polymorph and Proteus Staff.

Four colours, and white is the one that hurts

In the box, ten spells need two white pips by turn three. The deck has 24 white sources, the calculator's 90% target would want 36, and the real chance of meeting it is 69.4%. Elspeth, Sun's Champion, Martial Coup, Sunfall, Serra's Emissary, Overlord of the Mistmoors and Ob Nixilis, the Ascended are among the cards behind that number.

Eleven swaps can't close that gap, and I'd rather say so than pretend. After the swaps it's nine spells, 27 white sources and 76.4%. Dack's exit takes one WW card away. The three shocklands and two Talismans make white, and Restless Anchorage and Turbulent Shore were white sources that leave.

The other colours move more. Black goes from 22 sources to 24, which trims the black double-pip shortfall from 6 sources to 4 (84.5%). Red goes from 22 to 24, and with Venser gone its only double-pip demand is Akroma, Angel of Fury, which now clears the check at 90.5%. Blue pays for it. Both tapped manlands made blue, and Turbulent Wetlands did too, so blue drops from 28 sources to 25. Single-pip blue is still fine, and the one double-pip blue card, Synthetic Destiny, sits 3 sources short at 86.3%.

Black is the colour I'd spend on next. Blood Crypt ($9.43) and Watery Grave ($9.44) are the two shocklands I left out, because black's shortfall is a double-pip problem for late spells and I ranked white first.

Every add is priced at its cheapest printing already released. For the shocklands that means a promo printing for Godless Shrine ($8.70) and Sacred Foundry ($10.23), and a Return to Ravnica one for Hallowed Fountain ($7.18). Star Trek (13 November 2026) reprints all ten shocklands in three treatments each. Those printings have no price yet, so none is counted here, and the prices above may move once they exist.

What leaves the box

Omnath, Locus of the Void costs seven. It grows with unspent mana and adds on landfall, a real engine in a deck with 39 lands, but a seven-mana body that does nothing on the turn it arrives is a plan for the last turns of a long game. It goes.

Venser, Fervent Forger and Jhoira, Weatherlight Corsair cost six each, and each wants a double pip in a colour that had 22 sources. Venser has flash and two modes, and that is the best case for keeping him. Jhoira steals a historic permanent from the top of an opponent's library, but you lose life equal to its mana value, so it is a coin flip at six mana. Both go.

Dack Fayden, Helping Hand reveals creatures from your library, then each opponent gains control of one, goaded for the rest of the game. That's table politics at , and none of it moves Jace along. It was the last creature on the cut list that I argued with myself about, and I'd cut it.

Mass Polymorph exiles your creatures and digs for that many more. The box has 18 creatures in 100 cards, and 14 after these swaps, so a library this light on creatures runs out of things to find. Proteus Staff puts a creature on the bottom of its owner's library at sorcery speed, for and a tap, and that creature's controller puts the next creature from their library onto the battlefield. It swaps a threat for a random one, which is rarely the trade you want.

Restless Anchorage and Restless Spire are the closest call, because both can animate later in the game (a 2/3 flier for , and a 2/1 first striker for ). But each enters tapped every time, and this deck wants its mana open for instants. Path of Ancestry enters tapped too and stays, because it taps for any of the deck's four colours, which is exactly the fixing the box is short on.

What the eleven adds do

Go for the Throat ($0.29) kills any nonartifact creature for two mana. Anguished Unmaking ($1.53) exiles any nonland permanent at instant speed, at a cost of 3 life. Generous Gift ($0.93) destroys any permanent, but its controller gets a 3/3 Elephant, so I'd save it for something that matters. Vandalblast ($1.65) is the narrow one: it destroys an artifact you don't control, as a sorcery, and its overload mode () destroys every artifact you don't control.

Talisman of Conviction ($0.34) and Talisman of Hierarchy ($0.42) are rocks that make colourless, or white plus red or black for 1 damage to you. Smoldering Marsh ($0.28) enters untapped as long as you control two basic lands, and Dragonskull Summit ($0.45) enters untapped if you control a Swamp or a Mountain. Both make black or red.

Godless Shrine, Sacred Foundry and Hallowed Fountain are shocklands, so each enters untapped if you pay 2 life and tapped if you don't. They replace the three Turbulent lands, which enter tapped unless your opponents control eight or more lands. A shockland can be an untapped land on turn one for 2 life, and a Turbulent land can't.

Total: $32.00. The land count stays at 39, which is still high, but the ramp count of 15 is well above the usual 8 to 12, so the deck doesn't need all 39 lands to function. Average mana value falls from 4.03 to 3.68. The bracket floor stays at 1, because none of the eleven is a Game Changer. That's a floor, not a promise about how the table will see it.

The strongest cards I left out are Rhystic Study ($59.95), Smothering Tithe ($55.60), Teferi's Protection ($34.59) and Cyclonic Rift ($30.25). Price is one reason. The other is that all four are Game Changers, so adding any of them lifts the deck out of Bracket 1 and 2 and into Bracket 3 at minimum. If you play in that range anyway, Rhystic Study is the one I'd buy first.

The upgraded decklist

Hover any card name to see the card. The list is the full 100 after the swaps, and everything not named in the sections above is the box as shipped.

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FAQ

How much does it cost to upgrade the Multiverse Reforged precon?

The eleven adds total $32.00 at current market prices, using the cheapest printing already released for each. The shocklands are the bulk: Godless Shrine $8.70, Sacred Foundry $10.23 and Hallowed Fountain $7.18. The rest are Go for the Throat $0.29, Anguished Unmaking $1.53, Vandalblast $1.65, Generous Gift $0.93, Talisman of Conviction $0.34, Talisman of Hierarchy $0.42, Smoldering Marsh $0.28 and Dragonskull Summit $0.45. The stock deck's singles total about $91.46.

Is Jace, Multiverse Architect really a legal commander?

Yes. The card says it can be your commander, and its colour identity is white, blue, black and red. Every card in the 100 sits inside those four colours, so the list has no green anywhere.

Which lands in the Multiverse Reforged precon enter tapped?

Three enter tapped every time: Restless Anchorage, Restless Spire and Path of Ancestry. Ten more enter tapped unless a condition is met. The three Turbulent lands are the awkward ones, because they enter tapped unless your opponents control eight or more lands, and that count adds up every opponent's lands together, so they are slow on your first couple of turns. The upgraded list swaps those three for shocklands and keeps only Path of Ancestry as a land that always enters tapped.

Why isn't Rhystic Study in the upgrade?

It costs $59.95, about twice what all eleven swaps cost together, and it's a Game Changer, so it would lift the deck into Bracket 3 at minimum. Smothering Tithe ($55.60), Teferi's Protection ($34.59) and Cyclonic Rift ($30.25) are skipped for the same two reasons.

Is Mass Polymorph good in this deck?

Not with 18 creatures in 100 cards. It exiles your creatures and digs for that many more, and a library this light on creatures runs out of things to find. Synthetic Destiny does the same job at instant speed and stays in.

Are the shocklands in the Multiverse Reforged upgrade worth it?

Three of them are. The deck is short on white, and Godless Shrine, Sacred Foundry and Hallowed Fountain lift white sources from 24 to 27 while replacing lands that enter tapped on your early turns. Star Trek reprints all ten shocklands on 13 November 2026, so the prices may move, and I used the cheapest printing already released.