The Hosts of Mordor precon upgrade guide

Four times in five, the five cards Sauron mills include a creature, so what this box is short of is the eight mana, in three colors, to cast him.

Sauron costs {5}{U}{B}{R}, and the cast trigger does the work: amass Orcs 5, mill five cards, then bring a creature back from your graveyard. The trigger goes on the stack above him and resolves first, so a counterspell on Sauron arrives after the creature is already back. The ruling is generous about what you can take, because the creature doesn't have to be one of the five you just milled. With 27 creatures among the other 99 cards, a fresh library puts at least one of them in those five cards 80.4% of the time, and 79.0% after the swaps below, which cut one. The trigger is fine. Getting to eight mana is the problem.

The box loses its games in the mana base. Seven creatures print {R}{R}: Inferno Titan, Scourge of the Throne, Siege-Gang Commander, Goblin Dark-Dwellers, Knollspine Dragon, Rampaging War Mammoth and Cavern-Hoard Dragon. The deck runs 22 red sources, and the calculator gives you {R}{R} by turn five 75.6% of the time on the play with that many. Black is 24 sources for five {B}{B} cards (Languish, Decree of Pain, Living Death, Voracious Fell Beast and The Balrog of Moria), which is 75.3% by turn four. Blue is the light color, since after the swaps only Boon of the Wish-Giver asks for {U}{U}.

The second finding runs against the usual advice. Eight cards besides Sauron cost seven or more, and the habit is to cut them. In this deck the expensive creatures are cargo: Sauron, Reanimate and Extract from Darkness put them onto the battlefield without anyone paying the cost, so the seven-drops that are creatures all stay. What goes is two of the four noncreature cards at seven mana or more, three lands that do little for the colors, and four cheaper cards that do little in this list.

What are the best Hosts of Mordor upgrades?

The colored lands first, then the cards that put a creature in the graveyard on purpose, then the cheap removal the box lacks. Prices are October 2026 market prices at the cheapest released printing, which can be a promo or other special treatment.

1. Blood Crypt ($8.67), Watery Grave ($9.72) and Steam Vents ($9.76). Each arrives untapped for a 2-life payment, and each carries two basic land types, which turns on three of the box's checklands and makes them targets for the deck's two land-cycling creatures. All three are reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so they may get cheaper.
2. Entomb ($16.30) and Buried Alive ($2.45). Entomb puts any card from your library into the graveyard for {B} at instant speed, and Buried Alive puts up to three creature cards there for {2}{B}. They turn Sauron's lottery into a chosen target.
3. Animate Dead ($7.25). It returns a creature from any graveyard for {1}{B} without the life payment that Reanimate charges, and it replaces a seven-mana sorcery that did the same job.
4. Terminate ($0.29). The box's cheap answers are Feed the Swarm, a sorcery, Goblin Cratermaker, which has to be sacrificed first, and Bitter Downfall, which is {3}{B} unless the target was already damaged. Terminate destroys any creature for {B}{R} at instant speed.
5. Talisman of Indulgence ($0.47) and Talisman of Creativity ($0.45). Two-mana rocks, one making black or red and the other blue or red, which is where the deck is short. Both deal 1 damage to you when you tap them for color.

The nine adds cost $55.36 together, and the biggest single line, $16.30, is Entomb. Nine cards come out, and the cuts are below.

Three lands leave, and one of them was being counted as every color

Path of Ancestry enters tapped every time. Its scry only happens when the mana pays for a creature that shares a type with Sauron, an Avatar Horror, and exactly two creatures in the other 99 do: Saruman, the White Hand and The Balrog of Moria, both Avatars. Field of Ruin taps for colorless. Making it a fixer costs {2} and the land itself, and needs an opponent's nonbasic land to aim at. Even so, it gets counted as a source of all three colors in the totals, which flatters the box by one source in each color, so the stock deck is really at 23 black, 21 red and 20 blue rather than 24, 22 and 21. Desolate Lighthouse taps for colorless as well, and its loot costs {1}{U}{R} on top of the tap.

Blood Crypt, Watery Grave and Steam Vents take those three slots. With the two Talismans counted, black goes from 24 to 25 sources, red from 22 to 24 and blue from 21 to 22. The calculator moves {R}{R} by turn five from 75.6% to 80.3% and {B}{B} by turn four from 75.3% to 77.7%. That is still below 90%, and I'm not claiming three lands close the gap. A three-color list with seven double-red and five double-black cards stays a little stretched, and the choice that matters is which cards to keep, which the next sections cover.

The two shocklands with an Island or Swamp type pay off a second way. Troll of Khazad-dûm has swampcycling {1} and Monstrosity of the Lake has islandcycling {2}, and they fetch any card with the type, not just a basic. Swamp-typed lands in the deck go from 8 to 10 and Island-typed from 7 to 9. Drowned Catacomb, Dragonskull Summit and Sulfur Falls check for a basic land type rather than a basic land, so any one of the three shocklands turns them on. With 19 basics in the box they're rarely tapped already, so that is a small bonus. Crumbling Necropolis is the one always-tapped land that stays, because it makes all three colors, and Sulfurous Springs and Underground River stay as painlands that never enter tapped.

What Entomb and Buried Alive make possible, and what they cost

Entomb and Reanimate together are two mana for a creature of your choice from anywhere in the library, with the life loss equal to its mana value: 6 for Inferno Titan, 9 for Cavern-Hoard Dragon. Animate Dead skips the life loss. The creature gets -1/-0, and if the Aura leaves the battlefield, you sacrifice the creature. Buried Alive finds up to three creature cards, so one cast gives Reanimate, Animate Dead and Sauron's trigger three targets to choose from.

Living Death is the card to be careful with. Each player exiles all creature cards from their own graveyard, sacrifices all creatures, then puts what they exiled onto the battlefield. It's symmetrical. After a Buried Alive it's a good turn for you, and it hands every opponent their own graveyard creatures back too, so check every yard before you cast it. Extract from Darkness lets you take a creature from any graveyard after each player mills two, so the opponents' yards are fair game for that one.

No Game Changer joins the list in these swaps, which holds the bracket floor at 3 and the only reason is still Notion Thief. A turn-two six-drop is a thing to mention in a pre-game talk even at Bracket 3.

Why the seven-drops that are creatures stay

Rampaging War Mammoth (9/7 trample), Knollspine Dragon (7/5 flying), The Balrog of Moria (8/8 trample haste) and Cavern-Hoard Dragon (6/6 flying, trample, haste) cost seven or more, and none of them is a cut. Sauron, Reanimate, Animate Dead, Extract from Darkness and Living Death return them, and Faithless Looting, Thrill of Possibility, Forbidden Alchemy and Moria Scavenger keep the graveyard stocked. The Balrog and the Mammoth also have cycling, so a copy you draw early becomes a card instead of a dead seven-drop, and two Treasures as well in the Balrog's case.

Inferno Titan stays for the same reason and one more. It deals 3 damage divided among up to three targets when it enters and again every time it attacks, so a reanimated Titan clears small creatures the moment it lands. With Anger in the graveyard and a Mountain on the battlefield, it also attacks that turn. Siege-Gang Commander stays because it's one of the five Goblins left, and its three tokens come with Saruman's ward {2} when he's out. Monstrosity of the Lake stays because islandcycling {2} fixes a land drop, and The Mouth of Sauron stays because it mills three cards from a player you pick and amasses by the instants and sorceries in that graveyard. Pointed at yourself, it counts whatever instants and sorceries are already in your graveyard, and the deck has 22 of them to put there.

Six spells out, starting with a seven-mana steal that wants {U}{U}

Subjugate the Hobbits costs {5}{U}{U} and takes every noncommander creature with mana value 3 or less, permanently. It's a real effect and the wrong card here. It costs seven in a deck whose commander costs eight, and with it gone Boon of the Wish-Giver is the only {U}{U} card left. Too Greedily, Too Deep is a seven-mana reanimation spell that also deals damage equal to the returned creature's power to each other creature, yours included. Animate Dead does the returning for {1}{B}, and the deck already has four sweepers.

Shiny Impetus is a three-mana Aura that gives +2/+2, goads the creature and makes a Treasure whenever it attacks, and all of that leaves when the creature does. Treasure Nabber takes an artifact when an opponent taps it for mana, until the end of your next turn. It does nothing until an opponent taps an artifact, and three opponents don't reliably do that on cue. It's also one of the deck's six Goblins, which Saruman's ward and Siege-Gang's sacrifice ability both care about, so the count drops to five. I'm accepting that.

Arcane Denial counters a spell, and its controller may draw up to two cards at the next upkeep while you draw one. In a four-player pod, that gives one opponent two cards for your one. Basalt Monolith taps for {C}{C}{C} but doesn't untap on its own, and untapping it costs {3}. It repays its own cost the turn it lands and then never nets a mana, in a deck that needs colors rather than more colorless.

Saruman amasses by the mana value of each noncreature spell you cast, so cutting two seven-mana spells costs him two big swings. That's a real cost. It's a smaller one than leaving both in a list with eight cards at seven or more besides the commander.

The skipped cards, and a reprint worth waiting for

Rhystic Study ($65.20) draws a card whenever an opponent casts a spell and doesn't pay {1}, and it's a Game Changer, which would make it the deck's second. Necromancy ($19.34) can be cast at instant speed, at the price of losing the creature at the next cleanup step if you do, and Animate Dead is $7.25 for the sorcery-speed version that keeps it. All three shocklands are in the Star Trek reprint on 13 November, so they may be cheaper soon. If you'd rather not pay about $10 for Steam Vents before then, Shivan Reef ($0.23) is a blue-red painland. Black-red and blue-black already have painlands in the box, so the other two have no cheaper painland left to add.

The deck after nine swaps

The deck stays at 38 lands with 19 basics, and the average mana value of the 99's nonland cards falls from 4.10 to 3.89. Cards costing two or less go from 12 to 16, cards costing seven or more (Sauron aside) from 8 to 6, and always-tapped lands from 2 to 1. Creatures go from 28 to 27 counting Sauron, and the instants and sorceries stay at 22 because three leave and three arrive. Sources of black, red and blue go to 25, 24 and 22.

The upgraded decklist

Sauron and the 99 with all nine swaps made, sorted by card type. Hovering any name shows the card.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist Playtest the upgraded deck

“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, with no account needed.

FAQ

Which creature should Sauron bring back first?

Inferno Titan when opponents are running small creatures, since it deals 3 damage divided as you choose when it enters and again whenever it attacks. Voracious Fell Beast when the table has one or two big threats, because each opponent sacrifices a creature of their choice and you get a Food token for each one. A creature that was already in your graveyard before the mill counts, so an Entomb earlier in the turn is not wasted.

Does Sauron's trigger still happen if the spell is countered?

Yes. It triggers when you cast him, goes on the stack above the spell and resolves first, so the creature is back before a counterspell resolves. It happens on every cast from the command zone too, and each recast costs {2} more, so the second cast is ten mana.

Do Troll of Khazad-dûm and Monstrosity of the Lake find the new shocklands?

Yes. Swampcycling searches for a card with the Swamp subtype rather than a basic Swamp, and islandcycling works the same way. Blood Crypt and Watery Grave are Swamps, and Watery Grave and Steam Vents are Islands. The deck goes from 8 to 10 cards that swampcycling can find and from 7 to 9 for islandcycling.

What bracket is The Hosts of Mordor?

Bracket 3 as sold, and still 3 after the swaps. The only reason is Notion Thief, the deck's one Game Changer, and nothing I add is on the list. An Entomb into Reanimate on turn two is quick for a precon, so say so before the game starts.

Should the four sweepers stay in a deck with 26 creatures besides Sauron?

I left Decree of Pain, Languish, Living Death and Blasphemous Act alone. Reanimation is how this deck rebuilds after a sweep, and Blasphemous Act gets cheaper by {1} for every creature in play, so it is rarely the nine-mana card it prints as. Languish's -4/-4 doesn't kill Inferno Titan (6/6), Scourge of the Throne (5/5) or Knollspine Dragon (7/5), which helps when you want those to survive your own sweep.

Do I have to buy all three shocklands?

Blood Crypt is the one to prioritize, because it's the only land of the three that makes both black and red, the colors that carry the deck's double-pip cards. The nine adds cost $55.36 at the cheapest released printings, and $27.21 of that is everything except the shocklands. They're all reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so buying the other six first and waiting on the lands is a reasonable order.