Cavalry Charge precon upgrade guide

Two of the hundred cards in Cavalry Charge are written for a format you are almost certainly not playing. Ichor Elixir changes how many planar dice you roll. Path of the Enigma asks the table to vote on whether to planeswalk. Both are here because this was one of the five March of the Machine Commander decks that shipped with a planar deck in the box, and both are close to blank at an ordinary game of Commander.

That is the loudest thing wrong with the deck. It is not the most interesting one. The most interesting one is that Sidar Jabari makes you discard a card every time you attack, whether you have anything worth discarding or not, and the box gives you only five cards that are happy about it.

Five buys, in the order I would make them

If you are only spending a little, spend it in this order.

1. Kindred Discovery, about $5.90. Name Knight and draw a card whenever a Knight enters or attacks. Thirty-one of the thirty-one creatures in the upgraded deck are Knights, so there is no fine print to read.
2. Patriarch's Bidding, about $3.60. Return every Knight from your graveyard to the battlefield. Your commander has spent the whole game putting them there.
3. Three untapped lands, about $8.15 for the set. Caves of Koilos, Silent Clearing and Underground River, in place of three lands that always enter tapped.
4. Coat of Arms, about $19.75. Every creature you control shares a type with every other one. This is the most expensive card on the list and the one most likely to end a game.
5. Skullclamp, about $5.85. Two cards in the deck make 1/1 tokens, and Skullclamp turns each of those into two cards.

The two cards that came out of a different box

Ichor Elixir costs four and taps for two colourless. Its other line of text only matters if someone at the table brought a planar deck. Four mana for two colourless is a poor rate anywhere, and in a three colour deck it is the one piece of ramp that cannot help you cast a single spell in your own colours.

Path of the Enigma is better disguised. Strip out the vote, which resolves into nothing at a game with no planes, and you have a five mana sorcery that draws four cards. That would be fine in a deck short of cards. This one already runs sixteen ways to draw them.

Both go. Neither is a trap you would have spotted from the decklist, which is the reason to start here.

The card draw is not optional, and that is the whole deck

Read the eminence trigger carefully. Whenever you attack with one or more Knights, you draw a card, then discard a card. There is no "may" in it, and it works from the command zone, so it is switched on from your first attack whether or not you ever cast your commander.

That is a free card every combat and a mandatory one in the graveyard. The box gives you five cards that want the graveyard filled:

• Haakon can only be cast from the graveyard, so discarding him is how you cast him. Once he is out you may cast Knight spells from your graveyard, and every creature in this deck is a Knight.
• Sidar Jabari returns a Knight from your graveyard to the battlefield on combat damage, and he has flying and first strike to get there.
• Knights' Charge returns all of them at once for {6}{W}{B} and itself.
• Alter Fate, the back half of Order of Midnight, buys one back for two mana.
• Syr Konrad deals damage whenever a creature card leaves your graveyard, so he triggers off both of the cards above.

Five is not many for an engine that runs every turn. Patriarch's Bidding is the add that fixes it, and it is close to one sided here. The graveyard it empties is full of Knights, and the opponent who is also on Knights is rare.

One card in the box is already built for this and deserves a callout. Chivalric Alliance lets you pay {2} and discard a card to make a 2/2 Knight. That is a second discard outlet on demand, which means you can put Haakon where you want him instead of waiting for the loot to find him. At about $15 it is also the priciest single here, which makes it the first thing people pull out to sell. That is a mistake in this particular deck.

Thirty-three creatures, thirty-three Knights

Every creature in the stock deck is a Knight. Not most of them. All of them. Fifty-eight per cent are also Human, and that split is the only thing that makes the type choice look like a decision.

It is not one. Three cards in the box ask you to name a creature type: Vanquisher's Banner, Distant Melody and Herald's Horn. Name Knight on all three. Naming Human instead would have Distant Melody draw nineteen cards where Knight draws thirty-three, and would leave fourteen creatures outside the other two.

The tokens are the one place it gets fiddly. Worthy Knight makes 1/1 Humans, so Vanquisher's Banner set to Knight will not pump them. The 2/2 tokens from Aryel, Chivalric Alliance, Sigiled Sword of Valeron and Silverwing Squadron are all Knights and all get it.

This is also the rule the add list is built around. A creature that is not a Knight costs you a slice of five different cards, so the only creature I am adding is Knight of the Ebon Legion and everything else on the list is a land, an artifact, an enchantment or an instant. After the swaps the deck is thirty-one creatures, still one hundred per cent Knight, and the number of cards asking you to name a type goes from three to five.

Ten lands enter tapped, and the slowest one is not among them

Thirty-nine lands, nineteen of them basic. Ten enter tapped no matter what. Five more are conditional and mostly fine, and it is worth saying which. Prairie Stream and Sunken Hollow want two basic lands in play and there are nineteen of them, while Choked Estuary, Port Town and Shineshadow Snarl want a card revealed from hand. Those are not the problem.

Temple of the False God is. It enters untapped, so it never appears on a count of tapped lands, and it produces nothing at all until you control five lands. A land that is blank on turns one through four, in a deck whose average mana value is 3.33, is worse than any of the ten, and it is the first land I cut.

Two of the tapped ones stay, for reasons the label cannot see. Path of Ancestry scries every time you cast a Knight, which after the swaps is thirty-one cards. Arcane Sanctum is one of only three lands in the deck that make all three colours.

The pips tell you which colours to favour when you replace the rest. White wants two pips on six spells and black wants two on seven, including Haakon at three mana. Blue wants two pips on three cards and not one of them can be cast before turn four, so the shortfall the raw count reports on blue is softer than it looks. Blue is the colour to shave, and the three lands I am adding are two white and black and one blue and black.

Stock, that is twenty-four white sources, twenty-two blue and twenty-two black. After, it is twenty-five white, twenty-one blue and twenty-four black. A single black pip by turn two goes from 87.7 per cent to 90.1 per cent, white from 90.1 to 91.2, and blue drops from 87.7 to 86.3 on purpose.

The eleven I would cut

• Ichor Elixir and Path of the Enigma, for the reason above.
• Promise of Loyalty. Every player keeps one creature and sacrifices the rest. Your commander pays you for attacking with several Knights at once, so this is a wipe pointed at your own game plan.
• Knight of the Last Breath. Seven mana, and the only seven drop in the deck.
• Arvad the Cursed gives other legendary creatures +2/+2, and there are nine other legendary creatures in the deck, of which you will usually control one.
• Xerex Strobe-Knight makes a token only if you have cast two or more spells that turn. At an average mana value of 3.33, that turn does not come around often.
• Maul of the Skyclaves grants flying and first strike, which is the keyword pair your commander already has.
• Temple of the False God, Myriad Landscape, Thriving Isle and Thriving Moor. Myriad Landscape enters tapped and then wants two more mana and a tap before it has done anything.

That is eleven, which takes the deck from thirty-nine lands to thirty-eight and from ten unconditional taplands to seven.

Why the two equipment and the two five drops stay

Conjurer's Mantle looks like the weakest card in the box. It is two mana of equipment helping a single creature, in a deck that wants a board. What it does is look at the top six cards on every attack and put a card sharing a type with the equipped creature into your hand. The equipped creature is always a Knight and so is every creature in your deck, so it hits unless the top six are all lands and noncreature spells. Two mana all in, repeatable every combat.

Sigiled Sword of Valeron is six mana before it does anything, which is the honest objection to it. It then makes a 2/2 attacking Knight every combat, and it makes the equipped creature a Knight, which matters on the handful of bodies that are not.

Vona, Butcher of Magan is a five drop in a deck carrying twelve of them. She is also repeatable, unconditional removal on a vigilant lifelinking body, and the seven life is a real cost that the lifelink is already refunding.

Fell the Mighty reads like a board wipe in a deck that wants a wide board. Point it at your own smallest relevant creature and it destroys everything bigger, which among 1/1 and 2/2 tokens and small Knights is closer to one sided than symmetric.

The eleven I would add

The engine. Kindred Discovery draws on every Knight that enters and every Knight that attacks. Patriarch's Bidding cashes in the graveyard your commander has been filling. Skullclamp converts the 1/1 tokens from Worthy Knight and Elenda and Azor into two cards each, and turns the 2/2 Knight tokens into 3/1 attackers when there is nothing small around.

The payoff. Coat of Arms counts shared types, and your board shares one with itself completely. Be honest about the symmetry before you sleeve it. A table with another typal deck in it gets paid too, and this is the one card on the list I would leave out if your pod is full of Elves and Goblins. Icon of Ancestry is the small version at three mana with a card selection ability attached, and it is the fifth card asking you to name Knight.

The mana. Caves of Koilos, Silent Clearing and Underground River all enter untapped and all charge a life for a coloured mana. Talisman of Hierarchy replaces a four mana rock that made two colourless with a two mana rock that makes white or black, which is where the double pips live.

The interaction. Anguished Unmaking exiles any nonland permanent at instant speed for three mana. Knight of the Ebon Legion is the one creature on the list, a one drop that turns into a mana sink later and keeps the creature count from sliding.

The eleven come to about $47 at market prices for the default printings, against a deck whose singles are worth about $98.

Two better cards did not make it. Smothering Tithe at about $64 is the strongest ramp spell white has, and it would cost more than every other add put together on a deck worth less than twice that. Teferi's Protection at about $48 is the best answer to the wipe that eventually comes for a board like this one. Both are the right next purchases if this becomes a deck you play every week, and both are the wrong first ones. Cover of Darkness I skipped on merit rather than price, because Herald of Hoofbeats is already in the box and horsemanship is harder to block than fear.

Average mana value 3.33 down to 3.16, and no seven drop

The curve moves at both ends. One drops go from four to six, the seven drop is gone, and the average mana value falls from 3.33 to 3.16. Lands go from thirty-nine to thirty-eight, which moves them from above the normal range into it, and the count that always enters tapped drops from ten to seven while untapped lands climb from twenty-four to twenty-six.

Card draw was already high at sixteen and goes to eighteen, which sounds like the wrong direction until you notice that both additions draw off things the deck was doing anyway. Spot removal goes from eight to nine and the deck keeps its two wipes.

The bracket floor does not move. Cavalry Charge floors at Bracket 1 out of the box because it runs no Game Changers, and none of the eleven adds is one either, so the upgraded list floors in the same place. Treat it as a Bracket 2 deck in practice, the same as the box.

The upgraded decklist

The stock deck with the eleven swaps applied. Hover any card name to see the card and its current price.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“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

Why does this precon contain cards about planar dice?

Cavalry Charge is one of the five March of the Machine Commander decks that shipped with a ten card planar deck alongside the hundred card Commander deck, and two of its cards are written for that game. At an ordinary table Ichor Elixir is a four mana artifact that taps for two colourless, and Path of the Enigma is a five mana sorcery that draws four cards. Both are cuts.

Do I name Knight or Human with Vanquisher's Banner?

Knight, every time. All thirty-three creatures in the stock deck are Knights and nineteen of them are also Human, so naming Human leaves fourteen creatures outside the effect and gains you nothing. The same answer covers Distant Melody and Herald's Horn, and Kindred Discovery and Icon of Ancestry if you add them.

What bracket does Cavalry Charge sit in?

Its floor is Bracket 1, because the stock deck runs no Game Changers, and none of the eleven adds on this page is one either, so the upgraded list floors in the same place. A floor is not a ceiling. In practice this plays as a Bracket 2 deck before and after the swaps.

How much do the eleven swaps cost?

About $47 for all eleven at market prices for the default printings, against a stock deck whose singles are worth about $98. Coat of Arms is roughly $19.75 of that and the three lands are about $8.15 together, so if you skip the Coat you get most of the gain for under $30.

Is the deck playable as it comes?

Yes, with the caveat that two of its hundred cards do almost nothing at a table with no planar deck. The Knight shell is complete, and the box ships sixteen ways to draw cards, eight pieces of ramp and eight pieces of spot removal. What holds it back is speed. Ten of its thirty-nine lands enter tapped, and one more produces no mana at all until you control five lands.

Do I have to cast Sidar Jabari for the deck to work?

No. The eminence trigger works from the command zone, so the draw and discard on attack is running whether or not he is on the battlefield. You still want to cast him, because his other ability returns a Knight from your graveyard every time he connects, and that is the payoff for all the discarding the first one has been doing.