Most Wanted precon upgrade guide

Thirty-three of Most Wanted's 34 creatures are outlaws, so Olivia's trigger isn't what's missing. What's missing is anything else that happens when it fires.

Olivia, Opulent Outlaw costs {1}{R}{W}{B}, has flying and lifelink, and makes a Treasure whenever one or more outlaws you control deal combat damage to a player. For {3} and two Treasures she puts two +1/+1 counters on every creature you control, at sorcery speed. The box builds the first half properly. Assassins, Mercenaries, Pirates, Rogues and Warlocks are 33 of its 34 creatures, with Mirror Entity and Changeling Outcast counting as all five, and Academy Manufactor is the only creature that isn't one.

The second half is where it thins out. Ten other cards in the box make Treasure, and only Olivia does it every time an outlaw connects. Captain Lannery Storm and Shiny Impetus pay on attacking rather than connecting, Mari, the Killing Quill needs a hit counter from a creature that already died, and Misfortune Teller only makes one when the card it exiles is a land. So one connection is one Treasure, and Olivia's ability costs two.

Ten swaps follow. Four of the adds make Treasure, three of those when a creature connects. Two are exile removal and four are mana. On the way out, six are spells that don't feed the plan and four are tapped lands.

What are the best Most Wanted upgrades?

In buying order. Ten cards, $48.80 at the cheapest released printing of each, against a box whose own singles come to at least $154.88 (one card has no price, so that's a floor).

1. Grim Hireling ($10.67). A 3/2 Rogue for {3}{B} that makes two Treasures whenever one or more creatures you control deal combat damage to a player. It's the single biggest change to what a connection is worth. It's also the most expensive card here, and its cheapest printing is from The List.
2. Professional Face-Breaker ($4.97). A 2/3 with menace for {2}{R} that makes a Treasure on the same trigger, and it can sacrifice a Treasure to exile the top card of your library and play it that turn. It isn't an outlaw, which doesn't matter, because it triggers off any creature.
3. Hoard Robber ($0.24). A 1/3 Rogue for {1}{B} that makes a Treasure when it connects itself. With Vihaan, Goldwaker out it has haste, since Vihaan gives haste and vigilance to your other outlaws.
4. Pitiless Plunderer ($3.21). A 1/4 Pirate for {3}{B} that makes a Treasure whenever another creature you control dies. It's a cheaper, narrower version of what Life Insurance did, because it only counts your own creatures but costs no life. It pairs with the sacrifice outlets the box already has in Fain, Laurine and Deadly Dispute.
5. Swords to Plowshares ($0.81) and Utter End ($0.20). Two exile effects at one mana and four. Swords gives the creature's controller life equal to its power, and Utter End is instant-speed exile for any nonland permanent, where Council's Judgment is a sorcery and Feed the Swarm costs you life.
6. Talisman of Conviction ($0.34). The box has Signets for black-red and white-black and no two-colour rock for red-white.
7. Godless Shrine ($8.70), Blood Crypt ($9.43) and Sacred Foundry ($10.23). Three lands that enter untapped if you pay 2 life, in place of three Temples and Bojuka Bog, which always enter tapped.

Two cards I looked at and didn't take. Smothering Tithe costs $55.60 and is a Game Changer, so it would move the bracket floor from 1 to 3 on its own. Savai Triome makes all three colours and costs $17.18, but it enters tapped, which is the problem the shocklands are there to fix. Everything leaving is listed under what goes out.

A connection should buy an activation

Olivia's counter ability is the deck's finisher: two counters on every creature you control, in a deck that is almost entirely creatures. The deck is 35 creatures deep, so once a board is out one activation is a lot of counters for {3} and two Treasures. The question is how fast you can afford the two Treasures.

In the box the answer is one per combat. In the upgraded list, with Olivia, Hireling and Face-Breaker all out, an outlaw connecting makes four: one from Olivia, two from Hireling, one from Face-Breaker. That's two activations' worth in a single attack, and Hoard Robber makes it five if it's one of the creatures that connects.

The box already contains the best use for the surplus. Vihaan turns every Treasure you control into a 3/3 Construct Assassin at the beginning of combat. A Treasure creature is an Assassin, so it gets vigilance and haste from Vihaan himself, and when it connects it makes another Treasure through Olivia. Vigilance means attacking costs the Treasure nothing, since it stays untapped and can still be sacrificed after combat. The risk is a 3/3 getting blocked and killed, and the same cards that make Treasure faster also make Vihaan's attack bigger.

Academy Manufactor stays, though it's worth being exact about what it does. It doesn't make extra Treasures. Each Treasure you would create becomes a Clue, a Food and a Treasure, so you get the same number of Treasures plus two other tokens. That's still a good deal for Idol of Oblivion, which draws a card if you created a token this turn.

What goes out, and three cards that stay anyway

Six spells leave. Angrath's Marauders is the only seven in the deck and doubles damage, which Olivia's trigger doesn't care about, since it fires on any combat damage regardless of the amount. Hex needs six different creature targets or you can't cast it. On a board with fewer than six creatures between four players that means pointing it at your own, in a deck whose whole plan is attacking with them.

Mass Mutiny and Captivating Crew are both threaten effects, and a stolen creature only feeds Olivia if it happens to be an outlaw. Seize the Spotlight stays as the one threaten effect, because it costs three and each opponent either gives you a creature to attack with or gives you a card and a Treasure. Tenured Inkcaster is the creature I'd defend longest. It does drain when a creature with a +1/+1 counter attacks, and Olivia's ability puts one on all of them. But it's a 2/2 for five mana in a deck with nine other five-drops.

Life Insurance is the one I'd argue about. It makes a Treasure whenever any nontoken creature dies, and it costs you 1 life each time. At five mana it pays out only as creatures die, while Rain of Riches is also five and hands over its two Treasures the moment it lands. The two Treasures are exactly one activation, so Rain stays even though it's a five-drop.

Three more cards look expensive or clumsy and stay. Curtains' Call costs {2}{B} against three opponents. Trailblazer's Boots gives one creature nonbasic landwalk, which makes it unblockable against any opponent who controls a nonbasic land, and most Commander decks do. Discreet Retreat is an Aura on a land, which sounds worse than it plays: it draws a card, for 1 life, on your first outlaw spell each turn, and 33 of the 34 creatures in the box qualify.

Four tapped lands, three untapped ones, one more rock

Seven of the box's 37 lands always enter tapped: three Temples, Canyon Slough, Bojuka Bog, Path of Ancestry and Nomad Outpost. The swaps take that to three. The Temples and Bojuka Bog go out, and the three shocklands come in with the Talisman.

The colour counts barely move, and they shouldn't. Counting lands that make a colour on their own, and leaving out filter lands and Exotic Orchard, black goes from 18 to 17, red stays at 15 and white at 11. Godless Shrine and Sacred Foundry replace two white sources one for one, and Blood Crypt replaces a Temple of Malice that made red. Black gives up one land because nothing replaces Bojuka Bog's black. White is the thinnest colour of the three, and the Talisman is the only add that gives it a new source.

Shocklands also have basic land types. Dragonskull Summit, Clifftop Retreat and Isolated Chapel all enter untapped if you control a Swamp, Mountain or Plains, and Tainted Peak needs a Swamp to make colour. Each of the three new lands carries two of those types, so each one is a small bonus for the box's conditional lands on top of the 8 basics already in the list. Paying 2 life is optional, and the deck has lifelink on Olivia, Kamber, Nighthawk Scavenger and Aetherborn Marauder to get it back.

If $28.36 is more than you want to spend on lands, skip these first. They improve tempo, not power, and Star Trek reprints all three on 13 November 2026, so those prices may move.

Two more answers and a lower curve

The box answers a problem creature with Council's Judgment, Feed the Swarm, Shoot the Sheriff and Curtains' Call, with Heliod's Intervention for artifacts and enchantments. Shoot the Sheriff can't target an outlaw, so it does nothing to the creatures in another Rogue or Pirate deck. Swords and Utter End add two answers that exile, at one mana and four.

Average mana value falls from 3.26 to 3.02. The deck has one seven-drop and two six-drops in the box and one six-drop afterwards. Five-drops go from 10 to 7, and two-drops from 15 to 17.

The upgraded decklist

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FAQ

How many Treasures does Olivia's counter ability need?

Two per activation, plus {3}, and only at sorcery speed. In the box a connecting attack makes one Treasure, from Olivia, so the first activation is two combats away. In the upgraded list Grim Hireling makes two more and Professional Face-Breaker one more off the same connection, so with all three out a single outlaw connecting makes four Treasures, which is two activations' worth.

Is Curtains' Call really a six-drop?

Its mana value is six, but you almost never pay six. Undaunted takes {1} off for each opponent, so against three opponents it's {2}{B} to destroy two creatures. That's why it stays even though it's the highest mana value left in the deck. At a two-player table it costs {4}{B}.

Would Smothering Tithe fit, and what would it do to the bracket?

It fits the plan, because an opponent who skips the {2} hands you a Treasure, and it costs $55.60. It's also a Game Changer, which moves the deck's bracket floor from 1 to 3 on its own. Nothing in the upgraded list is a Game Changer, so I left it out.

Is Hex worth keeping in Most Wanted?

Not in this list. It destroys six target creatures and the rules require six different targets, or you can't cast it at all. On a board with fewer than six creatures between all four players, that means aiming it at your own, and this deck wants its creatures alive to connect.

What counts as an outlaw?

A card with the Assassin, Mercenary, Pirate, Rogue or Warlock creature type. 'Outlaw' itself isn't a creature type, and a changeling counts because it has every type. In the upgraded list 33 of the 35 creatures are outlaws, and the two that aren't are Academy Manufactor and Professional Face-Breaker.

What does the whole upgrade cost?

$48.80 for ten cards at the cheapest released printing of each, which for several of them is a promo. The three shocklands are $28.36 of that and the easiest part to skip, because they replace tapped lands rather than add power. They're also being reprinted in Star Trek on 13 November 2026, so expect those three prices to move.