Abzan Armor precon upgrade guide

The 40 creatures in this box carry 61 power and 184 toughness between them, and Felothar the Steadfast is what lets the bigger number into combat. Eleven swaps — about $55 — keep the deck attacking when he's gone.

Every number on this page comes from resolving the shipped Tarkir: Dragonstorm decklist card by card: the land classifications, the pip probabilities, the power and toughness totals, the bracket floor. Where a figure describes the deck after the swaps, it was recomputed on the post-swap list, not adjusted in my head.

What are the best Abzan Armor upgrades?

Ranked by how much each one moves this deck. The cuts open the slots.

1. Doran, the Siege Tower ($8.60) — the deck's whole damage rule on a second, three-mana body. When Felothar costs seven to recast, Doran keeps the walls swinging.
2. Huatli, the Sun's Heart ($0.41) — the same rule again on a seven-loyalty planeswalker, the hardest permanent here for a pod to remove.
3. Guardian Project ($14.86) — a card for nearly every one of 37 creatures, in a deck that shipped with five draw spells.
4. Tree of Perdition ($2.82) — sets the healthiest life total at the table to 13, then feeds Felothar a draw the size of whatever it took.
5. Toski, Bearer of Secrets ($8.08) — draws a card per creature that connects, and under Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa most of this deck connects.
6. Heroic Intervention ($15.96) — the standing board is the win condition; this is the cheapest way to keep it through someone else's wipe.
7. Wave of Reckoning ($0.40) — a sweeper that kills almost nothing you control.
8. Ancient Lumberknot ($0.29) — a third backup for the damage rule, at bulk price.

Caves of Koilos ($0.73), Llanowar Wastes ($0.68) and Brushland ($1.75) take the slots of the three Temples. Every pick is argued below.

One card triples the deck's damage

Add up the 40 creatures in the 99 and the box fields 61 power against 184 toughness. Felothar performs that tripling the moment he resolves: Indomitable Ancients attacks for 10, Tree of Redemption for 13, and Nyx-Fleece Ram — a card whose job everywhere else is gaining 1 life a turn — hits for 5.

His middle line matters nearly as much. Eighteen of those creatures have defender and can't attack at all without him, so almost half the deck's bodies sit behind one enabling effect.

The sacrifice ability is better here than it looks, because the draw is toughness and the discard is power — and 18 creatures in the box have power 0. Feeding him a spent Wall of Omens costs a 0/4 that already drew its card on the way in, and hands back four more with nothing discarded. Tree of Redemption is a 13-card refill. Seedborn Muse turns the tap ability from once a round into once a turn, untapping Felothar and the lands that pay for him during every opponent's untap step.

The weakness is concentration. If Felothar dies twice and starts costing seven, the stock list has exactly two fallbacks: Baldin, Century Herdmaster at six mana, and Assault Formation at two. Most of the swap list exists to fix that, and the rest goes at the two counts sitting under the typical band — five draw spells and one clean board wipe.

Most of the deck is unblockable on the ground

Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa's static reads like a joke until you count: opponents' creatures without flying or reach can't block creatures with power 2 or less, and 29 of the box's 40 creatures sit at 2 power or under. The wall that hits for 5 is also, at most tables, a wall nothing on the ground is allowed to block.

Behind the Scenes does the same work from a different angle. Skulk means a creature can't be blocked by anything with greater power, so a power-0 attacker gets stopped only by another power-0 creature.

The payoff for connecting is already in the box: Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper gains you life equal to each connecting creature's toughness — four or five a hit — and that life is what funds Betor, Ancestor's Voice's end step, which converts life gained into +1/+1 counters and life lost into reanimation.

The sweepers already read one-sided

The box carries one conventional board wipe, which is under the two-to-four most decks want. But the shape of this deck changes what counts. Slaughter the Strong has each player keep creatures totalling 4 power — and power-0 creatures are free against that cap, so you keep nearly everything while each opponent keeps a creature or two. Expel the Interlopers set to four spares everything in the upgraded list except Canopy Gargantuan, Dragonlord Dromoka and Zetalpa, Primal Dawn. Tip the Scales sacrifices Nyx-Fleece Ram into a board-wide −5/−5 that the deck's nine toughness-six-or-better creatures sit through.

Three sculpted sweepers is a real suite. The add list still brings a fourth, because all three of these are sorceries you have to line up — and the fourth kills even less of your board.

What I'd cut

Walking Bulwark and Wakestone Gargoyle both pay mana for what the command zone does free. Bulwark's activation is a one-creature, sorcery-speed Felothar; Wakestone's {1}{W} unlocks attacks Felothar unlocks anyway — and with no toughness rule in play, the walls it frees swing for their printed power, which is mostly 0.

Hornet Nest is the smallest body in the deck at 0/2, in a deck that pays for toughness by the point — and opponents simply decline to damage it.

Jaddi Offshoot pays 1 life per land drop. Ikra Shidiqi, the Usurper collects that much from a single connecting wall.

Wall of Limbs wants a lifegain-counter game and a seven-mana sacrifice. The deck already has a far better use for a sacrificed wall.

Colfenor's Urn needs three toughness-4 deaths while it survives on the table, then returns them at an end step. Reunion of the House covers the same disaster in one card, this turn.

Rhox Faithmender is the closest call. Doubling lifegain feeds Betor, Ancestor's Voice, but it doubles a number the deck doesn't convert into winning, and what's left is a 1/5 lifelink body attached to a multiplier.

Protector of the Wastes is a 5/5, and 5/5 is the one stat line Felothar can do nothing for. It costs six with two white pips in the deck's most contested colour requirement — double white by turn three resolves at 76.4% on the play — for a slow exile stapled to monstrosity.

Temple of Malady, Temple of Plenty and Temple of Silence always enter tapped and carry no basic land types, so the deck's six check lands can't see them. A scry 1 doesn't buy that back: the box already runs seven always-tapped lands, and speed is the thing this mana base lacks.

What I'd add

The backups first. Doran, the Siege Tower is Felothar's damage rule on a three-mana 0/5 — symmetric, so the table's other toughness card benefits too, but you built for it and they didn't. Huatli, the Sun's Heart applies it to your creatures only, from a planeswalker that arrives with seven loyalty. Ancient Lumberknot covers any creature whose toughness beats its power, which is 32 of the upgraded deck's 37. Count the copies afterwards: Felothar, Doran, Huatli, Ancient Lumberknot, Baldin, Assault Formation — six ways to turn toughness loose where the box had three. Killing the commander stops being a plan against you.

Then the engines. Guardian Project draws on effectively every creature in a singleton deck running 37 of them. Toski, Bearer of Secrets draws per creature that connects — and between Sidar Kondo of Jamuraa covering the 28 creatures at power 2 or less and Behind the Scenes covering the power-0 ones, connecting is the default here, not the exception. Tree of Perdition is the marquee play: tap it to swap the healthiest opponent's life total with its 13 toughness, then, a turn later if you like, feed the now-huge tree to Felothar and draw cards equal to the life it took.

Wave of Reckoning is the fourth sweeper: each creature deals damage to itself equal to its own power. In the upgraded list it takes Blight Pile, Faeburrow Elder, Canopy Gargantuan and a grown Towering Titan — everything else you run walks away, while power-heavy boards across the table don't. Heroic Intervention protects the thing this deck actually wins with, the standing board. Teferi's Protection is the stronger card and stayed out on price: at $48.42 it costs nearly as much as the other ten adds together, and Intervention covers the common case for a third of that.

The land swaps are one-for-one by colour pair: Caves of Koilos, Llanowar Wastes and Brushland for the three Temples, taking the always-tapped count from seven to four. They fix speed, not arithmetic — black stays at 22 sources against the 24 that its seventeen cheap spells want, an 87.7% chance of a turn-two black pip on the play. Deceptive Landscape fetches the missing Swamp, and it's the shortfall to keep in mind when judging a keepable hand.

The keeps that need an argument

Reunion of the House is a seven-mana sorcery with no immediate board effect, which is normally the first card off these pages. Read the restriction against this deck, though: “total power 10 or less” barely restricts a list where 16 creatures have power 0. After a wipe it returns most of a graveyard in one cast.

Baldin, Century Herdmaster looks like a clunky six-drop and is actually the box's own backup for the damage rule — his version only holds during your turn, but your turn is when this deck attacks, and his 0/7 body swings for 7 under it.

Seedborn Muse is the deck's engine multiplier and its only Game Changer, which makes it the whole Bracket 3 floor. That's a feature or a bug depending on your pod; the FAQ covers the Bracket 2 version.

Swiftfoot Boots — single-creature equipment in a 37-creature deck is usually a cut. Here the single creature is the deck.

Four tapped lands also stay. Sandsteppe Citadel and Path of Ancestry are the deck's only lands that produce all three colours. Bojuka Bog is the graveyard hate the deck otherwise doesn't have. Radiant Grove enters tapped but carries Forest and Plains types, which switch on Isolated Chapel, Sunpetal Grove and Woodland Cemetery and satisfy Fortified Village's reveal — it does more for the mana base tapped than a Temple does.

Where the numbers land after the swaps

Always-tapped lands go seven to four of 38. Average mana value rises from 3.34 to 3.41 — the deck gets a shade heavier on purpose, because the cuts were cheap cards doing little and the adds are engines. Draw spells counted narrowly go five to seven, still shy of the usual eight-to-twelve, with Felothar himself making up the difference. The creature count drops from 41 to 38 while legends rise from 10 to 12, and the team now totals 54 power against 182 toughness — the printed damage nearly three and a half times over. The bracket floor stays at 3, on Seedborn Muse alone. The box's singles run $88.42 and the upgraded list $137.82, both August 2026 prices.

The upgraded decklist

The full 100 after the eleven swaps. Hover any name for 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

How far does Abzan Armor get with zero changes?

Further than most precons. The engine is self-contained — Felothar the Steadfast, 18 defenders, and sweepers that spare a high-toughness board — and the box's singles run $88.42 at August 2026 prices. Its real out-of-box problems are seven always-tapped lands and only five draw spells.

What's the bill for the eleven adds?

$54.58 at August 2026 market prices for default printings. Heroic Intervention ($15.96) and Guardian Project ($14.86) are more than half of it; the other nine cards together come in under $24.

Can Betor, Ancestor's Voice take the command slot instead of Felothar?

Legally, yes — Betor is an Abzan legend from this box. The list resists the change, though: 16 of the upgraded creatures have power 0 and 18 of the stock ones have defender, stats only Felothar's rules reward. Betor wants a deck built around gaining and losing life; here it is a strong card in the 99 that converts Ikra Shidiqi's lifegain into counters and reanimation.

Why is High Alert missing from a toughness guide?

Colour identity. High Alert is the cheapest toughness-damage enabler in the game, but it is a blue-and-white card and Felothar's identity is white, black and green. Huatli, the Sun's Heart and Ancient Lumberknot are the legal stand-ins, at similar prices.

Is Bracket 2 in reach for Abzan Armor?

One card away. Seedborn Muse is the only Game Changer in either list, and it alone sets the Bracket 3 floor. Swap it out and the list checks clean at Bracket 2 — paste your version into the bracket checker to confirm.