Outlaws of Thunder Junction has officially been released and as a result, many players are starting to get their hands on all the various products this set has to offer. This includes a whole host of brand new preconstructed Commander decks! I'm going back to my roots a little bit over the next few weeks here and covering ways by which you as a player can go about upgrading them.

Last week I discussed Quick Draw, one of the coolest and arguably best decks of the bunch. It wasn't hard to upgrade and as a result, ends up being easy to talk about right out of the gate. Some of the others need a little more work done on them, though, and so this week we're going to continue on with another of the four decks. This time around, we'll be talking about the Desert Bloom precon!

This deck features Magic's first known trans man character in the form of Yuma, Proud Protector at the helm. He's doing his best Mandalorian impression by handling a little cactusfolk baby (Kirri, Talented Sprout) and riding off into the sunset. With regard to his actual card, though, he's here to do all kinds of land-related nonsense by putting plenty of lands into the graveyard for plenty of value. We're going to take a look and see how we can upgrade this deck today!

As a reminder, I'm no longer providing full upgraded decklists. These prove too time-consuming and don't encourage personal innovations as much by you, the reader. Instead, I'm going to talk about cards and concepts you can look at including to enhance your deck and make it that much better. Lands is a really fun and decently popular archetype to build around, so there's plenty of angles we can look at here and discuss.

First, though, we have to look at the actual precon decklist!

Desert Bloom Precon | Commander | OTJ Precon

• Commander (1)
• 1 Yuma, Proud Protector

• Creatures (27)
• 1 Ancient Greenwarden
• 1 Angel of Indemnity
• 1 Angel of the Ruins
• 1 Avenger of Zendikar
• 1 Dune Chanter
• 1 Eccentric Farmer
• 1 Elvish Rejuvenator
• 1 Genesis Hydra
• 1 Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
• 1 Kirri, Talented Sprout
• 1 Nantuko Cultivator
• 1 Nesting Dragon
• 1 Omnath, Locus of Rage
• 1 Oracle of Mul Daya
• 1 Perennial Behemoth
• 1 Ramunap Excavator
• 1 Rumbleweed
• 1 Sand Scout
• 1 Satyr Wayfinder
• 1 Scaretiller
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Skullwinder
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Sun Titan
• 1 Titania, Protector of Argoth
• 1 Turntimber Sower
• 1 World Shaper

• Instants (8)
• 1 Bovine Intervention
• 1 Electric Revelation
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Heaven // Earth
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Return of the Wildspeaker
• 1 Unholy Heat
• 1 Valorous Stance

• Sorceries (15)
• 1 Cataclysmic Prospecting
• 1 Decimate
• 1 Descend upon the Sinful
• 1 Embrace the Unknown
• 1 Escape to the Wilds
• 1 Explore
• 1 Hour of Promise
• 1 Magmatic Insight
• 1 Map the Frontier
• 1 Requisition Raid
• 1 Sevinne's Reclamation
• 1 Thrilling Discovery
• 1 Vengeful Regrowth
• 1 Winding Way
• 1 Wreck and Rebuild

• Enchantments (4)
• 1 Bitter Reunion
• 1 Crawling Sensation
• 1 Marshal's Anthem
• 1 The Mending of Dominaria

• Artifacts (5)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Chromatic Lantern
• 1 Perpetual Timepiece
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots

• Lands (40)
• 4 Mountain
• 6 Plains
• 7 Forest
• 1 Abraded Bluffs
• 1 Bristling Backwoods
• 1 Cactus Preserve
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Conduit Pylons
• 1 Creosote Heath
• 1 Desert of the Fervent
• 1 Desert of the Indomitable
• 1 Desert of the True
• 1 Dunes of the Dead
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Hashep Oasis
• 1 Jungle Shrine
• 1 Krosan Verge
• 1 Mirage Mesa
• 1 Painted Bluffs
• 1 Ramunap Ruins
• 1 Scattered Groves
• 1 Scavenger Grounds
• 1 Shefet Dunes
• 1 Sheltered Thicket
• 1 Sunscorched Divide
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse

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When it comes to looking at upgrading this list, it's important to note some of the things you can't do here all that well. First is upgrading your deserts themselves. Normally I ignore land bases since they're pretty straightforward adjustments that you can make on your own based on your budget. However, when the theme of this deck is the lands themselves, we have to discuss them, and here the issue is that there isn't all that much to discuss in the first place.

From what I can tell, there's only three potentially relevant deserts not in this deck: Endless Sands, Hostile Desert, and the original Desert itself. The original Desert isn't particularly great, as you can only pick off a small creature or two here and there. It's a fine enough addition, but can be rough in a three-color deck. Hostile Desert allows you to have a creature land but requires you to exile cards from your graveyard to do so, making it somewhat antithetical to what the deck wants to do. That leaves Endless Sands as the only other realistic option. Most of the other deserts are solid enough on their own because they provide a one-time effect, get sacrificed, and then get brought back later. Endless Sands just sticks around, making it a bit harder to utilize, but it does provide you with a way to save your creatures in a pinch.

If anything, these deserts are the kind of thing you can improve on later. We've slowly but surely gotten new deserts when the timing is right and the flavor justifies it, so we're almost certainly going to see new ones pop up here and there in the future. That means even though there isn't as much space to improve on it now, you should be able to do so overtime, providing you a means of enhancement later on.

I'd also put a lot more effort than usual into trying to get a better mana base together than usual here. Most preconstructed decks are known for having lackluster sets of lands, but a least a lot of them are solid enough and do more than just come into play tapped every time like the majority of this deck's duals do. There's no check lands, no filter lands, fast lands, or slow lands - all of which have made regular showings in Commander decks over the last few years as opposed to the previously questionable inclusions of Guildgates and the like. A couple of these and/or shock lands will go a long way for you.

In addition to noting that there aren't many deserts to add in, I think it's also worth pointing out for a Lands-based deck that you unfortunately can't play some of the best Lands-themed cards around. In this case, I'm talking primarily about Lord Windgrace and Soul of Windgrace. Both are some of the best commanders - and in turn, cards in the 99 - for Lands strategies. Unfortunately, though, since both cards are in Jund colors vs. this deck's Naya colors, it's not possible to slot them into the deck, though you can convert from one to the other reasonably enough should you want to do so.

Thankfully, though, most Lands-based cards tend to be more Green-aligned anyways, so there's still plenty of good thematic options to pull from. For example, one main thing to look at should be the ability to get back lands from your graveyard. The preconstructed list already has a solid number of these as is, with by my count roughly 12 cards allowing you to get back lands from your graveyard and either onto the battlefield or your hand. Those cards include the following:

• Angel of Indemnity
• Eccentric Farmer
• Hazezon, Shaper of Sand
• Kirri, Talented Sprout
• Perennial Behemoth
• Ramunap Excavator
• Scaretiller
• Sun Titan
• Turntimber Sower
• World Shaper
• Vengeful Regrowth
• The Mending of Dominaria

Several of these are excellent. You get multiple Crucible of Worlds effects via the likes of Ramunap Excavator, Perennial Behemoth, and Hazezon, Shaper of Sand. There's also big one-shot effects via The Mending of Dominaria and World Shaper, as well as a couple beefy hits such as Vengeful Regrowth and Sun Titan (which can hit nonland permanents as well).

While several of these are awesome choices, there're still some that feel awfully middle of the road. Angel of Indemnity and Eccentric Farmer quickly come to mind. They get you one thing back, and the Farmer helps fill up your graveyard too, but most of the time these cards won't actually impact the board that much and feel fairly mediocre once their utility is gone. Instead, consider cards like the popular Standard card Aftermath Analyst, which plays especially well with Sun Titan, and the recently reprinted Life From the Loam to repeatedly fill your graveyard and your hand. You can also utilize big return spells like Splendid Reclamation and Worldsoul's Rage (best friends with Aftermath Analyst in Standard) to get everything back with a single card.

Now that we've looked at the cards that can return lands from your graveyard, how about putting them in there in the first place? The obvious method to doing so is sacrificing the lands themselves. There's a few easy ways to do this, such as Yuma himself or some of the abilities of your lands like Scavenger Grounds and Shefet Dunes. Many of these can feel a little rough if you're struggling on mana, though, as they can cost mana to activate their abilities.

There are plenty of options without mana costs attached to them, though. Some immediately obvious inclusions would be the likes of Ghost Quarter and Demolition Field, or more expensive versions in Wasteland and Strip Mine if you can swing them. Command Beacon can find your Yuma and then you use some other card to bring it back and have it ready to use all over again. You can also utilize Treasure Vault to help mitigate the downside of needing to play colorless lands for their sacrifice effects. And, of course, you can do the obvious thing by removing an Evolving Wilds or Terramorphic Expanse in favor of the recently printed Escape Tunnel, because why not?

Oh, and you might not be sacrificing them, but utilizing the channel lands from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty can be really good too. By utilizing their discard effects, you can generate some amount of value - especially from Boseiju, Who Endures - and then replay them later off of various effects. If you have a means of putting those lands back into your hand, then even better! You get to use the channel effects all over again.

Finally, there's one other big element of utility that I think is relevant to a Lands deck in the first place: actually getting value for your lands! Generally speaking, this is going to come from Landfall abilities. Only four cards have Landfall in the deck - plus one other, Hazezon, that technically has non-keyworded Desert Landfall - and I feel like there could maybe be more. No one will suggest cards like Omnath, Locus of Rage or Scute Swarm are bad by any means, but perhaps you could slip in a little more or have a couple additional options handy should you want to change it up a little.

One thing I found is how there's no shortage of token generators for Landfall. Felidar Retreat, Emeria Angel, and Rampaging Baloths are great examples of this, though you're already rocking some pretty great token makers as is. So instead, maybe use something like a Lotus Cobra to ramp you or utilize the wonder pair of Tireless Tracker and Tireless Provisioner for some general value. Admonition Angel provides you a way to remove creatures by playing your lands and then when the coast is clear, you can utilize Moraug, Fury of Akoum for plenty of extra combat steps.

All of these are simply a handful of decent ideas for you to consider as you upgrade your preconstructed deck. Plenty of these are awesome for you if you're on a budget, and if you're willing to get a little spendy there's even more options for you to take advantage of as well. Heck, if you really wanted, this is the kind of deck that really wants fetch lands beyond just using them as an expensive vanity inclusion. There's all kinds of room for innovation with a deck like this however you want to, which rocks. Just make it something that you'll have a great time with at your next Commander night.

Paige Smith

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