Just a few years ago in 2021 we got the awesome set in the form of Strixhaven: School of Mages. This set provided a fairly light setting with several fantastic new interpretations of color pairs that appealed to tons of people. It gave us schools like Lorehold, providing more nuance and depth to the Red-White pair besides just aggressive equipment strategies, as well as the incredible interpretation of artistic expression that is the Prismari. It was the math-focused school, Quandrix, that gave us perhaps one of the more beloved characters in recent history.

Zimone, Quandrix Prodigy was extremely awesome to see. A young mathematician prodigy and person of color was highly welcomed amongst the greater Magic community, and the cards she appeared on such as her namesake and Decisive Denial were instant fan favorites. In the years since, we've seen her on the tag team card of Zimone and Dina, as well as several new cards with Duskmourn: House of Horror and Foundations. One of these just so happens to be the face card of the Duskmourn precon Jump Scare!

This iteration of Zimone does some really interesting things. Continuing the trend of her previous cards, this one cares about getting lands into play. This happens thanks to Landfall, but the act of playing lands does something a bit different: manifesting dread. This new take on the Fate Reforged mechanic of manifest gives you the option of what you want to put onto the battlefield and the other into your graveyard. This provides you with a solid choice of what you want to do, giving you flexibility in your play and can even allow you to make use of the creatures you send to your graveyard with the right build.

Today, I'm going to discuss some potential ways that you can upgrade this precon and provide a general overview of some of the better options. First, though, we need to have a look at the decklist. Only then can we figure out what to do with it!

Jump Scare Precon | Commander

• Commander (1)
• 1 Zimone, Mystery Unraveler

• Creatures (32)
• 1 Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Strait
• 1 Arixmethes, Slumbering Isle
• 1 Ashaya, Soul of the Wild
• 1 Augur of Autumn
• 1 Beanstalk Giant
• 1 Body of Knowledge
• 1 Citanul Hierophants
• 1 Curator Beastie
• 1 Deathmist Raptor
• 1 Giggling Skitterspike
• 1 Glitch Interpreter
• 1 Greater Tanuki
• 1 Hydra Omnivore
• 1 Kefnet the Mindful
• 1 Kheru Spellsnatcher
• 1 Kianne, Corrupted Memory
• 1 Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar
• 1 Overgrown Zealot
• 1 Rashmi, Eternities Crafter
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Scute Swarm
• 1 Shigeki, Jukai Visionary
• 1 Shriekwood Devourer
• 1 Skaab Ruinator
• 1 Tatyova, Benthic Druid
• 1 Temur War Shaman
• 1 Thunderfoot Baloth
• 1 Trygon Predator
• 1 Whisperwood Elemental
• 1 Worldspine Wurm
• 1 Yavimaya Elder
• 1 Yedora, Grave Gardener

• Instants (9)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Biomass Mutation
• 1 Cackling Counterpart
• 1 Counterspell
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Eureka Moment
• 1 Growth Spiral
• 1 Reality Shift
• 1 Zimone's Hypothesis

• Sorceries (8)
• 1 Aether Gale
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Disorienting Choice
• 1 Explosive Vegetation
• 1 Ezuri's Predation
• 1 Oversimplify
• 1 Overwhelming Stampede
• 1 Rampant Growth

• Enchantments (8)
• 1 Experimental Lab // Staff Room
• 1 Growing Dread
• 1 Primordial Mist
• 1 Retreat to Coralhelm
• 1 Sandwurm Convergence
• 1 They Came from the Pipes
• 1 Trail of Mystery
• 1 Wilderness Reclamation

• Artifacts (4)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Scroll of Fate
• 1 Simic Signet
• 1 Sol Ring

• Lands (38)
• 9 Forest
• 9 Island
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Castle Vantress
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Drownyard Temple
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Flooded Grove
• 1 Hinterland Harbor
• 1 Mosswort Bridge
• 1 Myriad Landscape
• 1 Overflowing Basin
• 1 Quandrix Campus
• 1 Reliquary Tower
• 1 Simic Growth Chamber
• 1 Tangled Islet
• 1 Temple of Mystery
• 1 Temple of the False God
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Thornwood Falls
• 1 Vineglimmer Snarl
• 1 Yavimaya Coast

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This is a pretty sweet list! I'm actually quite impressed with what they did in certain aspects to make this feel like a manifest deck above all else. Far too often you'll see Simic lists just be generic value piles and, while there's still some of that here, you can tell they're going for a somewhat different approach at the same time. This allows for weirder and more off the wall cards like famous bulk cards Trail of Mystery and Skaab Ruinator to truly shine, as it becomes extremely easy to utilize both to their fullest in a list like this.

That said, I do feel like there are some real outliers here that maybe push the value side of things a little too hard. Tatyova, Benthic Druid and Aesi, Tyrant of Gyre Straight really stand out to me in this regard. They both make things a little too on rails by enabling you to draw obscene amounts of cards. Aesi is a bit more egregious at that, as it allows you to get multiple Zimone triggers as well. I do think these are great for a new player experience to see the more exciting side of what you can do in Magic. For more experienced players, though, maybe swapping these out for less extreme options like the on-theme Oblivious Bookworm may provide a better time with your local group.

Instead, I'd like to focus a little more on the manifest side of things. Just what kind of nonsense can we get up to with this? Well first, let's check out what's already here. I already noted Trail of Mystery above - a card long considered a trash bulk rare that works well here - but it's not the only classic making a return. Whisperwood Elemental, Scroll of Fate, and Primordial Mist all get reprints here and all make for outstanding options. Scroll of Fate in particular never seemed like a particularly great option, but when paired with Zimone, it lets you get up to some serious shenanigans by putting the creatures you can't normally cast down with ease. I recommend also adding in Vannifar, Evolved Enigma for a similar effect that can also pump your board if you feel like you have enough creatures already.

Interestingly, it felt like there weren't a ton of decent enablers to work off of among the game's history. Both Ugin, the Ineffable and Ugin's Mastery came to mind as decent options. Ugin allows you to either manifest creatures every turn or play the handful of your morph options with ease. Ugin's Mastery allows you to get extra value from your morphs and then when you attack with something that's face up, you get even more value. Both Ixidor, Dream Sculptor and Hauntwoods Shrieker provide additional ways to flip your creatures face up with ease, and Ixidor even pumps your face down creatures, providing a little extra protection in the process.

While on the topic of flipping face down creatures up, there's also some really interesting interactions that I think are worth noting, specifically with Yedora, Grave Gardener.

Normally, Yedora simply does what it says on the tin. When your creature dies, it comes back as a land, providing you a little extra value after the fact. Easy, right? Not so much in this deck! Zimone and the new Hauntwoods Shrieker both specify targeting a permanent. It doesn't say creature the way Ixidor does, nor does it specify nonland on it. This means you can target a land that was returned face down via Yedora and - surprise - you suddenly have a massive creature on the board once again! This begs the question: can we do this with anything else? The answer is yes, but it's a little limited.

When I did some cursory searches, only two cards came back as being relevant to this interaction. The first, and certainly most notable, of the two is Ixidron. This turns all creatures on the battlefield face down, making it a pseudo board wipe of sorts. You have to be careful that you don't accidentally turn face down your cards that enable you to turn them face up again, but if you can play it right, it can really set you up to take over the game. The other option here is Cybership from Universes Beyond: Doctor Who. If you don't mind the Universes Beyond angle, this lets you take your opponents' cards and then flip them face up later as your own, which is always a good time.

Now that we know what to do with putting creatures into play face down and turning them face up effectively, this begs the question: what kinds of powerful creatures should we be running? The base precon itself offers up some pretty decent options. Cards like Hydra Omnivore, Worldspine Wurm, and Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar provide great options to flip over into. Even new cards like Curator Beastie and Shriekwood Devourer provide awesome options for you to go nuts with.

Surely, though, there's gotta be some other good options to throw in, though. Excluding some of the obvious bigger choices like the eldrazi titans and Blightsteel Colossus that will probably cost you an arm and a leg, a few quickly come to mind. Koma, Cosmos Serpent is a great one. Recent printings really brought this powerful card's price down to earth and it really gets out of hand fast. The new Koma, World-Eater also works pretty decently in a similar vein as well. It's also quite cheap despite being an all-new card in Foundations, making it an extremely worthwhile pickup. Hullbreaker Horror - along with its older cousin Tidespout Tyrant - is another powerful option to bounce all of your opponents' stuff, giving you something to do with all the value your deck is handing you.

How about cheating in big creatures that make it easier to get lands onto the battlefield and trigger Zimone that much more? Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath has a particularly funny interaction with manifesting it. Since it's already on the board when you turn it face up, you don't need to sacrifice it because it wasn't escaped, making it really easy to get some solid once a turn value out of it. Similarly, you can use Bonny Pall, Clearcutter to similar effect. If you manifest it, you won't get the Beau token as well, but the value generation is still decent enough in its own right. Better still - even if you don't manifest it, casting it outright is still an excellent option. Both of these cards can be had for just a few dollars total, making them extremely easy additions.

Last but not least, there's one other spot I'd like to touch on: morph creatures! Interestingly, there are only two cards with a morph variant on them in the precon: Kheru Spellsnatcher and Deathmist Raptor. The Spellsnatcher is a really cool card if you have a cheap means of flipping your cards face up, and Deathmist Raptor provides a way to constantly get itself back onto the battlefield. It's not nearly as good as it was in its Standard heyday, but it's an excellent addition here given this specific deck.

When going through most of these cards, most aren't exactly the most interesting options. Now don't misunderstand me here, as cards like Ainok Survivalist, Icefeather Aven, and Den Protector are all great cards in their own right. They just feel a little one-note compared to bigger and more flashy options you'd probably like to play. Given this, there were two cards that stood out to me. First was Root Elemental, which provides you with both a big creature and a means of cheating in another big creature as well. Second is Experiment Twelve from the recent Murders at Karlov Manor Commander decks. This makes your big creatures come out even more massive when you flip them over! Not a bad deal at all.

All in all, there's plenty of great ways to work on upgrading a deck like this. Hell, outside of a brief mention of Den Protector, I didn't even really touch on the aspect of pulling back cards from your graveyard that you put there when you manifest dread. Simic decks tend to offer tons of great value plays, which can make it hard to find specific areas to focus on, but I do hope this provides you with some possible direction on where you can go with the deck going forward. Change it up a little, and have yourself an awesome time at your next Commander night!

Just maybe try avoiding any heavy duty math lessons if you can.

Paige Smith

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