EDHREC ranks the worst Commander precon commanders of all time

Commander has enough precons now, more than 150 official decks, that the weak face commanders stand out fast. In a year like 2023, when the format was flooded with 25 or 26 preconstructed decks depending on how you count Secret Lairs, the difference between “fun out of the box” and “rebuild from scratch” got painfully obvious.

1. Galadriel, Elven-Queen

This is the clearest modern example of a precon commander that asks for too much and pays back too little. The Elven Council deck, released on June 23, 2023 as part of a four-deck Commander product with 100 cards and 10 double-faced tokens per deck, makes you track Elf entries, votes, The Ring, and the Ring-bearer just to get an effect that often feels closer to a fair value card than a payoff.

The official card is a blue-green 4/5 Elf Noble, but the problem is not the body, it’s the workload. If you want this shell to feel good, rebuild around Círdan the Shipwright or Elrond of the White Council and let Galadriel go to the binder, because the deck wants cleaner politics and value than the face card delivers.

2. Millicent, Restless Revenant

Spirit Squadron aged badly because the deck was stretched too thin from the start. The mana base is rough, the noncreature cards are often just making Spirits without really rewarding you for them, and Crimson Vow did not do enough to tighten the plan, so the whole list feels like a pile of half-synergies instead of a real Spirit deck.

Millicent is the one card that actually ties the theme together, which says a lot about the 99 around her. If you own the deck, strip it for Spirit staples and the better white-blue-black Commander pieces, then rebuild around a cleaner Spirit shell instead of assuming the stock list was ever going to get there.

3. Jared Carthalion

Painbow is the exact kind of five-color precon that looked ambitious and immediately started leaking value on contact with reality. Wizards was clearly trying to make a five-color Commander deck work, but five-color precons always pay a mana tax, and Jared Carthalion has spent years proving that the promise of “play everything” is not the same thing as actually casting your spells on time.

If you buy this deck today, buy it for the fixing and the generic five-color staples, not because Jared himself is a strong long-term build-around. The practical move is to strip the list for rainbow mana and splashy goodstuff, then move the actual commander duties to something more focused.

4. Kaust, Eyes of the Glade

Kaust is the kind of face commander that looks clever on paper and clunky in real games. Deadly Disguise wants you to juggle face-down creatures, combat triggers, and extra tap lines, and a lot of that work disappears the second you realize the cleaner version of the same idea is usually sitting in the 99, not at the helm.

That is why Duskana, the Rage Mother is the real fix when you want the shell to hit harder. If you already own the precon, this is a rebuild-around-new-commander situation, not a “just swap five cards and pray” upgrade.

5. Xira Arien

Xira Arien is the oddball that proves not every precon comparison is fair. EDHREC itself parked Xira in honorable mention territory at 552 decks, because she is a Legends-era creature and not a modern face commander built for a contemporary Commander product, which makes her a very different kind of bad than the newer precon leaders on this list.

That said, she still belongs in the consumer-service conversation because she is outclassed so hard that the buy case disappears unless you are chasing nostalgia. If you want recurring card advantage in that color combination, the modern options, including Auntie Ool, Cursewretch, The Reaper, King No More, or Eddie Brock, do the job better, so the old Jund relic is mostly a binder card and a reminder that age alone does not make a commander worth building around.

The real lesson here is that a precon’s face card is no longer a throwaway detail. In a format with this many decks on the shelf, the commander has to earn the purchase, and if it cannot do that, the smartest move is to strip the deck for staples, rebuild around a better legend, or walk away entirely.