The Best Dance of the Elements Precon Upgrade Guide!
Lorwyn Eclipsed brings us two brand new precons that have a ton of hype behind them, so it's time once again for my precon upgrade guides! Apologies for the delay on this one, I was sick all of last week, so a I am a bit behind. Hope it's still helpful to folks!
We begin with Dance of the Elements, a 5C Elementals precon: the deck is loaded with big splashy Elementals that have powerful enter the battlefield triggers, disenchanting the board with Bane of Progress, drawing cards off Mulldrifter, and overrunning the table with Jubilation. We double the value of these big ol' creatures by evoking them with the commander Ashling, the Limitless and getting extra copies of them, double their triggers with Yarok, the Desecrated, and making even more copies of them to slap each opponent with Mass of Mysteries!
If you like the sound of a super explosive 5C deck that absolutely wallops the table whenever they let you untap with your commander then Dance of the Elements might be the deck for you!
The Stock List:
Before we get to upgrades, let's look at the stock list and see what it's doing right and what could use improvement.
Dance of the Elements is all-in on its Elementals theme: I count 33 Elemental creatures plus an additional 3 cards that create elemental (or changeling) tokens (not counting Crib Swap since you aim that at opponents). There are 15 cards that reward you for playing Elementals. There aren't really any other competing themes; it's all about Elementals and, to a lesser extent big creatures entering the battlefield.
The main mechanic of Elementals is Evoke (e.g. Foundation Breaker) which allows you to cast your big Elementals for a steep discount in order to just use their powerful ETB abilities, but then you have to sacrifice the creature immediately. The list supports this strategy with cards that reward you for having big creatures enter but don't care if they stick around, like Garruk's Uprising.
The Good
Most commander decks are carried by their commander, and Dance of the Elements has an especially busted one: Ashling, the Limitless provides the deck with tons of explosive potential. Simply having Ashling, the Limitless on the battlefield along with 4 untapped mana means you have dozens of ways of immediately gaining huge value. Activate Ashling and you've got stuff like:
- evoke Greenwarden of Murasa, return four cards from your graveyard to your hand and swing at an opponent for 5
- evoke Lamentation, blow up two creatures gain 6 life, swing for 5
- evoke Jubilation, give your other creatures +4/+4 and trample, swing for at least 7
- even "chill" plays like evoking Mulldrifter to draw 4 and swing for 2 is still amazing
So yeah, Ashling is bonkers. And Elementals are a pretty deep tribe too. There's standalone strong cards like Foundation Breaker and Shriekmaw, and good support cards like Risen Reef and Omnath, Locus of the Roil. So while the precon is absurd with Ashling on the battlefield, it still has some power without her too.
The Bad
The stock list has two major pain points:
- It relies heavily on the commander to pop off. If you get to untap with Ashling, the Limitless, a lot of the time you're going to do some very disgusting things to your poor opponents. But if the commander gets killed quickly and consistently, you're left with a deck that has a ton of very expensive creatures and not enough ways to deploy them fast enough. Once a playgroup sees Ashling do her thing once, odds are they are going to band together to kill her, which sets you really behind.
- The lands suck. This is a 5C deck, and while there are quite a few good mana-fixing lands that work very well, from staples like Command Tower to more specific but good like Abundant Countryside (the deck runs 35 creatures that it can help mana-fix), we've got a lot of duds here too. The thriving lands are here (e.g. Thriving Bluff) and not only are they terrible in a 5C deck, but they're also terrible to play in paper, having to track what color you've chosen for each one. I have no idea why they didn't at least replace the thriving lands for vivids (aka Vivid Creek), which work better in a 5C deck, is a callback to Lorwyn where they were originally printed and also a nod to the vivid mechanic which is named after them, AND they don't have annoying tracking issues! Gripe aside, the end result is a relatively consistent manabase but also an agonizingly slow one, filled with taplands that will set you back multiple turns in the long run.
TLDR the deck is overly reliant on a Kill-On-Sight commander, and the lands suck and slow down your gameplan.
The Upgrade Path
The main priorities I have for an optimized upgrade of Dance of the Elements focuses on the following:
- add the remaining great Elemental cards
- compensate for opponents targeting our commander with either more protection or more ways to win without it
- get better lands!
One trap I would suggest to AVOID: don't run cards that rely solely on our commander to function. Ashling, the Limitless is a lightning-rod for removal, so don't expect her to stick around.
I'm trying something new this time and focusing on an Upgrade Path, the steps I would take in upgrading the stock list, rather than sticking to a budget. The card prices vary between a couple cents to over $15, so pick and choose based on your budget.
First let's add a bunch of powerful Elementals missing in the stock list:
- Twinflame Travelers. Elementals are all about triggered abilities and this one doubles it, double value is great!
- Sunderflock. One-sided wipes are some of the most powerful things in Commander, and this one comes with a huge body and cost reduction!
- Ashling, Rekindled. Not very flashy but it provides a ton of consistency to the deck, card filtering and then flipping into great mana-fixing ramp.
- Ashling's Command. It's a bit expensive but the flexibility here is great, and it counts as an Elemental for extra synergy.
- Kulrath Zealot. Nice flexibility and mana-fixing with landcycling, the body itself is good and great evoke target for Ashling.
- Champion of the Path. This thing does a TON of damage and can end the game in a hurry, especially with all the evoking you're doing.
- Shinestriker is a big version of Mulldrifter, not as good but it's usually drawing 2+ cards per ETB.
- Shroudstomper this is a maybe for me, it's excellent with our commander but much less without, so it might not be worth keeping but interesting choice.
- Grave Sifter helps the entire table out, but unless your opponent is also on a tribal deck it helps us much more, and to-hand means we can evoke again.
- Solitude swords on an Elemental is great!
- Animar, Soul of Elements is a busted commander but also works just fine in the 99 of a creature-heavy deck with lots of generic mana costs, and it's even an Elemental too!
Next let's add some generic tribal payoffs:
- Roaming Throne. Generic Twinflame Travelers but easier to cast and comes with ward!
- Kindred Discovery. Draw cards when Elementals are evoked and also when they swing in with haste!
- Molten Echoes. Evoke, get an extra Elemental token and swing! Basically a second commander!
- Raise the Palisade one-sided wipes are the best thing in Commander
- Patriarch's Bidding just like Grave Sifter it benefits us more than our opponents, and this time the creatures go directly on the battlefield.
- Urza's Incubator is great in a tribal-heavy deck with lots of generic mana costs. Ashling's evoke counts too, so casting with it is always just 2 mana.
- Heartless Summoning same thing as Incubator, a bit worse since the creatures get a little smaller but still very much worth it.
Lands are another high priority. Taplands that tap for 3+ mana are fine, but ideally we want as many untapped mana-fixing lands as possible.
- Cavern of Souls. Mana-fixes for Elementals and uncounterable is MVP.
- Eclipsed Realms not fancy but mana-fixes.
- Mana Confluence mana-fixes for everything, it's perfect.
- City of Brass same thing.
- Starting Town worse City of Brass is still good in 5C.
- The World Tree doesn't fix in the first few turns but when it's on you're good forever.
- Grand Coliseum worse Path of Ancestry is still good in 5C.
From there you can eventually run all 10 fetchlands and then a combination of triomes like Indatha Triome and shocklands like Steam Vents, but that's very expensive, I'd grab the 5C lands first.
All the suggestions put together:
The Cuts
Here are all the cuts I'd make for the upgrades. Not going to explain each choice individually, but when choosing which of these to swap out for upgrades, the rule of thumb is select cards here that fit the same "role": take out a land for a land, removal for a removal, etc. In this case though, I think 40 lands is too much, I'm dropping the number down to 38 plus Kulrath Zealot which can landcycle.
Dance of the Elements Upgraded
Here's the list with the swaps done:
Bile Blight Coming Soon!
Probably tomorrow. Sorry for the delay!
