“You know I’ma stay true.“
Art:Felothar the Steadfast
by Zoltan Boros
Table of Contents
Precons are always an exciting time and one of my favorite things about a new set, Tarkir is one of my favorite sets in the past so getting a collection that represents all of the clans present on Tarkir, we start today with one of my favorite clans in Abzan, they are headed up by Felothar the Steadfast who truly feels like an Abzan commander and is just a blast to play, like most precons they are typically nothing more than an introduction to the game and a great starting point but adding some upgrades whether budget or not can help to make the deck considerably better, today we have five budget upgrades for the deck, whether you use some or all of these they will improve the deck considerably. Without further ado, let’s get it!
Original Precon Decklist:
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Abzan Armor Precon Decklist!
Budget Upgrades:
Add: 
Cut:
Stalwart Shield-Bearers is a pretty cheap card with most copies on TCGPlayer ranging from 0.50$ to 1.50$
This deck already outputs a ton of damage and is quite strong in combat. I don’t think Zetalpa is worth it at all, and while in some games it can be very strong, it is just dead overall. In my testing with a proxy version of this deck, Zetalpa sat in my hand while I just killed opponents. For two mana, you get an extra +2 health on all of our creatures, which in this deck is +2 on all of our creatures and can help our damage output a ton. Cutting a card that can occasionally be good for a card that is consistently good is absolutely worth it in my eyes this deck certainly doesn’t need much help in dealing damage.
Add:
Fecund Greenshell is a very cheap card with most copies on TCGPlayer ranging from 0.40 to 0.70 cents
Cut:
Fecund Greenshell is a great card for our deck. It’s a nice reach creature and can allow us to ramp a ton. While it is a little pricey mana-cost-wise, nearly all of our creatures trigger it, and we can get so much mana advantage and have some really powerful late-game turns. The main reason I don’t want Arasta is that it doesn’t further the overall game plan a ton.
Add:
Most copies on TCGPlayer range from 1-3 dollars.
Cut: 
Nethroi is insane in this deck, with their mutate ability we can easily recover from a board wipe, its actually insane how many cards we can recur with this, Nethroi is a reactive card but if we are playing against decks that are heavy on board wipes it goes absolutely crazy and can allow us to get right back in the game.
Add:
Most Copies on TCGPlayer are around 4-5 Dollars.
Cut:
Angelic Chorus works quite well within the deck, gaining life is pretty good in general but with support cards in the deck like Wall of Limbs
and Rhox Faithmender
it can go even crazier, with how cheap this card is I’m surprised it wasn’t printed into the precon, this is a very strong card. Staff of Compleation is just not worth it to me. It’s quite slow and just doesn’t work that well within the deck. I think Staff is an easy cut for the deck.
Add:
Most Copies on TCGPlayer are around 2-3 dollars
Cut:
We have some very high attackers with high toughness in this deck so adding the threat of trample allows us to be very strong in combat and an extreme threat to the table, I don’t think that Hornest Nest is a good enough defender, while the hornets can be nice we are typically better in combat than our opponents especially in the early-game so the hornets often don’t do anything. I think Primal Rage is a nice cheap enchantment for the deck that makes the deck considerably more effective.