We’ve seen a couple of different iterations of Dina before, but Dina, Essence Brewer stands out as one of the more utilitarian editions. Witherbloom is the school of natural magic, honoring life and death equally, so it’s fitting that Dina’s ability rewards us for sacrificing creatures. The bigger they are, the better our reward.
This fits into the Golgari color identity like a glove, and there are quite a few neat cards included in the Witherbloom Pestilence commander deck. Defiling Daemogoth and Ominous Harvest are two stand-out cards for me. We also got a long-awaited Gyome, Master Chef reprint, alongside some other staples like Nether Traitor and Culling Ritual.
There are definitely some improvements we can make to this deck, and a few tasty cards we can add to really amp up the “Pest” theme.
What We’re Removing
This deck is very creature-heavy, coming out of the box with 39 creatures. There were a few that stood out as easy cuts, and others were a bit harder to trim. Lands, though, were easy to pick through: 37 is too much, in my opinion, especially with a relatively low mana value across the deck.
Right out of the gate, I opted to remove 6 lands, including two basics, Terramorphic Expanse, Haunted Mire, and the filtration lands Viridescent Bog and Grim Backwoods. The filter lands are great for 3+ color decks, but in a 2-color build, they are a bit of a nuisance.
Creatures
I’m cutting 5 creatures from the list, and you’ll see why soon. Cards like Gilded Goose and Haywire Mite have some utility, but they aren’t great additions to this deck. We’re focused more on pests and creature tokens more than food, so these fellas were the first to go.
And finally, Tendershoot Dryad and Morbid Opportunist. These cards have some good utility, creating tokens and drawing us cards. But I’ll be adding in creatures that do these things a bit better, and aren’t quite as restrictive.
Noncreature Spells
This precon deck actually had a significant amount of interaction and removal. It’s probably because it’s focused on creatures dying, but there were a few cards that I think could go. Casualties of War is expensive to cast, and we have better options. Mortality Spear is conditional, so sometimes we will pay 4, sometimes we will pay 2. If you’re saving 4 mana to cast the spell but only need 2, you’ve wasted 2 mana you could have spent on your turn. That’s my philosophy, at least.
I also opted to remove Night's Whisper and Trudge Garden. One-time draw effects are limiting, and cards that offer you to pay additional for stuff that’s happening have always underperformed for me.
What We’re Adding
The cards I’m adding in help hone the deck toward the pest theme. Lifegain and opponent’s life loss stood out as the main win conditions in this deck, so the creatures and other spells I’ve added work toward that goal. I tried to be cognizant of flavor, as well, as there are some new cards I felt didn’t live up to the hype, but I kept them in because they are new. (I’m looking at you, Merchant of Venom.)
To bring our land count back up, I added in Overgrown Tomb and Wastewood Verge. Both of these lands make it easier to add the colors as you need them, and make the mana base a bit more predictable.
Creatures
I think one of the most important value adds is Wall of Blood. This deck gains you life incrementally, but that shouldn’t stop you from using it as a resource. Paying into Wall of Blood to kill attacking creatures is just the tip of the iceberg. You can also make it very large and sacrifice it to Dina’s second ability, drawing you a lot of cards and gaining you all that life you just spent.
I promised that I’d add in more token creation, and Bitterbloom Bearer does that. While it’s on the pricy side, it does grant us a body every turn for only 2 mana (as opposed to Tendershoot Dryad, who was 5).
To help us gain more life, I added Marauding Blight-Priest and Prosperous Innkeeper. The innkeeper is exceptionally good because he technically only costs 1 mana, and gains us a life every time a creature enters.
Abrupt Decay is a bit of a safer option to destroy cheap nonland permanents, and Containment Breach is on-theme, granting you a pest if the thing you destroy is 2 or less mana.
Because I took out Springbloom Druid, I added Flare of Cultivation to hunt for lands. The sacrificing a nontoken creature helps out our game plan (if you have one to sacrifice), otherwise it’s the same cost as Springbloom druid for the same amount of lands.
Eldritch Evolution fits well in this deck as a way to hunt for specific creatures while also getting sacrifice triggers. It’s useful for finding pingers like Blood Artist or other high-value aristocrats.
Enchantments, Artifacts, and Planeswalkers
Because we’ll be gaining a significant amount of life with this deck, Sanguine Bond was a no-brainer. It’s much less expensive than Exquisite Blood and Bloodthirsty Conqueror, and fits our theme better.
Skullclamp is good in the early game, when you don’t have an anthem for pests or other tokens. And Exploration Broodship is a turn-one play that can help you find lands and cast spells from your graveyard. You can always use your tokens to station the ship and then sacrifice them later, so it’s a dual-use scenario.
And finally, Grist, Hunger Tide. I was on the fence about adding in Grist, because the mill on his first ability isn’t super great for us. But, he does create bodies, and he does help us sacrifice permanents to destroy other people’s stuff, so he made the cut.
Deck Upgrades
If you want to take a look at the price for each of the upgrades, here’s a look at what you’ll be spending:
I really like the theme of this Witherbloom precon. It has flavor and fits into one of the traditional archetypes of Magic’s color pairings. Dina provides us some create card advantage in the command zone for a relatively low cost, while the supporting creatures make it easy to always have blockers and sacrifice fodder at the ready.
While it’s one of the cheapest precons with raw card value, I think this is one of the more powerful decks we’ve seen from Secrets of Strixhaven. You can pick up this precon from game stores when the set releases April 24th.
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