Marvel Super Heroes releases on June 26th. In addition to the main set, there are also four brand new Commander precons. Each of them features some of the most iconic characters from the Marvel Universe. In this article, I’m going to take a look at the Doom Prevails precon and discuss the best ways to upgrade it.

This deck features the various villains of the Marvel universe. It’s a Grixis deck that is all about your Villains drawing and discarding cards with the Connive mechanic and slowly building an insurmountable advantage that even the most powerful of heroes can’t do anything about.

THE COMMANDERS

This deck comes with two of the most iconic Marvel villains as possible Commanders – Doctor Doom, King of Latveria and Loki, the Deceiver. Doctor Doom has a powerful “at the beginning of combat” trigger that lets a Villain you control connive, and it also gains Menace until end of turn. Importantly, you can choose Doom himself. While you typically only get a bonus for discarding nonlands with connive, Doctor Doom also punishes all of your opponents when you discard a land.

If you follow my content on YouTube, it’s no secret that I love Connive. I think it’s a really simple and elegant design that also has a lot of interesting play to it.  On a basic level, it helps you see more cards in your deck, which is always good. But it also synergizes well with graveyard decks, discard decks, +1/+1 counter decks, and card draw decks. The modality of the effect also means it allows a player to make lots of interesting decisions.

Loki is also a very intriguing Commander. He can make temporary token copies of your Villains while also drawing you a card whenever you have at least one Villain get through unblocked. Token-making shenanigans can allow for a lot of possibilities, especially when Loki’s effect can even copy legendary creatures.

Ultimately, I have to choose Doctor Doom as the Commander here. I just love Conniving too much not to. It’s not all about preference though, I do genuinely think a connive trigger every single turn is super powerful and hard to pass up, especially when coupled with Menace and mass life loss.

NEW CARD HIGHLIGHTS

In addition to getting more potential Commanders than usual, this deck also has many more brand-new cards that we typically see in a Commander precon. Counting the two Commanders, there are a whopping 29 cards in this deck that have never been seen before and some of them are going to have a massive, broad impact on Commander.

Let’s start with a couple of cards that work well in this deck, but are also likely to have a big impact on Commander in general. Molecule Man might just have gotten the most buzz of any card in Marvel Super Heroes, and it’s not hard to see why. Miracle 0 means that you can potentially cast one free spell per turn, as long as you’re drawing one card during each of those turns. 

You’re not going to hit a nonland 100% of the time with your first draw of each turn, but you’ll be doing it more than half the time. Your chances of reaping the reward goes up in a deck like this one too, which has lots of ways to draw a card during your opponents’ turns. Because he’s colorless, he’s going to slot into any Commander deck that is good at drawing cards at instant speed.

Doom’s Time Platform lets you suspend a card from your graveyard any time you attack. This means that discarding nonlands to Connive will feel a lot less painful, especially when you discard some huge, frightening threat that you’re going to get in just a couple turns. This is going to work nicely in just about any graveyard deck.

The deck also comes with some brand new connive payoffs that go great alongside Doctor Doom. Iron Monger puts a counter on all of your Villains when you connive, Ultron, Unlimited can make a 2/2 Robot Villain when you Connive, and Glorious Purpose is a Plan that pays you off for Conniving in a massive way. Not only do you get a +1/+1 counter for each individual connive, once you complete the Plan you can cast any number of spells in your top four for free. 

In addition to those cards that explicitly key off of connive, the deck also has several new cards that are great when you discard cards more generally. When Living Laser attacks, he makes a temporary copy of itself for each time you’ve discarded that turn. The Squadron Sinister are a very powerful villain lord that is much more efficient to cast with Mayhem, and Typhoid Mary’s random effect will do exactly what you need it to do if you’ve discarded a card during your turn.

$50 UPGRADES

While this precon is pretty great right out of the box, I do think that it would benefit from becoming a little bit more focused. As it sits, it has cards pulling it in two different directions. There’s Villain typal, and then there’s Connive. There’s certainly some overlap there, but not enough. I think focusing more on the Connive angle – especially because Doom doesn’t do anything with Villains himself – can make the deck a lot stronger. These changes are focused on doing exactly that.

Let’s start with the most flavorful additions to the deck – Norman Osborn and Green Goblin, Nemesis. Both of them are villains from the Marvel universe, so Doctor Doom would welcome them with open hands, especially because they’re so good with Connive and the deck’s Villain payoffs.

Norman Osborn’s front side is an unblockable creature that Connives every time it hits the opponent, and his Green Goblin side gives Mayhem to all of the cards in your graveyard – meaning that whatever you discard to Connive is still castable.

Meanwhile, Green Goblin, Nemesis loves it when you discard cards. Like Doctor Doom, it will give you value even when you discard a land to Connive.

While this deck already comes packing most of the best Connive cards in the game, there are a few additions you’re going to want to make. Body Launderer Connives when a nontoken creature you control dies, and can reanimate creatures when it dies. Spymaster’s Vault is a sweet utility land that can allow you to Connive on the cheap, and Ledger Shredder is a Connive engine that will often trigger multiple times per turn cycle.

The precon could also use a few more payoffs for Conniving and drawing/discard more generally. In this deck, Homunculus Horde will quickly populate the board with copies of itself and Archfiend of Ifnir will quickly wipe out opposing boards. Glint-Horn Buccaneer will get lots of ping triggers  and Cool but Rude will pile on even more damage. The Buccaneer and Cool but Rude also offer you additional ways to draw and discard cards.

Lastly, the deck could use a few more discard outlets apart from Connive. Psychic Frog is really easy to discard cards with, and it can be a powerful card advantage engine on many boards. Skirge Familiar (a card that I think is woefully underrated) is another great discard outlet. It can even ramp your mana in a big way.

You can find the updated decklist here.

I removed the following cards to make room for these changes:

Abomination, World Ravager
Killmonger, Ruthless Usurper
Klaw, Master of Sound
Madame Hydra
Puppet Master, String Puller
Superior Foes of Spider-Man
Titania, Proud Pummeler
Propaganda
Stilt-Man, Towering Terror
Syphon Mind
Patchwork Banner

FURTHER UPGRADES

If you have a bigger budget, you can go even further in upgrading the deck by adding more super powerful payoffs and enablers.

Monument to Endurance and Surly Badgersaur both love it when you discard cards and they will give you good value regardless of what you discard when you Connive. The Monument helps you rip through your deck, while the Badgersaur gives you an ever-growing threat who can also operate as a source of ramp and removal.

Sheoldred, the Apocalypse loves it when you’re drawing extra cards, while also punishing your opponent for doing the same. Loki, God of Mischief will double any Connive trigger, as that ability technically targets a creature.

Lastly, Yawgmoth, Thran Physician gives you an excellent way to both draw and discard cards, and his Proliferate ability goes great with the +1/+1 counters from Connive. 

END STEP

The Doom Prevails Precon is built around a really great mechanic in Connive, and playing with it is going to be tons of fun. What do you think of my upgrades? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.