Precon Upgrade Guide
Arcane Wizardry Upgrade Guide
What to cut, what to add, and how to play the Grixis Wizards precon from Commander 2017, commanded by Inalla, Archmage Ritualist.
Commander 2017
Arcane Wizardry
Copying Wizards for value stacks up fast and needs careful sequencing. Out of the box, before any upgrades. How we rate precons
Buy Arcane Wizardry on TCGplayer →Quick verdict
Arcane Wizardry is a Wizard deck whose commander works before it is even cast. Inalla, Archmage Ritualist has eminence, so from the command zone it lets you pay one mana to copy every nontoken Wizard you play, and once it is on the battlefield five Wizards can tap to take 7 life from a player. The deck has plenty of Wizards with useful enters effects, but its mana base is almost entirely tapped lands, it spends several slots on curses and expensive sorceries that don't fit, and it has few counterspells for a blue deck. Fixing those three things makes it play much faster.
TurnZero HQ rates Arcane Wizardry a 4 out of 5 on difficulty and a 3 out of 5 on power, as it comes in the box. That is our editorial read, not an official Wizards rating. The full hundred cards are on the Arcane Wizardry decklist page, and every other precon we cover is on the precon directory.
How the precon plays
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist has two abilities. Its eminence trigger works whether Inalla is in the command zone or on the battlefield: whenever another nontoken Wizard you control enters, you may pay {1} to create a token copy of it with haste, which is exiled at the next end step. Its second ability taps five untapped Wizards you control to make a target player lose 7 life.
That makes Wizards with enters effects the core of the deck. A copied Merchant of Secrets or Sea Gate Oracle draws twice, a copied Archaeomancer or Izzet Chronarch returns two spells, and a copied Puppeteer Clique steals a second creature from a graveyard. The tokens are exiled at end of turn, but they can still be tapped for Inalla's drain before they go.
Tapping Wizards for Inalla's ability doesn't use the tap symbol on the Wizards themselves, so new Wizards and the token copies can be tapped for it the turn they arrive. With Inalla on the battlefield and a few Wizards out, every new Wizard you cast brings you two bodies closer to another 7-point drain. Azami, Lady of Scrolls and Galecaster Colossus give the Wizards a second use when Inalla isn't out.
What works out of the box
Inalla, Archmage Ritualist ↗
Copies each nontoken Wizard you play for one mana, even from the command zone, and turns five Wizards into 7 life lost for a player.
Puppeteer Clique ↗
Steals a creature from an opponent's graveyard with haste, and persist brings it back to do it again. A copy from Inalla takes one more.
Azami, Lady of Scrolls ↗
Taps any Wizard to draw a card, so every token copy Inalla makes is a free card before it is exiled.
Galecaster Colossus ↗
Taps a Wizard to bounce a nonland permanent you don't control. With several Wizards out, it clears the board of blockers or threats.
Vindictive Lich ↗
When it dies, it can make one opponent sacrifice a creature, another discard two cards, and a third lose 5 life. Plenty of value for four mana.
What needs improvement
The mana base is the biggest weakness. Gain lands, bounce lands, Vivid lands and a tri-land all enter tapped, so the deck often reaches its third and fourth Wizard a turn late. A deck that wants to drop two Wizards a turn and keep one mana open for Inalla's copy can't afford that.
Several slots work against the plan. The three curses reward opponents attacking each other, Clone Legion costs nine, and Decree of Pain and Magus of the Abyss destroy your own Wizards. Meanwhile, for a deck that is mostly blue, it has almost no counterspells. See how much removal a Commander deck needs for a rough interaction count.
Upgrade ideas
Each upgrade below starts from something the deck does poorly and says what a replacement card has to do. The cards named are examples, not the only answer: if you own something else that does the same job, or a newer printing does it better, it goes in the same slot. Make one change at a time and play a few games between them, so you can tell which change helped. The general method is in how to upgrade a Commander precon →
1. Add cheap Wizards with enters effects
Inalla copies every nontoken Wizard that enters, so a cheap Wizard with an enters effect is worth roughly double. The deck has room for more of them in place of off-plan cards.
What to look for Wizards costing three mana or less whose enters effect draws, finds or recasts something. Avoid legendary Wizards unless their static ability is the point, since the token copy will run into the legend rule.
Cut, for example
Curse of Opulence Gives Gold tokens whenever the cursed player is attacked, to you and other attackers. It helps opponents as much as you and does nothing for Wizards.
Curse of Disturbance Zombie tokens for attacking the cursed player. Again, opponents attacking that player get them too.
Shifting Shadow An Aura that destroys your creature every upkeep and replaces it with a random creature. In a deck that wants specific Wizards, that randomness is a cost.
Add, for example
Snapcaster Mage ↗
A two-mana Wizard with flash that gives an instant or sorcery in your graveyard flashback. A copy from Inalla gives you a second one.
Spellseeker ↗
Three mana, searches your library for an instant or sorcery with mana value 2 or less. Copied, it finds two.
Naban, Dean of Iteration ↗
Two mana. Enters triggers caused by your Wizards trigger twice, which includes Inalla's own copy trigger while Inalla is on the battlefield.
2. Untap the mana base
Nearly every nonbasic land in the box enters tapped. In a three-color deck that wants to cast a Wizard and pay for a copy each turn, a tapped land is often a full turn of lost tempo.
What to look for Two-color lands in blue-black, blue-red or black-red that enter untapped most of the time, such as check lands or shock lands.
Cut, for example
Dismal Backwater Tapped, gains 1 life. The life rarely matters.
Jwar Isle Refuge A second blue-black tapped gain land. Two of them is too many.
Swiftwater Cliffs The blue-red version of the same tapped land.
3. Hold up counterspells
The deck spends many turns building a board of Wizards and has almost nothing to stop a board wipe or an opponent's combo. Two-mana counters protect that board and still leave mana for Inalla's copies.
What to look for Counterspells costing two mana that counter at least every noncreature spell. Flash Wizards that counter something are worth even more.
Cut, for example
Clone Legion Nine mana to copy another player's creatures. By the time you can cast it, the game is usually decided.
Spelltwine Six mana to recast two instants or sorceries from graveyards. The deck already has Archaeomancer, Izzet Chronarch and Kess for spell recursion.
Add, for example
4. Replace symmetrical removal with targeted removal
A board of Wizards is how this deck wins, and it already has Kindred Dominance as a one-sided wipe. Cards that destroy your own creatures every turn or reset the whole board work against it.
What to look for Cheap instant-speed removal that hits one creature or another permanent type you choose.
Cut, for example
Decree of Pain Eight mana to destroy every creature, including your Wizards. Kindred Dominance naming Wizard does the job without killing your own board.
Magus of the Abyss Each player destroys one of their own nonartifact creatures every upkeep, you included. That eats the Wizards Inalla needs.
Win conditions
The main win is Inalla's drain. Five untapped Wizards, tokens included, make a player lose 7 life, and with copies arriving every turn you can do it more than once a game. Niv-Mizzet, the Firemind adds damage from all the card draw, and Vindictive Lich or Corpse Augur finish off a player low on life or cards. The upgrades above protect the board long enough to fire the drain and add more Wizards to fuel it.
Who should buy this precon
This deck suits an experienced player. Inalla asks you to sequence Wizards around a one-mana copy cost, decide which enters effects are worth doubling, and track which tokens can still be tapped before they are exiled. There are many activated abilities to keep straight. Its power is average out of the box, but a patient pilot who enjoys a puzzle will get a lot out of it.
Checked against the printed decklist on October 10, 2026.
Track how the upgrades actually perform.
TurnZero HQ keeps a win rate per deck version, so you can change a few cards, play some games, and see the difference instead of guessing.
Create Free Account