Precon Upgrade Guide
The Ruinous Powers Upgrade Guide
What to cut, what to add, and how to play the Grixis cascade and Demons precon from Warhammer 40,000 Commander, commanded by Abaddon the Despoiler.
Magic: The Gathering Warhammer 40,000
The Ruinous Powers
Cascade rewards knowing your own deck's curve. Out of the box, before any upgrades. How we rate precons
Buy The Ruinous Powers on TCGplayer →Quick verdict
The Ruinous Powers is a cascade deck with a commander that asks a lot of you. Abaddon the Despoiler gives spells you cast from your hand cascade during your turn, but only if their mana value is no higher than the total life your opponents have lost that turn. When that works, every spell brings a free one with it. The box doesn't have enough cheap ways to make opponents lose life before your main spells, and it carries random effects, symmetrical wipes and tapped lands that make an already tricky deck less consistent.
TurnZero HQ rates The Ruinous Powers 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 The Ruinous Powers decklist page, and every other precon we cover is on the precon directory.
How the precon plays
Abaddon the Despoiler is a five-mana 5/5 trampler. During your turn, spells you cast from your hand with mana value X or less have cascade, where X is the total life your opponents have lost that turn. Cascade exiles cards from the top of your library until it hits a nonland card that costs less, and you may cast that card for free. The order of your turn matters: attack or deal damage first, then cast spells in your second main phase once X is high enough.
The deck has several ways to get X up. The Ruinous Powers makes an opponent lose life whenever you cast the card it exiles, Exalted Flamer of Tzeentch and Pink Horror deal damage whenever you cast an instant or sorcery, and evasive attackers like Bloodthirster and Plague Drone add combat damage. Great Unclean One drains each opponent at your end step, which is too late for that turn but sets up the next.
The payoffs are Demons and cards that already cascade. Be'lakor, the Dark Master draws a card for each Demon you control and has every other Demon deal its power in damage when it enters. Herald of Slaanesh makes Demon spells cheaper and gives them haste, and Keeper of Secrets deals damage whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand, which includes every free cascade spell.
What works out of the box
Abaddon the Despoiler ↗
Gives your spells from hand cascade during your turn, up to the amount of life your opponents have lost. A big attack first turns the rest of the turn into free spells.
Keeper of Secrets ↗
Deals damage equal to a spell's mana value to an opponent whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand. Each cascade hit triggers it and raises Abaddon's X.
Be'lakor, the Dark Master ↗
Draws a card for each Demon you control when it enters, and every Demon that enters afterward deals damage equal to its power to any target.
The Lost and the Damned ↗
Makes a 3/3 Spawn whenever you cast a spell from anywhere other than your hand. Every cascade gives you a free spell and a free creature.
Herald of Slaanesh ↗
Demon spells cost two less and other Demons have haste, so the deck's big fliers can attack the turn they land and add to Abaddon's X.
Chaos Defiler ↗
Destroys a random one of the permanents you choose from each opponent when it enters and again when it dies.
What needs improvement
Abaddon does nothing until opponents have lost life during your turn, and the deck has few cheap ways to make that happen. Its damage sources mostly cost four mana or more, so on the turns you most want cascade, X is often zero when you start casting.
Several cards also work against the deck's consistency. Khârn the Betrayer , Knight Rampager and Mutalith Vortex Beast depend on random choices, coin flips or an opponent taking control. Decree of Pain destroys your own Demons, Assault Suit hands your creature to an opponent each upkeep, and the mana base has cycling lands and gain lands that enter tapped. The deck also has no cheap two-mana rocks beyond its three Talismans.
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. Make opponents lose life before your main phase
Abaddon's cascade only covers spells with mana value up to the life opponents have lost this turn. Cheap cards that hit every opponent early in the turn raise that number before you cast anything big.
What to look for Cheap creatures or effects that damage each opponent, or every player you attack, as early in your turn as possible. Damage to each opponent adds up quickly in a four-player game.
Cut, for example
Assault Suit Gives a creature +2/+2 and haste, then lets you hand it to an opponent each upkeep. The deck has no real use for that, and it's four mana to cast and three to equip.
Mutalith Vortex Beast A six-mana 6/6 that flips coins on entering. It either draws cards or deals damage at random, and neither happens reliably.
Knight Rampager Attacks a random opponent each turn and deals damage to a random opponent when it dies. You can't aim it where you need it.
Add, for example
Hellrider ↗
Each creature you control that attacks deals 1 damage to the player it's attacking. A wide attack raises Abaddon's X before you even reach combat damage.
Guttersnipe ↗
Deals 2 damage to each opponent whenever you cast an instant or sorcery. Against three opponents, one cheap spell makes X six.
Viashino Pyromancer ↗
Two mana for 2 damage to a player when it enters. It's a cheap way to turn on cascade for two-mana spells early on.
2. Swap the self-wipes for cheap removal
Your board of Demons is the thing doing the damage that powers Abaddon. Board wipes that hit it set you back as much as anyone, and narrow removal leaves you without answers.
What to look for Two- or three-mana instants that remove a creature or stop a spell. Cheap ones also give you something to cast after combat once X is two or three.
Cut, for example
Decree of Pain Eight mana to destroy all creatures, yours included. It draws cards, but the deck usually has more creatures on the battlefield than its opponents.
Bile Blight -3/-3 to one creature and anything with the same name. It doesn't kill most of the threats that matter in Commander.
Nurgle's Conscription Five mana to reanimate a creature from an opponent's graveyard. It depends on what they have there and doesn't answer anything on the battlefield.
3. Cut the coin flips and add cheap mana
This deck already has enough variance from cascade. Cards that act at random or hand control to an opponent make it hard to plan a turn, and the slots are better spent getting to Abaddon on turn four.
What to look for Two-mana rocks that make any color in your commander's identity, so the turn-four Abaddon and the turn-five follow-up both happen.
Cut, for example
Khârn the Betrayer A 5/1 that must attack or block and that an opponent of your choice gains control of whenever it would be dealt damage. You draw two when you lose it, but it's hard to aim.
Reverberate Copies an instant or sorcery. In a deck built around creatures and cascade, it often has nothing worth copying.
4. Untap the three-color mana base
A five-mana commander in three colors needs untapped lands on the turns it matters. The box has two cycling lands and two gain lands that always enter tapped.
What to look for Two-color lands in the deck's pairs that enter untapped. Ones with the Swamp or Mountain type can also be revealed for Foreboding Ruins .
Cut, for example
Forgotten Cave Enters tapped and taps only for red. Its cycling is a small upside for a tempo loss.
Barren Moor The same tapped cycling land in black.
Win conditions
The upgraded deck wins by chaining free spells. Deal damage early in the turn with Hellrider , Guttersnipe or a flying Demon, then cast spells from your hand after combat so Abaddon the Despoiler cascades each one into another free spell. Keeper of Secrets and The Lost and the Damned turn every cascade hit into more damage or a 3/3 Spawn, and Be'lakor, the Dark Master makes each new Demon deal its power in damage. On a good turn the life loss from one spell raises X enough to cascade the next.
Who should buy this precon
A demanding deck best suited to an experienced player. Abaddon only works if you sequence the turn carefully: deal damage first, count the life your opponents have lost, then cast spells in the right order. Cascade also means you're making decisions about free spells you didn't plan for. Players who like working out a complicated turn will enjoy it; newer players will find it hard to turn the commander on.
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