Sparks fly when you’re evoking Elementals!
Dance of the Elements is one of the two Commander Precons we’re getting alongside the release of Lowryn Eclipsed, and it’s all about jamming a bunch of Elemental cards! This five-color deck is fairly strong from the get-go, but you can make a few changes to streamline the overall strategy.
Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander Deck – Dance of the Elements
Commander: Lorwyn Eclipsed
Five-color decks can be tricky to play due to mana demands, but “Five-Color Red” is such a classic strategy that harks back to the original Lorwyn block. If you’re into big, flashy creatures with an abundance of synergy, then this deck is bound to be appealing to you.
The Dance of the Elements Commander
Ashling, the Limitless
Commander: Lorwyn Eclipsed, Mythic
Let’s begin with the face Commander in Ashling, the Limitless, who is a three-mana red 2/3 that grants Elemental permanent spells in your hand an evoke cost of four generic mana. This essentially means you cast these spells for four mana and ignore their actual mana cost, but they’re immediately sacrificed once the effect(s) have fully resolved. Thankfully, many of the Elementals on Lorwyn (and throughout Magic: The Gathering’s history) have various enter the battlefield triggers, meaning it won’t be hard for us to generate value with Ashling on the battlefield.
Evoking Elemental permanent spells is one thing, but you’re able to create a token copy of the Elemental permanent spell if that spell was sacrificed (such as through evoking it). The copied Elemental gains haste until end of turn, and you can keep it around by paying five of each colored mana. These abilities do work together nicely, but can become a bit demanding as Ashling requires nine mana to use both effects on the same turn. A heads up that Ashling, the Limitless has an errata already, where her first ability specifies “Elemental permanent spells” and not just “Elemental spells” as seen on the printed card.
Despite the whopping nine mana needed to maximize Ashling’s ability in Commander, many Elementals care about Landfall, so it’s something you can certainly achieve throughout a game. In this instance, we actually think the backup Commander is a bit more interesting in terms of design.
The Dance of the Elements Alternate Commander
Mass of Mysteries
Commander: Lorwyn Eclipsed, Mythic
The other option is Mass of Mysteries, which is a five-mana 5/5 that is each color and has first strike, vigilance, and trample. At the beginning of your combat step, you grant another target Elemental you control myriad until the end of the turn. This means you’ll create a token that’s tapped and attacking every other player when said Elemental attacks, which not only leads to some massive swings but also leads to a lot more sacrificing synergies (as already seen with Ashling, the Limitless) and plenty of carnage.
The Dance of the Elements Commander Precon Decklist and Review
That’s really exemplified by cards like Omnath, Locus of Rage, which can deal damage to other targets whenever an Elemental you control dies, and also Muldrotha, the Gravetide, which lets you replay your permanents from your graveyard during each of your turns. It means the deck as a whole feels a bit more recursion-coded than a lot of the recent five-color decks we’ve seen, and that’s not a bad trait to have. The built-in synergy between basically every creature in your deck is also going to mean that nearly every creature you play will feel impactful, and you’ll be closing out games either with an alpha strike or by simply out-valuing everyone else by replaying your cards over the course of a game.
Out of the box, the Dance of the Elements Precon seems pretty solid, but as with so many five-color options these days, the mana base leaves much to be desired. It means we’re dedicating some of our cuts and additions in improving the mana base, as otherwise, you’re always going to be playing a turn behind because of cumbersome tapped lands.
Dance of the Elements Cuts
With the flaws addressed, let’s get to the cuts. While the flexibility in choosing a secondary color can be ideal, Thriving Grove, Thriving Heath, Thriving Isle, Thriving Bluff, and Thriving Moor all enter play tapped. So, we’re taking these out to improve the general speed of the deck. As for the rest of the cuts, we’re going with:
- Thriving Grove
- Thriving Heath
- Thriving Isle
- Thriving Bluff
- Thriving Moor
- Hoofprints of the Stag
- Abundant Growth
- Fertile Ground
- Crib Swap
- Distant Melody
The other cuts were a little bit harder to come by, but not impossible. Abundant Growth and Fertile Ground are both reasonable ways to generate a bit more mana, but frankly, we can do better. As for Hoofprints of the Stag, while it’s a nice way to kick out a few tokens over the course of a game, it’s only at sorcery speed, and there are so many good Landfall options that will spit out tokens whenever you can play a land.
Finally, Crib Swap isn’t a bad removal spell, but since we have access to every single color, having another board wipe can be a good option even if it does tag our creatures. Then Distant Melody is an undeniably strong card draw option, but it’s also a little unreliable if opponents are running a lot of counters or instant speed creature removal.
Dance of the Elements Additions
Market Price: $10.45
Market Price: $23.94
With the cuts identified, let’s talk about the cards to add:
- Eclipsed Realms
- Vibrant Cityscape
- Multiversal Passage
- Fabled Passage
- Three Tree City
- Swords to Plowshares
- Blasphemous Edict
- Dryad of the Ilysian Grove
- Worldsoul’s Rage
- Chronicle of Victory
While trying to respect affordability, we’ve gone for the likes of Eclipsed Realms, Vibrant Cityscape, and Multiversal Passage as our mana options. That said, if you open any of the Shock Lands from those Lorwyn Eclipsed Boosters upon release, they’re an incredible addition and can give you untapped, colored mana at the cost of two life. Fabled Passage is one of the cheaper Fetch Land options at the time of publication. Then there’s Three Tree City, which adds you mana of a single color equal to the number of the chosen creature type you control (so in this case, Elementals). While admittedly on the pricier side, the Bloomburrow card will do a ton of lifting in the deck.
Outside of the mana options, we’ve gone for removal in the form of the excellent Swords to Plowshares, which we’re a little surprised wasn’t in the deck to begin with. For our board wipes, Blasphemous Edict becomes cheaper to cast the more creatures are in play and forces each player to sacrifice thirteen creatures of their choice. Both are fantastic and will allow us to keep our mana costs down, as you’ll want to be evoking and casting those Elemental spells for the most part.
For ramp and mana versatility, we’re adding Dryad of the Ilysian Grove to the mix, which lets us play an extra land on each of our turns and taps our lands for any color of mana. Mana-fixing in a five-color deck is always challenging, so having a couple of options that are similar to Chromatic Lantern is a must. Worldsoul’s Rage is a scalable way to end games as it deals X damage to any target, and also lets us play to X lands into play from our hand and graveyard. This is a little off the beaten path, but Worldsoul’s Rage makes for a potent spell when combined with Fetch Lands and the like.
Chronicle of Victory
Lorwyn Eclipsed, Mythic
If you’re looking for further upgrades for the Dance of the Elements Precon, we recommend Animar, Soul of Elements, Flamekin Harbinger, and Ashling’s Command. Animar is an incredible way to develop a threat while also reducing the cost of your creature spells, and happens to be one of the most popular commanders to play in the format. Flamekin Harbinger enables you to find an Elemental creature you need and put that card on top of your library, and it can become a bit silly if you can make copies with Ashling, the Limitless. Lastly, Ashling’s Command is a flavorful addition from Lorwyn Eclipsed, allowing a suite of effects that can present impact at any stage of the game.
Market Price: $21.14
With all of that behind us, you’re ready to destroy your opponents with a tide of evoking Elementals. The good thing about getting a Precon Deck centering around one specific creature type is that you’ll likely have some cards you can upgrade the deck with already. Not to mention, these styles of cards often see print in future releases.