You will probably want to look into the important parts of the Party section of this article to make sure you have enough Party members to reliably be able to trigger Nalia’s ability. Then, once you do, consider adding some of these +1/+1 counters payoffs to supplement that strategy: Hey folks, submitted for your approval we have the 3rd precon upgrade for Battle for Baldur’s Gate, this time featuring the Party Time precon and its face commander - Nalia de'Arnise. Lost Caverns of Ixalan Spoilers — October 26 | Colorless Artifacts, and Legendary Explore Pridemate,

On top of that, she gives us the ability to look at the top card of our library and the chance to cast creatures off the top if they happen to be one of the party types. I'll be honest, Nalia doesn't seem that impressive. We could work with a counters theme since that's what she gives out, but she only does so when we have the four party members. Keep in mind that she's also a Rogue, so it'll be interesting to see if we'll even need too many additional Rogues to begin with. Other than that, you’ll need a couple of Demons to fetch up when you activate Shadowborn Apostle‘s ability. Rune-Scarred Demon, Razaketh, the Foulblooded, and Burning-Rune Demon are good options because they let you immediately search for something else. Vilis, Broker of Blood and Harvester of Souls are also great at generating card advantage for you. If you want to be really spicy, Changelings count as Demons you can tutor for with your Apostles, and Party members for Nalia. That could be the best way to maximize the value you get from this strategy. Non-Apostles Lost Caverns of Ixalan Spoilers — November 2 | Remaining Rares, Full Jurassic World and Commander Reprints, As far as Precons go, taste notwithstanding you’d be hard pressed to do much better than this. Upgrades!One problem with recurring themes in Commander precons is that they might feel the same, as the ones that came before. Wizards could easily go with classic Dragon tribal themes, or even with something spell based, as this is the Izzet color combination (but we already saw that with Niv-Mizzet Parun). Instead, they decided to go for something fresh, by focusing on both Dragon tribal and the goad mechanic. There are a bunch of cards that give +1/+1 counters to your team in this set. Feel free to include whichever ones you feel you have room for, but these are the ones that I felt like were most useful: None of these cards are necessarily bad; they’re all on theme, they all do a thing. It’s just that the thing they do can be a little underwhelming ( Malakir Blood-Priest, Mage’s Attendant), or hard to fully control ( High Priest of Penance), or are just pure removal magnets who will almost never get to really do their thing ( Magus of the Balance, Pontiff of Blight). The Changelings are the pieces I’m actually most hesitant to cut, as they fill any gaps in your party no matter what, but I still think we can do a little better. However, N’ghathrod isn’t just a straightforward commander, as it also cares about milling. Thankfully, there are already some cards that fit perfectly in that shell, such as Umbris, Fear Manifest.

Because this is my intention, I don’t intend to impose a budget restriction on any of the cards I talk about in this article. The cost of these cards will likely range from cents to hundreds of dollars. If I come across a cheap card that could replace a more expensive option, I will try to include that. If there really isn’t any alternative for expensive cards, though, considering talking to your playgroup about letting you play with proxies. The second one rewards you for having a full party. At the beginning of your combat, all your creatures get a +1/+1 counter and deathtouch until end of turn.Lastly, the deathtouch is okay. It'll be a good incentive for our creatures to get through, and I look forward to pairing them with Archetype of Courage to ensure they survive combat. Cuts: High Priest of Penance; Malakir Blood-Priest; Mage’s Attendant; Corpse Augur; Irregular Cohort; Pontiff of Blight; Valiant Changeling; Firja’s Retribution; Magus of the Balance; 1 (one) Plains. Its time to party (without smiling = If all of that isn’t enough, you also get another payoff for milling. At the beginning of the end step you can choose an opponent’s artifact or creature that was milled this turn, and get it in play yourself – for free! That’s certainly a powerful effect.

Other than that, each individual section will go over a couple of cards that you will want to remove because they are not specifically relevant to that exact strategy. Hopefully there will be a couple more cards you can take out in those sections to help make room for all of the new recommendations you’ll want to add. 5 Ways to Upgrade Party Time And if you find that Nalia isn’t triggering as often as you would like, here are some other great ways to distribute counters to you creatures. One of them is even a party member, for additional value.There are tons of Warriors in Magic, but here are some of the ones I thought would be significant to this upgrade path: