Divine Convocation: March of the Machine Precon Deck Review and Upgrade guide
by Crispin Stopfoth (aka Crispiwan)
Convoke in Jeskai? Wait. What? U,R are not colours one generally associates with the “convoke” mechanic. Traditionally this mechanic lives in Selesnya (W,G) but with this Divine Convocation precon as part of the March of the Machine release from Magic: the Gathering, the turns have most certainly tabled. Having said that I was, understandably I think, a little trepidatious when selecting this deck to be the one I played out of the box on Command This! and compiled this review on. I can happily state that it was totally unfounded. What a crazy powerhouse of deck this is.
Firstly, a huge thank you to Unplug Yourself for supplying these decks to the Easy Gaming Group team to play with and review. You can catch the OuttaTheBox episode of Command This! featuring all the March of the Machine precons supplied by UY here.
Firstly, a huge thank you to Unplug Yourself for supplying these decks to the Easy Gaming Group team to play with and review. You can catch the OuttaTheBox episode of Command This! featuring all the March of the Machine precons supplied by UY here.
The Commanders:
The face commander for this deck is
The face commander for this deck is
Kasla, the Broken Halo
. Jaw-dropping artwork from Martina Fačková on a card that simply oozes with card advantage and draw. With a mana value of 5 for a 5/4 flying, vigilance, haste body with the kind of value you can only dream about in a commander, she is a bomb. There are other options in Saint Traft and Rem Karolus
who make tokens by tapping and have a convoke ability to untap so they can be triggered multiple times in a turn, or even Kykar, Wind’s Fury
who cares about noncreature spells to create flying spirits, but essentially, based on the main theme of this deck, I would strongly recommend Kasla as the commander; the 5 mana value thing won’t be a problem, trust me.
The Theme:
The deck has 17 straight up convoke spells, with 7 convoke payoff cards including the ability to make all your spells into convoke spells – but I’ll come to that later. There are 17 cards that care about making token creatures and 10 cards that let you ramp your mana. 10 cards that help you draw seems a little low, but strangely never really had a negative impact on my games. There are 3 boardwipes in the deck (one attached to a planeswalker I’m very happy to welcome back) and 10 targeted removal spells. From the other cards that allow you to untap creatures at instant speed it’s clear to me that the deck wants very much to convoke your opponents out of contention.
The deck has 17 straight up convoke spells, with 7 convoke payoff cards including the ability to make all your spells into convoke spells – but I’ll come to that later. There are 17 cards that care about making token creatures and 10 cards that let you ramp your mana. 10 cards that help you draw seems a little low, but strangely never really had a negative impact on my games. There are 3 boardwipes in the deck (one attached to a planeswalker I’m very happy to welcome back) and 10 targeted removal spells. From the other cards that allow you to untap creatures at instant speed it’s clear to me that the deck wants very much to convoke your opponents out of contention.
Top Cards:
Elspeth, Sun’s Champion
is a house in this deck. Her ability to create tokens, wipe the board of all the big nasties and then give all your little winged peeps a +2/+2 buff and flying is just indispensable in this build. A brand-new card that I found to be an excellent include in this deck is Wand of the Worldsoul
. An artifact for 3 mana that taps for white and can also just give your next spell convoke. Wait!? What? Yes, tap it and your next spell has convoke. So, tap it, cast a convoke spell that untaps all your permanents and then do it again… you see where this might go. This card has been clutch in every game I have played with this deck. Another new card, Flockchaser Phantom
, also gives your next spells convoke on an attack trigger, and a 5/5 flying, vigilance body is certainly going to be doing some attacking. I mean, why not, right? There’s a welcome return to Venerated Loxodon
and Conclave Tribunal
(both from the last Ravnica block), two convoke staples that either get rid of a thing or pump the team. Then, the crazy comboesque collaboration of Improbable Alliance
(from Eldraine) and The Locust God
(from Hour of Devastation) brings card draw, faeries and insects! Oh, my! Later I’ll touch on an infinite combo you can add into this deck playing into what these two cards do for you.
Migratory Route
, Secure the Wastes
, Path of the Ghosthunter
and Emeria Angel
are all going to help make you an army of 1/1 creatures that you can just go over the top with and the return of Tetsuko Umezawa, Fugitive means they can all be unblockable, so smash face at will!
Planechase:
The return of the Planechase mechanic in this set is just awesome. There’s not much to say around it other than there are a number of Planechase pay-off cards in the deck that you may want to swap out if you plan to not Planechase with this deck. Path of the Ghosthunter, mentioned above is one, but I would keep this one for the token generation.
The return of the Planechase mechanic in this set is just awesome. There’s not much to say around it other than there are a number of Planechase pay-off cards in the deck that you may want to swap out if you plan to not Planechase with this deck. Path of the Ghosthunter, mentioned above is one, but I would keep this one for the token generation.
Fractured Powerstone
is another and Ichor Elixir
.
Potential Upgrades and Lines of Play:
Some more convoke cards that would provide some benefits to this deck would be
Some more convoke cards that would provide some benefits to this deck would be
Bennie Bracks, Zoologist
, for card draw, Error processing card data from Scryfall API. for the backside of the card in particular; Error processing card data from Scryfall API. who allows you to untap up to four creatures at the beginning of your end step so those instant speed convoke cards in your hand are still playable. City on Fire
allows massive damage from red sources you control while Clever Concealment
can save your board from disaster. Wicked Slumber
is a crafty way of making a gap through which to punch your opponents and, apparently, is a tie-in to the upcoming Wilds of Eldraine set. Conclave Phalanx
will gain you a ton of life depending on the board state, and Conclave Phalanx
can be a lord for a creature type of your choice. Convoking a 6/6 body with ward 3 and some card advantage cannot be a bad thing so I reckon you could happily include Interdisciplinary Mascot
and Shivan Branch-Burner
is just a big, angry dragon with flying and haste, nuff said. If you feel you need to make more tokens, then you could add Triplicate Spirits
and then draw a mountain of cards with Transcendent Message
. Two other creatures you may want to add to this deck would be Martyr’s Soul
who can get suddenly swole and Knight-Errant of Eos
who can help you find your next creature drops when it enters the battlefield. But, of course, this is only one way to play this deck. Another option would be to look for the infinite loop provided The Locust God and Sage of the Falls
. Sage says that whenever it or another non-human creature ETB then draw a card. If you do, discard a card. The Locust God says that whenever you draw a card make a 1/1 flying insect. You do the math…
In Conclusion:
I was totally blown away by how much fun this deck is to play straight out of the box. Granted I was a little frustrated the first time I played it as I did not feel the deck was moving, but then something clicked, and the deck just began to tick over until it eventually rolled it’s way to the big “W”. So, depending on if you just like the idea of keeping mana open to cast more spells and let your army of creatures do the actual work of casting everything else, or if you want to strive for that infinite combo I mentioned, or if you can think of another way this convoke menagerie can be played (please share with me in the comments below) this is an awesome deck to play or build from. Also, there’s no reason to exclude the infinite combo from an outright convoke deck that I can see…
So, until next time, I’ll see you on the battlefield.
I was totally blown away by how much fun this deck is to play straight out of the box. Granted I was a little frustrated the first time I played it as I did not feel the deck was moving, but then something clicked, and the deck just began to tick over until it eventually rolled it’s way to the big “W”. So, depending on if you just like the idea of keeping mana open to cast more spells and let your army of creatures do the actual work of casting everything else, or if you want to strive for that infinite combo I mentioned, or if you can think of another way this convoke menagerie can be played (please share with me in the comments below) this is an awesome deck to play or build from. Also, there’s no reason to exclude the infinite combo from an outright convoke deck that I can see…
So, until next time, I’ll see you on the battlefield.
