Avengers Assemble precon upgrade guide

27 of its 30 creatures are Heroes and 28 are legendary, and those two numbers decide most of what's worth buying. Twelve upgrades for Captain America, Team Leader, with what comes out for each.

I ran the stock Avengers Assemble list through this site's own engines before writing a word of this, and two of the things I expected to say turned out to be wrong. The mana base is in better shape than precon mana usually is. And while this is a Hero typal deck — 27 of its 30 creatures are Heroes, so that part isn't in doubt — its strongest synergies sit where Heroes and +1/+1 counters overlap, which changes what's worth adding.

What are the best Avengers Assemble upgrades?

If you only buy five cards, buy these, in this order. The reasoning for each is further down.

1. Shared Animosity — with 27 Heroes and 19 Humans sharing types, five attackers means each one is roughly +4/+0.
2. Flowering of the White Tree — +2/+1 and ward 1 on 28 of your 30 creatures, for two mana, because 93% of them are legendary.
3. Roaming Throne — naming Hero doubles your Heroes' triggers, and Captain America is himself a Hero, so his doubles too.
4. Cathars' Crusade — every creature you play puts a +1/+1 counter on the whole board.
5. Boros Charm — two mana at instant speed to make a board you spent five turns building survive a wrath.

The full twelve, plus what comes out for them, is further down the page. Nothing here is on the Game Changers list, so none of it moves the deck out of Bracket 1.

What the stock deck actually looks like

Every number below comes from the shipped decklist, resolved card by card:

• 30 creatures, 28 of them legendary — 93%. That's an absurd density, and it makes one particular upgrade far better than it looks.
• 27 Heroes and 19 Humans out of those 30, with heavy overlap: most of the cast is a Human Hero.
• 38 lands, 16 of them basic. 23 enter untapped no matter what, 10 have a condition, and only 5 always enter tapped.
• Average mana value 3.36, with 19 twos and 16 threes — a real curve, not a pile of six-drops.
• 14 cards that draw and 8 that ramp. The draw count is high for a precon, and that matters more than it sounds.
• Bracket 1 floor. Zero Game Changers, no mass land denial, no extra turns, no tutors.

That last one is worth sitting with. Plenty of precons sneak into Bracket 2 or 3 on a single card. This one has nothing pushing it up, which is exactly why it's a satisfying deck to work on — there's headroom before you'd need to warn anybody.

Where the real power is: Heroes and counters overlap

The typal shell is genuine. Eight cards in the finished deck key off a creature type by name, and 27 Heroes is about as dense as typal gets. But if you only optimise for Hero count you'll miss where the deck's damage actually comes from.

Look at what Captain America, Team Leader does. Every other Hero that enters gets vigilance and haste until end of turn, plus a +1/+1 counter — and Captain America takes a counter too. Read that carefully, because the two halves have very different lifespans. The keywords are a one-turn effect that lets a fresh Hero attack the moment it lands. The counters are permanent, and they're on two creatures every time.

Then count how much of the deck is doing the same thing. Metallic Mimic gives every Hero an extra counter on the way in. Hercules, Olympian Hero grows when he attacks and again when he's damaged. Falcon and Redwing, She-Hulk, Wallbreaker, Jocasta, Automaton Avenger and Vision, Synthezoid Avenger all add counters off their own triggers.

Two cards then close the loop. Iron Man, Armored Avenger puts a +1/+1 counter on a creature every time you draw a card, and Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings does the same to itself and draws you five when it hits ten. So those 14 draw pieces aren't just card advantage — in this deck, drawing cards is the counters engine.

And Captain Marvel, Apex Avenger copies it all: any counters you put on another creature, she may take the same number herself.

Two more cards care about the results. War Machine, Avenging Arsenal gives modified attackers double strike, and Iron Man gives modified attackers flying. Counters are modifications. A board that's been growing for three turns is a board where every creature is modified.

Once you see that, the shopping list writes itself. The best additions aren't generic Hero payoffs. They're cards that multiply triggers, turn the wide board lethal, or keep it alive.

Which creature type do you name?

Seven cards in the stock deck make you choose a creature type: Kindred Discovery, Door of Destinies, Metallic Mimic, Raise the Palisade, Secluded Courtyard, Unclaimed Territory and Herald's Horn. That's seven decisions riding on one word, and the box doesn't tell you which.

Name Hero. It covers 27 of the 30 creatures. Naming Human covers 19.

The only creatures Hero misses are Jarvis, Earth's Mightiest Butler, Bastion Protector and Metallic Mimic itself — and Mimic exempts itself, because naming Hero makes it a Hero. So the real cost of naming Hero is two cards.

One rules point that matters here: each of those cards chooses independently. You're not locked into one word across all eight. In practice you'll name Hero on nearly all of them anyway, but it's worth knowing the choice isn't a single lever.

What about Adeline and Professional Face-Breaker?

These are the two upgrades every other Avengers Assemble guide recommends, and I've left both out. That's a genuinely close call rather than an obvious one, so here's the actual arithmetic.

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is a stronger Magic card than anything in my twelve. She makes a body per opponent every time you attack, her power scales with the board, and she closes games. Nobody sensible disputes that.

What she costs you in this deck is specific. She's a Human Knight, so naming Hero means Metallic Mimic doesn't grow her, Herald's Horn doesn't discount her, Patchwork Banner doesn't pump her, Kindred Discovery doesn't draw off her, and two of your lands can't cast her. Two hurt more than the rest: Roaming Throne doubles Hero triggers, so it won't double the attack trigger that is her entire card — and Raise the Palisade naming Hero bounces her along with the opposing board.

Her tokens are Humans, though, which means both she and they still feed Shared Animosity alongside the deck's 19 other Humans. So she isn't a dead card, she's a card that plays with about half your synergies.

Run her if your table is faster than Bracket 1 and you'd rather have raw power than a clean typal engine — swap her in for Cathars' Crusade, which is the slowest card in my list. Skip her if you want the version where every piece talks to every other piece. I went the second way because the eight type-matters cards are what makes this deck play differently from every other white aggro deck, and that's worth protecting.

The mana base is better than it looks

Most upgrade guides open by cutting taplands. I'd mostly leave them alone, and the reason is that "enters tapped" and "enters tapped unless" are different cards.

Radiant Summit, Scorched Geyser and Prairie Stream all enter untapped if you control two or more basic lands. The deck runs 16 basics. They're untapped essentially always. Port Town, Frostboil Snarl and Furycalm Snarl just want you to reveal a land from hand. Spectator Seating is untapped whenever you have two or more opponents, which in Commander is most of the time.

Only five lands enter tapped no matter what: Coastal Peak, Glittering Massif, Irrigated Farmland, Mystic Monastery and Path of Ancestry. Three of those are worth cutting. The other two aren't, and I'll come back to that.

The real problem is a different one, and you'd never find it by eyeballing the list. Run the hypergeometrics and single blue is fine — 26 sources gets you one blue by turn two about 92% of the time. Double blue is where it breaks. Four cards want UU: Kindred Discovery, Professor Hulk, Reconnaissance Mission and West Coast Expansion. To cast those on curve at 90% you'd want around 36 blue sources. The deck runs 26, which puts you at roughly 74%.

Red has the same shape but it doesn't matter: only Thor, Asgard's Avenger asks for RR, so being six sources short costs you one card being occasionally late. White is comfortable at 28 sources.

So the mana fix isn't a rebuild. It's two better blue lands and an acceptance that Kindred Discovery is sometimes a turn late.

What I'd cut

Twelve cards. Nine spells and three lands.

Cards that only help one creature

Hero's Blade, Hulkbuster Armor and Gift of Immortality all pick one creature and improve it. In a deck with 30 creatures and a commander who rewards a crowd, that's the wrong shape. Hulkbuster Armor is the clearest case — four mana to cast, three more to equip a Hero, and the result is one very large creature in a deck that wins by having eight medium ones.

Patriot, Shield Wielder is the same problem on a body: two mana and a tap for +2/+0 and hexproof on one creature.

Cards that are too slow for what they do

Door of Destinies is the one people are most reluctant to cut, and I understand why — it's a Hero payoff and it can get enormous. But it enters with zero counters and only grows when you cast a Hero spell afterwards. You need two or three more Heroes after it lands before it changes a combat, and by then you'd rather have drawn almost anything else.

Heroic Return costs six (four if you're being attacked) to reanimate one creature. Speed, Young Avenger asks you to pay an extra mana on your noncreature spells to make one creature harder to block.

Removal that's too narrow

Make Your Move hits artifacts, enchantments, or creatures with power 4 or greater. Destroy Evil hits enchantments or creatures with toughness 4 or greater. Both miss the small utility creatures that actually stop this deck — and in a format full of them, "or greater" clauses are where removal goes to disappoint you.

Three lands

Coastal Peak, Glittering Massif and Mystic Monastery enter tapped unconditionally. The first two do cycle for two, which is a real consolation, but a deck with a 3.36 average mana value wants its lands online.

What I'd add

Twelve cards, in the order I'd buy them.

Make the wide board lethal

Shared Animosity is the single biggest change. It gives each attacker +1/+0 for every other attacker sharing a creature type — and with 27 Heroes and 19 Humans, nearly every attacker shares a type with nearly every other one. Attack with five Heroes and each of them is +4/+0. Note it counts each creature once, not once per shared type, so a Human Hero doesn't get counted twice.

Flowering of the White Tree is the upgrade that 93% legendary density unlocks. It gives legendary creatures +2/+1 and ward 1, and everything else +1/+1. In this deck that's +2/+1 and ward 1 on 28 of your 30 creatures, for two mana. Ward 1 doesn't sound like much until you notice how much removal it taxes.

Cathars' Crusade is the counters thesis made literal: every creature you play puts a +1/+1 counter on your whole board. With Captain Marvel copying counters and War Machine handing double strike to modified creatures, this ends games.

Multiply the triggers

Roaming Throne naming Hero is the best card in this list and the one people underrate. It doubles the triggered abilities of your Heroes — and Captain America is himself a Hero, so his own trigger doubles. Every Hero that enters now puts two counters on itself and two on Captain America. It also enters as a Hero, so it triggers him on the way down.

Patchwork Banner is the quiet one: +1/+1 to the type you name, and it taps for any color, which helps the double-blue problem.

Protect the board

Boros Charm gives your permanents indestructible for two mana at instant speed, and the other two modes are live often enough to matter.

Clever Concealment phases out any number of your nonland permanents, and convoke means a wide board casts it for close to free. Phasing dodges things indestructible doesn't — exile, sacrifice, −X/−X.

Reconnaissance is one of the strangest good cards in Commander. For zero mana it pulls an attacking creature out of combat and untaps it, after attack triggers have already happened. You attack with everything, see the blocks, and then decide what actually stays in.

Removal that answers things

Path to Exile and Generous Gift replace the two narrow removal spells. Path is one mana and exiles anything with a body; Generous Gift kills any permanent at all. Both hand something small to the opponent, and both are worth it.

Two lands

Sea of Clouds and Training Center both enter untapped whenever you have two or more opponents, and both make blue. They're the direct answer to the 74% double-blue number.

Three of these twelve carry most of the cost — Roaming Throne and the two lands. Hover any card name for its current price; the rest of the list is inexpensive, and if you only ever buy Shared Animosity, Flowering of the White Tree and Patchwork Banner you'll have captured a lot of the gain.

Three cards I'd leave alone

These all look cuttable and aren't.

Raise the Palisade reads like a clunky five-mana sorcery. It's a one-sided board wipe. "Choose a creature type; return all creatures that aren't of the chosen type to their owners' hands" — name Hero and 27 of your creatures stay while most tables lose everything. You bounce your own Jarvis and Bastion Protector, which is a real cost and a small one.

Metallic Mimic looks off-type on any count of Heroes, because it's a Shapeshifter. That's backwards: it names a type and becomes it, so it's a Hero the moment it lands, and it makes every subsequent Hero enter bigger.

Path of Ancestry is an unconditional tapland, and I'm keeping it anyway. It taps for any color in your identity and scries every time you cast a creature of the chosen type — with 27 Heroes, that's a scry most turns.

The upgraded decklist

100 cards, with the twelve swaps applied. Hover any name for the card and its current price.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, pinned to the printings the box shipped, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena — no account needed.

How the upgraded deck plays

Lead with mana and cheap Heroes. The deck has 19 two-drops and a commander who wants bodies on the board before he lands, so a hand of three lands and two early Heroes is a much better keep than a hand with a five-drop you're excited about.

Attack with new Heroes on the turn they land. That's what the commander's haste is for, and it's the only turn you get it — a Hero that entered two turns ago is an ordinary creature again.

Sustained aggression comes from two other cards, and it's worth knowing which. Captain America, Living Legend untaps each of your creatures the first time it becomes tapped on your turn, which is board-wide vigilance in everything but name. Reconnaissance then lets you declare a huge attack, look at the blocks, and pull back whatever would die. With either one out you can afford to swing with far more than feels safe.

Hold protection when you can. The deck's failure mode isn't running out of cards, it's losing eight creatures' worth of counters to one wrath. Boros Charm and Clever Concealment both cost little enough to leave up on a turn you're also developing.

FAQ

Is the Avengers Assemble precon good?

It's unusually focused. 27 of its 30 creatures are Heroes and 28 are legendary, so nearly every card pulls the same direction — that's rare in a precon and it's why the deck responds so well to a small number of changes. It's also genuinely low-powered: zero Game Changers and a Bracket 1 floor.

What are the best Avengers Assemble upgrades?

In order: Shared Animosity, Flowering of the White Tree, Roaming Throne, Cathars' Crusade and Boros Charm. The first two are the biggest jumps — 27 Heroes and 19 Humans make Shared Animosity enormous, and 93% legendary density makes Flowering a two-mana anthem for nearly the whole board. None of the five are Game Changers, so the deck stays at Bracket 1.

Should I add Adeline, Resplendent Cathar?

Only if you want raw power more than typal consistency. She's the stronger card in the abstract, but as a Human Knight she's ignored by Metallic Mimic, Herald's Horn, Patchwork Banner and Kindred Discovery, Roaming Throne won't double her attack trigger, and Raise the Palisade bounces her along with the opposing board. Her tokens are Humans, so she does still feed Shared Animosity. Swap her in for Cathars' Crusade if your table is faster than Bracket 1.

What should I cut from Avengers Assemble first?

The three cards that improve a single creature in a deck built to go wide: Hero's Blade, Hulkbuster Armor and Gift of Immortality. Door of Destinies is fourth, because it needs several more Hero spells after it lands before it changes a single combat.

What creature type should I name?

Hero, and it isn't close. Seven stock cards make you choose, and Hero covers 27 of the 30 creatures against Human's 19. The only creatures it misses are Jarvis, Earth's Mightiest Butler and Bastion Protector — Metallic Mimic becomes whatever you name.

Does the mana base need fixing?

Less than you'd think. 23 of the 38 lands enter untapped unconditionally and only five always enter tapped. The genuine weakness is double blue: four cards want UU and 26 blue sources gets you there about 74% of the time by turn three, against the 90% you'd want. Two better blue lands fixes most of it.

What bracket is this deck?

Bracket 1 on the mechanical floor — no Game Changers, no mass land denial, no extra turns, no tutors. The twelve upgrades here keep it there, since none of them are on the Game Changers list. You can check your own version with the bracket checker.

Is Captain America, Team Leader a good commander?

He's a counters engine more than a combat trick. Every other Hero that enters gets vigilance and haste until end of turn, plus a +1/+1 counter, and he takes a counter too. The keywords last one turn and just let a fresh Hero attack straight away; the counters are permanent, and that's where the value piles up across 27 Heroes.