Dance of the Elements Commander Precon Guide

Overview

Lorwyn was defined by its tribal identities, but no creature type captured the block's elemental chaos quite like Elementals. Dance of the Elements leans into that chaos fully: it is a five-colour ETB machine that uses evoke as its primary resource engine, extracting massive value from creatures that most decks would only play once and send to the graveyard.

Ashling, the Limitless is a Flamekin shaman who supercharges the evoke plan directly: Elemental permanent spells you cast from hand gain evoke {4} as you cast them, meaning almost any Elemental in the deck can come down cheaply, trigger its ETB, and immediately sacrifice itself. Whenever you sacrifice a nontoken Elemental this way, she creates a hasty token copy of it that sticks around only until your next end step unless you pay one mana of each colour to keep it, turning every evoke sacrifice into a second, temporary body that can still swing in for damage. With 35 elementals in the 99, including some of the most powerful ever printed, the deck rarely runs short of material.

Key Cards

These four cards form the backbone of the deck's strategy and are worth understanding before sitting down to play.

Playing the Deck

The first priority is colour fixing. Five colours on a precon budget means the mana base is doing heavy work: Chromatic Lantern, Timeless Lotus, Faeburrow Elder, and Jegantha, the Wellspring are your key pieces for getting all five colours online. Prioritise these in the opening hand.

Once your mana base is stable, look to land Risen Reef before your first major elemental play. Each subsequent elemental cascades into land drops and card selection, quickly generating enough resources to chain multiple plays per turn. Incandescent Soulstoke anthems your other Elementals with +1/+1 and can tap to put an Elemental from your hand onto the battlefield with haste for the turn, sacrificing it at the next end step, essentially a repeatable one-turn cheat that grabs an ETB and a swing before the creature disappears.

The late game revolves around Horde of Notions recurring evoked elementals and Omnath converting land drops into a board full of 5/5s. Maelstrom Wanderer and Avenger of Zendikar serve as finishers that close games quickly once your engine is running.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths: Exceptional raw card advantage through elemental ETBs. The deck gains value even when its creatures die, making it frustrating to interact with in the traditional sense. Five-colour access provides an answer to virtually every type of threat. Individual cards like Omnath, Avenger of Zendikar, and Maelstrom Wanderer are legitimately powerful.

Weaknesses: The mana base is a genuine liability in the early game; inconsistent colour fixing can strand powerful cards in hand. Ashling is a high-priority removal target, and the deck's engine slows meaningfully when she is off the battlefield. The strategy is also slow to establish, giving faster decks time to develop threats you'll need to interact with before your engine comes online.

Full Decklist

All 100 cards from the out-of-the-box Dance of the Elements precon, enriched with current prices. Click any card to expand it.