Upgrading Commander Precon: Limit Break (Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER)

The new Universes Beyond set, Final Fantasy, brought us four new Commander precons that are full of flavor! If you'd like to see all four lists, click here!

The Final Fantasy spoiler season is barely over, and the community is already rioting. Even we, at Cards Realm, are kinda scared of how popular this set is already.

But we can also say that, besides a lot of flavor, the Final Fantasy precons are very powerful and feature fun mechanics that should please Final Fantasy fans as well as anyone who enjoys a good Commander match.

In this article, we'll show you how we upgraded Limit Break, the precon commanded by Cloud, Ex-SOLDIER.

Get ready to embark on an adventure with this commander and other beloved Final Fantasy characters!

Cloud is a proud swordsman, and the main character of a few Final Fantasy titles. He has also been featured in spin-offs as a support character. In this set, this beloved character is a Naya commander.

This card has important abilities for a Voltron commander. Its ETB effect (enter the battlefield effect) lets you equip him with an equipment card under your control for free. When he attacks, Cloud rewards you for equipping his friends by drawing a card for each equipped creature attacking with him. Next, if he has 7 power or more, you'll also create two Treasure tokens.

Even though he definitely fits Voltron strategies, he's not alone in this list. Tifa, Martial Artist is this list's alternative commander, and will also lead you to victory.

Tifa can defeat any opponent with her nimble combat skills. She also untaps all creatures you control whenever one of them, with 7 power or more, deals combat damage to a player. Then, she creates an additional combat phase.

Now that you know what are the two commanders you can use in this list, let's see the original list.

As soon as you open the box, this is the list you'll find:

Without further ado, let's start discussing the main cards in this list: equipment.

Equipment

The original list includes:

Sword of the Animist is quite relevant in this list. If you get an extra combat with Tifa, Martial Artist's effect by using this equipment on a creature, then you can get up to two extra lands per turn with it.

Trailblazer's Boots is also valuable, considering that, even in casual Commander matches, we often have to face nonbasic lands.

The new equipment cards also stand out, namely Wrecking Ball Arm, Conformer Shuriken, and Summoning Materia. Summoning Materia, in particular, will give you a lot of value, as, with it, you'll be able to access the top of your deck and cast creature spells directly from there.

What We Added

As we want protection, Swiftfoot Boots is great. It will give us hexproof, which means we'll be able to keep equipping a certain creature and targeting them with our spells. You can only equip Cloud for free when he enters the board, so we also play Hammer of Nazahn. It will let us equip artifacts for free after we put it in play, and also make the creature it is equipped to indestructible.

The Reaver Cleaver is incredibly strong in this deck. When equipped to our commander, we'll be able to create tokens with him and deal damage to our opponents more easily because he will have trample as well.

What We Removed

Lightning Greaves was the first card we removed. Shroud is cool as protection, but, in a deck that wants to equip creatures constantly, this keyword can get in the way.

Skullclamp is one of the most popular card draw equipments in token decks... But this list isn't that. The original list might even play spells that do something when you create creature tokens, but just a few of them.

This equipment works really well with nontoken creatures too, but, in this list, it is a bit useless and could be a dead card in your hand or your board. Considering you'll often use your mana to cast creatures, you probably won't want to sacrifice them.

Card Draw

The original list includes:

What We Added

As we mentioned before, we have better card draw than Skullclamp for this list. We added:

Sram, Senior Edificer is a must in nearly all Voltron decks, considering it interacts with auras, equipment, and even Vehicles, to draw more cards.

Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar's static ability protects your turn, as it prevents your opponents from casting spells during it. Its second ability draws a card whenever one or more creatures you control with power greater than its base power deals combat damage to a player.

The idea is to equip creatures, so Kutzil is also welcome.

What We Removed

We can use better card draw, that is, card draw that interacts with equipment and modified creatures, doesn't give anything to the opponent, and that we can reuse.

Equipping for Free

Remember that we can only equip Cloud for free when he enters the board?

We want to help our commander by equipping more equipment to him, and, as such, we need to play a few cards that let us equip for free.

The original list only included:

What We Added

We already discussed Hammer of Nazahn before, so let's focus on the other two cards.

Bruenor Battlehammer gives +2/+0 to equipped creatures for each equipment attached to them, and lets you equip a card for free once per turn.

Sigarda's Aid lets you cast equipment and auras as if they had flash. It also lets you attach them for free when you first put them in play.

What We Removed

Armory Automaton lets you equip cards for free... But only to it. That's not what we want, so we removed it to add cards that actually interact with other permanents in this deck, like our commander.

Yuffie, Materia Hunter is valuable and mentions a powerful keyword, Ninjutsu. But it's like Armory Automaton: you can replace it with something that makes the game more fun and is more useful, too.

Mana Rocks and Accelerators

The original list includes:

Our list plays creatures that interact with treasures, such as Cloud and Professional Face-Breaker, and different ramp cards already included in the original list.

So, this time we'll only add cards, and not remove anything.

What We Added

This is one of the most fun and powerful cards that interacts with modified creatures.

With it in play, your modified creatures have trample, and, when they deal combat damage to a player, you can look for a basic land and put it in play tapped.

What We Removed

As we didn't remove any ramp cards, we removed a creature.

Hellkite Tyrant is a win condition, but we'd rather grow our commander and speed up the main game plan. In this list, we can't really access its full potential, but it is quite valid in many other decks, like Magda, Brazen Outlaw's.

Protection

A deck with powerful equipped creatures that are ready to trample your opponents to death definitely stands out. To protect ourselves, we play:

What We Added

We've already discussed a few of these cards (Swiftfoot Boots and Hammer of Nazahn), so we'll only touch on the only card we haven't discussed yet: Heroic Intervention.

Heroic Intervention is, without a question, one of the strongest green protections around.

With it, you'll protect your entire board, including your lands. It is the type of card you can cast to save or win the game. All your permanents will have indestructible and hexproof, so you'll be able to use them to beat your opponents to death.

What We Removed

To add even more protections, we'll remove another creature we can't quite use properly in this list.

Heidegger, Shinra Executive is nice, isn't it?

It fills the board for us for no cost at all, and also buffs our creatures when we attack with them. However, it only creates creatures for us if our opponents have more creatures than us, so it's a bit unreliable.

Removals

Usually, precon Commander lists don't play many removals straight out of the box, but this one is actually quite decent. Check it out.

What We Added

As spot removals are very relevant in Commander, let's add:

This is one of the best white removals around! It can even remove lands.

What We Removed

Just like Heidegger, this enchantment can be valuable, but not in this list.

Mana Base

We changed the mana base a bit to accommodate a few cards.

We removed Wooded Ridgeline, Mossfire Valley, and Spire of Industry. Then, we added Jetmir's Garden, a Plains, and a Mountain.

Upgraded List

Finally, this is our upgraded list:

Our alternative list uses Tifa as the commander.

This version isn't that different from the original list.

We added cards like Wulfgar of Icewind Dale and Windcrag Siege to trigger our commander's ability more than once.

Lightning, Army of One is from this set and fits this list well, as it lets us deal more damage. It is very similar to Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.

Iroas, God of Victory also stands out. After all, we don't want to lose our creatures when we attack!

Limit Break is a full feast for players who enjoy aggressive strategies.

This deck is clearly fast and aggressive. Your commander will draw cards, create treasures, and, as such, accelerate mana.

Overall, it is quite fun, and won't scare off any new players who get it (but it might scare their opponents!)

What did you think of this list? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!