Silverquill Influence Precon Upgrade
Secrets of Strixhaven brings with it five new Commander precons, so it's time once again for my precon upgrade guides!
We begin with Silverquill Influence, a White/Black Aura Politics precon. The goal of this deck is to force your opponents to attack and kill each other, and we accomplish it primarily with Auras! The game plan is to cast a whole bunch of auras, enchanting your creatures but more importantly your opponents' creatures as well, making them hit harder but also forcing them to attack your opponents (Coercive Impetus). The rest of the deck further encourages your opponents to hit each other (Combat Calligrapher) or supports your Aura theme (Herald of Amity).
So if you like the idea of a Political Auras deck, then Silverquill Influence is the precon for you!
The Stock List
First, let's look at the list right out of the box to see where we can improve it:
The main themes of the deck are Auras and Politics. For Auras, I count 22 aura cards, not including Eidolon of Countless Battles which can be cast as an aura and Scriv, the Obligator which creates aura tokens. I also count 21 aura support cards, either supporting auras directly (Kor Spiritdancer), enchantment support (Doomwake Giant), and Killian, Ink Duelist which is indirect Aura support and is actually the inspiration for this precon, since most folks built the original Killian as Auras. It's solid numbers for a main theme.
For Politics, I count 15 "don't attack me" cards, a combination of goad (Ghoulish Impetus), pillowfort (Nils, Discipline Enforcer), and attack opponents incentives (Firemane Commando). There's also 3 more selective group hug cards not tied to combat (Keen Duelist). It will definitely feel like a Politics deck when played.
Between the two themes, however, I only count 8 cards that merge the two themes together: the goad auras (Parasitic Impetus), the two new commanders for the deck, and Eriette of the Charmed Apple. This is likely because, well, there simply aren't many more cards that exist that do merge both themes together. That's not a problem since our commander Killian, Decisive Mentor does a lot of the heavy lifting here, but it does pose problems when it comes to upgrading the list, see below.
The Good
The new cards designed specifically for this precon are all quite good, which isn't surprising -- that's the point of these cards! However, I do think that Defacing Duskmage and Changing Loyalty are strong and flexible enough to see play outside of this specific style of deck, the former being generically good in just about any deck (a bit better in Control style) and the latter being very sweet in Draw Go.
But obviously the face commander, Killian, Decisive Mentor, is the card that is generating the most hype here, and for good reason: it's really, really strong! For three mana you have a card draw engine, a goad engine, and also taps down potential blockers as a cherry on top. Once Killian gets going it's not hard to keep every threat goaded while drawing 3+ cards per turn cycle. Killian is currently the most popular commander from the Strixhaven precons, and the fact that Eriette of the Charmed Apple -- the previous Orzhov Aura Politics commander that Killian is far stronger than -- is currently the second-most popular Orzhov commander on EDHREC, I expect Killian to become at least the #2 most popular Orzhov commander soon enough, maybe even #1.
Outside of the new cards, the rest of the deck is really solid too. White is the primary color for Auras, and Auras has a surprisingly robust and powerful card pool to work with. Black doesn't contribute as much, but it does have some notable inclusions like Hateful Eidolon, and the original Killian, Ink Duelist was a popular Orzhov Auras commander for a while. Thankfully the precon doesn't shy away from adding a lot of the best cards to make the archetype shine -- Winds of Rath as a one-sided wipe, Kor Spiritdancer and Sage's Reverie as excellent draw, etc.
We also have a lot of amazing reprints that are commonly associated with Politics and Pillowfort: we've got powerhouse cards like Breena, the Demagogue, fun cards like Keen Duelist, and staples like Ghostly Prison.
So with an incredibly pushed new commander leading a deck that has a lot of powerful staples, Silverquill Influence looks like one of the strongest new precons in a while!
The "Bad"
The stock precon is very good. The new cards are good, the reprints are good, and there's no significant flaw in the deck's construction -- we've got solid ramp, draw, interaction, etc.
It has one problem for the purposes of this article, however: it's hard to upgrade the deck without changing its identity.
As mentioned before, there are only 8 cards in the deck that merge together the two themes of Auras and Politics, and that's probably because there's really not many other cards you could add that fit both categories. The precon basically has the complete package already. So while you could swap in some stronger Aura cards and stronger Politics cards, they won't synergize with each other.
The other problem is that a lot of the best cards in our deck, most importantly our commander, Killian, Decisive Mentor, scales up in power the more we lean into the Aura part of the deck: more Auras mean more Killian triggers, the more mana advantage from Starfield Mystic, the more draw from Sage's Reverie, etc. But basically nothing scales up by focusing on more Political cards -- if anything it's the opposite, as adding more "don't attack me" cards makes pre-existing ones like Tomik, Wielder of Law less impactful.
So when it comes to upgrading for power, it actually makes sense to cut out all the non-Aura Political cards from the deck entirely, turning it into an Aura deck with a Goad subtheme. This gives you the most bang for your buck when upgrading. We barely lose anything in the process too, since if we're now consistently goading all the problem creatures each turn with our commander and the impetus cycle (e.g. Martial Impetus), who needs flimsy pillowfort cards like Tomik anyway?
This does mean that we're significantly altering the contents of the deck, even though we're making it fit better with our commander. That's a bit of a shame, but I expect that's what the majority of folks looking to upgrade the deck are okay with doing, so that's how I'll upgrade this deck. However, if you want to maintain the stock precon's 50/50 split focus between Auras and Politics, I will have some more generic upgrade suggestions for you at the bottom of the article (better lands, ramp, etc.).
Upgrading Into Auras
The goal of this upgrade path is to focus the deck entirely on Auras to maximize the value of our best cards, most notably our commander, Killian, Decisive Mentor. In order to do so, we're cutting all the Politics/Pillowfort cards that don't overlap with our Aura theme.
Below are 27 cards I suggest adding and 27 cards I suggest cutting. Feel free to add as many of the cards you want, there's no single "essential" card you need, so I'd focus on adding cards you already own/cards you can acquire for cheap before purchasing anything expensive.
Add These
Alright, first let's increase the amount of auras in our deck. More auras = more triggers = more power!
Add these auras:
- Mantle of the Ancients single best aura, mass recursion and wincon
- Glasswing Grace flexible land, gives evasion and lifelink, better on your own creature though otherwise opponent will gain life
- Kaya's Ghostform, Timely Ward, additional protection especially for our commander
- Ethereal Armor, All That Glitters, Twinblade Blessing turn any evasive creature into a game-ender once we have a critical mass of enchantments
- Grievous Wound is nasty, kills anyone in a hurry, especially good against Lifegain decks
- Eye of Nidhogg and Spirit Loop are great to slap on opponents' creatures, Loop is worded in a way that YOU (the owner of the aura) gain the life, not the enchanted creature's controller
- Minimus Containment, Reprobation, removal in aura form!
- Angelic Gift, Feather of Flight, Rune of Mortality, Scourgemark, Unquestioned Authority, THIS IS MY SECRET SAUCE! I've been brewing Aura decks for a decade now, and 2-mana cantrip auras are the secret engine that make them run smoothly! Cheap to cast means you can spam them into our aura payoff cards like Kor Spiritdancer and our commander to trigger them like crazy, they replace themselves so they keep your hand full and add consistency, just perfect! The ones that give evasion are the best, but the non-evasive two still work!
Then add these aura/enchantress payoffs:
- Ghostly Dancers, Hallowed Haunting, Sigil of the Empty Throne are the best token generators for Enchantress imo, don't need Ghostly Prisons when you have an army of 4/4 flyers that can also swing and win!
- Retether simply the best mass recursion spell for Auras second only to Replenish which is a billion dollars
- Sigarda's Aid flash enablers are strong, but at 1 mana???? Absurd!
- Greater Auramancy shroud for all your enchanted creatures and enchantments is amazing for 2 mana
Then finally a couple non-aura cards that I think are worth it:
- The Legend of Yangchen one of the best removal spells in casual Commander imo, does a bunch extra too
- Aura of Silence also amazing removal/stax
- Knight of the White Orchid and Claim Jumper is great catch-up ramp, the deck needed a bit more ramp that isn't just mana discounts, and there's some Plains + Swamp duals in the deck they can fetch
Here's all the card recommendations in a handy list:
Cut These
First, we cut the Political cards that don't further our Aura gameplan:
- Defacing Duskmage, Keen Duelist, Breena, the Demagogue, Nils, Discipline Enforcer, Tomik, Wielder of Law, Combat Calligrapher, Firemane Commando, Mangara, the Diplomat, Shadrix Silverquill, Secret Rendezvous, Ghostly Prison
Then I cut generic useful cards for better options for Auras:
The final cards are okay, and they are on-theme for Auras, but I'm adding 27 cards and now need to cut the weakest options to make room for better ones:
- Armored Skyhunter, Combat Calligrapher, Songbirds' Blessing I think a lot of people are going to be shocked at these cuts, but as someone who has played with these cards extensively, they are simply too slow for Auras. They would be fine cards in most other archetypes, but the secret to Auras is that they want to cast multiple auras per turn and snowball fast, and this "once per attack" thing doesn't cut it. Literally Feather of Flight is better here because you cast it for half the cost (or less) and get a bunch of triggers and also replace itself to keep going.
- Raffine's Guidance, Sentinel's Eyes, Fallen Ideal, Screams from Within, Angelic Destiny these cards are good if we are low on auras to cast, because eventually they come back to hand and we can recast them. This is no longer the case with the upgraded deck. We are swimming in auras and card draw now. We don't run out of gas.
- Intermediate Chirography, Spirit Mantle, Forum Filibuster all kinda mediocre honestly.
- Ghostly Prison we don't need a dedicated pillowfort card when we poop out armies of 4/4 flyers and goad everything on the table
- Eldrazi Conscription flashy but 9/10 times you'll much rather see Ethereal Armor in your hand instead
List of cards:
The Upgraded Deck
This is what the deck now looks like with the adds and cuts:
Generic Upgrades
If you want to upgrade the deck further, or if you want to upgrade the precon but don't want to take out the non-Aura Political/Pillowfort cards, the easiest way to give it a power boost is to just upgrade the lands so they are faster and consistent:
Swap out lands that enter tapped basically. That's it.
Beyond that you can add generic staples like Demonic Tutor, Vampiric Tutor, Smothering Tithe, etc. Up to you!
One Down, Four To Go!
Now that it dawned on me that I have to rush out four more decks in the next few days while the hype train is still rolling, oh boy, I probably need to hurry up! Thanks for reading, see you soon!
