“Silverquill Influence” Precon Upgrade | Secrets of Strixhaven | 738
74 min
•Apr 24, 2026about 1 month agoSummary
The Command Zone podcast features a detailed upgrade guide for the Silverquill Influence precon deck from Magic: The Gathering's Secrets of Strixhaven set. Hosts Rachel Weeks and guest Jordan Bridgen analyze the deck's mechanics, reprints, and provide 10 card additions and 10 cuts to optimize gameplay around the commander Killian, Decisive Mentor, focusing on aura synergies and political gameplay.
Insights
- Aura-based strategies require careful balance between aura count and payoff cards; 24 auras may be excessive when only 8 non-aura enchantments exist, suggesting the deck could pivot toward enchantment-focused gameplay rather than pure aura stacking
- Protection and recursion are critical in aura decks due to inherent two-for-one vulnerability; adding cards like Umbra Mystic and Retether significantly improves resilience against removal-heavy metas
- Political gameplay in commander requires clear messaging through card selection; mixing 'carrot' (incentive) and 'stick' (deterrent) effects confuses opponents and reduces deck effectiveness
- Low mana curves (2.98 average) with limited ramp (8 pieces) can work in precons if cost reducers and efficient payoffs are prioritized, but may require adjustment based on playgroup speed
- Recurring aura engines (like Spellbook Vendor and Eye of Nidhogg) transform the deck from incremental value to overwhelming advantage, making them priority upgrades over one-time effects
Trends
Precon reprint value has increased significantly ($240.50 total, $4.81 per dollar MSRP vs. $3.06 average 2025), indicating publisher commitment to sealed product value despite $50 MSRP increaseNew land cycles with multiplayer-friendly mechanics (Turbulent Moor entering untapped based on opponent land count) are becoming standard in commander preconsEnchantment-focused strategies are gaining design space with new mechanics like Prepare (Strixhaven) that enable explosive late-game plays and graveyard recursionFlash mechanics on auras (Changing Loyalty) are being used to create political gameplay moments and combat trick potential in multiplayer formatsClass enchantments (Intermediate Chirography) represent a new enchantment subtype that bridges creature and enchantment gameplay, though early implementations may be underpowered
Topics
Silverquill Influence precon deck upgrade strategyAura-based commander deck construction and optimizationKillian, Decisive Mentor commander analysis and synergiesEnchantment payoff engines and cost reducersPolitical gameplay and goad mechanics in multiplayer commanderAura protection and recursion strategiesPrecon reprint value analysis and comparisonTwo-for-one vulnerability in aura strategiesMana curve optimization for low-cost commandersCombat manipulation and creature tapping effectsRecurring enchantment effects and token generationRemoval and disruption in white-black color pairCard advantage engines in enchantment-focused decksMultiplayer-friendly land mechanicsFlash mechanics in aura strategies
Companies
Card Kingdom
Primary sponsor and recommended retailer for purchasing precon decks and individual cards for deck upgrades
Ultra Pro
Sponsor providing deck boxes, sleeves, playmats, and accessories for card storage and protection
ShipStation
Sponsor offering order fulfillment and warehouse management platform for e-commerce operations
Shopify
Sponsor providing e-commerce platform for online retail and merchandise sales
Raycon
Sponsor offering wireless earbuds and audio accessories
Arcidekt
Sponsor providing online deck-building and playtesting platform for Magic: The Gathering
Wizards of the Coast
Publisher of Magic: The Gathering and creator of Secrets of Strixhaven set discussed throughout episode
People
Rachel Weeks
Co-host of The Command Zone podcast leading the Silverquill precon upgrade discussion
Jordan Bridgen
Special guest who previously upgraded original Silverquill precon, provides gameplay experience and card evaluation
Josh
Mentioned as part of Command Zone team attending Magic Con Las Vegas for signings and gameplay
Jimmy
Mentioned as part of Command Zone team attending Magic Con Las Vegas for signings and gameplay
Johannes Voss
Featured artist launching Johannes Voss Token Collection Kickstarter with 50+ custom token designs
Quotes
"500 orders a month was manageable. 5000 is madness! Embrace intelligent order fulfilment with ShipStation."
ShipStation Ad Read•Opening
"Killian is what to build around for at least this version of the deck. The problem with Scriv is that since there is no built in card advantage on Scriv you are set to lose card advantage by getting two for one for your auras."
Rachel Weeks•Mid-episode analysis
"People don't like being goaded and the dream is that you go to a big creature someone else has and then they attack with it and that person goes you hit me with that big creature but it doesn't feel like that."
Jordan Bridgen•Gameplay strategy discussion
"Auras are an inherently risky strategy. If you had 30 auras in a deck, you're kind of setting yourself up for failure."
Rachel Weeks•Deck construction analysis
"Cheap recurring enchantments are just going to be really key and really powerful because that's how you turn it into an engine instead of just a little bit of a card advantage."
Jordan Bridgen•Piloting tips section
Full Transcript
500 orders a month was manageable. 5000 is madness! Embrace intelligent order fulfilment with ShipStation. The only platform combining order management, warehouse workflows, inventory, returns and analytics in one place. What used to take five separate tools, ShipStation does in one. Go to ShipStation.com and use code START to try ShipStation free for 60 days. Greetings humans, you have entered the command zone. Your destination for all aspects of Elder Dragon Highlander. Enjoy your stay. Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Command Zone Podcast. I'm your host Rachel Weeks and today joining me as a very special guest is Jordan Bridgen. It's me, Jordan Bridgen. Yeah, and you know what that means? We got a cool episode cooked up for you. Wow. We are upgrading the Silverquill Influence Precon from Secrets of Strixhaven. They make them hard to say in this plane. I'll tell you that. Rachel, you know part of why I was like eager to do this one? Yes. Because the first upgrade I did on the channel was the original Silverquill. Was the Brino one? That's so cool. We just still got that deck. We've come full circle. Well, you've got to build Killian now and you know this deck inside and out, I'm sure. Because Silverquill has a vibe and we've kept with it very much. In this episode, we're going to be talking about everything that comes in the Silverquill Influence Influence Precon. Off the shelf, what kind of value you're getting, what kind of reprints there are and how the deck is built. And then we're going to give you 10 cards to add and 10 cards to take out to get your deck into peak fighting shape. Make a play real good. But of course to do that, we have to meet the face commander. And the face commander of this deck is Killian, Decisive Mentor. Some of you might remember Killian from the previous Strixhaven set. He's decisive now. He's back. He's less under the thumb of his father, I think. And he is one white and a black for a two, three legendary creature, human warlock. And whenever an enchantment you control enters, tap up to one target creature and goad it. That's pretty cool. And then whenever one or more creatures that are enchanted by an aura, you control attack, draw a card. Worth noting that's not creatures you control necessarily, so you enchant someone else's creatures, one of your aura and they attack with it. You get to draw a card. Yeah, as long as you're driving the aura, you're drawing the card. That's pretty sweet. So you have an element to force them attack, to attack on the board. Notably after that they don't remain goaded. They're just goaded for the one turn. Believe it or not, this deck has ways to re-goad it. But we're definitely looking at some combat control aura type stuff here. Yeah. And you know, it's got a bit of a value engine thing going on. It's clearly trying to play in the same sort of space that the former Silver Quill decks were, which is like, get people fighting each other instead of you. We can go into some of the details later as we're kind of going into the strategy and stuff, but this definitely seems more like direct aggression. You know, like Brina and the old Silver Quill strategy felt a little bit more like reward people for attacking each other. This is much more like, do it. Do it. Attack each other. Get goaded. Get him. He said you sucked. That's the old backstab and goad. So an interesting thing here is whenever one or more creatures are enchanted by an order, you control attack, draw a card. So you can draw up to four cards in a turn rotation, hypothetically, if you have goaded. If you have someone on every board. If every single player has an enchanted creature by you that attacks. But you can only draw one, even if you have like five enchanted creatures of your own, you can only draw one card. Yeah, so you do want to like find ways to spread out a little bit if you really want to get, you know, a ton out of that whole thing. Yeah, and you have the ability to open up attacks by playing enchantments and tapping down creatures. So you've got like some disruption here, you've got some card draw here, and you've clearly got an enchantment theme going on. Let's meet the backup commander and see if they're playing by the same rules. The backup commander is Scriv the Obligator. I love obligators, you know, that's always fun. Scriv is two, a white and a black for a two, three legendary creature, Inkling Bird. It is flying, it is death touch. And whenever Scriv enters or attacks, create a white aura enchantment token named contract attached to target creature and opponent controls. The token has enchant creature and whenever enchanted creature attacks, it gets plus two, plus zero until end of turn if it's attacking one of your opponents. Otherwise, its controller loses to life. Okay, so this is sort of the flip side of Killian, where Killian wants you to bring the enchantments to the board and goads them. Scriv says, I've got enchantments. It'll make the enchantments and it actually, I think this is a little more, like I said, kind of in the brina side of things where it's like... Encouraging. Look at this nice thing I'll give you for doing the thing I want you to do. And don't hurt me. You're like, you can attack me, but I mean, it's gonna hurt. But like, please don't. Yeah, I think Scriv seems really cool. Scriv is very cool, so Scriv is three mana? Four mana. Two white black, yeah. Okay. So a little expensive, but you know, he is a flying death touch creature, which makes him a pretty decent attacker. Absolutely, and blocker. Yeah, and he does need to attack to do his thing, or you know, consistently. I guess you could also potentially do like some sort of flicker deal with Scriv. Absolutely. I think that's very... Because he's in white, so you know, there's a lot of flicker in those colors. Yeah, so Scriv is sort of an interesting other side of things where I'd be like, where Killian is a payoff for the enchantments and you would run a lot of enchantments in the deck. Scriv brings a lot of enchantments, but you're probably running more payoffs in the deck or more, you know, combat manipulation and treats and political stuff. Yeah. So they're sort of the opposite sides of the same coin in many ways, but clearly it gives you an idea for what this deck is going for, which is we're doing some oros, we're doing some politics, and probably we're making it to the late game, because we're not getting attacked by much. I could see some fun with Scriv too, because you know, the contract that he puts on is not like rolls. You can stack a bunch of contracts on the same creature. Yeah. So you can maybe use it with Killian to like goad that creature and then they've got to attack and they'll get huge and take each other out. They do work very well together, because Scriv makes the enchantments that trigger Killian to draw cards and Killian goads the things that are contracted, so definitely two cards working hand in hand there. Cool. Okay, so I think we've got a good idea of what this deck is doing. If you want to pick up this deck or you want to pick up any of the cards that we're going to talk about in this episode, or if you're as excited about Strixhaven as we are, you can support the show while buying some magic cards, but if you go to cardkingdom.com.com. We're going to be talking about a ton of magic cards today, and these pre-cons are awesome. We think you guys are going to love them, so we expect a lot of people to be building them and finding new tech, and you can go to Card Kingdom and get a ton of those cards all in one place. Especially when a new set comes out, Card Kingdom has a huge amount of inventory, so you can just get all the cards that you want from a set you're excited about, all in one place, have them shipped to your door, and have a big deck upgrading party. And you can get the pre-cons that you're excited about from Card Kingdom while supporting the show at cardkingdom.com.com. Okay, and once those cards are in your hand, once this deck is in your hand, you're going to need to keep it safe, go to ulcerbrood.com.com to get all of the accessories that you need to keep your collection looking good. They've got play mats, binders, deck boxes, sleeves, dice, everything you need to have a well represented and well organized battle space. Plus, they've got the mana eight line, which is a great bright white sort of modern looking series of sleeves and play mats and deck boxes, but we particularly like them during magic on season because they make great mementos that you can sign or have artists sign, because they're super clear and you can just see all of the signatures. You can have everybody you play against in the weekend sign it and make a cool memento for your weekend of magic playing. And you can only get that at ulcerbrood.com and use our affiliate link with the slash command. We did it. We did it. If you're going to Game Night Live, you should come see us. That'd be great. We always have fun. It's nice to see people. We're very stoked to be back and to be going back to another magic on in Vegas this time. We are doing Game Night Live. It is on Friday. If you haven't seen it, it's a spectacle. Oh my gosh. And we've got some extra stuff planned for this one. It's going to be a wild show. And you don't need extra tickets or anything to come see the show. As long as you have access to the floor on Friday, you can come see it. But get there a little bit early so you get a seat right up front and you get to see the show. Because we are stoked, but if you can't be there on Friday, we're going to be wandering around in the halls. You can meet members of our team that are just there playing magic. There's signings with Josh, Jimmy and myself. Hopefully we get to see you there. It's going to be a ton of fun. So you can support the show directly if you go to patreon.com.com. That's a way to join our community and just support the content that you hopefully like. Plus, we shout out one lucky patron every single podcast episode. And this one is dedicated to... Tenno Jack! Tenno Jack. You rock. You rock Tenno Jack. Ten-o-jack. I am the Tenno Jacks. Oh, I did not put that together. The Tenno Jack. Alright, maybe. Yeah, no, that Jack isn't a suit. Jack isn't card type. You can't be a tin and a jack. What is happening here? I'm having a stroke. Fine, go on rocking, Tenno Jack. I'm confusing us. Yeah, we don't know what it's about. Leave us a comment. I did want to throw just an extra little like kudos to Card Kingdom. Yeah? Because I just ordered for a deck I'm building, which I assume you'll probably see on content at some point. Like, 180 cards at once for a thing. And they all just came very fast, very well organized, put together just in one package. And I just imagined having to sort through a thousand different packages and stuff. Categorize and make sure all of them are there. And don't take this against them, but there was one minor card that was missing. And I literally just called them up, told them which card, and they had it sent out like immediately afterwards. It was so easy, really convenient. They're the best. They rule. They're very good. Love those guys. Alright, let's talk about what comes in the Silver Quill Influence box. We're going to talk about the reprint value. We have a couple of caveats before we get to some actual numbers. Of course, all these numbers are taken at time of recording, which is before these decks are announced. So, the number that we give you is a relative number that you can use to compare to other pre-cons, past pre-cons, future pre-cons, to give you an idea for, you know, how much, what the scale of value that you're getting. But it's not a literal number, because once a reprint is announced, those numbers go down. That's how it works. And unfortunately, that's the best we can do for you. We don't know how... We'll try. We don't know the future. We don't know. We're doing our best. We have the technology. And I want to do a quick note that the MSRP for pre-cons is now $50. They increased it in Lorwin when they took the collector packs away. What good marketing. Oh boy. Just nailed it. Well done. Do them at the same time. No one was upset about that. Yeah. So, they are a little bit more expensive than you're used to, but the reprint value is quite strong. Why don't you reveal this number to them, Jordan? Okay. The total reprint value for this one is $240.50. Woo! Real good. This is a very good reprint value. And to give you a little bit of a comparison, so in 2025, obviously the MSRP was a little lower then, but the average reprint value was $152.71. So, we're like $90 above average. It's a big increase. For me, that says that we have made a concerted effort to increase the reprint value in the box, even as we're taking out literal value, like the packs and that kind of stuff, they have added very real reprints to these pre-conds. I will say flipping through this deck for the first time. We'll go into the specifics of which cards are in the thing, but I kept seeing cards being like, oh, that's in this? Oh, that's in this? Like, these are cards that I think are going to hold value and gain value again and stuff. So, we'll see. Yeah. It's a good list of cards. So, and that only includes the reprints in the deck. There's 71 reprints. This doesn't include the 12 new cards, the main deck card, and the 16 basic lands. So, you get a little bit of bonus there as well. We do like to do a bang for your buck value these days because with the changing price of pre-cons so much, we want to make sure that we're able to compare one pre-con to another. So, we took the total reprint value, the 240.50, and divided it by the MSRP, which is 50. You can change that number to be whatever price you find the deck at. And we found a bang for your buck value of $4.81 of reprints for your $1 American cash. Pretty good. So, quite strong. The average BFYB for 2025 was $3.06, so we're almost $2 above that. Pretty huge. Yeah, not bad. So, I know you're like, get on with it. What are the cards? Let's talk about the notable reprints in the deck, which are just, we're just going to talk about the ones that are over $5, which there are 18 of these things. Yes, it's a lot. Holy cow. All right, let's get into them. The first one here was one of the first ones I noticed and was like, oh my gosh, which is a Land Tax. I did the same thing when I saw this. It was like, they put a Land Tax in it? Land Tax in this deck? What the? Wild. That card is sitting at $20 right now and it's sort of a coveted expensive staple over the years. It's come down a lot, but like, it's a great card. It's really sweet. But it's still very good, yeah. It's a little weird in this deck. It felt like it should have been in the Lorehold deck, which is all about rummaging, but that's fine. It's good. It's a very good card. Definitely. The next card on this list is sitting at $18 and it is a staple for Silver Quills everywhere. It's Ink Shield. Originated in the Brina deck and it has been a great format piece and is really good. A menacing fun. I think it would be very solid. After that is one that I know I added to my Brina deck over the years, which was the Firemane Commando. Oh yeah. It's sitting at $14 right now. A great way to draw cards and a good place to put some auras. The next one is at $12. It's an aura itself. It's Ghoulish Imputus. This is one of the more popular imputuses. Imputis. Imputis. Imputis. Imputisies. Imputisies that they've printed over the years because when that creature, like when the enchanted creature dies, you get it back to your hands. Yeah, which is pretty nice. Auras can be bad about the two for one elements of this thing. They're slippery. Which we'll talk about. After that, there is Songbird's Blessing, which is currently sitting at $10 and is another kind of aura staple. Because it lets you get more auras when you attack with the creature. Which is pretty neat. Up next is Animate Dead sitting at $10. A very powerful aura. Not even an aura I necessarily think of as an aura. No, not at all. But very good. Yep. Followed up by Arcane Lighthouse, which is at $10 right now. And is, you know, just a great one for a deck like this where you need to target people's creatures. You don't want to throw a shadow spear in there, which is also very expensive right now. Yeah. Next up is War Room sitting at $9. A little strange in a two-color deck, but a decent place to put your mana. Yeah, not too bad. Followed by Ghostly Prison, which is currently $9 and continues to be a format staple. Oh yeah, you need all the Ghostly Prisons you can get. And then an uncommon from Dusk Mourn getting in there at $7.50. It's sheltered by ghosts. Yeah. This card's gnarly. Pretty good. Gives the Enchanted Creature plus 1 plus 0, Life Link and Ward 2 while O-Ringing a non-land permanent. That's a lot for two mana. A lot. O-Ringing meaning just exiling a thing until that enchantment leaves the battlefield. Yeah, I think it seems pretty solid. Yeah. Up next is Gift of Immortality currently at $7.25. Cool one. It's just an aura that gives something basically immortality. It makes it come back and then if it lives long enough, the immortality comes back onto it. Yeah. Fun card. It's a cool way to protect your pieces. Combat Calligrapher is the next one sitting at $7. This was originally from the Silver Quill Precon. Yep. It gives tokens to your opponents and protects you from those tokens. So again, a little bit of the carrot to attack your opponents. Then another one from the original Silver Quill Precon, which is Nils Discipline Enforcer. It is sort of a ghostly prison in a way. It puts counters on your opponent's creatures and then they can't attack you unless they pay for the amount of counters they have or something like that. Right. Yeah. It's very good against plus 1 counter-decks. Yeah. Incidentally, it can just work very well against counter-decks, which is nice. And that's at $7 right now. Up next, it's $6.50 is Armored Sky Hunter. This is a great drawing engine for aura and equipment decks and a great reprint here. Great. And then we're at the end of the page, so there's probably not more. Oh, gosh. There's still more cards. The next one is Shielded by Faith. Yeah. Yeah. A aura gives indestructible and you can kind of move it around to creatures as they enter the battlefield. So, it's $6 for Shielded by Faith and $5 for Eldrazi Conscription. That's a big ol' aura. Big boy. Probably don't put that on your opponent's creatures unless you have a plan. Then you've got $5 for Corspira Dancer, a staple for aura's decks, and at $5 sneaking in their Areate of the Charmed Apple. Which, you know, I think is sort of the most popular commander for this strategy before this deck has come out. Yes, I would agree. This is a commander that has you put auras on your opponent's creatures and it says they can't attack you and it's also a bit of a win condition because it does some draining. I like her much better in the 99 than in the command zone. You need a much stronger engine and a commander that's a little less petrifying for your opponents. Okay. Let's... So, those are the reprints that are over $5. I got lost because it was so long. Yeah. A ton of really good pieces in here. Obviously, everything we talked about is kind of aura focused. So, if you're not looking for aura cards, you probably don't care about those reprints all that much. A lot of them are, yeah, pretty specialized. Yeah, but this is a lot of the cards you're looking for under one roof, which is pretty cool. So, that's what's in the deck financially. We, of course, have to break down what's in the deck mechanically, which means it's time to get into the... Stats. Stats. Stats. Stats. Stats. Stats. Okay. Yeah, let's talk about the deck stats. This is a section we like to do just to understand what the deck is doing mechanically, find out what it's prioritizing, and how well we think it's built. We start with the categories that we know and love that go in every commander deck, like ramp. And in this deck, there are eight ramp pieces. I would call that a little low. I agree. It does have a three-mana commander, which sometimes if you over-ramp on a low-cost commander, it's sort of a trap. Yeah, it's just a waste of cards. Yeah, exactly. Like, if you're just like, you know, adding all this mana that you're not using early on, it can be a problem. So, but you do, I would say this signals to me that we probably want to either increase the ramp or lower the curve on deck. Yeah. So, eight pieces of ramp is very interesting. That includes a couple of cost reducers for enchantments and ororas. Yeah. Yeah. And cost reducers are very powerful. Cost reducers are great. They're definitely not going to help you get Killian down a turn earlier. There's no kind of ramp, really, that, I mean, soul ring, I guess, as a deck. Sure. But I agree. Eight is a little bit low. And we'll talk about the average mana curve in a second. Up next is card advantage. There are 21 pieces of card advantage in this deck. 21. Especially with your commander being a card advantage piece. 21 is a huge amount. I mean, that means we're really, really prioritizing getting more cards into your hand. Yeah. And making sure you always have choices to make and cards to cast, especially in an aura strategy where you are often committing two cards on one creature. It's important that you are able to replace those. Up next, we have the targeted disruption, which there are 11 pieces of in the deck. Okay. It's fair. It's also worth pointing out that this number is a little deceptive because we are counting things like impetuses and stuff, which, yes, you know, get rid of a creature from attacking you, but like, don't necessarily remove problematic creatures from the board if they have a static effect or something like that. So, I don't remember exactly how many are, you know, like traditional removal, but it's a much, it's a lower number than that. It is, yeah. Certainly lower. There are nine pieces of mass disruption, though, which is a fair amount that does include Killian, the face commander, because of the tap and goad situation, he can control a lot of creatures on the board, assuming you're casting all of those enchantments. Yup. Finally, there are 37 lands and 16 basics. This is a little bit lower than I normally go, but for a deck like this that is going to have a pretty low curve, I don't think that you're much lower than you need to be, and honestly, it's probably fine. Yup. Okay, so we're going to talk about the more deck-specific stats, trying to understand what this deck is trying to do a little bit better. And the first question I had, of course, is how many auras are in the deck? And the answer is 24. That is a boat load. That's a lot of auras. Yeah, we normally say that in order to build a deck around something, that you want 30 of that thing. But auras require another piece in order to be good. Because if you don't have anything to play the auras on, they just don't really do anything. Yeah, if you have a handful of auras and no creatures, you're in big trouble. Even if you have a couple auras that go on your opponent's stuff, like you're not really building a board. So honestly, I think 24 auras might be a little high, but... Auras are an inherently risky strategy, too, which we'll go into a little bit as we're talking about our upgrades and stuff. But I think if you had 30 auras in a deck, you're kind of setting yourself up for failure. I agree. I think closer to 20 auras is probably right. It reminds me a little of planeswalkers. If you're building a planeswalker deck, you likely don't have 30 planeswalkers in the deck. That's just kind of too many. So you're much closer to an 18 or 20, and I think it'll feel a little bit more comfortable. But there are a lot of cards that care about auras specifically in the deck. These are aura payoffs, and there are 21 aura payoffs. It's pretty good. So that includes stuff that cares about auras specifically, like cost reducers. It's not exactly a payoff, but is focused on aura as a type. There's a couple enchantress pieces that specifically will draw you cards when you play auras or something like that. Or they only reduce the casting cost of auras specifically, that kind of thing. And then I was like, okay, well, maybe the deck has a strong goad theme since your commander is doing it, and that's sort of what Scriv does. And there's only seven cards that explicitly goad. That is including your commander in the command zone, and obviously enchantments when you do that. Which to be fair, I kind of looked into it a bit. And goad is not a very primary mechanic in black and white. I agree. The other thing I wanted to look up is the number of enchantments in the deck. Yeah, just normal enchantments. Yeah, because Killian doesn't require an aura to trigger the goad ability. So it would be fine to have a lot of enchantments. And there's 32 in the deck. That's pretty good. That seems like that fits more of the matters thing number you were talking about. Right. So it's definitely checking that box. It's going to be able to reliably trigger Killian. And that's going to include enchantment creatures and stuff too. Yes. Something that really was interesting to me about that number is with 24 auras in the deck, that means that like only, what a, oh god, bad math. 32 is eight. There's only eight enchantments in the deck that are not auras. Yeah. Like that's a very surprising number to me. It feels like the deck could have really been built in a slightly different way where it's just really focused on auras that go in the battlefield. So it's an interesting number to keep in mind if you wanted to take this in a less aura direction and a more just like enchantment type of direction. I could definitely see that working. Like you could get just a lot of like mileage out of just playing a ton of cheap enchantments or even flickering enchantments and just like goading stuff down. Tapping and goading. Yeah. You don't even have to worry about the card advantage necessarily on him. You probably want to play some amount of auras in the deck, but you don't necessarily need to play 24. You could play like 12 or 15 and feel like you could pretty reliably draw a card off of Killian in a turn rotation. Definitely. Okay. So finally we want to talk about the average mana value of the deck and it is currently sitting at 2.98. It's pretty good. Pretty good. So that's actually fairly low for these kinds of pre-cons. And to me that makes the eight ramp spells make a lot of sense. Not as egregious. I don't think I would play more ramp spells in a deck that doesn't really have the top end. That's like you don't really have a place to ramp into. Definitely. But the cost reducers obviously good. Yeah. Okay. So that's what the deck is doing. That's what's in it. I think we have a pretty good idea of what the deck feels like now. And you've played this deck a couple of times. Yeah. We played a couple of lunch games just like with all the pre-cons against each other. Which I think is really informative because it's also like a lot of how people are going to play this when it first happens. And I thought the deck was pretty good. What I will say is you sort of have this image in your mind of it immediately being like this huge just draw tons of cards engine. And it didn't quite feel like that. At least not like out of the gate. It did draw like a decent amount of hate but it had enough cards to sort of like help counteract that a bit. But I think I came to the conclusion from playing it and it was still pretty fun that Killian is what to build around for at least this version of the deck. Yeah. I think having this many auras in the deck just doesn't make a ton of sense with Scriv. The problem with Scriv and I think Scriv is a great commander and there's like some cool stuff you could do is that since there is no built in card advantage on Scriv you are set to lose card advantage by getting two for one for your auras. Sure. Yeah. And then you're falling behind. Whereas Killian like at least can sort of catch you up with the two for one's you're losing and sometimes get you really ahead on things which is nice. Sure. Okay. So we have Killian in the command zone. That's the plan. So after playing it we're going to make a couple of tweaks to the deck and I want to talk about your goals with those 10 cards to the deck. My first big goal in the deck was to protect your investment a little bit. Sure. I found myself getting two for one pretty hard. Once you have stacked a couple or once you've stacked a couple auras on either one of your people or even on one of theirs it just makes it a really juicy target for your opponent's removal. Sure. I even had a timer too where I cast a card to enchant someone else's thing and someone was like that's the excuse I needed to remove that and actually get more out of it. Yeah. Brutal. So what's your investment was the first thing I wanted to do? That makes sense to me especially in an aura deck where there are so many of those risky moments to be like I go for a play and this can be foiled so easily. The next thing I wanted to do was just like cast a lot of auras, find some repeatable auras and there are some in the deck already but just increase the number of ones that are like okay this can be part of building your engine. You know you can reliably have this aura once you have it out. Right because ideally with Killian you want to have an aura on each player's creature and so you can be drawing up to four cards in a turn rotation but that's very difficult to commit that many auras to the board especially on reliable attackers those tend to get removed. The last point you have here I think is very interesting and is going to be an important thing for people to know about this deck. Yeah which is to stop people from killing you in anger. People don't like being goaded and the dream is that you go to a big creature someone else has and then they attack with it and that person goes you hit me with that big creature but it doesn't feel like that. They tend to go sorry I've got to attack you and then it's my fault or your fault if you're playing Killian and people take the opportunity to be like well we've got to kill you. I find that when I play against go decks and I find a window where I can attack them I do. You want to. Yeah because you have to take your opportunities when you can otherwise you're not going to be in control of where that damage goes later. And at least in my experience with the deck you're not necessarily going to be able to be like and Chairman Chen go go go go go and go to all the threats you're going to be strategically goading a couple important threats. So there is going to be stuff that's still going to be there to swing at you. Yeah it's very interesting so we've got a couple of different things that we're going to do in this upgrade but there are some really awesome cards that we do want to highlight before we move on and talk about adding stuff. We're going to take a second to talk about the new cards that are in the deck that just feel really good with the way that the deck works and you've been very impressed with. The first one that really caught my eye and I think is really cool is a Ganjo Dynastorian. This is a 2 and a White for a 2-3 creature Fox Advisor clearly coming across from Kamigawa there. And this creature has vigilance and whenever you attack with two or more creatures this creature becomes prepared which is like the new mechanic in Strixhaven where they have like a spell tacked on to them that you can cast if they are prepared. And this spell is Replenish which is 3 and a White for a sorcery return all enchantment cards from your graveyard to the battlefield. This is so cool. That's great and I mean this is also something that feels relatively easy to prepare in this deck just attacking with two creatures plus Killian can just get you a window if you need to attack you can tap down some problematic blockers. A Ganjo Dynastorian also doesn't need to be the one attacking and you want to be attacking anyway so you know I think this is going to play really nicely into the deck. Very cool great in the late game for sure. The next one I picked out was a course of impetus and this is another impetus card this is 2 and a Black for an enchantment aura. Enchanted creature gets a plus 1 plus 1 and is goaded. Whenever enchanted creature attacks you draw a card and you lose one life. So I just think this is cool because this is a strong effect to have on a goaded creature from someone else and if you have Killian out then when that creature attacks you're drawing two cards and losing one life. That's true yeah. And they stay goaded on this one so this is a great way to like semi permanently remove something it could be a nice thing to put on an opponent's commander if they don't have like a tap ability or something like that. Yeah this is a very cool one I mean any kind of recurrable card draw in this deck is going to be really something you're happy to see. Up next this one I just thought was really cool. It's so cool. This is changing loyalty. This is an enchantment aura with flash and replicate 2 which is a little bit like squad if you remember that one. When you cast this spell copy it for each time you paid its replicate cost you may choose new targets for the copies. Copies become tokens and it just has when enchanted creature dies return it to the battlefield under your control. So if someone casts a board wipe you can be like cool I'll pay six and take the three best creatures on the battlefield to be mine now. So cool and it's a bunch of auras in a box which is really sweet as he is killing when they enter. That is a lot of Killian triggers. That's very cool so you can yeah squad this or replicate this for additional four mana. I think you get to tap and go three things and then have three auras that's pretty sick. Honestly like the flash makes it so you can you know do it as a trick before a board wipe but just doing it kind of whenever is going to be good. Yeah absolutely. Because those creatures are eventually going to die and if not you're drawing cards off of them. So that's the best control tap ability that Killian has because you can open up attacks for other people where you're like I can flash this and it was like look I can tap all of his blockers if you want to send everything his way. And that's how you're going to be really using the politics of the deck. That's where the silver quill of it all kind of comes in. Right you're opening the door for people and you know they won't love that so they'll come back back on you pretty hard but it does give you a lot of impact on combat as it's happening which is very cool. Some cool new cards in this in this well all of the pre cons but I did really want to mention that this deck has three new lands in it. Have never new fetchable lands. Yeah that have never been printed before. The other ones have two new lands in them but this one has three for some reason but I did want to draw attention to one that is a new cycle that is there's one in each in each of these pre cons. What's this one called? One is turbulent more. This land enters tapped unless your opponent controls eight or more lands. It's imponents. Oh unless your opponents control eight or more lands. That's very important. This comes in untapped if your opponents collectively have eight lands. So like three and three and two. Big difference. It basically it's like a fetchable slow land which is very very powerful in multiplayer and the cool thing that Jamie pointed out actually is that when you fetch this into play it comes in untapped a turn earlier if you're going later in the turn rotation. Oh that's interesting so it's a slight advantage if you're behind. Exactly if you're third or fourth in the turn rotation then hypothetically you will have more lands on the battlefield so this is more likely to come in untapped. That's very cool. Very cool. I think this cycle is awesome and I hope they print a lot of it because it's good. I think it's good. Okay so those are the cards that we wanted to highlight that are new from this deck and we've got some cool new cards that we're going to add to just turn some of the screws and tighten things up a little bit. Make sure it's in peak fighting shape for you but before we take a little break I want to hear what you think of this pre-con and all the pre-cons from Strixhaven. There's some very cool ones. I know we're rolling these out a little bit slowly but we are going to get to all of the pre-con so let us know which one is your favorite in the comments below and we'll see you in just a few minutes. 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Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify and start hearing... Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash TCZ. Go to Shopify.com slash TCZ. That's Shopify.com slash TCZ. This message is sponsored by Raycon. Hello, dearies. It's your favorite old auntie. Watch the raid, mother. You see that pair of goblins? I've made them. I've made many pairs of goblins in my day. But these two are my favorites. Why? Because those mighty little bongards conspired to get me the perfect Mother's Day gift, Raycon's everyday earbuds classic. I use them every night, which is all the time here in Shadowmore. With their top-tier audio quality, they're the perfect way to listen to my favorite Golden Glow Girls podcast, All That Glitters. Plus, they're packed with features I love like multi-point connectivity and active noise cancellation. And with 32 hours of battery life, I can take my Raycons anywhere. I wear them on walks. I wear them to the apothecary. I wear them when I'm leading raids against those insufferably snooty elves. Very best part is Raycon's cost half the price of those big brands and still sound just as good. And that's like getting double the value, which is kind of my whole jam. Celebrate the moms in your life. Go to buyraycon.com slash command to get 15% off the everyday earbuds classic. Again, that's buyraycon.com slash command. Thanks, Raycon, for sponsoring. Hey, everybody. We wanted to tell you about something we're pretty excited about around here. It's from a close personal friend of ours, iconic magic artists, and avid commander player, Johannes Voss. If you don't know the name, you definitely know his work, Phorexian Metamorph maybe, or Blood Artist. Restoration Angel, one of my personal favorites. Yeah, Johannes has made some of the best magic artists of all time. And now he's launching a limited time Kickstarter called the Johannes Voss Token Collection, featuring over 50 tokens, all in his own style. Yeah, he's great at magic type fantasy, but his range goes way beyond that. From the super cute cat and bird tokens to the more anime style dragon, you've really just got to see these tokens for yourself. I think my favorite is the construct token with the robot in the field. It feels straight out of Studio Ghibli. Yeah, that same robot shows up on Power Stone. Yeah, he's on a few different tokens, right? Yeah, it's a cute little story. And there's actually a few things like that hidden on the collection, but they're all in order right out of the box so you can't miss them. Oh man, the attention to detail here is wild. Even down to which tokens he included, you can tell he put a ton of care into picking one's commander players actually use. I know, it feels like every deck these days makes 10 plus different tokens, and looking through these, there are 50 of them. It's going to cover a lot of commander decks. And you know, this is the first time these designs are being printed in cardboard. Johannes told us it is super important to him that these were black bordered, exact magic card size, and just ready to sleeve up and play. This guy is so passionate about the game, works so hard on everything he does, and this Kickstarter is a great way to support him. So make sure to get your pledge in at tinyurl.com slash jvtokens. Each box comes with 52 tokens, plus there are some really cool backer rewards from sparkly plastic tokens to real magic card artist proofs. So go to tinyurl.com slash jvtokens or scan the QR code on screen to get your pledge in before it's too late. Man, I cannot wait to get mine. Oh, he sent us some, you can have that one. Thank you. Oh, one for me? These are spoken for. Oh. You know what my favorite thing is about the Architect? How easy it is to build decks. When I'm brewing for game nights, my first draft comes together super fast because I can drag and drop cards straight from EDH Rec or Scryfall, and Architect even sorts them into categories like ramp or card draw automatically, but I can always add new ones or move things around based on my strategy. It's quick, intuitive, and it just makes deckbuilding fun. Architect is the best place to browse, brew, and play test Commander Dex. Just go to architect.com slash command zone to get started. That's arcidekt.com slash command zone. Welcome back everybody. We're talking about the Silver Quill Influence Precon from Secrets of Strixhaven. They put a lot of sounds in these. Silver Quill. Secrets of Minstrixhaven. We are going to be talking about 10 cards that you need to add to this deck to get into peak, fighting, shape, start starting with some auras. Yes. Specifically, some ones that we think are going to give you a lot of auras without having you lose card advantage. Yes. Ones that will just help you repeatedly get some auras going out into the battlefield. I think what better to start the section where we add auras to the deck by adding something that is not an aura. This first card is a spellbook vendor, which I do think is pretty appropriate for a Strixhaven to come on. For sure. It works in the school bookstore. Yes. It's one of my spellbooks. From this guy who's very spooky actually. Eldraine. A spellbook vendor is one in a white for a 2-2 creature human peasant with vigilance. At the beginning of combat on your turn, you may pay one when you do create a sorcerer roll token attached to the target creature you control. This is just going to let you get an aura ETB every turn. I think it's a pretty good rate for it. The other thing, the way rolls work, you can only have one on a creature, but you can add a second roll to that creature and the old one just falls off. You'll always have, as long as you have at least one creature, because you will, you'll have the spellbook vendor. Yes. You can just keep putting that on there. Killian doesn't care about you casting auras, it's about auras entering the battlefield. Roles are actually a really great option for this deck. It plays pretty well with Killian's ability because this one specifically gives the creature plus one plus one and when that creature attacks, Skry One. The Skry One combined with the draw is pretty good. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense to me. This next one is, it's an impetus by another name. Yes. It is Eye of Nidhogg. Who's that? I have no idea, but his eye is an aura. So Nidhogg here is going to help out the Silver Quill with his legendary enchantment, aura, which has an enchanted creature, is a black dragon with base power and tuft is 4-2, has flying and death touch and is goaded. Neat. Yeah. Turns it into a dragon that other people are fighting with. Yeah. Well, the important part is this last line. When Eye of Nidhogg is put into a graveyard from the battlefield, return it to its owner's hand. Nice. Very good. This wording, I think, is particularly good because it doesn't care about how the creature left the battlefield. It says, when Eye of Nidhogg goes to a graveyard, it comes back to your hand. So it doesn't matter if it was bounced or exiled or any sort of way it leaves, you always get Eye of Nidhogg back, which means you're always giving your opponents a dragon that they have to deal with. Talk about aura farming. The kids love that stuff. I've been waiting to say it. You would sit here and be like, aura farming. Don't forget. Don't forget what the kids say. I agree that this kind of recurring aura, especially one that goes, is going to be really powerful in the deck. And Eye of Nidhogg is about $1. Yeah. Nice. So pretty good. Up next, we've got Undo Spirit Dancer. This card's awesome. I think this card's really cool. This is 4-in-1-white for a 3-3 creature core cleric. Whenever an enchantment you control enters, you may create a token that's a copy of it. Do this only once each turn. That's really good with Killian. Two auras for the price of one. That's not the two for one we're worried about. Imagine it with like... Now, wait a minute. It might not work with Eye of Nidhogg because it's legendary. Eye of Nidhogg is legendary, yeah. But imagine it with the other impotences. Which there's many. Yeah. I mean, anytime you cast most of the auras in your deck, you get a second copy of it. That means you can tap and go two things. That means you can enchant one of your own things and an opponent's things. There's a lot of cool things. Well, and honestly, if you're casting a ghostly prison or something and you get two, that becomes backbreaking instead of just already pretty tough to deal with. Yeah, instead of inconvenient. Undo Spirit Dancer is very, very powerful and it's only $4.50. This is the kind of thing that can really put your deck into overdrive. From what I've seen about this deck is it doesn't feel like it ever gets to a point where you're like an overwhelming force. It's very much going to be I whittled you down and I have you fight each other. You keep people fight each other. And tap and like it's little by little. But Undo Spirit Dancer puts you in a situation where you're like, okay, now I have control. And that's going to be sort of a big turning point for you. Absolutely. And you just need some cards that kind of do that stuff. For sure. So, up next, the next goal or the next set of cards are ones where basically we're trying to add protection. To make it so you get blown out less by people removing your stuff, you know, blowing up your Rs, everything like that. To kind of negate the two for one potential a little bit more. And the first one I wanted to add here is Dawn's Truce. Oh yeah, this is a good one. It's essentially a heroic intervention, but you have to gift a card if you want it to be that. If you don't gift a card, it protects your creatures. Permits you control gain, hex proof. Oh, I see. The gift gives it indestructible. Never mind. You always protect all your permanence, which is great for this deck. Right, but sometimes you can like, you know, juke a board wipe. Yeah. I also think the gift card is kind of nice for the like Silver Quill politics. I agree. The whole thing. I think it fits really well. It has Silver Quill vibes in the art too. It's got an owl on it. And Brina is an owl. Yeah. Yeah. This card is just great. It's a very, it's a powerful card for you to put into a deck. And if the pre-con doesn't stay together very long, now you have a Dawn's Truce and you can put it wherever. It's just a good card. The most expensive card that we added today because it's just worth picking up, it's $13. Yeah. Up next is a very underrated protection spell. I love this spell. I think I've been putting it in a lot more decks lately. It is Restoration Magic. For a single white, it's an instant with tiered, so you can choose one additional cost. The first tier is zero, which says target permanent gains hex proof and indestructible until end of turn. The second tier is one, target permanent gains hex proof and indestructible until end of turn. You gain three life. And the third tier is three and a white, permanent you control, gain hex proof and indestructible until end of turn. You gain six life. So you can protect a single thing or you can protect all your things is basically what it is. And the cool thing about this card is it's only $2.25. Yeah. Really affordable. And obviously the rate for protecting your whole board isn't as good, but the other mode of just being able to like stop one thing from dying is really nice. Yeah, I agree. I think this card is pretty spicy. Oh, I love this next pick too. This is a really cool in my role's deck. I think this one's really cool. I think that I either added it or it was part of the Elevier of the Wild Hunt deck that I did a long time back for this, but great card. Umbra Mystic. This is two and a white for a two, two creature human wizard. And it says, auras attached to permanents you control have Umbra Armor. And basically if a enchanted permanent you control would be destroyed, instead remove all damage from it and destroy an aura attached to it. Right. So your aura dies instead of you. Which is great. Yeah. It means you'll need to lose one thing. Yep. It turns a two for one into a just one for one, which can often make people just not want to remove the thing. Yeah. I found this to be really decent protection and it's nice to have it on a creature because in an aura deck you just always need places to put your auras. So having it incidentally be a creature that you can protect. I believe it protects itself as well. It does. Yeah. It's pretty good at protecting itself. You probably do want to enchant it because you want that Umbra Armor on it. This is a cool include. It's sitting at $4 at this point. So not too bad. And then finally this one is probably more of like a big late game play sort of thing. But this is Retether. This is three and a white for a sorcery that says return each aura card from your graveyard to play. Only creatures can be enchanted this way. This can be just a really big play. Oh yeah. I mean when they you're in the late game you're out of gas and you draw this card you're like okay everything's back where it is. Everybody relax. There's a world with Killian out where. Tap tap tap tap tap tap tap tap. You tap everything they have put all your auras on one of your creatures going and kill somebody. Sweet. I think it seems pretty cool. Retether is a sweet card. It's sitting at $7.50 right now but will feel like a big explosive play when you do it. This next category you added a number of different disruption pieces that are more close to like removal removal. I want to add a few more cards that could like get rid of stuff for real. Not just like oh they've got to attack opponents. Right. Like you said this deck can grind people's gears a little bit and they can come for you. So something like a sphere of safety is going to be very good in the deck. So sphere of safety there are a couple effects that are kind of already like this in the deck but sphere of safety is sort of the best of the best. Yeah. Five mana but they do not attack you. This card is a four in a white for an enchantment. It says creatures can't attack you or planes walk as you control unless their controller pays X for each of those creatures where X is the number of enchantments you control. That's a minimum of one. It is likely you can't be attacked. Yeah. It's more likely you have to pay six per and they're like okay we won't. If you've played against this card you know how back breaking this can be. Yeah. Sphere of safety is great especially in a deck like this. I've also found that these kind of effects are less annoying for your I mean they're annoying for your opponents but they're not necessarily stuff that they prioritize removing because they're like it's a later thing it'll be fine. I can still attack somebody. Right. So it just sort of tends to redirect attention and enchantments obviously are not always that easy to get off the battlefield. So five dollars for sphere of safety. The next one is a just a solid piece of removal that's a bit of a pet card of mine. I mean you know I say that as though it's not just a top tier card but it's really good. This is grasp of fate which is one white white for an enchantment and when grasp of fate enters the battlefield for each opponent exile up to one target non-lamp permanent that controller that player controls until grasp of fate leaves the battlefield. It's kind of like a super O-ring. Yeah take one from you and one from you and one from you and you all can work together to get rid of this thing or you don't want to remove it because you don't want to free the things your opponents have underneath it. That's what I love about this card is that if you get good enough things under it. So often people are like well I would love to have this guy back but I don't want to give you I don't know your enormous killer monster. Right yeah it's a move that I really like with grasp of fate is if there's a player who's behind or something you can hit their commander and they'll send their commander to the command zone. Yep. They often do and now they get nothing. Now their team grasp of fate where they're like we love grasp of fate. But out great. I'm not affected by the grasp of fate and you're like you were but you didn't technically lose anything. Yep. So I think grasp of fate can can put you in a pretty good position. It's about 75 cents and you're tapping something down and goading it so it's almost like you're removing four things. It's pretty good. Pretty good. Finally you you mentioned that was just like sometimes. Yeah this is a fun obscure card that I found really kind of digging deep. Yeah yeah. This is a good tech. Yeah a fun little piece of tech called path to exile. Ah yes a single white for an instant. Exhale target creature its controller may search the library for a basic land card put that card onto the battlefield tap then shuffle so a political card. Yeah you know what I do think there's some real politics to speaking softly and carrying a big stick and being like well I've got a path of exile in my hand makes people go oh well that's political power right there. I understand. Yep. I hear you I see what you're seeing. Yeah path to exile is important in decks like this because a lot of the disruption that the deck has is sorcery speed and enchantment based so you're going to be very inflexible in terms of what you can actually deal with. I think the deck only had like five instance in it. Sure. There's a couple flash stuff but like it's very low on instant interaction. That wouldn't surprise me especially with 32 or enchantments in the deck. It is going to be a little flat footed it is going to be difficult to respond to some things especially if they come for you all at once. So path to exile I think is a decent answer and something that you're going to be very happy to have in your hand. Stords and path they just always feel good and white. They're just good. $2.50 for a path to exile which brings the total for this upgrade to $41.50. Get yourself some foils. Some nice. A little sandwich. A pretty big sandwich. A pretty small sandwich. A pretty small sandwich. Get like a muffin. A solid you could probably get a pretty big muffin. Yeah like a really decent size muffin. I say go with a muffin. Small sandwich or a big muffin. In the comments below. All right. Let's get it. We've added 10 cards. We've got to make room for these cards which means cutting 10 cards. Let's talk about which ones didn't make the cut this time. Yes well I'll tell you as we were reading through the cards that were worth over $5 whatever I was like man I'm cutting a decent number of these. But this is what we're doing. First Eldrazi's conscription gone. Yeah you only have eight pieces of ramp. You're not going to get this down. I just don't think you can get there that often. And boy it's eight mana. Get your creature removed is what Eldrazi conscription often feels like. Cut me. Eldrazi conscription might as well say on the card hey if you have removal. This is the time to use it. Right now. Even if they were holding that removal for something else they go well this is the problem now. I love it. It's cool. I like this card better in like a enchantment reanimator deck or something that you can get big permanence from your graveyard back to the battlefield. You're just casting this old fashioned way and that just doesn't feel like the kind of way this deck wants to close the game out. The next one I cut is a shielded by faith. This is just the one that gives a creature indestructible and whenever another creature enters the battlefield you may attach shielded by faith to that creature. I think the idea is that you could pop it around other people's creatures when they E.T.B. and then they're attached or it's fine. I just don't think indestructible is all that good these days. A lot of removal is exile removal and it's a little expensive for what it does. It doesn't even pump the creature or anything like that. A lot of black creature spells are exile removal. A lot of white creature spells are exile removal. A lot of blue creature removal is exile or bounce. I just don't find indestructible to be all that comprehensive. After that I cut screams from within which is just enchanted creature gets minus one, minus one and whenever enchanted creature is put into a graveyard returns screams from within from your graveyard to play. I just don't think you're going to get that many uses out of this. It doesn't have that much of an impact on its own thing. It doesn't force them to attack. I guess you could force them to attack by goading and stuff like that. Yeah, I don't like the idea of stacking multiple auras onto my opponent's creatures. Screams from within probably isn't going to kill the creature. Like we said, you're not really in control of what happens to that creature unless you follow this up with a kill spell. I just think the likelihood you'd get this thing back to your hand is lower than. It's lower than you expected. Yeah. All right, let's go to this next one. This is a new card. It's intermediate chirography. Let's read this one. Intermediate chirography is one and a black for an enchantment class, which I do think is clever that they're doing classes like. I think it's fun. Oh, look at that. Like a different kind of class. Oh my gosh, class used to mean like a Dungeons and Dragons thing. Wow. And now it's a class you go to. Words have many meanings. Wow. The first level is when this class enters, create a two one white and black inkling creature token with flying. So that's its base use. Two mana for a two one flying. One for one and a black, you can level up level two. And whenever you lose life for the first time each turn, put a plus one plus one counter on target creature you control. You don't have any way to lose life like built into the commander or anything. It feels like the only way this triggers is if somebody attacks you and this isn't really a deterrent or don't attack me. And it's not much of a payoff when it happens to you. I don't care if you get a plus one counter on one bird. It's only once per turn. It's not like if they ping you a bunch of times with a blood artist, you're going to get a bunch of counters just once. Yeah. I guess you could get up to three counters on it and that's like a relatively big bird, but I don't know. In a turn cycle. But then things aren't going well. And then finally level three is two and a black at the beginning of each instep. If a modified creature died under your control this turn, create a two one white and black inkling creature token with flying. Okay. The inkling kind of replaces itself if it dies after it had the thing put on it. Yeah. I just don't think all this adds up to feel worth it to me. Yeah. It's got a lot of things that are sort of fine, but you're not really going to get to the last mode, which feels like the best mode for this deck specifically. It's sort of a creature in disguise as an enchantment, which is clever, but I agree. I don't think there's a ton going on here. I think there's a lot of ways that you like lose your gas in this card too. Yeah. A boardwipe sets you in a tough position. Yeah. Then you just don't really have anything going on. Yeah. Just not a big fan. You're going to have to explain this next one because it's got a horse on it. I know. Okay. So the next cut is parasitic impetus. And I don't know, maybe this is the wrong cut because I think this is one of the highest played impetuses by EDH Rec Rank, but I just don't think it's very impactful. And every time I've played it in a game, it's felt bad. This is Enchanted Creature gets plus two, plus two and is goaded. And whenever Enchanted Creature attacks, its controller loses two life and you gain two life. Sure. Yeah. So it has to attack other people. It gives you a little bit of life gain. It hurts them a little bit. And it hits your opponents a little bit harder. It's fine. I think a lot of the impetuses are on a similar power level and it's a preference thing. They're a little tough and I get that it's sort of the plan of this deck to an extent, but I don't think you can do better. You can do better. So many three mana auras in your deck before you've got to get a move on. Speaking of three mana auras, the next one I'm cutting is Chains of Custody. This is two and a white. When Chains of Custody enters, Exile target non-land permanent opponent controls until Chains of Custody leaves the battlefield and Enchanted Creature has Ward 2. This is, I think, strictly worse than the ghosts. Sheltered by ghosts. Sheltered by ghosts. Not ghosts. That's a different card. Sheltered by ghosts. You know, sounds fun. Yep. That one is two mana. It gives Ward 2 and it also gives lifelink and Sheltered by ghosts is much better. One mana difference is a big difference. Especially on removal spells. Also the fact that this is locked into only being able to target creatures you control just means, okay, don't kill my creature so I can remove their thing and it just gets you in this sort of weird situation. It has the Ward 2 but it's setting you up for such a big blowout. Like they remove that creature, you lose Chains of Custody, they get something back. You really are just being like, hey, you know what would be a little treat removing this creature. Or just casting a boardwipe and I get my best thing back. Yeah, auras that removal on your own stuff is a little dodgy, I agree. Up next is Tommik, wielder of law. One white and a black pro-legendary creature, human advisor with affinity for planeswalkers. Here's another one that I get why he's in the deck. Affinity Planeswalkers doesn't even matter in this deck. But he has flying and vigilance and whenever an opponent attacks with creatures, if two or more of those creatures are attacking you and or planeswalkers you control, that opponent loses three life and you draw a card. This is one of those deterrents that's not a deterrent. Yeah, I have played Tommik in a deck for many years. I believe I've drawn one card off of Tommik. You just don't get a ton out of him and it's fighting with other things your deck wants to do. If you're goading everything, you're not getting attacked with everything. I just don't think you're going to get much out of him. We've talked about this a little bit because we also did the upgrade at Precon for the Boros goading deck, which we were a little low on specifically because it does this thing that Wizards has done a few times with these decks that mixes cards that are both carrots and sticks. And a carrot is something that says like, if you attack my opponent, I'll give you a little treat. And they're like, ooh, treat. I love getting little treats. I'll do that. And then the stick is attack my opponents and not me specifically. And this deck has a lot of sticks in it and then a couple treats. You know who you don't want to get treats from? The guy who keeps hitting you with a stick. Yeah. And if you've been hitting people with a stick, it's kind of dangerous to give people treats because they'll use those treats against you. Yeah. So I just don't love that combination of things because it just muddles who you are in the character that you're playing at the table. It's a very difficult role to be both unless you can really shape a story where it's like, well, I'm the carrot until I'm the stick. But your commander is a stick. So you have to be the stick in this. So Entomac is sort of like, not exactly a stick, but it's sort of a carrot. Like if you attack me, it'll be a little worse for you. And they'll be like, I don't... It'll be a little better for me if you attack me. And it's like, yeah, but it sucks if you attack me. Yeah, yeah. It's like sort of a reverse carrot. And there's like, I'm going to hit you if I can. I don't, I'm not really concerned about... All right, you get a card. Yeah. So I agree, Entomac's a little underpowered in the stick. This next card has the distinction of having been cut by me from the first Silver Quill pre-con upgrade. And he's one of the more expensive cards in the deck. It's Nils Discipline Enforcer. So this is the one that hands out plus one plus one counters to your opponents, but then makes it more difficult for them to attack you if they've counters on them. The problem is once you get rid, once they get rid of Nils, which happens pretty easily because he's just a two, two creature with no protection or anything, they still have those counters. Yeah. And now they can attack you. There's a big difference between a Ghostly Prison and a two, two creature with this ability. It's just a lot easier to answer Nils than it is a Ghostly Prison. The next one is similar. It's Combat Colligrafer also. Also one that I cut from the original Strixhaven one. Why? Because I don't like it. Because they can remove the Combat Colligrafer and hit you with all the gifts you just gave them. It's exact same reasoning as Nils. It's the same thing. It makes inklings for everybody and it's like, but you can be hip on those inklings unless you know, they go past the eggs, I'll combat Colligrafer, attack you with five inklings. And you go, what? Don't. But he protect me. Yeah. It don't work. It's not good. Yeah. And you know, this is another carrot. This is attack my opponents. I'll give you a little treat and you're like, I don't care about the treats you're giving me. I'm going to kill you. So I agree that I think the vibe of this one is not. It's also like, so the idea is that this one gives your opponents inklings when they attack a player other than you. Yeah. So they deal more damage to them. Yeah. But that doesn't stop them from attacking you. Yeah. Like they can still swing something to you. It's a carrot. Yeah. It's a little like, but wouldn't it be, but you're missing value. You're like, yeah, I don't want to attack them. I want to attack you. I don't like it. People see through that kind of stuff pretty quick. And this final card being cut is the caratiest of carrots. And I get why they keep trying to make this work in Silver Co pre-con. And I'm sure there's sure people who love it because it's all kind of group huggy or whatever. It's super cute. Secret rendezvous. It's one of my white you and target opponent each draw three cards. I don't think you need it. Yeah. I mean, you've got card drawn the command zone. I don't think you need to give someone three cards in order for you to draw three cards. And I also don't think that it will make a difference. If somebody cast this spell targeting me and gives me three cards, I am less likely to give them anything back. True. Because you know they had to pick somebody. Most of the time when people cast Secret Rendezvous, they go, who wants some cards? And you're like, me. And then they give you three cards and you're like, incredible. Awesome. If you're the kind of player that will use this as a political deal, then you can hang on to it. And that's clearly something that you're excited about. But if you're the kind of player who just is using this as three mana draw three, it's not very good. It gives you three cards for three mana. It gives them three cards for nothing. No mana. No mana. And you also spend a card. So you're down a card and they're up three cards. You're like, you're up two cards and they're up three cards and you're down three mana. It's just, it's just not a great card to be casting unless you have, are getting more value out of it than the text on the card. I don't like it. And I've cut it. Okay. Well, that's the upgrade. We've added 10 cards. We're taking 10. We've added 10 cards out. And now hopefully the deck will work a little bit tighter. We've given you a couple more aura engines, a couple ways to take over the game all at once. And it'll make you more of a, be able to overwhelm the game at one time, which I think is going to be important if you're piloting this. Hey, if you don't like any of the cards we cut or any of the cards we add, you know, do your own thing. And that's fine. Let me know in the comments and be very like direct and personal about why it was a mistake for me to cut them. I'm in. Let's do it. That would be good. Jordan's down to tussle. We're going to talk about a few tips and tricks for piloting this deck. Jordan has played it a few times in just a few minutes, but if you want to pick up this pre-con or any of the cards in this pre-con, go to cardkingdom.com slash command. Card Kingdom is a great place to get singles or sealed product. If you're building a new deck or you're building this one and want to buy the upgrade, Card Kingdom will have a ton of cards all in one place. You can go paste in the cards that you're interested in, pick the versions and the printings and the conditions and the pricing that you want for each card hit by and you're done. You don't have to think about it more than that and you know the cards are going to show up on your doorstep in good shape. So support us and Card Kingdom over at cardkingdom.com slash command. And ultrapro.com slash command is going to be the place that you can get all of the accessories you need, the binders, the deck boxes, the play mats, the dice, the cards orders, all the stuff that you need, many accessories to do this hobby. You can get them all from ultrapro and they have a ton of great deals. If you haven't signed up for that newsletter yet, they'll let you know when stuff randomly goes on sale and if you're like me, you buy three sets of sleeves and three deck boxes for the idea that strikes at midnight and you need to build a deck. And you're always going to need more sleeves. Unless you buy apex when they last forever. Plus you can get the man a product, which is really great for magic cons and there's two magic cons coming around the corner pretty soon. So pick them up soon from ultrapro.com slash command. And if you're going to magic on Las Vegas, we will see you there. Yeah. We've got game nights live on Friday. We're so excited. So we're going to be performing that evening and we'll be on the floor playing games, like in events, doing a meet and greets and just wandering around. We've got a ton of our staff there. So if you see somebody say hi, we are excited to see you because that's why we're there. So come say hi at magic con. We cannot wait. All right. Let's talk about this deck. What would you say is some like good advice for people who are picking up this deck and playing it for the first time? So I will say getting into it. It felt like it was trying to like that it wanted to like play politics and stuff like that. But like we've kind of discussed, it was a lot better at the stick than the carrot. So people are going to notice you goading your things. They will realize that you are a threat and they are going to attack you like when you are an option. So you just you need to be somewhat careful. Like you need to take time setting up and things like that. You're going to be one of very you're going to want to be very strategic with how you play your enchantments out so you can get value right away from them. Like a lot of times you want to play it on a creature that has already been out and is not summoning sick so that you can attack with it that turn and get something in that because otherwise it will get removed before it goes around in the turn. And that is just that's such a big loss. There's a lot of really cheap auras in this deck that you can bring back from the battlefield. So you can double spell casting Killian on the same turn as casting one of these one mana auras is going to be really good. And we added the book seller book vendor. Yeah. It's going to be great to play that a little bit earlier. Enchanted and get attacking. And it is vigilance too. So it's a good attacker and a blocker which is something important. I like that play pattern. Yeah. Attack to keep in mind for those things. So it's also important to remember that Killian's tap and goad thing is is just as good offensively as it is defensively. So like it stops things from attacking you but it also can like let you through for a big attack. But you want to make sure that you leave some blockers back when you like go for the big attacks on those things because you will draw hate. People are going to find ways to like get around it and stuff. Or play your the enchantments that protect you. You also need to be pretty strategic about what you were attacking and goading. Like I will say in just the pod of the other Strixhaven ones there's a commander that can sacrifice like you probably don't want to be goading on that if they have tap abilities you got to be careful about you know actually getting value out of the things. Sort of all of that. Killian can be a really strong value engine and he can like start drawing you cards pretty well. But if you are not careful you will just end up even with the two for once. So you really need to just play smart with this. Like I kind of found that really making it clear that you are taking down whoever is the strongest person at the table and that you are sort of like tapping down their creatures for people that are going on attack like is good at least gets you some good will. You could play it more as a carrot than as a stick in those situations. Yeah. And then finally cheap recurring enchantments are just going to be really key and really powerful because that's how you turn it into an engine instead of just a little bit of a card advantage. Yeah. And then you can also use that as a little bit of Guillaume. Guillaume. Because he's got that activated ability that sacrifice a food, tap target creature, it gains indestructible. And a lot of people look at that and go great that's a way to protect all my stuff. But I play against a deck that uses that as a sack of food, tap all your blockers, hit you with a bunch of stuff all at once and that. Turns out it doesn't matter if they are indestructible if they are tapped down. It doesn't matter if they are sideways. So using that as a little bit more of a way to be like okay I can always get an attack in when I need. I can always open up the door for one of my opponents. You cannot sit and behind your wall of creatures and expect not to get attacked. We're coming in. I think that's a very cool way to play this super front foot and again play it like from behind and be like let's get them. Yep. That kind of thing. So really interesting deck. I think it's going to play very differently depending on who the pilot is and how they like to play commander. If you're a wizard and you like to make deals definitely give this one a shot. Strixhaven, I almost said Shadow Quill. Silver. Shadow Quill. Those are the baddies. Silver Quill has a very clear vibe and I think it will be really interesting to see this one at the table. But it is time to go. Again if you're excited about one of the other pre-con upgrades I believe at this point we have one left maybe two. So hopefully we've gotten to the one that you're stoked about. But if we haven't it's coming. Wait it's going to happen. Alright we got to say thank you to our amazing team here at the command zone. Thank you to Karina Cruz, Josh Diaz, John Schneider, Gromov Gladi, Jamie Block, Jake, Boss, Becky Bell, Eric Lem, Manson, Lung, Josh Murphy, Evan Limburger, Sam Waldo, Josh Lee Kwai, Jimmy Wong and of course to Jordan Bridgen for taking the time. That's mean. For talking about some auras with me. For aura farming. Yeah. I think we've got aura right? I've been aura farming.