Everyone is a young student once.
For Quintorius, both childhood and classes met an abrupt end when Rootha failed to deliver her part of a group project during a multiplanar Phyrexian war. In the midst of war and magic, Quintorius’s spark ignited, warping him to an independent study of the history of Ixalan.
On Ixalan, Quintorius discovered traces of a Coin Empire.
Our commonality with Quintorius ends here. We are budget gamers without a coin empire. If we truly had an empire of coins, we would use Quintorius’s spirit-making static ability alongside Altar of Dementia to build an unfair Lorehold planeswalker combo/control deck.
But we have no coins. Instead, we must play fair.
In the fairest way we know how, we will engage in spirit typal combat, and will begin by encouraging fair play from those around us.
Judge!
Winning games of commander through combat is an hours-long, tedious ordeal. Chances are good that another player will circumvent combat through enters abilities, mass artifacts, or mass card draw. Our collection of hate bears (cheaply costed creatures that restrict players’ ability to play) will restrict the axes on which our opponents can engage in unfair play.
This is not an element that Wizard provides support for in the precon, despite half of our new inclusions being spirits.
Of our inclusions, Doorkeeper Thrull, Hushbringer, Strict Proctor, and Tocatli Honor Guard will give our opponents the most headaches, stifling enters abilities and anything that sees creatures entering the battlefield.
Our opponents will want creatures who enter prepared or with x +1/+1 counters.
But we say, “no.”
Spirits Attack!
Wizards provides us with a healthy aggressive spirits package for this deck. Vanguard of the Restless, Hofri Ghostforge, Balefire Liege, Patchwork Banner, and Quintorius, History Chaser all provide combat boosts that encourage our spirits to get in the red zone.
To this, we add a collection of attack enablers. Cunning Bandit and Skyfire Kirin steal our opponents’ creatures for a turn while Auron, Venerated Guardian clears the way for uninterrupted attacks. Collective Inferno is a fun new addition from Lorwyn Eclipsed that plays well with Quintorius’ token making and double strike to make most blocks a losing proposition.
Drogskol Reinforcements and Antiquities on the Loose buff our team. And, Figure of Destiny and Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr are burly beaters in their own right, with Katilda additionally triggering leaves-the-graveyard abilities and granting her power boost from beyond the grave.
Return from the Grave
Modern aggressive strategies utilize incremental value to sustain pressure through the mid-to-late game. As an aggressive strategy led by a planeswalker, we are well poised to sustain the beats.
Wizards provides us with many, many value engines. So many that they form the core identity of the deck and we will not list them all here, but will give a special shout out to Currency Converter as a reminder of the Coin Empire.
Imagine: we have Quintorius, History Chaser and Currency Converter in play. We plus Quintorius discarding Squee and draw two cards. Quintorius sees converter exile Squee, and we get a 3/2 spirit. We then tap the converter to return Squee to the graveyard and get a 2/2 rogue. On our upkeep, Quintorius sees Squee return to our hand and makes another 3/2 spirit.
Slow and fair it goes.
Because it relies on creatures entering, Tocasia’s Welcome will sadly no longer be part of our strategy.
We will instead add Ark of Hunger, Hourglass of the Lost, Desecrated Tomb, Dusk // Dawn, Banon, the Returners’ Leader, and Ascend from Avernus as additional ways to fight through removal, board sweepers, and opponents who go bigger than us.
Of these, Ark of Hunger, Desecrated Tomb, and Banon, the Returners’ Leader give us consistent, incremental board presence, allowing us to preserve resources in hand against fearful opponents looking to wipe the board.
When the damage has been done and all our work is (hopefully) in the graveyard (and not in exile), Dusk // Dawn, Hourglass of the Lost, and Ascend from Avernus can restock our battlefield to continue the fair fight.
Mana
As a last upgrade, we will swap out four lands for a protection spell that doubles as a land in Sejiri Shelter and three mana sources that synergize with our leaves-the-graveyard plan.
Wizards provides us a copy of Emeria the Sky Ruin in the precon, so any cuts to lands we make will focus on non-plains. The build only includes sixteen plains and two fetches initially and appears to rely on Claim Jumper and White Orchid Phantom to get seven plains in play for Emeria. Because our inclusion of hate bears prevents that plan from working, we are bringing in two cards with plainscycling, one of which can be used indefinitely, and both of which can pick up our dual lands.
Cuts
These cuts are designed to lower the overall mana curve and remove enters abilities to synergize with our fair, hate bear strategy.
The cuts are:
- Naktamun Lorespinner
- Angel of Indemnity
- Moonshaker Cavalry
- Perpetual Timepiece
- Atsushi, the Blazing Sky
- Seize the Spoils
- Quintorious Field Historian
- Faithless Looting
- Primary Research
- Fateful Tempest
- Claim Jumper
- Fellwar Stone
- White Orchid Phantom
- Millikin
- Karmic Guide
- Tocasia’s Welcome
- Archaeomancer’s Map
- Conspiracy Theorist
- Bitterthorn, Nissa’s Animus
- Guardian Scalelord
- Lorehold Charm
- Staff of the Storyteller
- Containment Construct
For our mana, we will cut Exotic Orchard, Lotus Field, and two mountains.
Another Direction
If smashing face with vigilant, double-striking spirits isn’t the play experience we are looking for, let’s briefly explore another direction this deck could go.
Aurora Eidolon and Sandstorm Eidolon uniquely return to our hand from the graveyard if we cast a multicolored spell, providing a leaves-the-graveyard trigger and enabling consistent discard. In the precon, Squee, Goblin Nabob fills a similar role.
Spellshaper creatures (originally introduced by Homelands and later popularized in Mercadian Masques block) allow us to discard our eidolons for value, destroying artifacts, enchantments, creatures, and lands.
Cast a multicolored spell, return the eidolon, discard the eidolon to a spellshaper, rinse, repeat.
Leaning into our hate bears theme, we can add four effects that reduce all players to casting one spell each turn, a restriction our spellshapers remain unbothered by.
With our Drumbellower in play, we can evade Rule of Law, untap our spellshapers every turn, and continuously discard our eidolons to “cast” our toolbox of additional spells alongside multicolored or hybrid instants.
They who make the rules, break the rules.
Are we still playing fair?
Cleanup Step
Of all the Strixhaven commander precons, Lorehold Spirit leans the most into the fair, creature combat space. As such, we introduced hate bears to level the field and get everyone on the same page. We also built up the recursive elements to stay toe-to-toe with the bigger decks in a long game.
A uniquely fun direction for Quintorius is to go the Rule of Law spellshaper route, but building into this theme would require gutting nearly the entirety of the deck. We aren’t going to dive into the best multicolored spells for this build or the cuts necessary to make it work, but if you create a functional build for this, please let me know!
As always, Table for Four believes in fun, kitchen table Magic and fairly bending the rule of law.
