Upgrading the Silverquill Influence Commander Precon

Posted on May 14, 2026

Recently, I put out an article going over how to upgrade the Secrets of Strixhaven Commander precon for the Blue-Red school, Prismari Artistry. I've always identified most closely with the Prismari as someone who grew up with a deep love of art. I lived for my art classes and wanted to go to school for animation, so it was an obvious choice for me.

However, if you're familiar with my history as a writer, you'd be forgiven if you'd assumed that I'd have a much stronger affinity for Silverquill instead. After all, that's a school all about writing and using it to fuel their White-Black magic. With roughly 800 articles published here on CoolStuffInc, it'd be an easy fit. I can certainly relate to their snarky and vulgar attitude.

Silverquill Influence

While I think I'd fit into Prismari way more than Silverquill, I enjoy the way Silverquill plays far more within Magic: the Gathering. As such, I'm thrilled to take a look at the Silverquill Influence deck and find new ways to improve on it.

Like many of the characters from the original Strixhaven: School of Mages, Killian became a fan favorite. His card - Killian, Ink Duelist - was very popular and proved to be a sweet build-around option in Commander.

One thing the design lead for that set's precons, Daniel Holt, noted was that many players would use lots of Auras to buff him. This led to the Silverquill Influence deck and Killian, Decisive Mentor leaning into this Aura-based strategy.

As a fan of Bogles-style decks in a number of formats, this is the kind of strategy that speaks to me. It isn't all about suiting up your Creatures to make them stronger, though. Killian encourages you to take a fairly political stance in your Commander pod, offering plenty of depth to what might otherwise be a fairly straightforward strategy.

Let's take a look at the decklist before we get to the upgrades.

Silverquill Influence | Commander | Wizards of the Coast

Commander (1)
1 Killian, Decisive Mentor

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Examining the Decklist

The basic decklist is fairly straightforward in its approach. As Killian's abilities imply, your goal is to cast as many Auras as you can in order to generate value in the form of Goading your opponents' Creatures and drawing cards. Meanwhile, you'll want to find ways to get even more value while disincentivizing your opponents from turning their attention to you.

Naturally, Killian's Goad effect helps with that plan, as do cards like Eriette of the Charmed Apple and Breena, the Demagogue. A well-timed copy of Ghostly Prison can also make it difficult to break through your defenses as well. It makes it easier and more worthwhile for your opponents to turn on one another.

This makes for a fun and simple deck that has lots of intricacies for you to discover and explore. It's the definition of a list that's easy to pick up, but hard to master. Most of the cards are relatively easy to cast and offer solid flexibility with great synergy. All of that adds up to extremely enjoyable experience.

New cards like Forum Filibuster, Coercive Impetus, and Herald of Amity all provide fun options for the deck. Many of the cards here feel familiar despite their freshness. For example, Changing Loyalty is very similar to Minion's Return but in a way that scales far more effectively for Commander.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Eiganjo Dynastorian. This awesome new Prepared Creature gives you a means of casting the Reserved List powerhouse Replenish without spending an arm and a leg. It's the perfect card to include into a deck like this, giving players a taste of truly powerful spells in an accessible manner.

Upgrading the Deck

As with any precon, there are some pretty clear areas of improvement for us to focus on. In the case of Silverquill Influence, we have to answer a simple question. How can you get the most out of your Enchantments?

Getting Back Your Enchantments

If I had to point to one main pain point for this deck, I'd say it's getting your Enchantments back after they hit the graveyard. A core element of the precon is taking advantage of Auras, which are famously easy to send to the graveyard (just destroy the Creature they're attached to).

Most precons don't like to lean heavily into recursion since it can lead to repetitive gameplay. Recursion is also a little too complex for newer players looking to pick up the game for the first time. In fact, unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe a single card in the deck besides Eiganjo Dynastorian can return Enchantment cards from your graveyard to your hand or to the battlefield.

There's a solid opportunity to add these kinds of effects into the deck for immediate improvement. Some are fairly easy inclusions, like Auramancer or Monk Idealist. They're both cheap and fine to throw into a deck if you really want them, but you won't get very much repeatable utility out of them.

The goal is to find something that you can use repeatedly.

The first card that comes to mind is Hall of Heliod's Generosity. It's an easy Land to include that's capable of repeatedly bringing back your important Enchantments for each time. Skull of Orm puts the Enchantment into your hand, but it costs a whopping to use.

I'm a big fan of cards like Sun Titan and Treasury Thrull for a deck like this. The Thrull is clearly inspired by the Titan and both are great at buying back your Auras, which will often have low Mana Values. You can do much of the same thing with Silent Sentinel, Harnessed Snubhorn, and Norika Yamazaki, the Poet, though they require a bit more work to pull off.

Speaking of casting cards with low Mana Values, it'd be weird if I didn't mention Lurrus of the Dream-Den. This card single-handedly made Orzhov Auras work in Pioneer prior to its banning. With many of your Auras being cheap, it's easy to buy them back repeatedly with Lurrus's ability. You can also do this to buy back cheap Creatures or, rarely, a mana rock your opponent blew up.

If you want to grab your expensive Auras, look no further than Nomad Mythmaker. This card won't allow you to enchant your opponent's Creatures, but that's not a problem. Get back your Eldrazi Conscription and go to town. It's especially worth having as a fairly budget-friendly option that is far cheaper than Retether, which has spiked in price recently.

Starfield of Nyx is another great option for bringing back something every turn. Not only will it get you back a sweet Enchantment every turn, but once you have five Enchantments on the board, you'll get a Opalescence effect to turn them all into Creatures. A single copy isn't terribly expensive to pick up, and it will go a very long way in any Killian list.

Last but not least, I do think it's worth mentioning that there are some ways to bring back all of your Enchantments at once. Sure, if you're absolutely loaded you can always go in on a copy of Replenish, but let's be realistic. The deck already comes with Eiganjo Dynastorian, which comes with a copy of Replenish stapled to it.

Resurgent Belief is aimed at being a Suspend version of Replenish, but takes too long to be effective and is rarely as good as you want it to be. Instead, let's look to Redress Fate. It's expensive to cast, but the Miracle cost helps offset that.

Brilliant Restoration is solid, but the four White mana pips in its cost make it very difficult to cast. Open the Vaults, brings back cards from all players' graveyards rather than just yours. If you really wanted to shell out for this effect, I'd go in on Triumphant Reckoning, which also returns any Planeswalkers that might be in your graveyard.

Find More Enchantments Matter Cards

Another space to explore for upgrades is finding ways to try and take advantage of the Enchantments that you're casting. The deck already has plenty of these, with Killian providing card draw for each Aura you cast.

There's always room for improvement, though. Plenty of cards care about Enchantments and the designers can only fit so many cards in a deck.

The first place I looked was cards featuring the Constellation and Eerie mechanics. These are effectively the same abilities that both care about Enchantments entering the battlefield. Eerie also cares about unlocking Rooms, but you can probably ignore that unless you're looking to play a copy of Unholy Annex.

Despite having multiple sets with these mechanics, there aren't many good options that weren't already included in the base list (Archon of Sun's Grace and Doomwake Giant say hello). Boon of the Spirit Realm and Victor, Valgavoth's Seneschal are some of the better options that pay you off for repeatedly casting your Enchantments. The more you can cast, the more value you'll get from both of them. Boon grants your Creatures an ever-growing power and toughness buff with Blessing counters, and Victor has a series of cascading abilities that culminate in you bringing a Creature back from any graveyard.

I'm also rather partial to the card Agent of Erebos. With how often players love to take advantage of the graveyard in Commander, wiping out your opponents' graveyards repeatedly can be backbreaking for many strategies. It's so good that it's hardly a wonder that Wizards didn't include this in the main deck, but it makes for a slam dunk addition that will cost you pennies to pick up.

Cards like Balemurk Leech and Grim Guardian also give you a way to drain your opponents' life totals when you put Enchantments into play. It's a very small amount of damage, but it adds up over time.

You can also play a copy of Wicked Visitor for a life drain effect when your Enchantments go to the graveyard. That was made to synergize with the Bargain mechanic and Role tokens, but here it works great with all of your Auras that will no doubt hit the graveyard repeatedly.

That's not the only card which cares about your Enchantments hitting the graveyard either. Both Knight of Doves and Warehouse Tabby will make tokens as your Enchantments go to the graveyard. Since the Knight makes Creatures with Flying, I like that one more, but both provide excellent ways to provide Creatures to suit up with your Auras.

Ashiok's Reaper is probably the best value play for this kind of effect, though. This card's effect allows you to draw a card whenever an Enchantment you control hits the graveyard. That's not once per turn or anything like that, meaning it's very possible to draw multiple cards in a turn if enough of your Enchantments hit the bin. If you're taking advantage of your recursion effects, it's trivial to get some serious value out of this one.

Most of the other cards I can think of are one-off effects. Some of them work really well with Auras, though.

For example, Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice provides a great way to tutor up additional Auras from your deck as you cast them out of your hand. Since you're only running singleton copies, you should have no shortage of interesting options to search for. You can also use cards like Moon-Blessed Cleric, Idyllic Tutor, and Three Dreams to pull your Enchantments from your library.

Codsworth, Handy Helper gives you a way to move your Auras around. This can be great if you want to put something on an opponent's Creature for the Goad value off of Killian and then reattach it to your Creature later. It's a difficult card to reprint since it's a Universes Beyond exclusive, so you should pick up a copy sooner than later if you really want it.

Finally, I'd also like to give a nod to Sphere of Safety. Yes, Ghostly Prison is already in this deck, but if you're looking to get really political with your Enchantments, this will go the furthest. It's a perfect way to stop your opponents from ganging up on you from all the Goading you'll be dishing out.

More Auras Please

I'd also like to take a brief look at some additional, fun Aura options that are worth consideration. I don't think you need to go too deep here, as the deck already has tons of great options. There are tons of great Auras out there for you to pull from, so why not shop around?

The cards that I like the most are the various pseudo-Lifelink effects. Spirit Link, Soul Link, and Vampiric Link the early versions which pre-date the introduction of the Lifelink keyword, and as such they work a little differently.

If you look at the Oracle text on each of Spirit Link, Soul Link, and Vampiric Link, you'll notice the ability is written out as opposed to being keyworded. This is because if you put one of these Auras onto an opponent's Creature, you'll gain the life, not them. Additionally, the life gain happens as a triggered ability rather than happening as the damage is dealt.

That means you can get some serious value out of putting them onto an opponent's Creature, not just your own. That's especially good since you'll be Goading the Creatures anyways or using Eriette of the Charmed Apple to force them to hit everyone but you.

I especially like Spirit Loop as a sweet variant of Lifelink. Not only is it a cool Spirit Link effect, but it's one that can keep coming back over and over again.

This style of effect showed up as cycles in Urza's Saga and Urza's Legacy on cards like Sleeper's Guile and Brilliant Halo. Each of these, along with the copy of Fallen Ideal already in the precon, is modest enough that you won't mind sticking it onto an opponent's Creature. Sure, copies of cards like Angelic Destiny and Eye of Nidhogg are great, but they can backfire if you can't stop your opponents from attacking you.

Having Auras you can repeatedly get back means you'll be able to get tons of value from them with Killian. I'd absolutely see about trying to fit one of these into your list somewhere.

I'm also a fan of cards like Treacherous Link, Clawing Torment, and Stab Wound. Each of these damages your opponents if they stick around on their Creatures. If you aren't running recursion effects, they're probably not worth running on their own. However, if you can repeatedly get them back, they are excellent inclusions.

Similarly, Pariah will dish out plenty of damage. Instead of sending the damage to you, it'll go right onto the enchanted Creature. This card will fall off all the time, making recursion a must. However, it makes for some very fun removal while also acting as an interesting political angle alongside Killian's Goad effect.

I'd recommend just flipping through your collection to see what you can find. I think you'll be surprised at the fun and interesting ways you can improve the deck with cards you already have access to.

Is Silverquill, the Disputant Worth Adding?

In my last Secrets of Strixhaven Commander article covering Prismari Artistry, I highlighted how Prismari, the Inspiration was a fantastic fit for the deck. Playing several high-profile spells alongside several cheap ones makes it a great way to take full advantage of Prismari's Storm-granting ability.

This begs the question. Does Silverquill, the Disputant play a similar role in his namesake deck?

Sadly, this time I can't recommend you make room for him.

This iteration of Silverquill's ability that grants Casualty 1 to all of your Instants and Sorceries might be great in a spell-based deck. With this deck's overarching focus on Enchantments, it's difficult to make effective use of Silverquill's ability.

In fact, for such a spell-based setting, the precon itself only contains four Instants and three Sorceries. That's barely anything to work with, barring upgrades. If you really want to do something with Silverquill, your best bet is to just build a deck around him.

Conclusion

Silverquill Influence is an extremely fun deck to pick up and play with your friends. If you're a newer player, it's a great way to try out a strategy that's fairly simple to take advantage of. If you're a bit more on the experienced side, there's enough depth to really delve into it and make it your own. That makes it even better for new players as well, as it gives them a way to improve as they play more.

With some simple upgrades, you can take this already good deck and make it shine. And I do mean simple, since many of the cards mentioned throughout this article are quite cheap. Spirit Loop and Agent of Erebos are seriously sweet cards that you can grab for pennies, for example. Even without buying cards, odds are good that you already have solid options sitting around in your collection.

You should have a blast with Silverquill Influence. Make it your own and have an awesome time with it at your next Commander night!

Paige Smith

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