Commander blueprint · Secrets of Strixhaven

How to build Silverquill, the Disputant

Every instant and sorcery you cast can eat a creature and come back as two spells. This build plays that as casual aristocrats, where the creature you feed Silverquill drains the table on its way out and the copy is the bonus.

Art by Antonio José Manzanedo

Casualty wants power 1, and Blood Artist is a 0/1

The reminder text asks for a creature with power 1 or greater, and that number decides what counts as fodder. Blood Artist is a 0/1, so the best death card in the list can never pay for a copy itself. Neither can the 0/1 tokens these colours usually lean on. Pawn of Ulamog and Woe Strider both came in the Witherbloom Pestilence precon from the same set, and a Silverquill player raiding that box will find their Eldrazi Spawn and Goat tokens no use here. Sengir Autocrat's Serfs fail the same test.

So every token maker in this list makes something with at least 1 power. Bitterblossom's Faerie Rogues, Ophiomancer's Snakes, Sedgemoor Witch's Pests and the Spirits from Lingering Souls, Spectral Procession and Kaya's Guile are all 1/1s. Black Market Connections hires a 3/2 Shapeshifter, which is a lot of body to throw at a cantrip, and still the right throw while Blood Artist is out. The nontoken creatures are picked for what they leave. Tithe Taker, Imperious Oligarch and Doomed Traveler each leave a 1/1 flying Spirit when they die, and Ministrant of Obligation leaves two. Reassembling Skeleton, Nether Traitor and Bloodghast climb back out of the graveyard on their own. One creature fed to a spell and replaced by another is the shape of every good turn this deck has.

A copy remembers the cost you paid, so Village Rites draws four

Four spells here make you sacrifice a creature just to cast them: Village Rites, Deadly Dispute, Eviscerator's Insight and Bone Splinters. A copy of a spell carries every choice and payment made for the original, and it never asks for them again. So Village Rites with Silverquill out costs one black mana and two creatures, one for the card and one for casualty, and it draws four. Deadly Dispute draws four and leaves two Treasures. Bone Splinters destroys two creatures for . Eviscerator's Insight draws four, and its flashback is a second cast, so it can do the same again later for another two bodies. Plumb the Forbidden makes the sacrifice optional and scales with it. It copies itself once for each creature you feed it, casualty adds one more copy on top, and cast in response to a wipe it turns every creature you were about to lose into a card, plus one, at a point of life each.

Victimize looks like the same kind of card and is not. Its sacrifice happens when it resolves, as part of what it does, so the copy wants a creature of its own. A copied Victimize takes three bodies, one for casualty and one for each resolution, and puts four creature cards back on the battlefield tapped. That trade is fine in a list where the cards it returns are Ministrant of Obligation and Blood Artist. Demonic Tutor is the plain case. Copied, it finds two cards for two mana, which is why a bracket 3 list makes room for it as its one Game Changer.

The copy picks its targets after the sacrifice, so Unearth can return the creature it ate

Casualty is paid while the spell is being cast, after its targets are already chosen. The copy only exists once the casualty trigger resolves, and that is the moment its new targets are picked. By then the creature you sacrificed is sitting in your graveyard, so the copy can point straight at it.

That turns the recursion in this list into a loop. Cast Unearth on Blood Artist, sacrifice Ministrant of Obligation for casualty, and aim the copy at Ministrant. Both come back, afterlife leaves two Spirits, and every drain card on the battlefield fired once for the Ministrant on its way down. Profane Command does the same for any creature you can pay X for, with a drain attached, since its copy keeps X too. Return to the Ranks brings back X creatures with mana value 2 or less, its copy brings back X more, and those can include whatever was fed to it if it costs two or less. The copy of Victimize gets the same freedom.

Magecraft counts the copy, and the set's own Repartee cards do not

The original Strixhaven's magecraft cards trigger whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery. A casualty copy is a copy, so each of them fires twice for every spell you pay it on. Sedgemoor Witch makes a 1/1 Pest for the cast and another for the copy, which means a spell that ate one creature leaves two behind, and each Pest gains you 1 life when it dies. With the Witch on the table the board gets wider every time you feed it. Professor Onyx makes each opponent lose 2 on the cast and 2 more on the copy, so four from every opponent per spell before a single death trigger.

Secrets of Strixhaven's own mechanic reads differently. Repartee triggers when you cast an instant or sorcery that targets a creature, and a copy is never cast. Informed Inkwright makes one Inkling per removal spell whether you paid casualty or not. It stays in the list because every targeted removal spell here can be aimed at a creature, and each Inkling is a 1/1 flier that pays for the next spell. The same rule keeps the copy from counting toward anything that tallies spells cast, which is one more reason this build does not chase a storm turn.

Ophiomancer replaces its Snake at every upkeep, so cast the instants on other turns

Ophiomancer checks at the beginning of each upkeep, everybody's, and makes a 1/1 Snake with deathtouch if you have none. Feed the Snake to an instant during an opponent's turn and the next player's upkeep hands you another. At a table of four that is up to four Snakes a round from one three mana creature, against one Faerie a turn from Bitterblossom on your own upkeep.

Fifteen of the spells are instants, and most of them would rather be cast on someone else's turn anyway. Deadly Dispute and Village Rites refill your hand before you untap. Secure the Wastes cast in the end step of the player before you makes Warriors that can all attack when your turn comes. Sheoldred's Edict and Kaya's Guile are edicts you can cast in the middle of someone's combat. Nether Traitor joins in, because it returns from your graveyard for whenever another creature of yours dies, the Snake included, so the two of them can pay for two spells in one trip round the table.

Every death drains, so even a copied Night's Whisper is worth a body

Against three opponents, Zulaport Cutthroat, Cruel Celebrant, Elas il-Kor, Sadistic Pilgrim and Bastion of Remembrance each take 1 life from every opponent per death. Blood Artist and Falkenrath Noble take 1 from the player you pick. Mirkwood Bats takes 1 from each opponent whenever you sacrifice a token or make one, so a Spirit arriving from afterlife counts as well. With Zulaport Cutthroat and Bastion of Remembrance both out, one casualty payment costs the table six life before the copy has done anything. That is why the list happily copies a Night's Whisper or a Read the Bones. The extra cards are the smaller half of the trade.

Teysa Karlov makes every trigger a death causes happen twice. Each drain card doubles, and so does afterlife, so Ministrant of Obligation leaves four Spirits instead of two. Grave Pact changes what a casualty payment is for. Every creature of yours that dies makes each other player sacrifice one, so any spell you pay casualty on is an edict against the whole table, whatever the copy does. Under Teysa it is two edicts per opponent for each body.

Casualty is optional, and some casts want a no. A copied Generous Gift hands an opponent a second 3/3 Elephant, a copied Path to Exile gives a second land, and a copied Anguished Unmaking costs you 3 more life. With no drain card out and only one target worth hitting, keep the creature for a spell that needs it.

No sweeper, because the copied edicts already clear a table

There is no board wipe in the list. A copied wrath is still one wrath, and Kaya's Wrath would take every Pest, Spirit and drain creature you own along with theirs. The edicts do the job instead. Sheoldred's Edict copied makes each opponent sacrifice two creatures. Social Snub copies itself when you cast it with a creature out, so with casualty paid as well it resolves three times. Every player sacrifices three creatures, and each opponent loses 3 life while you gain 3. You lose three bodies too, and in this deck that is three more rounds of drains. Kaya's Guile cast with entwine is copied with entwine, so it makes each opponent sacrifice two creatures and gives you two Spirits and 8 life.

Single threats get the doubled spot removal. Swords to Plowshares, Despark, Mortify and the rest take two permanents each when a body is spare, and each of those casts is also a death for the drain cards.

Secure the Wastes, Exsanguinate and Profane Command keep their X

A copy keeps the number chosen for X. Secure the Wastes for four costs five mana and makes eight Warriors. Exsanguinate for five costs seven and takes ten life from each opponent, gaining you thirty, and that is the finisher once the drip has done its work. Profane Command works the same way at smaller numbers, with a creature back from the graveyard on each resolution.

The token sorceries keep nothing. They just happen twice. Lingering Souls makes four Spirits when you cast it and four more when you cast it again with flashback. Battle Screech makes four Birds, and its flashback cost is tapping three untapped white creatures, which those Birds can pay the turn they arrive. Tap three of them, feed the fourth to casualty, and four more Birds come down in the same main phase. Spectral Procession makes six Spirits. Each of them needs a creature already on the battlefield to pay casualty, because the tokens it is about to make do not exist yet when you pay.

Thirty five lands under a 2.44 curve, and black carries the doubles

Thirty five lands is an ordinary count, and the curve says it could be lower. The average mana value is 2.44, with ten cards at one mana, twenty nine at two and only nine above three. Six mana rocks sit beside the lands, and Deadly Dispute, Pitiless Plunderer and Black Market Connections all leave Treasure. It stays at thirty five because casualty eats creatures and never lands, and by the middle turns a sacrifice deck wants to cast two spells in each one.

Black is the deeper colour with 29 sources, against 25 for white, and it carries the double pips. One black source by turn two comes in 94.5% of the time and two black by turn three 80.4%. The two drops that ask for are Bloodghast, Nether Traitor and Sign in Blood, and none of them is a card you need on turn two. White's single pip by turn two is 91.2%. Its three doubles are softer than they look. Each pip of Spectral Procession can be paid with two generic mana instead, Return to the Ranks has convoke so white tokens can pay its white, and Battle Screech is a four mana card you cast later anyway.

Twenty eight lands enter untapped and seven more do on a condition that is usually met by turn three. None always enters tapped. High Market is the one colourless land, and it earns the slot as a sacrifice outlet that needs no spell, for the turn an opponent aims exile at a creature you would rather cash in.

The core list

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The budget rung keeps every drain card, and bracket 4 tutors twice for Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood

All three lists play the same game for the first several turns. Silverquill, the seven drain cards, Teysa Karlov, Sedgemoor Witch, Ophiomancer, the recursive bodies and the token spells are in every one of them. Demonic Tutor is the core list's one Game Changer, and it is the only thing in that list that puts it at bracket 3.

Ten swaps make the budget rung, and they bring the deck from $207.54 down to $51.48. Demonic Tutor goes first, which leaves no floor at all. Grave Pact, Bitterblossom and Black Market Connections are most of the rest of the money. Grave Pact becomes Butcher of Malakir, the same trigger on a seven mana flier, so the lock arrives about three turns later and dies to creature removal. Bitterblossom becomes Midnight Haunting, two Spirits once instead of a Faerie every turn. Professor Onyx becomes Vindictive Vampire, which drains on a death rather than on a copy, so the cheap list gets nothing extra out of Silverquill's second spell. Godless Shrine and Silent Clearing become Scoured Barrens and Orzhov Basilica, which both enter tapped. What survives is everything that makes a sacrifice worth doing. The cheap list kills the same way, a turn or two slower, with less to fall back on when a wipe lands.

Ten different swaps take the bracket 4 rung to $814.20. Eight of its cards are Game Changers, which rules out anything below bracket 4 before the combo is counted. The combo is the swap that changes what the deck is. With Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood both on the battlefield, every point an opponent loses gains you a point and every point you gain costs an opponent one, so the first drain from Blood Artist runs until the table is dead. That is a two card kill, and copied tutors are how this rung finds it. Demonic Tutor with casualty paid fetches both enchantments in one spell. So does Diabolic Intent, which takes one creature as its cost and another for the copy. Enlightened Tutor and its copy put both on top of your library, and Vampiric Tutor and Imperial Seal each stack two cards there. Mana Vault and Ancient Tomb bring that turn earlier, and Orcish Bowmasters and Smothering Tithe charge the table for every extra card it draws looking for an answer.

What the top rung gives up is the long game. The core list grinds three opponents down over several turns and is happy to look harmless early. The bracket 4 version can end it the turn both enchantments land, so it belongs only at a table that expects exactly that.

FAQ

Can Silverquill, the Disputant's casualty sacrifice a token?

Yes. Any creature you control with power 1 or greater can pay it, token or not, and Silverquill counts too. A creature with 0 power cannot, which rules out Blood Artist and the Eldrazi Spawn and Goat tokens from the Witherbloom Pestilence precon. You decide each time you cast an instant or sorcery, so a spell you would rather not copy costs nothing extra.

Does Silverquill's copy trigger magecraft?

Yes. Magecraft triggers when you cast or copy an instant or sorcery, so Sedgemoor Witch makes two Pests and Professor Onyx drains each opponent twice for every spell you pay casualty on. Repartee, prowess and storm only see spells that were cast, and a copy never is, so those trigger once for the original.

Does Silverquill's casualty copy keep the value of X?

Yes. A copy keeps every choice made for the original, including X, its modes, entwine and any extra cost you paid. Exsanguinate for five takes ten from each opponent once it is copied. Village Rites draws four, because the copy treats the creature the card demanded as already paid. Victimize is the odd one out, since it sacrifices as it resolves, so its copy asks for a creature of its own.

What bracket is a Silverquill, the Disputant deck?

Bracket 3 as this page builds it, because Demonic Tutor is a Game Changer and nothing else in the list moves the number. Take Demonic Tutor out, as the budget rung does, and there is no Game Changer left at all, so that version fits a bracket 2 table. The bracket 4 rung runs eight Game Changers and wins on the spot once Sanguine Bond and Exquisite Blood are both out.

How much does a Silverquill, the Disputant deck cost?

Today's cheapest paper copies put the core list at $207.54. Three cards are most of that: Demonic Tutor at $60.52, Bitterblossom at $28.28 and Grave Pact at $22.85. The budget rung swaps those and seven more for a deck of $51.48, and the bracket 4 rung comes to $814.20.

Is Silverquill, the Disputant the commander of a Secrets of Strixhaven precon?

No. The set's white and black Commander deck is led by Killian, Decisive Mentor and plays auras and goad. Silverquill, the Disputant is a mythic from the main Secrets of Strixhaven set, one of five Elder Dragons named after the colleges, and it shares that deck's colours and college without sharing its plan. The precon's upgrade guide is linked below.