Wizards really seems to be perfecting the art of the Commander precon these days. The last few sets have had excellent offerings in this department, and Secrets of Strixhaven is no exception. All five decks here are full of great new cards and strong reprints, with Silverquill Influence in particular being a standout.
Great as it is, however, there’s still plenty of room for improvement in this Orzhov list. Many of the cards don’t work with the precon’s core game plan, while others are simply inefficient in today’s Magic. If you want to address these issues and make Silverquill Influence the best Commander deck it can be, then the following upgrades are a great place to start.
Upping The Synergy
Silverquill Influence is a deck all about casting Auras, and encouraging opponents to attack each other. Anything that doesn’t help you do one of those two things, then, is an easy cut.
A couple of the new cards here, Defacing Duskmage and Intermediate Chirography, sadly fall into this category. While they offer reasonable early board presence, they don’t help your plan along at all. Cutting these in favor of more Aura support creatures like Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice, and thematic card draw like Enduring Innocence, is a good move.
The same goes for a few of the deck’s reprints, too. Keen Duelist is a decent generic card advantage engine, but you’d be better off with something like Lord Skitter’s Blessing for the additional enchantment synergy. Likewise, you can cut Shadrix Silverquill, with its suite of unfocused abilities, for the Aura-copying Ondu Spiritdancer.
There are some cards in Silverquill Influence that support the core themes, but in a way that doesn’t really work in the deck. Eldrazi Conscription, for example, is an excellent Aura, but it’s really better-suited to a Voltron build. Silverquill Influence is better when you’re low to the ground, so Vow of Duty makes a good upgrade here.
In a similar vein, Secret Rendezvous, while technically capable of striking elsewhere by making deals with opponents, is a temporary solution. In the long run, you’d be better off running Sphere of Safety instead, to pretty much guarantee you don’t get attacked.
Weeding Out The Chaff
As with all Commander precons, Silverquill Influence also contains a bunch of filler cards that are prime for upgrades. While these cards do technically support your core plan, there are other cards that do so much more efficiently.
On the Auras side, Doomwake Giant, Sage’s Reverie, and Forum Filibuster all feel a bit clunky for 2026 Magic. Cutting Giant removes one of your board wipes, so you’ll want to bring in something like Toxic Deluge to cover that. Likewise, cutting Reverie leaves you down on card draw, so Mesa Enchantress makes a great upgrade there. Filibuster is a bit harder to replace, but Retether is a great alternative. Unless Silverquill Influence has trouble sticking creatures on the board, this offers a lot more immediate value for a lower price.
Over on the forced combat side of things, Combat Calligrapher, Tomik, Wielder of Law, and Nils, Discipline Enforcer all feel pretty underwhelming. None of them really offer enough of a disincentive to attack you, so you’ll want to cut them for more effective options. Windborn Muse is an easy upgrade here, as a Ghostly Prison on a body. You can also bring in Eye of Nidhogg and Bloodthirsty Blade, as ways to cheaply, and repeatedly, Goad your opponents’ creatures.
As with most precons, the mana base in Silverquill Influence has a lot of room for improvement. Almost none of the lands here are offensively bad, however, with the exception of Study Hall. The utility here is so minor that you’d honestly be better with one of the deck’s many enters-tapped lands most of the time. This makes it an easy cut for Hall of Heliod’s Generosity, then, one of the very best lands for enchantment-focused decks in Commander.
Into The Big Leagues
All of the upgrades we’ve suggested so far have been reasonably priced, available for $10 or less. If you really want to push Silverquill Influence to its limits, however, then you can add in some pricey Commander staples.
You’ll get the most bang for your buck here by picking up relevant cards from the Game Changers list, like Smothering Tithe, Enlightened Tutor, and Necropotence. All of these fit with the deck’s enchantment theme, while also offering truly busted effects. At bracket three, you can run all of these and still meet the deckbuilding criteria, which will give your deck a huge edge.
Game Changers aside, there are plenty of other spendy cards that will greatly up your win rate. Esper Sentinel is a brilliant draw engine, for example, and it wears Auras beautifully to boot. You can also bring in The Meathook Massacre instead of Toxic Deluge as your board wipe, for extra enchantment synergy. On the forced combat side, Trouble in Pairs and No Mercy are some of the best cards in the category, if you’ve got around $20 to spend on each.
Finally, as is always the case with Commander precons, the most expensive upgrades you can make will be to your mana base. Bringing in the gold standards like the Shock, Fetch, and Surveil lands will help a ton. Even lower-end options, like Bleachbone Verge and Shattered Sanctum, are great adds too. While it’s not sexy, buying good lands is one of the best investments you can make in any MTG Commander deck.
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