March of the Machine preview season has officially kicked off, and I’m super-excited about all the cool new legendary creatures we’ve seen so far to brew new Commander decks around. This week, I want to dive into Quintorius, Loremaster!
When last we saw Quintorius, he appeared as an uncommon card from Strixhaven: School of Mages.
While the original version of Quint was decent, especially as an uncommon, the new rare Quint definitely takes things up a notch in terms of power and I think is much more exciting as a build-around commander. It’s interesting to note that, during the March of the Machine story, Quint’s spark ignites and he planeswalks away, so presumably we’ll be getting a mythic rare planeswalker version of Quint sometime down the road!
Loremaster, a Breakdown
In the meantime, we’ve got Loremaster to explore. First, he’s got vigilance, so he can attack and still be ready to activate his ability. With three power, he’s not exactly threatening, but I’d definitely slide Blackblade Reforged into the 99 of the deck to make him more threatening.
The triggered ability happens at the beginning of your end step, so depending on the state of your graveyard, you could get a 3/2 Spirit token on the same turn that you cast Quint, for a total of six power and seven toughness spread across two bodies for five mana, which is pretty solid already. We need to make sure that there is at least one noncreature, nonland card in your graveyard by the time you cast Quint; luckily for us, Boros has no shortage of rummage effects that draw cards and pitch cards into the graveyard.
Then we’ve got the activated ability, where we get to sacrifice a Spirit and cast a target card exiled by Quintorius without paying its mana cost this turn. You definitely want to be leveraging Quint’s abilities to cast a big and splashy noncreature spell to make all the hoops you jumped through worthwhile.
Words of Warning
Two things to keep in mind. First, I’m pretty sure that if you’ve been stockpiling exiled cards and Quint gets removed from the battlefield, those cards can’t be targeted later when you’ve put Quint back on the battlefield. That means you’ll want to use the ability each turn if at all possible. Second, the activated ability isn’t casting the spell, so timing restrictions apply; if the target is an instant, you can cast it at any time, but if it’s a sorcery, enchantment or artifact, you’ll need to play it during your main phase unless you’ve got a Vedalken Orrery on the battlefield to ignore all timing rules. So, it will take careful planning and timing to make full use of Quint’s potent abilities each turn.
Oh, one final thing I want to point out. If the spell you cast with Quint’s ability would be put into a graveyard, put it on the bottom of its owner’s library instead. This is a bit surprising, since many of these sorts of abilities end up exiling the card forever, but maybe keeping track of “exiled with Quint’s triggered ability” and “exiled with Quint’s activated ability” would be too confusing, and so they did it this way instead. This means that these spells get put back into the library to potentially find and use again.
And for style points, do you know what I’ll be putting in my Quint deck?
Dark, dank cellars sound like the perfect place for Lorehold students to find out the coolest secrets!
Okay, let’s take a look at cards we might want to include in the 99 of our Commander deck with Quintorius, Loremaster at the helm!
Rummage
I can see using nearly all of these in the deck to ensure early targets for Quint’s ability; many of these are instant or sorcery spells, so if you don’t find something big to put into the graveyard, in a pinch you can just exile one of these to make a 3/2 Spirit and potentially recast it to get another spin.
Big Noncreature Spells
Literally any of your favorite big splashy noncreature spells should be slammed right into the 99 of your deck. I picked out a lot of the ones that I’d be excited to run in my version here to give you some ideas, with Storm Herd being my top pick. 1/1 white Pegasus tokens equal to my life total, for a seven-mana discount? Yes, please! As a sorcery, your opponents are going to see it coming, but if you can pull it off, it’ll be super cool. I love being able to cast big enchantments like Vicious Shadows and Legion Loyalty for a huge discount.
If you’re playing enough big sorcery and instant spells, definitely consider Surge to Victory; if you’ve got enough Spirit token beatdown, you could end up with a huge splashy turn if they connect with combat damage after being pumped with Surge.
Spirits Matter
Even if you’re not leaning hard on Spirits in your deck, Quint’s ability makes sizeable Spirit token creatures, so it could be worth playing cards that make them even better. Hofri Ghostforge gives all your Spirits +1/+1, trample, and haste, which is awesome, and does fun things with nontoken creatures when they die. Drogskol Reinforcements and Blood Age General are Spirit creatures that also boost Spirit creatures.
Other Spirits
There are a ton of fantastic Spirit creatures in Boros we can fill out our creature suite with. With a fair number of them, we can make great use of Nikko-Onna’s trigger to bring it back to your hand to reuse its enters-the-battlefield ability. Atsushi, the Blazing Sky and Ao, the Dawn Sky are Spirit creatures with dies triggers, so we might want to sacrifice them to Quint’s ability.
Twilight Drover does a lot of work here. Not only is it a Spirit, it loves the Spirit tokens that Quint makes, and can eventually crank out its own Spirit creatures, 1/1s with flying. Drumbellower is a nifty Spirit that will untap all your creatures during each other player’s untap step, potentially unlocking Quint to use his tap ability during an opponent’s turn.
Tokens Matter
Quint makes tokens very slowly, but we can potentially lean more heavily in that direction and make use of cards like Mondrak, Glory Dominus and Anointed Procession. Phantom General boosts your tokens and even happens to be a Spirit. Neyali, Suns’ Vanguard giving our 3/2 Spirit tokens double strike makes them quite formidable in combat, and the triggered ability can give you access to more cards. The Background Inspiring Leader boosting the tokens Quint makes into 5/4 Spirits isn’t something to sneeze at.
Leaves Your Graveyard
The original version of Quint cares about one or more cards leaving your graveyard, which creates 3/2 Spirit tokens, so I was curious if there might be other cards that care about that too. Unfortunately, there aren’t very many, especially since our commander is only going to exile noncreature cards. Stonebound Mentor and Fuming Effigy – both also from Strixhaven: School of Mages and also Spirits – care about it, but I imagine it’s something that will pop up in future designs, so it’s worth keeping an eye out.
Dies Triggers
Quint’s activated ability sacrifices Spirit creatures, so we might want some cards with dies triggers to benefit from that. Skullclamp immediately came to mind, and I also like Heirloom Blade if we’re playing actual Spirit creature cards in the deck. If we are, Cauldron of Souls can be useful; give the Spirit card persist, sacrifice it to Quint, and get the Spirit card back with a -1/-1 counter.
Weatherlight Compleat gives you a bunch of scry triggers when creatures die until eventually giving you actual card draw. Deathrender is an old favorite of mine; if you have enough creatures in the deck, then equip it to the Spirit you’re going to sacrifice to Quint’s ability, and you’ll be able to put a creature from your hand onto the battlefield equipped to Deathrender.
Protect Quint
You definitely want a fair number of ways to protect Quint from removal, especially if you’re setting up a big turn by exiling something scary with Quint’s ability. Blacksmith’s Skill and Loran’s Escape are great for this, cheap to cast and giving the targeted creature hexproof and indestructible. They can also then be exiled by Quint’s ability later to help protect him again. I also like phasing out, such as Teferi’s Protection and the new Clever Concealment.
Rootborn Defenses doesn’t give hexproof, but indestructible can save your team from a battlefield sweeper and also populate one of the 3/2 Spirits.
What are you planning on doing with Quintorius, Loremaster once March of the Machine is available? Are there any awesome cards I overlooked that you think are slam-dunk inclusions? Do you think we’ll see the planeswalker version of Quint in March of the Machine: The Aftermath or in a later expansion?
A Poem
Before I go, I wanted to share a new feature that popped up on Archidekt when I loaded all these cards in there to analyze it. A button now shows up over the top of the decklist that generates a poem. A poem? Yes, a poem. Here’s what showed up for this deck:
A Poem for Quintorius
Presented by Archidekt
A commander’s wisdom and light.
With spells and creatures at his side
He’ll lead you through the battlefield’s tide.
Thrilling Discovery and Faithless Looting too,
Conspiracy Theorist plotting through and through.
Unexpected Windfall and Faithless Salvaging,
Geier Reach Sanitarium madness raging.
Storm Herd and Eldrazi Conscription,
Insurrection leads to pure destruction.
Kaldra Compleat with Sunbird’s Invocation,
Legion Loyalty, a hero’s motivation.
Austere Command with True Conviction,
Triplicate Titan for a decisive prediction.
Nikko-Onna, Karmic Guide, and Windborn Muse,
An army to defend, to never refuse.
Quintorius, Field Historian commands with care,
Stonebound Mentor provides strength and repair.
Thousand-Year Elixir and Patriar’s Seal,
A deck full of secrets, in it all a reveal.
So take up your cards and join the sage,
Quintorius will lead you on the stage.
In the world of Magic there’s no greater thrill,
Than playing the deck with ever-lasting skill.
There’s the poem. How did they do it? Some sort of poet bot? Artificial intelligence?
Talk to Me
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