Upgrading Commander Precon: Lorehold Spirit (Quintorius, History Chaser)

If you enjoy interacting with the graveyard and you're sick of black decks, this precon is perfect for you! It is a new, interesting way to play this strategy.

Secrets of Strixhaven brought us back to Arcavios, where we'll follow five Strixhaven students, one from each college, in their adventures.

The Lorehold Spirit precon, commanded by Quintorius, History Chaser, is a Boros list that represents the Strixhaven college that studies Archaeomancy. Researchers obsessed with history and adventure come from all over the multiverse to study at this college.

In this article, we'll show you how you can upgrade the original list and make it quite competitive. At the very end, we'll also show you a version centered around the alternative commander, Excava, the Risen Past.

Let's start with the commander.

Quint, an optimistic, incredible storyteller, is a student at Lorehold College. He believes historical accuracy is extremely important, and his mind is full of facts that are sometimes useful and sometimes very useless.

During the Phyrexian invasion, Quintorius's spark activated, and he became a planeswalker.

Here are some of his cards:

Because of these many versions, Quintorius is an old friend to Commander players. In fact, this precon plays nearly all of his versions - the only exception is Quintorius Kand.

His new version is Quintorius, History Chaser, a planeswalker that creates a 3/2 Spirit token when one or more cards leave your graveyard.

Keep in mind that reanimating and exiling cards are pretty common effects that move cards from your graveyard.

With its +1 effect, you can discard a card to draw two and mill one. With its -4 effect, your Spirits gain vigilance and double strike until the end of the turn.

This planeswalker draws cards, creates tokens, and fills our graveyard, all at once.

Excava, the Risen Past is this precon's alternative commander. This powerful Horse has flying and haste, and, when it attacks, it returns a non-aura artifact, creature, or enchantment from your graveyard to the board with a finality counter on it.

You must use this ability on something that costs 3 mana or less, and it will come back into play as a 1/1 Spirit with flying in addition to all its other types.

When you get this product, this is what is in the box:

As you must have realized, this list is partly Spirit-themed, which is perfect for the two commander options in it and fits Lorehold College pretty well.

It also features a new mechanic from this set, Prepared. We highly recommend you check out this article if you'd like to see more about every new mechanic, including Prepared.

To make this strategy work, we need spells that move cards from our graveyard. Let's see a few of them.

Moving Cards From The Graveyard

The most popular graveyard strategy in MTG is reanimating creatures. In this deck, though, we'll do a lot more than just reanimate cards to create tokens with Quintorius.

Remember we said there are other ways to move cards from the graveyard besides just reanimating them? Faithless Looting is a good example of that.

You can cast this sorcery from your graveyard thanks to Flashback, an ability that lets you pay an alternative cost to cast a spell from the graveyard and then forces you to exile it instead of sending it back to the graveyard.

That's enough to create Spirit tokens with Quintorius and trigger other effects in this list.

Some new cards in this list also do this. For instance, Vanguard of the Restless buffs Spirits and "reanimates itself". Lorehold Archivist has Prepared and lets you cast Restore Relic, which, in turn, lets you exile and create a copy of a creature or artifact in your graveyard.

Considering Lorehold College breathes history, a class that helps you put cards in the graveyard makes a lot of sense. This card also mills a random card and lets you play it that turn, deals damage to opponents when cards leave your graveyard, and discounts the cost of any card you cast from outside your hand.

It's as if we're telling a story to our opponents, all while dealing damage to them whenever we get a new resource.

The popular Squee, Goblin Nabob is one of the most critical cards in this list. As silly as this sounds, you can discard this Goblin with any of the other spells and effects in this list (including Quintorius). Then, you can return it from the graveyard to your hand at the beginning of your upkeep for no extra cost at all.

Squee's effect is very powerful in this list, as well as valuable. When your opponents see this card, they'll definitely be annoyed and think, "I don't believe this 1/1 is doing all of this!"

Cards We Added

Underworld Breach will help us cast cards from the graveyard with Escape and also move cards from there because part of its alternative cost is exiling three cards. It is also easy to reanimate.

As for Trove Warden, its ability triggers when lands enter your board because it has Landfall. This is great because, with Quintorius in play, each land that you put in play will create extra value for you and give you creature tokens.

Furthermore, when it dies, you'll put each permanent it exiled in play.

Cards We Removed

Buffs

No matter what, Boros lists will always play powerful attackers!

Even if the main game plan isn't buffing the commander as much as possible to kill opponents with 21 commander damage, we'll still play many spells to buff the tokens Quintorius and other creatures in this list create.

Just like Quintorius, Kirol, History Buff is a student at Lorehold College, loves history, and isn't afraid to explore Arcavios' digging sites.

In this list, this creature will let us mill cards to buff other creatures with the spell Pack a Punch.

Another new set of cards from this set that was well-received was the Charm cycle. This list in particular plays Lorehold Charm, a modal spell that forces opponents to sacrifice artifacts, returns a creature or artifact that costs 2 mana or less into play, or gives +1/+1 and trample to your creatures until the end of the turn.

This list also plays the incredibly new Spirit of Resilience, which grows as cards leave your graveyard and can become a copy of one of the cards you bring back until the end of the turn.

Cards We Added

A very fun thing about Secrets of Strixhaven is that it gave us an array of cards that fit these precons perfectly and are in the best colors to see play in them.

One of these cards is Hardened Academic, a Bird Cleric that has flying and haste and lets us discard cards to give it lifelink. Furthermore, when one or more cards leave your graveyard, it gives you a +1/+1 counter to put on a target creature.

Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan set, also sees play in this list. It will buff your attackers and also lets you play the top card in your deck until your next end step. Then, you'll exile that card.

As for Drogskol Reinforcements, we added it to support the Spirits in this list. It will prevent any non-combat damage that would be dealt to them and grant them Melee so that they're a little bigger when they're attacking.

Cards We Removed

Burn

You thought this list didn't have space for burn spells? You thought wrong. Wizards of the Coast themselves added a few burn spells to the original precon.

Out of these cards, Fateful Tempest definitely stands out. This sorcery gives your opponents a few options, but all of them benefit you, as putting more cards in your graveyard is not the end of the world for this strategy.

Cards We Added

We recommend you add Ark of Hunger to this list because this enchantment gives you life, burns opponents, and lets you mill cards.

Cards We Removed

Card Draw

As usual, let's go through one of the most important mechanics in Commander:

Primary Research is also from the new set and plays two roles: when it enters play, it lets you return a permanent that costs 3 mana or less from your graveyard to the board. Afterward, it will draw one card for you at the beginning of your end step.

Naktamun Lorespinner does the same thing as a card in the Reserved List when it is Prepared. In this case, we're talking about Wheel of Fortune, one of the most iconic red spells in the game. This creature is a very powerful way to draw cards, even though this effect only works if a player has one or no cards in hand at the beginning of your upkeep.

Cards We Added

Zurgo's cousin, Tersa Lightshatter, is great in decks that discard cards and constantly use the graveyard. If you'd like to see more about Tersa, check out this article!

Joined Researchers is the next chapter of the love story that started in Secret Rendezvous. It is both flavorful and useful, as well as a great addition to this list.

Quintorius, History Chaser's +1 ability interacts with the top 3 cards in your deck. Coincidently, Sensei's Divining Top also lets you look at and "manage" the top 3 cards in your deck.

The idea behind this artifact is to use it to manage what goes to your hand and what goes to your graveyard.

Cards We Removed

Recursion

Quintorius will send cards to your graveyard, but he can't move these cards from there by himself. That's why this list plays:

Excava, the Risen Past and Sun Titan are best friends and found each other in this precon.

Sevinne's Reclamation creates value when you cast it from your graveyard through Flashback. In particular, if you do this, you'll be able to copy it and pick new targets for it.

Cards We Added

Restoration Seminar has Paradigm, another new mechanic from this set. It's the perfect way to return permanents from the graveyard.

You can use Ghost Vacuum to exile cards in enemy graveyards or your own. When you sacrifice it, you'll put in play each creature card you exiled with it. These creatures will be 1/1 Spirits and come into play with flying counters.

Cards We Removed

Mana Rocks

Cards We Added

One card you can add to this list is Talisman of Conviction.

Cards We Removed

To open some space, you can remove Mind Stone. We also swapped Sacred Peaks for Spectator Seating, by the way.

Board Wipes

Naturally, we had to add some ways to clear the board.

Ceaseless Conflict is another new card in this list. With it, you'll clear the board and create 3/2 creatures for each allied non-token creature that were destroyed this way.

It's a great way to clear enemy boards without losing your own creatures.

Cards We Added

A classic card that deserves a spot in any red list is Blasphemous Act.

Cards We Removed

Here's our upgraded list:

Excava, the Risen Past is a very powerful commander. When we built this Excava list, we focused more on reanimating cards, instead of discarding them.

In theory, finality counters are one of Excava's weaknesses. Luckily for us, in practice, Commander is full of spells that remove creatures from play and remove these counters, or just avoid them completely. Here are a few cards we added:

If you're looking for something different to play with your friends, Lorehold Spirit is a great choice.

The original list is already quite powerful and fun.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!