Commander Deck Tech: Kirol, Attentive First-Year

Finally, Magic: The Gathering has returned to Lorwyn!

This fantastic plane is beloved by many players, and, thankfully for us, the new Lorwyn set brought back lots of old friends (from the lore and many other games in this universe) and introduced several new ones: a few Strixhaven students, in fact.

In this article, you'll find two lists with Kirol, from Lorehold College, who can copy triggered abilities you control, even if just once per turn.

The first list centers around tokens, buffs, and burn, and it's perfect for those who enjoy aggressive strategies. The second one centers around blink, so it copies strong ETBs and takes advantage of them to attack the opponents' life points.

Without further ado, let's meet Kirol!

A group of Strixhaven students accidentally got into the omenpath that leads to Lorwyn, an unknown plane inhabited by creatures that turn into completely different versions of themselves by night or day.

Kirol, the Boros card that sits at the center of our article today, was part of that group. This color identity is a great fit for a Strixhaven student, as this College centers around archeology and history.

You can activate Kirol's ability if you also tap untapped creatures and then copy triggered abilities you control. This will actually support our main strategy.

Overall, Kirol will improve other effects in both lists.

In the first one, the idea is to activate their ability once per turn to copy other abilities and either create tokens or burn opponents.

Let's start with the stars that make this entire thing work: cards that create tokens!

Tokens

This deck is mostly white , which makes sense, considering many white spells create tokens or interact when you do that.

Otharri, Suns' Glory and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon are both Boros and create lots of tokens quite fast. The experience counters that help Otharri with its Rebels also help Aang, Airbending Master with his allies.

Jacked Rabbit, Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, and Ainok Strike Leader are other valuable additions that create creature tokens when they attack.

There is a reason why Beza, the Bounding Spring is so beloved among players.

When this Elemental enters the board, it may create a treasure token, give you 4 life, create two Fish tokens, and/or draw more cards that turn.

All of these effects are conditional, but, considering there are always at least three opponents in casual Commander matches, this card usually works.

Doubling Tokens

White creates tokens and also multiplies them. Some spells in this list that do that are:

Anointed Procession has always been a hit with token players, but, in the last few years, it made a few friends: Ojer Taq, Deepest Foundation, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, and, most recently, Elspeth, Storm Slayer.

Burn

Kirol will copy triggered abilities, but you can pick which one, burn or tokens, whatever you need most. Some burns in this list are:

Out of these, the most versatile is Will of the Mardu, as it deals damage to a target creature but also creates tokens and is great with other cards in this list, like Warleader's Call and Agate Instigator.

Besides burn, Arabella, Abandoned Doll also gives you life whenever it attacks.

Blink

Blink might not be the most important mechanic in this list, but it is a relevant part of it because, with it, we'll reuse ETB effects on cards like Beza, the Bounding Spring. You can also use these spells as protection occasionally.

We covered Monk Gyatso in a recent article here at Cards Realm (if you'd like to know more about him, click here!). He might not blink anything, but he still lets us reuse ETB effects.

Combo

Kirol is strong and will often be in combos. The combo below includes many pieces, but it fits this deck pretty well.

To make this combo work, you'll need Helm of the Host, Kirol, something to double tokens (like Anointed Procession), and another creature in play. You should equip the helm on Kirol as well.

When your combat phase starts, create a copy of Kirol. Then, answer this effect with Kirol's ability and create even more copies.

Whatever you use to double tokens will double copies as well. As the copies will be new versions of Kirol on the board, you can just tap them to use their effects and create even more copies of them on the board.

As Helm of the Host's ability will still be on the stack, you may keep priority to copy it with one of the Kirol copies that came into play that turn. You can repeat this process as much as you want and feed it constantly with more Kirols.

By itself, this loop won't finish the game. So, keep cards like Warleader's Call, Agate Instigator, or Altar of the Brood in play to finish.

If you can't, create as many copies of Kirol as you want and pray your opponents don't play a Rakdos Charm before your next combat.

Blink decks are often associated with Azorius colors , but they still work with Boros colors . This list is an example of that.

Once the Avatar: The Last Airbender set came out, white got some incredible support cards with airbending. Once again, airbending and blink are different, but they are similar enough for this strategy.

When you airbend a target creature, it is exiled, and you have to pay two mana to cast it from exile.

Avatar's Wrath is one of the coolest airbending cards ever released. To sum up, it lets you pick a creature to stay in play and then airbends all the others (including enemy creatures).

Besides clearing the "battlefield", this sorcery also prevents other players from casting spells from outside their hand until your next turn.

So, they won't be able to cast even commanders in the command zone or other creatures exiled through this airbending until it's your turn again.

It's a great way to buy time, delay whoever is ahead, or open the board to guarantee a win.

Just like our main list, red will support you and allow you to deal damage when creatures enter your board. With these cards, you'll create more value from your creatures, considering that, besides triggering ETBs, they'll also deal burn damage, and you can copy these with Kirol.

This set gave us a peak of what we can expect from Secrets of Strixhaven, to be released still in the first semester of 2026.

Kirol is definitely an interesting commander, and I can't wait to learn more about their story.

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!