Rebuilding the Spirit Squadron Commander Deck

 

I have purchased every prebuilt Magic the Gathering Commander product that has released in 2021. My Magic the Gathering addiction is in high gear going into its twenty-seventh year. I started the game with only one person to play with regularly and now I do not have a consistent in person play partner. That has not stopped me loving the game. It has simply changed the way I play it.

I will say that MtG is not a game that you only play in turns. Play happens in deck design and construction. It happens in theory crafting while researching cards and interactions. I could almost even say that I have made a game out of opening packs and sorting a set into a binder. I play Magic the Gathering often and not the least part of that has been a sort of high-level mental play.

The reason I have seized on Commander as my format is complicated. I love the rotating nature of the Standard metagame. One of the first things I do each morning is jump on Magic the Gathering Arena and complete my daily quests to earn my coins.

Those daily quests require me to do things like play a certain number of a specific color spell, play out so many lands, or kill so many of my opponent’s creatures. Because of this my deckbuilding each season isn’t as simple as arriving at the one deck that I most enjoy playing. I want to have something play worth across the spectrum of all 5 colors. I want to have a deck that is efficient in creature removal with the caveat that exile does not count as kill. Also, because I am me, I want these decks to have a decent chance of performing well.

Notice I did not say winning. I enjoy winning a hand of MtG more than most, but it a virtual gaming world even the casual play environment is heavily shaped by proven winning decks. There is no shame in netdecking and I have to admit in the heavily used world of Izzet and Dimir Epiphany decks it is occasionally tempting to emulate what works.

The reason I do not do that, and I still haven’t built any decks around Alrund’s Epiphany, is that it takes some of the mental play I was talking about out of the game. I have a mono black Zombie deck that has taken down Izzet Epiphany several times. I am tuning on a Selesnya Humans deck that gives me hope that Epiphany cannot reign supreme with the release of Crimson Vow…but I digress.

For me a good part of the fun of each new set launch is seeing new mechanics and card interactions come to life. Playing lots of standard with plenty of losses dished out to me daily allows me to see some amazing card combinations. I can really respect a well piloted deck absolutely smashing my face in. Sometimes I even must watch myself to not have my response timer start sizzling across the screen while I am jotting down notes.

I take those fun learnings and dream up solutions, counters, and occasionally improvements. I tweak my virtual standard decks occasionally to increase my enjoyment. That sometimes even increases my win rate. More often than not I chew on uses of cards that I would not have looked twice at on my own.

Back here in the real world I have opted to focus on playing Commander. I love tribal and combo decks and the 100 card singleton format enhances the challenge of building something really great. Now that Wizards of the Coast has embraced the community’s love of Commander (everywhere but in Arena) it is much less difficult to get a good start in Commander. If you don’t have a decent deck just wait a few months for the next set release and you will get yourself at least a couple of new options. Me, I buy them all. There are always at least a few cards per deck that I want to add to my collection even if I don’t care for the theme or color combination of a particular deck.

For example, I was not drooling when I picked up Phantom Premonition from the Khaldeim set release. Long before I saw Alrund’s Epiphany in 3 out of 4 matches on arena I had my mind made up on the foretell mechanic being thematically cool but mechanically daft. As usual, I called that one totally wrong. If you really hate discard decks the way I do Foretell is a wonderful mechanic that will frustrate a mid-game Duress play (which always feels a little gratuitous to me anyway). Still, I happily stripped apart and filed away Phantom Premonition thinking to myself that Spirits were just not a tribe I was going to invest time, money, thought, or energy into. I dropped Ranar the Ever-Watchful into his slot in my multicolored Legendary binder and did not think much about him.

Two Innistrad set releases later and I am cracking open Spirit Squadron with a glint in my eye and visions of Ranar and Brago interactions dancing through my head. The mental play is in high gear. I did not even slow down to curse myself for discounting spirit tribal. Could I really expect a bunch of white blue weenie creatures to stand against the might of my Orzhov Vampires, Myr, Rainbow Slivers, or even my new Blue Black Zombie build? Turns out there is a very good chance that Spirits can outshine them all and take on either of my Angel decks to boot. That is saying something. I have lots of thought, time, and money in both my Mardu and Bant Angel Commander Decks.

Here is a link to the original deck list for Spirit Squadron.

This deck comes out of the box very playable. If I am fair all of the company-built Commander decks function. They may not be combo heavy killing machines, but that is by design. When you crack open a factory fresh WotC official Commander product it should make you want to buy synergistic cards, or they are not doing their job well.

Let me run through what I absolutely love about this deck first.

That obviously has to start with the commander Millicent, Restless Revenant.

At a glance she is expensive at 5WU. That first line of text fixes that complaint up. “This spell costs 1 less to cast for each Spirit you control.” That doesn’t make her the end all be all with 4 power and 4 toughness. The same thing that made me reticent to build a spirit tribal play in Millicent’s favor. Spirits are typically fairly cheap creatures. In a well-tuned version of the deck, I am probably going to tempo out a spirit on each of my first few turns obviously depending on draw. Pulling out a 4/4 Commander for 2WU on turn 4 is not terrible.

Once she is in play Millicent is an army builder. She creates white weenie spirits that will pull quite a bit of synergy with the tweaked version of the deck. The only real question I am debating is does she remain my Commander or am I willing to play go fish for her.  

Donal is an absolute beast. My reasons for cutting him from the deck are extremely superficial. It is also the reason I really love playing MtG Arena. I like to have a very clean and properly represented battlefield. Representing copies (potentially of 25 creatures) can be done, but can it be done easily to my satisfaction? Also, in my amateurish understanding of this card does my copy of Spell Queller become a 1/1 or is it a 2/3? I will eventually research the answer but for now Donal is going to hang out in my binder to see if he should rejoin the deck. 

I am really torn on the partner duo Timin, Youthful Geist and Rhoda, Geist Avenger. Partner combinations have a history of being two different creature types. I do not want every card in a Commander Tribal deck to match because tribal kill spells are painful. My conflict for these two is not that their abilities aren’t beautiful and appropriately complimentary. Timin’s beginning of combat ability is going to buff Rhoda every time with the bonus of incapacitating a defender. That is super synergy that I expect from great partner cards.

I have Rhoda and Timin in my current iteration of the deck, but since I am going to lean hard into a flicker mechanic allowing me to exploit enter the battlefield effects repeatedly Rhoda may not have time to build to a beast before I bounce her into the blind eternities and back again. I will get more into my ideas later. At face value, I like Rhonda and Timin. In my minor overhaul of the deck I have added some fun surprises to buff Rhoda up and keep her in play. 

Drogskol Reinforcements is a fine card for spirit tribal , but suffers from the same concern since I do not want to bank on having him sitting on the field. Though, again, if you want to build monster spirits Drogskol Reinforcements help. Melee just isn't going to add that much to my spirits so Drogskol Reinforcements, although neat, ends up on the chopping block. 

I do not care for Priest of the Blessed Graf. The card is amazingly named, and if I played lots of multiplayer Commander it would be decent as a game leveling card. It doesn’t have an Enter the Battlefield Effect which is going to become important to my strategy.

Hello, Card Draw Engine! Sure, I could say to this fella,"No. I don't want to play you. By yourself you enter the battlefield once, and the way I play I am likely only ever dueling one person at a time." I could say that and cut Ethereal Investigator and I would be missing using a great card (like I probably am Donal, Herald of Wings.) Ethereal Investigator is going to be interacting heavily with Skybind and Teleportation Circle. Grabbing even a clue a turn that I can burn for card draw is no bad thing. 

In the words of Billie Mayes," but wait, there's more!" Whenever I draw my second card each turn *bam* 1/1 white weenie spirits. I have plans on building an army. I even have plans where headcount on the field is going to matter. After working through my initial redesign I am excited for this one. 

In Commander one of the chief factors for card viability is value added. Spectral Arcanist is a Instant/ Sorcery recycling machine. Combine that with a flicker effect and a handful of splice into Arcane cards and things get pretty gross pretty fast. This is so good it wants me to invest in tech to bring things back from exile within the color scheme. Oh the shenanigans I plan to pull with this little fella... even if he does remind me of a Skyrim Dragon Priest. 

The inherit problems with the wording on Donal, Herald of Wings exists here as well. That may be a good argue to put Donal back in the deck given that I like Storm of Souls too much to drop it. Say I am getting wrecked and a board wipe is the right move. Sephara Sky's Blade is out there making my Spirit Army nicely indestructible. I drop my Wrath of God and only Sephara comes off the field. Next turn I pop Storm of Souls and we are back to an invincible army of Spirits. Do I really care if Sephara is a 1/1 Spirit Angel Legend instead of her usual 7/7? Well, yes I do. JUDGE! 

Instant Speed mass Flicker that I can recycle with Spectral Arcanist? Yes, please. I expect I will be buying an extra copy or two of this card to beef up other Commander decks. Also, the art here is top shelf. 

Let's take a look at what my rebuilt Spirit Squadron looks like:

COMMANDER: Millicent, Restless Revenant

Planeswalker (1)

1 Dovin, Grand Arbiter   Venser, the Sojourner

Creature (33)

1 Donal, Herald of Wings Ranar the Ever-Watchful

1 Rhoda, Geist Avenger

1 Timin, Youthful Geist

1 Drogskol Reinforcements Brago, King Eternal

1 Priest of the Blessed Graf Katilda, Dawnhart Martyr

1 Ethereal Investigator

1 Spectral Arcanist

1 Angel of Flight Alabaster

1 Boreas Charger Ethereal Valkyrie

1 Bygone Bishop

1 Custodi Soulbinders

1 Hallowed Spiritkeeper Spell Queller

1 Hanged Executioner

1 Karmic Guide Dreamshackle Geist

1 Knight of the White Orchid Glorious Protector

1 Mentor of the Meek Drogskol Cavalry

1 Mirror Entity Restoration Angel

1 Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens

1 Remorseful Cleric Sephara Sky’s Blade

1 Twilight Drover

1 Windborn Muse

1 Ghostly Pilferer

1 Kami of the Crescent Moon

1 Rattlechains

1 Shacklegeist

1 Supreme Phantom

1 Geist of Saint Traft

1 Custodi Squire Mausoleum Wanderer

1 Spectral Shepherd

1 Nebelgast Herald

1 Sire of the Storm

1 Spectral Sailor Patrician Geist

1 Drogskol Captain

Sorcery (6)

1 Storm of Souls

1 Haunting Imitation Hour of Reckoning

1 Fell the Mighty

1 Kirtar's Wrath

1 Flood of Tears

1 Distant Melody

Instant (7)

1 Sudden Salvation Flicker

1 Occult Epiphany Cloudshift

1 Disorder in the Court

1 Benevolent Offering Aether Shockwave

1 Crush Contraband Cosmic Intervention

1 Swords to Plowshares

1 Arcane Denial  Counterspell

Artifact (8)

1 Midnight Clock

1 Arcane Signet  Feldon’s Cane 

1 Azorius Locket Elixir of Immortality

1 Azorius Signet Spellbook

1 Commander's Sphere Conjurer’s Closet

1 Marble Diamond Teleportation Circle

1 Sky Diamond Flickerform

1 Sol Ring Spirit Bonds

Enchantment (9)

1 Haunted Library

1 Breath of the Sleepless

1 Promise of Bunrei

1 Imprisoned in the Moon Skybind

1 Verity Circle

1 Darksteel Mutation Angelic Chorus

1 Field of Souls

1 Ghostly Prison

1 Reconnaissance Mission

Land (35)

1 Exotic Orchard

1 Moorland Haunt

1 Port Town

1 Prairie Stream

1 Skycloud Expanse

1 Temple of Enlightenment

1 Azorius Chancery

1 Command Tower

1 Myriad Landscape

1 Path of Ancestry

1 Temple of the False God

1 Unclaimed Territory

12 Plains

11 Island

These edits get me to the point of play testing. I haven't touched my land base. I haven't quite figured out where to fit in a few thematic favorites like the Ribbons of Reiki or The Unspeakable. Obviously I need a Reliquary Tower. More than likely my "final" form of the deck will not split the difference between exploiting the flicker ability and bonuses of enchantments or digging hard into the Arcane/ Spirit synergy. I will end up doing one or the other. 

Ultimately Spirit Squadron has done an unexpected thing. It has me excited for the next Kamigawa release where I expect to see more Spirits and Arcane spells.