Card Review: Quintorius, History Chaser

Welcome back!

Thank you for reading. Today, I have a special card review. I was initially only going to review the face commander of the Lorehold Precon. However, after playing this precon, I came to love it enough to make some immediate swaps. While I definitely recommend these options, I highly recommend you play this precon, and all the Strixhaven precons, with the original lists before upgrading them.

Let’s dive into Quintorius, History Chaser.

This card is loaded with sweet abilities, but the immediate bonus I saw is that starting loyalty of five. Quintorius is able to immediately enter the field and impact your board if he’s allowed to resolve. This is the ultimate weakness of this deck: with such a strong incentive to build a board of spirits and swing in for the kill, removing the commander prevents that win condition AND the key mode of value for the deck. But having such a high starting loyalty makes this less of a weakness, although you must be careful about when and why you play Quintorius. In my games with him, I found that he is a perfect early value piece, and that I only needed to ever use his -4 ability once to close out the game.

Before playing the deck for myself, I saw a lot of people talk online about how to get cards out of your graveyard. This was not really a problem for me, but I like Reanimator, so I might understand if people are unfamiliar with that archetype and therefore unfamiliar with how to use Quintorius. Similar to Reanimator decks, the key is knowing when to take something out of your graveyard. Newer necromancers will do so out of desperation or necessity, thinking they need to get something big into the yard and out as soon as possible. But, like many archetypes, the key is waiting until you can maximize your value. The additions I made to Quintorius did add more ways to make cards leave the graveyard, but it also increased the potency and types of value that I might gain by doing so.

That said, I think you could really alter how the deck plays based on the swaps you make. In this post, I will detail what swaps I made and why, starting with an Honorable Mention.

Shenanigans is a card begging to be in this deck because it is literally the only Red card with Dredge. Not only is it hilarious to basically always have Shenanigans with Quintorius (his +1 ability to draw a card is a valid Dredge option), so you can recast Shenanigans and always get it back. However, I thought it might lead to annoying play patterns where I simply destroy everyone’s mana rocks turn after turn and build an army of 3/2 spirits. If that’s your thing, I’d look into Shenanigans.

To make my Spirit attacks hit harder and less risky, I added Drogskol Reinforcements.

Hitting harder with Melee was what initially drew my attention to this card, but preventing damage-based board wipes means that not only does it remove that option from my opponents, but it also makes the plethora of damage-based board wipes in Boros asymmetrical in our favor. Swinging in with Double-Striking Spirits right after a Board Wipe? That’s what I call a Blasphemous Act!

Despite their uncommon rarity, these two cards are incredible additions to any Quintorius Deck: Reconstruct History and Molten Note.

Reconstruct History is one of those cards that astonishes you with how flexible it can be due to its wide choice of card types. In Blue, you need to pay FOUR to achieve HALF this effect with Archaeomancer. Whether you’re using this to recycle utility pieces, revive Quintorius, or recover some cards you discarded with Quintorius earlier in the game, Reconstruct History has a function!

Molten Note is a part of a pair of two-color X spells in Secrets of Strixhaven, the other being Traumatic Critique, where the X can be 0, and the card is still effective! Molten Note, for two mana at Sorcery speed, will always untap all your creatures. One direction you could easily take the deck in is Convoking out big threats or powerful spells. But Molten Note is as useful in that sense as it is with a little bit of mana into the X: a handy removal spell. What makes this especially good for Quintorius is the option for Flashback, removing another card from the graveyard.

Speaking of removing things from the graveyard, Purify the Grave is a cheap way to quickly get Quintorius going.

With two White mana and two cards in the graveyard (exactly how many there will be after resolving Quintorius’ +1 ability), you can create three Spirits. This can allow you to quickly recover with some blockers after a board wipe, or bring up some attackers at the End Step before your turn.

If you really want to make the most of Quintorius’ -4 ability, Seize the Day is the way to do it. Vigilant Spirits will swing twice, and your strongest nonspirit (therefore nonvigilant creature (probably Kirol, History Buff)

In one of my games with Quintorius, I managed to get Containment Construct onto the field, and it completely escalated the +1 ability in power. With cards immediately hitting the graveyard and being exiled, I was making spirits quickly, and if I happened to do that with a flashback card, I was getting crazy value. But Bag of Holding is even better, because not only does it provide you with ANOTHER avenue to draw and discard immediately into exile, but you can get all the cards you exiled back into your hand. You can effectively create the perfect hand with a Bag of Holding while simultaneously making a legion of spirits.

Thanks again for reading. I took a few extra days on this one because it was a little longer, but I think it was worth it. I’ll see you next week for the final review of the Secrets of Strixhaven Commander decks!