Killian, Decisive Mentor Commander Deck Guide

Killian, Decisive Mentor | Illustration by Billy Christian

The Silverquill Influence precon from Secrets of Strixhaven Commander gave us incredible reprints for our aura decks, but it also introduced a fun commander in Killian, Decisive Mentor. The precon had a subtheme that bribed your opponents so that they wouldn’t touch you, but Killian works just as well when you focus more on auras and build up a threat of your own.

This deck has a mix of auras and reanimators that make it ready for a long, grindy match, but it can pivot on a dime to buff its biggest threat into a game-ender.

The Deck

Killian, Ink Duelist | Illustration by Ryan Pancoast

This Silverquill/Orzhov () deck combines auras and reanimator to take advantage of its commander and similar enchantment-based payoffs. You’ll look to enchant both your creatures and your opponents’ to set up your board and disrupt your opponents’ ability to attack you.

Once you have enough auras, you can use All That Glitters or similar effects to turn your best attacker into a threat that can take out players one by one. Enchantment reanimation helps you survive a longer grindy match, and mass reanimation combines with Killian, Decisive Mentor to tap down your opponents’ best blockers before you attack.

The Commander: Killian, Decisive Mentor

Killian, Decisive Mentor leads the way with two triggered abilities. The first taps and goads your opponents’ creatures when your enchantments enter, while the second draws cards when creatures enchanted with auras you control attack. That second trigger has “one or more” templating, so you only get one card per combat phase. But nothing says it has to be your combat phase.

Auras, Auras, Auras

To maximize Killian’s card draw (and Eriette), you’ll need to enchant your opponents’ creatures. Many of your auras are flexible, but Redemption Arc really wants to be on their creatures. Combine it with Pariah and you won’t need to worry about your life total for a while, but both are also good on their own, especially if your reanimation is online.

Animate Dead adds to your aura count and allows you to reuse one of your dead creatures or steal an opponent’s battlecruiser. Changing Loyalty also steals your opponents’ best creatures since it reanimates them. Kaya's Ghostform can’t steal an opponent’s creature, but it’s a cheap way to save one of your key creatures from removal.

Impetus auras like Coercive Impetus, Ghoulish Impetus, and Martial Impetus add permanent goading to your deck. Eye of Nidhogg adds some more, but flying and deathtouch make it good to put on your creatures, too.

In addition to Eye of Nidhogg and Ghoulish Impetus, self-recursive auras like Angelic Destiny and Spirit Loop make sure you have something to do during your turn. Screams from Within is is a self-reanimating black aura that helps with color balance.

Gift of Immortality is best used on one of your own creatures, and you have a few with good enters triggers. Shielded by Faith is one of the best auras the grab with Light-Paws since it can move around the battlefield as creatures enter, and Timely Ward makes for another indestructible enabler.

Songbirds' Blessing helps you to get more auras onto the battlefield or into your hand; the modality of the ability lets you put Changing Loyalty into your hand to cast later, but you can also bring out something to buff your attackers and tap another potential blocker during that very combat.

Your finishing auras are All That Glitters, Eidolon of Countless Battles, Ethereal Armor, Mantle of the Ancients, and Sage's Reverie, which all give a creature a buff based on the number of auras or enchantments you have, depending on the effect.

Super State combines with these mass pumping auras to accelerate your win; it feels amazing to hit this with Herald of Amity’s enters trigger.

Enchantment Payoffs

Danitha Capashen, Paragon, Starfield Mystic, and Transcendent Envoy are staple cost reducers for aura decks. Killian, Ink Duelist adds good flavor as the previous version of the commander.

Aura decks also rarely leave home without Sram, Senior Edificer, Kor Spiritdancer, or Archon of Sun's Grace. Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor marries card draw to a cost reducer, but you’re less likely to get consistent card draw here since you tend to spread your auras wide rather than stack them high.

Hateful Eidolon adds to your draw package with a death-based trigger. And you really don’t mind if your auras go to the graveyard since they make your mass reanimation that much more potent.

Doomwake Giant starts off as an enchantress that hates on token and weenie boards, but you can bring back a bunch of enchantments at once to turn it into a one-sided sweeper.

Eriette of the Charmed Apple makes it harder for your opponents to attack you, while its end step trigger stabilizes you and can seal a victory if nobody can remove Eriette or your auras.

Ondu Spiritdancer copies the best enchantment that enters each turn for extra value all around.

Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice tutors for auras every time you cast another one. It’s one of the few creatures that’ll gain multiple auras over the course of the game, and it can fetch an All That Glitters or something similar to get huge quickly. Open the Armory is another aura tutor to help you grab what you need.

Herald of Amity filters the top of your library for the best aura among the top eight cards, then attacks with its own built-in aura-counting buff.

One of the deck’s most expensive cards, Greater Auramancy protects your enchantments and your enchanted creatures with shroud.

Reanimators

You’ll have to attack to prepare Eiganjo Dynastorian’s Replenish spell, but that’s no problem. With the right set up you’ll only need to do that once, but the alpha strike on your next turn just prepares the fox again. Retether costs as much as the Replenish, but it only brings back auras.

I wanted to show off the power of paradigm since this deck was born out of Secrets of Strixhaven season. Restoration Seminar is perfect when a game turns long and grindy. The main plan is to bring back auras to get more Killian triggers, but it’ll bring back anything from mana rocks to creatures if that’s what you need more.

Court of Ardenvale brings the monarch to the table, a fun mechanic that encourages people to get into combat. But since you’ll goad your opponents’ best stuff, it’ll be hard for them to take the crown from you without their own monarch cards. The 3-mana restriction gets most, but not all of your auras, but it also grabs many of your key support cards and your commander.

Support Pieces

Breena, the Demagogue makes a cameo appearance to buff your board and add to your card draw a little.

Ghostly Prison gives your opponents the fun choice between their ability to attack you and advancing their game plan, while Sphere of Safety eventually makes it virtually impossible to hit you.

Scriv, the Obligator wants to attack to add its Contract auras and some Killian triggers, which makes it a good target to enchant.

The interaction comes from Killian’s enchantress trigger, some standard Orzhov removal spells, and Inkshield, a fog with some explosive potential to widen your board.

Orzhov doesn’t have much ramp, so Land Tax is here to help you to catch up to the ramp player.

The Mana Base

The mana base has your typical mix of dual lands, basic lands, and mana rocks. There’s nearly three times as many Plains as Swamps since auras and many of their payoffs are very hungry for white mana.

Shadowy Backstreet’s surveil trigger can put something into your graveyard to reanimate later, which is especially useful early before your mana is ready.

Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Ishgard, the Holy See inject enchantment recursion into your mana base, while Adagia, Windswept Bastion provides a mana sink that copies your best enchantments.

Arcane Lighthouse’s ability to strip away shroud and hexproof lets you target your opponents’ creatures with auras or removal.

The Strategy

Beyond an opening hand with Sol Ring and another mana rock, you aren’t likely to cast your commander earlier than turn 3, if not later depending on the sequencing of tapped lands. But if you can get something like Sram/Kor Spiritdancer on 2, Killian on 3, and a cost reducer and cheap aura on 4, you’re off to the races. Add a reanimator like Court of Ardenvale or Eiganjo Dynastorian on 5 and you have everything this deck wants to do.

This deck wins with a critical mass of auras, either through successive end step triggers from Eriette of the Charmed Apple to take chunks out of your opponents’ life totals, or through attacks with creatures like Herald of Amity or ones that are enchanted by auras with similar buffs. Mass enchantment reanimation taps down your opponents’ creatures before you attack, while Winds of Rath clears away anything that isn’t enchanted with an aura. This win condition can be slow if you only have one threat that needs you to attack over multiple turns, but Super State accelerates that.

Commander damage won’t be your most frequent win condition, but if you have about 10 auras, including maybe two of your aura-counting buffs, Killian, Decisive Mentor can take out opponents.

Combos & Interactions

Changing Loyalty’s replicate ability is great to sink some mana into, but it’s not so good to cheat out or reanimate. If it goes to your graveyard, this one is better to bring back to your hand than directly to the battlefield.

Another interaction that’s important to note is that Greater Auramancy’s shroud means you can’t target your enchanted creatures with new auras.

If you swap in your own auras, look for abilities like Spirit Link that pay you off regardless of whether you enchant your own creature or an opponent’s. If the ability reads “Enchanted creature gains,” before the triggered ability, that means you’ll pay off your opponent with it.

One card I didn’t include is Secret Arcade // Dusty Parlor. It creates infinite tokens with Ondu Spiritdancer or Archon of Sun's Grace, though the one with the Archon draws the game if nobody disrupts it. That combo can also deck you if you have an enchantress out, so it just doesn’t feel worthwhile here.

Rule 0 Violations Check

This deck should be fine at most tables. Some players might be frustrated if things are going well and it’s virtually impossible to attack you, but you won’t be completely invulnerable during most games. You impact your opponents’ combat decisions, but you don’t otherwise mess with their ability to play the game.

Budget Options

Many of the more expensive auras and payoffs in this deck were reprinted in the Silverquill Influence deck. You can save some coin by using it as a base for this deck.

The first place to trim the budget is in the mana base with the more expensive dual lands. As for the utility lands, you can swap them out for more duals or basics, or lands that give you other forms of utility like Rogue's Passage.

Greater Auramancy has no true replacement aside from The Walls of Ba Sing Se or something else equally powerful. You could replace it with another mass reanimator like Redress Fate, in which case I might cut another enchantment in favor of a land because you’re trading a 2-drop for a 4- to 8-mana spell.

Breena, the Demagogue isn’t the most synergistic card in the deck. Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher is easier on the budget, and adds a good attacker with more reanimation.

Ghoulish Impetus, Ghostly Prison, and Animate Dead are some of the more expensive enchantments in this deck, followed by Vampiric Link, Spirit Loop, Sphere of Safety, Shielded by Faith, and Gift of Immortality. You can dig through all of Orzhov’s auras for some options, though I’d recommend Glasswing Grace as an MDFC, Feather of Flight as a cheap, cantripping flying enabler with flash, and Raffine's Guidance for a cheap, self-reanimating aura. Grievous Wound also puts a ticking clock on any opponent you enchant with it.

I strongly considered adding Brink of Disaster to this deck for a fun interactive mix; you can use it to with Killian’s trigger to destroy a creature, or you can hate on an opponent’s nonbasic land. If you don’t care about the explicit power level, aura decks let you mix and match anything in your collection for different perks and mana curves, so play around with it!

Other Builds

You can tweak the balance of auras and reanimators to add in Resurgent Belief, Redress Fate, and more. Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher’s attack trigger can become another form of consistent reanimation, as can Guardian Scalelord. Harnessed Snubhorn also gives you reanimation on a combat damage trigger.

There’s probably an Orzhov lifegain deck that uses Spirit Link, Vampiric Link, and Spirit Loop alongside Exquisite Blood combos, Grievous Wound, Aetherflux Reservoir, and Test of Endurance. Visions of Brutality can join your aura package in that build to eat chunks out of an opponent’s life total, too.

Commanding Conclusion

Killian's Confidence | Illustration by Jodie Muir

When archetypes like auras become filled with commanders that give you card draw and cost reduction, it’s fun to see new commanders come along that encourage you to build in a more specific direction. These commanders let you dig into the Magic history books and think of cards from a different perspective.

Which auras and payoffs do you play in your Killian, Decisive Mentor deck? How would you tune this build up or down? Let me know in the comments below, or over on the Draftsim Discord. For more from us, subscribe to our daily newsletter and come find us on YouTube at The Daily Upkeep.

Until next time!