We're back with another Sunday Stream deck tech, and this one hails from Strixhaven (well, technically March of the Machine, but he was on vacation) in the form of Quintorius, Loremaster.

Quintorius, Loremaster

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Before you say anything, yes, we're aware that we build a lot of red on the Sunday Stream. But this is one is different! It's not just a bunch of Threaten effects and goading and stuff!

Quintorius, Loremaster is a red and white commander that lets us exile noncreature, nonland permanents from our graveyard at our end step, then sacrifice a Spirit and cast those spells for free later on. A notable condition of this ability is that when you cast a spell exiled with Quintorius, it goes right back into your library, not into the graveyard.

So what do we do with this exactly? Well, my first instinct when I read "cast without paying its mana cost" is to try to cast as many big, splashy spells as we can and try to win the game through explosive turns.

The Other Quintorii

Naturally, the other two versions of Quintorius, both the planeswalker Quintorius Kand from Caverns of Ixalan and Quintorius, Field Historian from Strixhaven fit nicely alongside each other.

Kand's +1 ability creates a Spirt token which can be sacrificed to our commander's ability, and has a -3 which is a Discover 4 trigger, which will potentially cast a spell that can be exiled and recast with the commander later on.

Field Historian gives a slight buff to Spirits, but the ability we really care about is that he creates a Spirit every time one or more cards leave the graveyard. So, if Field Historian and Loremaster are on the field at the same time, we will automatically create the Spirit upon exiling the card that we can cast later by sacrificing said Spirit. Got it? Good.

Quintorius, Lootmaster

So what's the quickest way we can get those big, splashy spells into the graveyard so we can cast them for free later on? Well, red's looting effects are basically perfect for this. Big Score, Faithless Looting, and Thrill of Possibility are all solid, efficient looting abilities that will draw us extra cards and allow us to discard our home run hitters into the graveyard.

Illuminate History is a Lesson card from Strixhaven that lets us discard as many cards as we like, then draw that many cards, and if our graveyard is sufficiently large enough, it too will make a Spirit token.

Quintorius, Field Enchanter

We like to run lots of enchantments in the decks we build, and they work particularly well in this deck since our commander is able to cast them for free from exile.

Arcane Bombardment ends up in a lot of our red spellslinger-ish decks fairly often, and for good reason. The value Arcane Bombardment is capable of accumulating over the course of just a turn or two by copying spells over and over can't be overstated. It's an explosive game-winner in many decks that can take advantage of it.

Double Vision is a pretty straightforward card that will copy the first instant or sorcery we cast each turn. This is obviously a huge boost to our commander's ability.

Elspeth Conquers Death is one of the strongest white Sagas that does something we care about doing in each chapter. Obviously we'd like to cast it for free with Quintorius, but this is a card that we're totally fine with hard casting. Targeted exile in chapter one, cost reduction in chapter two, and reanimating a creature or planeswalker in the third chapter make this a very versatile piece for us.

Rabble Rousing is a personal favorite of mine. Even though the Citizen tokens it creates can't be sacrificed for our commander's ability, the Hideway ability gives us another method of casting something for free, and does that by creating a ton of tokens by swinging our own creatures. This deck should be creating enough Spirits that we can potentially take advantage even if we wait to swing until the turn we're able to meet the Hideway condition. If push comes to shove, it can also be a fail-safe win condition by simply building a huge army of token creatures.

Quintorius, Artifact....ster....

Cellar Door is a fabulous piece of synergy in this deck. When we cast a spell with our commander's ability, that card goes on the bottom of our library. Cellar Door can take that card and put it right back in your graveyard to be exiled and cast again with Quintorius. Oh and it also makes a zombie, which is cool, I guess.

Vedalken Orrery is an artifact that needs no introduction. Being able to cast our big spells at instant speed is a massive advantage.

Wondrous Crucible is essentially another version of our commander's ability except that we don't have to pay extra mana for it. Sure, the card does get exiled instead of going back to the library, but at this point we're probably not all that worried about that.

Planar Bridge is another splashy artifact that will allow us to tutor any permanent in our deck directly to the battlefield. Seems good.

Quintorius, Doing Stuff

Vicious Shadows is a seven-mana enchantment that has the potential to deal a huge chunk of damage via creatures dying. If one of your opponents casts a board wipe and someone has a big board and a full hand, it could even be lethal damage.

Rain of Riches gives us a nice Cascade trigger when we cast our first spell that was paid for with at least one Treasure, giving us lots of extra value.

Alpha Brawl is a very funny card that essentially wipes an entire player's board via their creatures fighting each other. When used in tandem with Vicious Shadows, this could be a great way to knock down the Voja player that's gotten a little too out of hand.

Hit the Mother Lode has quickly become one of my favorite spells to resolve. It discovers 10 on cast, which is capable of casting anything in most decks, and then pays back and lost value for a low mana cast in the form of treasures. If we're able to cast this spell more than once, we're going to take over the game.

Closing Summary

Quintorius, Loremaster is a fun spellslinger commander that appears in a color combo that doesn't typically see that archetype outside of Firesong and Sunspeaker. This deck is going to be more reliant on winning with accumulated value versus a specific strategy than most of our decks tend to be, but big, explosive turns should make this deck very entertaining to play.

Levi Stevenson

Since first dipping his toes into Commander a a few years ago, Levi has consistently made a point to avoid making a whole bunch of the same kind of deck by brewing lots of different color combinations, only to discover that he just has token decks in almost every color combination. When not playing or talking about Magic, you can find him playing drums in a cover band, writing and talking about Iowa State athletics, or embarrassing his wife in public with outrageously dumb jokes.