Silverquill Influence upgrade guide turns Auras into politics and card draw

Killian changes everything

Silverquill Influence stops being a cute politics precon the moment Killian, Decisive Mentor takes over. Tom Convery’s guide treats him as the real engine of the deck for a reason: every enchantment you cast can tap and goad a creature, and every creature wearing one of your Auras draws you a card when it attacks. That is not vague value. That is a very specific game plan built around turning every cheap enchantment into pressure, disruption, and flow.

The result is a deck that wants to do three things at once: force awkward combat, keep the table looking somewhere else, and cash in on attacks for cards. That combination gives Silverquill Influence a sharper identity than most precons ever get. It is still political, but the politics are backed by actual board control, and it is still an enchantment deck, but the enchantments are there to make people play badly and give you more gas.

Why the budget frame matters

The most useful part of the guide is the constraint. Convery is not pitching a giant rebuild, he is looking for ten upgrades for under £10. That matters because Silverquill Influence already has a functional shell. The job is not to replace the deck’s personality, but to sharpen it so the list does what Killian wants more often and with less friction.

That is the right way to think about this precon. If you start stuffing it with generic Orzhov good stuff, you lose the thing that makes it memorable. The best swaps are the ones that improve enchantment count, raise aura density, or create more reasons for opponents to keep swinging at each other instead of sitting behind their own boards. The value here is not just power. It is preserving the deck’s social leverage while making it more consistent.

Must-add immediately

If you are upgrading this list, the first money should go into the pieces that make Killian’s text matter every turn. Cheap Auras are the obvious priority, especially ones that do something when they land or replace themselves when they are used. Killian rewards low-cost enchantments far more than expensive, clunky ones, because each cast is both pressure and a setup for future card draw.

The second priority is anything that increases the chance of profitable attacks. If a creature is enchanted, you want it attacking. If an enchantment can help a creature attack safely, or make another player’s board awkward, that is exactly the kind of swap this deck wants. The precon’s best turns are the ones where the table is forced into combat on your terms, not theirs.

A practical upgrade package here looks like this:

• more cheap Auras that keep cards moving
• more enchantments that immediately affect the board
• more ways to turn opposing creatures sideways
• more effects that reward combat instead of slow, passive setup

That package keeps the deck honest. It does not ask Silverquill Influence to become a control deck in the usual sense, because Killian already gives it a better job: make combat expensive for everyone else.

Scriv shows the other version of the deck

Convery’s guide also makes a strong case that Silverquill Influence has a second identity hiding in plain sight. Scriv, the Obligator leans harder into control and politics by handing out Contract tokens that encourage opponents to attack one another instead of you. That changes the texture of the table immediately. Instead of being the player who grows a board and turns it sideways, you become the player who shapes the room and lets everyone else make the bad decisions.

That choice matters when you are buying or upgrading the precon, because it tells you what kind of Silverquill pilot you want to be. Killian pushes the deck toward proactive enchantress-style pressure and card draw. Scriv pulls it toward manipulation, deterrence, and social judo. The deck supports both personalities, but the best upgrades are the ones that do not blur them together. They should make whichever commander you choose feel cleaner, not muddier.

Nice-to-have luxuries

Once the core is working, the luxury slots are the cards that deepen the deck’s personality rather than rescue it. These are the upgrades that make the politics more theatrical, the attacks more awkward, and the board state more annoying for everyone else. They are useful, but they are not where the deck starts earning its money.

Auras that are slightly more expensive but bring extra resilience belong in this bucket. So do enchantments that make it harder for opponents to crack back after you have forced combat to happen. If a card makes the table argue about who attacks whom, it fits the Silverquill mood beautifully. If it just adds numbers without changing the politics, it is less urgent.

The same goes for broader control pieces. They can be strong, but they are only worth the slot if they still leave room for Killian’s draw engine to matter. The deck is at its best when every upgrade still feels like it belongs in the same conversation: a little wit, a little control, and enough chaos to make people second-guess their attacks.

How the deck should actually play

The cleanest way to pilot upgraded Silverquill Influence is to treat each Aura as a decision, not just a buff. Every cast should either trigger Killian, set up a draw, or push the table into a combat step that favors you. If a card does none of those things, it probably does not deserve a spot over something cheaper and more direct.

That is why the upgrade path is so appealing. With only a handful of low-cost swaps and a budget under £10, the deck moves from polite value engine to table-pressure machine. It still looks like Silverquill, which means it still wins by being annoying in exactly the right way. The best version of this list does not overpower the room, it steers it, and then turns every attack into more cards and more leverage.