Founder Dragons Showcase: School’s in Session

In Secrets of Strixhaven, a set of five mythic Dragons was released for each of Strixhaven’s five Founder Dragons. Their effects are all similar and make for fantastic commanders. You can do some silly, fun, and powerful things with them all, making them the perfect candidate to lead a deck. If you love Strixhaven or making use of a specific commander, these are great commander choices for you.

Who Are the Founder Dragons?

The Founder Dragons are named Shadrix Silverquill, Beledros Witherbloom, Tanazir Quandrix, Galazeth Prismari, and Velomachus Lorehold. In the lore, these five dragons are the ones that founded the magical school of Strixhaven. Each designed their own campus named after themselves, using their own philosophy. All of the Founder Dragons are a two-color pairing, so each of their commander cards use two colors. There was a cycle of them in the original Strixhaven set, though they were largely disconnected from one another. This time, they all share a similar effect.

While they all had cards in the original Stirxhaven set, this article will look at the second card as a part of the sequel set Secrets of Strixhaven. These are Silverquill, the Disputant, Witherbloom, the Balancer, Quandrix, the Proof, Prismari, the Inspiration, and Lorehold, the Historian. This cycle has the dragons all have effects that give some kind of ability to your instants and sorceries, making the decks have clear build-arounds.

This article will guide you through a sample build with each of the Founder Dragons. Although the effects are narrow, the things you can do with them are rather wide. These lists range between the bracket 3 and 4 levels, depending on the commander and build.

Silverquill, the Disputant

Kicking things off is Silverquill, the Disputant. This gives all your spells casualty 1, meaning if you sacrifice a creature, you get to copy that spell. This is heavily a token deck, amassing an army of tokens and then copying powerful spells after sacrificing them. Being able to copy ramp such as Cabal Ritual and Culling the Weak is quite useful to ramp into your expensive spells that you can copy with casualty as well.

The most important thing in the deck is its token generation. Without tokens, you won’t have fodder to sacrifice. Permanents that create tokens at each turn are the most ideal, including Bitterblossom, Jadar, Ghoulcaller of Nephalia, and Shadrix Silverquill, to name a few. These provide you with a constant stream of tokens so you always have something to sacrifice for your commander’s effect.

With how many creatures you sacrifice, you can turn that into punishment for your opponents and value. Each sacrifice can be turned into forced sacrifice for your opponents with Grave Pact. You can ramp with Black Market to cast your large spells later in the game. Cards like Cruel Celebrant and Blood Artist can help deal consistent burn damage as well.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is a slower deck, focusing on bringing life totals down slowly instead of all at once.

Witherbloom, the Balancer

Witherbloom, the Balancer is perhaps one of the strongest of the five Founder Dragons in Secrets of Strixhaven. It gives affinity for creatures, which makes mana dorks like Llanowar Elves and Birds of Paradise much stronger since they count for affinity and can still generate mana, essentially giving you two mana for the price of one.

This particular build focuses on plenty of X spells. The affinity discounts apply to the X costs, allowing you to make X very big, especially if you have a lot of creatures. Awaken the Woods is incredibly strong in the list, giving you more cards for your affinity count that can also tap for mana. Pest Infestation can wipe out a ton of artifacts and enchantments while creating a ton of creatures. As a game-ender, you have Torment of Hailfire to force a ton of life loss and loss of permanents and hands.

Since the deck can cast spells so easily, you can play plenty of powerful big mana spells as well. Plague Wind is normally a rather weak card due to its mana cost, but in this deck, the spell will often cost only two Black mana. Likewise, once you have a wide battlefield, Vitalizing Wind can turn your creatures into 7/7s to take everyone out of the game. Army of the Damned can generate a ton of creatures that can be used for massive discounts on all your spells.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. This deck can run away with the game if not answered. Since Witherbloom, the Balancer has affinity for creatures itself, you can get around the command tax quite easily to make it extra consistent.

Quandrix, the Proof

This version of Quandrix, the Proof is a bit different. Rather than just cascading into spells, it’s a clone deck, using cards such as Sakashima of a Thousand Faces and Mirror Box to shut off the legend rule and copying your commander. If you have multiple copies of Quandrix, the Proof, that’s multiple instances of cascade your instants and sorceries will have. So if there are three on the battlefield, that’s three cascades.

The other half of the deck is an extra turns deck. Cards such as Time Warp, Capture of Jingzhou, and Alrund's Epiphany are some of the few in the decklist. The idea is to cast an extra turn spell to cascade into more ways to copy your commander, or into more extra turn spells. You might whiff and hit a mana dork, but that’s the gamble of cascade.

To help guarantee extra copies of your commander, you want ways to make the copy nonlegendary. Helm of the Host makes a copy every combat, and Impostor Syndrome does it if it deals combat damage. Quantum Misalignment nets you two copies for the price of one. Nonlegendary tokens are important, as you can copy these creatures instead, so you never have to worry about the legend rule in the first place.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Once the deck gets going, it can be hard to stop once you start chaining extra turn spells together. Even without them, having multiple copies of Quandrix, the Proof can be enough to win the game.

Prismari, the Inspiration

Perhaps the most “basic” build of the five Founder Dragons, Prismari, the Inspiration is a deck that to an extend, builds itself. Storm decks are pretty universal, but what Prismari, the Inspiration does is also give your rituals like Past in Flames and Seething Song storm as well. This enables a ton of mana generation with just a few spell casts.

Magecraft is the best ability in the deck, as the spells being created by storm will trigger it. With Archmage Emeritus, you draw a card each time to prevent your hand from running out of steam. Storm-Kiln Artist nets a Treasure token each time to ensure you’ll always have mana to spend (something Storm decks can run out of quickly otherwise). Ashling, Flame Dancer does multiple effects, but will always let you discard and draw a card to get rid of dead cards and draw into more action.

There are cards that have storm itself in the deck. Without your commander, they do the same thing, but with your commander in play, that’s two storm triggers. So that’s twice as much mill with Brain Freeze or burn damage with Grapeshot. You can even dig deeper with Mind's Desire to cast a plethora of spells for free.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. If you like slinging spells, this is the best Founder Dragon for you. Otherwise, it’s best to look elsewhere for a new commander.

Lorehold, the Historian

Perhaps the most unique of the five Founder Dragons is Lorehold, the Historian, and has a strong case for being the best. Miracle is a very powerful effect, and lets you cheat around large mana costs. It’s fairly easy to manipulate your top deck utilizing cards such as Sensei's Divining Top and Library of Leng. The last of which is vital, as it lets you put any card from your hand on top of your library to then draw it, guaranteeing you can cast it for the miracle cost. Even sorceries can be cast at instant speed so long as it’s being done through miracle.

Boros has a ton of expensive spells that are fantastic. Many of them create tokens to help amass a battlefield quickly. Deploy to the Front is a great late-game card to generate a ton of tokens. If you cast Storm Herd early enough, you can make so many tokens with flying to dwindle down life totals before anyone has a chance to amass defenses. Another potential game-ending card is Insurrection, which, if the battlefield is large, you can win the game swinging out with everybody’s creatures.

To assist with controlling the top deck, cards that let you scry are very helpful in the deck. Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong can set up a future draw while also casting a spell for free once a turn. Crystal Ball is much simpler, letting you pay a mana to scry two. Though they don’t scry, Mystic Forge and Verge Rangers can get a card off the top of the library so you can guarantee you draw a card you can cast with mircale.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The deck is surprisingly consistent, capable of miracling out a spell every turn with ease.

What Founder Dragon Is Best?

All five of the Founder Dragons have great effects that can drastically affect the course of a game. Each of them has varying levels of run and complexity. Prismari, the Inspiration is perhaps the most bland, since the only way you can really build it is as a Storm deck. Otherwise, the deck is much too weak. It’s not a bad deck by any means, and if you enjoy Storm’s playstyle, then it is a fantastic choice for you. And if you don’t, I’d suggest looking for a different commander.

Lorehold, the Historian has the highest potential, and is a card that’s always going to get stronger as more powerful spells get added to the game. Boros also has plenty of draw spells, so there are countless ways to trigger miracle. If you want a deck that’s a good investment that you can constantly upgrade, going for Lorehold, the Historian is a good call.

Perhaps the most fun is Witherbloom, the Balancer. Affinity for creatures is one of the easiest affinity to build in Commander. There are so many token generators and mana dorks, especially in Golgari, that it becomes so easy to build. You can lean more into X spells, or more into fun big mana spells. You can build more goofy builds with random overcosted spells, or consistent, competitive builds that can win the game quickly.

In Conclusion

The Founder Dragon cycle of Secrets of Strixhaven has a very unique design concept. By locking the abilities to instants and sorceries, you can’t abuse the effects too hard, and it forces an almost balanced build of creatures and noncreature spells to offer the builds variety in deckbuilding. Despite having the same kind of effect, each of the Founder Dragons has a very different play style from the others. Lorehold, the Historian plays more on your opponents’ turns, while Prismari, the Inspiration is playing Solitaire with storm on your turn. Silverquill, the Disputant is copying spells and making tokens, while is aggressive creature-based ramp into giant instant and sorcery spells.

The cool part about the Founder Dragons is that there is a play style for everyone. If you like Midrange, Silverquill, the Disputant is a good fit, or if you want a more Aggro deck, you have Witherbloom, the Balancer. Whether you want to play fast or slow, there is a Founder Dragon for you. All have a good balance of gameplay, allowing you to explore every area of a Commander deck.