Technically Playable - Aminatou, the Fateshifter

<h6 style="text-align: right;"></h6>
<h1>Prereleases - A Primer</h1>
Prereleases are one of my favorite events. Everyone comes in on the same footing, all playing with new cards for the first time and all with the same chances of pulling powerful cards from their packs.
In this article I'm going to cover some of the key information around Prereleases, what you should expect from an event like this, some other useful information and frequently asked questions about them.
<h2>What is a "Prerelease?"</h2>
A Prerelease is exactly what is says on the tin: An event that lets you play with cards from a new set before they are officially released. In the past this also meant you could get cards before everyone else too but now stores are often allowed to sell booster packs, boxes, and even Commander decks on the Prerelease weekend.
<h2>What happens at a Prerelease?</h2>
Prereleases are normally aimed towards newer players so their structure tends to be very easy to take part in to make sure players without much in-person event experience can still enjoy them. The first thing that will happen is making sure you are signed up for the event.
This tends to be in two parts. You'll pay for your event (which will normally cost slightly more than six play boosters) and then you will need to use the <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/companion-app">Companion app</a> to join the event using a code provided to you by the event coordinator. The Companion app can be downloaded for free from <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/companion-app">Wizards' website</a> and allows you to see your pairings at events, track your life total and more.
<a href="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion-.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-141072 aligncenter" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion--1024x653.png" alt="" width="548" height="350" srcset="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion--1024x653.png 1024w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion--300x191.png 300w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion--768x490.png 768w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/companion-.png 1083w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px" /></a>
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If you're more used to playing Magic Arena than paper magic, don't worry! Your Companion login will be the same as your Magic Arena account so it should be super easy to get into.
I'd recommend downloading the Companion app before going to the event in case your local game store doesn't have public wi-fi or a good signal.
After everyone is signed up and the event begins you will receive your Prerelease pack. Inside there is a spindown counter (like a D20 but the numbers are in order) for tracking life, six play boosters for the set, and a Prerelease promo; a foil rare or mythic from the set with a special stamp.
This is now when you make your deck to play with. Prereleases are done using the rules for the <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/formats/sealed-deck">sealed format</a>. In short, you need to use the packs you've been given (and your Prerelease promo in this case) to create a 40+ card deck to play with.
You can change your deck as much as you want in between rounds using your pool of cards but you can't use anything from outside of your Prerelease pack. You will have around 50-60 minutes to build your deck after which you'll play a number of best-of-three rounds (normally three rounds).
<a href="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/prerelease-pack.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-141050 size-full aligncenter" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/prerelease-pack.png" alt="" width="548" height="432" srcset="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/prerelease-pack.png 548w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/prerelease-pack-300x236.png 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 548px) 100vw, 548px" /></a>
While building your deck you will want a good balance of lands, creatures and spells. I won't go into too much detail about different archetypes here, but I will drop a few top tips for building your deck:
<ul>
<li>You should have around 17 lands, 17 creatures, and six spells.</li>
<li>You will want to make sure you have a good amount of spells that destroy or exile your opponent's creatures to make sure you can get rid of any problematic creatures or permanents they may have.</li>
<li>Fliers are very good. Sometimes, your opponents won't be able to get rid of your three mana 2/2 flier and you'll win off of the back of it.</li>
</ul>
And that's it, as I mentioned above, they're designed for newer players so they're pretty simple. As in all things, it's important to remember that your opponents may be newer players and that everyone is playing with these new cards for the first time. If anyone makes mistakes, that's fine.
It's fairly common to allow small takebacks at Prereleases, especially when playing with brand-new mechanics from a set. The most important thing is that people are learning from them and that everyone has a good time.
<h2>Where can I do a Prerelease?</h2>
Most local game stores will offer Prereleases, but there are a couple of ways you can find your local one:
<ul>
<li>You can use the Wizards of the Coast <a href="https://locator.wizards.com/?utm_source=magicweb&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;_gl=1%2abex54c%2a_gcl_au%2aMTMxMjc5OTQ5Ny4xNzMwMTUwMjUx%2a_ga%2aNDAwMjUyMjMxLjE3MzAxNTAyNTE.%2a_ga_X145Z177LS%2aMTczMDE1MDI1MS40LjEuMTczMDE1MDI2Ni40NS4wLjA.">Store Finder</a> to help you find your closest game store as well as using the Event Finder tab on the same site to find any local events whether that is a Prerelease, a competitive tournament, or even the weekly <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/play-events/friday-night-magic">Friday Night Magic</a>.</li>
<li>You can also join more specific online communities for your local area. There are a lot of Discord servers for specific formats or for local areas as well as more Facebook groups than I can count that will help you out with finding a local store or playgroup.</li>
<li>You can also just use Google to help you find your local store and then go in and ask the staff about their events and their Prereleases. I've always found that speaking to the staff at your local store is the absolute best way to find out more information about events they offer.</li>
</ul>
<a href="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/searchresults.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter wp-image-140643 size-full" src="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/searchresults.jpg" alt="" width="715" height="448" srcset="https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/searchresults.jpg 715w, https://edhrecstatic.com/articles/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/searchresults-300x188.jpg 300w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 715px) 100vw, 715px" /></a>
<h2>What do I need to do before going to a Prerelease?</h2>
Nothing. 
That's right, you absolutely don't need to do anything before going to a Prerelease, but there are some things that can do to prepare that will help you to have a more enjoyable experience:
<ol>
<li>Looking at the cards from the new set - You can use a wide range of resources for this like <a href="https://mythicspoiler.com/">Mythic Spoiler</a> if you want to track cards throughout the whole spoiler season or if you just want to have a quick look before the Prerelease you can check out the official Wizards of the Coast card library for that set (take a look at the <a href="https://magic.wizards.com/en/products/foundations/card-image-gallery">Foundations card library here</a>).</li>
<li>Read up on synergies in set reviews - Reading set reviews from experienced Magic players can be a really good way to help get an early idea of what is going to be good in the set and to learn more about how experienced players evaluate new cards, <a href="https://edhrec.com/articles/tag/set-review/">EDHREC</a> and <a href="https://commandersherald.com/category/set-review/">Commander's Herald</a> both do set reviews for every new set that comes out.</li>
<li>Engage with Limited content online - There are tons of great draft and sealed players online that have content you can use to help you learn a new set when it releases. Personally, I'm a big fan of <a href="https://www.twitch.tv/voxy">Voxy</a>'s draft streams but I will also always listen to the Prerelease episodes of Limited Resources to get the low-down from the extremely experienced Limited players that host it.</li>
<li>Organize your bag the day before - This might seem like a really simple thing but it does make all the difference. It allows you to spend the morning relaxing instead of running around trying to find everything you need for the day's gaming. This is especially important if you're going to an early morning Prerelease.</li>
</ol>
<h2>What should I take with me?</h2>
Another question I often see people asking about Prereleases is "What do I need to take with me", the answer to this is actually just the Companion app to sign up for the event.
Everything else you need will be provided in the Prerelease pack on the day. However, there’s some things I'd recommend bringing to help make your event go just that bit smoother:
<ul>
<li>Sleeves - These will not only protect your brand-new cards but also make shuffling your deck much easier and smoother. I'll almost always bring slightly more than the 40 I need for my deck just in case I pull a valuable card that I'm not playing or if any of my sleeves break while playing; no one wants to have to buy a whole new pack of sleeves for one or two breaks. I recommend Dragon Shield Mattes purely because they feel really nice to shuffle, they're fairly economical and they come with enough for that Commander deck you've been thinking about building.</li>
<li>Dice and something to represent counters - +1/+1 counters are an evergreen mechanic and will always be in new sets, so having access to some dice to represent these makes life really easy. It can sometimes also be nice to bring something like small coins or colored glass beads to represent other types of counters that may be in a set. These will make representing a correct board state much easier and will prevent most issues around the confusion of what's what while playing the long, drawn-out games that Sealed often has.</li>
<li>Basic lands - This is one that people often disagree with since the location of the event will always provide these but personally, I like to take my own purely for quality of life purposes. It allows me to save having to push my way past people sitting at the table I'm at or having to stand around waiting while the land station is busy, it allows me to really focus on my deck. Like I said above, it's really not necessary but can be nice to have</li>
<li>Deck box - While the Prerelease pack itself acts as a serviceable deck box, it's also nice to have something a little more solid with some storage space for the basic lands, dice, and counters you also might be bringing.</li>
</ul>
Hopefully, this has been a useful article for those of you hoping to go to your first Prerelease and has helped your understanding of the Prerelease structure, what you can expect to see as well as what you can do to make sure your Prerelease is as enjoyable as possible!

What You Need To Know Before Your First Prerelease

Technically Playable - The Dalek Emperor

Technically Playable - Wyleth, Soul of Steel

<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.cavotta.com/">Matt Cavotta</a>)</h6>
<h1>Technically Playable - Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</h1>
Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable).
The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!
This week's random commander is: <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer"></div></div>
It's no secret that I'm a massive fan of reanimation, and recently I've begun dipping my toes more and more into theft effects. That way, the power level of my deck is often on a similar (or sometimes lower) power level to the rest of the table therefore, theoretically, ensuring I am never playing a deck that is completely mismatched with the others.
With that in mind, let's jump into talking about <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a>, a commander that works on both of those facets.
<h2>Reanimating Your Opponents' Creatures</h2>
The way that makes the most sense to play this deck (at least in my mind) is the same way people used to play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet" href="#" target="_blank">Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet</a> in Standard.
By landing Lim-Dûl or Kalitas with the mana to remove creatures you give yourself the ability to not only keep yourself alive and your opponent's boards less dangerous but also give yourself the ability to build your own board over time.
Of course, Lim-Dûl is a little harder since you need the mana for the removal and Lim-Dûl's ability but you can get around that with some cheap removal like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Defile" href="#" target="_blank">Defile</a> or even free removal spells like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Snuff Out" href="#" target="_blank">Snuff Out</a>.
The other way of getting around the high cost of Lim-Dûl is to run redundancy, the main version of this is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Betrayal" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Betrayal</a> as this gives you effectively a second version of your commander that doesn't require you to pay an additional two mana every time a creature dies.
This works particularly well with some of the more powerful boardwipes like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Decree of Pain" href="#" target="_blank">Decree of Pain</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Blood Money" href="#" target="_blank">Blood Money</a> that give you a benefit as well as wiping the board meaning you will not only have a one-sided boardwipe thanks to Grave Betrayal[/el] but you will get a ton of resources from the spell itself as well.
Obviously, the boardwipes and removal that have a low cost or an extra benefit are ideal in this deck due to Lim-Dûl's extremely high cost but realistically any removal works well in this deck.
Boardwipes in particular are great because of the way that death triggers work. Even if Lim-Dûl is in play if he dies to the boardwipe at the same time as other creatures he still "sees" them die. This means you will get a trigger for each creature and it will allow you to pick and choose how to use your mana based on which creatures you want to save.
The ideal situation here is playing Lim-Dûl and then using a board wipe the next turn because if you have something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Damnation" href="#" target="_blank">Damnation</a>, you will almost definitely have enough mana to return two creatures. But you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cabal Coffers" href="#" target="_blank">Cabal Coffers</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth" href="#" target="_blank">Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth</a> together to have tons of mana to be able to play Lim-Dûl and hold up mana to reanimate creatures.
Of course, this also makes Lim-Dûl great against opposing board wipes as well as long as you have some mana lying around to use.
But we don't have to rely on Lim-Dûl and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Betrayal" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Betrayal</a> to take our opponent's creatures, we have plenty of ways to rip them straight out of our opponent's decks.
If you read my last article about <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Captain N&#039;ghathrod" href="#" target="_blank">Captain N&#039;ghathrod</a> you'll know I've been really hot on <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Brainstealer Dragon" href="#" target="_blank">Brainstealer Dragon</a>. It is a very expensive creature to play but I think it has a really high ceiling in terms of power level, if you can keep it alive for a turn cycle it can really quickly take over a game.
We also have access to some older ways to steal cards from decks. While we don't have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bribery" href="#" target="_blank">Bribery</a> we do have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Praetor&#039;s Grasp" href="#" target="_blank">Praetor&#039;s Grasp</a>. This card is particularly flexible because it can act as a silver bullet to remove a combo piece, find an answer to the current board, or even just grab someone else's <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a> to help pay for Lim-Dûl's commander tax.
Lastly is mono-black <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Etali, Primal Conqueror" href="#" target="_blank">Etali, Primal Conqueror</a> (yes I'm still dying on this hill), <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breach the Multiverse" href="#" target="_blank">Breach the Multiverse</a>. One of the best ways to take cards from our opponent's decks as it allows us to hit each player, including ourselves while also fuelling graveyards which we could use as a resource since we're playing black.
What is funny is playing <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Breach the Multiverse" href="#" target="_blank">Breach the Multiverse</a> and then casting an opponent's Etali, or even an opponent's Breach to start a hilarious chain.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Snuff Out"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Grave Betrayal"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Damnation"></div></div>
<h2>Reanimating Your Own Creatures ("Keep your hands off my graveyard!" -My opponents probably)</h2>
Lim-Dûl is great at using other people's decks against them, but we might want to have our own threats in case our seven-mana value commander doesn't last very long (spoiler: that will be often).
But we can still keep the deck on theme and go with a powerful reanimation package. These tend to be made up of two parts:
The first is getting stuff into your graveyard.
The second is making sure those cards are threatening enough to either act as a lightning rod for removal to keep something else alive or are threatening enough to simply end the game.
For filling our graveyard there are as many options as there are decks that want the effect. In black we have arguably the best options out there. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Buried Alive" href="#" target="_blank">Buried Alive</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> are probably the two best cards you can play.
Both allow you to search for the exact cards you want in your graveyard and being a low mana value means you can start to set up in the earlier turns of the game, with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> even allowing some really powerful plays as early as turn two.
The other benefit of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> is that it allows you to search for any card, not just creatures.
This means you can even search for something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dakmor Salvage" href="#" target="_blank">Dakmor Salvage</a> or a flashback card like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dread Return" href="#" target="_blank">Dread Return</a>. But these two aren't the only ways to fill our graveyard.
I'm personally a huge fan of dredge and being able to <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Buried Alive" href="#" target="_blank">Buried Alive</a> for <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Golgari Thug" href="#" target="_blank">Golgari Thug</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Stinkweed Imp" href="#" target="_blank">Stinkweed Imp</a> lets you turbo-fill your graveyard with tons of threats that you can then bring back en-masse with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Living Death" href="#" target="_blank">Living Death</a> or even do it at instant speed with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Twilight&#039;s Call" href="#" target="_blank">Twilight&#039;s Call</a>.
When it comes to the actual reanimation, again black gives us the best options in the game. I've already mentioned <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dread Return" href="#" target="_blank">Dread Return</a> which is amazing because you can <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Entomb" href="#" target="_blank">Entomb</a> it, but even if you draw it, being able to use this spell twice can swing some games in your favor very quickly.
We can also use the reanimation auras. The best of these are <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Animate Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Animate Dead</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necromancy" href="#" target="_blank">Necromancy</a>, since they are cheap, and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Necromancy" href="#" target="_blank">Necromancy</a>, has the ability to be cast at instant speed which definitely makes up for the cost of having to get rid of the creature at the end of the turn since you can just reanimate something with a powerful effect when it enters.
If don't want to risk running into enchantment removal you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Reanimate" href="#" target="_blank">Reanimate</a>, probably the best reanimation spell in the game (I mean, the archetype is named after it) and if you're looking to return non-legendaries you can use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Persist" href="#" target="_blank">Persist</a> which also has an incredibly low mana value.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Buried Alive"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Reanimate"></div></div>
Now onto the fun part, the reanimation targets.
Personally, I've always been a fan of being able to reanimate huge legendary creatures like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sheoldred, Whispering One" href="#" target="_blank">Sheoldred, Whispering One</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Vilis, Broker of Blood" href="#" target="_blank">Vilis, Broker of Blood</a>, and of course <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Griselbrand" href="#" target="_blank">Griselbrand</a> (but obviously this one is banned sadly...).
Duskmourne also gives us <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Valgavoth, Terror Eater" href="#" target="_blank">Valgavoth, Terror Eater</a>, a huge nine mana 9/9 that gives you another Lim-Dûl that allows you to pay life instead of mana to bring back dead creatures.
But recently we've seen more and more non-legendaries making <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Persist" href="#" target="_blank">Persist</a> particularly good. If you look to the past of course you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Grave Titan" href="#" target="_blank">Grave Titan</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sepulchral Primordial" href="#" target="_blank">Sepulchral Primordial</a>, old-timey beaters that really start to show my age.
But in recent years you've had cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Bloodletter of Aclazotz" href="#" target="_blank">Bloodletter of Aclazotz</a>[ and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archon of Cruelty" href="#" target="_blank">Archon of Cruelty</a> who really put the threats we used to worry about to shame.
My favorite thing about adding a reanimation package to your deck is that you can completely tailor it to the power level of your playgroup, are they running high-powered decks?
Play something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sheoldred, Whispering One" href="#" target="_blank">Sheoldred, Whispering One</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Archon of Cruelty" href="#" target="_blank">Archon of Cruelty</a>. Is your playgroup lower-powered? Maybe go with a Zombie theme and run stuff like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Undead Warchief" href="#" target="_blank">Undead Warchief</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Headless Rider" href="#" target="_blank">Headless Rider</a>.
Being able to be so flexible means you could even run a sideboard of reanimation targets, shuffle them, and add a randomized selection to your deck every game.
The goal is just to make sure everyone has a good time!
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Sheoldred, Whispering One"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Archon of Cruelty"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Valgavoth, Terror Eater"></div></div>
As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with Lim-Dûl as the commander tick.
Let me know in the comments below if you play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a>, if you want to build a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Lim-Dûl the Necromancer" href="#" target="_blank">Lim-Dûl the Necromancer</a> deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!
<hr />
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Technically Playable - Lim-Dûl the Necromancer

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<h6 style="text-align: right;">(<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> | Art by <a href="https://www.adamrex.com/">Adam Rex</a>)</h6>
<h1>Technically Playable - Celestial Kirin</h1>
Welcome to Technically Playable, where our mission statement is "Every commander is Technically playable" (the best kind of playable). The way this works is every article will have a commander generated using EDHREC's random button, I'll talk through the card and then write about how we can build around it!
This week's random commander is: <div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Celestial Kirin"></div></div>
Based on the number of times I've seen this card pop up while randomly hitting the random button on EDHREC (for non-article-related reasons), and based on the number I pulled from Mystery Boosters, I think this article was inevitable. And honestly, I think building this deck in paper will eventually happen too because there is some very cool tech that has been released for this commander in the last few years.
<h2>That's the Spirit(s)!</h2>
Celestial Kirin is part of a mono-colored cycle from the original Kamigawa block that all trigger and have an effect when you cast a Spirit or an Arcane spell. Luckily for us, there have been a lot of good Spirits printed across the last few years. But there is a caveat to this. Because <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> cares about the mana cost of the cards that you play, it's important to make sure that you are loading your deck with cards that hit the most prominent mana values in the format. For this, we can use EDHREC's <a href="https://edhrec.com/top">Top Cards</a> section on the site to see which mana values are the most common.
In the top two rows of EDHREC's top cards (14 cards) there are only three permanents, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Sol Ring" href="#" target="_blank">Sol Ring</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Arcane Signet" href="#" target="_blank">Arcane Signet</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Dimir Signet" href="#" target="_blank">Dimir Signet</a>. When you expand this to the top four rows (24 cards) you get into a lot more permanents, twelve in total (including the three mentioned previously). Of these twelve permanents, nine of them have a mana value two, two have a mana value one and one of a mana value of three. Based on this, it's clear that mana values of one, two and three are key, and we should have a critical mass of spells with the rest of the cards being spread more evenly across the other values. The mana value we want to avoid the most however should be four as that would result in destroying <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>.
Probably the best two mana Spirit is <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Selfless Spirit" href="#" target="_blank">Selfless Spirit</a> not only is it a flier that hits the two mana value that we're after, but it also allows us to sacrifice it when casting another spell to protect our own board - I'll go into more detail about this in a later section. Regarding the other mana values, there are a ton of great options like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Nikko-Onna" href="#" target="_blank">Nikko-Onna</a> which not only wipes the board of mana value three permanents, but also removes another enchantment, all packaged with the ability to return itself to your hand.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Selfless Spirit"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Nikko-Onna"></div></div>
You also have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kami of False Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Kami of False Hope</a> a white <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Spore Frog" href="#" target="_blank">Spore Frog</a> that will remove any one mana value cards from the board and protect you from combat damage for a turn. Probably the best two cards for to ensure you hit every mana value are <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Ugin&#039;s Conjurant" href="#" target="_blank">Ugin&#039;s Conjurant</a> and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate" href="#" target="_blank">Omarthis, Ghostfire Initiate</a>. These cards have and as their mana costs respectively, giving you flexibility to hit any mana value that has problematic permanents in play.
As well as the cards themselves, there are also some ways to support the Spirit theme and to make sure you have access to any mana value you need. Of course you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Herald&#039;s Horn" href="#" target="_blank">Herald&#039;s Horn</a> and your typical typal support, but for Spirits and Arcane spells in particular you have <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Long-Forgotten Gohei" href="#" target="_blank">Long-Forgotten Gohei</a> which supports both elements of <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>'s focus. However, the most important card to support <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> is the often overlooked <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Citanul Flute" href="#" target="_blank">Citanul Flute</a>. The reason why most decks don't want this artifact is because it has quite a prohibitive cost ( mana followed by mana just to put a creature into your hand is a lot) but <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>'s ability benefits from having access to specific mana costs at specific times. Being able to pick and choose what you have access to is incredibly useful for our deck.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Ugin&#039;s Conjurant"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Citanul Flute"></div></div>
<h2>Celestial Kirin? More like Celestial Winning!</h2>
Horrific pun aside, you do need a win condition in a Commander deck, and that can be tough when your deck is focused around blowing up the entire world every single turn. The way around this is to find win conditions that are either a high mana cost that you likely won't cast very often, a win condition that benefits from removing your own creatures or something very niche like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Barren Glory" href="#" target="_blank">Barren Glory</a>. For <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Barren Glory" href="#" target="_blank">Barren Glory</a>, I won't go into more detail because I won't be able to do it justice like <a href="https://commandersherald.com/going-brokkos-celestial-kirin-barren-glory-sweep-tribal/?utm_source=edhrec&amp;utm_medium=article_preview">this Commander's Herald article did back in 2021</a>.
Moving on though, the main win condition for this deck is probably through amassing a huge army of tokens and attacking. This is because you're unlikely to play and zero mana value Spirits or Arcane spells so they are safe from your own board wipes and the cards you want to play to make tokens are mana values that you don't want to play very often. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens" href="#" target="_blank">Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens</a> is a great example of this as it creates a 3/3 every single time you play a Spirit and dodges most of your Spirit's mana values at a whopping seven mana value itself. The weakness of this is obvious however, as it has no built-in protection so playing it on turn seven and nothing else.
Alternatively, you can also use <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of Souls" href="#" target="_blank">Field of Souls</a>, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Court of Grace" href="#" target="_blank">Court of Grace</a> or even <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of the Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Field of the Dead</a> (depending on your mana base) to create an army of tokens. These are great options because they have a mana value of four, this is important as you'll likely avoid playing too many four cost cards since they will also destroy your commander. Furthermore, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Field of the Dead" href="#" target="_blank">Field of the Dead</a> is just incredibly broken since it dodges everything outside of land destruction, and we all know what Commander players thing about that.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Barren Glory"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Oyobi, Who Split the Heavens"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Field of Souls"></div></div>
<h2>Keeping Your Spirits Alive</h2>
While there are a ton of good ways to win while destroying your own permanents, one of the best ways to win through board wipes is to keep your stuff alive through them. There are some obvious options like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Teferi&#039;s Protection" href="#" target="_blank">Teferi&#039;s Protection</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Flawless Maneuver" href="#" target="_blank">Flawless Maneuver</a> but here at Technically Playable we like to look at some more niche cards.
<a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Emeria Shepherd" href="#" target="_blank">Emeria Shepherd</a> is one of the most underrated white cards from what I've seen, but it has incredible value potential. Using cards like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble" href="#" target="_blank">Wayfarer&#039;s Bauble</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Evolving Wilds" href="#" target="_blank">Evolving Wilds</a> you can turbo out a ton of lands allowing you to even overtake some of a green deck's ramp. This is also important when trying to reanimate creatures that have been destroyed by <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>. If you combine the Shepherd with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Roaming Throne" href="#" target="_blank">Roaming Throne</a> you can even use the plains from <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Evolving Wilds" href="#" target="_blank">Evolving Wilds</a> to bring back a creature and the Wilds repeatedly to imitate <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Living Death" href="#" target="_blank">Living Death</a>.
You can also back up your Spirit package with indestructible creatures. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myojin of Cleansing Fire" href="#" target="_blank">Myojin of Cleansing Fire</a> fits this deck really well as it is both indestructible and can be used as a board wipe when you need it. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Avacyn, Angel of Hope" href="#" target="_blank">Avacyn, Angel of Hope</a> is also an excellent option and while she is expensive to cast returning her with something like <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Emeria Shepherd" href="#" target="_blank">Emeria Shepherd</a> or <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Late to Dinner" href="#" target="_blank">Late to Dinner</a> can help to get her out much earlier to protect your other creatures. One of my favorite combinations is Avacyn and <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Cloudsteel Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Cloudsteel Kirin</a> to effectively have an indestructible <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Platinum Angel" href="#" target="_blank">Platinum Angel</a>.
Finally you have a couple of even more niche options. Since it's a Spirits deck, <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Kindred Boon" href="#" target="_blank">Kindred Boon</a> is an amazing option as you can choose "Spirit" and make any of them indestructible for the low cost of two mana. This also combos with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Myojin of Cleansing Fire" href="#" target="_blank">Myojin of Cleansing Fire</a> to give you a repeatable board wipe. <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Gideon Blackblade" href="#" target="_blank">Gideon Blackblade</a> is another, cheaper option allows you to choose your most important creature and keep it alive for one turn.
<div class="edhrecp__cards"><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Emeria Shepherd"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Myojin of Cleansing Fire"></div><div class="edhrecp__card-container" name="Kindred Boon"></div></div>
As with all Technically Playable articles, this was a very quick look at <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> as a commander, and a few of the cards that can really make a deck with <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> as the commander tick. Let me know in the comments below if you play <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a>, if you want to build a <a class="edhrecp__link-a" content="Celestial Kirin" href="#" target="_blank">Celestial Kirin</a> deck, or even if you just enjoyed this article!
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Paul Palmer