Welcome to another installment of Precon Recon, where I take a look at Preconstructed decks and reconstruct them into better performing decks. I decided this time around to “revisit” a previously reconstructed deck, partly due to some requests. So, instead of responding to those individuals “individually”, I figured it could be a lot of fun to just do a ‘check up’ on the deck. The deck we are revisiting is the Spectral Legions deck originally from Innistrad. The original decklist can be found here: http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/productarticle.aspx?x=mtg/tcg/innistrad/intropacks#deck1.

    Then of course the article where we first reconstructed it can be found here: http://pojo.com/magic/Featured%20Writers/John_Shultis/2011/10-28.shtml.

    When we last worked over this deck, it should have come out looking something like this:

10 Islands
14 Plains
1 Angel Flight of Alabaster
1 Geist Honored Monk
4 Spirit Mantle
4 Dissipate
2 Bonds of Faith
1 Battleground Geist
2 Chapel Geist
2 Doomed Traveler
1 Gallows Warden
2 Lantern Spirit
2 Mausoleum Guard
3 Moon Heron
2 Spectral Rider
2 Voiceless Spirit
1 Curiosity
1 Lifelink
2 Midnight Haunting
1 Moment of Heroism
2 Rebuke
 
      Now this time around, since we went easy on the deck last time ;) I think we will kick this revamp into overdrive. Dark Ascension really gave us some amazing cards for a Spirit based deck. And for those of you that pay attention to Pro based play, Pro Players are getting in on the Spirit action, including Hall of Famer, Jon Finkel, who recently piloted a Spirit deck into the Pro Tour Top 8. So how will we do it? Let us begin.

     As always, let’s take a look at some things to pull out of the deck. This time, we will be sure to pull out more than nine cards. To start things off, I will remove some cards that last time I wanted to keep, those being the Battleground Geist and Gallows Warden. Moving on to other things I would like to change are the Lantern Spirits and the Moon Heron. The Mausoleum Guards will also no longer be of use. The same is also going to be true for the Chapel Geists. That is eleven creatures out.

     The spells will also be getting a bit of a shake up again. We begin by removing some formerly useful spells that may not be of use anymore. Those are Lifelink and Curiosity. Moment of Heroism is also going to be getting removed, as well as the Bonds of Faith. That is five more cards, and a grand total of sixteen cards removed. Now for some fun!

      The fun part is always adding in things to make the deck much better, and boy do we have some good ones in store! Let me start out by saying that it truly is a no brainer that we will want to add in Drogskol Captains, four copies. They just make it harder to kill your Spirits, and pump them to boot! And if you get two out, crazy. Then, we should up the Midnight Hauntings to four, so that is an addition of two. I would also suggest adding in Lingering Souls x4. Then, since the deck is running highly on tokens, I would suggest adding in Intangible Virtue. The Intangible Virtue gives your creature tokens +1/+1 and Vigilance, which will be simply amazing in this deck! The final spell I would like to suggest is none other than good old Oblivion Ring. What’s better than exiling the biggest threat you face? And there are our sixteen cards!

     But we aren’t quite done. I would also suggest adding in some Moorland Haunts in exchange of some basic lands, perhaps one Plains and one Island for two Moorland Haunts, or just add in the lands.

     While that is the easiest of fixes, I would still recommend some other cards. If you would like to get yourself some extra protection, Brave the Elements is the best card for that, which can emphasize going for the kill. But if you wish to remain in Standard format, then going with Faith’s Shield can be just as effective if you are at 5 or less life. And if the Intimidate isn’t working for you from the Spectral Riders, add in two more Voiceless Spirits in their place. Another card that would be a tremendous addition is True Conviction. If you were to add in one of those, your Spirits can definitely handle themselves. Double Striking and Lifelinking all the way to victory!

      There we have it! I hope that the revamps help those of you running Spirits run over your opponents! There were quite a few people asking for additional info towards this deck, and to those of you who patiently waited for the reply, hope this helps! Final deck list should look like this:
 
10 Islands
14 Plains
2 Moorland Haunt
1 Angel Flight of Alabaster
1 Geist Honored Monk
4 Drogskol Captain
4 Midnight Haunting
4 Ligering Souls
4 Intangible Virtue
4 Dissipate
4 Spirit Mantle
2 Oblivion Ring
2 Doomed Traveler
2 Rebuke
2 Spectral Rider
2 Voiceless Spirit
 
     So until next time, keep safe, and keep gaming!