Virtue and Valor is one of those Commander precons that becomes much better once you stop trying to rebuild it from scratch.
The Wilds of Eldraine deck already contains many of the cards an Ellivere strategy actually wants: Sanctum Weaver, Setessan Champion, Kor Spiritdancer, Enchantress’s Presence, Eidolon of Blossoms, Bear Umbra and Ancestral Mask are all present in the original list. Wizards built a legitimate Selesnya enchantment shell rather than a loose collection of Aura cards.
That makes upgrading Ellivere of the Wild Court less about finding an entirely new win condition and more about making the deck faster, more resilient and more consistent. Ellivere already turns enchanted creatures into serious combat threats while rewarding you for connecting with them. The best upgrades give you more enchantment-based card advantage, cheaper ways to build pressure and better protection for a board that can otherwise be vulnerable to removal.
How Ellivere Actually Wants the Deck to Play
Ellivere of the Wild Court gives Virtue and Valor two engines at the same time.
Her attack trigger creates a Virtuous Role attached to another target creature you control. Virtuous is a special Role created by Ellivere, and like other Role tokens it is an Aura enchantment. That means every Role does more than simply make a creature larger: it also increases your enchantment count and interacts with the enchantress shell already built into the deck. Wizards specifically identifies Virtuous as the seventh Role type associated with Wilds of Eldraine and the one created by Ellivere.
Ellivere’s other ability rewards enchanted creatures for dealing combat damage to players. This is the part of the commander that should shape your upgrades. The deck does not need to become a traditional Voltron build where every Aura goes onto Ellivere. In fact, spreading enchantments across several creatures is often better because it creates multiple attackers capable of generating cards while making a single removal spell less devastating.
That distinction matters. Virtue and Valor looks like an Aura deck, but the stronger version is really an enchantment-based combat engine. You want efficient creatures, enough Auras and other enchantments to keep the engine running, and ways to make sure at least one enchanted attacker gets through.
The stock deck already understands this surprisingly well. Tanglespan Lookout rewards Aura placement, Archon of Sun’s Grace turns enchantments into bodies, Destiny Spinner protects important spells from countermagic, and Winds of Rath can function as a particularly asymmetric board wipe when your creatures are enchanted. Those are cards I would preserve rather than cutting simply because they came in the precon.
The Best Virtue and Valor Upgrades
The first upgrade I would make is Sythis, Harvest’s Hand. Virtue and Valor already contains several enchantress effects, but Sythis adds another extremely efficient one for only . Every enchantment spell you cast can replace itself while gaining a life, which is exactly what the deck wants when it begins chaining cheap Auras and enchantment-based ramp. Current Ellivere deck data also shows Sythis as one of the more common additions to upgraded builds rather than part of the original stock list.
Wild Growth is less exciting visually, but it may be one of the cleanest upgrades available. The precon already uses Utopia Sprawl and Fertile Ground, so Wild Growth pushes the deck further toward ramp that also counts as enchantment material. It lets you accelerate Ellivere while contributing to cards such as Ancestral Mask and your enchantress triggers instead of occupying a slot with an unrelated mana rock. It is currently one of the most commonly played non-stock cards in Ellivere lists.
Another excellent addition is Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar. Ellivere wants enchanted creatures to connect in combat, and Kutzil rewards exactly that type of game while making it harder for opponents to interfere during your turn. The card does not require the entire deck to be rebuilt around it; it simply reinforces what your commander is already asking you to do. Its high inclusion in current Ellivere decks is a useful indication of how naturally it fits the strategy.
If you want to lean harder into Auras, Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice gives the deck a much stronger tutoring engine. Whenever you cast an Aura spell targeting Light-Paws, you can search for another Aura with a lower mana value and attach it to Light-Paws. That can turn a modest Aura into a chain that finds protection, evasion or additional power. I would not automatically make Light-Paws the center of the deck, though. Ellivere is stronger when you maintain several meaningful attackers, so Light-Paws works best as a powerful sub-engine rather than a reason to abandon the broader enchantment plan.
Calix, Guided by Fate offers a different kind of pressure. He rewards enchanted creatures dealing combat damage and can copy enchantments you already control, allowing one successful attack to multiply your best engine pieces. He fits naturally into a deck already trying to connect with enchanted creatures and gives the list another payoff that does not depend entirely on Ellivere remaining on the battlefield.
For more protection, cards such as Royal Treatment are especially attractive because they protect an important creature while still playing into the enchantment theme. More traditional options such as Heroic Intervention or Flawless Maneuver can protect a larger board, but the exact package should depend on how removal-heavy your table is.
The key is that these upgrades address specific weaknesses. Sythis improves card flow, Wild Growth improves speed, Kutzil improves combat pressure, Light-Paws and Calix increase the ceiling of the Aura plan, and additional protection reduces the chance that a single board wipe undoes several turns of setup.
What I Would Keep From the Original Precon
Virtue and Valor has enough strong stock cards that cutting aggressively can actually make the deck worse.
Sanctum Weaver is one of the easiest keeps. Its mana production scales with your enchantment count, which means the same board development that powers your combat plan also powers your mana. Current Ellivere data has Sanctum Weaver among the commander’s highest-synergy cards, and it is already in the box.
The same applies to Setessan Champion. Every enchantment entering under your control grows it and draws a card, turning normal deck development into both pressure and card advantage. There is no reason to describe this as a premium upgrade when Wizards already included it in Virtue and Valor.
Kor Spiritdancer, Enchantress’s Presence and Eidolon of Blossoms also belong in the core draw package. Ancestral Mask and Ethereal Armor are inexpensive ways to turn the deck’s growing enchantment count into lethal combat damage, while Bear Umbra combines protection through totem armor with a potentially enormous mana swing after attacking.
I would also hesitate before removing cards such as Kenrith’s Transformation. It may look less dramatic than premium spot removal, but it is an enchantment, replaces itself and answers problematic creatures while feeding the rest of your deck. That is exactly the kind of role compression an enchantress strategy wants.
Even Gylwain, Casting Director, the alternate commander included with the deck, deserves more credit than a generic cut list usually gives it. Gylwain supplies Roles as your nontoken creatures enter, which can maintain an enchantment-heavy board without requiring every card in your hand to be an Aura. I still prefer Ellivere as the commander for the combat-and-card-draw plan, but Gylwain is useful in the 99 and supports the same broad strategy. Wizards confirms that Ellivere and Gylwain are the two foil legendary creatures designed to lead the original deck.
Where the Cuts Should Actually Come From
The weakest part of Virtue and Valor is not its enchantress core. It is the collection of slower cards around that core.
Verdant Embrace is a reasonable place to begin. Six mana is a large investment for an Aura, particularly in a deck that would rather cast several cheaper enchantments and generate multiple triggers in the same turn. The card can produce value if it survives, but upgraded versions of Ellivere can usually spend that slot more efficiently.
Pollenbright Wings has a similar problem. Connecting with a giant enchanted creature and creating a large number of Saprolings sounds excellent, but six mana makes it cumbersome when the deck already has other ways to turn combat damage into advantage.
Celestial Archon is another card I would examine as the list becomes leaner. Bestow gives it useful flexibility, but the overall rate is no longer especially attractive compared with cheaper enchantments that help the deck establish its engine earlier.
The same principle can be applied to some of the deck’s generic or slower creatures. You do not want to cut so many bodies that Ellivere has nothing useful to enchant, but every creature should ideally contribute to enchantments, combat, protection or card advantage rather than simply filling the curve.
That is why I would not publish a rigid “cut these five cards no matter what” list. If your upgrade path adds more Aura tutors, you may trim expensive standalone enchantments. If you add more creatures such as Kutzil and Sythis, cut the least synergistic creatures first. If your table uses large numbers of board wipes, preserving recursion such as Mantle of the Ancients, Retether and Sun Titan becomes more important.
The objective is to lower the amount of dead or expensive material without dismantling the redundancy that makes the precon surprisingly consistent.
The Mana Base Is Functional but Easy to Improve
Virtue and Valor is only two colors, so its mana base does not need an expensive reconstruction.
The stock list already includes useful lands such as Command Tower, Canopy Vista, Fortified Village, Sungrass Prairie and Hall of Heliod’s Generosity. The last of those is particularly valuable here because returning an important enchantment from the graveyard to the top of your library can recover an engine piece after removal.
The places I would examine first are slower utility lands such as Myriad Landscape and Vitu-Ghazi, the City-Tree. Neither is unplayable, but an upgraded Ellivere deck wants to cast spells efficiently in the first few turns and often has demanding sequences involving both green and white mana. Replacing some slower lands with untapped green-white sources improves that consistency.
The land enchantments also change how you should think about the mana base. Utopia Sprawl, Wild Growth and Fertile Ground are not merely ramp pieces here; they increase enchantment density while accelerating your commander. That makes enchantment-based ramp especially valuable compared with simply adding more three-mana artifacts.
If you want to rebuild the land package beyond those first changes, our Mana Base Upgrade Guide covers the budget dual-land cycles and fixing options in much more detail.
How the Upgraded Deck Actually Wins
The cleanest Ellivere games rarely involve building one enormous creature and hoping nobody has removal.
Instead, you develop an enchantment engine, establish multiple creatures and begin distributing Auras and Virtuous Roles across the battlefield. Setessan Champion, Kor Spiritdancer, Enchantress’s Presence and similar effects keep your hand moving while cards such as Sanctum Weaver provide the mana to continue developing.
Once Ellivere starts attacking, your creatures become increasingly difficult to ignore. A Virtuous Role scales with the number of enchantments you control, so even a relatively modest creature can become a serious attacker as your battlefield develops. Because Ellivere rewards enchanted creatures for connecting with opponents, spreading the threat across multiple bodies can turn combat into both damage and card advantage.
This is where evasion and protection become more valuable than simply adding another oversized Aura. A creature that is already large enough to threaten meaningful damage does not necessarily need another +5/+5. It may need protection from removal or a way to get through blockers.
The precon also has recovery tools for the games where that plan is disrupted. Retether and Mantle of the Ancients can rebuild Aura-heavy positions from the graveyard, while Hall of Heliod’s Generosity helps recycle individual enchantments. That resilience is worth maintaining as you upgrade.
PreconForge Verdict
Virtue and Valor does not need a new identity. It needs a cleaner version of the identity Wizards already gave it.
Ellivere of the Wild Court works best when you treat the deck as an enchantment-based combat strategy rather than a pure Voltron deck. Keep the strong stock enchantress package, use several creatures as meaningful attackers, and let Virtuous Roles turn normal board development into increasing pressure.
The first upgrades I would prioritize are cards such as Sythis, Harvest’s Hand, Wild Growth, Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar, Light-Paws, Emperor’s Voice and Calix, Guided by Fate, depending on how heavily you want to lean into Auras. Current Ellivere lists continue to favor enchantment ramp, efficient draw engines and combat payoffs, which reinforces the core direction rather than suggesting the deck needs an entirely different strategy.
The most important upgrade, though, is simply cutting the expensive cards that do less than the efficient engines already in the deck. Virtue and Valor starts from a much stronger position than many older precons, and respecting that stock core is the fastest way to make the final list better.
