Strixhaven is a name Magic: The Gathering players know well, with the original set taking a look at the plane of Arcavios and the titular school for mages. Even if the five schools of magic, their deans, and planeswalkers like Kasmina didn’t catch your attention, the Mystical Archives probably did. Mystical Archives was one of the first times Wizards of the Coast reached back into Magic: The Gathering’s history to include popular and powerful instants and sorceries in packs, such as Approach of the Second Sun and Dark Ritual. Cards like these made the draft and sealed environments more interesting, and opening packs more exciting, but more importantly, they started the trend of Wizards doing this for nearly every set. Now Strixhaven returns with a second set, Secrets of Strixhaven. One of the few non-Universes Beyond sets scheduled for Magic: The Gathering this year, MonsterVine was able to find out if they’ll take the same approach and what else they have in store for Secrets of Strixhaven.
Firstly, the new set continues its focus on the school of Strixhaven, so for those looking to find out what’s on the other continent of Arcavios or what Extus (now deceased) and the Oriq are up to may have to wait for the next related set. Beyond the school, Wizards is promising to detail five new research locations. Though some of the characters have been seen since, especially in the March of the Machine set, you’ll find all five of the student representatives here in both Commander and in the Secrets of Strixhaven variants. The schools of Lorehold, Quandrix, Silverquill, Witherbloom, and Prismari and their Elder Dragon founders are back, as well. The Biblioplex was destroyed, and many professors and students lost their lives as part of what happened during the War of the Spark’s and March of the Machine’s stories. While Magic: The Gathering players may be familiar with dual-mana guilds on planes like Ravnica, it was stressed that while Strixhaven may have the same color pairs, Strixhaven emphasizes the tension between what Magic players would call “enemy colors”.
What’s a school without a mascot? Though the original Strixhaven set had Codie and mascots as tokens, this time around, they are represented as actual cards as well. I have to say, I hope I can still build exponentially large fractal tokens still in Secrets of Strixhaven, as cards like Serpentine Curve and Leyline Invocation allowed me to do in the original set.
Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer, shows up again, this time being called upon by black mana instead of his usual red and blue combo. I’m not sure this change bodes well for the planeswalker, though it probably beats being an otter. Wizards had little to say about it beyond recommending the new book Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos, though I would surmise it has something to do with the upcoming Reality Fracture set later this year. Joining him as a fellow planeswalker is Professor Dellian Fel, who is presumably a part of the Withbloom school.
In terms of mechanics, Secrets of Strixhaven still keeps the theme of Instants and Sorceries matter. Prepared is probably going to be the most exciting and powerful mechanic, with cards like Emeritus of Ideation allowing players to potentially cast some of Magic: The Gathering’s most powerful spells like Ancestral Recall. Wizards did not want to say if more of the famous Power Nine would be represented, though clearly, with other Prepared spells like Reanimate on the table, it is definitely a possibility. Not every Prepared card enters Prepared, and players will have to figure out how to “Prepare” cards if they’d like to take advantage of the very powerful spells attached to them. Some Prepared cards are callbacks to the original Strixhaven set, which could make them more powerful than the originals in their own way, such as Joined Researchers. While this mechanic may seem hard to grasp, it’s important to note that you can also re-”Prepare” creatures, something that could be unbelievably powerful. Don’t want your opponent to cast powerful spells off the reserve list? You’ll also be able to make creatures Unprepared through means like the Biblioplex Tomekeeper.
Speaking of powerful mechanics, Paradigm is a new keyword that may give Prepared a run for its money. On successful cast (this is very important!) of a Paradigm spell, you exile the spell and gain the ability on each of your first main phases, for the rest of the game, to cast a copy again from exile for free. To be clear, this means on each of your turns, you have a chance to cast a free spell like Improvisational Capstone, provided the first time you cast it and exile it, it isn’t countered. Players will definitely have to make sure they have an appropriate response to stopping these Paradigm spells, or on the flip side, ensure their own are protected. This is another absurdly powerful ability, and I can only hope Wizards has thought this through as a mechanic to end games more definitively like Emergent Ultimatum, Hullbreaker Horror, or Embercleave did once upon a time.
Mystical Archives will also be returning, this time with a new art treatment. Last time around, these cards were available for you to play in Limited environments if you pulled them in your packs, though you may want to check ban and restricted lists before tossing Force of Will into your Brawl deck. While I know I’ve just spent some time detailing powerful cards, Mystical Archives are some of the most powerful cards throughout Magic: The Gathering without reservation. If you’re a collector or like to be abreast of prices, you’ll also want to make sure you show up to class for Secrets of Strixhaven.
You’ll also find a set of 10 guest cards in Secrets of Strixhaven packs. These cards represent guest lecturers across the multiverse teaching at Strixhaven, and the example given was Sylvan Library. If this sole card is anything to go by, you won’t be surprised by me saying they’re probably going to be some very powerful and desirable cards from Magic’s history.
As you may have deduced from the Lesson cards in the recent Avatar: The Last Airbender set, Secrets of Strixhaven also has Lessons. Learn, a very cool mechanic from the original Strixhaven, is, sadly, not returning. Most importantly, the new Secrets of Strixhaven Lessons will let you interact with cards that care about Lessons more reliably, like Accumulate Wisdom.
Repartee is a new Silverquill keyword that varies based on the card, but essentially, it cares about when you target a creature. This sounds like it’ll be one of the more complicated mechanics, but suffice to say, putting cantrips and smaller spells in the same way a Prowess deck would seems like the way to go. Spells that target multiple things only trigger this ability once.
Opus, in true Prismari tradition, cares about when you cast spells, but especially big instants and sorceries. Prismari players will want to cast big spells or modular spells, and an interesting wrinkle is that this is not simply talking about the Mana Value. While this does not count Ward costs, there are quite a few cards with additional, repeatable, or optional costs that this will benefit from, which is a handy caveat. Blue already liked its spells with X in the mana cost, and this is a great addition for previous Strixhaven cards like Crackle with Power.
Infusion is the new Witherbloom keyword, and it keeps it simple, as it simply cares if you gained life this turn. While we weren’t given a ton of information beyond the Old-Growth Educator, if Witherbloom still employs Pests the same way they did in the original Strixhaven, I don’t see this being a hard threshold to meet.
Lorehold sticks with a Magic: The Gathering staple: Flashback. This mechanic thematically fits students who look to the past by letting you cast spells from your graveyard, sometimes with a stronger effect. This may also play into Lorehold’s tradition of caring about exile and when cards leave your graveyard. While it is hard to say without more information on Secrets of Strixhaven, sometimes the effect of Flashback cards is more potent in the graveyard, like Molten Note, or it makes certain cards more attractive discard or Surveil targets, smoothing your gameplay curve. Also, Miracle is back. This extremely powerful mechanic is only on one card as of writing, Lorehold, The Historian, and only applies to Instants and Sorceries.
Quandrix’s mechanic, Increment, reminds me of Evolve, though it works more closely to Prismari’s Opus. Whenever you cast a spell, if the amount of Mana is greater than the Power or Toughness of a creature with Increment, you can put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. While this mechanic takes a bit more setup, and of course, it needs a creature with Increment on the field to activate in the first place, it can quickly spiral out of control as you cast spells each turn. It is also worth mentioning Increment cares about any spells and not just instants or sorceries – probably a compromise considering what I just previously mentioned.
“Slow Lands” are returning to Standard, which are nicknamed such as they’ll enter tapped unless you already have two or more lands out. Converge is a mechanic you’ve seen before, which cares about how many colors have been used to cast the spell, which would be five maximum. Mechanics like these either create a cool deck to aim for in Limited, or turn Limited into a format that cares about only casting the most broken cards, regardless of color. I’d prefer the former by a large margin. Books are a new subtype of Artifacts, so you should check to see if any cards you currently have are errata’ed on Oracle to include this new subtype.
There are five Commander decks, each featuring a student representative from one of the five schools of thought. Quintorius, History Chaser, shows up as a planeswalker most notably, and I would hope that he’s less exploitable than his first planeswalker debut. The team at Wizards notes that though these students are the ones you remember, they’ve grown and changed as they’ve experienced life throughout the Omenpaths. You’ll find that they operate slightly differently from their previous versions, but they are still complementary. Another area to note is that the Prepared mechanic isn’t limited to the Standard Secrets of Strixhaven set, and also shows up in these Commander decks as well. While I was shown cards like Eiganjo Dynastorian, which come with the Prepared effect Replenish (a card that hasn’t been seen for 24 years at least), Wizards hinted at cards that aren’t even allowed to be played in Commander on their own. On the one hand, it’s awesome that they think they’ve found a way to bring back cards that may have been too powerful once upon a time, but it could be banned just the same if players discover ways to exploit it.
For the collectors out there, Secrets of Strixhaven continues with various treatments and Collector Boosters. Borderless Portal View lands can be found as foil or nonfoil, and each features a portal that leads somewhere Wizards was tight-lipped about. You’ll also find Spellcraft lands (foil and non-foil), Extended Frames of Rares and Mythics, Borderless Field Note cards, Borderless Elder Dragons, Borderless Planeswalkers, Silver Scroll Foil, and Japanese Mystical Archive thematic-framed cards, and 10 special guest cards such as Sylvan Library. Additionally, all of these styles will be available on Magic: The Gathering Arena.
Last but not least is this set’s chase card, Emeritus of Ideation. This Serialized Headliner Card will have only 500 in existence, all double-rainbow-foiled. As this is a throwback to Ancestral Recall, they’ve even brought back the original artist, Mark Poole, for this card as well. It has a retro-inspired frame and will always be in English. If the trend holds true, other famed artists will have a hand in some of the more collectible versions of cards in this set. As the Serialized chase card in this set, if you or someone you know is interested, you may want to act quickly. Both Avatar and Final Fantasy’s versions of chase cards quickly became as elusive as they were expensive.
This set will be coming to Arena as well, with a special exclusive: the famed card Library of Alexandria.
Secrets of Strixhaven has its Prerelease starting 4/17, will arrive on Arena 4/21, and launches globally on April 24th.
