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Magic: The Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven Review, Part 2 of 4: Multicolor Cards
Secrets of Strixhaven will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on April 21st, and to the tabletop on January 24th. Commander: Secrets of Strixhaven will release on the same date.
Silverquill
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Abigale, Poet Laureate
Saffgor: I'm bullish on the entire cycle of uncommon Prepare Legends, and one of the very first things I did with cards from the set was build a sweet Lluwen Commander list. Abigale is a great way to enable both Heroic, and the new Repartee mechanic, though White doesn't bring as much to the table as other colors, when it comes to breaking Prepared Spells. I think she's better than she looks, even in the Command Zone, and can easily rip through entire hands with something like Ashiok's Adept.FromTheShire: This is probably best when you're triggering other things with the repeated casts, 2 mana for a counter isn't terribly impressive. Still, it's easy to find yourself with excess mana and a flyer is a solid place to put the counters.
BPhillipYork: This is a very easy to trigger prepared spell, and lends itself to weenie decks or using it to buff shadow creatures. I'm not sure how good that is, but it's easy to build around, and a solid enough commander.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Conciliator's Duelist
Saffgor: This being an end step return stops it from being Displacer Kitten 2...but the fact it cantrips on enters is quite the upside to account for that. I think this card is great, especially so with the Abigale above, and the fact you can Ephemerate or Cloudshift and get an extra flicker is amazing.FromTheShire: Excellent value engine that not only offers you draws but whatever other enters triggers you have in your deck, protects your team, and enables all kinds of tricks. Very nice.
BPhillipYork: This is a solid utility creature, but really expensive in terms of colored symbols. A 4/3 for 4 that draws you 1 when you cast it and then has a flicker stapled on is solid enough, though I think where this really shines is to set it up with a creature with a prepared spell that targets a creature, and you can just keep casting it every turn as the duelist flicker causes the creature to re-enter prepared.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Fix What's Broken
Saffgor: This doesn't say X or less, it says X. For that reason, you need a clear gameplan when this enters your decklist, to either loop it with an Archaeomancer or similar, and/or have the self-mill to see it receive 4 mana in value when X is <4 itself. Really great card, but boy are people going to misread it.FromTheShire: Yeah you probably want to consider at least slightly building around this so you're getting multiple targets reliably, but even returning a single creature or artifact is sometimes going to be worth it since this puts them directly into play.
BPhillipYork: That's a really strong spell. Dumping a bunch of stuff to your yard and then reanimating everything that costs say 5 for 5 life is really cheap. Really dangerous card that can be a game ender. Just wow.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Killian's Confidence
Saffgor: I mean, in the Heroic/Repartee decks we've talked about above, this is a recursive way to trigger their creatures. Rate isn't fantastic, but that's the price you pay for theoretically infinite value. Niche, but great in that niche. The only flavor fail is that the original Killian, Ink Duelist doesn't discount it at all.FromTheShire: Really solid value piece for midrange decks, just buying it back over and over. Yes the rate is a little lackluster but you will be happy to pay it as the game goes long.
BPhillipYork: The actual spell you are casting is okay, but it's effectively a cantrip, and then it's fairly trivial to get it back, and this will trigger repartee, so it ends up being a super utilitarian piece in a deck. This will also trigger a card leaving your yard fairly trivially.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Moment of Reckoning
Saffgor: For 7 mana, yeah no I'm good. These aren't the colors that can ramp like that, really, and being so color-intensive it isn't the easiest sell in something like Abzan, were you to have better ramp tools.FromTheShire: In fairness black can ramp really well in Commander, but it also affords you access to things like Living Death that are almost certainly better in the reanimate department. Destroying any nonland permanent makes sense with the white half but again you have better options. Theoretically the upside here is the modality, but you really want this to cost half as much and only give two targets.
BPhillipYork: 7 mana, 4 colored, to do a solid thing 4 times is okay. Kind of reminiscent of the various Ultimatums from Ikoria, though those had even more colored mana involved. Yes, this can quite easily return the combo pieces from your yard to the battlefield allowing you to end the game. And for 7-mana it really should.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Nita, Forum Conciliator
Saffgor: I'm a little smitten with Nita, because the sheer number of inputs & outputs gives you so many points of synergy to build off of. She's a little aristocrats-y, has theft elements, counter synergies, and even works well with cards like Cryptic Trilobite that reward activated abilities. Just a really unique Commander, even if she's not especially strong.FromTheShire: As someone with a Gonti, Lord of Luxury deck this is super intriguing. Black sneakily has quite a few steal your opponents stuff cards, although unfortunately a big chunk of them are stealing from their graveyard and not casting them. Still, you have plenty of fun options like Brainstealer Dragon and Arvinox, the Mind Flail if you want to double down on the stealing, or you can play a more typical aristocrats deck and let Nita do the thieving.
BPhillipYork: Caring about casting spells you don't own isn't normally a white or black thing, which makes this a bit of a strange card. Thankfully it has a very aristocrats way of getting access to spells you don't own, but it's fairly resource intensive. How good are the spells you steal this way likely to be? Admittedly just running this creature in a spell stealing deck in order to buff your creatures could be solid, but there's generally not that much synergy between creatures being buffed by +1/+1 counters and spell stealing.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Scolding Administrator
Saffgor: This feels more like a limited payoff than anything, but it is worth noting that this is the third(ish) of this effect to be playable in Felisa, Fang of Silverquill, after Buzzard-Wasp Colony & Enduring Bondwarden. Decent get for that Commander, middling elsewhere.FromTheShire: This feels super annoying to deal with in 60 card in the best way. It gets bigger whenever you use removal like you want to be doing anyway, and that removal is even more effective since it has menace. And then when you finally kill it, it pumps something else up to where that ALSO needs to have removal pointed at it.
BPhillipYork: The intent of this creature is probably to get big early game since it's cheap then dump it's counters onto something that really wants +1/+1 counters, you'll get double counters from things like The Ozolith which can end up getting fairly abusive, especially if you reanimate the counters back onto it, and do it again. Really love to see Saw in Half cast on it with an Ozolith and it's analogues to generate a lot of counters.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Silverquill Charm
Saffgor: This is probably the worst new charm, though in 60-card formats it could be a reasonable aggro tool for winning combats, removing blockers, and/or finishing off opponents. In Commander though, this is DOA.FromTheShire: I really like this in Standard, all of the modes are quite useful. I'm half tempted to see what you could do with some sort of Mardu burn deck using this alongside Lightning Helix and Boros Charm. It wouldn't be great but it would be a bunch of fun!
BPhillipYork: This is a solid charm, and it seems like they just decided to try making the charms good, which is sadly kind of a new thing. Great to see these cheap, good, modal spells show up.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Silverquill, the Disputant
Saffgor: Just rather uninteresting in my eyes, being 4 mana for something you need to feed into, and receive modest payout. The best thing Silverquill here does is copy Land destruction and recursion, and that style of deck belongs in B4, where he decidedly doesn't. Bearish on this guy.FromTheShire: Definitely some inherent tension with trying not to only draw the half of your deck that makes creatures you want to sacrifice or the half that wants to be copied. Still, there are a decent number of spells that make creature tokens which you can then use to double the next token creating spell then the next before playing some kind of go wide payoff or doubling a Debt to the Deathless or similar so i could see this being a solid deck.
BPhillipYork: I always love to see new, actually usefully playable Elder Dragons show up, this would be super dangerous with red or blue, in white and black it's solid, but not necessarily so abusive, but there are definitely some spells that could get fairly gross getting duplicated, like your bog standard reanimate. Also this will work with prepared spells which gives it a lot more legs.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Snooping Page
FromTheShire: Similar to Scolding Administrator this rewards you for using removal like you wanted to anyway, with the further upside of drawing you towards more removal. I like it.BPhillipYork: This is like a blue ability, and seeing it on a white creature (okay yes it's white/black), makes me feel like we're in the twilight zone or something. So, it's good.
Prismari
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Abstract Paintmage
Saffgor: You can compare this to the new Ashling in Lorwyn Eclipsed, whose back side (Ashling, Rimebound) does something similar. Both cards are just...fine, but do help with the new Prismari payoffs for paying tons of mana into spells.FromTheShire: We have seen these somewhat innocuous seeming little accelerators pay off in big ways in spellslinger decks. Spiking you neatly up into range of the full payoff for Opus means you certainly don't want to let your opponent untap with one in play if it can be helped. It might be fine but you also might just die.
BPhillipYork: I really like these evenly split creatures, where you've got mana type 1, hybrid mana of types 1 & 2, and mana type 2, as like perfectly balanced. Somehow U+U/R+R seems more balanced than UURR, and I couldn't really explain why. Anyway I think this is a solid card, an enabler for cards that just want to cast spells every turn, and also helps you ramp up to a big spell, by letting you jump from 3 mana to 6 mana available the next turn for some kind of haymaker.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Colorstorm Stallion
Saffgor: This card's payoff and body are misaligned. It's positioned as an aggro or midrange piece, but asks you not only get to 5 mana, but pay all of it into a spell that likely doesn't help that gameplan. What this card is, and what it asks you to do, are very different paths of play.FromTheShire: This is much more of a prowess creature that happens to sometimes make a copy of itself I think, and a hasty prowess creature with ward isn't bad. It may be a touch too expensive for the current pace of the game though.
BPhillipYork: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, and you've got enough elemental horses with ward and haste to kill everyone at the table. Which seems fun. What it doesn't have is any kind of evasion, to get through, and if you start just casting spells it seems like this creature will just have to eat it, but it's sort of useful as a potential exponential threat, much like Scute Swarm.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Prismari Charm
Saffgor: This is most often going to be either the draw or bounce mode, and that's probably good enough in something like Izzet Lessons, as a 2-of. An unexciting, though useful, charm.FromTheShire: Again a lot to like here, mainly either cantripping and buffing your prowess team or gaining tempo by removing a blocker and letting your team punch through.
BPhillipYork: Another really modal charm.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Prismari, the Inspiration
Saffgor: Going to say it, this is going to go down as one of the most deconstructed Commanders in recent memory. It is highly polarizing, where your floor and ceiling are about as tall as the Sears Tower, and opponents either get to feel good about removing a 7 mana Commander, or watch you take a 30 minute Storm turn. It's not a great design, likely won't be very fun, and strikes me as the irresponsible sort of card to print when players see this and waste everyone's time and energy, themselves included.FromTheShire: Jesus Christ. Maybe the platonic ideal of a kill on sight commander because if this ever sticks that's the game.
BPhillipYork: Yeah, so on the storm scale this uh, gives all your instant and sorcery spells storm, which seems pretty high on the storm scale. Like, yes it costs 7 mana to get it out, but if you do that's uh, it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Resonating Lute
Saffgor: Oh that's a uh, mana doubler in Izzet, huh? And it at minimum draws an extra card each turn, filtering through the deck with Mind Over Matter? This is a sick, sick card that does nasty work in High Tide lists, across formats.FromTheShire: 4 mana for a mana doubler is a fantastic rate. Yes it's somewhat limited but it's limited to exactly what this deck wanted to be spending on anyway so uh, sure. Another card that should shoot warning flares across your vision when it hits the battlefield.
BPhillipYork: This is okay, if you just really want to cast a bunch of instants and sorceries, and it is one-sided, unlike things like Mana Flare and Gauntlet of Power and Gauntlet of Might, but mostly it seems underwhelming. Having the draw ability stapled on is okay, but if you have 14 mana to cast instants and sorceries, it seems like things should end.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sanar, Unfinished Genius
Saffgor: This sort-of allows you to have an Instant or Sorcery in the Command Zone, but I worry that it falls prey to something I've learned more and more: Having a tutor as ones' Commander makes for boring gameplay, over the long-term. It's a solid design, and great in limited as a way to trigger Opus, but I worry about Sanar's longevity. As a character in Magic, he's 2-0 for 'Cool Commanders that are only fun for a couple games'.FromTheShire: Half the time you might not even care about the tutor, you just want the Treasure. Add in an untapper and Goldspan Dragon and you're really cooking.
BPhillipYork: Bit of strange design, 2-mana is cheap and you get it prepared, and then you get to search for a sorcery, but that costs 5. The tapping for a treasure is super useful but then you'd need a bunch of instants and sorceries, and cheap ones, to afford to trigger it. Works really well with the original Galazeth Prismari though.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Splatter Technique
Saffgor: A control payoff for the Prismari Opus archetype, but it feels...slow. This is a very unexciting rare, and isn't even that great on rate.FromTheShire: This seems like it is probably out in the cold, too expensive for Izzet decks in Standard and not impactful enough in Commander where 4 damage is frequently not enough to deal with the things you most want dead. The draw is kind of bad, and you can't even reduce it much with cost reducers. There IS a Jeskai control deck floating around running Day of Judgement and Ultima so maybe this puts a few copies there.
BPhillipYork: This is okay, if it was cheaper it'd be dangerous, dealing 4 damage to all creatures will virtually always clear the entire board (and even planeswalkers) so maybe if you have a deck with a really fat commander, or a plan to cast it after you board clear, or just default to draw 4, it's, well, okay.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Traumatic Critique
Saffgor: This being castable at X=0 makes it so, so much better as an early game filtering piece, and funny enough it does still target in that case, so score one for Repartee. Critique here is just rarely bad, at any stage in the game, but it's probably only at its best in 60-card formats.FromTheShire: The problem is the prowess decks have a really nice suite of 1 mana spells already, and if you're casting this for 3 Stock Up is still most likely better. Theoretically it gets better as the game progresses but you want to be killing someone on turn 4 not planning for turn 6. There is also a ton of hype about Flow State from this same set which makes it harder for this to find a home. Maybe it fits in Izzet Spellementals in place of Abandon Attachments, or maybe an instant speed fireball is still useful enough in general that it sees play.
BPhillipYork: Effectively an X-damage spell that nets out to replacing itself with some nice card selection on it, at instant speed. So it's okay, at best it's just UR, draw 2, discard 1, which is completely playable, and the X-spell is just additional gravy on top of the card selection effect.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Vibrant Outburst
Saffgor: Limited 'gotcha' card, sure.FromTheShire: I'm on the fence about this one, killing a creature and tapping a blocker down for 2 mana FEELS like it should be great but there just may not be room for it in Izzet decks, which are already doing just fine with their 1 mana removal.
BPhillipYork: Sort of like Lightning Bolt + Twiddle on one spell for an equal amount of mana. If it truly was, then it would be really solid (i.e. if you could untap something) as it is this is just really a spell not for multi-player.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Zaffai and the Tempests
Saffgor: This is a fine enough top end, but feels like a worse Eluge, the Shoreless Sea that only comes down in the lategame. As a reanimation target, though? Or for Polymorph? That, I could see.FromTheShire: Shockingly fair for a card that cheats, honestly.
BPhillipYork: So this is obviously dangerous, though what you really want is to just cheat it out, so you can cheat out huge spells.
Witherbloom
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Blech, Loafing Pest
Saffgor: Persistent Constrictor and an enters-lifegain trigger give you infinite sac fodder and go infinitely large, but outside of that it's just too fair. Boring card, but definitely the best Pest Commander for those looking to do that.FromTheShire: I always enjoy building weird kindred decks, and this seems like a super fun and chill deck full of odd gribblies that I could easily see myself building.
BPhillipYork: The synergy on this is pretty obvious, make pests, gain life, they get big. So, it's fine.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Cauldron of Essence
Saffgor: Repeatable recursion on top of a drain effect? It's inefficient, yes, but if you're a dedicated reanimation deck it's great to see something like this. Overpaying doesn't matter when the payoff is strong enough.FromTheShire: One of the best Commander cards in the set, both halves of this would be playable on their own but stapled together? Yes please.
BPhillipYork: This is a pretty nuts card. If all it had was the first ability, it would be playable (see Bastion of Remembrance), the ability to sacrifice a creature to return anything, literally any creature, is huge. Every turn is sort of ridiculous. A huge enabler for milling and reanimating fatties, or just, really anything.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dina's Guidance
Saffgor: This saying "creature card" makes me less excited about it than I'd otherwise be, but the flexibility is great for most Golgari Commander lists. You'll be seeing this.FromTheShire: Instant speed and directly to your hand or graveyard, the only reason this won't instantly be everywhere is being 2 colors. Very good.
BPhillipYork: Obviously an instant speed unconditional creature tutor that lets you choose between hand and graveyard is very strong, especially for 3 mana.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Essenceknit Scholar
Saffgor: Am I out of my mind when I say this is kind of bad? It's an uncommon, obviously, but man does Phyrexian Arena lack appeal these days. Conditional ones even moreso.FromTheShire: It's a decent signpost for what Witherbloom wants to be doing but likely too fragile.
BPhillipYork: Great for aristocrats and attrition decks.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lluwen, Exchange Student
Saffgor: Lluwen is the premier example of why Prepare as a mechanic is sweet, and I've already gotten two people in my local scene to brew him up with my list as a baseline. You get a repeatable multicolored spell that's accessible at most points in the game, and produces a body which can in turn be sacrificed or tapped (via Fallaji Wayfarer, Hoarding Broodlord, etc) to find a new Pest Friend. The most interesting Storm Commander they've released in literal years, doubly so because he's in neither Blue nor Red. Build him.FromTheShire: Nice set of abilities all wrapped up in one synergistic package.
BPhillipYork: This is solid and pretty transparent about what it does.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Mind Roots
Saffgor: Man, that's a cool card. It discourages players from discarding Lands, ala Bandit's Talent, and rewards you if they do. On top of some sick art, this feels like a slam dunk in discard strategies with Green once you've whittled down opposing options.FromTheShire: Sadly the only deck we're really seeing right now with black and green is Sultai Reanimator which is a bummer because hitting your opponent with a discard 2 feels great. Weirdly I wonder if this could fit into that strategy, targeting yourself to ramp 1 and bin your reanimator target feels like it could be something.
BPhillipYork: This is really great, if you force them to discard a land card, which they probably won't. If they don't, its not great.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Professor Dellian Fel
Saffgor: He gets to emblem fast, and even survives his ultimate, but that payoff is...fine? If you wanted a difficult-to-remove Sanguine Bond, just play Enduring Tenacity.BPhillipYork: Usually a planeswalker like this is designed so you have to activate their ability twice in order to get the emblem. Nonetheless in a 4-player game it's tough to imagine this going around the table and letting you get the emblem, and on top of that if he goes untouched he'll stick around for even more life gain. Still, this to me is pretty mid, and your best case scenario is having something to give you +loyalty when it enters to immediately emblem. Without that it's scarcely playable.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Teacher's Pest
Saffgor: This combos off with a few things, but not in any interesting ways. It's fine, but is likely a gateway to new players learning about altar-based wins.FromTheShire: Creatures that can return themselves over and over like this have a history of making great sac fodder. Plus look at that little guy, he's great.
BPhillipYork: Wow. A self-reanimating, 1/1, for 2-mana, with a super useful trigger on attacking, and evasion. That's a lot, very pushed, utility creature, amazing support for aristocrats, and reanimation, and lifegain decks.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Vicious Rivalry
Saffgor: This is a strong wipe, but it's weirdly not the strongest Golgari wipe we'll be looking at today. Kind of wild an effect this good is being upstaged in its own release, but there's a few decks where both could make sense.FromTheShire: Super powerful and I'm here for it. Kind of a Toxic Deluge mixed with Pernicious Deed.
BPhillipYork: Really strong board clear potential.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Witherbloom Charm
Saffgor: Sacrificing anything is an effect Black normally lacks, and can be a way to get rid of highly-negative Enchantments like Demonic Pact. Outside of that use case, it's just alright.FromTheShire: Draw 2 cards, make aggro cry, or blow something up, again all excellent modes.
BPhillipYork: Another really solid, modal charm with good abilities all over.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Witherbloom, the Balancer
Saffgor: Ironic name aside, this reeks to me of a Commander that likely doesn't breach cEDH play, but terrorizes B3/4. If you remove him, he comes back for the same cost, and not only accesses cheap interaction, but an inbuilt combo win with very easy tutor chains. Witherbloom is strong, and likely requires table policing not to take over if optimized-for.FromTheShire: Yeah this is super strong. Cheats himself out, and then turns that same cheating into massive haymakers? Woof.
BPhillipYork: So this is kind of hilarious to me. Like, make a black/green horde deck, dump this out, and cast the huge black X-spells, like Torment of Hailfire. It's not like Green doesn't have ways to generate mana = to creatures already, and this effectively just doubles it.
Lorehold
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Ark of Hunger
Saffgor: Rather similar mill-to-play effect as another Lorehold-themed card in the set, Tablet of Discovery, and I prefer that card. 4 mana is just a hair too late for your advantage engine to come online, and the drain effect doesn't make up for it.FromTheShire: An interesting one for sure, especially in these colors.
BPhillipYork: A very solid enabler for a deck archetype for Red and White that sort of does both things, triggers off cards leaving your yard and causes a card to leave your yard right away.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Aziza, Mage Tower Captain
Saffgor: This doesn't go infinite in any way that matters, and as a value piece, three bodies per copy (and the effect being a cast trigger, so you couldn't tap 6 to copy twice) isn't where it's at.FromTheShire: Too much investment for Standard, not a big enough payoff for Commander most likely. Still, doubling things is always popular for a reason.
BPhillipYork: You can definitely see how you'd build around this, white weenies to copy instants, and then instants to buff your weenies, or clear the board, or whatever it is you want your deck to do.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Borrowed Knowledge
Saffgor: 4 mana isn't great, but in a game of Commander this is drawing you a new 7 most of the time. In card-hungry strategies, that can be worthwhile.FromTheShire: It can be more than 7 even with how many people like to run no max hand size cards. And it's not symmetrical which I do like.
BPhillipYork: Given Wheel of Fortune and all the other variants in the format, this is probably not that desirable, but if for example you're intentionally feeding cards to someone in order to create triggers for yourself, like Secret Rendezvous, then you can rely on this being a unidirectional Wheel of Fortune, and then it's quite good.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Hardened Academic
Saffgor: Another Persist loop enabler isn't bad, and it's cheap enough to be flexible for lists looking to see infinite sacrifice fodder. 2/1 in Boros means both Recruiters can find it and its likely partner in crime, Lesser Masticore.FromTheShire: This is a cheap, aggressive little beast with evasion and two good abilities, big fan.
BPhillipYork: So a 2/1 flyer with haste for 2 would be playable, if not particularly splashy. But wait, there's more, the ability to discard a card to generate an effect, which is occasionally useful, but also gives lifelink, which is a pretty reliable way to get a lifegain trigger if your deck cares about that (also if it doesn't, the ability isn't actually conditional on your deck caring about life), but finally, a triggered ability that deposits a +1/+1 counter whenever one or more cards leave your graveyard. So for example, if you have a Conspiracy Theorist in play, you can discard, get the counter, get the lifelink, and then cast the spell from exile. This also will also help with persist triggers, and also just lots of various combo loops. This is just an automatic new staple and combo piece for the format and one of the cards to know exists.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Kirol, History Buff
Saffgor: Those Prepare Spells coming from exile is now a massive source of upside for Red, with the number of payoffs the color has for playing from that zone. Kirol re-Prepares super easily too, and at a mere 2 mana, comes down fast. The only concern is Pack a Punch's cost of 3, but even that can be offset in a number of ways, and even puts a card in the yard to Prepare once more. Awesome design, likely a very underplayed Commander.BPhillipYork: This seems a useful part of a combo that doesn't really do anything specifically on it's own, just let you cast a spell from exile, which in and of itself is fairly useful. It ends up being a pretty pricey spell if you're casting it every turn, but if you're generating mana from casting spells or treasures, or dealing damage when casting from exile, then the juice starts being worth the squeeze.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lorehold Charm
Saffgor: That second mode is absolutely massive, getting back utility pieces, removal, or stax all in one. The removal being nontoken helps loads, too, getting around the ample Clues & Treasures of the format. Love this card.FromTheShire: Nontoken artifact is huge, it can get back a key piece directly to the battlefield, and finally it can give your prowess team +2/+2 and trample? That's an awful lot for 2 mana.
BPhillipYork: This is just yet another good 2 mana charm with 3 solid modal abilities, each of which is pretty inherently useful, so it's just a solid card.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lorehold, the Historian
Saffgor: The first Founder Dragon we saw from the set, Lorehold sits somewhere between a great discard-matters Commander, and a living slot machine of anguish. Cost reducers make those Miracles free, the rummaging enables discard payoffs, and altogether he feels like a well-oiled machine in colors that sorely needed an exciting new Commander. Great design work here.FromTheShire: Boros haymakers seems like a super fun archetype, and I expect we see a ton of people brewing this deck. Very nice to get something out of the ordinary for the colors.
BPhillipYork: Well, this is a potential doozy, potentially just whipping off huge spells for 2 mana, and being able to generate a draw every turn is just really powerful. The discard draw ability is strong on it's own, even if you aren't drawing into instants and sorceries it's solid enough, and a 5/5 Flyer with Haste. Given all the ways you can get value out of discarding makes this a lot stronger, so it's a great commander to use as a shell for a variety of deck types.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Practiced Scrollsmith
Saffgor: Boros' take on an Eternal Witness effect is very neat, and synergizes both with the 'leaves the graveyard' effects, and payoffs for casting from exile. Not a terribly exciting card, but one you're often happy to play.FromTheShire: Boros doesn't get this kind of graveyard recursion very often so I actually think it's pretty sweet. Yes it's slightly expensive but that's the price of unique effects.
BPhillipYork: This is fine to get a "leaves graveyard" trigger, but sadly it costs 3 and isn't an artifact so most of your recursion tricks won't work on it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Suspend Aggression
Saffgor: Very interesting bit of removal, as what is functionally a bounce spell that draws 1. I think that's good enough, at least in midrange/control, and does great work with Drannith Magistrate and similar.FromTheShire: Being able to hit any nonland permanent in Boros is actually slightly less impressive than you might initially think since white already has ways to more permanently deal with permanents. Plus it's slow for Standard and trying to play tempo in Commander which doesn't work nearly as well.
BPhillipYork: Sort of a weird temporary exile. There's various ways to straight up lock your opponent out of casting it from exile, and it has the upside of letting you exile something to cast, there's also kind of a dick move where you exile their commander then drop a Drannith Magistrate, and since they left it in exile, it's gone forever.
Quandrix
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Applied Geometry
Saffgor: Get a 6/6 copy of anything you have? Seems good to me, and for cards that care about the number of counters on them, this starts at a great rate. Kinda surprised they're okay with printing a 4-cost 6/6 omniclone.FromTheShire: Super pushed clone that not only is a 6/6 but can be things other than creatures, which can then be cloned with further clones.
BPhillipYork: It's strange how clones keep being pushed harder and harder, but copying a non-Aura permanent and making it a creature is basically just clone+, though occasionally of course it will make you vulnerable to a Wrath of God or some such. Also lets you copy something otherwise can't be cloned then you can clone this, which is a nice progression.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Berta, Wise Extrapolator
Saffgor: Yes she combos, yes she can pay {0} for that effect for an instantly-dying Fractal, and yes, that does go infinite with Intruder Alarm. Basically every line on Berta involves some different combo, but as a whole package she's rather fragile without a ton of Instant-speed protection. Cool Commander, but one I doubt people stick to playing long-term.BPhillipYork: There's a lot of things you can do with a commander like this, but most of it turns into infinite combos, which makes her kind of dangerous to leave on the field, but blue and green are some of the best colors for protecting a commander. Just pumping out medium sized Fractals, maybe that clone themselves in various or get bonus counters is definitely something, and forcing counters onto her with some kind of untap (Intruder Alarm is so passé) and Ozolith would let you keep making more, but that's just another combo line.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Cuboid Colony
Saffgor: That's a lot of keywords for a fairly low cost, until you realize this is probably capping out at, what, 3/3? 4/4? A cool card for Limited to showcase what Quandrix is all about, but not great elsewhere.FromTheShire: A Limited beater that shows off what the colors are trying to do really well.
BPhillipYork: This is just a really pushed small creature, which is fun, but not particularly strong unless you have a solid way to do something with the mainly free counters.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Geometer's Athropod
Saffgor: Tacking on a draw to every X-cost Spell is certainly powerful, and the fact it allows you to filter is great. I'd love to see if there's a Modern deck that can use this and things like Nourishing Shoal or similar, where you can dig through a huge chunk of your Library for freeFromTheShire: Pretty sweet little card selection engine for X spell decks.
BPhillipYork: This is a fun card for X-spell decks without being particularly good.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Growth Curve
Saffgor: It's fine, but for eternal formats we have better doublers now.BPhillipYork: This is one of those seems that seems nutso but isn't really, especially since its single-shot and to really pay off you need the creature to have lots of counters already.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Mind into Matter
Saffgor: I like the rate on this for anything at X=2 or above, because otherwise it's just a worse Explore. This is a greedy card, but does seem like a solid enough midrange piece across formats if you're looking to drop some uncounterable pieces onto the table. It pays not to cast things, sometimes.FromTheShire: Is this good enough to make the cut in Simic Rhythm? Maybe! Draw 5 and then put your Quantum Riddler or Ouroboroid straight into play seems pretty good.
BPhillipYork: Decent X-spell but you're generally tapping out for this to make it as big as possible, and then you can't really do anything with the payoff, unless it just straight up wins it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Paradox Surveyor
Saffgor: Rate is poor, pool is limited. No thanks.BPhillipYork: This cycle is pretty lackluster to be honest. This thing is like, whatever. If it was enters or attacks or really anything more consistent it would be kind of exciting, as it is, it's just meh.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Quandrix Charm
Saffgor: This is a charm without a home, surely we aren't jamming Quench in 2026. Its best case is making a 0/0 Fractal massive after blockers, in limited.FromTheShire: I mean we kind of are jamming it but agreed, this is the one I can least see playing. Notably it is not a Lesson so it won't be replacing It'll Quench Ya!
BPhillipYork: Another solid charm, though this is one of the least good of the charms so far, and that's kind of refreshing, for a blue/green card in a cycle to be meh.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Quandrix, the Proof
Saffgor: I went on a bit of a roller coaster, looking at this card. On the one hand, it seems fairly basic, you try to cast cantrips and cascade into Ancestral Vision/Inevitable Betrayal, you play ramp to get to 6, and ample Phyrexian mana cards to trigger instantly. On the other...Cascading does exile, and then return to Library, and we already need to reshuffle with our free Suspend cards, so being in Green, why not play a secret Commander we can readily tutor? I'll be covering it in a full article, but I think Quandrix here is an amazing candidate for playing host to Wan Shi Tong, All-Knowing as a spare Commander in the 99.FromTheShire: Name me ONE TIME that cascade has been problematic. Oh that many huh? Interesting.
BPhillipYork: Well cascade off instant and sorcery spells is fun and has the potential to go fairly nuts, or you can try to manipulate it into casting specific spells
Secrets of Strixhaven Commander
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Scriv, the Obligator
Saffgor: I wish this card were good so, so bad. It doesn't even goad. Your opponents can just...ignore the Contract. For such great art, and a wholly-unique token, this is somehow in contention for the worst Commander in the release.FromTheShire: I'm big mad that we got a mythic Bird and this is all it does.
BPhillipYork: Kind of a fun politicky commander type card, also generating Aura tokens is solid enough and there's various things that care about how many enchantments you control or have in play that will go fairly nuts off this.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Killian, Decisive Mentor
Saffgor: This likely draws you three extra cards per turn cycle, but the problem comes down to lacking an endgame. If you focus on your own Creatures, you're not extracting max value, even if Killian can tap down blockers. If you focus on opposing options, that's still setting you up for a fragile gameplan that goes south without Killian. Cool but finicky, not the biggest fan.FromTheShire: Seems like a deck finely tuned to get you second place and beaten to death by creatures you buffed.
BPhillipYork: Obviously works really well with Scriv, the Obligator, which from the art seems intentional, it's a fun little commander if you want to play goad games and enchant stuff and politic, but your deck will suffer without Killian on the board.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Defacing Duskmage
Saffgor: This was so close to being a staple for Orzhov, but I think 3 is a hair too much for that Vandal's Edit. If it were 2, you'd approach the likes of a Faerie Mastermind, so maybe if you can acquire a cost reduction elsewhere, such as via your Commander, this becomes appetizing.FromTheShire: Having to pay for it over and over feels too fair frankly. It's going to be deep in the game before you can even think about casting this plus progressing your board every turn.
BPhillipYork: Yeah wow. This should be triggering like all the time, the real question is if you can keep up with the mana requirements, and the answer is probably not. Really strong card. Note the way this works, if all your opponents draw 2 cards at once it will trigger multiple times if you have the mana to cast the spell between each trigger you can potentially draw a lot of cards off this.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Rootha, Mastering the Moment
Saffgor: Finally, a Prismari that cares about mana value, and not mana spent. Play a big Delve spell, cast Breath of Fury on another Creature that can attack, and go for lethal. I think Rootha has what it takes to be a great aggro Commander, and is self-contained enough to be played in what is otherwise just a goodstuff shell.FromTheShire: One token per turn doesn't really do it for me unless you're taking a bunch of extra combats, in which case the specific commander is kind of secondary to your gameplan.
BPhillipYork: This will definitely dump out a lot of blue and red elemental tokens if you are just casting big instants and sorceries, but I'm not sure how much value there is in such tokens.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Muddle, the Ever-Changing
Saffgor: The second Prismari Commander that can help generate infinite combats, go figure. Muddle is held back by its lack of Haste, but can otherwise triple up on potent Creatures, including the lines of Bloodthirster and more that end the game outright. A good otter, but not a great otter.BPhillipYork: This is kind of hilarious, but then, is it really that good? Obviously you can myriad out something funny like Sad Robot and get a bunch of triggers, but then you're being forced to attack to get the trigger. Where it would really pay off is probably something like Terror of the Peaks, in which case you'll have 4 Terrors each see 3 Terrors enter, meaning you'll instantly deal 60 damage, as well as having a 5/4 attacking each of your opponents.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Inspired Skypainter
Saffgor: This Creature is almost always going to be Prepared, which is a shame because 5 mana is a tough going rate for a clone. I wish it were better, but without substantial cost reduction available in the Command Zone this isn't seeing play.BPhillipYork: Well making more and more tokens is fun, but that's a lot of mana to keep spending. To make this consistent as a commander you probably want to be making something that makes mana, and then you can just keep copying.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dina, Essence Brewer
Saffgor: It's worse Korvold, in fewer colors, with a middling activated ability. I get that's a high bar, but sheesh, it's hard to justify a Commander so similar and comparably mediocre.FromTheShire: Probably more of a roleplayer than a commander, but any well built sacrifice deck is going to be triggering this 4 times per turn cycle for 4 sweet cards. The activated ability is kind of whatever.
BPhillipYork: This is really solid, but mediated by it's one per turn limitation, pretty nice to have the ability to sacrifice on it, also gaining life to generate various other triggers. It's not the strongest commander, but fun to build around.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Eccentric Pestfinder
Saffgor: If Turn Stones was an Instant, or this entered Prepared, I would be a lot more excited. As it stands, this is just too slow, and is often a French vanilla 4/4.FromTheShire: Having to wait to wait a turn is certainly a bummer, but making 3 tokens for 2 mana each turn is pretty decent token creation.
BPhillipYork: This is fairly bonkers, going to create insane amounts of Pests, but weirdly it's the old kind of Pests, from the original Strixhaven.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Gorma, the Gullet
Saffgor: Counter gravestorm, gets massive, gains you a ton of life, and all for 3 mana? Gorma seems like an outstanding way to give your Creatures pseudo-Devour, and gets out of hand fast once you assemble a board of tokens. Perfect colors for what it wants to do, and an effect that gets sillier the longer the game goes.FromTheShire: It's all right there on the tin but that doesn't mean it's not a solid game plan. Make big things, sacrifice for value, win.
BPhillipYork: This can set you up for huge creatures entering or fairly abusive counters showing up onto things that shouldn't have counters, and there's plenty of ways to get a bunch of token creatures to be sacrificed.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Immortal Bargain
Saffgor: This is in my shortlist for best cards of the set, because it's more often than not a 3 mana one-sided wipe of everything important, for what is often less a cost than a route to create value. In Golgari aristocrats, a time-honored archetype, every piece of text on this is raw upside, and at a price you're more than happy to pay.FromTheShire: An absolute backbreaking beating in token decks, this is still really solid even if you had to sacrifice a couple of your utility creatures to deal with a couple of particularly problematic permanents.
BPhillipYork: This is strong, really really strong. Sacrificing creatures is a heavy price but lots of decks that want to can generate lots of cheap and or token creatures, and even want them to die, so this is just super strong. Surprises you don't lose X life to be honest, this is pretty pushed.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Quintorius, History Chaser
Saffgor: Another Planeswalker Commander, and this is a solid one! You just get a literal 1 mana discount on Quintorius, Field Historian, in a rare case of strictly-better new options, and on top of that this Quint loads the yard and helps you swing out safely. For what he wants to do, it's a great card.BPhillipYork: This trigger is potentially really strong, since it can trigger unlimited times per turn, but it is limited when you dump your whole yard, or it would be really insane. As a commander I can't imagine being able to protect Quintorius, and if you tried to you're just filling your yard, or playing some weird Spirit attack deck.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lorehold Archivist
Saffgor: This approaches 'gameplan in a box', for the fact that you can pretty happily just jam a Restore Relic every turn if you're low on resources, and in Boros...that's fairly often. I'm surprisingly bullish on this card, even if it is slow, and doubly so in decks that can copy tokens.BPhillipYork: Another way of exiling artifacts in your yard to copy them, really a rehash of Osgir, the Reconstructor, but not as good.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Excava, the Risen Past
Saffgor: The Finality Counter is a bit sad, but something approaching a Sevinne's Reclamation on attack is pretty good! I think I like Excava in the 99 more than the Command Zone, but as a way to recur pieces for an Aggravated Assault combo, I could be convinced.BPhillipYork: Returning things for free is solid, even if they will get exiled if they die it's strong. Really solid way to generate "when a card leaves your graveyard" triggers, and to just build around.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Primo, the Unbounded
Saffgor: Primo is basically never on-rate. Moreover, if he dies, you're saddled with a 6 mana 2/2 that yearns to get in. No thanks. How did they mess this up so badly?BPhillipYork: This basically can generate a lot more token 0/0 counter creatures, basically Hydras. So for Hydra or Fractal decks this will get out of control fairly quickly.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Striding Shotcaller
Saffgor: A repeatable X-cost Spell is the allure here, and it's a pretty good one too! Triggers your relevant effects, cantrips at worst, and can even make for an evasive attacker to re-Prepare. Very well-designed package that's setup and payoff all in one, while not being busted.FromTheShire: Mass evasion would be better if it wasn't super telegraphed.
BPhillipYork: Strange creature design, though you can pretty obviously cast run the play on the shotcaller itself first to give it some power and connect for another counter drop. A decent way to keep distributing counters if you have excess mana to dump into it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Zimone, Infinite Analyst
Saffgor: Zimone gets out of hand fast, and loves Flash enablers to cast X=0 spells throughout the turn cycle, scaling up to 2, 4, etc. It's super easy to play those spells to get her going, and as soon as she has any counters to speak of, 'free' X-spells still incur value due to the discount. Great design for an archetype that needed a more interesting option, sorry Zaxara fans.FromTheShire: Woof that gets big faster than you expect, and so do the follow up spells.
BPhillipYork: This just gets hilariously crazy over time. I'm sure that Simic needed to be the colors of exponential growth, just, because.
Turbulent Lands
Saffgor: New cycle of potentially-untapped duals, whoa. In Commander, fetching for one of these untapped is going to be online if everyone makes their Land drops, and you're the third player on turn 3, or later. That's amazing to have, given you can fetch for a Surveil dual on an off-turn, Shock/OG on a go turn, and once it's turn 3ish, any of these. Amazing cycle, amazing art, this is the kind of mana they need in every precon.FromTheShire: Very close to being a true fetchable dual land, these rule. More of this please.
BPhillipYork: I really like this design, it's fetchable mana fixing with some downside in that if you draw into them very early they ETB tapped. Feels very balanced and lets people have better mana bases without spending literally thousands of dollars on lands.
Next Time: The Set’s White, Blue, & Black Cards
That wraps up our look at the mechanics of Secrets of Strixhaven. We’ll be back later to look at the first set of Monocolor options in the following article, finishing up afterwards with the remaining Red & Green cards, and Colorless options.Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website, and more.
