Some magical schools are actually worth going back to, in particular Magic the Gathering’s Strixhaven University. Secrets of Strixhaven, the next set release, will take players back to the spell-slinging halls of the school first seen in 2021’s Strixhaven: School of Mages. But as the name implies, Secrets of Strixhaven is going to reveal even more about the school, the plane it resides on, and even the larger Magic the Gathering multiverse.
Strixhaven is a school focused on casting instants and sorceries, but creatures are still very important to Magic gameplay. Secrets of Strixhaven introduces creatures that have their own spells ready with the new mechanic Prepared.
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These cards are formatted with a secondary text box similar to adventures from Wilds of Eldraine. Still, the instant/sorcery portion is on the right side rather than the left, indicating the order players should be playing these cards. A creature that has become prepared can cast the spell on the right side of its text box, such as Emeritus of Ideation being able to cast, of all things, Ancestral Recall.
Emeritus of Ideation | 3 Colorless Mana, 2 Blue Mana
Creature – Human Wizard
Flying, ward 2 Colorless Mana
This creature enters prepared.
Whenever this creature attacks, you may exile eight cards from your graveyard.
If you do, this creature becomes prepared.
5/5
Ancestral Recall | 1 Blue Mana
Instant
Target player draws three cards.
Ancestral Recall is a part of the vaunted “Power 9” of Magic’s earliest days, unable to get a reprint due to a longstanding and legally complicated promise not to do so, called the Reserved List. However, this is a distinctively separate card – as in any other zone, prepared cards are only their permanent type. That didn’t stop Wizards of the Coast from making Emeritus of Ideation the headliner card for the set, complete with serialization and Mark Poole art calling back to the original Ancestral Recall.
Club Rush
Strixhaven University is made up of five colleges that are twists on five color pairs: Prismari (Red/Blue), Witherbloom (Black/Green), Silverquill (White/Black), Quandrix (Blue/Green), and Lorehold (Red/White) In the original Strixhaven set, these colleges used broad strategies to represent what they were about. This time, each college gets a specific ability word to further refine its identity.
One of these mechanics is an old favorite, well-loved. But the other four are brand new and attempt to diversify away from predisposed notions about their color pairs as defined in other planes of Magic. For example, while Ravnica’s Orzhov displays White and Black as financial contracting and extortion, Strixhaven’s Silverquill are rhetorically creative, writing poetry and holding debates. There’s overlap, but huge tonal differences.
Silverquill’s Repartee
On that note, Repartee is a bit wordy, fitting for Silverquill students. Repartee abilities trigger when an instant or sorcery spell targets a creature. Note that the spell must have the word target in its effect, and even with multiple targets, the repartee effect will only trigger once for that spell. On top of that, every repartee effect is different. Tricky indeed.
Conciliator’s Duelist | 2 White Mana, 2 Black Mana
Creature – Kor Warlock
When this creature enters, draw a card. Each player loses 1 life.
Repartee — Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets a creature, exile up to one target creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner’s control at the beginning of the next end step.
4/3
Conciliator’s Duelist is a great example of how interesting repartee could be. White spells like Ephemerate target a creature to blink it, and that would trigger the Duelist to put up another blink effect.
Witherbloom’s Infusion
The Black/Green collage Witherbloom’s studies are sometimes described as “magical biology.” As one might expect with that description, this color pair explores how life grows and adapts. Sometimes that requires dissection, but all in the name of (mostly ethical) magical science! Infusion is an ability word that reflects the emphasis on life by granting effects after life is gained.
Old-Growth Educator | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 Black Mana, 1 Green Mana
Creature – Treefolk Druid
Infusion — When this creature enters, put two +1/+1 counters on it if you gained life this turn.
4/4
Infusion may not seem like much on its own, but being able to gain life at any point prior – and not having to worry about a specific amount – grants a lot of flexibility. Infusion can be used as a triggered ability, add a bonus to a spell, or even become a replacement effect. With that in mind, something like a 6/6 for four mana like Old-Growth Educator starts to look even better.
Quandrix’s Increment
Quandrix students study probability, and that means a lot of math. Increment is a cast trigger on creatures that will put a +1/+1 counter on that creature if more mana was spent than the creature’s power or toughness to cast a spell. To illustrate, Cuboid Colony is an Increment creature with only 1 power and toughness:
Cuboid Colony | 1 Green Mana, 1 Blue Mana
Creature – Insect
Flash.
Flying, trample.
Increment (Whenever you cast a spell, if the amount of mana you spent is greater than this creature’s power or toughness, put a +1/+1 counter on this creature.)
1/1
When casting any spell with 2 mana value or higher (such as a second Cuboid Colony), Increment would trigger because it is only a 1/1. Then, to resolve the effect, the creature would get a +1/+1 counter. Just like figuring out math, Increment is complex. Increment is a cast trigger, so it will always resolve before the spell triggering it. However, if there’s another effect on the stack that also adds a +1/+1 counter or increases power and toughness another way, the counter from Increment will not be placed even though it was triggered. Be careful with this one in draft.
Prismari’s Opus
The Prismari College is full of theatre and band kids. They do things big or not at all. Why play a bunch of little spells when one could sink all their mana into a massive haymaker spell? Opus is an able word to encourage such a thing. Interestingly, Opus’s abilities are actually two abilities: one for casting an instant or sorcery at all and one for spending five or more mana on that spell.
Colorstorm Stallion | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 Blue Mana, 1 Red Mana
Creature – Elemental Horse
Ward 1 Colorless Mana, haste.
Opus — Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. If five or more mana was spent to cast that spell, create a token that’s a copy of this creature.
3/3
Looking at Colorstorm Stallion, while getting a little bigger each turn is nice, getting a permanent copy for five mana is fantastic. It is basically getting a three mana refund. Unfortunately, with current-day Magic design being so intensely mana efficient and Opus intentionally looking for mana spent, it’s difficult to see Opus being playable outside of limited formats like draft and sealed. That said, it is nice to see Wizards of the Coast attempting something that encourages playing higher mana value spells.
Lorehold’s Flashback
Unlike the other colleges, Lorehold doesn’t get something new but something quite old: Flashback. That’s fitting, not only because the Red/White Lorehold is a school of archeology and history. This specific rebranding of the color pair was one of the most well-received aspects of the original Strixhaven.
Molten Note | X Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana, 1 White Mana
Sorcery
Molten Note deals damage to the target creature equal to the amount of mana spent to cast this spell. Untap all creatures you control.
Flashback 6 Colorless Mana, 1 Red Mana, 1 White Mana (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.)
Flashback is a deciduous mechanic, meaning that Magic can and does deploy it liberally. Even so, it is a mechanic that works incredibly well. Using a mechanic with a graveyard focus also means that fans of Lorehold previously can simply add more flavorful cards to their decks without sacrificing much.
Shifting the Paradigm
One mechanic that isn’t really returning in Secrets of Strixhaven is Lessons; likely due to their recent appearance in the Avatar: The Last Airbender Universes Beyond set.
But Wizards knew you can’t go to school without a little learning, so they put together a little senior project: a cycle of sorcery speed Lessons with a new keyword called Paradigm. For successfully casting a spell with Paradigm, its player gets the benefit of getting to cast it again for free on their following turns for the rest of the game.
Improvisation Capstone | 5 Colorless Mana, 2 Red Mana.
Sorcery – Lesson
Exile cards from the top of your library until you exile cards with a total mana value of 4 or greater. You may cast any number of spells from among them without paying their mana costs.
Paradigm (Then exile this spell. After you first resolve a spell with this name, you may cast a copy of it from exile without paying its mana cost at the beginning of each of your first main phases.)
While it may be a bummer to see Lessons get sidelined for the Avatar’s sake, this cycle of Lessons will likely be huge for Commander players. Repeatable spells that keep firing are excellent, especially since the opponent ultimately can’t stop the paradigm. Even countering one instance won’t prevent the next turn’s trigger. And note that paradigm effects don’t care if players pay full mana value for the spell.
Go On a Field Trip
Secrets of Strixhaven’s story sees students go on field studies out in the plane where the school is situated, Arcavios. Players interested in what happens in those studies will need to read the web fiction (and the upcoming Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos novel by Seanan McGuire). Still, the returning Converge mechanic highlights the collaboration of students by rewarding multiple colors of mana for spells.
Rancorous Archaic | 5 Colorless Mana
Creature – Avatar
Trample, reach.
Converge – This creature enters with a +1/+1 counter on it for each color of mana spent to cast it.
2/2
Converge is a great mechanic for saving a prerelease deck or doing 5 color good stuff in Standard. Current Standard has some pretty reliable mana fixing, largely thanks to the shock lands being legal, and even a few decent converge effects could show up at local Standard Showdowns for weeks to come.
Returning bonuses
Something else that was incredibly popular from the original Strixhaven is the Mystical Archive bonus sheet. Easily one of the best bonus sheets of all time, the Mystical Archive reprinted iconic instants and sorceries from the game’s history in a scroll-like frame. This sheet was excellent for not circulating cool versions of these cards while introducing slight chaos elements to limit without drastically unbalancing the format. Instants and sorceries are one-and-done cards, so they don’t sit in play and shift the pace of the game.
This bonus sheet is back, and with a vengeance.
Force of Will | 3 Colorless Mana, 2 Blue Mana
Instant
You may pay 1 life and exile a blue card from your hand rather than pay this spell’s mana cost.
Counter target spell.
Sure, it’s no Ancestral Recall, but Force of Will is another truly iconic blue spell. It doesn’t get reprinted often while having homes in eternal formats like Commander and Vintage. It always feels good seeing a haymaker reprint in Play Boosters.
The Mystical Archive isn’t the only exciting reprint slot – Special Guests return yet again in Secrets of Strixhaven. Since the Mystical Archive is reprinting instants and sorceries, the Special Guests seem to be doing other card types.
Sylvan Library | 1 Colorless Mana, 1 Green Mana
Enchantment
At the beginning of your draw step, you may draw two additional cards.
If you do, choose two cards in your hand drawn this turn. For each of those cards, pay 4 life or put the card on top of your library.
A Sylvan Library reprint is Commander player bait, but it’s hard to blame those players. Getting cards this easily for low mana investment is hard to argue with. Even with a somewhat recent reprint with multiple variants back in 2023, the card still regularly sits in the $25-30 range on the secondary market. Once again, any reprint like this is welcome.
Teasing the fractured future
While Arcavios has plenty to uncover, Wizards is also finally pulling back some of the curtain of the finale to the current Magic story arc. With storylines like Oko’s family and the multiversal adaptation to Omenpaths tying off, what remains is Jace’s plot to cosmically “fix” the multiverse. This is poised to culminate in the final in-universe set, Reality Fracture, later this year, and speculation has been rampant. Some of this speculation is paying off now in Secrets of Strixhaven. Ral Zarek, fan favorite Blue/Red scientist, seems to have undergone some kind of change:
Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer | 1 Colorless Mana, 2 Black Mana
Legendary Planeswalker – Ral
+1 Loyalty: Surveil 2.
-1 Loyalty: Any number of target players each discard a card.
-2 Loyalty: Return target creature card with mana value 3 or less from your graveyard to the battlefield.
-7 Loyalty: Flip five coins. Target opponent skips their next X turns, where X is the number of coins that came up heads.
3 Loyalty
There is so much to unpack here for story heads – though kudos first to Wizards for once again reinforcing that Ral Zarek is married to a man in the Black/White Orzhov Syndicate. Why is Ral now in his husband’s color alignment? What is he up to on Arcavios? What is this distinctly not-Silverquill watermark? Are the former Modern format grinders at Wizards R&D really trying to recreate Liliana of the Veil? Only time will tell.
Mono-Black Ral isn’t the only mystery man at Strixhaven. A new Planeswalker named Dellian makes his debut in Secrets of Strixhaven, with Wizards hinting at more to come for this Witherbloom professor:
Professor Dellian Fel | 2 Colorless Mana, 1 Black Mana, 1 Green Mana
Legendary Planeswalker – Dellian
+2 Loyalty: You gain 3 life.
0 Loyalty: You draw a card and lose 1 life.
-3 Loyalty: Destroy target creature.
– 6 Loyalty: You get an emblem with “Whenever you gain life, target opponent loses that much life.”
5 Loyalty
Putting aside the lore implications of both of these Planeswalkers, their designs are interesting. Both have four loyalty abilities, something that once was an indication of a Planeswalker pushing the limits of design. These days, that fourth ability wouldn’t appear in favor of some sort of static ability instead, and in fact, barring Lorwyn Eclipsed’s Ajani appearance and the Chandra from Foundations (a set intended as a beginner-friendly core set), every Planeswalker in Standard currently has a static effect. That suggests that, beginning this year, Wizards is starting to pull back on Planeswalkers with static effects to explore them in new ways.
Even the land cycles of Secrets of Strixhaven bear clues to the future. The slow lands first introduced in Innistrad: Midnight Hunt & Crimson Vow return to Standard, bringing with them full art variants that suggest things are going to get far more complicated for the Magic Multiverse.
Deathcap Glade
Land
This land enters tapped unless you control two or more other lands.
Tap: Add 1 Black Mana or 1 Green Mana.
These full art lands show portals of some kind opening on Arcavios, though they look different from how Omenpaths have been depicted in other sets. Those kinds of gateways are triangular and don’t show the other side regularly. In comparison to this Deathcap Glade variant, it is almost like a window into something else entirely. Get your theories going quick, story fans.
Don’t miss the bus
There sure are a lot of Magic the Gathering sets this year, but Secrets of Strixhaven is working hard to justify itself. Based on these early previews, this set could be one of the strongest return sets of all time – a hard bar to clear given players now have Tarkir: Dragonstorm and Lorwyn Eclipsed to compare this set to.
But this set, with interesting twists, fresh new identities for familiar color pairs, and that glorious Mystical Archive, can absolutely pull it off. Spellslingers, rejoice, because it’s time to go back to school.
The Magic the Gathering Secrets of Strixhaven prerelease is April 17th—the set releases April 21st on MTG Arena and April 24th everywhere else.
