Strixhaven First Thoughts

[Hawk]

I am into it from a flavor perspective. I love Green Blue but don't really enjoy Simic, flavorfully, so looking forward to a bunch of math and stats nerds using magic with Quandrix.

Also so nice to see Boros actually get nice things. Oh, and not only nice things - nice things that aren't just rare/mythic/limited print run. Reconstruct History is an incredible card, and it shouldn't be that much work for this to be "Boros Harmonize" (but in a way that is more in-color and in-school than just "Draw 3")...and it's only uncommon. Rip Apart is less enthralling to me at sorcery speed - but it's also a mini-Vindicate, and again only uncommon which is some real budget power.

Strangely, the mechanics are less enticing (largely because Magecraft is just a spellslinger mechanic and Lesson/Learn doesn't work in EDH) and so far none of the commanders really get my engine running, but individual card designs seem great which is a nice reversal of how I felt about Kaldheim and BfZ (where minus a few obvious super-charged rares and mythics, everything felt a bit more parasitic)

[hyalopterouslemur]

Always worth noting.

And a quick note, these aren't flip cards. They're more like split cards for permanents.

[UnNamed1]

With 70ish cards left to go, I still feel really good about this set. It looks fun, for all formats.

Just a quick glance shows that you can draft this well and there seems to be plenty of cards that will be useful in standard. Commander is the only other format I am interested in, and there are plenty of good cards for the average player. With a few exceptions, I am even happy with the overall artwork on the cards as well. I feel this is a powerful set, but nothing unique causing it to be so. There are a lot of cards I can't wait to see played. I think preliminarily that Hogwarts for Magic will be a success.

[Serenade]

It's too late for "first thoughts" anymore, but this plane looks RIPE for Phyrexian takeover. Everyone except Lorehold is doing Phyrexian stuff already.

EDIT: The punnery in this set is unmatched. Excellent work all around.

[folding_music]

looking through teh spoilers now :3

power level: 5 out of 5
complexity: 5 out of 5
mechanical themes: 5 out of 5
card names: oh god no

[Magiqmaster]

card names: oh god no

Gotta agree! As I said earlier, there is a childish aspect to this set that puts me off, however there are a lot of really great cards that I will have to acquire for sure.

[duducrash]

Somewhat disspointed with the 5c legend, I was 100% a headmaster WUBRG with magecraft so 5c spellslinger would be an option

[Mookie]

My overall thoughts, now that the full set is out:

• Magecraft: solid mechanic for spellslinger decks. Unclear if it will be enough to push that style of deck in non-Izzet colors, but there are some solid payoffs if you do. It's definitely a lot more difficult to throw a random magecraft card into a deck than a random landfall card though, so we'll see how much play these end up getting. (also, Chain of Smog is a thing that may sour people on the mechanic)
• Learn // Lesson: strong mechanic, great for best-of-one formats, unplayable in EDH.
• Colleges: Lorehold looks amazing from a mechanics perspective, and opens up a lot of options for non-combat RW decks. The others feel a bit more traditional though.
• MDFCs: continues to be a good mechanic, although I'm not sure how many will actually see play in the 99. There are some that seem sweet in the command zone though.

I'd say that I'm happy with the set overall - while I'm not sure how many cards will make the cut from a power level perspective, stuff like Extus, Oriq Overlord, Jadzi, Oracle of Archavios, and Wandering Archaic really make me think... which is pretty good for a school-themed set. Hofri Ghostforge and Blot Out the Sky are probably my favorite cards in the set though.

[JWK]

Proxying to try it out on PlayEDH, I can tell you, Wandering Archaic is the real thing. It has played a role in me winning a couple of games already. Very strong card.

[Sinis]

Now that the whole main set is spoiled, it's solidly 'meh'. The Mastery cards look like they might be cool for making deals, but, it'd be hard to justify Ingenious Mastery over something like Stroke of Genius. I realize there's a big-mana aspect late game or a deal maker early game, but... it just feels pretty weak as a sorcery (I realize we can't make it 'better' than Stroke, but... meh)? I can see myself playing Verdant Mastery, because people who get stuck behind on lands just have a lousy time, and it feels like a nice way to help someone out while being somewhat playable at 5G (but probably not better than Verdant Confluence at 4GG). Verdant Mastery could also enable some shenanigans by donating a forest to someone for the purposes of Forestwalk (like Jedit Ojanen of Efrava, or an Island for Cold-Eyed Selkie; it's really just another card in the Yavimaya Dryad clan). There's always Urborg + Filth, but it's nice to see more than just those two around.

The dragons are... there. Offbrand Urza seems good, but more fair than Urza. Giant Seedborn Muse seems okay, too, but at 7 mana, you're probably paying that 10 life right away. Silverquill looks very interesting, and I could definitely play with that one once the price tanks. The others are forgettable.

With so much of the set occupied by Learn/Lesson, it feels like around 40 cards won't see play in our format without special rules exceptions. Some of the other set mechanics (like Fractal) look a little too anemic for them to be playable (though, maybe there'll be some help in the commander 2021 decks!)

There are some solid cards, though; I'm looking forward to playing with Callous Bloodmage, in particular.

[pokken]

I am really stoked that they do not seemed to have printed any obvious abominations in this set so far. Like they're starting to get the hang of commandering a little?

[DirkGently]

Time will tell. I'm a lil' nervous about Jadzi, Oracle of Archavios...but at least the design is really funky and interesting instead of Chulane where it's just...yep, that's some pretty dumb value right there...

Not sure about brokenness, but at least the set has a lot of interesting designs. I've definitely gotta give it that.

[pokken]

Time will tell. I'm a lil' nervous about Jadzi, Oracle of Archavios...but at least the design is really funky and interesting instead of Chulane where it's just...yep, that's some pretty dumb value right there...

Not sure about brokenness, but at least the set has a lot of interesting designs. I've definitely gotta give it that.

I think some of the sorcery commanders are probably busted but in a fairly narrow way that will resolve itself quickly by boring people into submission. And very interesting designs to boot.

I'm okay with more accidental Zur and Arcums if it advances design but I cant take any more korvolds and muldrothas and whatever.

[Sinis]

Time will tell. I'm a lil' nervous about Jadzi, Oracle of Archavios...but at least the design is really funky and interesting instead of Chulane where it's just...yep, that's some pretty dumb value right there...

Not sure about brokenness, but at least the set has a lot of interesting designs. I've definitely gotta give it that.

I think at 6UU, Jadzi isn't ever going to be more broken than other 8 mana creatures. Would you rather cheat out Jadzi or something like Vilis?

[DirkGently]

I think at 6UU, Jadzi isn't ever going to be more broken than other 8 mana creatures. Would you rather cheat out Jadzi or something like Vilis?

True, Jadzi is UG instead of mono-black, though. And much harder (i.e. impossible) to kill. And don't forget the flip side. I put together a potentially interesting combo-ish deck without using the front side at all, and that was just off the top of my head. I'm sure there are cEDH builders who will think of more degenerate stuff.

Trying to figure out how to build her is interesting, though. At first blush it seems like "well, play a bunch of huge stuff to max out the value of her trigger", but then you remember that to trigger her, you have to be able to cast something. So you could go storm-ish with a bunch of small stuff, just go (maybe) double-value big stuff, or maybe somewhere in between. Or maybe cheap buyback like Whim of Volrath. Lots of potential directions. Seems more nuanced than something like Golos, who doesn't really have much downside to just loading up huge bombs.

I think I'm going to have to see how popular she is, and how people build her, before deciding if she ends up being something I want to build. She's a thinker for sure.

Plargg, Dean of Chaos ain't, though. Plargg is just friggin awesome. I'll probably end up trying a couple different decks around him.

[duducrash]

I really like Mavinda, Students' Advocate design, art and effect. It just feels so weird that there are barely any support for her effect in the set itself

[ISBPathfinder]

So, the whole set is out. I guess my thoughts are this:

Positive:

• Commanders - I think there are plenty of viable new commanders. This comes with most sets but of late they have been pushing hard on the legend count. I think there are a number of newish concepts or new to color concepts so thats cool.
• Spellslinger - Spellslinger is getting some decent tools.
• Power Level - As much as it is fun to get a bunch of new toys all the time I am very happy that we aren't just continuing to break every format in existence like they were with Eldrane design. For me, strixhaven not being a crazy powerhouse set is a positive but I would only give it a slight nod for that rather than it being something I would prop up for a new set.

Negative:

• Multicolored - I am sick of every set being multicolored these days. It just doesn't feel special anymore but beyond that its actually sort of tedious instead of feeling special anymore.
• Singles - I honestly can say, I don't have any plans to include a single card from Strixhaven in the 99 of any of my existing decks. That isn't to say that there aren't singles worth running, just none of my decks are the right colors / concept to run anything from this set.
• Hybrid Mana - We have both hybrid mana back AND we have dual face cards that are entirely different colors on both sides. These cards are all playable in every other format for decks that have access to either color. Its unfortunate as some DFC cards could be viable on one side all the time in a deck but due to their back side are not playble due to color identity. Hybrid mana is a mechanic that is a sore spot for me and every time that wizards brings it back and prints more it just rubs the open wound for me. Valentin, Dean of the Vein for instance is not playable in an Edgar Markov deck even though you could entirely plan to cast the mono black front side every time. I bring this up not as a challenge to change the rules but in the context that I hate that WoTC continues to make cards that are poorly designed for their most popular format. I get that not everything is always designed for commander but.... it feels kind of bad to be honest.
• Learn - I get that this is probably more of a limited format mechanic but man..... it just feels bad. The cycle a card on this mechanic feels like it was entirely stapled on just as a way to lessen the "it doesn't work in commander" element of this mechanic. I really don't like this design.

So, I guess for me.... I would rate the set at about a 4/10. The mechanics and design decisions they decided to go for were a really huge negative for me but a few of the commanders did redeem it somewhat for me. I bought a box of the last few sets to support my LGS but I really can't bring myself to buy....... anything from this set right now lol. At least there is a commander product and that seems decent which is good because to be honest, I would maybe not do anything about this set at all without the commander product.

[Guardman]

Negative:

• Multicolored - I am sick of every set being multicolored these days. It just doesn't feel special anymore but beyond that its actually sort of tedious instead of feeling special anymore.

I've seen you say this in a couple different threads to a couple different sets, so I would just like to comment that WotC doesn't want multicolor to feel special. They have actively shifted to multicolor being a normal part of all sets in the same way all sets have creatures or lands. In addition, not including any multi-colored cards would actively hurt draft and sealed as it would get rid of signpost uncommons.

[ISBPathfinder]

I've seen you say this in a couple different threads to a couple different sets, so I would just like to comment that WotC doesn't want multicolor to feel special. They have actively shifted to multicolor being a normal part of all sets in the same way all sets have creatures or lands. In addition, not including any multi-colored cards would actively hurt draft and sealed as it would get rid of signpost uncommons.

I actually don't think that the limited environment ties in much of at all to the reasons why they do it. I suspect that its just popular and it sells more packs. Because I don't like something doesn't mean it isn't widely liked by others. Ultimately WoTC's goals are to sell as many packs as they can.

Any decisions that happen at the rare / mythic rarety are done for the purposes of selling more packs. The things that happen in common and uncommon tend to happen for draft. Pushing a card up in rarity to rare or mythic to make it impact draft less does happen but they aren't making things at rare or mythic for the purpose of draft.

[Wallycaine]

I've seen you say this in a couple different threads to a couple different sets, so I would just like to comment that WotC doesn't want multicolor to feel special. They have actively shifted to multicolor being a normal part of all sets in the same way all sets have creatures or lands. In addition, not including any multi-colored cards would actively hurt draft and sealed as it would get rid of signpost uncommons.

I actually don't think that the limited environment ties in much of at all to the reasons why they do it. I suspect that its just popular and it sells more packs. Because I don't like something doesn't mean it isn't widely liked by others. Ultimately WoTC's goals are to sell as many packs as they can.

Any decisions that happen at the rare / mythic rarety are done for the purposes of selling more packs. The things that happen in common and uncommon tend to happen for draft. Pushing a card up in rarity to rare or mythic to make it impact draft less does happen but they aren't making things at rare or mythic for the purpose of draft.

They've explictly spelled out that they did it, in part, because of the limited. For many years, they did try to limit their use of Multicolor spells to keep it *special*, and they found that really restricted their ability to help people "get" draft archetypes. So they removed that restriction, because they felt that the cost of losing the specialness of multicolor was greatly outweighed by the benefit of being able to put signpost uncommons in limited. So once they've made that change, it's inherently going to filter up, as being multicolored in and of itself wasn't special anymore.

[Serenade]

(I wish they made ten signpost legends for limited each set and cut way back on other multicolor AND legendary cards.)