Damn am I ambivalent about Strixhaven
Posted: Fri Apr 23, 2021 2:40 pm
I don't think any set has ever elicited such mixed feelings from me. Typically, I see sets as generally good (OG Ravnica sets, Alara Block, New Phyrexia), generally bad (BFZ, Dragon's Maze), or generally just ok (new Theros, Scars of Mirrodin block except for New Phyrexia). At most, I'll feel that a set has good flavor and bad mechanics, or vice versa. But Strixhaven pulls me in a lot of different directions,
First, the only thing that I can say is entirely bad: the flavor. This is one of the worst settings magic has ever visited. While magical schools have been done in the past, and even in this franchise with the Tolarian Academy, Strixhaven is such a naked Harry Potter ripoff its embarrassing. I want to be clear that its not an issue with Harry Potter, its an issue with how lazy creative was when making this world that they tried to just hit every beat of that universe to the point of making it barely more than a reskin. They did the bare minimum to at least make the 'schools' marginally distinct from the Harry Potter Houses, but 4 of them are still pretty much just riffs on the Houses with Prismari being the only standout (since it was the only one cut from a fresh cloth). I could have gotten behind the idea of a mages school divided into thematic houses, sorry 'schools', if there was more originality elsewhere, but unfortunately Creative decided to treat an IP the same way they treat mythology and just reskin tropes. While this works somewhat with myth, I think it fails miserably when aping a closed IP. With Greek myth or fairy tales, everything is public domain and there are sometimes dozens of takes on stories and competing traditions, with the corpus of myth being reduced to the pop culture imagining of its tropes with a few deeper dives being an effective enough way to tackle it. Harry Potter and other IPs don't work that way. Especially not HP, where Rowling micromanages her universe. So when you print Generic Snape as a professor in Store Brand Slytherin, it comes off not as "Magic's take on a story" but as "The Asylum Presents: Atlantic Rim." This is the direct to DVD mockbuster approach, and it sucks. Extend this to Magetower (XFL Quidditch), the villain (former student turns EBIL and attacks the school), the style of the names (Especially the Elder Dragons, and on that topic naming the schools after those founding Elder Dragons), etc, it just fails to be its own thing. This is all made worse by the fact that Wizards is going to be releasing special sets that just directly print cards based on other IPs, like Lord of the Rings. Since there is nothing in this set or story that makes a case that this setting needed to exist, its pretty clear that it exists solely because they wanted to do Harry Potter, and that they didn't just actually do Harry Potter in a special set raises questions. Maybe they couldn't get use of the IP, in which case bad form WotC, or they didn't decide to do these special sets until well into Strixhaven's development, in which case bad luck and also very possible.
Another thing the set fails to do is give any indication of what the world is like beyond the school. There's some scraps about an ancient war, ruins, and spirits, as well as some trolls, but the world is incredibly undeveloped. This is unfortunate, because I think that further developing the world could have been an opportunity to make this feel less like a Harry Potter ripoff, positioning the school against a threat that didn't originate in their community, or showing it as a force that helps secure peace between several nations that all send students. As an aside, this is one of the big problems with the single set model, we just don't spend enough time with these worlds to both develop a setting and tell a story. Either the setting is established and the story seems scant (at least when engaging with the cards and online stories, obviously an ebook can easily make up the difference), or the story is developed but the setting isn't explored enough (Kaldheim suffered from this severely, as there was a lot of cool ideas there that just got rushed through). Strixhaven seems to do both.
Now onto the mixed things.
Mechanically, Strixhaven plays with some interesting ideas, but doesn't always succeed, and it also plays with some rather uninspired ones as well. Modal DFCs already seem like a well that they are drawing from too often. They lose their specialness when they show up too much, and they work poorly in commander/brawl (as the sides are often designed to compliment each other). I appreciate, though, that this poor compatibility with commander translates into a reason to play non singleton formats, and WotC continued (or perhaps renewed) commitment to them. Learn is interesting, another mechanic that plays poorly in commander, but a well designed outside the game mechanic overall. I appreciate that they were cautious here, as pushing it too hard could have been a disgusting mistake like Companions, but overall the mechanic is fairly weak, with few worthwhile lessons and Learn cards that aren't all that special either. Still, its something that can be interesting in standard. It works well enough in limited, but even there I feel like I'm bumping up against its power level wall, with the CA and ability to easily access removal being sometimes just barely worth the mediocrity (at best) of most of the cards themselves. The schools themselves are tied to mostly mediocre mechanics, often under developed. Fractals are flavorful yet there is only one card that actually cares about them (and is itself limited chaff), so aside from the handful of cards that make fractals that are independently good its a forgettable and irrelevant type/mechanic. They could have easily been elementals and been far more interesting. Inklings, and the general flying subtheme in Silverquill are pretty generic, the incidental life gain and pests seem like limited only mechanics, and the 8 lands matter theme is barely there. The only thing that stands out is Boros graveyard matters, because it adds something to the color pair. Magecraft is what it is, a mechanic we've seen before and will see again, as generic as they come. Ward might be the coup of the set, and its a new evergreen that honestly could have been introduced to any set.
The limited environment is interesting, but again mixed. Its yet another limited where you can just be blown out because someone opened a great bomb and your window to not die is incredibly small. Aside from that, things are pretty mixed. Drafting with learn, as an AB mechanic, is kind of annoying, but learn not being dead without lessons, and lessons being bad enough that most should wheel so you can grab all but the best with throwaway late pack picks, makes it a lot better to draft than most ABs. The set plays, and drafts, more like some old school environments like RGD or Invasion Block, with creature quality and density mattering a bit less and grinding advantage mattering more. Removal is more prevalent than usual, buoyed by Intro to Annihilation being learned left and right, but a lot of it is conditional or has drawbacks. Most creatures and spells have wonky details or specific uses, or further the grindy play of the set. I kind of like it most of the time, as an old school drafter, but it can also be as drawn out as Invasion Block which can be tiresome after awhile. Grinding to turn 10-12 is a feature, grinding to turn 22 is a bug.
That's what I got, just wanted to rant a bit and express how ??? this set is to me. I'm wondering if anyone else is in the same place, where if someone asked you if its a good set you wouldn't know the answer.
First, the only thing that I can say is entirely bad: the flavor. This is one of the worst settings magic has ever visited. While magical schools have been done in the past, and even in this franchise with the Tolarian Academy, Strixhaven is such a naked Harry Potter ripoff its embarrassing. I want to be clear that its not an issue with Harry Potter, its an issue with how lazy creative was when making this world that they tried to just hit every beat of that universe to the point of making it barely more than a reskin. They did the bare minimum to at least make the 'schools' marginally distinct from the Harry Potter Houses, but 4 of them are still pretty much just riffs on the Houses with Prismari being the only standout (since it was the only one cut from a fresh cloth). I could have gotten behind the idea of a mages school divided into thematic houses, sorry 'schools', if there was more originality elsewhere, but unfortunately Creative decided to treat an IP the same way they treat mythology and just reskin tropes. While this works somewhat with myth, I think it fails miserably when aping a closed IP. With Greek myth or fairy tales, everything is public domain and there are sometimes dozens of takes on stories and competing traditions, with the corpus of myth being reduced to the pop culture imagining of its tropes with a few deeper dives being an effective enough way to tackle it. Harry Potter and other IPs don't work that way. Especially not HP, where Rowling micromanages her universe. So when you print Generic Snape as a professor in Store Brand Slytherin, it comes off not as "Magic's take on a story" but as "The Asylum Presents: Atlantic Rim." This is the direct to DVD mockbuster approach, and it sucks. Extend this to Magetower (XFL Quidditch), the villain (former student turns EBIL and attacks the school), the style of the names (Especially the Elder Dragons, and on that topic naming the schools after those founding Elder Dragons), etc, it just fails to be its own thing. This is all made worse by the fact that Wizards is going to be releasing special sets that just directly print cards based on other IPs, like Lord of the Rings. Since there is nothing in this set or story that makes a case that this setting needed to exist, its pretty clear that it exists solely because they wanted to do Harry Potter, and that they didn't just actually do Harry Potter in a special set raises questions. Maybe they couldn't get use of the IP, in which case bad form WotC, or they didn't decide to do these special sets until well into Strixhaven's development, in which case bad luck and also very possible.
Another thing the set fails to do is give any indication of what the world is like beyond the school. There's some scraps about an ancient war, ruins, and spirits, as well as some trolls, but the world is incredibly undeveloped. This is unfortunate, because I think that further developing the world could have been an opportunity to make this feel less like a Harry Potter ripoff, positioning the school against a threat that didn't originate in their community, or showing it as a force that helps secure peace between several nations that all send students. As an aside, this is one of the big problems with the single set model, we just don't spend enough time with these worlds to both develop a setting and tell a story. Either the setting is established and the story seems scant (at least when engaging with the cards and online stories, obviously an ebook can easily make up the difference), or the story is developed but the setting isn't explored enough (Kaldheim suffered from this severely, as there was a lot of cool ideas there that just got rushed through). Strixhaven seems to do both.
Now onto the mixed things.
Mechanically, Strixhaven plays with some interesting ideas, but doesn't always succeed, and it also plays with some rather uninspired ones as well. Modal DFCs already seem like a well that they are drawing from too often. They lose their specialness when they show up too much, and they work poorly in commander/brawl (as the sides are often designed to compliment each other). I appreciate, though, that this poor compatibility with commander translates into a reason to play non singleton formats, and WotC continued (or perhaps renewed) commitment to them. Learn is interesting, another mechanic that plays poorly in commander, but a well designed outside the game mechanic overall. I appreciate that they were cautious here, as pushing it too hard could have been a disgusting mistake like Companions, but overall the mechanic is fairly weak, with few worthwhile lessons and Learn cards that aren't all that special either. Still, its something that can be interesting in standard. It works well enough in limited, but even there I feel like I'm bumping up against its power level wall, with the CA and ability to easily access removal being sometimes just barely worth the mediocrity (at best) of most of the cards themselves. The schools themselves are tied to mostly mediocre mechanics, often under developed. Fractals are flavorful yet there is only one card that actually cares about them (and is itself limited chaff), so aside from the handful of cards that make fractals that are independently good its a forgettable and irrelevant type/mechanic. They could have easily been elementals and been far more interesting. Inklings, and the general flying subtheme in Silverquill are pretty generic, the incidental life gain and pests seem like limited only mechanics, and the 8 lands matter theme is barely there. The only thing that stands out is Boros graveyard matters, because it adds something to the color pair. Magecraft is what it is, a mechanic we've seen before and will see again, as generic as they come. Ward might be the coup of the set, and its a new evergreen that honestly could have been introduced to any set.
The limited environment is interesting, but again mixed. Its yet another limited where you can just be blown out because someone opened a great bomb and your window to not die is incredibly small. Aside from that, things are pretty mixed. Drafting with learn, as an AB mechanic, is kind of annoying, but learn not being dead without lessons, and lessons being bad enough that most should wheel so you can grab all but the best with throwaway late pack picks, makes it a lot better to draft than most ABs. The set plays, and drafts, more like some old school environments like RGD or Invasion Block, with creature quality and density mattering a bit less and grinding advantage mattering more. Removal is more prevalent than usual, buoyed by Intro to Annihilation being learned left and right, but a lot of it is conditional or has drawbacks. Most creatures and spells have wonky details or specific uses, or further the grindy play of the set. I kind of like it most of the time, as an old school drafter, but it can also be as drawn out as Invasion Block which can be tiresome after awhile. Grinding to turn 10-12 is a feature, grinding to turn 22 is a bug.
That's what I got, just wanted to rant a bit and express how ??? this set is to me. I'm wondering if anyone else is in the same place, where if someone asked you if its a good set you wouldn't know the answer.