Secrets of Strixhaven might only deliver five Archetypes for its Limited environment, but these pack a punch. The set boasts much stronger Draft and Sealed possibilities than TMNT or Lorwyn Eclipsed before.
A condensed format with only five archetypes can make for a dire Limited playscape. Neither Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles nor Lorwyn Eclipsed before that could, in my opinion, hold much appeal in Limited, albeit it for different reasons. I was therefore skeptical about Secrets of Strixhaven, who has only five dedicated Limited Archetypes as well, for the third set in a row now. But two things made Secrets of Strixhaven potentially much more interesting to me. For one, each of the Archetypes fundamentally breaks with the regular concept of its colour combination, a fact really driven home by our preview with the designers. Silverquill is much more aggressive and targeted than white-black’s regular Orzhov, Prismari uses much bigger, harder-hitting spell than Izzet’s usual red and blue spellslinging, Lorehold takes the aggressive white-red Boros and gives it a mid-range graveyard system, Quandrix supplements the slow land-pumping ramp of blue-green’s Simic with complicated X spells, and Witherbloom… is essentially a very normal Golgari graveyard deck as black-green often is, but with amazing lifegain and spellslinging tendencies mixed in. The concepts work.
The other thing that made me look forward to Secrets of Strixhaven is that I tried out Strixhaven: Academy of Mages, the original set from 2021, for the first time in Limited this January. I only started playing Magic: The Gathering in April 2024, and therefore did not know about that set before. It was, to keep it short, an amazing experience with tremendous archetypes and great card designs. I had high hopes for the new set, therefore.
And while I did not get the opportunity to play into an early review copy of the set this time as I was able to do with TMNT, I leapt at the chance to play two Sealed events at this year’s caggtus Leipzig, one self-organised with booster packs and colleagues from the games industry, one at an official Prerelease with seeded packs at the fair.
And I can confidently say that I feel the Limited environment of Secrets of Strixhaven is amazing. All colours performed much more consistently well, and more importantly, fun, than in Lorwyn, where the black-green Elf deck soon came out as the absolute best, no contest. I think there are power differences between the Strixhaven archetypes for sure – early testing seems to show that Prismari is relatively weak, while Silverquill and Lorehold are much stronger than expected, and I am particularly fond of Witherbloom, because it runs so consistently on strong Commons instead of relying on Rare or Mythic level bomb cards. It is too early for definite conclusions, of course, but I have seen several decks fitting the same archetypes at these tables, and each and every one of those decks played enormously different. In Witherbloom alone I played with and against three different deck concepts, each using the same basic building blocks, but to very different effects: A go wide, go tall deck based on several draws of Blech, Loafing Pest, a purely tall version that utilised several Pest Mascots and Bogwater Lumarets (the true MVP of Witherbloom), and a Lifegain burn version that sacrificed Pest tokens with Cauldron of Essence to absolutely brutal effect with Arnyn, Deathbloom Botanist in play. Wizards did an amazing job typing all those different possibilities for a given Archetype into consistent possibilities with the Uncommon charm versions that are all highly useful in almost any situation. If every Archetype can deliver as many interesting versions depending on the rate of Commons, Uncommons and Rares in a given game, that is exactly why I started to love limited.
Noone may guess what the author's favourite colour combination could be (Wizards of the Coast)
Fitting for the flavourful setting of the five houses in the academy, Secrets of Strixhaven comes with five Commander decks as well. Every one corresponds with a college and is lead by the current head teacher – the former top student from the 2021 Strixhaven set – together with their named, Legendary mascot. While we had no chance yet to test out the game plans in Commander play rounds – and I am certain with five decks so tuned to each other, the unofficial Star or Pentagram Commander version would be perfect here – the decks do not miss in value. Especially the reprinted cards are a sight to behold, with some reprints like Land Tax and Faerie Mastermind that are included scraping at the 20 euros mark. Several of the new cards will likely either hold value for some time as well, or are just plain fun as new Commander for self-brewed decks. I am looking at Muddle, the Ever-Changing for a very new take on an Otter typal deck here. For new cards and reprints, you can check the full decklists on the official Wizards of the Coast website as well.
