Magic: The Gathering (MTG)’s new Secrets of Strixhaven set is lush and strongly thematic. It’s not always true that intentionality shines through in new MTG sets. It can be easily lost when the mix of great art, useful mechanics, bright ideas, and flavour is diluted.
Secrets of Strixhaven manages to avoid common pitfalls, with each part of its design lending well to its overarching exploration of an inter-dimensional magic school, and all the magic and chaos students can wreak.
ScreenHub: MTG: Secrets of Strixhaven – Exclusive Card Preview
Across cards, you can see new student characters with strong spell mechanics, as well as colourful, creative reprints that are designed after traditional texts and magical spell tomes. The flavour – art depicting student bullies, academy life and homework, as well as flavour text – lends a lovely tone, giving insight into the narrative backing this set, and what marks it out as unique.
MTG Secrets of Strixhaven review – quick links
Welcome to Strixhaven, school of magic
As mentioned, this particular set marks a return to Strixhaven, the magical school of MTG, where wizards and other spell crafters learn to enchant, ensorcell, and cast instants. It’s often been compared to Hogwarts of Harry Potter, but the less mentioned of that franchise, the better. Suffice to say it’s a magic school filled with magical beings, all learning how to become the most powerful wizards in all the land.
There are five unique ‘houses’ in Strixhaven, each of which is defined by a mana colour combination which determines what sort of spells they cast:
- The Prismari school casts blue-red spells, themed on art, destruction, emotion, and the elements.
- The Lorehold school casts red-white spells, themed on cool artifacts, spirits, and golems.
- The Quandrix school casts blue-green spells, themed on maths and nature.
- The Witherbloom school casts green-black spells, themed on biology and life essence.
- The Silverquill school casts white-black spells, themed on magic as metaphor and literature.
What works so well about this set is that its five schools are very well-defined, with cards that can be easily paired together for great synergy.
MTG’s Secrets of Strixhaven set is packed with synergy
Folks who enjoy Golgari decks (black-green) will find a lot to love in the Witherbloom cards, with many focused around cheap mana ramp. Topiary Lecturer joins the ranks of great low-cost creatures which can tap for extra mana, with the added benefit that this effect grows by its power. Stick some +1/+1 counters on it using its Increment ability or other methods (my beloved Rite of Passage, for example) and you can end up with significant ramp.
There’s also Studious First-Year, which is a one mana bear that is both adorable and very useful. When it enters, you may cast its prepared spell, which lets you put a tapped basic land onto the battlefield, ramping your mana for next turn.
Pair this particular spell with a creature like Biblioplex Tomekeeper, and you can re-prepare it, and cast another round of Rampant Growth. Green players don’t need any more great ramp cards. But as a green player, I’m chuffed there’s so much in this set.
There is also plenty of ramp found in other colours, too. Those who enjoy playing in red will find new artifacts that ramp and mill, including the Tablet of Discovery. Two extra mana to spend on instants and sorcery spells for a cost of three mana (the same as many other lesser mana ramp cards) isn’t anything to sniff at.
A card like Goblin Glasswright is also really good for ramp, as it generates Treasure tokens for a one-mana cost, and can be unprepared and re-prepared as long as you’re deploying new creatures and artifacts correctly. Consider introducing some blink in any Lorehold decks (Charming Prince, Restoration Angel, Flicker of Fate) and you can keep flickering in Biblioplex Tomekeeper to prepare your creatures, and get more ramp.
‘Prepare’ is a strategic new mechanic worth building around
As mentioned, many of the new cards can be ‘prepared’. Thematically, these cards are students of Strixhaven who arrive on the battlefield with a scroll in their hands, ready for the fight.
Any creature with a prepare mechanic must be prepared before they can cast that spell. Some creatures enter prepared, while others must become prepared through player strategy, or playing synergistic cards.
Playing strategically and figuring out when and how you can prepare these creatures will essentially allow you an extra spell in hand.
In typical circumstances, your deck would require a card called ‘Emeritus of Truce’ and a card called ‘Swords to Plowshares’. You only have a limited amount of cards you can put in each of your decks. So having Emeritus of Truce come attached with a Swords to Plowshares allows you to speed ahead, and gain advantage by having access to a full suite of spells as your creatures become prepared.
Having criteria for more powerful spells like this – opponents must control more creatures than you before the creature becomes naturally prepared to cast Swords to Plowshares – does create a strategic barrier, but you can plan around it, ensuring you’re able to sling plenty of spells per turn.
Given the theming of MTG Secrets of Strixhaven, it’s a clever conceit that spells are more accessible in this set, and that certain creatures have additional magical abilities to play around with.
MTG Secrets of Strixhaven understands fun
Beyond introducing an array of powerful new cards, including some brilliant new full art cards, it’s the flavour of MTG Secrets of Strixhaven that makes it such a moreish, bright and shiny set.
By nature of focusing on the colleges of Strixhaven, with each having their own identity, players feel closer to their chosen colours, and have a sense of ownership over them. It makes the game more personal, and more competitive, while inspiring a loyalty that other sets lack, generally.
With a powerful array of new and reprinted cards, there’s a lot here to buff existing decks. If you’re planning on building something new, clear synergies and siloing of each magic school also means it’s simple to create a new deck where every card has a purpose.
This is a new MTG set that fulfils the brief on all fronts. It’s bright and creatively-minded, clever in its tweaks and advancements, and it gives players plenty of new lore over which to pore. Even with the narrative action siloed to the plane of Strixhaven, which is relatively cloistered in the wider MTG universe, there’s plenty of enticement to visit, to make friends with these wily wizards and their powerful pals.
Magic: The Gathering – Secrets of Strixhaven Booster Packs were provided by Wizards of the Coast for the purposes of this review.
