Secrets of Strixhaven Set Review

The mechanics. The set. Let's go.

I think this set is a very cool one. Why bury the lede? Prepare is a great twist on the Adventure mechanic that fits in really well with a Strixhaven set. Repartee is probably the coolest BW mechanic since Extort, and possibly just as powerful. Increment does something really fun with the UG school, cementing it as the 'big mana' style of play colors. And the others, Flashback, Infusion and Opus all feel like they fit their respective takes on the color pairs (RW, BG, and UR respectively).

The introduction of the Avatars as the next Eldrazi style big bads is great, as it presents a nice mechanical counterpoint to the Eldrazi, caring a lot about color. 

 This set has me excited to play with it! 

Part of this is the mechanical overlap I'm seeing that reminds me of another set I really liked: Dragonstorm.

For example: Opus wants you to play spells, but if the spells cost 5 or more, you get an extra bonus. However, if you're slipping in a few Increment cards that also get bigger if you spend more mana, well isn't that just frosting? Or, if you have a deck using Flashback, isn't that pretty cool for some cards with a Repartee ability? 

I feel like WotC has been doing a very good job of presenting 3 color sets without making them 3 color sets, and it's definitely making for a more dynamic game. 

Let's talk colors. 

White
Interestingly, the White Emeritus is probably the weakest of the bunch. It probably doesn't matter much because there's some really good removal in this color and Stirring Hopesinger looks like an incredibly powerful effect. 

However, I should note that the Emeritus of Truce can also represent a swing in the boardstate if you're behind. That's not nothin'. 

In the meantime, there's cool things for Blink style decks, and possibly the strongest Lesson with Restoration Seminar? 

Blue
The hype machine that is the Emeritus of Ideation has got to be a thing, right? Five mana for that suite of abilities and the ability to Ancestral Recall? 

I know it's a terrible idea but I want to be the guy who makes the deck with Echocasting Symposium and Phage. Still, someone should live that dream!

I have a feeling that Encouraging Aviator will be a rockstar in limited. If I am reading it right, you should be able to attack with it, have it become prepared and in response to your declaration of attackers, cast Jump to give another creature you control flying. That's pretty strong.

I think Skycoach Conductor might have a place in my new Flash deck, and I really want to see how the Increment creatures go in my 1000 Shards deck. Future me actions. 

I think I like how Orysa Tide Choreographer can help dig players out of stalemates but I'm not sure it's good enough. Neat concept though.

Black
I feel like this color is the most consistently powerful in the set. It isn't incredibly flashy, but it feels very reliable. 

Even Ral Zarek, the planeswalker doesn't seem over the top. That's a good thing! (Also quite a character shift!)

It also seems like it has the most creatures that can re-prepare themselves, and that's interesting. And every Black creature with Lifelink just got a boost in their stock. 

Red
They are really trying to reward the '3 spells in a turn' deck happen, aren't they? Emeritus of Conflict seems like a fairly good reward. Add in Blue flying creatures and card draw for a little bonus and you can go a long way on very little mana. 

I'm very glad to see a card like Maelstrom Artisan. Land destruction isn't a popular strategy but non-basic land destruction should've been a dial WotC turned often. Keeping greedy manabases in check is a good thing. 

But aside from that card, like Black I feel like this color is reasonably consistent. I don't think they're doing anything new in Red, however developing its reach in the Instant and Sorcery area of the game is good. I also believe there's a nice balance between the creatures you want to run for payoffs, like Thunderdrum Soloist, and the spells you cast.

Green

While Green has a very strong Lesson-giving your creatures a permanent +2 every turn should end games rapidly-I feel like this color might be the underpowered one in this set. There's a lot of land searching, but having a bunch of mana for the Quandrix school is reliant on payoff cards and I don't see much in the way of big haymakers. Generating mana to cast spells to grow creatures means having spells to cast. Similarly, I count 3.5 ways to gain life in the color while I could 6.5 ways (I count pest tokens as a half) in Black. So how effective is it to build into Witherbloom?

I'm not saying that Green is bad; just that it seems like a great support color and not a main reason to go in a particular direction. 

Multi

This is where one would expect the set to shine, and it does. This is where I'm finding the support for going into GB-really a lot of glue for any color combination. I see this especially at uncommon, where a lot of these cards will be relevant in draft, however I'm excited for all of my enemy-paired Liege decks which should get some dynamite creatures to add!

Art/Colorless

The artifacts all fall in the 'workhorse' class for me; small effects you add to your deck to help smooth things out where your colors might be lacking. Nothing seems particularly bad nor exciting. 

The colorless creatures are, to me, all about teasing a future set. Yes, they're supposed to also be payoffs for a 4 or 5 color deck in sealed/draft, excepting The Dawning Archaic, which has some weird combo potential I'm only vaguely aware of right now. But what I really see them doing is taking another big bad slot as the Eldrazi did, as I mentioned before. 

So it's too bad that they aren't very exciting. I don't think they are awful, and they are clearly designed for Commander but...they also aren't very threatening and require a lot of setup for their rewards. 

Lands

I'm always happy to see dual lands of any sort get reprinted, and the new common lands function well for their ability. I think that Skycoach Waypoint is overcosted for what it does though: four (3 + tapping the land) to prepare an unprepared creature is taxing and honestly I think that if the cost had been reduced by one, you'd generate more excitement. 

Petrified Waypoint is obviously a niche card meant to help solve a problem I don't know we have, and Great Hall of the Biblioplex is unexciting as well. 

Still! I'm looking forward to getting my hands on this set. I think there's cool things to do, the limited gameplay looks interesting and there's already some cards I want to utilize in decks I already have. Really happy with this one!

Best Intentions

Apparently, when I was testing sixty card decks, I needed to go to the Tonic wanting to play Commander. Because this is the second week in a row where I have gone there hoping to play Commander and ended up playing sixty card decks.

One guy even recognized me and told me he was thrilled to play some of his other decks, because everyone was so focused on Commander there.

So there's that.

Don't get me wrong: it was a pretty productive evening. I lost a fair share of games but I think I've got a solid handle on why I lost them.

I also ran the same decks as last week: Fenix and Hope and a wayback machine deck, 1000 Shards.

Jeeze: I've been doing this for six years! Go me!

I did get a Commander game in last night against Sasha, playing Arahbo, and it did not go well. I had the mana, but I did not have the ability to match against that deck's sheer power. A creature hooked up with Argentum Armor and boom. That was it. I had the mana to do something about it, I just didn't have anything else.

Now on one hand; budget deck, so that's to be expected.

On the other: this represents an interesting problem that Sygg is going to have all the time.I wonder how I will be able to solve it.

And by that I mean: what method will work. Not 'how can I possibly'.

Megatron

I know that it's Simic week back at the Mothership but after the past two weeks, I just can't muster the effort to grind through a U/G deck right now. Plus, I already did 1000 Shards early on and that's got to be the most Simicky Simic deck ever.

I will say that with the arrival of Gatecrash, I've made a few tweaks to make Shards even more about the counters (Cloudfin Raptor for Gaea's Skyfolk, notably) and I'm considering Experiment One instead of Simic Initiate, because the Experiment can get bigger than the Initiate. But I am reluctant to replace anything with 0 toughness because of the 0 + Mirrorweave = everything else dies combo. Still, I may put this in the 'light testing' rotation to see what happens.

Since the Simic deck is mostly done (Noah asked me yesterday if a deck was 'finished' and I had to laugh. Nothing is ever finished.) let's go with a distinctly Simic-like deck.

5 Forest
4 Island
4 Darksteel Citadel
4 Seat of the Synod
3 Tree of Tales
3 Simic Growth Chamber 

3 Arcbound Crusher
3 Arcbound Overseer
3 Arcbound Ravager
2 Arcbound Reclaimer
2 Arcbound Slith
4 Arcbound Stinger
4 Arcbound Worker
4 Copper Gnomes
2 Etherium Sculptor
1 Triskelion

          3 Darksteel Forge
          2 Lifeline

1 Fabricate 

3 Naturalize 

I called this deck Megatron because of artwork on Arcbound Overseer. It's probably just me but I see a resemblance. The basic idea was to use the synergy between Arcbound creatures, Lifeline and Darksteel forge to create an overwhelming advantage.

Man, did I hate Lifeline back in the day. I would actively campaign against anyone playing that card, regardless of the board state. It was such a discouraging card to play against, and I have Jason to thank for brutalizing me with it. Cards like Lifeline are why I continue to run effects like Naturalize in nearly every deck I build. Between that and the use of Evolution Vat in the early build (I think there was even a Novijen, Heart of Progress) these were the only roles for green to play.

But, like I said, a good idea is a good idea and using Lifeline's ability to take Arcbound Ravager and repeatedly sacrifice creatures to make it huge, while not actually losing a creature falls under that. Darksteel Forge is an incredibly disheartening card to see from an opponent's point of view and Copper Gnomes allows me to cheat it, the Overseer, or Lifeline into play.

It's been a little while since I've played this deck so the tests should be interesting. The curve on this deck feels high, with plays coming in at 4+ mana that have a broad variance in strength. Arcbound creatures didn't get a boost from the Scars of Mirrodin block, but +1 counters certainly have become a thing in the past few years, especially in Green, so I look forward to seeing what happens!

A Few Observations

Well, Return to Ravnica has come out, Populate still sucks and Unleash has actually made for a decent aggro mechanic in Limited.

So I was kinda wrong, at least in the short term.

What's been interesting has been the rise of Zombies as a deck (frequently R/B but with RtR, now G/B seems to be a flavor) and R/G/B decks (often on the back of Rancor) and I see that as a general positive. The negative? The U/W Delver decks have just switched to U/W/G-this lineup has been all over the internet- or U/R Delver.

So Blue is still a prominent force in the game. I didn't expect it to go away but I had hoped that other colors would get a chance to shine. It's early still: I don't think the season has established its decks yet and Gatecrash has plenty to offer but I'm not hoping for much yet.

On a separate note: I've been feeling like I'm rushed with my decks. Picking a new one each week isn't giving me enough time to actually play the deck and make changes, then road test those changes. I just don't get to play enough Magic to properly evaluate things (everyone I play with has lives...crazy people.) So I need more time.

As an example, when I built the 1000 Shards deck, I played that non-stop for three weeks and it showed. I got very good with the deck and made some great changes to make it what it was, before I brought it to this blog. So I'm going to move to a deck every two weeks, so I can get more games under my belt with that deck. It may make for some shorter posts but hopefully it will make for some more interesting, more evolved decks.

There might be something else but I can't recall what it is, right now.

Into the truth, let myself burn

Changes made to 1000 Shards: Nature's End for the Naturalize effects and that's it. I don't know what I was talking about when I said I'd cut Simic Guildmage: there aren't any in the deck! I blame myself...which is going to be the theme in the games I describe.

Game one vs U/B zombies; I did bad math with a Blood Artist and Diregraf Captain out = I quit before I should have. I had made a proper comeback and could have possibly won but nope: my brain worked against me.

Game two I have to mulligan to 5 cards (bad sign) keeping 2 Islands, Spike Drone, Simic Growth Chamber and Vigor.

Sigh. I luck into a Forest and while that's good, I keep drawing more Forests while Fuz gets a Gravecrawler, Carrion Feeder and a Quest for the Gravelord online. All I can do is ramp up and hope that I can find something to do before he starts pounding me with huge zombies. Instead I draw another Vigor.

Sometimes I hate this fucking game. But what the hell; let's try a rematch.

The situation: I am stuck on three lands-two Island one Yavimaya Coast and because of this I cannot cast any of the three Spike Feeders in my hand which, if I can get a Forest, can keep me in the game.

Then Fuz casts Cabal Therapy.

I really hate this fucking game.

Let's move on. Up against a mono-W deck with an Angel theme and a lifegain/blink subtheme, I had some decent starts but I was held off one game by a Ghostly Prison, unable to draw a Natural End.

Sure, I made it through a Day of Judgement and two Phyrexian Rebirth, on top of casting Mirrorverse twice. But I couldn't force enough damage through and ended up dying when stonethorn swung for 32 in the air. While at over 60 life. And I had two 27/27's on the table.

It always stuns me how I create decks that prepare for situations where 'All I need is a Naturalize!' and I then can't get the damn Naturalize.

Game two I had a strong start but overreached on turn five, casting Gaea's Skyfolk when I shouldn't have. The Phyrexian Rebirth gave stonethorn a 4/4 and a way back into the game. In this instance, I can precisely identify the moment when things went wrong and that was it.

I also used my Llanowar Reborn counters too quickly. Once I knew the board resets were coming, holding back so I can cast a bigger creature in game two was the correct choice that I failed to make.

I seem to be on a streak of losses lately. Some bad decisions but also bad draws and nothing really going like I hope.

I've also finally noticed something: in a third set of games with Rider, I couldn't get enough green mana. Despite this deck providing 16 sources of green I don't seem to have enough to regularly hit two green by turn 3. I'm going to look for another Oran Rief and, failing that, just use a Forest. This deck has been amazing in the past: now it's telling me I need to tweak it.

1000 Shards

I'll just say it up front, I love, love this deck. I named it after the Isis song, because I use glass beads for tokens and I figured that I'd have a ton of them glittering on the table.

7 Island
7 Forest
4 Yavimaya Coast
2 Simic Growth Chamber
2 Llanowar Reborn
1 Oran-Rief, the Vastwood

3 Gaea's Skyfolk
4 Simic Initiate
4 Cytoplast Root-Kin
4 Aquastrand Spider
2 Vigor
3 Spike Feeder
2 Spike Drone
3 Fungal Behemoth
3 Plaxcaster Frogling

2 Slice in Twain
1 Mystic Melting
3 Mirrorweave

3 Keep Watch

I came up with this deck at the end of the Ravnica block, after reading an article at Star City Games, where the author described a possible situation where, by turn 4 you've swung for 13 points of damage minimum, using the Graft mechanic from the Simic guild.That just seemed awesome to me and it was an idea that everyone was was (and continued to) ignore. So taking that skeleton (from one Ted Knutson, I believe) I went about building it.

Originally, there were Cytoshapes in there instead of Mirrorweave-the replacement done for what I hope are (or will become) obvious reasons. The Mirrorweave is a bit of an off beat for me: I prefer to have all the colors I need to cast a spell, so this would go into a U/W deck by my traditional thinking. However, it's too good to ignore what that card does for this deck and so I suck up the UU costs and go with it.

Here's how it works: because the counters are added on when the creature enters the battlefield and the official power/toughness is written as 0, when the game asks: What is this creature's P/T? the answer is: It is a 0/0 with X +1/+1 counters on it.

But when I Cytoshape a creature into a copy of mine, the game doesn't copy counters, it copies the base power and toughness of a creature so the game asks what P/T the copy is, the answer is: Zero (unless there are pre-existing counters on the creature.)

With that knowledge and a love of swinging for 20 on turn 5, I set to work

Now, the Simic guild existed a couple years before Mirrorweave and Vigor, so this deck has been evolving, of course. I don't recall what I had in place of Vigor or Fungal Behemoth but they gave me much better creatures, to be certain. The Spike Feeders have always existed in this deck: they've proven worthy in the past, Spike Drones were brought in when I realized I wanted to have more one-drops and worry less about what my opponent was doing. There were most likely Thrives in this deck at one point a card I really like but can't seem to make work and 1000 Shards was no exception.



I'm fairly certain that this week's updates will include axing Simic Guildmage for something more effective and finding a cheaper solution to Slice in Twain: I just wanted something that would draw me cards. Which leads me to my next subject.

Someone might be asking; why Keep Watch? I wanted to emphasize both what this deck does (attack with creatures) and blue does (instant speed card draw.) I can also use Keep Watch when opponents are attacking, including one memorable time when I cast it to draw into a Mirrorweave that I then cast to annihilate my opponent's army. The most important thing though is that Keep Watch rewards me for doing what I want to do here, refilling my hand and allowing me to keep quickly rebuild my offense if my opponent draws into a board wipe.