Modern Set Review: Secrets of Strixhaven

Back to magic school, and we're not talking about Hogwarts! Secrets of Strixhaven is the second of three "in-universe" sets for Magic: The Gathering this year—perhaps the most acclaimed among them due to the high-quality reprints in the Mystical Archives series.

For Modern, the Mystical Archives don't bring much beyond some desirable reprints. The main set has its share of new cards for the format, such as Erode—a new variant of Path to Exile—, Flow State as a potential competitor to Expressive Iteration, and also some choices for specific archetypes, like Exhibition Tidecaller and Flashback.

Below, we present the main highlights from the set for Modern!

Path to Exile has been power-crept. Erode is the most important interaction spell printed into Standard in the last decade, and it would be the same for Modern if the format hadn't already moved past Path's era since Modern Horizons 2.

The new spell competes with Solitude and Prismatic Ending in white decks and finds a Metagame where Planeswalkers aren't prevalent enough to demand four maindeck copies. It could find maindeck space in Azorius/Jeskai Control or Blink lists due to its broadness or earn Sideboard slots in Domain Zoo/Boros Energy for the few lists that run one or two Paths in the 75, but it shouldn't become an instant staple.

Turning every Preordain, Fatal Push, Surgical Extraction, and many other spells into extra mill effects could easily make Exhibition Tidecaller the next staple for Dimir Mill.

The Wizard subtype might have good synergies with Flame of Anor and other cards players run in Izzet lists, not to mention that targeting any player could also open up combo lines—though, fortunately, Underworld Breach is banned.

I'm particularly skeptical about Flow State's potential in a format where Expressive Iteration is legal and doesn't see four copies in every deck that could benefit from it. Some Prowess players go as far as saying Iteration is currently the worst card in Izzet lists.

Despite my skepticism, I wouldn't dismiss the card too quickly in the Metagame. Azorius Control lists might find some use for a two-for-one in exchange for mana efficiency, and archetypes like Dimir Death's Shadow sometimes run a splash for Iteration while also having an easy time enabling the "extra draw" from Flow State with Thoughtseize, cheap removal, and Psychic Frog.

Merfolk don't usually run Fetch Lands, and Harmonized Trio is slow and requires too much setup to work in current versions of the archetype. That said, it has good synergy with Deeproot Pilgrimage—a card much more present in Pioneer than in Modern lists.

Six mana for a Demonic Tutor is a bit much for Modern, even if archetypes like Golgari Yawgmoth or Sam Combo have an easy time fueling Emeritus of Woe's trigger each turn. To be blunt: for six mana, you're better off doing something that wins the game, or fetching something directly onto the battlefield with Chord of Calling or Green Sun's Zenith.

This card looks both so good and so bad at the same time. Moseo, Vein's New Dean dies to Orcish Bowmasters, and we've seen more powerful cards—like Esper Sentinel—fade from the top of the competitive ladder because of that trade-off.

On the other hand, if it sticks on the board in a Mardu Energy or similar list, the ability to always bring back an Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, Orcish Bowmasters, Ocelot Pride, or any other card, since it's so easy to enable with Guide of Souls, gives it much more potential than we might initially give it credit for.

The days of Liliana of the Veil in Modern are long gone. Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer trades board interaction and symmetrical discard effects for top-of-library manipulation and recursion. There might be some list that benefits from the new Planeswalker with Abhorrent Oculus and other easy reanimation targets, but Unearth + Psychic Frog still seem to be the pillar of that strategy.

We don't have Pox in Modern, and Pox Plague probably costs a bit too much to work, but it looks like the most fun card to build around from Secrets of Strixhaven.

Potential staple. Flashback reuses any card from Ruby Storm for , making it "a worse version" of anything you've already played, but with the flexibility to adapt to the situation.

If we have enough cost reducers, we can cast a Ritual to continue the combo with more mana. If we need more resources, we can cast an exile effect to "draw" more cards. And if we need a specific answer, we can cast it again if the game goes long.

It shouldn't see much play initially because multiple copies do nothing, but it's certainly something we want in the Wishboard, and maybe with one or two copies in the maindeck.

With a Ruby Medallion on the board, Tablet of Discovery is practically a "free draw" if we sequence instants and sorceries with its mana. With two Medallions, it generates positive mana while "drawing" a card. It might be worth testing.

Green wasn't very favored in this set. Someone will do annoying things with Time Warp and Emeritus of Abundance, but they're far from competitively viable and seem more like a Commander build. Outside that "combo," eight lands is a significantly high cost for a Regrowth every turn, and Eternal Witness already does the recursion job and sees almost no play in Modern.

There may be moments when Glorious Decay deserves Sideboard slots for its versatility, much like other similar cards such as Heritage Reclamation and Pick Your Poison have in the past.

The new Charms have some potential in Modern, but none reach the point of being an instant staple.

Lorehold Charm can bring back Guide of Souls, Ocelot Pride, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, and Boros Energy itself could use the mini-Overrun ability for a sudden lethal attack. The artifact mode would be less relevant since it gives the opponent a choice, but it could work if we needed to deal with The One Ring or something similar.

Prismari Charm is small creature removal, bounce, and a cantrip all in one card. It competes for slots with Expressive Iteration in Prowess, trading broadness for versatility, and could also find a home in other Izzet lists (Wizards, Control, Twin, etc.).

Witherbloom Charm deals with hate, stabilizes the board, and offers card advantage in the same slot without the same limitations as Witherbloom Command regarding creature types or power/toughness.

Quandrix Charm and Silverquill Charm are the least impressive. Their modes are too conditional, and/or one of them is completely irrelevant for formats with the power level of eternal formats.

Dina's Guidance isn't Entomb, but it does enough to warrant some testing. Using it to put a creature into your hand while having the option to put an Archon of Cruelty or even an Atraxa, Grand Unifier directly into the graveyard with the same card could make a big difference, but most Reanimator / Goryo's Vengeance lists today don't usually include green.

Vicious Rivalry is a half-Toxic Deluge that also clears the board of cheap artifacts and isn't limited by creature power but by their mana value. Four mana is a high cost, and cards like Culling Ritual already exist and see little play, but the increased versatility might earn it some test slots.

We covered The Dawning Archaic for Modern in a separate highlight. Since then, the card seems much more win more than we'd like in lists that previously would have run Murktide Regent or Abhorrent Oculus, especially in a Metagame where Consign to Memory is one of the most played Sideboard cards.

An interesting choice of effects for a land. Petrified Hamlet shuts down, for example, Channel abilities like those on Boseiju, Who Endures and Otawara, Soaring City, the Transmute on Tolaria West, common activated abilities like those on Shifting Woodland, and the second chapter of Urza's Saga.

It also shuts down the activated ability of Fetch Lands and could—with very low probability—lock an opponent's opening hand on the draw if they only have Fetches of the same name, but in most cases, the opponent can always activate the Fetch in response.

It seems like a solid addition for archetypes that can fetch it easily, like Amulet Titan, or for lists where colorless mana doesn't make much difference, like Tron or Eldrazi.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!