Secrets of Strixhaven Limited Guide: Draft, Sealed, Prerelease

Hey everyone, how’s it going?

The first three months of the year have passed, we’re all full of chocolate from Easter, and we have a new Magic: the Gathering set to talk about, Secrets of Strixhaven, with a release date for April 17th.

Secrets of Strixhaven is a return to the plane of Arcavios, last seen on the March of the Machines set.

In this article we'll discuss the mechanics, archetypes, removals, and mana fixing of the set, and also focus on best commons and uncommons.

Mechanics

Strixhaven is designed around the different colleges of the university, and the mechanics will highlight their identity. There are three independent mechanics, and five college mechanics.

If you want to read about them in detail, here’s an excellent article by judge Antonio Carlos explaining each mechanic, just one click away!

Converge

Converge is a mechanic that can be added to any color combination, but its greatest potential lies in 5-color decks.

For Limited, it's not advisable to use 5-color decks, but once you’re on 3 colors, you can already have some potentially powerful cards.

Prepare

For Limited, cards with two effects are very advantageous. The prepare mechanic offers versatility, bringing more variety to deck building.

Biblioplex Tomekeeper and Skycoach Waypoint are some ways to prepare creatures multiple times and take advantage of the mechanic.

Paradigm

Paradigm is a mechanic that has great potential in Limited.

The resource advantage can be overwhelming, forcing the opponent to deal with a strong spell at the start of every turn.

Repartee - Silverquill

Repartee is an interesting mechanic; its effect, triggered when a creature becomes the target of an instant or sorcery spell, allows for variation in deck building, whether using combat tricks targeting our creatures or, in a more midrange game, targeting the opponent's creatures.

Flashback - Lorehold

We have Flashback as a returning mechanic, associated with Lorehold. It’s a very relevant mechanic because it allows us to use the same effect more than once.

Opus - Prismari

Opus is an ability triggered by instants or sorceries, having a different effect depending on whether five or more mana is used.

For Limited, this will be useful in strategies focused on non-creatures, typically a tempo game plan.

Increment - Quandrix

Increment is a mechanic that empowers your creatures once the cost of the spell cast is greater than the creature's power. Very useful in Limited, since we can make our creatures an increasingly greater threat without interfering with the game's progression..

Infusion - Witherbloom

Life gain is a very strong strategy in Limited on its own, and Infusion presents itself as a strategy that generates advantages from it, further enhancing life gain bonuses.

Archetypes

Now that we’ve checked the mechanics, let’s talk about the different limited archetypes.

In Secrets of Strixhaven (SOS) we’ll find 5 different archetypes, related to each differente college, associated with an enemy color pair.

Silverquill Repartee

In white and black, we have an aggressive archetype that will use low-cost creatures, as well as abuse combat tricks and removal spells to trigger Repartee, maximizing our attacks.

Lecturing Scornmage and Graduation Day are good first-turn options.

Informed Inkwright allows us to expand our board with creatures that have evasion while pressuring our opponent.

Creatures with Prepare are excellent choices.

Elite Interceptor, Honorbound Page, Quill-Blade Laureate or Abigale, Poet Laureate are other good options for the archetype.

Conciliator’s Duelist is a good way to make creatures be prepared again, allowing us a new use of the spell.

Killian’s Confidence is an excellent way to maintain our resources, and can be reused when we connect damage. Combined with Snooping Page it can be an excellent way to overwhelm the opponent with our card advantage.

Silverquill Charm is a versatile option that can work to remove a blocker or empower our creatures.

Occasionally we have the option to break the opponent's math, avoiding lethal counterattacks with life gain and even closing games with direct damage.

Silverquill, the Disputant can take advantage of casualty to empower our spells, making the archetype even harder to deal with, since combat tricks and removal spells can be duplicated.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Lorehold Flashback

In red and white color, we have an archetype focused on cards that leave the graveyard.

We want permanents with abilities related to this effect and spells with flashback, or cards that enable a way to leave the graveyard to activate these creatures. Ennis, Debate Moderator is an example of the type of creature we use in this archetype.

Summoned Dromedary is an interesting piece within the archetype; it can be put into play to make trades and protect our life points, and then functions as an engine, returning from the graveyard to the hand. We can combine it with Charging Strifeknight to keep the archetype running.

Primary Research is an excellent way to generate card advantage here. Garrison Excavator, in turn, helps develop the battlefield, being able to produce many tokens as we progress our game.

Rubble Rouser is a way to increase mana availability while removing cards from the graveyard, making it a very interesting option. Furthermore, the damage dealt to the opponent can help close out stalled games.

Ark of Hunger has a very interesting effect, being able to feed the graveyard and allowing us to play it. This way, we can activate its effect and increase the availability of usable cards. The artifact is a really good reason to use this archetype.

Kirol, History Buff presents a very aggressive game plan, being relatively easy to prepare and thus abuse its spell, strengthening our creatures.

Spirit Mascot and Startled Relic Sloth are good aggressive options for the archetype, combining very well together.

Hardened Academic is another very aggressive piece in the strategy, providing counters and being able to feed the graveyard on its own. The lifelink is also fundamental for establishing pressure on the opponent. Colossus of the Blood Age is an excellent finisher at the top of the archetype's curve. Besides being a large body, it can close out the game with direct damage and break opponents' math with life gain. In addition to these advantages, it also allows us to cycle our hand when it dies, helping us exchange those extra lands at the end of the game for other cards and replenish the graveyard.

Lorehold, the Historian is a very strong card just because of its body, and if it stays on the battlefield we can take advantage of Miracle. Surveil is a good way to control the top of the deck and allow us to use its ability.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Prismari Opus

For blue and red, we have an archetype that focuses on instants and sorceries. To achieve this, we'll look for creatures with Opus to optimize our strategy, and spells with flashback will also be very useful.

Creatures with the Prepare ability will be important, since being two-in-one makes deck building easier.

Muse Seeker is a good card for cycling our hand, avoiding bad cards while we develop the archetype. From the mid-to-late game, it becomes an extremely important card advantage tool.

Muse's Encouragement is a good option for the mid-game, creating a body on the board by activating Opus and controlling the top of the deck. Quick Study is a good way to gain card advantage, allowing you to use unspent mana in the early turns to progress the game and find the necessary pieces.

Ancestral Anger can be used as a Cantrip to trigger our creatures' abilities, very useful when combined with Emeritus of Conflict to make it Prepared.

Impractical Joke, Duel Tactics, Tome Blast, and Vibrant Outburst are interesting options for the early turns, controlling the opponent and stopping more aggressive strategies.

Molten-Core Maestro is a significant threat within the archetype, having the potential to deal a lot of damage with just a few spells. It's important to find the best time to play key creatures to take advantage of their abilities. It's also important to have some protection or a way to counter the opponent's removal spells. Another way is to use creatures with Prepare to attract the opponent's removal spells.

Abstract Paintmage is an excellent accelerator for the archetype, providing extra mana for instants and sorceries so that we can advance our board and still play some spells already with the bonuses.

[[Colorstorm Stallion] is the kind of card that wins the game if we manage to protect it from removal and fit in big spells to activate its Opus, creating a copy. This will leave the opponent at a significant disadvantage, needing to respond to many threats while still dealing with our heavy spells.

Rapturous Moment allows us to continue triggering Opus while cycling our hand, and can be combined with a Stress Dream or Traumatic Critique. But we must pay close attention to deck building: if we lose the balance between the higher-cost spells needed to activate Opus, we risk not reaching the mana curve for them in time.

For this, in addition to balancing cheap removal, we need to use ways to accelerate our mana, such as Page, Loose Leaf and Potioner's Trove. Sanar, Unfinished Genius is another way to increase our mana pool, acting as a good wall to protect our life points. Its spell allows us to find pieces that answer problems on the board.

In a slightly more aggressive strategy, we have Thunderdrum Soloist, Elemental Mascot, and Spectacular Skywhale, both of which avoid standard removal spells and, with some cantrips, are capable of causing significant damage.

Exhibition Tidecaller is an interesting option to follow in a mill strategy against the opponent. In a Limited format where decks typically have 40 cards, a mill sequence can be fatal, especially if the opponent has no answers, and because it's an unusual strategy, it can be very effective against some opponents.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Quandrix Increment

In blue and green, we have an archetype focused on the Increment mechanic. In this strategy, we'll want to always cast spells in a progressive way, ensuring all our creatures grow. In this archetype, the way we sequence our creatures will be fundamental.

Ambitious Augmenter and Cuboid Colony are excellent early-game options, allowing for a very aggressive scaling strategy. Topiary Lecturer is a very good ramp option within the archetype, allowing you to scale several turns with few spells.

Berta, Wise Extrapolator is an excellent way to utilize our excess mana with Topiary Lecturer, allowing us to create increasingly stronger threats.

Pensive Professor provides a very large card advantage within the archetype, especially when combined with Tester of the Tangential, making it easy to keep putting counters on the Djinn and transferring them to Pensive Professor by drawing cards.

Additive Evolution creates a good body and allows us to apply pressure without exposing our life points, always guaranteeing a creature to block.

Emil, Vastlands Roamer is a very useful piece, since our game plan revolves around having creatures with counters. Trample ensures we'll connect damage to the opponent, preventing small creatures from chump blocking.

Germination Practicum is one of the strongest spells available, capable of unbalancing locked battlefields in just a few turns.

Growth Curve combined with Fractal tokens can close out games unexpectedly.

Quandrix Charm can have a similar effect, transforming the tokens into 5/5s before we even consider the counters, adding five damage completely out of the blue. Tam, Observant Sequencer is another form of card advantage, making it very easy to set up the conditions to use its spell.

Quandrix, the Proof is already absurdly strong by itself, considering the advantage it generates using cards like Mind into Matter. Remember that there are risks involved when using other cards with a cost of "X" in the deck, such as Pterafractyl or Wild Hypothesis.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Witherbloom Infusion

In black and green, we have an archetype that will use life gain to generate effects from the Infusion mechanic. Therefore, we'll need cards that gain life or have effects when gaining life.

Scheming Silvertongue is a good early game option, it’s Prepare allows us to find our setup. Dissection Practice can be a good combat trick or even removal for the first few turns, in addition to helping with life gain.

Shopkeeper’s Bane is a more aggressive way to have constant life gain. Bogwater Lumaret is the archetype's best form of life gain, managing to gain life while expanding our board.

Cauldron of Essence makes trades very efficient, being able to reanimate larger creatures in exchange for a token, for example. It's very good when combined with Essenceknit Scholar, which will give us some cards while reanimating some creatures.

Professor Dellian Fel is an excellent card for the archetype; it can protect itself, generate card advantage, gain life, and if we manage to protect it for a turn, it's already possible to get the Emblem... which, most likely, will be a sure path to victory!

Witherbloom, the Balancer is an excellent finisher, and with a few tokens, we can get it onto the battlefield at low cost.

Root Manipulation is an excellent way to close out games by populating the battlefield.

Comforting Counsel is another way to make our creatures significant threats. If combined with Root Manipulation, we can place the 5 counters needed to extend bonuses to all our creatures, potentially ending games out of nowhere.

Lluwen, Exchange Student is another relevant piece, capable of creating several Pest tokens and ensuring the reuse of our creatures that go to the graveyard.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Mana Fixing

Now that we've gone through all the archetypes, let's talk about the ways we can access different mana colors.

Lands

In this set, the common Dual lands are restricted to enemy color pairs, limiting some options.

Terramorphic Expanse is a way to search for a land of the required color, being very effective for three-color archetypes in this set.

Great Hall of the Biblioplex is a land geared towards archetypes with a lot of instant and sorcery spells, capable of generating any color by paying life.

We also have the cycle of rare slow lands of enemy color pairs.

Artifacts/Colorless

Among the artifacts we have Potioner’s Trove, which, in addition to increasing our mana availability, provides mana of any color.

We also have Strixhaven Skycoach, which searches for a basic land.

We have no way to filter mana.

For spell-slinging strategies, we have Resonating Lute, which can be useful in a control strategy leaning towards a Five-Color Converge.

Creatures

Hydro-Channeler has the ability to filter mana for instants and sorceries, and Berta, Wise Extrapolator has the potential to generate mana when it receives counters.

Goblin Glasswright and Sanar, Unfinished Genius are ways to create treasures to get the different colors we need.

Removals

Removals are a very important aspect of Limited, and here we will discuss the main ones for each color. We will only mention removals with very unusual mechanics and include all examples of removals available in the color for visualization.

White

In white, Erode is definitely the strongest removal spell available, basically a modern version of Path to Exile, capable of targeting planeswalkers but not exiling the creature.

Harsh Annotation can be used to maintain threats in response to the opponent's removal, leaving a creature to continue the pressure on the opponent.

Stand Up For Yourself deals with approximately 45.32% of the collection. Remember that in SOS there are many abilities that increase the power of creatures, potentially making this removal spell more efficient than it appears.

Blue

For blue, we basically have counterspells and tempo plays, like Procrastinate or Run Behind.

Brush Off is a good counter to protect our board.

Black

Dissection Practice is quite versatile, working in both black archetypes. Furthermore, it's an excellent combat trick to keep our creatures alive.

End of the Hunt is an excellent way to deal with planeswalkers or any creature that the opponent can protect, since it works like an Edict.

Last Gasp can be used as a combat trick to deal with larger creatures from the opponent. It can remove 68.35% of the creatures in the format, considering of course the printed toughness in the card. Creatures that enter with counters may escape this calculation.

Withering Curse covers 41.7% of the format without activating Infusion. If we have a way to gain life, it's a great plan to wipe everything and reset the board.

Red

Steal the Show has good potential in the right archetype, such as Prismari, being quite versatile and giving us the option to cycle cards from our hand.

Emeritus of Conflict is extremely strong, but its mechanics for preparing it are a bit complicated to fit outside the Prismari archetype, requiring a lot of effort to activate its Prepare in any other combination.

Impractical Joke offers excellent cost-effectiveness.

Artistic Process deals with large creatures and can clear the opponent's board if they are playing a more aggressive strategy, or add another attacker to pressure the opponent. Its versatility can be very interesting during games, being easy to fit into all red archetypes.

Heated Argument can help us close out damage on the opponent while activating Lorehold abilities, but its high cost can be a problem against more aggressive archetypes.

Below I will list the percentage of creatures from the set according to ther printed toughness value, so we will have the base damage we need to deal with them.

1 Toughness = 12,95%

1 to 2 Toughness = 41,7%

1 to 3 Toughness = 68,35%

1 to 4 Toughness = 87,77%

1 to 5 Toughness = 92,81%

1 to 6 Toughness = 97,84%

1 to 7 Toughness = 100%

ATTENTION: This set also mechanics that place counters; so the values ​​above apply to creatures without counters. Keep this in mind during matches, so removal spells that are instant speed will be more effective.

Green

Regarding removal, green left much to be desired. Chelonian Tackle is the color's main removal spell and becomes much worse if we have to deal with Deathtouch creatures.

Burrog Barrage needs another card or effect to gain life before it can be used as removal.

Multicolored

The Charms from each college are quite interesting due to their versatility, very useful as they give us access to various effects in just one card.

The blue and red cards tend to have more removal, with the Prismari base being more geared towards a Midrange control game.

Vicious Rivalry is an excellent global effect, and can be a way to close out games if the sacrifice mechanic is working in Wintherbloom decks.

SOS features very strong cards across all archetypes. It's possible to mix archetypes, as long as they have common colors, such as red for Lorehold and Prismari, using Lorehold's Flashback spells to activate Prismari's Opus permanents more often.

It's also possible to use a 5-color archetype to utilize Converge spells, although it's a bit risky.

I personally really liked the set; I think the Prerelease will be a lot of fun to play and very interesting to build decks around what we'll have available.

Which archetype seems the best from Secrets of Strixhaven?

For me, the most interesting deck was Silverquill Repartee: easy to work with, with good removal spells available and the possibility of a splash of red to use flashback removal and abuse the Repartee mechanic.

I believe a Prismari Opus Control or even an Aggro deck could be very interesting, but they depend heavily on having the right mix of creatures and spells.

Thank you very much for reading and see you in the next article. Until then!