Standard Set Review: Secrets of Strixhaven

Secrets of Strixhaven is coming. The new expansion takes players back to the Biblioplex and Arcavios, with old and new characters in another chapter of Magic: The Gathering's current story arc.

For Standard, a dozen cards have the potential to impact the competitive Metagame, establishing new archetypes or reinforcing old decks. In this article, we evaluate the main inclusions and highlights from the set for the format.

The white Emeritus is a decent card in any situation: it works as four power for three mana, or a Swords to Plowshares for four mana that comes with that same four power, or it "compensates" for exiling the opponent's largest creature by giving them a 1/1.

It interacts with Airbending and blink effects. There's room for it in Azorius Tempo lists and variants of Momo, Friendly Flier that can reuse it with Nurturing Pixie. It wouldn't surprise me if it became a toolbox target for Bant Ouroboroid lists.

The best card of the set. Perhaps the most important for Standard in a historical context.

Erode is a power creep of Path to Exile, a removal spell that defined Modern for a decade and served, along with Lightning Bolt, as a gauge for how far they should avoid printing overly efficient removal—but while the design team was extremely cautious with improvements to interaction, they were far less conservative with the quality of threats.

The new unconditional white removal—with an upgrade to answer Planeswalkers—is a crucial step toward leveling the playing field and could set a precedent for introducing similar interaction in releases over the next few years. We discussed Erode in more detail in this article.

A Repartee deck will inevitably run some number of these cards. It's worth noting that the new ability triggers for any target on creatures and works with spot removal and bounces. Azorius/Jeskai would be the starting point, but Esper/Mardu also have good tools.

Any spell with Paradigm that resolves becomes a constant problem for the rest of the game, and Restoration Seminar ensures you always reuse the same bombs. Seven mana is a lot, but not in a Standard with Badgermole Cub—it remains to be seen if there's room.

The amount of discussion about a "reprint of Ancestral Recall" doesn't compare to what Emeritus of Ideation actually is: a "Titan" that guarantees three draws each turn it attacks if we have eight cards in the graveyard to fuel it. Too much effort for too little payoff.

Staple.

Flow State has fertile ground in a format with Lessons, Izzet Elementals, and other archetypes loaded with instants and sorceries. However, I don't believe it fits into many Control lists as we see them today due to its sorcery speed and competition for slots with Consult the Star Charts.

Restoration Angel with extra steps, Skycoach Conductor protects creatures from removal and forces the opponent to deal with it before interacting with any other creature. Additionally, it reuses ETBs and, on its own, fuels a Cosmogrand Zenith trigger.

It has quite a bit of potential and fertile ground in a format where creatures are bombs that dominate the game if they stay on the board, or threats with powerful ETBs.

Decorum Dissertation would be so much better if Sheoldred, the Apocalypse were still legal! Black Midrange decks are struggling today, and five mana is a high price for a Sign in Blood, especially in a Metagame with Razorkin Needlehead and other ways to punish excessive drawing. It could appear in Sideboards for grindy mirrors.

I would love to say that Emeritus of Woe is a great card and that Demonic Tutor every turn is easy to enable in black, but we've passed the point where a 5/4 for four mana was viable, even with a tutor in the form of a kicker that goes on the stack.

This category of removal always finds space in Sideboards. Depending on the Metagame, it can even become a maindeck staple.

Gaining life is easy with a dozen cards in Standard today and makes it easy to trigger Moseo, Vein's New Dean each turn. There isn't a dedicated archetype around this theme today, but Orzhov Momo lists find in it an excellent three-mana payoff that easily reuses creatures alongside Sage of the Skies and Deep-Cavern Bat.

Liliana of the Veil lost space in the Standard Metagame during the seasons it was legal as more powerful cards came out. Now, Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer is a reimagining of her that trades board interaction for recursion. I don't know if it has a home in the current Metagame, but it's a solid addition.

Unholy Annex decks disappeared with rotation, but they gained a decent upgrade with Tragedy Feaster, which has a decent body, built-in protection, evasion, and whose drawback is contained by the enchantment itself. As in Pioneer, it might be a good time to consider Golgari Demons.

Withering Curse clears the board of small creatures for three mana in the same slot where, if we have enough cards, it can serve as an unconditional sweeper. Its usability will depend on how relevant the -2/-2 to the whole board becomes in the post-Strixhaven format.

Emeritus of Conflict is a Prowess payoff rather than Red Aggro/Burn. Those archetypes include various cheap drops combined with cantrips and interaction to sequence spells, and since it counts any spell and not just noncreature ones, interactions like the plot on Slickshot Show-Off can feed it easily—and we haven't even mentioned Boomerang Basics and Stormchaser's Talent lines.

Boros variants with Momo, Friendly Flier and cards with Warp / Nurturing Pixie also make it easier to set up Lightning Bolt as both board interaction and/or a finisher.

Standard currently doesn't have a one-mana board interaction spell that deals three damage to creatures or Planeswalkers unconditionally, so Impractical Joke has fertile ground to find space as red removal, but not without challenges: answering Badgermole Cub and other problems at instant speed is essential to avoid explosive turns, and the new removal doesn't fill that role.

It will see play and could become a staple, but it shouldn't always be a four-of due to the need to diversify interaction in the format today.

In a perfect turn, Improvisation Capstone will trigger Artist's Talent three times, do three lootings, and trigger Monument to Endurance on all modes—all for free and still during upkeep. In the worst case, the player spends seven mana, gets hit with a No More Lies in response, and wastes an entire turn doing nothing in an archetype built around repeatedly sequencing spells.

Molten-Core Maestro could find homes in more aggressive Prowess lists that benefit from Menace and the permanent power increase to have a threat on the board. It has more potential when Emberheart Challenger and Slickshot Show-Off leave the format than in the present.

I can imagine Nature's Rhythm lists using a copy of Emil, Vastlands Roamer to grant evasion to all creatures alongside Ouroboroid. Outside that list, I don't believe Landfall or decks without a toolbox would be interested in it.

On the other hand, Germination Practicum costs more than Ouroboroid, but it increases the power of the entire board each turn by at least double what its predecessor does. Potential staple for Landfall lists due to its ability to turn every creature into a threat over a cycle of turns.

Modal cards like Glorious Decay eventually find space in Sideboards.

Planar Engineering could be a card for Landfall, especially when it enables a "hit-kill" with Mightform Harmonizer and a board position that's difficult to fight through with Sapling Nursery— a card I considered win-more that became a staple for a while. I could make the same mistake with this new spell.

There was a time when artifacts that generated "extra" draws served to give aggressive decks more staying power in grindy games. That time has probably passed, but Ark of Hunger deserves an honorable mention.

Eladamri's Call and Entomb had a child, and it fits perfectly into Reanimator lists with Bringer of the Last Gift and Superior Spider-Man. It could easily replace cards like Overlord of the Balemurk or Dredger's Insight to add more consistency.

Current lists don't seem to have room for this type of card, but Lorehold Charm would be a solid addition to increase the clock of Boros Pingers/Boros Mobilize in the same slot that recovers cards like Voice of Victory or Shocking Sharpshooter.

Revealing a Jeskai Revelation—unintentional pun—from the Miracle of Lorehold, the Historian will be the motivation to test it as a two-of in some Jeskai Control variant alongside Shiko, Paragon of the Way. It could work, or it could be another case of win more.

If Moment of Reckoning resolves in a Midrange mirror, it practically turns the game in your favor. Orzhov/Abzan/Mardu lists today don't have an easy time reaching seven mana, nor do they have much space in the Metagame, while Four-Color Control doesn't seem like the type of deck that would use this card today. It will likely sit in the format's fridge for a while.

Staple. All modes of Prismari Charm benefit Izzet Prowess and Izzet Elementals with a Preordain at instant speed, help hold off some one-drops, and occasionally answer tokens from Stormchaser's Talent.

Professor Dellian Fel is the typical Midrange Planeswalker: answers threats, generates card advantage, and holds the game against Aggro. The emblem will be negligible in most situations, but it could serve to win games in long matches. Perhaps it's a bit too fair to justify its inclusion in a format with Erode.

Potential sleeper. Resonating Lute could be broken. We saw with Vivi Ornitier what happens when you give spellslinger archetypes the ability to "generate mana for free," and the new artifact—though it costs more—doubles the available mana for playing instants and sorceries and fixes color restrictions.

Having it on the board means casting Jeskai Revelation on the following turn and still having three mana left over for any other spell or interaction or sequencing multiple effects between removal and spells. Moreover, if we happen to have seven cards in hand, it turns into Library of Alexandria.

That's a lot for a single card, and it remains to be seen whether the format can adapt and whether answers will be sufficient to prevent the new artifact from becoming troublesome. If it doesn't become problematic, it's an excellent enabler for Five-Color Control.

Sweeper and card advantage source in the same slot. Splatter Technique might cost too much to deserve space in Izzet lists today, but it deserves an honorable mention.

Traumatic Critique interacts with the board, triggers looting effects, and fuels the graveyard with two cards for cost reducers. It could replace Abandon Attachments in Spellementals lists.

Speaking of flexible cards, Vibrant Outburst answers a small creature and removes another blocker from the way, or increases the clock while removing the opponent's only large blocker. Worth testing in various Izzet lists.

Vicious Rivalry arrived a bit late, as it would have been an efficient answer to Cori-Steel Cutter, even though the life loss is an issue against very aggressive archetypes. It could see play against some go-wide Aggro decks, but it doesn't seem efficient enough to warrant splashes in the current Metagame.

Witherbloom Charm does a bit of everything but doesn't do any of them particularly well. It seems like a solid Sideboard option for answering Rest in Peace and Ghost Vacuum in the same slot that deals with creatures and enchantments like Stormchaser's Talent, but I can't imagine any archetype using it maindeck today.

The Dawning Archaic is an option for Izzet Lessons, which has plenty of ways to discard cards to fuel the graveyard without relying so heavily on the graveyard outside Accumulate Wisdom to the point that "Flashback" every turn becomes an issue, and I imagine one or two copies appearing in some lists.

Similarly, Jeskai Control can hold the game long enough for Archaic to cost little mana and be cast with backup protection. And if we've discarded or cast a Jeskai Revelation during the game, we can reuse it to generate an absurd amount of value.

Finally, there are Spellementals, and I don't see it entering that archetype because it would be another graveyard-dependent card that becomes a terrible topdeck in other circumstances, not to mention it's not an elemental and has poor interaction with Sunderflock.

Great Hall of the Biblioplex is another solid support for four- or five-color Control lists. Standard's mana base already supports five-color lists with relative ease by mixing Multiversal Passage with Shock Lands and Verges, but a land that unconditionally generates mana for instants and sorceries and always enters untapped does a good job of providing redundancy.

Ba Sing Se, Fabled Passage, Escape Tunnel, and Abandoned Air Temple are some of the main targets for Petrified Hamlet in Standard, so there's room for the card in the format.

The reprint of the Slow Lands is a benefit for less aggressive enemy-color lists, like Boros Dragons, and complements the Fast Land base well, while potentially serving as "budget lands" for those who don't want to pay high prices for Riverpyre Verge or Starting Town.

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!