College Cup: Test of Leadership Event Guide and Strixhaven Brawl Decklists

Hello everyone! Today will be the final guide on the three part event series that is the College Cup. Each week there was a different variation of a Standard format you can battle in to earn points for your preferred Strixhaven School! Make sure to check out the main guide for the full details and the leaderboard on which college is leading!

The third event is called Test of Leadership and the format is Strixhaven Brawl! The trick though, is that players are required to build Brawl decks that only contain legendary creatures and planeswalkers from Strixhaven, and of course, any non-legendary card from Standard.

Although no cards are specifically banned here, most people aren’t familiar with Brawl’s banlist so I’ll post it here.

• Drannith Magistrate
• Lutri, the Spellchaser
• Oko, Thief of Crowns
• Omnath, Locus of Creation
• Runed Halo
• Sorcerous Spyglass
• Winota, Joiner of Forces

Event Details

• Duration: May 27, 2021 at 8:00 AM PST – May 31, at 8:00 AM PST
• Format: Strixhaven Brawl
• Entry Fee: 2,500 Gold or 500 Gems
• Ends After: You can keep playing, but rewards do not go past four wins.
• Match Structure: Best-of-one matches (BO1)

Event Rewards

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• 1 Win: Adventurous Impulse Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 2 Wins: Village Rites Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 3 Wins: Divine Gambit Japanese Mystical Archive card style
• 4 Wins: Claim the Firstborn Japanese Mystical Archive card style

Strixhaven Brawl Decklists

NOTE: THE DECKS SHOULD HAVE 59 CARDS IN THEM AS THE 60TH IS YOUR COMMANDER.

I have 7 lists to start you out with, but definitely flex those brewing muscles to see what you can come up with as well. Unlike the other events I don’t have any special tips on how to build your deck as this is just normal Brawl with a limited Commander pool. To take a look at what is good in Brawl, you can check out the lists below or our compendium of Brawl decks here.

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[sd_deck deck=”2PFik-zFB”]

Unlike most of the other decks, this Lorehold deck is entirely built around resolving our Commander. Ideally we can ramp into Velomachus then protect it long enough to kill the opponent in a few turns!

[sd_deck deck=”Hs-x5FJ7e”]

A solid midrange deck with one of the best top end cards available in Professor Onyx. Use your cleaner manabase to always cast your spells on time and have access to more utility lands!

[sd_deck deck=”TuAeqg5Ny”]

Casting spells is the name of the game with this deck and it does it well. Get your Commander out early to to make all your early spells cost less then grind them out later with huge hitters like Kiora Bests the Sea God and Magma Opus.

[sd_deck deck=”wKJ7qmn0T”]

Brawl decks tend to be on the clunkier side, so this deck looks to take advantage of that. Get on the board quickly with your early dudes and keep casting Awaken the Blood Avatar over and over.

[sd_deck deck=”avvTtOejl”]

Similar to the Zimone deck, Witherbloom wants to ramp hard and start slamming heavy hitters each turn to overwhelm the opponent. Beledross lets you have insane turns where you can cast two huge threats by using the activated ability to untap all your lands!

[sd_deck deck=”DMmJDJ44_”]

I still consider Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy to be one of, if not the best Commander in standard Brawl. Zimone is no Kinnan, but she works in a similar shell where you want to ramp a bunch and start casting fatties.

[sd_deck deck=”ztF-YcHv6″]

I’m not saying you’ll win every game you play with this deck and achieve all your goals, but I’m certainly not saying that you won’t either. Codie is one of the coolest cards to come out in awhile and there’s no way I could not build a deck around it! With a grand total of 0 permanents, this deck is all about casting a bunch of spells and making Codie look nuts.

Thank you for reading! Hope you enjoy the College Cup!