Greetings Ladies, Gentlemen, and Kavus! another more nurturing round of spoilers just drop off, our friends at WoTC made a fantastic video introduction for next upcoming set Secrets of Strixhaven, College campus comprised of 5 colleges, but I bet you already know this, this time around we have a fantastic drops on Spoilers yesterday and that means we are do to an spoilers analysis to what this set is coming to offer with new abilities, critters, spells, so Students be ready for spoiler lectures by Code!
Let’s start easy with the next lands cycle
this is a land cycle that doesnt get much on the early turns, definitely helpful post 2nd turn onwards, or a certain tapped first turn, and pretty much useful later on with a comfortable mana fixing, these type of lands are ideal in tri colored decks.
Now for the strong stuff The Dawning Archaic 7/7 Reach Avatar, with affinity for instant and sorceries in graveyard, and once this Avatar attacks, you may play an instant and sorcery from the graveyard without paying its mana cost, on resolution it’s exiled, in my book this is a heavy hitter might see some play in standard along with Izzet archetypes yeah I know more fuel for Izzet can’t be good, but maybe just maybe hear me out, this might actually turn for the better.
Now for the next Charm cycle I am seeing really cards, Quandrix Charm an almost strictly better Mana Leak, the counterspell part is 80% of this card, as the other two effects might not see much use depends only on situation, changing base power and toughness is basically a combat only power up, to either change a 1/1 into a 5/5 during attack or block, so either way you punch 4 more damage on an attack or destroying an opponent’s attacking creature by power up, either way for Simic the counterspell part is the best, look what Dovin's Veto did to Standard in comparison of effects.
Witherbloom Charm, sacrificing a piece of board to draw two cards? perfect in this color combinations that believes birth and death is part of the cycle of life, second effect shy of gaining 5 life, but the third effect might be what balances this card out for destroying early game pieces consistently, really good all round card.
Prismari Charm, Surveil 2, with a draw, no discard on sight, which is something new nowadays, pings for 2 damage on two targets which is really impressive, and unsummon effect? really good on the charms side.
Silverquill Charm, 2 +1/+1 counters on target creature, solid. Exile creature with power 2 or less, which is good not the best but still good, and lastly a 3 life points syphon, this charm is not bad as it seems but sadly I am considering this charm the worst in the cycle.
Lorehold Charm, the star of the night I would say, starting with a sacrifice nontoken artifact of their choice, forces the opponent to sacrifice a plastic piece of their strategy, though not every deck brings artifacts into play, now for the big effects, a revive for a 2 mana cost piece to return the battlefield, might not seem much but there’s plenty of critters and with Hardened Academic on the line, it might be proven useful to reuse either on revive on being revived, and the last effect is what I would say makes this card a big hit, +1/+1 and trample for all of your creature for just 2 mana, this is quite exceptional on combat Trample source at instant speed have been on the low for quite a while now, and seeing this on Boros colors makes me quite happy.
Now on the critters side of things, we have Hardened Academic a 2 mana drop flying haste, discard a card and gains lifelink, this card is too good to be true, and then whenever a card leaves the graveyard it gets a +1/+1 counter, not an EOT effect but an actual counter, this card is going to be played a lot!
Berta, Wise Extrapolator, an Increment ability, whenever you play a spell with higher mana cost than this creature Power, will gain a +1/+1 counter, this means, when Berta enters, when you play a 2 mana cost spell She will gain +1/+1 counter, and the same on higher mana costs, and with Berta Specially will add mana everytime a counter is added, and a pay X tap, creates a token with X +1/+1, what will be happening is Berta will become either a Lightning Rod, catching all types of removals, or will give birth to plenty of tokens to stomp the opponent out.
Conciliator's Duelist, a heavily mana cost of 2 whites and 2 blacks, not at all comfortable for a third color splash, on ETB draws a card, and each player loses 1 life. and has Repartee, Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets a creature, exile up to one target creature. Return that card to the battlefield under its owner’s control at the beginning of the next end step, this effect right here is over powered but at the right circumstances this card might protect itself by blinking out and coming back on ETB, and also for ANY creature on the battlefield, you could spell sling 3 spells one turn and remove 3 creatures from blocking an attack, sounds situational I know, but this is the way for Silverquill to deal things, a bit of the Orzhov way of syphoning and a too much of instant sorcery play, my guess this archetype will be filled with a lot of spells that put tokens on the battlefield.
Colorstorm Stallion, 3/3 by 3 mana, Ward 1, Haste, Opus effect, Whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, this creature gets +1/+1 until end of turn. If five or more mana was spen to cast that spell, create a token that’s a copy of this creature. Opus is basically a turn wise power up but when the big spells hit resolution Opus creatures will clone themselves making for a bigger battlefield.
And now for the big Five’s our legendary elder dragons insignia from each College, starting with Witherbloom, The Balancer Affinity for creatures, Flying, Deathtouch, and a really distinctive ability for a Gruul legendary, Instant and Sorcery have affinity for creatures, and this right here is the big deal, this is going to be so good for Brawl or Commander play, sometimes Gruul revolves around either Creatures or Spells, and with this definitely you can mix the two.
Quandrix, The Proof 6/6 Flying, Trample, Cascade, Instant and Sorcery spell from your hand have cascade, now you can see the pattern for these all mighty elder dragon lords, Quandrix is really over the top on the mana cost, but definitely worth as Quandrix will come after the Cascade resolution, so Quandrix, will either bring a creature or spell everytime is cast.
Silverquill, the Disputant Flying, Vigilance, Each instant sorcery spell cast has casualty 1. this means you can copy your spells by sacrificing a 1/1 creature. I really like this card despite that I am long Orzhov fan, its a cheap 4/4 for 4 mana, 2 keywords, and able to turn your creatures into more spells.
Prismari, The Inspiration Flying, Ward- 5 life. Instant and Sorcery spells you cast have storm. 7/7 for 7 quite on the high end for Izzet and with no counterspell protection is lackluster, no haste either, and too difficult to cast to have use of the storm ability, on a Temur deck with more ramping options and play early on to detonate an early combo.
Wrapping Up
There’s tons of new cards from Strixhaven lets wait and see how this set shapes up to be, Molten-Core Maestro is a Goblin Bard 2/2 Menace 2 drop with an Opus source to add +1/+1 counters on it. if 5 or more mana was spent to cast that spell, add an amount of red mana equal to this creature’s power. is a really good card into the goblin pool of cards maybe this card will recieve some love in mono red, but please let’s tone down Izzet options down a bit, the Standard meta needs a much deserved Meta diversification, Withering Curse and strictly better Infest with an Infusion keyword If you gained life this turn, destroy all creatures instead, a really good card for Black decks I think this set will shift the meta into a more favorable Grixis and Jund type of decks.
