Hey everyone! I’m about to let you in on some pretty good secrets about what is going on at a certain school of wizardry. I know the haters of Universes Beyond are screaming about how this better not be a freaking Harry Potter set (I definitely didn’t make that reference entirely to get the search engine hits). Luckily for those people, we are back in the normal Magic Universe and heading back to Strixhaven. Now the real question is what kind of secrets are hiding there (some might say there is an entire chamber of them).
I should probably get back to Magic before they have me committed for being a rambling old man who needs his meds and a nap.
Today we will be going over the different archetypes available in Secrets of Strixhaven (SOS) draft along while providing an archetype skeleton of each. This set only has five supported archetypes so it will be a bit shorter than some of the other iterations.
For those of you unfamiliar with archetype skeletons, they are solid versions of each archetype built under specific restrictions. Think of them as decks that could trophy, but are far from guaranteed to do so. It wouldn’t do you much good to look at busted versions because those decks build and play themselves when they pop up. This type of exercise is focused more on maximizing your return while sitting in an average draft seat.
We will be using the limitations of two regular rares (no mythics), five regular uncommons (no duplicates), one mystic archive rare, one mystic archive uncommon, and not more than two of any common. While that combination may seem excessive compared to some previous archetype skeletons, the mystical archive adds a pretty big bump to the decks rarity (and power) wise. If the deck list says it has a different rarity combination, it is only because it is showing different versions of the card. I can assure you that it is correct for the SOS versions.
The mana bases will remain static for simplicities sake. They will be one of the appropriate dual land with eight of each basic land. I am aware that the math for number of sources might be incorrect on some of these, but that is beyond what is necessary for this exercise. Please don’t be that person who messages me to complain about this.
This is repartee aggro which is mostly a fancy way of saying that you beat down with a bunch of combat tricks. You get bonuses for targeting creatures which lets you come up with some absurdly crazy turns that can take your opponent out like an RKO out of nowhere. (I’m writing this right before Wrestlemania weekend so I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to throw in a WWE reference)
One of the things that you may notice about repartee is that it says “target a creature” not just one that you control. That means you get triggers off of removal as well making it a great mechanic for this color combo.
The Boros theme is, strangely enough, not burning everything in sight while beating down. It is instead focused on flashback excavation aka messing around with your graveyard. While that is typically a very Golgari thing to do, this time they are walking a mile in each other shoes.
Flashback is already inherent card advantage and that can pile on even quicker when you get those extra triggers from the Lorehold guild cards.
Izzet a spells deck again? (Am I going to write an original joke for this one, probably not when this one so easily presents itself every set). You would be correct in guessing that it is.
People used to call this Joshmari back when I was streaming original Strixhaven because I would end up in it almost every draft. It was never intentional, I would go into every new draft hoping to take busted Silverquill (aka the best deck) and sure enough I’d get passed something stupid in Izzet. Everyone else would fight over inklings while I was wheeling everything I could ever want. It was more taking advantage of a market inefficiency than anything else. Oh you don’t want ADHD story time…fine…
Cast spells = good. Cast bigger spells = better. Cast no spells = Should have taken a mulligan.
Simic actually has a theme in Strixhaven instead of their usual plan of ramping up to play big creatures. Instead it is ramping up to play creatures that are big because they have a lot of +1+1 counters. It also involves a bunch of math so some of you might want to stick to the beatdown decks.
You’re expecting this to be the classic Golgari archetype that dumps a bunch of stuff into the graveyard for value, but you know what they say about assumptions. Instead of that, this is doing something called lifegain swarm. That certainly sounds like something you would expect a white deck to do, but this school likes their students to be well rounded.
I’m sure you were also expecting some dad joke about being a pest here, but that’s a little low even for me.
Josh is a member of the elite limited team The Draft Lab as well as the host of The Draft Lab Podcast. He was qualifying for Pro Tours, Nationals, and Worlds literally before some of you were born. After a Magic hiatus to play poker and go to medical school, he has been dominating Arena with over an 80% win percentage in Bo3 as well as making #1 rank in Mythic.
