General (SOS) Secrets of Strixhaven
- Thread starter ravnic
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Dom Harvey
Contributor
Saw a Reddit thread point out that Hardened Academic is also a Persist enabler (in both Finks and Redcap colours!) which intrigues me
I'm intrigued by this card. I wish the tokens were white-black spirits instead, but yeah.
These two would allow you to stay in Boros, while also playing with discard and counters. Seems like a tight Persist package is possible if you want it.+
I want all these cards for my Landfill budget cube but I don't think they are all going to be budget cards, lol.
Yes! I keep overlooking the juicy beefy double stuffed stats on these things. Hefty!
The last Paradigm spell... and I'm disappointed that it's just "put counters on things". I mean, yeah, sure, no complaints from a power level perspective, but it would've been nice if it wasn't reliant on having board presence to do stuff.
(More broadly, as someone who fiddles around with a creatureless Shigeki, Jukai Visionary commander deck, I'm kinda sick of Green's big spells all being so creature focused. Gimme expensive green High Tide with Paradigm, WotC, I'm promised I can be trusted with it.)
Expensive Green High Tide is 100% something I would play. I recently discovered Nissa, Worldwaker and that would spicy. (edit: now that I think about it a 2-cmc golgari high tide would be so in my wheelhouse its unreal)
Germination Practicum is pretty effective. Its cool as an almost inevitability with any persist creature, for those who like the game ending aspect of the Persist combo without the 'instantaneous' part of it
Germination Practicum is pretty effective. Its cool as an almost inevitability with any persist creature, for those who like the game ending aspect of the Persist combo without the 'instantaneous' part of it
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ouch, that is a really poor pox variant for my cube. I sad :[
Absolutely mind-noggling that Arnyn doesn't have a once-per-turn clause.
ouch, that is a really poor pox variant for my cube. I sad :[
At 5 pips this isn’t a card for most cubes.
Half of permanents gives this more ways to break symmetry, but gives your opponent more flexibility as well
I’m honestly just excited to see them looking at land destruction again
Dom Harvey
Contributor
a great plant for Baron Helmut Zemo!!
Dom Harvey
Contributor
Full spoiler up now!
This is a nice glue card if you're pushing the grindy/GY stuff in WR. Compared to Faithful Mending this being card-neutral (or card advantage if flashbacked!) is really nice
The prepared thing is the closest we'll get in paper Magic to @Chris Taylor's Scrolls idea which always tickled my fancy and I like a lot of the prepared designs
This is a nice glue card if you're pushing the grindy/GY stuff in WR. Compared to Faithful Mending this being card-neutral (or card advantage if flashbacked!) is really nice
The prepared thing is the closest we'll get in paper Magic to @Chris Taylor's Scrolls idea which always tickled my fancy and I like a lot of the prepared designs
I stand by saying that Vraan, Executioner Thane is one of the most underrated Cube cards of the last few years. Arnyn is great too, and likely will slot into more Cubes, despite the higher MV, but I do need to encourage everyone to consider Vraan as a great value card even if its limitation makes it less appealing for an all-in aristocrats strategy.
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I'm legitimately sad about Pox Plague! I normally don't let myself get hyped by the teasers, but Pox is one of my all-time favorite cards, was my first (and only) Legacy deck until it was stolen, and nothing made me sadder to take it out of my Cube. I was really hoping we'd get this same exact text for a price of
, which seems like totally fine power creep for a card that's just about 30 years old.--
Full image gallery is out!
Spells-matter Thraben Inspector! Very cool design that's only marginally less powerful and has plenty of Cubes that will want it more.
Moseo, Vein's New Dean is excellent, and the biggest single card pushing me to keep/expand my life gain matters subtheme. I like how it works on its own just enough to feel fine, but having the floor similar to that of a Preening Champion attached to repeatable reanimation is not the worst thing in the world. I'd been closely eying Celestine, the Living Saint for what, 3 years now? And if I was willing to pay 5 for this effect, surely I'm willing to pay 3, right?
Forum Necroscribe is an absurd card that I'm frankly shocked they printed, let alone at uncommon. Yeah, for 6 mana, you should get a lot, but this is a ton. Every removal spell gets a free Zombify added on? Incredible. For rarity-restricted cubes this is a bomb to end all bombs, with Ward no less! For power-level restricted Cubes, I think this doesn't fit because the repeatable reanimation on a creature with ward that swings for 5 damage herself each turn is just not the kind of Magic I imagine many of us wanting to support...but it is tantalizing all the same.
Leech Collector fills a similar role to Starscape Cleric, which I currently run. Just as I was about to give up on my minor life gain theme, this set comes out! I aesthetically don't like this card enough to exclude it for my list, but I may come back to it for doing exactly what I'm interested in playing with, even if in a vacuum I'd rather just play a second Starscape Cleric so I don't have to spend mana each time for the effect (or pay more upfront for the creature like with South Wind Avatar).
Five years ago this would've been one of the most talked-about cards from the set. Now with things like Stalactite Stalker and Moonshadow, it's so far from consideration for me it's silly, but that's how far 1mv creatures have come! I hope this gets attention in lower-powered and rarity-restricted lists, as this is a sweet, clean Magic card.
Rabid Attack seems legitimately good! Targeting multiple creatures may not matter too much in most Cubes, but the effect is valuable in even higher-powered Cubes, giving a Bx token/go-wide deck a win-win offensive strike. Neat! I'm considering this myself, to be honest.
Glorious Decay
I'm so happy we keep getting more of these. This one, like many of the others, is exceptionally good. Not in my top 3 disenchants, but unlike something like Pawpatch Formation (which is worse but I'm currently running), hitting artifacts over enchantments, if you can only hit one of the two, is preferred. I think I'd rather kill flyers than enchantments, even if the math doesn't actually work out for my Cube. Of course, the GY hate with a card draw is very welcome.
I really wish it was 5 damage to a creature with flying, or a straight-up kill spell, as I have 16 flyers that the Formation can knock out of the sky that this would fail to deal with before counting things like Dion and potential targets of Bre of Clan Stoutarm. Still, worth keeping on the radar.
Pursue the Past seems a little expensive to me, but I love it. Faithful Mending is excellent, and if this only had the same parallels as that one (instant speed, a slightly cheaper flashback cost) I'd be more than happy to dedicate a gold slot to it. The life gain here is no slouch, either, letting you get away with your durdling.
Oh, hey, another piece for the cheat-y unearth archetype. It's also actually feasible to cast normally, which is nice.
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A 4/2 for
that's resistant to removal seems pretty solid to me!
I have no idea if this is good, but I've always been a fan of Zhur-Taa Druid style ramp + ping, so I'm glad to see it again!
This would be so sweet if it milled the cards instead of putting them on the bottom, but alas.
What a neat little synergy piece for token decks.
What a clever way to bring up the floor for Mind Rot.
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Dom Harvey
Contributor
That doesn't cast from your graveyard to be clear
Oh, I know - the "archetype" is using spells like Unearth or Lorehold Charm to reanimate above-rate cards like Benevolent River Spirit or Patched Plaything, with the only version to really make a splash in constructed being reanimating Abhorrent Oculus.
1) but I do need to encourage everyone to consider Vraan as a great value card even if its limitation makes it less appealing for an all-in aristocrats strategy.
2) I'm legitimately sad about Pox Plague! I was really hoping we'd get this same exact text for a price of
1) I would run Vraan alongside other 'blood artists' in my list 100%, if only he wasn't printed in ONE. Which unfortunately means his art is contractually obligated to evoke the sterile 'joy' of an underfunded rural hospital after being attacked by a pipe bomb.
2) I am too. I blame MaRo for my decision to get my hopes up, that rascally talented Designer man. Even if the card was still in the '1/3rd + round up' end of things, I think the current 'sacrifices X of their permanents' wording would have been a cool adjacent Pox if it costed 3 black pips. But my honest hope was an Orzhov Mana Smallpox or a 3 Black Pip Smallpox with 'Paradigm'.