General [STX] Strixhaven Spoilers

[Onderzeeboot]

This is a mythic

Technically missing: 0/0 Fractal (lol) and 1/1 Grub?

That's a card that's quite good to pull out of your sideboard in the late game!

 

[Chris Taylor]

Which is why I assume it's mythic, but I'm not happy about it

 

[Chris Taylor]

Woah

Unlimited snapcasting on stuff that targets your creatures!
Also the outside chance you can kill someone with a 9 mana bolt

 

[japahn]

It'll be really "digital first" when we get triple faced cards.

But I already removed Pathways from my cube simply because it is so annoying to take them out of sleeves.

 

[Brad]

I quite like that enchantment!

I think it's decent, but I'm skeptical.

BGw counters? Maybe. These are pretty good, although I find Statement's design quite odd.

Strong combination of keywords. Significant that the ability doesn't say "you control." Seems like a serious bear.

Probably good. Looks ok at 4 mana and gets better from there. Shame that it destroys the WB quadbrid if you go all-in.

Vanishing Verse hits about 2/3 of my nonland permanents and it exiles, so that's an easy addition.

 

[LadyMapi]

I think Kaldheim and Strixhaven would be stronger sets if they didn't have MDFCs in them.

 

[Chris Taylor]

I think Kaldheim and Strixhaven would be stronger sets if they didn't have MDFCs in them.

Hard disagre

 

[japahn]

I mostly agree from the point of view of limited. The KHM MDFCs are so, so wordy that people keep missing what they do and it's humanly impossible to read one during a draft pick. Some are interesting to play with, others are just bombs, but they get more interesting when you build a deck with multiples, which doesn't happen in limited.

It is cool that they offer gameplay choices, but the complexity cost is so high that I'd rather see it done in other ways.

I just don't completely agree because the flavor is really good.

 

[whydirt]

I think the MDFCs are not executed well in Strixhaven for sure. Having two modes already makes them complex and then the ones here are super wordy on top of that. Not to mention few of them seem to have any thematic connections between the two sides.

Hopefully Wizards does better with their next attempt at this mechanic.

 

[LadyMapi]

The complexity is what's turning me off here — I have no problems with the Zendikar MDFCs.

 

[Rowan_CB]

I am just straight up not even bothering to read the Strixhaven MDFCs, which I can't ever remember happening during a spoiler season.

 

[Zoss]

Agreed. MDFCs are fantastic when they're elegant and concise and a garbage fire when they're not. I'm having a hard time thinking of another mechanic that's this good when it's implemented one way and this bad when it's implemented poorly.

 

[LadyMapi]

I think there has been one MDFC so far this spoiler season that I actually legitimately like:

The others haven't really justified their complexity.

 

[Brad]

I think there has been one MDFC so far this spoiler season that I actually legitimately like:

The others haven't really justified their complexity.

I'm likely going to run these as two single faced cards in my Onslaught cube. I don't want people fiddling with sleeves or having to read two big ass paragraphs every few cards.

 

[shamizy]

I was hoping to see more Elite Spellbinder styled cards, but the majority of this set is just a bloated mess to me.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I think Kaldheim and Strixhaven would be stronger sets if they didn't have MDFCs in them.

Hard disagre

I mostly agree from the point of view of limited. The KHM MDFCs are so, so wordy that people keep missing what they do and it's humanly impossible to read one during a draft pick. Some are interesting to play with, others are just bombs, but they get more interesting when you build a deck with multiples, which doesn't happen in limited.

It is cool that they offer gameplay choices, but the complexity cost is so high that I'd rather see it done in other ways.

I just don't completely agree because the flavor is really good.

The big issue with the DFCs from Kaldheim and Strixhaven is that too many of them are wordy.

The best thing about the MDFCs from Zendikar rising was that they were flexible and they were simple. If you knew what Tangled Florahedron and Tangled Vale did, you knew how the land side behaved for every other non-mythic MDFC in the set. In this regard, the ZNR MDFCs were some of the best DFCs of any type ever designed, because they all followed a relatively simple pattern.

Skip forward to Kaldheim and simple front and backsides were replaced with cards which had short novels on both faces. Luckily, most of the gods were extremely flavorful, so it made memorizing their abilities less daunting. Cards like Tegrid and her Lantern work well together, while other designs such as Esika's Bridge are memorable enough to make remembering both sides easier. Some cards were still problematic to remember, but they weren't too terrible.

Now with Strixhaven, neither face feels mechanically connected. Since The Dean Cycle is supposed to represent two colors conflicting views on their respective college's field, the cards end up feeling disjointed outside of their "Dean" name. Meanwhile, the Creature Front/Spell Backs cycle suffer from far too much complexity on both faces. The cards needed to be simpler to make sense, instead of feeling like two random cards stapled together.

The fix here would have been to print more MDFCs so that there could have been a card in every pack like in Zendikar Rising, print uncommon MDFCs in each set, and provide a common theme between all card in the set. For example, Zendikar Rising would have stayed the same, Kaldheim would have had Creatures on the front face and Noncreature, Nonland Permanents on the back, and Strixhaven would have Creature on the front and Instants/Sorceries on the back.

The Uncommons would have been relatively simple. For example, a Kaldheim Uncommon may have been a Blade of the Sixth Pride on the front and a Short Sword on the back, while a Strixhaven Uncommon MDFC would have been a Goblin Piker on the front and a overcosted Shock on the back. This would mean that Kaldheim would need to have some non-god front faces for MDFCs. The Mythic Gods, however, could largely remain the same (although I would re-desing Toralf to make it less convoluted and terrible). For Strixhaven, the Dean Cycle would need to be replaced with something else (although the Deans could probably remain in the set in some altered capacity). The front and backsides of all of the Creature/Spell cards would need to be severely simplified at all rarities. There are too many words on these cards, and they are too unrelated to feel coherent. I think this card is too complicated and it is the simplest of all of the actual Spell MDFCs in Strixhaven:

Unfortunately, these changes would not be possible to implement in practice. According to MaRo's article from Monday:

I'd been trying to create more mechanical cohesion between sets of the same "year," and I liked the idea of using MDFCs as a bridge between Zendikar Rising, Kaldheim, and Strixhaven. Aaron was correct in that letting the Powers That Be see actual designs helped calm their worries about the new mechanic. It also went well enough that I was able to sell Aaron on my three-set MDFC plan. There was one small hiccup that I hadn't foreseen, however. As we started working with them, it became clear that the Standard environment only wanted so many (and remember, we knew that Innistrad was coming out later in the years with transforming double-faced cards), which meant that all the sets had to cut back on their numbers.

So basically, design had to limit themselves on the number of MDFCs they were using because they had 3 sets to fill plus another set or two with double-faced cards coming later in the year which would have meant way too many double faced cards were in standard. For reference, we've only ever had a Large set and a Small set in standard using a full swath of Double-Faced cards at once before. This time, we're going to have at least 4 Large sets, probably 5 but maybe even 6, that have
double-faced cards in standard all at once. There's a lot of complexity there, and that forced WOTC to cut back. Ironically, that made the cards we got in Strixhaven a lot more complicated than they otherwise could have been.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I was hoping to see more Elite Spellbinder styled cards, but the majority of this set is just a bloated mess to me.

I heavily disagree with you on this point. While the limited environment for this set seems to be promoting the casting of large spells, the majority of the cube worthy cards out of this set are efficient creatures and cheap interaction. Of the cube worthy cards I remember off the top of my head, we have:

Spoiler

And that's not counting the two-dozen or so lesson/learn cards that are playable or the more fringe options that are definitely making it in to some number of Riptide cubes.

There's a lot of splash stuff going on in this set, but the real heroes are the Aggro and Tempo spells that are going to help streamline gameplay.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This card seems great:

Make a 5/4 and wish for a spell? Sign me up!

 

[Velrun]

Honestly Wizards got better and better at designing their MDFCs

This may sound controversial but there is a really good reason for it. They first designed Strixhaven’s MDFCs, then Kaldheim borrowed the mechanic, then Zendikar borrowed the mechanic. (I can’t remember which article MARO told us this but it is a long time ago. Pre-Kaldheim.)

So I am optimistic about the future of the mechanic if they bring it back in 3+ years.

 

[shamizy]

I don't see how that list was relevant to my point? This set is not elegant with the majority of its designs. A lot of cards are clunky to read through and feel disjointed. A lot read more like custom cards than fine-tuned inclusions to a finished set. Hell, you have a whole cycle of rare deans that apparently do a bunch of stuff that synergizes with their other side, but I can't tell you what a single pair does off the top of my head even after following daily spoilers. Like this abomination:

Okay so tap to exile a card but draw any lands you flip, otherwise exile and put study counters on them. Then you can pour excess mana into making a token with a +1/+1 counter for each different mana value among nonlands in exile with study counters on them. So now I need to track different CMCs in a separate zone. But not everything I own in exile, so I also have to keep those separate. Also these Fractals can be different sized depending on when you activate this. And this study counter is mostly irrelevant unless I play another copy with the other side that can then "draw" me these cards later. But wait, maybe these study counters matter with other things in this guild college? Nope.

At least with Cosima, God of the Voyage from Kaldheim the voyage counters were flavorful with a god that goes on long journeys and brings back goods and stories ala Leif Erikson. This is just messy all around.

Magecraft cards look cool for Limited and it's probably neat for someone's environment here, but it's not for me. I'm not interested in revamping whole sections of my cube to include cards that don't synergize with existing cards and probably wouldn't last a year. Ditto with Lessons; that's a huge miss for me as I don't think the majority of cards with the Learn mechanic are worth inclusion at my power level. I'm not into incorporating a narrow Lessons package and increasing complexity when, on first glance, it doesn't seem worth it in my environment.

If I'm focusing on the designs at rare and uncommon that might crack into my cube power level wise, the only two cards I'm even interested in trying out at this point are Prismari Command and Elite Spellbinder. The command fits in well with existing themes in my cube and Spellbinder is one of my favorite card designs in a long while. It's not overtly powerful, it has a ton of play to it, and it synergizes with multiple different themes that are common across cubes. It's an absolute slam dunk. Aside from these two, however, this set has been a miss for me and I'd imagine for most people that play with a higher powered cube.

And that's okay. I don't want or need every set to be appealing to me as a cube designer. Much like Ikoria last year, this feels like an inelegantly designed set that reads ugly but will likely play fine in its own Limited environment. That's cool, just not my cup of tea.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

I don't see how that list was relevant to my point? This set is not elegant with the majority of its designs. A lot of cards are clunky to read through and feel disjointed. A lot read more like custom cards than fine-tuned inclusions to a finished set. Hell, you have a whole cycle of rare deans that apparently do a bunch of stuff that synergizes with their other side, but I can't tell you what a single pair does off the top of my head even after following daily spoilers. Like this abomination:

Okay so tap to exile a card but draw any lands you flip, otherwise exile and put study counters on them. Then you can pour excess mana into making a token with a +1/+1 counter for each different mana value among nonlands in exile with study counters on them. So now I need to track different CMCs in a separate zone. But not everything I own in exile, so I also have to keep those separate. Also these Fractals can be different sized depending on when you activate this. And this study counter is mostly irrelevant unless I play another copy with the other side that can then "draw" me these cards later. But wait, maybe these study counters matter with other things in this guild college? Nope.

At least with Cosima, God of the Voyage from Kaldheim the voyage counters were flavorful with a god that goes on long journeys and brings back goods and stories ala Leif Erikson. This is just messy all around.

Magecraft cards look cool for Limited and it's probably neat for someone's environment here, but it's not for me. I'm not interested in revamping whole sections of my cube to include cards that don't currently synergize with existing cards and probably wouldn't last a year. Ditto with Lessons; that's a huge miss for me as I don't think the majority of cards with the Learn mechanic are worth inclusion at my power level. I'm not into incorporating a narrow Lessons package and increasing complexity either when, on first glance, it doesn't seem worth it in my environment.

If I'm focusing on the designs at rare and uncommon that might crack into my cube power level wise, the only two cards I'm even interested in trying out at this point are Prismari Command and Elite Spellbinder. The command fits in well with existing themes in my cube and Spellbinder is one of my favorite card designs in a long while. It's not overtly powerful, it has a ton of play to it, and it synergizes with multiple different themes that are common across cubes. It's an absolute slam dunk. Aside from these two, however, this set has been a miss for me and I'd imagine for most people that play with a higher powered cube.

And that's okay. I don't want or need every set to be appealing to me as a cube designer. Much like Ikoria last year, this feels like an inelegantly designed set that reads ugly but will likely play fine in its own Limited environment. That's cool, just not my cup of tea.

I think we agree about the MDFCs, but you are severely underestimating the power level of the other mechanics in this set.I also have a high powered cube, and Magecraft looks like it is going to be great in mine without requiring any archetype adjustments. I also know people with decks-not-cards style cubes of higher power levels than both of ours who are going to be playing lots of Magecraft and at least test some amount of lesson/learn. If you only want to run Elite Spellbinder and Prismari Command, that's fine, but I think it's a severe miscalculation to say that the set as a whole is bloated. There is a wellspring of great cards for streamlined environments in this set. Elite Spellbinder doesn't even crack the top five from a power level perspective.

 

[TrainmasterGT]

This card is really good, and not just because the warlock is wearing a killer outfit! A black Young Pyromancer is surprisingly useful. Black is very removal heavy and will usually be able to trigger this on a regular basis. Sedgemoor Witch seems especially good in discard-heavy Dreadhorde Arcanist decks which can often leverage the spell triggers.

Even without dedicated spells synergy, this card is still pretty good. A 3/2 menace body is going to be able to get in for a decent chunk of damage over the course of the game. The Ward cost is going to keep the Witch from dying for no value- she always at least bolts the opponent.

This card is very good and I am excited to cube with it.

 

[Velrun]

It’s Witherbloom day



Pretty efficient if your Aristocrats are also in green.



This seems like a load of text if somebody should play your cube in 5 years and didn’t play during Strixhaven. It seems like a generic good stuff card.



Spell trample is getting less and less rare and Un-set-ish.



Nothing to say. Just wanted to show this to you. That line of text is evocative.



So beautiful!

 

[Onderzeeboot]

I think Poet's Quill has some potential as well. Lifelink is one of the best abilities you can stick on a creature, and it tutors to boot!

 

[TrainmasterGT]

It’s Witherbloom day

So beautiful!

This is definitely a contender for the best piece of art in the set, which is really saying something considering the high quality of many of the Mystical Archive and Japanese region exclusive artworks.