These are the cards I'm testing from Strixhaven: School of Mages
I've actually had a few chances to play with this card already at the time of writing this (as well as the other commands) as I've had it in my list since it was spoiled about a month ago and while my initial impression was high I have tempered my hype on the card somewhat. Three mana is quite a lot for a reactive spell these days and while Prismari Command does offer quite a decent amount of modality, the highest value mode (
shock +
shatter) is a bit more narrow in the context of my current format than perhaps I was initially aware of. When looking at this card I think one should carefully consider the average toughness within their environment as well as the density of artifacts as both of those things can strongly influence how frequently this card can get maximum value. I don't currently support things like Reanimator or Storm in my cube either so the ability to fuel the graveyard with stuff isn't as potent in my format where as it easily could be in others. All of this said, I'm going to continue to run the card as it still does enough reasonable things to justify itself, but will it stick around for years to come like
Kolaghan's Command has? I'm not so sure.
Like Prismari Command, my early impressions were much higher than my current view of the card.
Quandrix Command has most played out in a similar way to
Dromoka's Command in that I have found the primary mode to be trying to force massive blowouts against decks that are trying to attack into you while you have a boardstate and in this aspect the card certainly doesn't disappoint but at 3 mana and with some contextually more narrow modes as again my artifact/enchantment density isn't super high nor are there any graveyard combo decks, the other modes have felt quite a bit more lacking, still relevant when they hit though. I think this card is okay as a flexible reactive spell but it's probably not something I expect to be taking too high in pick order, so for those of you with smaller gold sections I don't really think this is close to the top of what Simic has to offer.
This is the final command I've been actively testing and unlike the previous two, this one has been quite excellent for me. My format curves fairly low and has a high density of fetch lands and 1 toughness creatures so the environment is essentially tailor made for a card like this. Being able to pick off an opposing
Young Pyromancer and buy back a fetch land for 2 mana honestly feels like cheating when it hits as does popping super powerful cheap non-creature permanents like
Sylvan Library,
Umezawa's Jitte or
Journey to Nowhere. I think this card is going to do some really exciting things for the constructed formats with fetch lands and cubes with similar mana quality but if you aren't reliably able to buyback a land I think the floor on this card sinks like a stone and you might be worth looking elsewhere for golgari cards.
I like the design of this card quite a lot, it reminds me of
Drowned in the Loch, which is a card that has impressed me quite a lot in cube. I think a counterspell, even a taxing
Negate, that has the ability to answer permanents on the board, even with a fight spell, is something that can be quite powerful. As far as the
Counterspell mode is concerned a 2cmc mana leak for non-creature spells still puts this in a fairly efficienct space as the vast majority of the time this is going to play just like negate. The fight spell is obviously the far less efficient mode and with it comes some inherent risk of blowout if you play it into open mana, but the upside there is of course a 2 mana instant speed hard removal spell, so you will get paid off if it hits. I expect this card will be able to do some good work in more creature heavy UGx decks that can leverage the fight spell as a relevant mode as leveraging your
Hooting Mandrills or
Tarmogoyf to bunch down at blockers can lead to good damage, but I don't think the more reactive decks that are essentially splashing green for stuff like
Ice-Fang Coatl or golgari removal spells are going to be as interested, although they very well might still play it.
I don't think I need to really spend a lot of words on this one, it's a 2 mana instant that exiles a ton of cards of a wide range of permanent types, even in a gold heavy cube like mine this is still going to be hitting multiple high impact cards against just about every opponent. I think this is probably the best WB removal spell of all time and it's probably not even that close.
This card looks like an outstandingly powerful sweeper for my format. This can slot into a pretty wide range of decks as 5c
Niv-Mizzet Reborn pile will obviously love it as a wrath they can draw off their big dragon, Sultai control can use it and I wouldn't even be too shocked to see it brought out of the sideboard by Jund and Abzan. The range of things this spell kills is pretty nuts in that most of the impactful threats in the format tend to cost 1 or 2 mana and 3+ drops dodging the sweep can even be a boon should you be developing your own thing in the turn leading into this, which is something a like of BGx decks are certainly interested in doing.
I love xerox threats. Sedgemoor Witch is a very reasonable xerox threat. I will be cubing Sedgemoor Witch. Yes, I will also be putting in
Chain of Smog for the chance to pull off the occasional cheesy combo. I like this card a lot, I think it's neat.
Speaking of xerox, why yes, I do want a
Strategic Planning that is also a 2 mv divination in later turns, thank you WotC, I accept this offering. I really wish there was more to say about this card but like, you don't need me to read the card for you, it says "good" in it's text box, I'm gonna play it in my cube, and probably several constructed decks too.
What a sweet design this dude is! UGx decks can be fairly mana hungry at times and I love how Quandrix Apprentice just passively will guarantee you hit your land drops by simply doing the thing your deck wants to do, which is cast cantrips, counterspells and removal spells. This card is going to draw out removal like a lightning rod as there's no way your opponent can afford to let you stick this guy and get tons of free value but if you can afford to delay playing it until you can guarantee one trigger I think you're totally fine with that exchange as even if you brick on finding a land you're still getting yourself 3 cards closer to finding one.
Guys! They did it! They actually fucking did it! Wizards of the Coast did it! I can hardly believe my eyes, it's just so beautiful! A good boros card! It doesn't require any weird synergy like
Feather, the Redeemed or
Nahiri, Heir of the Ancients. It's an honest to goodness no-strings-attached good card! Wow. I love it. To whomever designed this card, thank you <3
Okay, I think this card is getting slept on. This is
Fractured Identity for 1 mana less and it doesn't even put you into a second color. We all know everyone loves
Cryptic Command so this kind of mana cost isn't exactly a dealbreaker for most cubers and the rate here is nuts! 4 mana to take my opponents best thing, creature or planeswalker, and unlike
Control Magic they can't even disenchant their way back into the game? How is this card not getting more hype? I just don't get it. Everything good already costs 3 mana or less anyway, y'all don't want to snatch your opponent's Kroxa, Uro, Oko, Daretti, Liliana, Tireless Tracker, Mentor, etc etc etc? I do! I think this card SLAPS!
I think this card honestly looks kinda not great, like a worse Seeker of the Way, and I don't really love
Seeker of the Way. But we're at the point where we've kinda hit a critical mass of reasonable UWx tempo cards and I think this lionperson deserves a fair shake. In fairness to the Lightscribe he does essentially have double-prowess if you have another lad on the board and tripple prowess if for whatever reason your opponent totally bricked on removal spells. The ceiling is very high on this card and it can potentially lead to set ups where all your dudes turn into monks, you cantrip once or twice, maybe fire off a
Fire Ambush and all of a sudden your opponent went from taking four damage to 15 and they're just dead. I'm interested to see how this dude plays out.
Man, I love this set. We're just getting showered in goodies for xerox decks. This puppy right here is probably the best
Quirion Dryad variant Wizards has printed yet! Starting out as a 2/2 instead of an icky 1/1 like Dryad or
Deeproot Elite is a HUGE deal as it means with only a single cantrip we're already a totally respectable 3/3 body which can both beat down and hold down the for fairly effectively. The activated ability, while mostly flavor text, I'm sure will come up in a non-zero number of games and getting to give your 5/5 some Banejuice and turn it into a roided out 8/8 is going to help you clobber people pretty quickly. Sick card.
This is probably about as close to another
Delver of Secrets as we can reasonably expect in a standard legal set. Yeah, like the OG it requires you to put in a smidge of effort to grow it up to size, but a 2 power flyer for 1 mana is an extremely good rate and there are a number of other xerox threats that this will synergize with, you can grow up the base power of
Sprite Dragon, Young Pyro/Mentor tokens,
Jolrael, Mwonvuli Recluse,
Baleful Strix, the 1mv prowess guys, etc. I think this card is super reasonable and I will hapily toss it into my cube to give her a spin.
This is very possibly one of the best cards in the entire set. This card can push an absolutely outrageous amount of damage super early in the game. Even if you're only proccing her a single time she's swinging in with as much force as
Soul-Scar Mage, a staple of Modern prowess decks and if we're getting multiple triggers from freespells like
Manamorphose,
Gitaxian Probe or doublecasting
Lava Dart this card can get super super scary. As a lover of aggressive decks I can't wait to see how this card impacts constructed and maybe it's prettty cool in cube too.
In a similar vein to
Kalitas, Traitor of Ghet I think Extus can be a super reasonable grind piece for midrange decks. Being able to turn your
Doom Blades into
Kolaghan's Commands is honestly super powerful and can help you keep the gas flowing in grindier games. It's also worth noting that unlike Kalitas, Extus will get you value even when you cast proactive spells so things like
Thoughtseize,
Lingering Souls,
Unearth, etc can do their thing of pushing you further ahead while you're keeping your hand nice and healthy, assuming your graveyard has some dead goyfs in it of course.
Okay, I know I said Clever Lumimancer is one of the best cards in the set, but this card is the best card in the set and I don't think it's close. What a slam dunk of a preview of Modern Horizons 2 this card is. On power level I think Abudnant Harvest is batting pretty damn close to
Preordain, obviously we lose a few points for not being blue so you can't pitch it to
Force of Will /
Force of Negation which could impact how much play we see from this card in legacy but in Modern where
Ponder and Preordain are banned and there's no
Brainstorm in sight (unlike Historic for whatever reason); I think this is pretty easily one of if not the strongest cantrip legal in that format. The selection here is incredible, being able to guarantee you see your 2nd land when you keep a 1 lander with this card is the real fucking deal and unlike any other cantrip in the late game you are guaranteed to change this card out for a spell. What a nuts card! Pretty sure this is a cube staple until the end times for me.
This card is a super sweet design, on rate we get a 3/3 for 3 with haste which is already totally reasonable and at only a single red pip it's easy on the mana but being able to also effectively draw a 2nd card every turn is super strong. I honestly wouldn't be surprised if this becomes one of the defacto threats for Mono Red Prison in Legacy is this card's clocking faster than
Goblin Rabblemaster and helps that deck find more prison pieces and threats while doing it. A bit of a shame it's Legendary as drawing multiple is gonna stink in that format but w/e I guess if your opponent is just letting you untap with this gal they're gonna be dead pretty quickly anyway so it probably doesn't matter too much. For cube obviously the context is a bit different but I think this card easily slots into most aggro and midrange decks in red fairly comfortably and probably sits right underneath
Seasoned Pyromancer in the power level rankings for red 3s. An exciting printing that I wasn't expecting in a Commander deck.
Final Thoughts:
Strixhaven looks like a fairly powerful set with a number of cards that look like very reasonable cube cards as well as some impactful constructed cards. I can't wait to see the impact of cards like Abundant Harvest and Clever Lumimancer on Historic (and soon Modern!) and I'm equally amped to play with them in cube. A huge upgrade in terms of number of playables from what we saw from Kaldheim so for that all I can is thank Mark Rosewater for being lead designer, almost every time that guy leads a set it's gangbusters for cube. Looking forward to what comes next. Peace nerds!
