School is back in session! Take a seat, and enjoy our Secrets of Strixhaven Draft Guide, which will aim to teach you all the big picture stuff that’s going on in this draft format.
The lesson starts with mechanics overview and continues with the best commons. In the second part, you’ll find the archetype breakdown, which explains what each of the five factions is trying to do. Finally, the lecture wraps with a few additional tips.
Your work won’t be graded, but there will be mandatory Strixhaven drafts. With that said, let’s get to it!
UPDATE: (May 1st) This article got its first update today after a couple of weeks of drafting. Another one is coming next week in the Archetypes section and Additional Tips, but for the most part the information provided should be fairly accurate already.
Table of Contents
Secrets of Strixhaven Mechanics
There are eight (more or less major) mechanics in this set. Three of them aren’t connected to a particular faction:
- Prepare (major mechanic present in all five colors)
- Converge (a 5-color theme)
- Paradigm (only appears on a cycle of five mythic rares)
The other five mechanics correspond to the five supported 2-colors archetypes:
- Repartee (Silverquill: black-white)
- Flashback (Lorehold: red-white)
- Opus (Prismari: blue-red)
- Increment (Quandrix: blue-green)
- Infusion (Witherbloom: black-green)
Their rules will be explained in the next few sections. You’ll also find how to best utilize them in the Archetype overview.
Prepare
Prepare is the signature mechanic of the set, as it appears on 36 creatures across all colors and rarities.
A prepare creature works pretty similar to a regular creature, with one key twist. It has a spell attached, which you can cast, if the creature is prepared. (Then the creature becomes unprepared.)
Some creatures enters prepared, other require you to do something to make them prepared. This does sound a bit complicated, so let’s take a look at an example.
Encouraging Aviator needs to attack to become prepared. Once it’s prepared, you can cast Jump and give a creature flying until end of turn. When you do so, Aviator becomes unprepared. Thus, you’ll need to attack with it again to be able to cast Jump again.
There’s a wide variety of prepare creatures, so they should be evaluated on a card-by-card basis. Given that this mechanic is somewhat complex, you might want to read more about prepared rules.
Next up, a mechanic tied to the black-white color pair.
Repartee (Silverquill)
Prepare appears on a single enchantment and 11 creatures. A card with prepare gives you a benefit whenever you cast an instant or sorcery that targets a creature.
Repartee doesn’t care whether the creature is yours or your opponents’s, but you do need to cast an instant or sorcery spell that targets them. (Effects like auras and targeting abilities don’t count.)
Whenever you’ll cast an instant or a sorcery spell that targets a creature, Inkling Mascot will gain flying until the end of turn, and you’ll get to surveil 1. Pretty neat effect for a two drop.
Flashback (Lorehold)
Lorehold (red-white) cares about cards leaving your graveyard, which plays nicely with its signatur mechanic, flashback.
This is a returning mechanic, which appears on 10 instants and sorceries. A card with flashback can be cast from a graveyard by paying its flashback cost. (It’s exiled afterwards.)
You can cast Pursue the Past from your hand by paying two mana. You gain 2 life and draw two cards, if you discard one first. You can also cast it from your graveyard, but that costs four mana.
This is a great way to get a second use from your instant and sorceries and it plays well with this next mechanic too.
Opus (Prismari)
Opus appears on 10 creatures in blue and red. This effect benefits you whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell. Additionally, if you spend five or more mana on that spell, there’s an extra bonus.
Elemental Mascot is a 1/4 flyer with vigilance for three mana. It gets +1/+0 whenever you cast an instant or sorcery spell, thanks to its opus effect. However, if you’ve spent five mana on that spell, you also get to exile the top card of your library and play it until the end of your next turn.
All in all, this is a pretty cool new twist on the classic spellslinger mechanic.
Increment (Quandrix)
Nine creatures in blue and green feature the increment keyword. Whenever you cast a spell and the amount of mana you spent on it is greater than that creature’s power or toughness, you put a +1/+1 counter on that creature.
So, if you cast a one-mana spell, you won’t put a counter on Cuboid Colony. However, if you cast a two-mana or higher cost spell, Colony will get a +1/+1 counter. (To get the second counter, you’ll now need to pay 3+ mana for a spell, as it’s now a 2/2.)
Infusion (Witherbloom)
You’ll find 12 black and green cards with the infusion mechanic. They are pretty straightforward: if you gained life in the current turn, they get a benefit of sorts.
For example, Educator is a 4 mana 4/4 with vigilance and reach. Kinda mediocre nowadays, but it enters with a couple of counters if you gained life on the turn you cast it. Now that’s certainly above the curve.
Converge
Converge cares about how many colors of mana you’ve spent on a spell. More colors equal better effects. Converge seemed like a minor subtheme, with only 9 total cards (4 colorless cards and 5 in red, black, and green). However, the uncommons and higher rarities are surprisingly powerful, if you can enable them.
If you play a converge card, such as Rancorous Archaic, in a 2-color deck, you won’t be happy with the result. Five mana for a 4/4 is simply too bad.
Now, if you can cast it for WUBRG, you’re getting a 7/7, which is nothing to scoff at. Although that is quite hard to achieve on turn 5, getting to four colors isn’t too problematic. (More about this in the Additional Tips section.)
Paradigm
The final mechanic appears on only five mythic rare cards. (One in each color.) When you cast a spell with paradigm, you exile it. Afterwards, you get a free extra copy on each of your first main phases. In a way, it kinda works like an emblem.
This is a particularly insane paradigm card. For five mana you put a couple of counters on each creature you control. Then you exile the card. On your next turn, you once again put 2 counters on all of your creatures.
If that somehow isn’t enough you’re getting additional free casts until the end of the game, which will hopefully end in your favor.
With that our lesson about mechanics is concluded and we’re moving to the best commons.
Best Commons for Secrets of Strixhaven Draft
It feels a bit weird to talk about mono-colored commons in a multicolor draft environment, but there are plenty of strong options that can fit into a couple of archetypes. Plus, these are the cards that you’ll see the most often, so it’s good to know which ones matter at a glance.
We’ll talk more about mutlicolor commons, and cards of higher rarities in the Archetypes part.
White
1. Elite Interceptor
If you’ve been playing for a while, this card might remind you of Thraben Inspector or Novice Inspector, both of which were solid commons.
This one kinda works the same, as a one mana creature that draws you a card for two mana. On top of that you also get to tap on untap a creature. That might not seem like much, but you’re paying so little for this effect, that you’ll happily play multiple Interceptors.
2. Ajani’s Response
We’ve seen similar removal spells before, and they were decent. But in this format, removal is particularly useful and this is the best way to deal with a creature in white. (At least at lower rarities.)
The discount is very relevant, but it’s also not the end of the world to pay five mana for the card occasionaly.
3. Stone Docent
Your two mana creatures just need to do something extra to make them desirable. Stone Docent does so by providing you some small value from your graveyard and working with some of the leaving-graveyard synergies.
Honorable Mention
With Eager Glyphmage you get a 3/3 and a flying 1/1 for four mana, which is useful. The only knock against the cards is that it doesn’t enable any particular synergies, but it’s still fine card on its own.
Blue
1. Essence Scatter
Creatures are the most common card type, so removing them for two mana is great. In Secrets of Strixhaven, that’s even more useful than usual, as many creature come with strong prepare spells tacked onto them.
If you’ll end up with multiples, you want to pair them with other instants. This way even if your opponent doesn’t cast a creature, you’ll still get to spend your mana. Thankfully, blue has no shortage of strong instants, as you’ll see from the other two commons.
2. Run Behind
These four mana pseudo-removal effects are always better than they look, and this one features an occasional cost reduction. While you don’t want a ton of these, as they do get clunky, you’ll typically really want the first one and won’t mind the second in most of your blue decks.
3. Banishing Betrayal
A cheap bounce spell with some extra utility always comes in handy. If you can time it just right (in response to a pump spell, during a double block, etc.) you can really get more than you paid for.
Still don’t always try to engineer a scenario where this happens. It’s perfectly fine to just bounce their five drop in order to get a relevant tempo swing.
Black
1. Last Gasp
Cheap instant speed removal is simply good. Last Gasp cleanly deals with 68.1% of creatures, plus it can also help you tag care of something larger mid-combat.
2. Wander Off
Simple card that gets rid of any creature at instant speed. Four mana is a perfectly reasonable price for this effect. Also, exile is quite relevant, as there are lots of effects that bring back creatures.
3. Send in the Pest
Two mana for a clean 2-for-1. We’ve seen such cards in the past and they’re always good. In this format, it’s a tad bit weaker with tons of card advantage available, but it’s still perfectly playable.
Plus, Pest tokens are also useful, as they gain you life for your infusion effects.
If you’ve played with original Strixhaven cards, note that Pest tokens work differently. Before, you gained life when they died, but now that happens on attacks.
Red
1. Unsubtle Mockery
Three mana to deal four damage at instant speed would already be in the running for the best common. (And not just in red, but overall.) But this comes with an additional bonus of surveil 1. This pushes Unstable Mockery into excellent territory and you’ll want zo pick up as many as you can when playing red.
2. Rubble Rouser
This card is one of those that we somehow missed in our first version of this Draft Guide. While each of its effects is somewhat mediocre on its own, they get significantly better when you tack all of them on the same card.
You’re getting card filtering, ramp, and damage to the opponent. Plus it enables Lorehold synergies extremely well. A great pickup, even in multiples.
3. Tome Blast
Neither two mana from hand or five mana from a graveyard isn’t particularly good for just two damage. Once you combine both effects on a single card, you are getting a 2-for-1, albeit a clunky one.
Additionally, Blast works with both Lorehold and Prismari synergies, making it a desirable effect.
Honorable Mentions
Goblin Glasswright and Expressive Firedancer are both fine two mana creatures that do something extra.
Green
1. Studious First-Year
Now this is a potent one drop and one of the best commons in the set. When you start with this in your hand, you’re going to feel great, and even in the mid-game it’s still fine.
Kinda similar to aforementioned Elite Interceptor but the card you draw is a land of your choice and you get to put it into play. It opens up the possibility of playing a four drop on turn three, enables easier splashing, and allows you to get away with a bit higher mana curve.
2. Burrog Barrage
Even without the buff effect, this is still a fine removal spell. Cheap instant, that doesn’t require a creature to fight is as good as it gets in green. (Just make sure your opponent can’t remove your creature in response.)
Paired with a deathtouch creature, this allows you to remove any creature, no matter its size. Speaking of which, here’s one such creature.
3. Noxious Newt
Besides looking incredibly cute, this lil’ guy also ramps you and eventually trades for something larger. (Or just prevents a large creature from attacking.)
It’s hard to ask for more from a two-mana common creature.
That’s it for the mono-colored commons. Are you prepared to start learning about the archetypes?
Secrets of Strixhaven Draft Archetypes
As mentioned before, there are five heavily supported archetypes:
- Black-White: Silverquill
- Red-White: Lorehold
- Blue-Red: Prismari
- Blue-Green: Qundrix
- Black-Green: Witherbloom
If you were to just pick good white and green cards, you wouldn’t get any multicolored cards for your deck, and there’s a lot of power in those cards. So, while it’s not technically impossible to draft a not-supported color pair, you should avoid doing so, unless you don’t care about your win rate.
What you can do is splash and you can do so in a couple of ways. First option: splash a powerful card or two of a third color. Second option: splash up to 2-3 other colors to enable powerful converge cards. (More about that later.)
Anyhow, with that lecture out of the way, let’s move on to the first archetype, that is Silverquill.
Black-White: Silverquill Repartee Aggro
The official name for this archetype is repartee aggro and that is quite fitting. The deck wants to put pressure on the opponent early and capitalize on that with combat tricks and removal spells, both of which trigger repartee effects.
Speaking of which, why don’t we take a look at the payoffs for targeting creatures with instants and sorceries?
Repartee Payoffs
Of course, you can expect the best rewards at higher rarities. Conciliator’s Duelist, Informed Inkwright, and Stirring Hopesinger are all awesome, and well worth building around, when you open them in your first pack.
There are also nine more repartee cards at lower rarities. Some of the better options include:
- Lecturing Scornmage and Scolding Administrator both grow when you trigger repartee. The latter is particularly strong, as it’s not as weak to removal. (Provided you control another creature when it dies.)
- Melancholic Poet is a fine two drop, that can give you additional ways to close out a game.
- At four mana Inkshape Demonstrator can give you some life buffer, while being kinda hard to deal with efficiently.
- Snooping Page will draw you cards, making it easier to keep finding more instants and sorceries that target.
As you can see, there are plenty of options for you to choose from, even among non-rares. But what about ways to trigger them?
How to Trigger Repartee?
The best and most consistent way to do so is with removal spells. Every deck needs those anyways, and you’ll get additional bonuses for removing opposing creatures. Cards like Foolish Fate, thus becomes even better if your deck contain repartee creatures.
Creatures with prepare spells that target, such as Abigale, Poet Laureate, Adventurous Eater, and Spiritcall Enthusiast are also useful. (Although the cards themselves aren’t particularly powerful.) They keep your creature count high enough, while also being instants and sorceries.
Finally, combat tricks, such as Interjection also work quite nicely and Killian’s Confidence also shines here.
Just Play Good Cards
Last thing to note is that don’t get too tunnel visioned into drafting a repartee-themed deck. You still want to include cards that are simply strong on their own, such as Stirring Honormancer.
Red-White: Lorehold Cards-Leaving-Graveyard
Lorehold features unique and a bit weird strategy. It cares about cards leaving your graveyard.
But here’s the great thing — you don’t need to play underpowered cards to enable these synergies. Most of the cards that go in a typical Lorehold deck are fairly decent on their own. Here, let’s take a look at few examples.
Cards Leaving the Graveyard
- Startled Relic Sloth is a 4/4 lifelinker with trample for four mana. That’s already good enough, but it also happens to exile a card from a graveyard on each of your combats.
- Practiced Scrollsmith essentially returns a noncreature spell from your graveyard for a turn. A strong card, even without additional synergies.
- We’ve already mentioned Stone Docent when among the Best Commons. Naturally, its at its best in this archetype.
- Pursue the Past is much much better than it looks. A great card advantage spell that plays extremely well in this format. You’ll happily play even the third copy. Thanks to the flashback it also leaves your graveyard.
Other flashback spells also fit here. They’re already two spells in one card, which is good, but you’ll also get to trigger some of your other cards.
As you can see, there’s plenty of ways to remove cards from your graveyard. What are the rewards for doing so?
Payoffs
At higher rarities, you’ve got Ark of Hunger and Hardened Academic. Both benefit if you can further enable them, but are already excellent cards on their own.
That goes for a lot of other cards too. For example, Wilt in the Heat is just a good removal spell at four mana, although it’s obviously better at two.
For some cards, you really want to at least somewhat enable them, so you can take full advantage of them. Kirol, History Buff, Primary Research, Living History, and Garrison Excavator would fall into that category.
For the most part though, you still want to draft a solid midrange deck and not just heavily force those synergies.
Sure, if you’re deciding between two cards of a similar power level, use the one that will support these “combos”. But if a card is just better in a vacuum, say something like Colossus of the Blood Age, just pick that one.
Blue-Red: Prismari Opus Instants & Sorceries
Blue-Red on the other hand leans heavily into synergies. In a typical fashion for this color pair it rewards you for casting instants and sorceries. Due to opus cards, you’re getting additional benefits when you spend 5+ mana on an instant or sorcery.
Best Opus Effects
As expected, the best opus cards are at higher rarities. Colorstorm Stallion can take over the game with the right support and Molten-Core Maestro can also make for some explosive starts.
There are also useful cards at lower rarities. There’s Thunderdrum Soloist, Spectacular Skywhale, and Elemental Mascot just to name a few.
However, these are not the only rewards for drafting lots of instants and sorceries.
Additionally Synergies
- Abstract Paintmage and Tablet of Discovery both provide a significant mana boost.
- Hydro-Channeler also ramps you, but by a lesser amount.
- Pigment Wrangler‘s prepare spell gives you another copy of your instant or sorcery spell.
- More instants and sorceries mean better selection for cards like Zealous Lorecaster and Sanar, Unfinished Genius.
As you can see, there’s a bunch plenty of payoffs besides opus cards. (And that’s without accounting for rares, such as Resonating Lute.)
Plenty Of Instants & Sorceries
Another great thing about this archetype is that the payoffs are not the only thing that’s easy to come by. Secrets of Strixhaven is full of strong instant and sorcery spells.
You’ve got red removal (Unsubtle Mockery, Artistic Process) and blue interaction and card advantage (Essence Scatter, Quick Study). Plus, there’s also the Mystical Archives bonus sheet with a ton of powerful options.
As for the five mana spells, you’re best cards are the flexible ones, such as Tome Blast and Burst Lightning. Something that you can cast for 5+ mana, but are also able to use in the early game.
This Prismari archetype certainly looks like it’s got all the tools it needs to do really well in the format. The only tricky thing is figuring the right mix of payoffs and enablers. However, if cards you draft are strong on their own, you’ll likely do quite well.
Blue-Green: Quandrix Midrange
Quandrix is on the on the other side of the synergy spectrum. It doesn’t care about particular synergies, and just plays out like a typical midrange deck. You’re playing good cards, and occasionally you unlock a mini-combo or two. Still, this doesn’t mean that the archetype isn’t good, as it can certainly hold its own.
What About Increment?
Sure, the increment mechanic is featured in these two colors, but you don’t really build around it. You can do so by playing a deck with solid mana curve, which is something you want to do anyways.
So play strong increment creatures (Ambitious Augmenter, Cuboid Colony) and avoid weak ones (Hungry Graffalon, Textbook Tabulator). No need to do something special.
Ramping
As expected from these two colors, there is a small ramp theme present. Here are a few effects that allow you ramp ahead or simply make sure to hit your land drops-
You can get additional value from them with help from Tam, Observant Sequencer.
Furthermore, the various X-spells (Pterafractyl, Wild Hypothesis) can make sure you’re able to spend all of your extra mana. On top of that, Paradox Surveyor will help you find them.
Finally, don’t forget to pack in some interaction spells. Blue-green color pair can sometimes struggle with that, so make sure you pick cards like Chelonian Tackle relatively highly.
Black-Green: Witherbloom Lifegain
Black-green color pair is another aggressively-slanted midrange deck, but it features quite a few life gain synergies. You’ll be rewarded if you can consistently gain life on each of your turns.
Rewards For Gaining Life
Here are just a few of the many payoffs for this theme:
- You can prepare Leech Collector and cast its spell multiple times.
- Foolish Fate is good even without life gain, but becomes even better when you can consistently deal 3 to your opponent.
- Ulna Alley Shopkeep becomes a relevant attacker.
- Thornfist Striker pumps your whole team.
- Pest Mascot puts counters on itself, while Blech, Loafing Pest can potentially buff multiple creatures.
How to Gain Life?
Gaining life seems a bit more problematic, but still not too hard. So, when you’re deciding between an infusion card and a life gain card, pick the latter.
Bogwater Lumaret is a particularly useful one, as a safe and repeatable effect. Furthermore, anything that makes Pest tokens is also a solid option. (Lluwen, Exchange Student, Essenceknit Scholar and similar cards.)
You’ll also find some one-time effects, which can also work in a pinch, for example Infirmary Healer and Adventurous Eater.
As mentioned before, don’t get to dragged up into all the synergies. You still want a good mana curve, and lots of removal and standalone powerful cards to combine with your life gain and infusion cards.
Additional Tips for Secrets of Strixhaven Draft
That was it for the main five archetypes. Next up, a wide array of tips that will teach you about various subjects useful for this draft.
Power Rankings
- Lorehold
- Silverquill
- Prismari
- Quandrix
- Witherbloom
So, far all of the archetypes look perfectly playable. Perhaps Witherbloom is the weakest, even though not unplayable, particularly if you are the only player in the pod drafting it.
Furthermore, there’s one additional archetype that can transform any of the bottom three decks into a real powerhouse.
Bonus Archetype: 5-Color Converge
At first, we thought that the 5-color converge deck is just an interesting but ultimately not that strong of an archetype. However, it’s a surprisingly powerful deck, and might be in the running for the best archetype in the format.
The best draw towards this deck is Together as One. Then to a lesser extent Magmablood Archaic, Wildgrowth Archaic, and Transcendent Archaic.
You want to be a base-green deck, as this gives you access to strong mana fixing with cards like Studious First-Year and Environmental Scientist. The second color can be either black or blue, and sometimes even both in equal measures. This gives you access to Witherbloom and/or Quandrix gold cards.
The white and red splash should be minor, mainly used to fully power your converge cards. For this deck, you should pick common dual lands (Paradox Gardens) higher than usual, particularly the green ones.
Another option is to expand on a Prismari build, by using Potioner’s Trove for fixing and life gain.
Wrap everything up with a proper mana curve with lots of early plays, plenty of removal and powerful top end. If you’re mana is shaky, don’t be afraid to go up to 18 lands.
Wraths
It’s always a good idea to know which mass removal spells are in the format. This way, you can try and play around them when your opponent is suspiciously avoiding to play more creatures.
Withering Curse is great, but only if your opponent can consistently gain life. The only way to play around it is not to overcommit on the board.
On the other hand, Vicious Rivalry comes with a hefty cost, and you can make it significantly worse by being aggressive enough.
Playing beefing creatures, will somewhat play around Artistic Process and Splatter Technique.
Among the Mystical Archives you’ll also encounter a couple of wraths with Subterranean Tremors and Winds of Abandon. These are mythics from a bonus sheet, therefore they they will be extremely rare. Still, it’s good to know about them.
Secrets of Strixhaven Draft Tier List
Before we wrap up, here’s one final lesson for you to check out. In our Secrets of Strixhaven Draft Tier List you’ll find grades for each and every card in the set, including the ones in Mystical Archives and Special Guests.
It should give you a good general idea of how good specific cards are and help you with your early picks.
Good Luck Drafting Secrets of Strixhaven!
And that concludes our lesson for now! A second update is coming next week, as we learn even more about the format. If you’ve got a question about Secrets of Strixhaven draft, raise your hand, and leave a comment below.
Want to draft with your play group? In that case, you’ll need a Play booster box. You can already buy it on Amazon, and lock-in that preorder price.
Until next time, enjoy Magic, and may your win rate in Secrets of Strixhaven drafts be higher than ever before!