With Magic: The Gathering’s next card set, Strixhaven: School of Mages, releasing on April 15, publisher Wizards of the Coast has today released a huge stack of new info about the new set – including an exclusive card preview for Wargamer, alongside more than 30 other newly-revealed cards.
If you haven’t heard of Strixhaven yet, it’s set in a wizards’ university where the five Colleges (Lorehold, Prismari, Quandrix, Silverquill and Witherbloom) were all founded by dragons, the school sport is a kind of capture-the-flag with battle magic, and much of the campus appears to disobey the laws of physics. In short, it all seems pretty rad.
And today’s previews have done nothing to disabuse us of that impression. We’ve now seen a goodly number of cards from each of the five Colleges, plus some of the fantastic art that’s gone into Mystical Archive (a kind of mini-set of cards within Strixhaven, that revives 63 hand-picked magic spells from across MTG history) – and it’s left us very excited to start playing the new set next month.
Read on to find out exactly what’s coming in the Strixhaven set, and delve into those all-important card previews (including one that you can only find on Wargamer).
WHAT IS STRIXHAVEN: SCHOOL OF MAGES?
Strixhaven is a full-on Magic: The Gathering card set, releasing on April 15. When it drops – in line with the last set, Kaldheim, and recent sets – it’ll be available in standard 15-card booster packs (or big old boxes of them) in three different flavours: ordinary Set Boosters, more expensive and rare-packed Collector Boosters, or Draft Boosters, for those wanting to play in the real-time-deck-building Draft format.
There’s also a range of five new sealed 100-card decks for the Commander format (one per College), and each College also gets its own 35-card “Theme Booster” pack, for those who really like one College above the others.
Speaking of those Colleges, here’s a quick run-down, as they’re super important to building decks and playing games in the Strixhaven set.
STRIXHAVEN COLLEGES
Here’s everything you need to know to get a flavour of Strixhaven’s five Colleges, before we introduce you to some of their professors, students and card-based activities:
Lorehold
Magic colours: Red & White
Theme: The college of history, Lorehold is all about studying the past and digging up ancient relics and texts from around Magic’s fantasy universe.
Founder: Velomachus Lorehold
Prismari
Magic colours: Blue & Red
Theme: The College of art, creativity, and elemental magic, Prismari students like to play with the elements – fire, ice, lightning, et cetera.
Founder: Galazeth Prismari
Quandrix
Magic colours: Green & Blue
Theme: Numerologist scholars of the mathematics of magic, Quandrix students focus on the numbers within nature, to control it.
Founder: Tanazir Quandrix
Silverquill
Magic colours: White & Black
Theme: The College of eloquence – Silverquill students favour the magic of words; written or spoken; hence the all-consuming inky themes.
Founder: Shadrix Silverquill
Witherbloom
Magic colours: Black & Green
Theme: The College of essence – Witherbloom prefers magic that draws power from the essence of living things. “Gothy biology majors” – Wizards.
Founder: Beledros Witherbloom
STRIXHAVEN MECHANICS
Lesson and Learn: A new mechanic to the game, this is all about card draw and magical flexibility. If a card triggers Learn, it allows you to either simply discard a card and draw another – or pull in a specific Lesson card from outside your current deck altogether (for Limited or Constructed play, this means cards in your Sideboard, but in casual play it could be any card you own).
Magecraft: Following the set’s magical theme, this mechanic grants you benefits whenever you cast or copy an Instant or Sorcery, stacking up extra rewards for casting and combining spells (as opposed to following conventional, Creature-based strategies).
STRIXHAVEN CARD PREVIEWS
Time for the main event: we can now show you over 30 cards from the Strixhaven set, across all five colleges, plus some from the Mystic Archive – including one Archive card that Wizards of the Coast revealed exclusively to Wargamer: Dark Ritual. Let’s be about it, then!
LOREHOLD CARD PREVIEWS
Lorehold Apprentice
Furycalm Snarl
Osgir, the Reconstructor
PRISMARI CARD PREVIEWS
Prismari Apprentice
Adrix and Nev, Twincasters
Storm-Kiln Artist
Zaffai, Thunder Conductor
Frostboil Snarl
Rowan, Scholar of Sparks / Will, Scholar of Frost
QUANDRIX CARD PREVIEWS
Quandrix Apprentice
Dragonsguard Elite
Vineglimmer Snarl
Kasmina, Enigma Sage
Kasmina, Enigma Sage (Borderless)
SILVERQUILL CARD PREVIEWS
Silverquill Apprentice
Breena, the Demagogue
Shineshadow Snarl
Confront the Past
WITHERBLOOM CARD PREVIEWS
Witherbloom Apprentice
Professor Onyx
Professor Onyx (Borderless)
Pest Summoning
Necroblossom Snarl
Willowdusk, Essence Seer
MYSTICAL ARCHIVE CARD PREVIEWS
Coming in non-foil, traditional foil and foil etched editions, this is a sub-set of stylised, extra-special reprints of hand-picked spell cards from across Magic’s history.
Some of these cards also have an utterly beautiful Japanese-style alternative art type – check these out below.
Dark Ritual
Exclusive to Wargamer, we can reveal one of the Mystical Archive cards spread among Strixhaven booster packs will be Dark Ritual, a one-cost black Instant that immediately adds three black mana to your pool (effectively a powerful free two-mana boost on your turn). So powerful, in fact, that it’ll immediately be banned in MTG: Arena’s Historic play when it releases. You can still play it in Strixhaven drafts, though.
Duress
Lightning Bolt
Time Warp
We’re not sure yet how many more of Strixhaven’s cards we’ll get to see before the whole hog arrives next month, but rest assured we’ll be covering all the latest news and reveals the whole way.
However, Wizards says it’ll be publishing written fiction for Strixhaven’s main story every Wednesday from now on, plus “side fiction” pieces every Friday, about the daily lives of students and professors at the university.
You can get more information about the Strixhaven set, and all its colleges, on the official Magic site.