Magic Untapped takes Magic players to school as we take a look back at the Magic: The Gathering set Strixhaven: School of Mages.
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Video Transcript:
Seemingly (though, not officially) inspired by the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, Strixhaven: School of Mages made its release for Magic: The Gathering on April 23, 2021. As the 87th expansion for the collectible card game, it introduced to Magic a new plane, Arcavios, 275 cards (not including variants) as well as a 63-card, all-reprint set-within-a-set known as Mystical Archive (more on that later).
Strixhaven is a bottom-up, enemy colored faction set that had a heavy focus on instant and sorcery spells and interactions. Each of the set’s two-colored factions represented one of the school’s five colleges (RW historical Lorehold, UR artistic Prismari, UG mathematical Quandrix, WB writing-and-debate Silverquill, and BG biological Witherbloom).
<MARO DTW 17:15-17:46 “A lot of times…study that subject.”>
As for what happens in the story of Strixhaven: School of Mages, you’re in luck as we have a summary of it all for you starting….. now.
The twin planeswalkers, Rowan and Will Kenrith, are on the plane of Kylem when they receive a letter from another planeswalker named Kasmina inviting them to join the School of Mages on the plane of Arcavios. The twins, after getting permission from their guardian, Garruk Wildspeaker, accept the invitation and pack their bags for school with Kasmina leading the way.
Once on the edge of campus, however, Kasmina tells the twins that she has other, more pressing matters to attend to and instructs them to locate Mavinda Sharpbeak, one of the school’s advisors. Shortly after Kasmina’s departure, the twins find themselves mixed up in a quarrel between two of the school’s colleges – the Prismari and the Silverquill – with them both siding with the Prismari students.
During the school year, Will focuses more and more on his studies, becoming more reserved and book-smart. Rowan, on the other hand, doesn’t take college too seriously and prefers popularity and spectacle to homework and study. This, of course, causes friction between the twins – friction that was never there before.
Meanwhile, Strixhaven had recently received a new instructor named Professor Onyx –whom is actually Liliana Vess, a former student of Strixhaven’s Witherbloom college, in disguise. While a professor in role, her main objective is to study ancient knowledge in the hopes to find a spell to resurrect her fallen friend, Gideon Jura, whom had sacrificed his life to save hers. Full of guilt over Jura’s sacrifice, Vess (as Onyx) approached Beledros, the dragonic head of the Witherbloom college. Though Beledros knew of such a spell, he refused to tell her anything about it.
Disappointed, but undeterred, Vess visits the Biblioplex – the school’s massive library of spells and knowledge (both common and forbidden). There, she notices members of a shadowy, cult-like order known as the Oriq, attempting to steal some of the library’s tomes. Suspicious of this, Vess decides to take the advice given to her from Beledros and honor Jura in memory rather than through resurrection. She then decides to shift her attention and energy to defending Strixhaven against whatever plans the Oriq may have in store for the school.
Meanwhile, Lukka – a newly-ignited planeswalker from Ikoria – finds himself in the wilds of Arcavios. A misfit from his own world, he wanders the wilds in search of, well, pretty much anything. One thing he finds is a fox, which he bonds with and names Mila. Rumors of this new mage who can bond with animals gets around to the Oriq. Extus, leader of the Oriq and a former student of Strixhaven’s Silverquill college, sets up a meeting with Lukka and convinces the planeswalker to join their cause.
Back at Strixhaven, during a game of Mage Tower, Will and Rowan – still quite angry with one another – get into a scuffle. The fight is caught by Professor Onyx and is quickly quelled as the twins are pulled into her office. She calms them down and, identifying them as not just mage students but planeswalkers, clues them in on her suspicions about the Oriq.
Rowan dismisses much of Onyx’s warnings, pointing out that it’s on the professors to defend the school should it come to that. Onyx retorted, challenging the two students to each find their own way to deal with the Oriq and its leader, Extus.
Meanwhile, Kasmina has been keeping an eye on Lukka through her network of enchanted owls. They confront one another with Kasmina telling him that she’s hoping they can become allys and fight for the greater good. Lukka says he’s not interested in fighting for her greater good so long as Strixhaven remains the authority on who can and cannot study the use of magic.
Kasmina gets the upper hand rather easily and Lukka admits to her that he didn’t think he’d be able to beat her in a duel. Rather, he just wanted to distract her long enough for the Oriq to get their mage hunters into position. The first wave of attack against Strixhaven begins as the mage hunters lay upon an onslaught against the campus, but even this is just yet another distraction as Extus uses the chaos as cover for him to slip back onto school grounds.
Once Kasmina figures out what’s actually just happened, rather than going in to assist further or try to hinder Extus in any way, she simply planeswalks away and onto other matters.
The school’s various professors offer defense of the campus and its students as the school’s five founding elder dragons provide air support against the mage hunters, turning the tide of battle easily in the school’s favor and causing the Oriq (Lukka included) to flee.
Soon, Onyx, Will, and Rowan reconvene. The professor takes the twins to the Hall of Oracles inside of the Biblioplex where they encounter Extus busy with a dark ritual of sorts at the Strixhaven snarl – a sort of conflux of different colors of magic that cross there. Extus, not wanting to be interfered with, hits the professor with a forced trans-location spell, sending her out of the hall and far onto the other side of the plane.
Extus, using the power found in the snarl, awakens an ancient being known as the Blood Avatar as he hopes to domineer it and use it to topple Strixhaven once and for all.
Rowan then has an idea. If Extus could draw power from the snarl, why couldn’t she? She then begins to crackle with power, though she grows more powerful than she can contain quite quickly. Will, noticing this, uses what he’s learned to help Rowan control her swell of power and, together, the twins cast spells against the Blood Avatar that allow them to take control over it. Extus tries to stop the twins from ruining his plans, but he is quickly killed by the very avatar he summoned into being.
With Extus slain and the twins losing their control over the avatar thanks to them both becoming exhausted from the use of such sheer power, Will unsummons the avatar. As it dissipates from their world, it takes a mighty swing at Will with its axe, dismembering his right leg at the knee.
In the aftermath days later, Will is fitted with an artificial lower leg. Rowan says that there’s no reason for them to stay at the school as there’s nothing for them to learn there despite she and her brother beating Extus with spells that they had specifically learned there. Will reminds her of this, so she decides to stay at the school as well… for now, anyway.
Kasmina returns to campus and says that Lukka isn’t a threat worth watching anymore. Instead, she turns her attention to keeping eyes on the twins – Rowan more so than Will.
And as for Onyx, after making the days-long trek back to campus, she agrees to stay on staff as professor indefinitely and, shortly thereafter, walks into a classroom and introduces herself to her students not as Professor Onyx, but rather as Liliana Vess.
And that pretty much does it for the story of Strixhaven: School of Mages.
As for the card set itself, design was led by Mark Rosewater with development lead by Yoni Skolnik. Taylor Ingvarsson led art direction.
As mentioned, Strixhaven has an “instants and sorceries matter” theme to it. As such, the new mechanics introduced with the set tie into that.
One such mechanic is Magecraft, an ability word found on permanents that causes an effect whenever you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell.
<MARO DTW 16:23-17:04 “Woven into magecraft…different factions.”>
Another new mechanic is Learn. When you cast a spell with Learn, you can reveal a Lesson card you own from outside the game (typically one’s sideboard) and put it into your hand. If you don’t, you can instead discard a card to draw a card.
Learn is actually the evolution of a mechanic that Wizards of the Coast had developed for a set many years prior, but never made the cut.
<MARO DTW 20:14-22:14 “In Kaladesh…can be very powerful.”>
The final new mechanic is Ward, which has since become an evergreen keyword. Whenever a permanent with ward becomes the target of a spell or ability an opponent controls, it gets countered unless that opponent pays the ward cost.
Strixhaven also brought back modal double-faced cards as a means to tie it into the previous few sets like Zendikar Rising and Kaldheim.
Oh, and by the way, Liliana Vess wasn’t originally supposed to be in the set at all despite her ultimately having key roles in the story. Rather, the character was supposed to be somebody else entirely.
<MARO DTW 25:01-28 “That slot was originally…was real fun.”>
The set was sold in the then-typical assortment of draft boosters, set boosters, and collector boosters, as well as bi-colored theme boosters, a bundle, and five Commander decks – one for each of the school’s colleges. As is typical, the Commander decks are not considered part of the main set.
The 16-card draft boosters each contained one Mystical Archive card of any rarity in them in addition to their normal assortment of commons, uncommons, and rares. It’s the same with the set’s 12-card set boosters. Collector boosters would contain three Mystical Archive cards, including one in Japanese. Japanese-language Mystical Archive cards featured alternate artwork than those found in any other language the set was printed in.
Pretty much a set-within-a-set, Mystical Archive is a supplemental all-reprint product integrated into Strixhaven: School of Mages and represents the various spells known to the school that can be found within its massive library. As such, they feature special art and card frames – even more so with the aforementioned Japanese-language versions.
These cards run the gamut from more mundane spells such as Defiant Strike, Opt, and Shock to powerful, game-changing spells like Approach of the Second Sun, Time Warp, and Swords to Plowshares, to iconic spells like Dark Ritual, Lightning Bolt, and Channel.
Going back to cards found in the base Strixhaven set, it contained a whopping 25 cycles across both single color and dual-color combinations. Most noteworthy are:
· Masteries, five rare monocolored spells that have a discounted alternate casting cost that provides a similar, scaled-down benefit compared to the spell’s full power;
· Founding dragons, five elder dragons at mythic rare that represent each of the school’s college’s founders;
· Legendary students at uncommon – one for each college – which act as signpost cards that help support their college’s specific draft archetype;
· Campus, common dual-colored taplands that also let their controller scry;
· Snarls, rare dual lands that enter the battlefield tapped unless you reveal a land with the corresponding type from your hand. These cards finish a mega-cycle and are the enemy-colored versions of the same sort of lands that were introduced in Shadows over Innistrad back in 2016, and;
· Commands, which are rare modal spells that complete a mega-cycle of command cards that were introduced in 2015’s Dragons of Tarkir.
As for as single cards of note are concerned…
· The Biblioplex is a card inspired by another library from Magic’s past: Library of Alexandria from Arabian Nights;
· Likewise, the card Body of Research takes inspiration from the card Animate Library from the silver-bordered set Unstable;
· Dragon’s Approach became a popular card as it can allow players to cheat in a dragon of their choice directly into play from their library;
· Expressive Iteration, a versatile hand-extending draw spell that, in most circumstances, might as well read “draw two of the top three cards of your deck” for an affordable two mana. The card was banned in Pioneer and Explorer in June 2022 and in Legacy in March 2023.
· Strixhaven Stadium provides players with an alternate win condition by means of a tug-of-war sort of strategy, and;
· Zaffai, Thunder Conductor, a card from the set’s Commander decks that is noteworthy not because of its play value, but rather because of a misprint in the card’s rules text that refers to itself not as Zaffai, Thunder Conductor, but rather Zaffai, Thunder Collector. This typo has since been fixed on the Magic: The Gathering – Online version of the card.
Now, for a final thought about Strixhaven: School of Mages, here once more is Magic: The Gathering head designer, Mark Rosewater:
<MARO DTW>
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