In Secrets of Strixhaven, we return to the world of Arcavios and the best wizarding school in the multiverse. With that comes a plethora of interesting card designs to build around. Below are five cards that will be making it into my commander decks in one form or another.
1. Mathemagics
They’re calling it the bluest spell ever invented. A card draw spell that requires you to solve a math problem to use it. If it weren’t for the flavor text, most players would have to bust out the calculator in order to use this card. For the Simic players that will be casting this at X > 6, simply double the amount of cards drawn for each number past 5.
What may not be immediately obvious about Mathemagics, is that it is a win-con. Not in the sense that it will draw all the cards that matter to you, but rather you can deck opponents with it. At X = 6, you will kill a player in 60 card formats. At X = 7, you will deck them in Commander. For that reason, I think this card is a reasonable inclusion for most decks with blue in it. On rate, flexible card draw that wins a game on occasion? Count me in.
The decks that will get the most value out of Mathemagics, however, are the ones with significant X spell synergy, as well as spells-matter decks. Specifically, the more battle cruiser oriented ones rather than storm focused.
2. Lorehold, the Historian
I always love to see Boros decks get a little love from a new set. Lorehold, the Historian, aside from making a fantastic commander, provides a ton of value in the 99. Lorehold lets you accrue a significant amount of value even without committing to an instant or sorcery synergy. Letting you see three additional cards each round is significant upside. And it’s attached to a body that can threaten opponents immediately.
This card will be slotting into one of my Boros decks, specifically my Bruce Tarl // Akroma, Vision of Ixador deck, for the keywords matter synergy. I’ll also be trying it in my Hafri Ghostforge Deck to see if that value and graveyard filling makes it playable.
3. Planar Engineering
Oracle Jadzi says it’s up to us to determine if growth is worth the sacrifice. For this card, the answer is yes. Land decks rejoice at this way to pitch two more lands to the yard in exchange for four more lands. Even in a commander deck, that’s a decent amount of thinning in addition to the on-rate ramp. The restriction to basic lands is noteworthy, however, and this card is best for decks with heavy recursion from the graveyard.
The Gitrog monster feasts tonight.
4. Grave Researcher
This card might as well say “Cast Reanimate every round.” The ability to surveil, combined with the very light restriction of needing 3 creature cards in the graveyard, means that this is one of the most reliable methods of grave recursion available in commander at the moment.
It’s also part of the small club of grave recursion cards that can themselves be easily recurred, as opposed to staples such as Animate Dead, or the plain reanimate.
5. Flashback
This card is so iconic, that I thought it was a reprint of a card I wasn’t remembering for a moment. Getting to play your best instant or sorcery from the graveyard a second time is an immense amount of flexibility. I will be including this in just about every red deck that I own from here on out.
Conclusion
This is just a handful of the interesting tools that Secrets of Strixhaven gives us players for deckbuilding. There’s the Emeritus and Paradigm cycles, many other wizards that have iconic spells prepared, and of course the many other cool spells that the set introduced.
What about you? What cards are you adding to your EDH deck from Secrets of Strixhaven? Let us know on the Boss Rush Discord!
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