Magic: The Gathering
Magical Thinking — Strixhaven: School of Mages
Welcome back to Magical Thinking, a look back at the cards and art of Magic: the Gathering, set by set, from the beginning, all through the eyes of a casual fan. This time we’re going back just one year, to April 2021, with Strixhaven: School of Mages.
Located in the plane of Arcavios and founded by five dragons, Strixhaven is the multiverse’s premier school for magic users, teaching the best of the best. Many planeswalkers are currently hanging out here; The Kennrith twins are here seeking higher learning, and Liliana Vess is here seeking redemption
But not all is well at Strixhaven. A group of evil spellcasters called the Oriq are stirring up trouble. What is their evil plan? Will Strixhaven survive? And how will this affect my fantasy Mage Tower picks? We’ll find out today.
But first, an introduction to the colleges of Strixhaven. There are five colleges, each representing two enemy color combinations.
- Silverquill (White/Black) is the college of writing, oration and poetry. They can inspire their allies to greatness, or tear you apart with their words, literally. The college mascots are inklings, tiny sentient globs of ink.
- Prismari (Blue/Red) is the theater college, utilizing elemental magics for art, theater and music. Their mascots are elementals.
- Witherbloom (Black/Green) is the school of nature, covering both life and death, both creating and exploiting both. Their mascots are adorable little creatures called pests.
- Lorehold (Red/White) is the school of archeology, which in this context means delving into ancient dungeons with scroll guns (seriously), to uncover long lost secrets. Their mascots are spirits, often seen possessing statues.
- Quandrix (Green/Blue) is the school of math, studying patterns and mathematics in order to control the fundamentals of nature. Their mascots are living mathematics creatures called fractals.
Already we’re off to a better start than a certain other wizards’ school, whose faction choice is basically “The good guy house, the bad guy house, and the other two no one cares about.” If you’re a Harry Potter fan, you may want to skip this one because I’m not going to be kind to that franchise or to its terrible author. But enough of that for now. On to the cards!
We start off with a new card type. Lessons are cards you can grab from outside of play with the new learn mechanic (more on that later). I think most of the lesson cards have color, but a few of them are colorless. That’s pretty useful if you need some land fixing like with this one.
In Strixhaven, they take the no talking in class rules very seriously.
We need an Orkin Man planeswalker at this point. This sort of thing keeps happening.
Ah, I remember having that sort of enthusiasm. Then life happened. Strixhaven is a “instants and sorceries matter” set, so we get a new mechanic magecraft, which does a thing every time you cast or copy a spell.
Elephants never forget…the crushing disappointment. But hey, he ends up going to Strixhaven so it’s alright in the end. Also, yay loxodon! Actually there are a lot of different races represented among the students, which puts it above certain other wizarding schools.
Like Mavinda here. Owlkin are a new race of owl people introduced in this set (and in the DnD module that came out recently).
The best part of the school year, the time to cut loose and party. Man, I miss college. Anyway, I also like the flavor here; you send your creatures and planeswalkers off to school, and they come back older and wiser.
Here’s an example of the Lorehold spirits. Like I said before, they are often depicted as animating statues, which makes for a really cool effect. Also, I am just reminded of the Futurama episode with the dog and I’m sad now.
Probably worth noting there is a “Thermos of infinite coffee” item in the DnD module based on this set, so enforced study breaks might be a good idea.
Also, here’s the new mechanic that connects to the lessons: Learn lets you either take a lesson from outside the game or draw a card for discarding a card. I like the flavor of learning new spells on the fly, and they give you a draw option so it’s not useless if you aren’t using lessons.
I don’t think Magic has ever had a race of frog people before, so this is a welcome addition. And I’m not just saying that as an Amphibia fan.
OH CRAP GET DOWN!
This card is banned in standard. I admit I stopped playing Magic by this point so I don’t know why it got banned, but I got an idea.
I love that there is an “all of the above” option here. Always go for all of the above, intimidate the Scantron into submission!
Okay, so there’s a bomb on the bus. If the bus goes over 50 the bomb is armed, if it goes below 50 it explodes. What do you do?
I mean, this is a school for mages so I imagine the answer is “teleport everyone off the bus”.
Also, anyone get that sweet Speed reference I just dropped? Speed? Anyone? I’M NOT OLD, DAMMIT.
Yeah, enjoy the snow days while you can. When you get to be an adult all they mean is more shoveling when you get to work.
Another way Strixhaven is superior to Harry Potter, the faculty don’t encourage students to break time and space just so they can cram more studying in. Pace yourself, kid. Damn.
I was a creative writing major in college, and yeah, we’re pretty much all like that.
So yeah. Liliana might still have some issues for how things went down in Ravnica. I hope she doesn’t do anything reckless like try and bring back the dead or something.
It really is amazing how all of these cards capture the college experience so succinctly. All we need now is a “being forced to eat ancient instant ramen packets I found because I’m out of food” card.
Yeah, did Voldemort have giant centipede monsters? I think not. I think if he saw one of these things he’d need a change in robes.
See? In Harry Potter, Trolls are just mindless monsters. Here, this troll is a student.
And here we have Liliana hereself…sorry, I mean “Professor Onyx”. Still, put this as another check for Strixhaven over Hogwarts. I would definitely trust Liliana grading my papers over Snape.
Ah yes, the dark and forbidden secret of immortality sought by all college professors: Tenure. Vampirism is nice too.
I don’t know about unwilling. That is a look that says “No thoughts, head empty.” So I don’t think they have a strong opinion on their impending demise.
You know I’d make a joke, but after the last few years this card just makes me really depressed. Moving on.
In Strixhaven, the books hit you.
See, not only is this a nice looking card, but I also appreciate the pun. Of course I would have made them a lizard wizard for maximum goofiness.
Another reason Strixhaven is better than Hogwarts: Mage Tower, the school sport which is way cooler than Quidditch will ever be. It basically involves stealing your rival colleges mascot creature, and using every nonlethal spell you have to do so. As opposed to the confusing nonsense that is Quidditch.
Another thing I remember from college: Naruto being a thing. Giant scrolls for days.
I told you that Mage Tower was better than Quidditch.
Containment breach! SOMEONE CALL THE SCP FOUNDATION! DON’T STOP STARING AT ANY STATUES YOU SEE.
You ever get bored with a calculator and just star multiplying numbers over and over until you get an error message? Well Quandrix students do that but in real life.
Not only inspiring, but also another great pun. This is probably my favorite card of the set.
I hear her classes can be really grizzly, but if you get on her good side she can be a real teddy bear.
BEARS.
And of course we have more dual sided modal cards. This time the theme being creature on one side, spell on the other.
Here is the spell half. I mean, this is alright, but I kind of prefer the Incredible Hulk troll on the other side.
Hey, another reason Strixhaven is superior to Hogwarts! The main villain isn’t some skinny noseless fascist piece of crap. Now this guy looks like an actual dark lord. He looks like someone I’d be scared to say his name.
Oh, and his plan is to summon this giant red demon thing. So again, way better than Voldemort.
And here we have our favorite spark-sharing planeswalker duo. I think the subplot with them is that Rowan and Will are fighting during their stay in Strixhaven (which is bad because they need to be in sync to planeswalk) so I hope they reconcile things when all is said and done.
Ward is another new mechanic introduced in this set, which is now evergreen. Basically, your opponent has to pay extra mana to cast spells on your warded creature or it’s instantly countered. That seems like it would be a pain if you don’t remember the ward ability, especially if you are using this with Ikoria mutate effects.
Oh, and here’s the B side. This seems like a card that would love a deck with a lot of big spells in it.
Another gimmick of Strixhaven is that each student gets two academic advisors with wildly conflicting philosophies to advise them. Kind of like an angel and devil on the shoulders sort of thing, I guess to help you find balance and all that. It’s a cool idea at least.
Oh, did I mention the founders of Strixhaven are dragons? Because they are. Thankfully, I think these dragons are much nicer than the ones from Tarkir. I’m surprised Sarkhan hasn’t shown up yet.
Yeah, this definitely brings back memories of my college days. We even had an on-campus Taco Bell at my school. How neat is that?
And trust me, Professor Onyx knows about demons and their deals. It’s a bad scene, believe me.
There is nothing quite like a relaxing cup of tea… as long as you can ignore the special ingredient. And avoid becoming the special ingredient.
I wonder if Prismari and Niv Mizzet are related. I mean, they’re both red dragons, both have the same color identity. Something to think about.
Oh hey, Kasmina. You may remember her from War of the Spark. Now she’s back and… I’m not sure what she’s doing in this story. *checks* Oh, she brings Rowan and Will here.
See? I told you. Scroll guns. Lorehold best college, 10/10.
I haven’t seen a performance that destructive since Andrew Lloyd Webber tried to perform The King in Yellow.
I think pests are by far the best of the Strixhaven mascots. I demand Wizards make pest plushies straight away!
Oh good, I guess they did make up, and now they’re gonna go kick Extus’ ass.
So we have owls, frogs, elephants, lizards, bears, and now turtles. Did I mention I love this setting?
In the fantasy gaming scene, there has been a movement to take certain problematic races which have been used to depict negative stereotypes against marginalized people, and make them more positive. Here we have a good example of this with Rootha, who is an orc, but is also depicted as an elegant artist instead of a stupid brute (and another reason Strixhaven is better than Harry Potter, which is just doubling down on the negative stereotypes and portrayals. You know what I’m talking about).
They got kind of a weird looking head from a distance. Kind of looks like a battering ram or something. I don’t know.
You know what? It’s hip to be square.
Mandlebrot set intensifies.
Also, I love that their wings resemble fractals.
And here we have the last elder dragon, with another weird looking head. I really want a close-up of one of these guys so I can see what’s going on with that head.
Another way Strixhaven is superior to Hogwarts is that Strixhaven is a college, not a boarding school. Most of the students are young adults so it’s a little more acceptable putting them in harm’s way with wizard school shenanigans. The major exception to that is of course Zimone, who is way younger than her peers and is a magic prodigy. She also needs to be protected at all costs so she better be alright in the story or I’m gonna be mad.
And here is the Strixhaven mascot. Codie the talking book. Apparently he’s also kind of a smart ass. I mean, look at that book. That’s a book full of sass.
Also, another benefit of Strixhaven: You actually get to pick your own college instead of getting thrown in one by a freaking talking hat.
Just like colleges in the real world, it all comes down to the sporting events, and whoever scores the most wins, gets the scholarship and gets scouted to a major league… wizard team? I’m sorry, the metaphor is breaking down. Go eat some Wheaties or something.
And last but not least we have the Biblioplex, the biggest source of magical knowledge in the multiverse. So much so this set even had a special list of special spell cards from throughout Magic’s history, but that is a tale for another day.
And another day will be coming, as our campus tour of Strixhaven comes to a close. Now, it may seem like I was being hard on the Harry Potter franchise in this article, and that’s because I was. Strixhaven came out around the time that all the unsavory stuff about JK Rowling and how terrible she actually was started coming to the forefront. I will say now what I said then; at this moment it will never be easier to cut Harry Potter out of your life. There are more options out there, better options, and Strixhaven is definitely one of them. At the very least you won’t be giving your money to an objectively terrible person like JK Rowling.
Now that I got that out of the way, next week we’re gonna have a little schedule change. I’m going to start doing these on Saturdays since I have to work during the week, and next week we are having a crossover with Wizards of the Coast’s other massive franchise. Yes, it’s the crossover years in the making! Get your twenty sided die, your ten foot pole, and your +1 sword, because next time it’s Adventures in the Forgotten Realm. Until then though, Stay Magical.
