A Brand New Crescent Moon

Strixhaven has been fun. Speculation on the set leading in was that there would not be as many obviously busted cards as in the past, but some neat stuff to try out. That, plus the Mystic Archives has ramped up the consistency and general power of Historic as a whole, what with Brainstorm, Faithless Looting, and Memory Lapse et al. I like that we've got powerful and cheap utility spells but not an influx of over the top, out and out busted stuff, like Uro or Omnath.

If they had printed, like Hymn to Tourach or whatever, it would have been pretty easy to just know that that would be good and include it in the deck. Strixhaven came with a lot of cards that look versatile but not especially powerful, so some exploration was necessary. That, along with jamming four Abundant Harvest and some number of Inquisition of Kozilek, has led me to this.

Gnarled Professor isn't blowing anybody's doors off, but it's been pretty good. A 5/4 Trample is a great body as long as it comes with enough of a bonus to make it worthwhile. Like I've said in my stream, fetching a Lesson from your sideboard isn't the greatest thing ever, but it's about as powerful as drawing a card, so if you imagine Gnarled Professor as a beefy Rogue Refiner, it starts to look good. The deck seems to flow pretty nicely with Professor in the list, as it's a nice top end to the deck where it stabilizes a board, and then turns into a mana sink later with the Lesson you get. Unlike stuff like Polukranos that fill that same role, Gnarled Professor can get you value even if it gets dealt with or has to trade in combat.

There are some major drawbacks to playing the Professor. One is that you can't play Jegantha, or Lurrus for that matter. Is that okay? It seems to be. The Professor itself can sort of play that same role that Jegantha played, where if you and your opponent are both topdecking you have something to use your mana on. Whether you win with a 5/5 or a Mascot Exhibition doesn't really matter, you still get access to this card that you didn't have to draw to utilize and will win you the game.

The second issue is that the sideboard space takes a pretty major hit when you have to play Lessons. So far I've found these four Lessons to be the only ones super necessary to play, so it's only four cards. Pest Summoning is also a consideration if the metagame turns to more cheap red creature decks, but that hasn't been very prevalent on the ladder. However, there are some new versatile sideboard cards from Strixhaven that I've been loving and make great use of sideboard slots, which I'll get to in a second. Also, you kind of have to imagine Professor itself as extra copies of sideboard cards that you can access. No need to run Wilt in your sideboard when you have Containment Breach, or a late game value hammer when you have Mascot Exhibition.

Building the deck with Professor in mind changes up a few things. Similarly to stuff like Esika's Chariot, it's a medium-to-big sized threat that needs to be dealt with but provides card advantage even if it is. That's a great fit for this deck, just like Chariot, so there isn't a lot in the way of strategic changes to make. One thing we will need is access to enough green mana to make it work, but we were already trying to make that happen with Scavenging Ooze in the deck. Also, we want to make sure we're capable of dealing with the stuff that a Professor can't do for us. There's no Doom Blade lesson, so we still need to play plenty of removal spells to trigger Chevill. There's no Thoughtseize lesson, so we want plenty of hand disruption. But the things that Professor does get aren't as necessary to have anymore. I'm much less afraid of Search for Azcanta and hard cast Shark Typhoons with Professor in the deck, so Pulse isn't as necessary and opens the door for Murderous Rider in that slot. Mascot Exhibition is a fine late game finisher, so we can keep the rest of the mana curve in the deck a lot lower and not have to play big expensive cards to fight a midrange arms race with.

Professor has been an interesting case study because it seems to be the type of card that Jund typically is looking for, but also is at odds with what we're doing. We gain advantage by having denying our opponents resources so that things like a 5/4 Trample can just win the game by itself. We also like cards that are versatile and are capable of disrupting as many different strategies as possible with the same card. Professor does both of these well. But, Jund usually also seeks to utilize its post-sideboard advantage by having no real attackable plan, but also have access to the best sideboard cards against whatever our opponent is doing. Professor is very much at odds with this facet of Jund deckbuilding. It's certainly possible that the cost of the sideboard slots ends up not being worth the value we get from Professor, depending on how this format's metagame shakes out, in which case stuff like Esika's Chariot or more Planeswalkers might be necessary. I like Professor for now, though. I've been surprised.

Until I started playing Historic, and specifically with Chevill, I never really thought of Terror as a sideboard card. Shock or something that costs one mana makes sense because it hits small creatures and lowers your mana curve to keep up, Wraths make sense because not everyone is going to be playing lots of creatures out at the same time, Infest makes sense against swarms of small cheap creatures, but a two-mana removal spell like this is good for its flexibility, not its focus. But, because of the construction of this deck and the metagame as a whole, having extra access to Terror effects is exactly what we want a lot of the time, so much so that loading up on them after sideboard is worth it. What makes Flunk especially good out of the sideboard is that you know that it's going to be good against any deck you'd want creature removal for, because those are the decks most likely to play out the cards in their hand quickly.

Flunk turns out to have the most applications as a removal spell among any of the other Doom Blade effects. It's better than Cast Down against stuff like Questing Beast and Sram. It's better than Eliminate against stuff like Questing Beast and other expensive creatures. It's better than Actual Factual Doom Blade against black decks, obviously, which includes stuff like Mayhem Devil and Kroxa that you really need to kill. It's also better than Abrade against straight up creature decks. And, it's better than Heartless Act in a deck that plays Chevill.

Like I mentioned, when you have Chevill, extra straight up removal spells gain a lot of value. Ideally you pick up a new removal spell with every one you cast, running your opponent out of cards and keeping your life total out of reach. Flunk also just works because we're a deck that wants to trade early and then win with the leftovers, be it Professor, Castle Locthwain, or Scavenging Ooze. But Flunk is nice specifically in this deck where we are going to be playing removal spells. Inscriptioning an opponent's hand is a likely scenario even when you'd expect to be using the removal spell mode most of the time, so we can help our opponent empty their hand and make sure Flunk works how we want it.

As far as sideboard options go, I think that Flunk is the best of the bunch for this effect. If you're interested in playing some main deck two mana removal spells, I would play Eliminate.

I am so incredibly high on this card. It's definitely the best Strixhaven main set card in the set for us. 

It takes the place of Davriel in the sideboard. Against a pure control deck, I'd say it's worse than Davriel in a vacuum but it's not quite as simple as that. Lots of players are going to be having stuff like Search for Azcanta or Commit/Memory, and also Torrential Gearhulk, which Go Blank takes care of. Also, Davriel isn't always going to make them discard three cards if they have stuff like Shark Typhoon.

In addition to all of this, Go Blank is one of the best graveyard hate card ever printed. You can expect to play against quite a few matchups where casting this on turn three just ends the game immediately. The discard effect gets more powerful the closer to exactly two cards your opponent has in hand, so if your opponent is spending their cards and mana casting Faithless Looting, Stitcher's Supplier and whatever else, then the discard effect is going to be even more brutal. You're usually hitting all of their graveyard, and the graveyard synergy payoffs they were planning on using. It's honestly unfair.

Like I mentioned with Professor, the fact that you get to roll your graveyard hate card into the same sideboard slots as your value Mind Rot slot, makes your whole deck better. You get to open up real estate in your sideboard, which is crucial in a deck and format like this.

Basically everything I mentioned about Blex in my post a few weeks ago holds true now. Blex has been solid enough against the format's aggressive decks, but not all aggressive decks are gunning for your life total that much. Some are trying to use evasion, some are trying to make huge creatures, only some are straight up coming at you with damage as fast as possible. So Blex has been slightly worse than I'd hoped, but Search for Blex has been really strong. If you can resolve it, which is honestly pretty easy to do with the amount of discard we play, then you can set yourself up really nicely for the rest of the game. Like I mentioned before in videos and streams and stuff, it's not just draw three cards, it's basically a Dig Through Time that lets you take three cards, or more. You get the best stuff. If you can assume your life total isn't at risk at all, then Search for Blex is one of the best things you can be doing. I haven't hated a one-of.

We're kind of already going long here, but Abundant Harvest is a must have, absolutely the best card in the deck. You're going to want to lower your land count, I'm playing 22 as of right now and it feels like it's absolutely enough. You're also going to want to have a lot of green sources so you can play your Harvests early. It's phenomenal. I'm going to play four of these in every deck for as long as they let me.

That about does it for Strixhaven Cards. A couple other things to note about this list as it's built now is that the format continues to get more low-to-the-ground. I've been liking Thragtusk as a versatile card that can come in against pretty much any non-combo deck. Control, midrange, Gruul, all of them carry the wrong number of spears. I also have been liking Murderous Rider. If a 2/3 Lifelink is something that's useful in the format, then Murderous Rider starts to look good. Otherwise, there are often better removal spells options, like Bedevil and Maelstrom Pulse. Both Thragtusk and Murderous Rider leave behind serviceable but not amazing cards for you to close out a game with, which is excellent in a format where players are trading one-for-one.

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I'll be streaming this Saturday for a cool tournament put on by JafferMTG on Twitch. It'll be Standard so I have no idea what I'm doing but you can check it out if you'd like. Feel free to ask questions or make suggestions in the comments. Thanks for reading.

Video

Posted this today, has a lot of my thoughts on the new set. Check it out.

Fireworks, Calliopes, and Clowns

First, to check in, I'm going to be playing the top 1200 tournament thing this weekend. I don't know what it's called. I'm pretty sure that I'm just going to play the list that I've got written on the sidebar, but could potentially make some small changes. I didn't play in the Historic Challenge thing this weekend, but my friends who did say they saw a lot of Gruul and other aggro decks. If that's the case, then I like where the list is.

Let's go over some Strixhaven cards. The Mystic Archives are definitely the major hitters for this set, but there are a lot of cool things that could turn out to be good.

To start, let's look at this thing. The lesson/learn mechanic is cool, but you need two things for it to be worth playing: the cards with Learn being good enough, and the cards with Lesson being good enough. Professor definitely checks the first box. It's a big creature that draws you a semi-useful card, and that's solid enough on its own. The problem is the Lessons themselves, so let's take a look.

These are the standouts, and they aren't that great. There's a Disenchant, a Planeswalker removal spell, a big value token creator, and a small defensive roadblock type thing. I don't hate it, but it kind of seems like a worse version of a Karn wishboard, which I've seen from time to time. I'll certainly give it a shot, but I think it's too slow.

The easy thing to say here is that Valentin breaks up Witch's Oven stuff, but there's a lot more to it. First, I'm not super comfortable with my metagame call Jund Sacrifice hoser being a one tougness creature. Secondly, it shuts off our own Chevills and Sarulfs. On the plus side of this one, you can get some value out of it if you have some mana lying around, whether you're playing Jund Sac or any other creature deck, and if you draw a Chevill or Sarulf, you just cast a 4/4. Lisette is a good backup plan, but also works pretty well with Ooze and kind of with Chevill, which is nice because those are the two cards that don't work with Valentin. 

Jund isn't always going to be about looking at the spoiler and finding the busted cards and going "Oooh Aaahh". When I look at a spoiler list, I'm looking for tools with which I can win matches, not do explosive stuff. Blex exemplifies this.

This is the perfect recipe for a good green and black card. Whether or not it's good enough for the format is a different question, but it helps you play the two different roles you're trying to play in your matchups. In almost every matchup, you're either trying to make trades and keep your life total high, or you're using your unpressured life total to gain card advantage. I'm excited about this one. It might just turn into another Griffin pet card, but whatever.

This card is neat and versatile like Blex, but just a little worse at everything. However, maindeckable graveyard hate is a good thing to have, so there's certainly a case for playing this, depending on the meta.

Sedgemoor Witch is a more narrow creature than the other ones we've seen but has a lot of power. Something I want to try out is this, Magmatic Channeler, and possibly even Young Pyromancer in a deck with lots of discard, removal, and Abundant Harvest. Sedgemoor Witch costs a mana more than Young Pyromancer does but all the abilities on the card are built for winning races and you get a lot of strength out of that extra mana. So far it seems like this clearly gets there on rate in Historic, the question is whether it fits any decks.

I usually stay away from exile effects because of Chevill, but we're not actually tied to playing Chevill. If it makes sense we can just cut it and play more exile effects. If that's something we want to do, is this going to be better than Vraska's Contempt or Eat to Extinction? I think the answer is yes, but the drawback for the discounted price on this card is tougher on midrange decks than it might be for other decks. But, like a dual face card, more options is a good place to be for something like this. I hope some day that someone targets a Thassa's Oracle with this while the Oracle's trigger is on the stack and the opponent has an empty library.

This card is pretty sweet. Instant speed is fantastic, it's cheap, and it can hit small creatures early and big creatures late, which is exactly what you'd hope for. It's going to go really nicely in a deck with discard spells as well, you know, like Jund. I can't say right now if I think it's better than Eliminate, but there's a lot to like here so it's worth a shot.

Mortality Spear is like a better Baleful Master. It hits anything, which is nice because of stuff like hardcast Shark Typhoons and Search for Azcanta, or The Great Henge or whatever. Plus, gaining life is something you have a little control over when you play Scavenging Ooze, but also Chevill and Klothys can make this cheaper from time to time. Like with all potentially playable removal spells, being better than Maelstrom Pulse is a big ask.

I'm a big fan of cards that are good against small creatures. One of my favorite cards in Modern is Shadow Guildmage. The reason isn't that Shadow Guildmage kills every card in your opponent's deck, it's that it kills enough of their small stuff that you can save your removal spells for their bigger stuff. I've certainly lost games where I Lightning Bolted my opponent's Noble Hierarch and Thalia, then died to Mantis Riders. Culling Ritual won't hit your opponent's biggest stuff, but it does stop smaller creatures and lets you save your Bloodchief's Thirsts and Maelstrom Pulses for the Questing Beasts and Mayhem Devils of the world. The mana bonus is nice here too, since you can cast it and wipe away their small creatures and also Pulse something big on the same turn. I think this might be the best Wrath effect for a deck like this, but the question is whether or not we want a Wrath effect at all. So far I haven't missed them, but the fact that this thing also hits stuff like Food tokens, Treasure tokens, Witch's Ovens, and Trail of Crumbs, plus every Aura and creaturein the Auras deck, means it's certainly worth looking at.

It's innocuous, but this is the single card that I'm most excited for out of the Strixhaven main set. The thing you have to remember with Strixhaven is that Faithless Looting just got printed too, so graveyard hate is going to be important. Go Blank doubles as a perfectly fine Mind Rot to board in against control decks while also serving as graveyard hate. It's an incredible card against stuff like Arclight Phoenix or Dreadhorde Arcanist decks, where you're playing a card advantage game but they also have graveyard synergies. I love opportunities to condense sideboard space with cards that are useful against multiple strategies. Plus, Mind Rot effects tend to be good against decks that have some incidental graveyard interactions anyways, so you get to shut off stuff like Torrential Gearhulk and Commit/Memory just as a bonus. I think this takes the spot of Davriel in the sideboard as soon as it's printed, not that it's better than Davriel straight up (although it's close) but it has a ton of effect across the whole format.

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I would post a way-too-early Strixhaven decklist to think about, but I think that a lot of these cards are going to require their own research. I think that a lot of cards from this set look like they are close to playable, but we have to remember that, with every set that's released, the minimum power level of a card to be included goes up and up, especially after something like Mystical Archives. My prediction is that most of these are good but just miss the cut, but certainly would not be surprised to be wrong. Anyways, I'm planning on streaming the Historic tournament this Saturday on Twitch if you're interested. Thanks for reading.