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.
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