I don't really like the look of kianne. It's probably a character design thing with her.

I REALLY don't like the art on Lisette. That's a kind of common problem with Jesper Ejsing's work on humanoids because his blocking and anatomy are just WRONG sometimes. And I do think he's a good artist too, but when he whiffs a piece, it's really bad. I'm not fond of willowdusk because I very much find it to be too ugly to stare at for long... Which, I think was the point.

Most of the commander legendaries I think are pretty well done, except for Tivash since his color scheme is really really distracting. However, not quite as distracting as Zaffai because I cannot unsee Samuel L Jackson as Mr Glass.

Kianne i don't like that much either...a bit boring.

I get what you mean with Lisette. I like the art and love Jesper's style...but the face is somehow off. I love Lisette and Valentin as characters though, so I'm willing to let that slide.

Zaffai borders on Codie-territory for me in terms of unfitting of magic...i just hate that card.

I think most of the legendaries in this set are pretty cool! Love the ideas of the deans, like the look of most of the elder dragons, the commander deck characters are great, all the students apart from Zimone are at least interesting. Good stuff!

Also on the positieve side of things: this year's commander decks fit much better with the Strixhaven set. They complement each other very well. I missed that link with Ikoria last year, where the link between main set and commander set felt much more of a stretch.

A lot of the characters in Strixhaven look like models at a high concept fashion show. That would be fine if they were elven princes or something, but it's weird to imagine kianne teaching class dressed like that, or Zimone taking the time to dress up like that ever.

Well if you're going to have to wear uniforms at least you should do it with style. Plus the Quandrix clothes are probably all meth math constructs or something.

Why would you make me see that?! Now I can't unsee it! Those pauldrons are absolutely terrible, and now that's all I will ever see when I look at Zimone.

Exactly this.

It's not that I'm opposed to some goofy cards here and there, but Strixhaven is built on nothing but goof, both visually and in terms of overall worldbuilding. It's a parody set in a black border, which is the last thing we need when they are about to flood Magic with other IPs anyway, established planes like Ravnica or Zendikar really aren't what they used to be, and Magic's true homeplane gets one set per decade instead of remaining a major defining factor for the brand. Wanting squirrels back in black-bordered Magic is probably the only thing on which I agree with Maro, but that doesn't mean I want Magic to visit Squirrel-Punk world. Most squirrels on black-bordered cards don't even look overly cute or goofy, apart from the fact that they are squirrels. But if rats are a "credible threat" on the battlefield, so to speak, I don't see why squirrels can't be.

That said, I think it has become harder to do goofy cards that don't stick out like a sore thumb, at least in terms of card art. Older sets had an easier time seemlessly blending various tones and styles together into a somewhat cohesive whole because of the greater diversity in art styles and the less strict art direction, and the old frame had something to do with it as well. You'd look at a goofy card, chuckle, mumble something like "The Foglios will be the Foglios..." and move on. DiTerlizzi in particular was an artist that I'm personally quite fond of and who always had a pretty cartoonish or storybook-y style, and his Mischievous Poltergeist (which I love) was printed in the same set as Peacekeeper, Serra's Blessing, Apathy, Argivian Restoration, Abyssal Gatekeeper, Desperate Gambit, Orcish Settlers and Winding Canyons. That's quite a potpourri of different styles, tones and moods all in the same set. But with Magic's modern trend of overall realism and visual coherence (which aren't bad things by themselves), every piece of artwork that's goofy or cartoonish is going to look odd next to the rest of the set. Heck, I wouldn't even be opposed to getting one or two beebles in a future Dominaria set, but I think they would be very tricky to execute in a style that fits Magic's modern aesthetics without giving us beebles right from the Uncanny Valley. Speaking purely in terms of what works in different art styles, subjects that are supposed to look edgy, serious, gory, creepy or just epic etc. have their strongest effect when shown in a realistic style, which just so happens to be Magic's default now. That's great for those kinds of subjects, and it's certainly fine for more neutral sets or subjects as well, but Magic just doesn't do the kind of art styles anymore that work best for the goofy stuff. And if it suddenly did, those cards would stick out even more.


Agreed, I think the one-set-per-plane approach in particular is doing no favours to the creative side of new planes. Now, I love Kaldheim, but the thing about that is that they committed a lot more resources to fleshing out the worldbuilding and actually show us ten different realms. And it shows (although the story was still lame). The problem is that that's about the minimum to normal amount of worldbuilding and depth that I'd expect to see from a new Magic plane, which a single set normally doesn't deliver. Then again, I think no amount of sets could have saved Strixhaven, they just went wrong with the plane's identity on a very basic level right from the start.


Pretty much agree with all of those, especially that bloody book. Codie is 100% an Un-Set card and has absolutely no business existing in proper Magic. And I've always felt rather ambiguous about loxodon in general, partly because there is something inherently weird and silly about anthropomorphic elephants, but mostly because all German kids are exposed to this jolly fellow from a very young age:



It's virtually impossible to take loxodon seriously after that...


Agreed, Eising can be pretty hit or miss. That said, I'd actually like the art on Willowdusk in a vacuum, but only for some sort of creepy forest hag, not a dryad. Is there any in-universe explanation for why she looks like that? I hate it when they are messing with established archetypes of certain races in Magic that are based on real world mythologies. Call me old-fashioned, but dryads and all other nymphs are 1.) young, 2.) female, and 3.) at least somewhat pleasant to look at. I also hate the male sirens, and I'm not a fan of the bird-like ones in genral because of the overlap with harpies, or of the fact that gorgons on Theros just had snake tails instead of legs for no reason. I think Magic should just stick to the basic morphology etc. that has been established for certain kinds of iconic mythological creatures over the years.

I'm just a bad man. A bad bad, pauldron-hating man.
I'd totally wear a suit if it had pauldrons though.

Hating the silliness is one thing, but thinking Loxodon have no place and are inherently silly is crossing the event horizon.

I'm not sure if that's a reply to me or to someone else, but for the record, that's not what I actually said. The loxodon on Mirrodin were kinda cool, I think those are still the best loxodon Magic has done so far. The ones on Ravnica kinda work, too. But they'll never be one of my favourite races, and I can take them only in small doses.

Edit: "I've always felt rather ambiguous about loxodon" were the words I used, that's not the same as saying "they have no place". Loxodon are definitely the least of Strixhaven's problems as a setting...

Just going back, Willowdusk hadn't bothered me at all. I actually liked the art... I assumed she was a Treefolk, since she basically looks like Thorntooth Witch from a different angle. As a treefolk, she works just fine.

That concept totally doesn't work as a dryad. You want a not-conventionally-beautiful dryad showing off her tree-ness, the concept that does it right is Wormwood Dryad.

Dryad's are just a really confused concept. Sometimes the spirit of a location, sometimes made of wood, sometimes just a sexy nymph.

Her background telling of a number of students taking shelter in her roots doesn't help either....that to me feels like a treefolk, not a dryad.

Know what? I've come to the conclusion that I hate the elder dragons here.
I wasn't thrilled with them, since they were mostly shoe horned in to finish a cycle I can't swear anyone gave a **** about anyway, but I've decided I hate them.

Because, in theory, someone might have been able to argue the idea for Elder Sphinx instead.

You cannot tell me that wouldn't have actually been a better fit as founders of COLLEGES.

Ye, elder sphinxes would be dope, but I guess dragons are the only iconics that can show up in all five colors.

I'd love for a phoenix set with phoenixes in all colors. With an all color elder phoenix that looks more like fire than a bird.

I would have maybe liked to see some form of Iconic collective for each college founder.

Lorehold - Could stay a Dragon with emphasis on seeking out historical treasures of the past and cataloging them in a hoard-like museum.

Prismari - Could have been a sort of Sphinx art critic who pondered the meaning of art and self expression.

Witherbloom - Could have been some form of Swamp-thing-esque Elemental that embodied the cycle of life and death and taught those who sought to unlock its secrets.

Quandrix - A sentient intelligent Hydra whose brainpower expands as it acquires new heads to help it work out the mathematical mysteries of the universe.

Silverquill - A Demon or fallen Angel who has mastered the social power of divine language and teaches others as a form of repentance or rebellion to spread and dilute that power or even strengthen their status against would-be challengers. Maybe they like the competition in negotiations over divine/demonic contracts and other wordplay. Maybe it could have been a double sided card with both a demon and an angel as co-founders who are stuck in some eternal verbal contract dispute.

EDIT: However, that has the chance of feeling like a new Ravnica Guild-leader scenario I guess so I can see why it was passed up on.

Yeah, it does feel a bit too Ravnica-y. However the hydra idea makes me mad for not having been used.

And now a YtMC Contest idea was born....

I do like the looks and names for the most part, the arts by Swanland are great overall, but they indeed feel like a notepad fixed with a pin on the poster that is Strixhaven.

They literally have no role whatsoever in the lore besides founding the academy hundreds of years ago. We don't know anything about the individual characters of them, we don't even know the pronouns of four of them. Why are they in this set besides 'just because we could'?! Did they think that Strixhaven would lack 'OOMPH' without them? I just can't find rhyme or reason to it.

I think that they are a total waste and totally irrelevant, which is both a shame and quite damning.

They jammed them in to complete the Tarkir 2 color cycle. That is literally the entire reason they were put in.

Having nondragons seemed 100% better until I saw the Ravnica parallel. With any other set I'd say screw it, but there was real pressure here to differentiate from Rav. Le sigh.
Dragons are cool and all, but I feel they're overdone. The concept is overexposed and stretched thin, not just in MTG, but fantasy at large.
It seems that every set needs to have dragons. I suspect at least of few fans of the game are only really here for the dragons.
It is odd to me that the Tarkir dragons were seen as a cycle to b completed. Not only was it a complete cycle, but one tied to a specific plane. Perhaps in a broader mega-mega cycle of legendary dragons in every color combo? We're still short a couple of other color combos there though.