So I reinstalled to play limited and lo and behold there's no Strixhaven draft thread.

I haven't been following the format, and there's undoubtedly a lot written about the format already (any recommended primers?). First impressions are that the learn mechanic is pretty good in limited. The cards are bad, but they still impact the board, and the lower power level of the format means they're playable. Otherwise I can't rightly say which archetypes are good and which are bad yet.

So far I've drafted one UR spells deck (went like 4-3) and another UG spells deck (looks like there aren't many good removal spells in UG). Already lost a couple of games to mana screw, sadly enough, in spite of the UR deck having 18 lands. Can't tell if Elemental Masterpiece is good in that deck. It's surprisingly highly rated on Draftaholics, but it is seven mana. I drafted three of them and only played two. Crackle with Power was the most confusing card, since I only realized *after* I did it that at 8 mana it burns for 10 damage. For some reason I cannot choose the same target multiple times, as well.

Shorthand: Every target mentioned in the same paragraph of a spell or card must be different. So, with Crackle with Power, you must choose different targets, whereas with Seeds of Strength, you can target the same thing multiple times with each paragraph. This explanation is not strictly accurate but it covers most cases.

I would look up the Lords of Limited's "50 Takes" episode on Strixhaven, that should be a good summary of the format.

Learn/Lesson is very strong, you should prioritize picking Lessons particularly Environmental Sciences. Mascot Exhibition is a bomb.

Generally, there are two types of decks in the format: WB Aggro and GUR Ramp. RW Aggro, UR Tempo Spells, and BG Life Gain are possible but more difficult. UB self-mill into Serpentine Curve was also a secret powerful deck. The format closed with WB Aggro being the strongest but not overwhelmingly so over GU Ramp (which is also over UR Ramp). The RW Graveyard deck is not really a thing.

I like playing aggro so I like playing Silverquill, which is mainly playing out small threats and using combat tricks (like Guiding Voice into Inkling Summoning or Expanded Anatomy) to win explosively with magecraft triggers and such. You just have to do it quickly or GUR will start dropping 8/8 Fractals and Bookwurms.

That set feels like a lifetime ago. I do recall lessons/learn being very good in limited. Some are better than others obviously, but all are fine pickups when you can fetch them for free out of sideboard. Ones I recall being particularly high value targets are Mascot Exhibition, Environmental Sciences, and Elemental Summoning.

As I recall, Elemental Masterpiece is good because 2x 4/4 bodies was a good effect in the set. The option to discard for treasure, while card disadvantage (partly negated by all the ways to gain card advantage in the set), had utility value. UR has a few of those high cast cost spells with option to discard for a treasure in that set; the treasure making ability helped each other out for casting subsequent ones drawn (or just playing other spells ahead of curve), and UR has cards that care about instants and sorceries in your graveyard so you could draft synergy value beyond just the treasure.

What is this nonsense of 3 active topics! what is this reddit?!

Yeah can everyone calm Down please and focus

Went 7-1 in my third draft, but it doesn't say anything since I'm bronze/silver and play against people with maindeck Duress. Somehow I keep ending up in spells decks too. I might be misevaluating the WB cards, but aside from the bomb rares or mythics they just don't seem that good. 5-mana 3/3 flyer for example - seems strictly inferior to the likes of Serra Angel, and it's gold.

The lessons are great, I especially like the lesson that spawns an X/X fractal. Format seems quite slow and there're a lot of ways to get card advantage as well. Most of the Learn cards however seem pretty poor.

Why is Environmental Sciences so good? I can see it as a reasonable lesson, but a priori I don't see how it's better than "scry 2, draw a card". Most of the lessons seem like late-game cards as well, since the Learn cards are weak so you need lots of lands before you can afford the tempo to cast them.


It means I'm playing

Owlin Shieldmage is a good card but it's a curve topper for WB aggro. You want to be playing Arrogant Poets, Leech Fanatics, Professor of Symbologys, and Silverquill Apprentices for creatures. Aggro decks generally don't have singular amazing cards, they win by playing out cheap threats faster than the opponent can match them and using combat tricks to overrun blockers. Especially because aggro decks don't tend to draw a lot of cards (because you don't want to cast do-nothing draw spells and because you end the game earlier so you don't have as many draw steps), they don't want to rely on any one particular good card.

But if you're lower in the ranks, it may explain why aggro is not threatening you. STX was very slow at the beginning of the format with GUR being dominant and WB aggro had to emerge over the life of the format to dominate decks that were durdling. There's also the fact that the meta would be impacted by this being bot draft (they may not leave WB open enough, for example) and by how there's probably some meta-learning reset with players forgetting the format from before and new drafters.

Environmental Sciences is like the Golden Egg of Strixhaven. It just does a lot of small things well. It fixes you, especially in GUR decks. It smooths out your hands in general. It's the only common Lesson that costs less than 3, so it's easy to fit into your curve and trigger magecraft multiple times in a turn. It gains life for Witherbloom triggers and just to cushion you against an attack. The first one is high priority partly just because people will fight over them so you're unlikely to see them.

The only learn spell that is bad is First Day of Class. All the other learn spells are playable, at minimum.

Duress is not the worst idea in STX, as even creatures are often instant/sorcery spells here.

I started this draft with Harness Infinity out of what was a really weak pack, second picked Killian, and waffled somewhat between BG and BW before eventually ending up with this. How would you build it?



Other cards in sideboard not visible in that screenshot: Make Your Mark and Bibliopex Assistant. For lessons I only have Expanded Anatomy and Introduction to Prophecy.

It does look pretty strong to me, like a standard aggro deck with tricks and such, but the lack of lessons in the sideboard is scary. Not sure if I should've picked the BW make-a-2/1-flyer lesson over the BW 2-drops, which I took over instead. Probably cutting Study Break since not many lessons. How good is Exhilarating Elocution? My feeling playing with its lesser cousin Essence Infusion is that it's asking to get 2-for-1'ed and it's not even an instant so it doesn't work as a combat trick. On the other hand, I do have lots of cards that care about +1/+1 counters. If I do cut Exhilarating Elocution then I would guess that the next-worst card is Promising Duskmage, which has not been impressive when played against me.

Is Detention Vortex playable? It looks like a bad card, but looks like powerful tempo which might still fit in an aggro deck. On the other hand, this deck doesn't look as fast as the Boros aggro decks of Ravnica limited, since the curve goes up to 6 (I imagine Rise of Extus is too powerful to not play, same as the four 5-mana cards).

Edit: went 7-1. Deck felt great, but not as great as the deck I beat in the finals - an "oops all spells" deck built around Codie, Vociferous Codex. I nearly lost that one, but Killian gained me tons of life, and they only had two Serpentine Curves as win conditions. They were forced to play one early since they were down on tempo, and Eliminate took care of the other one, after which I only had to survive a couple of 2/1 flyers (from the lesson). Killian is very strong, although the drawback of being legendary came up a couple of times. Tenured Inkcaster also felt quite good, the drain helped in typical Orzhov attritional style. It is rather small however, it's effectively a 5-mana 3/3 and there are 3-mana 3/3s. How good is it in general? And ugh, I'm a bit afraid I'll run out of gems if I keep playing quick draft. Can you realistically go infinite playing limited only?