After five years, Magic: The Gathering is returning to the five colleges of Strixhaven with the new set Secrets of Strixhaven. For those who weren’t playing MTG when the initial set came out, or if you just need a quick refresher, each magical college in the greatest school of the Multiverse was founded by an elder dragon and has a dual-color theme. There’s Silverquill (white/black), Prismari (blue/red), Witherbloom (black/green), Lorehold (red/white), and Quandrix (green/blue).
Secrets of Strixhaven is packed with Magic: The Gathering lore from the aftermath of the March of the Machines and the Phyrexian invasion. As Lauren Bond, the Narrative Lead of the set, explains, “Some of the things we know about the setting is that the biblioplex was destroyed. Many of the professors lost their lives, and students suffered heavy losses and casualties as well. So we're seeing and feeling that impact of the Phyrexian invasion. But we're also going to be seeing how they have moved forward and moved on. So we'll have new designs for parts of the campus. We have new professors, new students, and we're also really taking a glimpse at what goes beyond the campus this time as well.”
Secrets of Strixhaven is more on the fantasy side with mystical spells, but during the press panel, the school of Witherbloom caught my attention. This is a college of essence studies focused on the cycles of life and death, where some students will focus on reanimating the dead. So it looks like we are going to be getting a little bit of Herbert West-type stuff going on in Secrets of Strixhaven.
The presence of pests was also mentioned. Daniel Holt, Senior Game Designer, explained, “If you’re a pest, you’re pretty scared.” Bond added, “You're cute, but you're also probably a magical ingredient.”
Towards the end of the presentation, I got to ask about any horror elements present in Secrets of Strixhaven, to which Bond responded, “Witherbloom is going to be the school to watch. It is, in general, a little bit of our lighter settings. But I will say there is a Witherbloom side story that will be coming, and that one is definitely intended to evoke some of the themes in the summer camp horror genre with its own unique magic twist.” Summer camp horror genre? Sign us up! Where can I enroll?
Looking over all the different products coming out for the set, it definitely seems like Witherbloom will be the school most closely aligned with horror fans, and I guess we will just have to wait and see about this summer-camp horror side story.
Of the cards that debuted, the one that stood out to me for horror fans was Grave Researcher. A troll warlock that has “at the beginning of your upkeep, surveil 1. Then, if there are three or more creature cards in your graveyard, this creature becomes prepared. (While it’s prepared, you may cast a copy of its spell. Doing so unprepares it.)” Grave Researcher's prepared spell is the sorcery that lets you Reanimate and put a target creature from a graveyard onto your battlefield, and you lose life equal to its mana value.
There are also two reprints in the bonus sheet: Smallpox, a sorcery where each player loses 1 life, discards a card, sacrifices a creature of their choice, then a land of their choice. There’s also the classic Vampiric Tutor, an instant that lets a player search their library for any cay card and loses 2 life. Both of these come with new art in both full art and Japanese variant. The full art cards can be found in both play and collector boosters, with the Japanese variants only in collector boosters.
Secrets of Strixhaven from Magic: The Gathering releases worldwide on April 24. But if you want to get your hands on these cards a week sooner, check with your local game store and join their pre-release.
