we are finishing our Magic: The Gathering Strixhaven card selection secrets to choose the best card for your standard format. These are cards that can take a borderline archetype and push it back to the top of the meta, or are so powerful that it makes no sense not to use them.
You can check out our picks for the best SOS Commander cards and the best SOS Limited cards in each list, but for now, let's take a look at the best standard cards in this set.
7
University Elder Dragons
Is it a bird? airplane? No, it's a dragon
We're starting this list with the Strixhaven College Elder Dragons. All five Elder Dragons have their strengths, but they are not all equal in power and playability. The dragon in question is:
- Historian Lorehold
- Balancer, We Double Room
- Inspirational Prismarie
- Wrangler Silverquill
- Evidence, Quandrix
While Prismari and Witherbloom stand out, Lorehold and Silverquill lag behind, and Quandrix exists somewhere between the two.
If you look at the Dragon set as a group, it's still a card you'll want to find in packs, but it's not a card you'll immediately insert into limited secret decks in Commander or Strixhaven.
But in Standard, this card has a lot of value. We don't expect any deck to run a full set of four, but once the meta starts to stabilize, a copy or two as a giant bomb will be a good mana drain for any deck.
Magic: The Gathering – All the Secrets, Rankings of the Strixhaven Commander Deck
We're taking a closer look at every Strixhaven Commander deck in Commander 2021 and Secrets of Strixhaven to determine which are the best in class.
6
vicious competition
Golgari Lifeline
Golgari decks have been lurking for the past few months, without any shining competitors against more complete Standard decks. But Vicious Competition is a card that could very well change everything.
This 4-mana spell also costs X life, and all creatures and artifacts with a mana value of X or less are destroyed, no matter what number you assign to X.
It sounds basic, but make sure you have enough life to pay the cost you declare. Otherwise, you will essentially give up on the game.
This is a huge card that can fight aggressive creature decks like Mono-White Auras, pesky artifact decks, and Simic Ouroboroid decks. Considering that Withered Blossom/Golgari creatures tend to skew towards the higher end of the spectrum in terms of mana cost, you can effectively clear the entire battlefield only on your opponent's side while the creatures are in place.
5
Withering Curse
Another powerful removal spell
Black decks have no shortage of cheap removal spells, but since they are often targeted removal spells, Curse of Withering helps diversify the options available to mono-black decks that are surging in Standard.
Pay attention to your life gain before casting the Withering Curse. You must gain life that turn for the infusion mechanism to activate. It doesn't matter where your life total is when you cast the card, we only care about whether you gained life at some point.
Withering Curse costs 3 mana and deals -2/-2 damage to all creatures. This alone is a pretty decent answer to a card with armor 2 or lower, while also bypassing the target's aspect so it can deal damage to the protected creature.
However, if it gains life in the same turn before it is activated, it will just destroy all creatures with a board wipe.
4
corrode
cheap and efficient
I've encountered Get Lost countless times recently when playing against Mono-White and Orzhov decks, and while this removal spell is effective, the map counter it grants can be problematic if used correctly.
That brings us to Erode, a new, cheap white removal spell that peeks into your deck and grants you a tapped land instead of a chance to potentially power a creature twice.
You can destroy a target creature for a single white mana. or Planeswalker. That creature's controller then searches his deck for a basic land, puts it onto the battlefield tapped, and then shuffles his deck.
If you're struggling, there's nothing stopping you from self-targeting and using this spell to gain additional lands.
This card is used in many meta decks and will push Get Lost out of many popular decks. The downside of giving your opponent an extra land is something you shouldn't take lightly if you're playing against an Izzet or Simic deck, but using this card gives you a chance to get cards like Ouroboroid, Badgermole Cub, and Slickshot Show-Off out of the game before they can do any real damage.
3
give honor
Are you ready?
We're grouping another set of creatures for this entry with the Strixhaven Emeritus card. The five cards in this cycle are:
- idea honor
- Sorrow's Honor
- Honor of Abundance
- honor of conflict
- truce honor
These cards share only one feature. What this means is that they all have spells attached to them that can be activated through the ready mechanic added to this set. Some engage in prepared play, some do not. Some can be prepared multiple times on the battlefield, some cannot.
Each of these cards is very unique to their beloved Strixhaven College, but as a group this is a great new cycle that brings a whole new mechanic to the game in an easy to understand way.
2
Improvisation Capstone/Germination Practice
paradigm shift
We resisted the temptation to add another cycle of cards to this list and instead picked two new Paradigm cards that stood out from the rest.
Makeshift Capstone is a 7-mana spell that exiles cards from the top of your library until you have a card with a total mana value of 4 or more. You can then cast as many spells from the exiled card as you want without paying their cost.
Germination Practice is a 5-mana spell that, when used, puts two +1/+1 counters on each creature you control.
What takes this card from good to excellent is the Paradigm mechanic, which allows you to cast a spell again for free every turn after successfully casting it for the first time. This free copy must be cast as a normal spell and can be countered, but it is completely free each turn, even if the previous free copy is countered or discontinued.
1
Strixhaven dual land
Where do they lead?
Number one on this list is a bit distant: Strixhaven's new secret rare dual land. This is an ideal way to put options on the table for casting your best multi-colored spells without having to wait for an extra turn or take two points of damage, as they hit the battlefield untapped if you control two or more lands.
The reason they are so highly regarded is because of the specific text used. This land enters the tapped state “unless you control two or more other lands” rather than a basic land. any Another land.
This card will soon start appearing in Strixhaven's best MTG Arena decks, and even though it comes with benefits like scry or life gain, it would be wise to get it into your multicolor deck as soon as possible instead of a tapped dual land.
Magic: The Gathering – All Secrets, Rankings for Strixhaven Elder Dragons
Each of the five Elder Dragons represents the College of Strixhaven. But which one is the best and which one falls to the bottom?
