School Spirit: Archetype Upgrades with Secrets of Strixhaven

Secrets of Strixhaven is a set replete with new options for well-established Commander themes as well as innovative strategies to explore unique twists on existing deck types. Now that the community has received the entire set spoiler, it’s one of my favorite times, second only to playing with the newest cards; figuring out how to incorporate them into my decks. Upgrading and updating can be a tedious process if you’re struggling to identify the best new cards or trying to cut old favorites. Today, I’ll take you through decks from my own personal collection and show you what I thought were the best new hits from the set (and the new Commander precons) to include in my decks.

I make a concerted effort to keep all of my existing decks fresh and engaging. One of the best ways to do that is to always look for new cards to test out, even if they sometimes replace my darling pet cards. To keep this article focused, I’ll be using three of my personal decks - Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald, Mass of Mysteries, and Inspirit, Flagship Vessel. Let’s jump into the upgrading process!

Elements of Style

Kindred decks can be tough to update and change with new sets. If your creature type of choice is less common or has a narrower mechanical identity, finding new cards to add from recent sets can be a challenge. Fortunately for me, Elementals are one of the most commonly-found creature types in any setting in some form or another, and even better, Mass of Mysteries has a broadly applicable theme (enters triggers and creature tokens) which makes my job much easier.

Prior to edits, my Mass brew is pretty basic. I haven’t had many opportunities to get new cards for the deck beyond what I received when I bought the precon, other than some stylish alternate treatments and Lorwyn Eclipsed main set cards, as well as a few desperately-needed mana base tweaks. Let’s see how I can tune this baby up a little!

Starting with the potential stinkers first, Muddle, the Ever-Changing is a bit of a gamble. My pre-edits list only contains 14 total instant and sorcery spells, which means that it’s very possible I’ll struggle to see both Muddle and a spell to trigger it with, but the potential upside is pretty big. Mass of Mysteries’ trigger does not grant haste to the creature enhanced with myriad, which means it can be difficult to both run out a huge, threatening Elemental and swing with it in the same turn. For a little bit of extra mana, however, Muddle can change that calculus. With Muddle already on board, I can cast a big beater like Rumbleweed or Jubilation, then fire off a Planar Genesis for cheap, transforming Muddle into either one of those big, plant-y creatures. Muddle is even an Elemental itself, and can therefore benefit from some of the other Kindred synergies offered in this deck.

When a creature has multiple instances of myriad, they function independently of one another, meaning that Muddle’s myriad and Mass’s myriad both apply. As a copy of the Jubilation I just cast in this situation, Muddle swings at any player, triggering myriad twice. This creates 4 copies of the Elemental, for a grand total of +8/+8 in buffs and an impressive 20 power worth of creatures with trample (including the original Jubilation-ified Muddle). Each opponent I didn’t originally come at now has two Jubilations attacking them, for a grand total of 26 damage per opponent — and a not-insignificant 9 damage to the originally attacked opponent — and none of this takes into account whatever other creatures I could have on board. 

This is just one possible application. With so many different creatures in the deck, Muddle has the potential to be a really spicy inclusion. To make room for Muddle, I cut Fertilid, as it isn’t particularly synergistic with the strategy Mass goes for, and the deck has plenty of ramp already. At some point in the future, adding more instants and sorceries may be necessary to increase the consistency of Muddle, and fortunately, Secrets of Strixhaven has plenty of those to offer.

What self-respecting Commander player doesn’t love a good bowl of copyslop? Choreographed Sparks is a great way to get more of it in your diet, no matter the theme, by offering up the option to copy either instant and sorcery spells or creatures alike. As a creature-heavy deck, though, this spell will more often be used as a way to enable the myriad trigger more quickly. As Mass does not grant haste with its start-of-combat ability, finding tricky ways to give a freshly-cast creature some way to attack can be important, and Choreographed Sparks is a great way to do it for the low, low price of two red mana.

For that little upcharge, any big creature in this list becomes several times more threatening. Impulsivity becomes a pseudo-Mizzix’s Mastery, hitting up to four instant or sorcery spells from any graveyard in the game. Titan of Industry can wipe several important artifacts and/or enchantments, and Subterfuge creates a huge amount of card draw velocity. 

To make a little bit of room for this flexible little dance number, I cut Ingot Chewer. Several of the creatures with evoke from the stock list are simply too inefficient to justify, especially after booting Ashling, the Limitless out of the command zone, and Ingot Chewer’s trigger is just a little too narrow.

I only found two cards across the full set and new Commander cards to upgrade my Elementals deck, but don’t worry. There are plenty more spicy inclusions for other, more broad archetypes.

Real Battlecruiser Magic

You may be noticing a trend, and you’re probably right on the money. My next deck is another precon upgrade from my beloved Edge of Eternities, one of my favorite sets from recent years. I’m a huge fan of sci-fi, especially sleek spaceships and spectacular space battles. Inspirit, Flagship Vessel is again somewhat narrow in theme, but with a more broad angle this time. Artifacts are one of the most-supported permanent types in the game, particularly in Commander, and counters shenanigans can be supported in unexpected ways.

This might be the single most no-brainer upgrade of this entire article. This deck is hyperfocused on taking advantage of counters in many forms, most prominently charge counters, and includes several juicy targets that benefit greatly from a huge injection of counters from the proliferation Expansion Algorithm offers. Several mana rocks like Astral Cornucopia, Everflowing Chalice, and Pentad Prism essentially pay back every single bit of fuel dumped into the X for this spell. Insight Engine and Mindless Automaton create an overwhelming amount of card advantage, and in general, the ability to pump +1/+1 counters into any number of creatures is a great way to find damage for the win. But here’s the headliner:

Normally a very slow and inevitable win condition, Darksteel Reactor is already accelerated by Inspirit’s ability to triple its counter output on a turn-by-turn basis. Expansion Algorithm gives me the option to put the entire table on a very tight schedule to remove the Reactor or just lose on the next turn.

To make room for this potentially game-ending bomb, I cut Resourceful Defense. The card helps to preserve counters in the face of removal spells and aggregates those counters where they need to go, but it doesn't actually add to the net number of counters on my cardboard. So, out it goes for the shiny new card. While having the ability to bounce back from removals and boardwipes is valuable, I felt that the ability to proactively turn mana into immediate advantage helped this deck much more.

While this deck doesn’t care about +1/+1 counters as a primary function, there are enough proliferate and generic counter synergies to warrant this potent draw engine. Pensive Professor takes the benefit of Fathom Mage and makes it more broadly applicable, allowing me to draw cards after casting any larger spell, not just by having creatures enter. Like the previous staple, though, this academic can still benefit from synergies like the proliferate mechanic that can put more counters on it for free. I can even strip the counters from it later:

Once this creature has drawn me as many cards as I need, I can invest a little bit of mana and translate all of those counters into charge counters on a Spacecraft or put them towards a win with the aforementioned Darksteel Reactor with Moxite Refinery. Several interesting applications exist for this bearded fellow, and I’m really excited to give him a test drive.

In order to be able to run those tests, I cut Thirst for Knowledge. While card selection and the ability to put artifacts in the graveyard can occasionally be valuable for this deck, I felt the three mana investment was better spent on a consistent draw engine for more durable card advantage.

Resourceful Defense may not have survived this round of cuts, but here’s a freshly-minted card that does a pretty good impression with some additional flexibility. Nexus Mentality lets me scoot counters from a permanent doomed by removal over to something else, put a surprising amount of power onto a creature that’s unblocked, or even sneak counters onto — you guessed it — Darksteel Reactor at the end of the previous player’s turn to earn a surprise win.

Threefold Thunderhulk is a great creature to take advantage of the sudden injection of counters. I can respond to its trigger either when it enters or as it attacks to get an instant army-in-a-can, which is a great defensive tactic against wider boards. 

Of course, there’s also the option to strip all counters from a permanent to draw a ton of cards. While this is a pretty costly maneuver for a deck that wants to maintain large counter totals at all costs, the option to draw a lot of cards all at once can be used in conjunction with the spell’s own first mode to minimize the damage from removal or a board wipe. Interestingly, this interaction can fizzle creature-based removal spells pointed at Inspirit by removing all charge counters from it, turning it back into an artifact which makes it an illegal target for removal that specifies "creature."

Long-Range Sensor is a cute spell in this brew, but it’s a little slower and more conditional than conventional card draw spells. I’ve even been looking for an excuse to cut it so I can use the card in another deck — coming up in just a moment — so this one was a pretty easy cut.

Wolves Need No Armor

Now we get into the heavy hitters in my collection. Faldorn, Dread Wolf Herald is my oldest deck, and has survived multiple rounds of extensive downsizing, so she has a special place in my heart. Exit from Exile from Commander Legends: Battle for Baldur’s Gate is, in my opinion, one of the best-designed precons of all time, able to punch really hard with minimal adjustment, and sporting an open-ended playstyle with a huge margin of flexibility in terms of synergy.

Sure, this one started out as a precon too, but it’s also seen several years of additions, adjustments, and refinement. I like to think of this as probably my strongest conventional deck, and I consider it one of my highest priorities to find ways to amp it up at every opportunity.

Graveyard recursion is actually pretty impactful in a deck that focuses on casting spells from exile. After resolution, those spells go back to the graveyard, and the ability to put them back in hand can be a huge benefit. Emeritus of Abundance lets me do this every single turn, and its prepare condition is pretty trivial considering how many Explore-style effects and how much land ramp is present in this list. My Faldorn list is very mana-hungry, since I want to take advantage of the short window of time I'm given to cast spells exiled with the numerous impulse draw effects, and I made sure to thoroughly satisfy her need for mana. Don't tell my wife.

A neat synergy is to use the casualty ability of Rob the Archives to sacrifice a creature with a good enters trigger such as End-Raze Forerunners or single-use effect like Apex Devastator to later recycle those creatures back to hand with the Regrowth mode of the Emeritus. Doing so lets me repeatedly accrue value from creatures that normally only get to use their ability a single time, which is a great way to approach terminal velocity and pull ahead for the win.

Cutting cards from this deck is usually tough, and I often get biased towards newer cards that have shown less promise than the old reliables. Spider Manifestation is cute on paper, but recent testing has shown that the additional one or two mana it can generate in a turn doesn’t stand out enough against the other more powerful ramp effects in the deck.

The Lesson cycle from Secrets of Strixhaven that shows off the new paradigm mechanic is interesting, but each of the spells are very expensive to cast. Fortunately, Faldorn often has mana leaking out of her ears from the sheer amount of ramping this deck is capable of, so Improvisation Capstone is significantly easier to cast earlier in the game when the acceleration it offers hits that much harder. This deck wins with rote repetition of minor value plays that snowball into a deadly engine of synergistic triggers, and one more free way to cast spells is a great addition to that sequence. It barely matters what spell or spells I spin into with this, as each one comes with a 2/2 Wolf token stapled to it, on top of any other payoff cards on board.

Did I say value? Maybe I should say it a few more times. Nalfeshnee generates more value by taking every single exiled spell from Capstone and stretching the value further by doubling it, and even copies the actual cast of Capstone itself from the paradigm trigger. Guess what that is? MORE VALUE. There’s precious little to say in a specific way here. Free spells, free value, free copies, free value, free wins, free value.

For the sake of iterative deckbuilding, Marvel’s Spider-Man is a blessing. It’s very rare that I see a spell from that set in a deck (outside of those built around commanders from that set) and feel anything other than the urge to cut it, and Interdimensional Web Watch is one such spell. Slapping ramp and card draw together can be potent, but four mana is a steep cost to pay when that same amount of investment can get me so much more.

Leaning into the paradigm mechanic is a great way to synergize with Faldorn, since the recast each turn comes from exile. Germination Practicum carries many of the same benefits as Capstone; while it won’t generate additional cast-from-exile triggers beyond itself, it does effectively create an additional 4/4 (since Faldorn sees the spell being cast and creates a Wolf) every single turn. It will also buff previously-made tokens to continue snowballing the army of vicious canines.

Generating degenerate amounts of value and huge amounts of puppy friends is nice, but it means precious little without a way to force through combat damage. Luckily, I’ve packed a couple of ways to ensure my creatures can make big swings, and Headliner Scarlett is a sneaky little sorcery-speed combat trick that doubles as a pseudo-draw engine with her secondary exile effect. 

Since I was officially out of cards from SPM to cut, I had to actually turn my brain on and think a little. Fortunately, I was able to turn my brain back off almost immediately afterward when I remembered the Phyrexian scripture version of Urabrask, Heretic Praetor in this deck. Do you think I know how to read that stuff? I appreciate the vote of confidence, but not a chance. This deck requires enough careful planning and thought as it is, I don’t need to look up translations in real time on top of all that. Goodbye, Urabrask.

Putting Down the Tools

Now that I’ve made these upgrades, it’s time to do some testing. Are you interested in taking my decks out for a spin yourself? Check out these three links to find these decklists hosted on EDHLAB, where you can either slot these decks into a Playtester game and take your time learning the playstyles by yourself, or bring my creations to battle in an open lobby with the Play Online gamemode. 

If you enjoyed this style of highlighting cool new cards from the latest Secrets of Strixhaven set, come join us on our Discord server and ping me @shadedfall65 with your feedback! Happy upgrading!

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