MtG: Secrets of Strixhaven – Literal Magic
Player2 were fortunate enough to receive a parcel of Secrets of Strixhaven product in conjunction with its wider launch in hobby stores across Australia and the world. While you can check out the contents of our Play Boosters over on the Player2 Instagram page, this piece is mostly focused on the art and worldbuilding of Secrets of Strixhaven.
It’s an open secret that there is a bit of a rift in the Magic fanbase when it comes to the subject of each set. Longtime fans celebrate lore heavy OG sets, but due to the Universes Beyond releases these aren’t as frequent as some would like. I can understand a fanbase feeling starved for content, but as an outsider to the competitive scene it strikes me as odd that players wouldn’t want to revel in each release a little bit longer. Time waits for no one, and apparently neither does the MtG release schedule. I do have sympathy though – were I a FLGS owner or a lifestyle gamer with MtG as my main squeeze, I’d be wanting more product as frequently as possible given how the game is the lifeblood of many retail outlets.
Secrets of Strixhaven revisits the Strixhaven University setting, a magical tertiary institution where each of the five colleges competes to prove its way of thinking over others. While it doesn’t directly riff on the most famous magical school in all of fiction, it could be a way to make the game more inviting to fans of that property. More than any other set I’ve covered, Secrets of Strixhaven strikes a great balance artistically between classic ‘fantasy’ art and the shift towards ‘grimdark’ aesthetics in some spaces of the genre. Here I’ve chosen a selection of cards we pulled from our Play Boosters to shoutout the great work of the artists and also appreciate what in some ways feels like a throwback to the sort of fantasy that would have fit in on a Saturday morning cartoon show.
Scene setting cards like Daydream, Procrastinate and the dreaded Group Project will be recognisable to students and educators alike, the bright colours and evocative lighting making the fantastic seem familiar thanks to artists like Elizabeth Pero and Nia Kovaleski. The Mystical Archive cards reimagine Spells from Magic’s past, reinterpreted with striking artwork that stands out in each booster – Hop to It is a particular favourite for me, Alex Stone’s approach seemingly lifted straight from an aging children’s storybook.
Perhaps best of all though are the staff and students of Strixhaven themselves, often including some sort of descriptor informing their pose or attitude. Never have I witnessed such pure joy on a Magic card before Leech Collector, while Studious First-Year has yet to face the horrors of 4am submissions and ramen for breakfast. Spellbook Seeker soars above all, finally tracking down that last pesky tome that’s preoccupied their mind for weeks now, a pain known all too well by MtG players when it comes to collecting and deck construction. In the magical, the artists of Secrets of Strixhaven have also embedded the mundane and in doing so have created perhaps one of the more relatable sets to ever emerge from Wizards of the Coast.
School days can’t last forever, though. On the horizon for Magic are the Marvel Super Heroes wave coming in late June, with The Hobbit following that mid-August and the final in-universe set for 2026, Reality Fracture, dropping in early October before a quick turnaround on Star Trek in mid-November. The Marvel Super Heroes wave is gearing up to be a big UB set in the vein of Final Fantasy with a huge product range including four Commander Pre-Cons, Scene Boxes, Bundles, Draft Night kits and a return of Jumpstart boosters. For in-universe only fans, there’s quite a few months to keep exploring the Secrets of Strixhaven, but how quickly after Star Trek we see another lore-heavy set might take a few more months to discover.
