Strixhaven, Episode 4: Full Set Review, Part 3 of 3
The full set of Strixhaven has been revealed and that means it’s time for our comprehensive Set Review! This episode completes our Brewer’s Guide with a look at the creatures and MDFCs that hold the most promise for brewing in Modern and Pioneer.
If you missed the first two installments of this series, you can find them here:
Brewer’s Guide to Strixhaven, Part 1: Recruitment Week
Brewer’s Guide to Strixhaven, Part 2: Instants and Sorceries
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
At a Glance: Cards Discussed in Part 3
Leonin Lightscribe
Sedgemoor Witch
Symmetry Sage
Blex, Vexing Pest / Search for Blex
Extus, Oriq Overlord / Awaken the Blood Avatar
Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios / Journey to the Oracle
Mila, Crafty Companion / Lukka, Wayward Bonder
Beledros Witherbloom
Mavinda, Students’ Advocate
Conspiracy Theorist
Callous Bloodmage
Silverquill Silencer
The Biblioplex
New: Full Episode Transcript!
Automated transcripts are not 100% accurate. Please use this transcript only for cursory reference. If you need to quote any of our content, please contact us.
Daniel Schriever: [00:00:00] You are listening to Faithless Brewing, a magic, the gathering podcast for the rogue deck builders. Each week, we design new decks in modern and pioneer. We put our creases to the test and share our findings on the air. Today. We present the final installment of our brewers guide to Strixhaven. We look at the creatures, the lands and the Moodle double face cards.
This is episode four of Strixhaven seasons. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
David Robertson: [00:01:01] hello and welcome to the faithless brewing podcast. I am David Robertson joined as always by my guy on the West coast. He is Damon Alexander Damon. What’s popping
Damon Alexander: [00:01:11] ain’t out too much has had a nice sunset in Seattle after a pretty nice sunny day.
David Robertson: [00:01:18] Excellent. And we are of course joined by the CEO of the faithless brewing podcast.
He is cavedan online. He’s cavedan on our hearts. He Daniel Schriever, Dan, what is up?
Daniel Schriever: [00:01:30] Hey, I’m doing well, David, you know, the weather in North Carolina has also taken a big turn. It is hot. It is summertime. This is going to be my first full summer in the South. To the extent that North Carolina is the South, it is sweltering.
I am. I’m amazed.
David Robertson: [00:01:46] Well, that should kill the virus. Five sec. Understood the last year’s worth of news reports accurately. So.
Daniel Schriever: [00:01:55] Well, I’m hoping the vaccine kills the virus I’m scheduled for my second shot this week. So looking forward to that.
David Robertson: [00:02:02] Absolutely. So just a quick reminder that we are now releasing two podcasts a week, our previous podcast, hopefully you checked it out, went through all of the spells and the lessons and learn mechanic from Strixhaven.
We are going through the rest of the spoiler today. So that is all of the double faced cars that they just spoiled as well as all of the creatures. So we got a lot to get to guys. Let’s get to it. Damon. Our first card is Leonin Lightscribe, Leonin Lightscribe, a one and a white cat cleric two, two.
And it has magecraft whenever you cast or copy an instant cast or copy and instant or sorcery spell creatures you control get plus one plus one until end of turn. What does this do for you?
Damon Alexander: [00:02:45] Well, we still haven’t seen, you know, the white prowess deck in any format takes shape. Uh, but if it does this car, it seems like it’s gonna be one of the critical pieces to it where you get a go wide effect.
But as hard as, you know, perfectly fine has prowess on its own, um, doing his best Soul-Scar Mage impression. Uh, but of course, if you have both out now, you get an extra, uh, Magecraft triggers. So we’ll see. Uh, I think it depends on whether that they’re white. White X prowess deck takes a format by storm.
Daniel Schriever: [00:03:16] Please speaking. We are not covering all of the creatures today because we did cover some of the earliest spoilers last week. And there we talked about the Clever Lumimancer, as well as some other magecraft offerings. So this card is just like a running mate, a partner with a Clever Lumimancer. That is obviously the one man option that got people excited about turn to kills, or bringing back Nivmagus Elemental.
And then there was a question, is that worth it splashing into whites? Now I think the white splash or not even splash really, but like a main deck build that’s features white more heavily makes a little more sense. I mean, this, this lightscribe, it doesn’t excite me really, but it’s a useful effect. It’s it’s actually, you know, Slightly better than other options in the prowess category at two men
David Robertson: [00:03:59] on, I guess I like it, that this also works well with a bunch of cards that give you a bunch of extra bodies.
So I’m thinking about monastery mentor Young Pyromancer obviously Monastery Mentor it gives you creatures that already have normal prowess. So it’s adding up to a lot of damage quite quickly. Same with Young Pyromancer, you know, you cast a few bolts or whatever, or maybe you were talking about like some kind of Mardu medium lists.
This helps you close the door very quickly. So this feels a little less combo ish than the one man. Oh, one that gets plus two plus two. This feels like it pays you off for maybe interacting over the course of a couple turns and then pumping a bunch of bodies.
Damon Alexander: [00:04:34] Monastery Mentor doesn’t need a ton of help to win the game on his own young parents.
Or can you use a little bit, you sometimes
David Robertson: [00:04:41] Young Pyromancer. Yeah, he needs a little helping hand, not a handout, but a hand up.
Daniel Schriever: [00:04:47] Well, one thing that we’ve seen is that all of these decks have become Lurrus decks. So Young Pyromancer is still a card you’ll see these days, but you really won’t see mentor anymore.
In that sense, you know, this sort of build a mentor option, I think is actually kind of nice. Yeah. So on that same. Subject, we can jump down to this Sedgemoor Witch, which is two and a black for a three-two human warlock with menace. It has magecraft whenever you cast or copy a incident resource respell, you create a pest token, a one, one black ingredient, insect, sorry, not insect pest.
What am I saying? A pest when it dies again of life, the essential moral, which also comes with ward Pay three life. So if the opponent tries to target it. That effect is countered unless they paid an additional three life. So now we’re moving into the black giving it access to a Monastery mentor effect, but I still think those are going to be the X and they won’t want this.
David Robertson: [00:05:41] Yeah, I think this is a super cool design. Um, but yeah, I think this is a significantly worse than monastery mentor. And like we just said, Monastery mentor does not see a lot of play, not requiring Manoj as part of the award is, is actually a very big strike against this card. A card like this wants to be around over the course of multiple turns, where it’s paying you off for casting thoughts, it’s pinning you off for casting, LIghtning bolts, putting out for casting off, whatever.
But if your opponent kin in a temple positive way, you know, shock or stomp or path, your says more, which, and they just have to pay three life. The award is not really costing them any temple. It’s costing them life. And the life only matters if you’re really pressuring their life total and a three-month three, two, it’s just not that aggressively standard of a creature.
And the kind of spells that support, that kind of card. Um, often don’t lend themselves to a very aggressive deck either. So I think it’s a super cool card. I think it is going to see a bit of play in stuff, even though it does die to stomp. Um, but I, I agree with you, Dan. I think this doesn’t quite get there and the fact that it also turns off Lurrus as your companion, in addition to these other weaknesses, I think is kind of a death knell for this.
Damon Alexander: [00:06:46] Some positives are Young Pyromancer are frequently comes to the battlefield and dies. Freefly comes to the battlefield. And you know, it makes a couple of one ones, but you can actually attack with a Pyromancer because it just trays with everything. This card. If you’re playing an aggressive deck, uh, you can pressure your opponent’s life.
Total. It comes down. It’s hard to kill because they value their life in that matchup. And meanwhile is a three to menace. It’s not the easiest to just block.
David Robertson: [00:07:08] That’s true. I think that the one extra manna weirdly matters more for cards like this, because you want to hold your spells until the spell resolves.
So every thoughts, either bolt or stomp you cast, and the first couple of turns are cards you’re casting without Sedgemoor, which in play. So Young Pyromancer are coming down a whole turn earlier. I think actually matters more than it normally would.
Damon Alexander: [00:07:28] Yeah. But yeah, I mean this card, I think you should think of it as is a much better creature in the red zone, then Young Pyromancer and also more survivable.
Uh, if your deck is backing it up with, uh, other forms of pressure, um, on the whole, yeah, it probably doesn’t really slot into these decks in, in modern, uh, but maybe there’s room for some pioneer.
Daniel Schriever: [00:07:46] All right, one last major craft creature. David, how about the Symmetry Sage
David Robertson: [00:07:50] symmetry Sage blue manna zero two flying human wizard mates craft.
Whenever you cast or copy an incident or sorcery spelled target creature you control has base power to until end of turn. So functionally, what you have is a delver of secrets, like creature, where if you cast opt on your turn, this now becomes a one man and two, two flying creature and it can get in there.
Um, I actually think this card is quite weak. I don’t like in my tempo deck having to tap out or tat not tap out, but tap manna on my turn, every turn and have a constant flow of instance or sorceries to keep my threat in play. Um, if there’s ever a turn where I don’t have an opt or a serum visions or lightning bolt, uh, you know, I just draw another symmetry sage and play it.
Now I literally have erased the text on both of those cars and I’m desperately hoping my next turn is a brainstorm or something. So I, I think this is a. A bit of a trap card. It traps you into thinking it’s sort of as like Delver, but I think it’s significantly worse in multiple different ways. And delver itself has struggled to see play in a modern,
Damon Alexander: [00:08:55] let me just dust off my twisted images because this card is going to take over every format that we know.
Um, yeah, I mean, this card is more predictable than delver delver in modern is generally speaking just a little bit. Just, we don’t have the brainstorm or ponders with, to flip and reliably, this card flips quote unquote, reliably, but just, yeah, you’re on a gas and it’s useless.
Daniel Schriever: [00:09:17] It’s not useless. Right? It’s still an 0/2 flyer.
It can activate your wizard’s lightning or your wizard’s retort. If you’re a glutton for punishment, it can hold a curious obsession. Well, it doesn’t get picked off randomly by Wrenn and Six or lava darts. Um, I mean, I think those are some of the biggest problems with delver specifically. You can even, you know, ninjitsu off this or something.
It is always an 0-2 flyer.
Damon Alexander: [00:09:44] Yeah. And it’s a wizard, which is an interesting, interesting tribe.
Daniel Schriever: [00:09:47] I’m going to give this a try. At least I would not be surprised to see it five. Oh, a couple of times before people decide they don’t like wizards.
David Robertson: [00:09:57] I’m just waiting for the screenshot in our like Google chat, where you’ve got like two of these in play and like a young Pyromancer in hand.
And just like, literally if these cars were literally anything else, like could kill my opponent this turn, but I they’re not. So I can’t.
Daniel Schriever: [00:10:11] Yeah. Okay. Worth noting that the second spell you cast isn’t totally wasted. Right? You can, you can turn your Soul-Scar Mage based power into two with a Symmtery Sage.
If you cast two spells on a turn, so you are getting something off that. Yeah.
David Robertson: [00:10:25] And I think it’s meant to work with, like, with Fractals, which started as base zero, zero creatures. So, you know, it gives them a legitimate buff, which is not trivial.
Daniel Schriever: [00:10:35] All right. Let’s move on to some MDFC.
David Robertson: [00:10:38] All right. Blex the vexing past two and a green for a three, two legendary creature pest.
Other pests, bats, insects, snakes, and spiders. You control get post one plus one. When the Blex the vexing pest dies, you gain for life. The backside is the Search for Blex to black, black sorcery. Look at the top five cards of your library. You may put any number of them into your hand and the rest into your graveyard.
You lose three life for each card you put into your hand this way. So it’s a format, a draw five. If you want it to be at the low, low cost of 15 life, what do we think about Blex the vexing pest and search for Blex. Damon.
Damon Alexander: [00:11:22] Well, first off, it’s going to be expensive because the backside is super good and EDH, and it’s a mythic rare.
Uh, they won’t even bother. They’ll just, they’ll never going to cast Blex. Um, but yeah, for us, I mean, the first question I have when I see a search for Blex is can we play children of Korliss with this somehow? You know, you get all five cards. That’s the natural thing to think of is how do I draw all five cards for managers?
All five cards seems pretty good. Um, we’ll still have Korliss you’ve gained the life back. Of course you have to be at over 15 stars, but it’s a lot to ask for the Blex half of it seems. I mean, I’m not sure that somebody has like, uh, pest bats, insects, snakes, and spiders deck that is just shy of tier one.
This is going to push over the edge, but, uh, you know, maybe it’s out there.
Daniel Schriever: [00:12:09] I want to like this car to lots, but I’m trying to think of the deck that actually cast search for Blex and it doesn’t immediately die from greedily taking two or three cards and losing half of your life in the process Scourge of the Skyclaves and playing here maybe, but even there, like probably not.
David Robertson: [00:12:27] Yeah, I guess I liked that the front half is a fine card against agro and the back side is a fine card against control decks, where your life has often. Not taxed. I mean, you don’t want to be too greedy, although of course I know I will be, but, um, you know, you can often just take nine damage against like a blue-black control list or whatever.
They’re not really threatening your life total in any meaningful way.
Daniel Schriever: [00:12:48] Could this be the new Sylvan library after all these years?
David Robertson: [00:12:53] Certainly we taking, you know, near double digit damage from this at all times. In that sort of peace of mind deck that I was talking about, this buffs, the bats that get made as well as search or Blex helps you find like the actual pieces to assemble, which was a really hard thing to do.
Oh. So it has like weird synergy. Also the four life matters a little bit, uh, in that deck. So, I mean, I’m gonna try it in a few, like pet decks, but I also just think like Damon’s on the right track here. Like if search or Blex is just format and I draw five. That sounds pretty good to me.
Daniel Schriever: [00:13:22] Okay. I’m cool. I’m sold.
David Robertson: [00:13:25] All right. Next up, we have Extus, Oriq overlord and the backside is awaken the blood avatar. So Extus, Oriq overlord, one white, black, black for a two for human warlock. Legend, double strike magecraft. Whenever you cast or copy an incident sorcery spell return, target non legendary creature from your graveyard to your hand.
The backside awaken the blood avatar six, a black and a red for a sorcery as an additional cost to cast the spell. You may sacrifice any number of creatures. This spell costs two colas, less to cast for each creature, sacrifice this way. When it resolves each opponent sacrifices, a creature, you create a three, six black and red avatar creature token with haste.
And whenever this creature attacks, it deals three damage to each opponent. All right. A lot of texts on this car, Dan, you thought this car was really powerful. You said you’re almost worried about it. So talk to me about what you think is happening here with Extus, Oriq overlord, and specifically you wanted to highlight awaken in the blood avatar.
Daniel Schriever: [00:14:26] Oh, yeah, I think awaken the blood avatars super sweet. This is, I guess the main villain of the set Extus and the blood avatar is something that Extus summons to like get revenge on Strixhaven somehow. And unfortunately we also know from the story spotlight cars that Will and Rowan Kenrith save the day, um, with some cheesy, Izzet spells.
But man, this blood avatar looks so sweet. So it reminded me a lot of Torgaar, Famine Incarnate, which also costs eight. Also lets you sacrifice creatures to reduce its cost down as low as two men on the trick is that Torgaar, Famine Incarnate is like really bad. The effect is just not good enough.
You know, it’s a five that sets their life total at half and that’s just like, not very good, you know, it’s that’s, that’s a 10 basically. This effect is actually good. So we never really got to learn how good Torgaar was because Torgaar himself wasn’t actually worth putting in place. This one kills a Creaser.
So it’s tempo positive deals up to six damage that turn with her promise of more damage. Next turn, potentially. Uh, what is, uh, up to six damage the next turn as well, right? Whenever it attacks. Then, you know, you can maybe turn the additional cost of sacrificing creatures into a benefits. If you’re looking at a Stitcher’s supplier or maybe we’re in like a Pyromancer style deck where you have tokens laying around, we don’t care about it.
Doesn’t have to cost. You could cost for workers costs, you know, six, even if you’re drawing the game out, that’s just the backside. Now, when you have all of that with the option to play Extus on the front side, um, Extus is like a solid combat creature for men. Uh, and it’s major craft ability. Well, incidentally get stuff back.
I think just the total package here is very exciting to me. And this is one of the cars I’m most excited to be with
David Robertson: [00:16:07] Damon. What do you think of Extus, Oriq overlord and, or awaken the blood avatar?
Damon Alexander: [00:16:12] It’s a hard card to value properly. So the backside is certainly, I would say where it start. It looks like the thing that.
Is the easiest to understand, I guess, um, you get a big dude has an ETB kills them quickly, really sucks to push really sucks. A brazen borrower, somewhat a lot of, you know, that, that fractal card. How good is that? It’s hard to say. Um, certainly if you’re saying that, you know, red, black for it and you don’t get blown out, I think you come out really far ahead.
If you’re spending format of Ford and you do get blown out, I feel like you’re gonna kind of be pretty behind. So that card I think is worth trying, but you know, it’s not easy to have three creatures to play this for cheap. And even still, again, like there’s too many cars that really mess up this table, both to try it.
Then on the Extus half, like, what are you trying to accomplish with a major craft? Uh, you know, when you cast or copying center source, where you return a non legendary creature from your graveyard to your hand, Can you set up like loops with eternal witness, uh, are you using Ephemerate to make it so that your creatures never die?
I don’t know. Um, and also it feels like the front half is really not doing the same thing as the back half.
Daniel Schriever: [00:17:24] No, that’s not true. They’re both like trying to sacrifice creatures and then get them back.
David Robertson: [00:17:30] Well, Extus, doesn’t provide a way to sacrifice is the, yeah, I was kind of asking myself the same question, Damon, like, could you sucker try builder on two and then play this.
Plus like a freestyle and get the tribal their back and just like almost ramped here. Awaken the blood avatar. It gets only non legendary. So I can’t keep casting awaken the blood avatar over and over again. Unfortunately Kroxa is a card that goes through a graveyard, but it’s a very negative temple play.
It’s like casting that every turn isn’t actually that big of a bonus. It’s not
Daniel Schriever: [00:18:01] legendary only it doesn’t look like.
David Robertson: [00:18:04] So like, are you just playing a Pyromancer, you know, to hopefully awaken the blood avatar, but your opponent just kills it right away. So eventually just have to cast excess posts, like Thoughtseize to get your Pyromancer back. So, yeah, it’s interesting, Dan, you really liked playing these like Mardu medium shells. And so this suit suits that shell very well. It’ll be interesting to see where it slots in and how powerful it ends up being.
Daniel Schriever: [00:18:27] We can finally do a full mashup of Mardu mediums and aristocrats.
And those are like two of the most fun things you can do.
David Robertson: [00:18:35] Well, I predict it will be much better because of all the removal spells at this set ads. I’m not sure if Extus, uh, I mean, he’ll trigger whenever you cast a vexing verse and all these things, so that’ll be good.
Daniel Schriever: [00:18:45] Exactly. Well, I hope that we hear more from Extus, uh, in the coming weeks, but we’ll have to see how that goes.
David Robertson: [00:18:51] All right. Up next, we have the Simic. Double faced legend, which is Jadzi Oracle of Arcavios and journey to the Oracle. Jadzi Oracle of Arcavios six blue blue for a legendary human wizard. Five, five reads discard, a card colon return Jadzi to its owner’s hand. And then it has magecraft. Whenever you cast or copy an incident or sorcery spell reveal the top card of your library.
If it’s a non land card, you may cast it by paying one colorless rather than paying its manta cost. It would trigger major craft again, if it’s an incentive sorcery card. And if it’s a land card, you put it onto the battlefield. Then the backside journey to the Oracle is in fact to green, green sorcery, you may put any number of land cards from your hand onto the battlefield.
Then if you control eight or more lands, you may discard a card. If you do return journey to the Oracle, to its owner’s hand. So yeah, this is. A crazy card. It’s a lot of texts there. Damon, what do we think about Jadzi?
Damon Alexander: [00:19:57] Well, the front half is definitely, you know, if you have this in play and you on tab with it, you’re probably going to win the game because you get to kind of keep training spells.
I mean, you may not win the game. You may fizzle out. But the thing is that, you know, you’re spending eight man out to get a five, five that may or may not win the game. That probably isn’t good enough to really justify it on its own. Even if it has some awesome art that’s, you know, all the yoga retreats have something similar looking when it comes to the backside.
This is where things are weird. I mean, format to be able to in theory, ramp a lot. If you have a lot of lands in the hand, Um, and then if you have enough plants in hand, you can then get back Jadzi. And so even though the Jadzi isn’t great on its own, it will set you off for the game state where Jadzi is good.
Daniel Schriever: [00:20:44] But this back half is like shocking in the bed. I’m can’t believe how little the backside does it doesn’t replace itself. It gives you the option to discard something to get it back, but okay, fine. How many cars do they think we’re going to have in our hand and how many lands I’m going to have in our hand?
Minus lecture in three or four and we’re casting this I’m really surprised. So that makes me think that the front side must be like the big draw. And it is, I mean, David, you’re talking about how you can potentially just keep major crafting into more fuel for the major crafts. So maybe all you need is one spell to start off the chain.
And that that’s pretty cool, but I don’t see myself ever capturing the back half, unless something really weird has happened.
David Robertson: [00:21:23] Yeah, it makes me wonder if there’s like some combo where we like, fill our hand with lands. Maybe that one in a blue that like reveals cards off the top of your deck. And as long as they’re lands that, keep going until you get a non land card, which could maybe be Jadzi itself.
But yeah, very, very strange card. And it’s not obvious, you know, people are like, Oh, the, the broken Simic mythic it’s like journey to the Oracle is nothing like the other Ramp Cards they’ve been printing that draw cards while they’re ramping you. This goes down cards. I mean, during to the Oracle speeds up the amount of time you can play lands, but it does no work and putting extra lands into your hand.
Damon Alexander: [00:22:00] Yeah. I mean, Fastbond also does, you know, you go down a card off fastbond and that card is extremely powerful. So obviously turned into Oracle is a very different magic card.
Daniel Schriever: [00:22:10] The new fastbond is that, is that what I titled this episode?
David Robertson: [00:22:14] It’s definitely like a puzzle to be solved. I think, I think what you’re trying to do is find a way to get Jadzi in play and untapped, right?
I mean, That’s when it’s going to start feeling like you’re, you’re experiencing the Nirvana. That Jadzi is, um, there mountain top there, but, um, yeah, during the call is almost like a blank text to me. I, I, unless you’re doing something very specific, I don’t think it’s adding much to your plan.
Damon Alexander: [00:22:38] They come in on tap for what it’s worth.
David Robertson: [00:22:40] Okay. That’s interesting.
Daniel Schriever: [00:22:42] Yeah. If there was some upheaval effect, maybe, um, Storm Cauldron, but that’s not legal. Wrenn and Six, a bunch of turns in a row. I don’t know. It’s really weird.
Damon Alexander: [00:22:50] Like, I think if you could reliably cast the Oracle and put four lands in play, I think it’s a game.
David Robertson: [00:22:57] Yeah. I agree with that statement.
Damon Alexander: [00:23:00] The question is what kind of deck can do that? I mean, this evolve life from the loam or Wrenn and Six, or just a lot of lands in your deck to begin with, it does seem like a puzzle that we will probably waste a lot of ticks on.
Daniel Schriever: [00:23:11] It was a car called Nissa’s triumph that I’ve always thought was like, kind of good.
It can get up to three forests into your hand for two green. But, yeah, I don’t know. All right. Let’s let’s part of that one. We’ll move on to a Mila, crafty companion.
David Robertson: [00:23:26] All right. Mila, crafty companion, one white white for a legendary Fox. That’s two, three, whenever an opponent attacks one or more.
Planeswalkers you control. Put a loyalty counter on each Planeswalker you control whenever a permanent you control becomes a target of a spell or ability and opponent controls. You may draw card. The backside, the return of Lukka. Lukka wayward bonder for red red for a legendary Luka Planeswalker starts with five loyalty.
Plus one, you may discard a card. If you do draw card. If a creature card was discard this way, draw two cards instead. Minus two return target creature card from your graveyard to the battlefield that gains haste exile at at the beginning of your next upkeep. Minus seven, you get an emblem with whenever a creature ental enters the battlefield under your control.
It deals damage equal to its power to any target. So, Dan, what do we think about Mila Mila and or Lukka?
Daniel Schriever: [00:24:26] Yeah, well, if right off the bat, we should note that this has the same pattern as Tibalt, and Valki where the front side is a cheap creature. The backside is an expensive Planeswalker and that means that this will work with bring to light.
This will work with release to the winds. So we do have the option. If we really like what Lukka is doing, we can get it for five or maybe even three casting. A Mila Crafty Companion is not the worst thing in the world. Uh, I don’t think it’s texted like protecting planeswalkers is going to come up very much, but you know, you play it’s real point of removal spelled maybe, and maybe you’ll get a card off of it.
Lukka is the one that actually excites me here because I think that mine is two effects returning a creature from the graveyard with haste opens up some interesting combo finishes and either six men or perhaps five, I think it’s like in the realm of, you know, maybe worth trying. What about you?
David Robertson: [00:25:20] I actually like Mila.
Uh, I think that second ability means that he’s always going to pay you off. If you’re playing other creatures that are must kill. Um, maybe this isn’t a deck like with the a one man and one, two that the, the fixed mother of ruins for modern, um, all of a sudden, you know, they’re having to spend the first bell on that.
You draw a card and they have to kill Mila. You draw a card. I mean, this is an effect that has been brought in against me multiple times in sideboard games. There’s a one green man and chairman that simulates this. So it’s like a side affordable effect. Uh, the fact that it’s on a creature is pretty cool.
Uh, again, it’s another cheap white legend. If we’re finally getting like a density of effects where maybe we can make the like Mono white, uh, mocks, Amber deck,
Daniel Schriever: [00:26:07] Hero’s blade, it’s Time.
David Robertson: [00:26:10] The thing that’s weird is most of these dual face cards, whether they’re. Good or bad, the backside and front side kind of synergize with each other.
There’s no synergy here at all. So it’s very odd to me. Um, I think Lukka is, is a little over costed at six. So I think bring to light on this is just not anything you’d ever do when you could get Tibalt, uh, and or Valki involved. So I don’t think this is like a bring to light target, and I don’t know exactly what that minus two is going to do.
I’m thinking maybe of that, like Mardu ghost dad list where the minus two just permanently kind of brings back your, uh, five, five, uh, ghost dad forever. It, the Sackett, your next upkeep is like a weird timing. If there’s something you can get on your turn and your points turn, I I’m, I’m still kind of like kicking around what the best way to use this would be.
Damon Alexander: [00:27:03] Yeah, to me, Mila is like two thirds of a Leovold, but it misses out on the best third, the, uh, can’t draw more than one car to turn part. Um, having played against of a bunch in legacy. I don’t think that’s really good enough. Um, the thing with the green enchantment, I forget the name of it also, but the thing is your product.
Can’t just kill it. Shapers sanctuary. Thank you, Dan Mila, if you’re pointing, it has a lot of kill spells. They just kill me the first and then they killed the other things. Um, Meanwhile Lukka is. Yeah, absolutely. No, Tybalt here a note, no fear there. Uh, maybe they learned their lesson on the other hand. I mean, Lukka is a decent card.
I mean, five man out of the uptick, sorry, six Manoj fray, five loyalty. Planeswalker the uptake kind of draws you a card. Uh, although you have to pitch gas to make that happen. But the problem is that if you’re doing anything clever with the minus two, it’s going to either happen late or you require two clever things to happen.
One is. Cleverly sneak Lukka into play and have something good in your graveyard. And that seems a lot to ask.
Daniel Schriever: [00:28:05] No, I think it’s just good. I mean, even if you’re not doing some spectacular finish, these are just useful effects that access to, maybe this is going in that a red, white retriever Phoenix deck we’re getting back.
Professor of symbology is discarding retriever Phoenix is off Lucas plus one.
David Robertson: [00:28:22] Yeah, I do think you need to be doing something like that. Like getting super value from the plus one where like the creature wants to be in the graveyard. You draw the two or maybe you’re. Losing weight, griselbrand. Um, it has to be on the order of that because you’re not normally tapping out for a six-minute Planeswalker that does not affect the board and being super happy about it.
Daniel Schriever: [00:28:43] Okay. So we got a couple more Mythics to cover here. Do you want to talk about Beledros Witherbloom
David Robertson: [00:28:48] Yeah, so we had our Golgari dragons spoiled and it is Beledros Witherbloom. So five, a black and a green. Elder dragon legend for, for flying at the beginning of each upkeep, create a one, one black and green pest creature token.
So when that dies, you gain a life and then pay 10 life, colon untapped, all lands you control activate only once each turn. So, uh, in my discussions with a few other people, uh, it’s sort of part Palinchron part Verdant Force. Uh, this would have been the absolute jam in 1999. What do we think about this card in the year of our Lord 2021 Damon?
Damon Alexander: [00:29:27] Oh, I think Time has not been kind to this card for written for us, used to be this awesome majestic rare from Tempus that was kind of expensive. And that was like, was like an uncommon in some masters set.
David Robertson: [00:29:41] It was an uncommon in Dominaria. It wasn’t even rare.
Damon Alexander: [00:29:46] Um, And the thing is that for seven manna, like you get a four for flying the mace one ones, that’s fine.
You know, as good Verdant Force is still a powerful car to have in play, but there are better cars to do similar things for less manna. And then the pay Time life ONTAP allows you control is again, it’s powerful, but it’s seven Manoj. Like first off at that point in the game, you maybe you don’t have 10 life to pay.
Second off. If the best thing your seven drop does is get you seven more mad at a cast, something even better. Can’t you just cast something that goes over the top and hope it goes over the top enough and not need Beledros to hang out and go extra over the top.
Daniel Schriever: [00:30:26] Yeah, I think those are good cautions to have it is a manner doubler, so that’s kind of scary, but once you start figuring out it’s okay.
I want to try it. Let’s get Beledros Witherbloom into play. Come up with some way, whether that’s reanimation or maybe you’re a second Magda treasures or something, maybe Lukka is bringing it back for a return. And you realize that like, you’ll do all this work and then, you know, 40% of the time you won’t have 10 life to pay, you can pay it, but that’ll put you in range of a bolt and then it’s like, okay, nevermind.
Um, yeah, I guess making pests, every upkeep is just not good enough. Obviously this is a much different card in a 40 life format.
Damon Alexander: [00:31:04] Yeah. I think it’s this card, plus like Nissa who shakes the world, Nissa sets up. Beledros. And then you get doubled and doubled again. But on the other hand, Nissa who shakes the world plus more or less anything expensive as good.
So why this card in particular over really anything?
David Robertson: [00:31:22] Yeah, I think you’d need, uh, in with that specific sequence of cards, the next card to win, but it’s like, why don’t you just miss that into griselbrand? That seems pretty good too.
Damon Alexander: [00:31:32] Yeah. Nissa into Beledros into Hydroid Krasis you could just skip Beledros.
David Robertson: [00:31:38] All right, moving on. Mavinda, students’ advocate. Dan has called this Flapcaster Mage, which I absolutely love too. And a white for a bird adviser. And it literally is like a bird, like a professor’s thing, putting it’s arm, beak, and winging around a grad student and trying to cheer her up. Um, Two three flying zero colon.
You may cast target incident or sorcery spell card from your graveyard. This turn. If that’s spelled doesn’t target a creature, you control it costs eight collarless more to cast this way. If that spell would be put into your graveyard X islet instead activate only once each turn. So you can activate it on your turn and on your opponent’s turn.
But if you’re spelled is not targeted creature, you control specifically, like let’s you want to cast wrath of God. It adds eight colorless to the Manor cost. So, uh, Dan, what do we think about Mavinda, the Flapcaster Mage.
Daniel Schriever: [00:32:38] Yeah. Pretty cool. Ability is really funny. Art. The car is that is asking you to play our cards that are going to be at home with a feather, the redeemed.
Boros heroic style deck. But when you actually look at that deck, it doesn’t actually need this effect, right. It already has Dreadhorde Arcanist to work with Feather and get stuff back out of the graveyard. So maybe like you play a couple of Mavindas just for like a little bit of extra grind, but. It’s kind of weird that like the archetype that wants it most like already has enough options.
So I’m actually not sure I would even try this.
David Robertson: [00:33:12] Yeah. I mean, this card is not, I think a Feather card, uh, I think you need to be doing something like weird and busted with it where you’re casting cars that do other stuff that happened to target a creature. So I’ve got a few highlighted here. Karn’s temporal Sundering this is a legend, a and central centering can bounce one of your creatures. So you could cast it from your graveyard. Sublime epiphany, Dromoka’s command, uh, inscription of abundance. Primal might, uh, these are all cards that do stuff, and they’re all reasonably playable. You know, these aren’t powerhouses of the format.
So, and they’re also instant. So you can often, you know, in theory, I think to get value on this card, you want to cast a source it, and you’re turning the incident on your opponent’s turn. Um, and so it’s functionally drawing you, you know, a bunch of cards to each turn cycle. But it, I think it’s, there’s a lot of moving parts there.
So if this turns out to be a thing, it would really surprise me if it was in anything but pioneer. The three toughness, dies to bolt is, is bad news bears. I think.
Damon Alexander: [00:34:12] Yeah. One car I know you left out is Magma Opus, which taps to target permanence.
David Robertson: [00:34:21] I love that. Yeah, I didn’t, I didn’t think of it that, that’s why I left it off
Damon Alexander: [00:34:24] fresh off the press.
David Robertson: [00:34:25] Beautiful. Like you just need eight ran out.
Daniel Schriever: [00:34:29] I was always interested in the card fiery justice, which you could play with feather for like the feathery justice. And it just occurred to me that if you put Mavinda in, it’s also on theme, you know, feathers, birds.
David Robertson: [00:34:40] Yeah. I love it. All right, moving on. We got to get through these cards here. We got conspiracy theorist, conspiracy theorist, one in a red for a 2/2 human ShawMan. Whenever conspiracy theorists attacks, you may pay one color list and discard a card. If you do draw card. Whenever you discard one or more non land cards, you may exile one of them from your graveyard.
If you do, you may cast it this turn. So this is another car that works with a lot of the discard theme from this set. I think one way to think about this discard ability is at least one of the cards you discard each turn, functionally has a madness cost of its converted man Acosta or men of value, as they would say.
So you can discard a Snapcaster Mage, cast it from your graveyard, this turn, and then, you know, do your thing. So that ability you actually seem super powerful. If you combine that with Rielle, it’s just cars, letting you cast a card, you put your graveyard and you’re drawing another card from real. You started going to start flying through your deck.
Daniel Schriever: [00:35:36] Yeah, you made a good point that the rummage effect on conspiracy theorist might just be like trinket texts. Then what you’re really looking forward to that pseudo madness. That’s pretty unique. The play pattern that I’m envisioning is. Maybe a hollow one deck, you cast Burning inquiry and every time you do that, you’re like, man, this, this could be so sweet or it could be really sad.
If I described my Hollow Ones with conspiracy theorists, you’re not going to discard your hollow Ones or maybe you do. And actually that’s good because then you just cast them or free out of the graveyard. I can also imagine like the retriever Phoenix deck, I’m getting some action on the rummage effects of the learn cards with conspiracy theorist.
I think it was actually really exciting. Yeah.
Damon Alexander: [00:36:13] Or if you have a flourishing Fox that you want to both cast and cycle, now you can do both.
David Robertson: [00:36:17] Yeah, love that,
Damon Alexander: [00:36:19] Susan. I think this is a great design card. I think that, you know, red, red, two men or two twos have come so far since 1999. Just leave it in for us.
Daniel Schriever: [00:36:27] I think I rate this fairly highly as to, in terms of just excitement to build around it, even though it’s a little bit fidgety as a two, two for two,
David Robertson: [00:36:33] a little fragile, but all right.
So it sounds like we’re all, uh, on board to hear whether it’s conspiracy theorist has to say about Q and latest theories. Onto our next card, Callous Bloodmage two and a black for a two, one vampire warlock. When Callous Bloodmage enters a battlefield, choose one, create a one, one black and green pest creature token with when it dies, you gain life.
You may draw card and lose a life, or you may exile target players graveyard. So a fraction ranger is a card for a boomers like me that we understand the two men or three men, a two, two that draws a card and loses a life. This also does a bunch of other stuff. So what do we like about this kind of modal?
Callous Bloodmage Damon
Damon Alexander: [00:37:15] well, the, the best kind of modal thing that you want to have access to is the XL target players, graveyard, you know, a lot of decks have in the crater toolbox, get a card like scavenging. Who’s not that frequently as good and can take over a game. Sometimes that’s just too slow.
Your pawn already has 10 cards in the band you use, you know, it’s pretty early in the game. You don’t have a ton of green manner. This is new to the whole thing in one shot. Uh, that is a very valuable, the effect to have hanging around in your first 60, um, when it comes to sideboard slot, I don’t think you get enough from the other modes to make it worth it.
So you have to play dedicated sideboard, uh, graveyard hate then on the other modes, uh, you know, Phyrexian Rager. Draw card lose a life is fine. So I think you need to be in a medic game where you want to be, as on your opponent’s graveyard, like a pretty good chunk of the time to make it worth it, to play this card.
Even those situations cards like soul guide lantern or Relic of Progenitus are also good and their flexibility. So I’m not sure that you’re really going to want to play this card too much, but I’m open to it.
Daniel Schriever: [00:38:11] It seems destined to be a one-off in decks that have the ability to tutor up creatures. I’ve cast a ton of bring to light for Kaya’s guile and been like so happy to exile the graveyard in game one.
And this gives that same sweet cathartic play to like a court of calling deck. Um, but apart from that, you know, it’s not quite good enough on all the other metrics, so I won’t expect to see a lot of it, but you’ll be happy to have access to it.
David Robertson: [00:38:36] Yeah. I’ve been tooling around with some Neoform lists and pioneer, and I’ve specifically been bemoaning the fact that there is no creature you can tutor up to just Xcel’s or graveyard that’s reasonable at all.
And the fact that this does that is, uh, is going to make it at one of in every like Neo forum list that is playing black for me. So, yeah. All right onto the next card. Silver, Quill, silencer, white, and a black for a three to human cleric. As silver Quill silencer enters the battlefield. Choose a non land card name.
Whenever opponent cast a spell with the chosen name, they lose three life and you draw card. So similar to meddling major is templating. You know, they can’t respond to it. It’s going to come into play ability and as it comes into play ability. It does let them cast the card, but they pay the iron price.
So, Dan, what do you think about Silverquill silencer?
Daniel Schriever: [00:39:20] I think it’s better than meddling mage in about 50% of match-ups Meddling Mage really signs when it’s like setting down a combo piece or like really preventing the opponent from winning. But in other 50% of the match-ups, it’s just sort of doing nothing.
You know, you name of lightning Bolt, Fatal push, and that slows them down slightly. Eventually, you know, they find some other way to kill your Freebooter or kill your Meddling Mage. And. They’re out of the prison and it’s like, you have nothing to show for it in those style of matchups. You’d much rather have this, um, cause they still need to kill it.
It’s a three, two for two. So that’s actually like pretty good combat stats. And when they do cast their lightning bolt, you know, you just play the Silverquill silencer name, lightning bolts. Now you’re going to take three for testing lightning bolts, you’re going to get another card and they can’t just like, not cast the bolts.
Damon Alexander: [00:40:05] Well, that’s the thing. It’s like a lot of pressure, cause they definitely can’t cast the Bolt, right? Because it literally says they cannot cast the bolt with this. They don’t have to cast the bolt. And if they find a way to break out of your mailing image, lock was pushing to Boulder or whatever the exact same line will let them break out of the Silverquill lock, uh, without losing anything.
And so really you’re gaining a slight, you know, you’re converting a hard, no into a Punisher style. No. Uh, all for a single point of power. And I think you come up behind on that exchange.
David Robertson: [00:40:32] Yeah, it’s interesting. Obviously in pioneer, there is no meddling made, so there’s no comparison to be made. So you guys are really talking maybe about like human style shells in modern.
Damon Alexander: [00:40:41] Yeah. Now that’s a good point. This slots into a white, black pioneer humans deck. Uh, and that deck may be interested in this sort of effect where it puts on just enough pressure to make the three life enough to stop them or make it so that they, they cast their haymaker, but then they lose the game on there Your next attack.
David Robertson: [00:40:58] Yeah. So it’ll be interesting to see a lot of people play humans all the time. Obviously every time new humans come out, they’re experimenting with these cards. It might be that this has meddling maids, you know, five and six. Uh, and they, you know, freebooters Time has come and gone or something like that.
So we’ll have to see, uh, that is the last creature of interest we want to highlight one land here, a little throwback to early magic days. This is The Biblioplex, the biblioPlex land tasks, or colorless to Manoj tap. Look at the top card of your library. If it’s an incident or source Ricard, you may reveal it and put it into your hand.
If you don’t put the card into your hand, you may put it into your graveyard. However, you can only activate this ability. If you have exactly zero or seven cards in hand, a throwback to library of Alexandria, which famously could draw card, but only if you had exactly seven in your hand, uh, Dan, have you ever play library of Alexandria and in an actual card game?
And, uh, what do you think about the biblioPlex?
Daniel Schriever: [00:41:58] I mean, it’s funny, I’ve played library of Alexandria all the time, because I had some friends who were like, I like to play vintage cube. And at a certain point we started doing it rotisserie style. So you lay out the entirety of alpha and some hits from Arabian nights and.
For some reason, like I was like fixated on library as like the card I wanted most and really fell in love with the library. So when I see this Biblioplex, I just get angry. I get angry that someone dares to compare this, the library of Alexandria, this is terrible. Like the reason why library. Well, there are many reasons why library is busted, but it’s like, you can use it on turn one.
You can use it on turn to turn three. Et cetera, it slots so easily. And then you a third, you know, activating library and doing something else, the Biblioplex cost to manage to activate. So the soonest you’re going to do this as term three, and I can’t imagine that you’re going to activate this happily on any of the middle turns.
It’s really not going to happen until much, much later in the game.
Damon Alexander: [00:42:54] Yeah, we’ve, we’ve seen, I think the, the meme artists have the, uh, mom, can we get a library of Alexandria? No, we have library at home. Um, and then of course the library at home is the biblioPlex. This card is no library of Alexandria. I grew up with Damon.
You said even worse, his car can miss. I think if you’re in the interest of a card that, you know, if you have seven cars in here, yeah. The plane you’re activating this, you have lost that game or you’ve won it so hard. It doesn’t matter what this card does. Yeah. If you have zero cards in hand, I think you’d rather play Sea gate wreckage and not worry about missing.
David Robertson: [00:43:22] Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. When you have seven cards in hand, you don’t need to do anything and you probably shouldn’t even be tapping out. Honestly, you should be leaving up your account or magic or whatever, and your deck that’s full of instance. And if you have zero cards in hand, then Sea gate Wreckage is just strictly better than this.
So yeah, I think this is a cool call back. Uh, I think they tried to find a way to put the difference and I think they just weren’t generous enough on this. I don’t know why they felt like it had to be so restrictive, but I feel like this card is actually unplayable. Play a colorless land is actually a huge ask and pioneer.
The manna bases are kind of a mess if you’re playing more than two colors. Uh, and I mean, come on modern. Let’s get serious here.
Damon Alexander: [00:43:57] So yeah, I had, I mean, I understand their hesitancy to print anything close to the library of Alexandria and power level because the, the play pattern of I’m playing my magic deck and they go turn one library and you’re like, okay,
Daniel Schriever: [00:44:09] what do you mean? That’s not fun for everyone? I had fun doing that. I guess I’d be controlled mirrors, video Blex center control mirror, but. You know, feel different is probably just a better, yeah. I don’t know.
Damon Alexander: [00:44:20] Yeah. Castle Vantress or castle ArdenVale, or any number of lands that do marginal things.
David Robertson: [00:44:25] Yeah. I mean, Vantress just is fades his card so hard.
All right. So that concludes this episode. We have looked at creatures. We have looked at lands. We’ve looked at MDFC. If you listen to our past podcast, we went through the spells that we’ve not yet talked about. So, yeah, Strixhaven is looking super sweet. We will be back next week. We will start the brewing process, uh, with some of these cards, we’re excited to get our hands on and we are going to start proposing some lists and start putting them to the test in modern pioneer.
Damon Alexander: [00:44:58] Yeah, wait. Yeah. So until next week, if we did any of your, you know, your favorite card set wrong, please let us know. Um, we will diligently explain to you why you’re wrong and we’re totally running. Every single decision we make. And until we can play with the cards, we will be waiting to see you in the cues with some spicy new ones.
Daniel Schriever: [00:45:17] Damon knows that I have to run the Twitter @FaithlessMTG. So send your angry rants my way.
David Robertson: [00:45:24] All right. Take care of gentlemen.
Daniel Schriever: [00:45:25] Take care. This concludes the final installment of our brewers guide to Strixhaven. If you missed parts of one and two, you can find them at our home page. Faithless brewing.com.
Support for this podcast is provided by brewers like you. If you’d like what we do, you search to join our community@patrion.com slash Faithless brewing for discord access bonus content, and much more. That’s all for today. Stay safe. There we’ll see you next time.
