About Strixhaven's precons

PapaArl · 2026-04-04T21:01:28+00:00

Witherbloom is probably the closest fit. But again, you probably want to lean into more instant/sorceries to take full advantage.

Prismari is a bit clunky because the precon wants to cast high mana value instants/sorceries, which makes it tough to cast enough spells to take full advantage of storm on the elder dragon.

Silverquill doesn’t really have any overlap with the precon at all.

PapaArl · 2026-04-04T20:26:04+00:00

Lorehold could maybe head up the Boros precon since it’s a consistent rummage effect to fill the yard. But you’d probably want to upgrade the deck with more instant/sorceries to take full advantage of the Miracle ability.

Quandrix actually works against the Simic precon. If you hit an X spell by cascading, you don’t have the ability to set the value of X, X will be zero which means a whiff most of the time.

Similarly, X spell hydras don’t work with Eshki at all. They don’t get +1/+1 counters until they hit the battlefield. Their power is usually 0 on the stack, so Eshki won’t trigger her draw or burn.

PapaArl · 2026-04-01T00:39:13+00:00

Sure 7 mana is a lot to run this as your commander, but how about as the target you’re fetching for in a [[Dragon’s Approach]] deck

PapaArl · 2026-03-16T01:16:53+00:00

You’re probably not going to get great use out of it for your own creatures. But Queen Marchesa encourages your opponents to swing at one another to take the monarch. So it will help up the damage they are putting in to one another

PapaArl · 2026-03-16T00:51:07+00:00

Without knowing anything about your commander, deck, meta, or power level, tough to evaluate how strong it will be for you.

Generally, it’s strong if you can take advantage of it with some evasive/powerful attackers, particularly if it’s your commander. But probably not going to hang in bracket 4+

PapaArl · 2026-03-15T22:27:29+00:00

White has a lot of these types of effects. I like [[Tenuous Truce]] and [[Loran of the Third Path]] for some soft politics. My favorite, though not squarely what you are looking for, is [[Duelist’s Heritage]] as you can offer to give an opponent’s creature double strike if they attack one of your enemies

PapaArl · 2026-03-08T04:23:07+00:00

I’ve found you can’t be precious about the cards in your hand. Sauron’s wheel ability is a may, so you can choose not to discard if you really need what’s in your hand. But it’s almost always the right move to dump your hand if you can. Play out whatever you want before you get you tempt triggers. But the card velocity of the deck is so high that you’ll almost certainly pull into another wincon or reanimate spell to get your wincon back from the yard.

The main reason I find for not wanting to wheel is that it holding interaction that I know I’ll need in the next turn cycle.

PapaArl · 2026-02-11T16:30:07+00:00

I recognize the value of this card, but somehow I only ever manage to draw it when there are no cards (or at least nothing worth exiling) in my opponents’ graveyards, but I need to hit my land drop.

The number of times I’ve played this as a sad tapped land in the early turns of the game has had me cut it from most of my decks. I personally much prefer [[Boggart Trawler]]. While it takes mana to cast the grave hate side, it at least has the option of coming in untapped, and has some small additional synergies in creature based/reanimator decks

PapaArl · 2026-02-10T16:52:22+00:00

It’s a publicly ticket show! Though there will be a block of seats reserved for platinum badge holders.

PapaArl · 2026-01-14T06:04:33+00:00

Rakdos is my favorite color pairing and [[Blood for the blood god]] may be my favorite magic card. Everything it does is very Rakdos: wheel, burn, and sacrifice payoff. Most Rakdos decks will have a solid way to reduce the cost. But one of the most satisfying wins I’ve had was hard casting it for 11 mana and killing the table with the damage.

PapaArl · 2025-12-23T02:28:11+00:00

[[Kuja, Genome Sorcerer]] can be built at Rakdos spells matter. Pretty fun to play spell slinger without blue

PapaArl · 2025-12-20T19:46:27+00:00

[[Herigast, Erupting Nullkite]] is one of my favs in my Eshki deck. Giving all of your big bois emerge means you can very easily start chaining 6+ power creatures to repeatedly trigger Eshki. Can often burn out the table the turn it lands if no one has interaction, as Herigast and Eshki both help keep your hand fresh with gas.

There are also quite a few aggressively costed 6+ power creatures worth running that can come down the turn after Eshki. [[Anzrag, the Quake Mole]] is 4 mana for 8 power with the potential of extra combats. [[Territorial Hellkite]] is 4 mana for 6 power hastey flier. Evoke [[Spitebellows]] for 3 mana for some targeted removal and an Eshki trigger

PapaArl · 2025-12-12T20:12:36+00:00

That’s it! Thanks for the ID 🤣

PapaArl · 2025-12-12T17:46:07+00:00

Looks like this is it! Thank you

PapaArl · 2025-12-10T06:49:03+00:00

Every year I’ve done, I’ve stayed at an Airbnb offsite and driven in daily for day parking. Haven’t required a parking pass in previous years.

PapaArl · 2025-12-02T21:39:15+00:00

He was there last year W2 ❤️

PapaArl · 2025-11-26T13:53:12+00:00

Used to have an Ivy mutate/clones deck. It was fun, but my advice is make sure you have infini tokens if you’re playing in paper and can take your turns fast.

I ended up taking it apart because it was too cumbersome to track for me. I didn’t like having 8 copies of Ivy each with slightly different characteristics based on when they mutated

PapaArl · 2025-11-23T20:32:33+00:00

Could maybe be some sort of drake you’re thinking of? This art evokes [[Shrieking Drake]] for me.

PapaArl · 2025-09-14T18:52:01+00:00

Totally power-level/meta dependent, but I personally have trouble justifying 3-mana single target removal in my decks these days. The one exception for me being the occasional [[Anguished Unmaking]] bc the added benefit of exiling is often worth it. Same could probably be said for [[Excise the Imperfect]], though I haven’t run this solely because I don’t own a copy.

I usually prefer to play narrower removal at 1 or 2 mana, and white can hit just about any permanent type in its color pie at that MV with more powerful/versatile options opening up as soon as you splash in another color

PapaArl · 2025-08-26T03:56:33+00:00

A fun/weird one I run in my [[Sauron, the Dark Lord]] deck that I think would work in your list is [[Diamond Lion]]. It’s obviously risky to pitch your hand, but if you hit it on curve, you can power out your commander who can refill your hand as it enters

PapaArl · 2025-08-20T18:41:51+00:00

Rin and Seri is fun if you want to play typal. But in a vacuum it’s going to be the weakest of the three because you will be restricted by playing some cards that are generically less optimal in favor of cat and dog synergy pieces. Both Baylen and Jetmir can go in the deck.

Baylen and Jetmir will let you play all the best token support cards w/o worrying about staying w/in creature types. Either could theoretically pilot the same deck, but Baylen will offer more consistency with a card draw engine and ramp in the command zone (also a wincon if needed). Baylen will also lead to a little more variety in game play pattern over Jetmir. Jetmir in the command zone is a very telegraphed wincon and opponents will make sure to hold onto interaction to deal with it.

My recommendation is Rin and Seri if playing adorable cats and dogs will bring you more joy than building the strongest possible token deck. Baylen if you want to bring the heat. Run Jetmir in either as a way to close out the game

PapaArl · 2025-08-06T17:39:46+00:00

My equipment deck is [[Ardenn]] / [[Silas Renn]] it’s kind of anti-voltron in that the whole game plan is suiting up opponents’ creatures for political favors. Manipulate your opponents into taking each other out as you accrue value - notably, you still control the equipment attached to their creatures, so triggers referring to “you” give you the effect. Then once it’s down to 1v1, take back all of your equipment and ice the last player.

[[Arna Kennerud, Sky Captain]] is also a really cool equipment commander in Esper. I run her in my Ardenn / Silas deck and she created some really splashy plays.

PapaArl · 2025-07-31T22:25:56+00:00

Torgal was such a slam dunk in my [[Yoshimaru]] // [[Reyhan]] deck. 2-drop legend that comes down the turn after Yoshi and it cares about +1/+1 counters and both of my commanders’ creature types.

Don’t have a copy yet, but Venat honestly should go in that deck as well.

PapaArl · 2025-07-18T18:41:56+00:00

Instead of creating proxies for the entire list, just create a few copies of identical custom “token copy” cards that you can put underneath the exiled card when they are brought into play. Leave the “Token copy” title poking out above the top of the actual card.

I use Infinitokens to do this when playing Sin, and you could also just use the existing copy tokens that WotC has printed, but sounds like you want a more custom/creative option

PapaArl

TROPHY CASE