Secrets of Strixhaven Skirts Reserved List with Provocative Ancestral Recall “Reprint”

Last updated on March 25, 2026

Ancestral Recall | Illustration by Mark Poole

Warning: This post contains leaked card images from Secrets of Strixhaven. The set officially debuts on March 31 if you'd rather wait to see official cards from the set.

Excuse me, what? A Reserved List Power Nine card in a Standard set release? Well… sort of. An overnight leak has shown off a card containing the name “Ancestral Recall”, except there's a twist (isn't there always?), and we're not exactly sure how it works yet. Maybe just looking at the card is the best place to start.

Power Nine… Sort of

This image started circulating after a Whatnot streamer claimed to open the card out of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles booster pack on stream. And yeah, that definitely says Ancestral Recall in the text box, mana cost and all. Except… that's clearly not just a straight Ancestral reprint (and why would it be?).

Don't let your eyes deceive you though: First and foremost, this is not an adventure spell, so you presumably can't just cast Ancestral for in a Standard or Limited set and call it a day. They didn't just scrap the Reserved List and also power creep the Power Nine by making a strictly better Ancestral. The sky is still perfectly intact, no worries.

Except… if it's not an adventure, then what is it? That part's not so clear yet, but it probably boils down to whatever “prepared” means in Secrets of Strixhaven. We've seen a couple other leaks earlier this week that reference creatures being prepared/unprepared, but none of the leaks or official spoilers have detailed what that means yet. It should be obvious from looking at this card that the Ancestral Recall text is locked behind Emeritus of Ideation being prepared, but we don't have the full picture yet. Could be a simple attack trigger, could be something else entirely; we'll know soon enough when the set officially debuts.

Speculatively, it seems like being “prepared” just lets a creature use the attached spell. So in this case, Emeritus is a 5-mana 5/5 flier with ward , and for an additional you can cast Ancestral Recall, since this creature already enters prepared. The attack trigger lets you essentially “recharge” the spell by preparing Emeritus again, after which you can Ancestral once more. We've seen other ways to prepare creatures, too, so you might be drawing a lot of cards with this. But again, this is all speculation based on the little information we have so far.

Is This a Violation of the Reserved List?

Tolarian Academy | Illustration by Stephen Daniele

Not really, no. WotC can't reprint actual cards on the Reserved List, but they've found plenty of ways to dodge that restriction.

In the past, we've seen tactics like color-shifting Donate to Harmless Offering, or Juzám Djinn to Ravenous Giant. There have also been instances of reusing Reserved List cards in different ways, like basically seeding Gaea's Cradle and Tolarian Academy on cards like Growing Rites of Itlimoc / Itlimoc, Cradle of the Sun and Uthros, Titanic Godcore.

Repurposing an actual Reserved List card by name and tossing it in the textbox of a differently-named card is a cheeky way to bypass the legal allegations of “reprinting” Reserved List cards. But then again, I'm no lawyer, so we'll see if anything comes about because of this.

Fake, or No?

Seems legit, actually. For one, check out this line from Mark Rosewater's Secrets of Strixhaven teaser, which was published the same day this card was leaked:

• A cycle referencing iconic spells from Alpha.

Yeah, I'd say Ancestral Recall is a pretty iconic spell from Alpha, and since this card leaked before Rosewater's teaser went live, it definitely adds credence to this being a legit card in the set. The Evyn Fong art certainly lines up, as well.

And what other iconic spells from Alpha might we see? Seems like the “Boon” cycle is a safe bet, but do we really want Healing Salve on a Magic card in 2026?

The same Whatnot streamers revealed another leaked card, “Mana Sculpt“, which is another reference to a classic busted blue card. It's a wizard-specific Mana Drain for an additional , which is certainly eye-catching as well. If these leaks are to be trusted, seems like blue's getting some powerful callbacks in SOS.