Last updated on March 31, 2026
Back to school we go, folks! Secrets of Strixhaven is finally past the early leaks stage and has now officially entered spoiler season. Here's everything we learned from the SOS debut.
Editor's Note: Additional spoilers came out immediately after WotC's official debut video, including all 10 Special Guests and more cards from the main set. This article only covers cards revealed during the debut video.
Return of the Elder Dragons
The gig was already up on this when we saw Lorehold, the Historian early, plus we saw a leaked Witherbloom last week, too. Each of the returning elder dragons uses a mechanic from Magic's history:
Each elder dragon gets its own full-art treatment as well (minus all the reminder text):
Two New Planeswalkers
We already had rumors of a BW Ral Zarek, but looks like it's actually a mono-black planeswalker: Ral Zarek, Guest Lecturer. He's accompanied by another 4-loyalty ability ‘walker, Professor Dellian Fel, the first new planeswalker character card put on a Magic card in quite a while. Love the reverse ultimate ability on Ral compared to the original Ral Zarek. Professor Dellian's also sporting a permanent Sanguine Bond emblem that you can get just one turn after playing him, or immediately with Carth the Lion in play. They also get a nice borderless treatment:
The Mascots + Random Spoilers
All of these commons were already leaked, but the mascots we saw as lessons back in OG Strixhaven return as commons in the main set. Nothing shocking here, though they're a good indication of what the Limited archetypes for each school will be.
- Witherbloom: Pests + lifegain
- Prismari: Elementals + Casting instants and sorceries (especially 5+ MV)
- Lorehold: Spirits + “Gravebreak“
- Quandrix: Fractals + Counters
- Silverquill: Inklings + Spell Targeting
Stress Dream and Procrastinate were two other stray world-building spoilers that were shown off, ones that fit the scholastic theme of the set. I'll be casting a lot of Stress Dreams in Draft, that's for sure.
The Prepared Mechanic
The big headliner mechanic for the set is prepared, which we got a peek at last week on a particularly splash mythic rare. While a creature is prepared, you may cast a copy of the spell that appears on the right side of the card. That causes the creature to become unprepared. Super cool way to get extra spells in your deck without having to use up creature slots to do so.
The text on this leaked Biblioplex Tomekeeper makes a lot more sense now, and looks to be one of the only ways to “re-prepare” a creature outside of the prepared spells' own abilities.
There's also a cycle of Commander-specific prepared cards, one for each precon. These feature “visiting” professors from other planes, and if the Replenish on Eiganjo Dynastorian is anything to go off of, we can expect some excellent cards in this cycle. They even teased that one of the cards would have a prepared spell that's not currently legal in Commander.
The Paradigm Mechanic
Paradigm was also introduced as another new mechanic from the set. This appears on a cycle of mythic rares, and each one is a big finisher-style spell that exiles itself upon resolution and casts a copy of itself every turn for the rest of the game. If you've ever played with an epic spell, it's like that without the massive drawback.
Note that Improvisation Capstone, and presumably all the other paradigm cards, have the lesson subtype, but learn does not return in this set, and lesson only appears on a few cards.
2-Color School Mechanics
Each of the schools has a new or returning mechanic to highlight the strengths of that color pair.
Repartee
Repartee is the Silverquill mechanic. It rewards you for casting instants and sorceries that target creatures, which incentivizes a lot of combat tricks and removal spells/interaction.
Opus
Prismari is doing the typical Izzet thing of caring about instants and sorceries, though opus will reward you further for casting spells with a mana value of 5 or greater. We've seen similar themes before, and the designers usually work ways into a set to cast big spells without actually having to spend all the mana to do so.
Infusion
Infusion is the Witherbloom mechanic, and simply checks to see if you've gained life this turn. Witherbloom in the original Strixhaven failed to really come together, but it was split between a lot of different themes, so maybe a central focus on lifegain can pull it all together this time.
Flashback
Lorehold maintains its theme of caring about cards leaving the graveyard, this time with flashback as a returning mechanic to back that up.
Increment
And finally, Quandrix gets increment, which reads a lot like “evolve with spells”. Your increment creatures will get a +1/+1 counter when you cast a spell using an amount of mana greater than that creature's power or toughness. Note that this counts any spell, not just instants and sorceries.
Converge
Converge was also revealed last week, with an emphasis on the archaic creatures from the plane. Some of these are actual colorless cards, others have colored mana symbols in their casting costs; either way, they reward you for spending more colors of mana to cast them.
Returning Lands
The slow lands from Midnight Hunt + Crimson Vow return, which are great Tier-2 budget lands for Commander, and saw plenty of play last time they were Standard-legal. They have normal versions, as well as Borderless “Portal View” versions depicting art from other planes. It was hinted at that the other half of this cycle would appear in an upcoming set.
There are also new full-art “spellcraft” basics, which borrow the mana symbol motif from the ever-popular Theros Beyond Death full-arts.
Alternate Arts
There was a lot of buzz surrounding Emeritus of Ideation last week, but now we know it's not only real, but also the Headliner of the set, with 500 serialized textless versions exclusive to Collector boosters. Better yet, that alternate art is illustrated by Mark Poole, the artist for the original Ancestral Recall.
The Field Notes treatment returns, which we saw in Bloomburrow, and a couple times after that. Big fan of this one, here mimicking what you might expect to see in a particularly artistic student's sketchpad or notebook.
Mystical Archive 2.0
Perhaps the most exciting part of Secrets of Strixhaven is the return of the Mystical Archive, the best bonus sheet ever put into normal Magic boosters. Same as before, one of these appear in every Play booster, with multiples in Collector boosters. And look at that card quality! We have confirmed reprints of the following:
And as before, there are Japanese alternate arts for each of these, illustrated by Japanese artists. There's also the possibility of opening an alternate “Silver Scroll” version of these, which was likened to the Guild treatment from Streets of New Capenna.
Special Guests
Secrets of Strixhaven will feature 10 Special Guests, each including art of a professor casting some sort of spell or lesson. Nice to see Sylvan Library here, which is still a great Commander card, and will be coming to Arena for the first time.
And finally, we got a quick look at Wisdom of Ages, which is in the main set, and has a promo version exclusive to normal SOS Bundles. It's a big battlecruiser spell, but there's still a place for those in casual games, right?
Secrets of Strixhaven spoilers are now in full swing, with an expected wrap-up date of April 9-10, and prereleases starting April 17. If you want to get in on the action, the official release date is Friday, April 24.
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