Last updated on December 12, 2025

Strixhaven Omens of Chaos front cover - Illustration by Corey Brickley

Strixhaven Omens of Chaos front cover | Illustration by Corey Brickley

Last week, Wizards of the Coast officially revealed the back cover from the upcoming โ€œStrixhaven: Omens of Chaosโ€ novel, written by New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire.

But Magic lore fans got an extra treat this week, when artist Corey Brickley shared a close-up of the portraits in the back coverโ€ฆ

Here are closeup shots for all you closeup sickos. I am pretty proud of how all the portraits turned out, I rarely get commissioned to do fantasy-ass fantasy shit so this was a lot of fun

Corey They Them Brickley (@coreybrickley.bsky.social) 2025-12-09T04:04:52.719Z

โ€ฆ and although it's true that an image is worth a thousand words, there's an extra treat this time in the ALT text of the images that Corey shared: They tell us exactly whose portrait each is, and a bit more about of each character!

A Merfolk, a Minotaur, and Two Young Humans Walk Into a Strixhaven Barโ€ฆ

Alandra, Sky Dreamer

On the top-left of the back cover we have Alandra, who the ALT text describes as โ€œa merfolk woman with her trusty little red drake companion.โ€

This is the one โ€œOmens of Chaosโ€ character who already has a card: Alandra, Sky Dreamer.

Source: Corey Blicker's post on Bluesky

Second, we have Jamira, a minotaur woman with druidic powers:

Source: Corey Blicker's post on Bluesky

Jamira's not on an MTG card (that we know of yet!), but the Vorthos community quickly recognized her and her very famous father: She's Angrath's daughter, as revealed in the Wool Over the Eyes web story.

Third we have Kekia, described in the ALT text as โ€œa young human woman with dark skin and hair manifesting a flame sword,โ€ and who also has a very famous ancestorโ€ฆ

Source: Corey Blicker's post on Bluesky

โ€ฆ who's an extremely accomplished wizard himself: Kequia is Teferi's granddaughter.

Fourth we have who's up to now the new character we know the less about: Segante.

Source: Corey Blicker's post on Bluesky

โ€œSegante, a young human man with pale skin and dark hair raising a skeleton with purple flames,โ€ according to the ALT text. And, yeah, that's very likely a necromancer.

The only tiny tidbit of info about Segante is found in the the novel's blurb, which also tells us a lot about the main character, Eula Blue, who was training to become a mage in New Capenna before the Phyrexian invasion wrecked her world:

Source: Reddit

Will These Characters and Art Be Actual Magic Cards?

Teferi, Master of Time | Illustration by Yongjae Choi

Short verson: Right now everything points to these kids being book-first characters, not a stealth preview of the Secrets of Strixhaven lineup. The only confirmed card tie-in is the special Command Tower promo.

And Wizards of the Coast has been explicitly clear that the novel's characters are not the set's protagonists.

โ€œStrixhaven: Omens of Chaos is a brand-new young-adult novel written by Seanan McGuire,โ€ notes WotC's announcement. โ€œThis novel will follow a different group of Strixhaven students in their quest to discover who they're meant to beโ€”and where, in the wide Multiverse, they might belong.โ€

I'd say it's very likely that they have a โ€œcard cameo,โ€ like showing up in the art of somebody else's card (like, say, a Professor Onyx card showing her and her students, with Segante among them). But, from what we know thus far, these five students are not going to be the main stars of the Secret of Strixhaven show.

Then againโ€ฆ

โ€ฆ WotC has not said anything about other products. One of these characters, Alandra, already has a card. Jamira, as Angrath's daughter, is exactly the sort of character WotC would put in a card if we ever visit Angrath's home plane. And, of course, there's Secret Lairs. If I had to bet, I'd say these characters, with the back-cover art, are fairly likely to show up sometime next year as part of a Strixhaven-flavored superdrop.

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