Draft Trainer

Strixhaven: School of Mages Limited Quiz

Answered: 0/20
Accuracy: 0
Spell Satchel
Average Picked At: 11.96
Total Times Picked: 74
Average Last Seen At: 8.39
Total Times Seen 1321
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: So, this is a mana rock that asks you to fulfill the condition of casting spells, which isn’t going to be that hard in this set, but it does concern me a little! One nice thing about it is that in the late game, when you really don’t need the mana, you can save up book counters and start drawing cards with it. I think this format would have to be glacial for this card to be really good though.
Manifestation Sage
Average Picked At: 3.60
Total Times Picked: 58
Average Last Seen At: 2.92
Total Times Seen 143
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: As long as you are getting a 2/2 out of it, you are doing alright, but it isn’t like that’s amazing or anything. And sure, there will be times where what he makes is larger, and then you’ll feel pretty good -- but there will also be times where you draw this in top deck mode and get no token at all! I don’t think he’s terrible, but I think it will be harder to make a big token with him than you might think.
Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios
Average Picked At: 2.00
Total Times Picked: 14
Average Last Seen At: 2.19
Total Times Seen 32
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: She might cost a lot of mana, but she doesn’t disappoint. Her Magecraft ability lets you cast something off the top of your deck for one mana -- just triggering that once will often be quite good. Now, she doesn’t have any evasion to speak of, and can’t really end the game on her own, but since she will just give you almost-free spells on a regular basis, that’s probably ok. You can also chain spells together with it, which will feel particularly good. The other side of Jadzi is almost useless for Limited. It is just hard to have enough land sin your hand in Limited for that to be the plan. Cool thing is, though, that you do get it back when you cast it, which means you can then play the Jadzi half later. Overall, the fact she needs some help to get going and costs a bunch of mana does make me a bit skeptical -- though it should be noted both UG and UR look like they will be able to make a lot of mana. That mana cost is still a pretty real hurdle though.
Unwilling Ingredient
Average Picked At: 9.91
Total Times Picked: 293
Average Last Seen At: 8.50
Total Times Seen 2925
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is a solid little common. In the early game, it will chip in for a few damage, and be a good place to put +1/+1 counters. Then, in the later part of the game you can cash it in for a card, which always feels pretty good in Limited when you have the mana lying around.
Beledros Witherbloom
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: You know, for an elder dragon, I gotta say, I’m not ultra impressed. 7-mana for a 4/4 flyer is kind of a rough rate, and while getting a 1/1 Pest every upkeep -- which by the way, includes your opponents -- while getting those tokens is nice, the other ability on this card will basically never come up in Limited! There just won’t be a reason to use all that mana by the time Beledros is out there. Now, I don’t think he’s bad, left unchecked he floods the board with PEsts and attacks pretty hard in the air -- but he’s also incredibly fragile at only 4 toughness -- lots of stuff in this set can kill him. But generally, you will get at least one Pest out of it before he dies, so there’s that.
Aether Helix
Average Picked At: 7.53
Total Times Picked: 150
Average Last Seen At: 6.33
Total Times Seen 965
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: I really want to like this card, since I love bounce spells and getting stuff back from my graveyard, but I just don’t think this is anything special. Bouncing a permanent does not give you a card’s worth of value, and it may not even give you much tempo would you pay 5 for it. And yeah getting a permanent back is good and all, but this is basically just a 5 mana bounce a permanent, draw a card. And its a Sorcery. That’s just not that great!
Practical Research
Average Picked At: 7.12
Total Times Picked: 154
Average Last Seen At: 6.03
Total Times Seen 935
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is pretty close to being Rain of Revelation, and that was a pretty great draw spell. Sometimes you won’t want to discard the instant or sorcery, especially if you ended up with a couple lands you don’t need, but you still end up seeing a lot of cards for a reasonable cost, and -- importantly, at instant speed.
Quandrix Cultivator
Average Picked At: 3.74
Total Times Picked: 174
Average Last Seen At: 3.51
Total Times Seen 467
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is some pretty nice ramp, and it comes on a fairly reasonable body. Casting this is going to feel pretty good on turn 4, and unlike some other ramp creatures, it brings decent stats when you play it in the late game.
Retriever Phoenix
Average Picked At: 1.97
Total Times Picked: 59
Average Last Seen At: 2.17
Total Times Seen 108
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is a pretty cool payoff for Learning. A 4-mana 2/2 with Flying and Haste that Learns already would have been a pretty good card, since it will feel like it draws you a card a significant chunk of the time. But then, any time you learn when it is in your graveyard, you have the option of getting it back. Now, you won’t always want to do that -- the Phoenix isn’t exactly large, and sometimes getting a Lesson from your sideboard or even rummaging might make more sense, but it is nice that it gives you the option.
Leyline Invocation
Average Picked At: 8.18
Total Times Picked: 303
Average Last Seen At: 7.24
Total Times Seen 2556
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This is often a 6-mana 8/8 or something like that in the late game for UG decks, and that makes it a solid thing to have at the top of your curve.
Reject
Average Picked At: 11.92
Total Times Picked: 249
Average Last Seen At: 9.97
Total Times Seen 3483
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: This is a narrow mana leak, and in most formats I would think it is pretty reasonable, since creatures are so plentiful. This format is an odd one though, with fewer creatures than normal and way more instants and sorceries, so this ends up being more narrow than it normally would be, and it still has the problem of having diminishing values as the game goes on, because your opponent will just be able to pay the mana eventually.
Lorehold Pledgemage
Average Picked At: 7.88
Total Times Picked: 277
Average Last Seen At: 7.17
Total Times Seen 2462
Pro Rating: 3.0
Pro Comment: Players will have a very difficult time ever wanting to block this, since any instant or sorcery suddenly makes things a lot harder thank to First Strike, and that’s especially true if you have a trick! This will just get through a lot for aggressive decks, and that’s kind of what you want your creatures to be doing. It also has hybrid mana, making it fit in multiple decks pretty easily.
Creative Outburst
Average Picked At: 6.31
Total Times Picked: 140
Average Last Seen At: 5.34
Total Times Seen 776
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is expensive, but because it lets you discard it to make a treasure early, part of that downside is mitigated against. Casting this will feel really good, as doing 5 damage to something and drawing a card chosen from among five is a really good deal. UR is all about big spells like this, so it fits right in, while also supporting the archetype’s ability to cast those spells since it can make treasure.
Ecological Appreciation
Average Picked At: 3.94
Total Times Picked: 32
Average Last Seen At: 3.47
Total Times Seen 86
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: If you have a bunch of mana lying around, this is going to be pretty sweet. Both the UR and UG decks in this format are interested in ramping, so even though this looks like it might be kind of hard to set up, it is going to be easier in this format than most. So, if you pay about 6 mana total for this, you’re likely to get a couple of three-drops, which is a perfectly decent return to get from this. This does kind of having diminishing returns, because once you get to a certain point, it is not super likely that your deck/graveyard will have enough good creatures to search up for your opponent to give you two of. In other words, I think paying 4 for X is probably going to have pretty much the same outcome as paying 5+. But, still, you do get a 2-for-1 out of it basically no matter what, and usually you’ll get your mana’s worth.
Dina, Soul Steeper
Average Picked At: 5.83
Total Times Picked: 124
Average Last Seen At: 4.88
Total Times Seen 659
Pro Rating: 4.0
Pro Comment: This is a powerful life gain payoff. The ideal thing to do with her ability is going to be to sacrifice a pest token, at which point you start draining your opponent with Dina in play, in addition to raising her power. She can also just potentially threaten a bunch of damage when she attacks, which is always a nice thing to make your opponent contend with.
Defend the Campus
Average Picked At: 10.62
Total Times Picked: 306
Average Last Seen At: 8.95
Total Times Seen 3139
Pro Rating: 2.0
Pro Comment: I see this as two separate cards in many formats, and both of them are often cards you cut, just because they are a little too narrow. HOWEVER, by putting both of these effects on a single card, you end up with a better card. The effects are still narrow of course, but between the two effects one of them is going to be useful pretty often. This might all sounds like I think this is incredible -- but I just get excited about modal cards. It is a solid card that will actually make the cut a reasonable chunk of the time.
Fortifying Draught
Average Picked At: 9.69
Total Times Picked: 141
Average Last Seen At: 7.44
Total Times Seen 1198
Pro Rating: 2.5
Pro Comment: This seems like a solid trick to me. You’ll always get 2 life and at least +2/+2 out of it, and that is something an aggro deck would probably already play a copy of most of the time, but then you factor in the potential for a bigger boost, and you get an even better trick. Making this be better than Giant Growth isn’t going to be SUPER hard.
Environmental Sciences
Average Picked At: 4.08
Total Times Picked: 437
Average Last Seen At: 3.90
Total Times Seen 1401
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: All the lessons are much better than they look, and that is certainly the case for Environmental Sciences. If you can pick up one of these, it effectively makes every single card you have with “Learn” into fixing. This means you can have pretty excellent mana for a splash simply by playing one basic land of another color. The life gain doesn’t hurt either.
Devouring Tendrils
Average Picked At: 3.69
Total Times Picked: 178
Average Last Seen At: 3.48
Total Times Seen 470
Pro Rating: 3.5
Pro Comment: This is Rabid Bite with upside, and I’m all for that! Note that this is not a fight card, only the opposing creature gets damaged, so it is much less risky than “Fight” is. It still has some downsides of course -- casting this into open mana from your opponent is asking for trouble since a 2-for-1 is a real risk -- but that risk is worth it for the efficiency. The fact you gain life if the creature dies is nice additional upside, especially because BG likes it when you gain life, but it is pretty minor upside overall.
Thrilling Discovery
Average Picked At: 13.16
Total Times Picked: 258
Average Last Seen At: 10.99
Total Times Seen 3995
Pro Rating: 1.5
Pro Comment: I really want this to be good, because I am probably the most excited about Lorehold in this set -- but I just don’t think it will be that great. Early, it could be a nice way to both load up your graveyard for various synergies and improve your card quality, but there will be situations where you just can’t really make use of this, either because you don’t want to give up cards or you flat out can’t.
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