Ever since it was announced back in January, MTG players have been excited about the return of the Mystical Archive in Secrets of Strixhaven. The original was one of the most beloved bonus sheets we’ve ever seen, reprinting great cards with phenomenal new art. Sadly, while the card selection for the new Mystical Archive is looking good so far, it seems to come at the cost of lowered high-rarity pull rates. As the new bangers are revealed, players are grappling with this unfortunate fact.
Banger Mythic Reprints
The new Mystical Archive started off strong with the likes of Force of Will and Vampiric Tutor, and it’s only gotten better over the last few days. Earlier today, for example, a fresh reprint of Commander all-star Cyclonic Rift was revealed for the sheet.
This banger more than earns its Game Changer status, serving as one of the best board wipes in the Commander format. Getting rid of every opposing nonland permanent, at instant speed, is simply unmatched, even at seven mana. It’s also a $30 card on the low end, with premium printings going for $50+, making it a huge value add for the new Archive.
While not quite as iconic, Triumph of the Hordes is another great recent addition. For four mana, this is a mini-Overrun that, crucially, also grants Infect. This makes it trivial to engineer game-winning swings out of nowhere, arguably making it more obnoxious than Rift in some games. This is doubly true since it isn’t currently a Game Changer, meaning you can run it freely in lower brackets. Due to a lack of meaningful reprints, this is a $22 inclusion here.
It’s not just Commander players that are eating well from the new Mystical Archive, either. Yesterday saw the reveal of Flusterstorm, one of the best counterspells in all of Magic. While it looks narrow, it’s extremely efficient, which has earned it a regular spot in Modern, Legacy, and even Vintage. It’s not a dud in Commander, either, seeing plenty of play in cEDH. At $9-10, Flusterstorm is yet another fantastic reprint from a sheet that’s quickly growing in prominence.
The Lowered Mystical Archive Rarity Rates
Unfortunately, all of these great reprints come at a cost. As many players have pointed out on social media, Wizards has lowered the pull rates for high-rarity Mystical Archive cards considerably this time around.
In original Strixhaven, you had a 26.4% chance to get a rare Mystical Archive card in a given Set or Draft Booster, and a 6.6% chance for a mythic. With these odds, you were looking at eight to nine rares and two mythics in each Strixhaven box on average. While not incredible, these rates ensured players could enjoy the upper echelons of the Archive.
With Secrets of Strixhaven, however, the numbers are very different. The pull rate for a rare Mystical Archive card is now 9.6%, and just 2.9% for a mythic. This means you’ll get around three rares, and slightly less than one mythic, from the Archive in each box on average. That’s a major difference, and one that recontextualizes many of the spoilers we’ve seen so far.
While this change is bad for reprint equity, some players defended this change as a benefit for Limited play. The current suite of mythics in the Archive certainly look polarizing in Draft and Sealed, after all. While this is a valid point, it’s still sad to see a great reprint source throttled by drop rates like this.
Looking Forward
As unfortunate as these new lowered Mystical Archive drop rates are, they’re also not hugely surprising. Wizards has been getting notably stingier with reprints in general in recent years, starting with the complete removal of Masters sets from its product lineup. This left Commander precons and bonus sheets, like the Mystical Archive, as the only real reprint avenues left.
On top of this, we’ve seen drop rates lowered across bonus sheets. The Universes Beyond Source Material sheets are a great example. While you got one Bonus Sheet card in every 3 packs in Final Fantasy, the TMNT Bonus Sheet has dropped to one in 28. As with the Mystical Archive, the overall quality of the sheet improved, but so did its rarity.
For the average player, this trade-off likely isn’t worth it. It means you’re less likely to see the premium reprints from a set, which in turn means prices won’t drop as much. It also places more emphasis on Collector Boosters, something Wizards has been doing for a while now, but it’s still unfortunate to see another step in that direction.
For the Secrets of Strixhaven Mystical Archive specifically, there are still a lot of unknowns at present. While rares and mythics are much rarer now, if the uncommon suite is good, it could still be excellent. With the entire Archive scheduled to be revealed in tomorrow’s WeeklyMTG, we won’t need to wait long to find out.
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