As with every new MTG set, Secrets of Strixhaven comes packed with an update to the game’s monolithic comprehensive rules. While these updates typically only exist to officially enshrine new mechanics, this one goes a little further than that. This time around, a fundamental change to how Sagas work in MTG is nestled within, altering a few important interactions across multiple formats. Throw in a surprising amount of day-zero errata, and this is one of the biggest rules updates in a while.
The Secrets Of Strixhaven Sagas Change
“We’ve made a small change to how Sagas work. The mechanism that adds lore counters to Sagas now better matches planeswalkers and battles. Specifically, we’ve made the ability that causes Sagas to enter with lore counters on them an intrinsic ability.”
Eric Levine, Secrets of Strixhaven Update Bulletin
In the past, Sagas received their initial counters from a specific ruling for the card type. With this new MTG rules update, however, Sagas will now work the same way as planeswalkers and battles, who get their initial counters as an intrinsic ability. While the change is very subtle, it basically means that Sagas will now gain their counters via an ability instead of from a ruling.
In practice, this change doesn’t affect too much, but there are some notable interactions worth keeping in mind. For starters, Urza’s Saga will now enter with no lore counters rather than one if a Blood Moon is in play. While the Saga will still remain in play as a Mountain, losing a Lore counter will have an impact on some core Modern and Legacy matchups.
Urza’s Saga will now be slower to come online if you break out from under a Blood Moon against Boros Energy or Moon Stompy. For decks like Affinity and Lands, which rely heavily on Urza’s Saga to function, this is a fairly significant nerf that could have some metagame implications.
The other big new interaction is how Sagas work with effects like Doubling Season. Sagas have always received an extra lore counter on entry with Doubling Season out, which is not changing. In the past, however, this would trigger both of a Saga’s Chapter 1 and 2 abilities, even letting you stack them as you preferred. Now, this interaction will function like the Read Ahead ability, with the first chapter ability being skipped entirely.
While this isn’t really relevant in any competitive format, it’s an undeniable nerf for Saga decks in Commander. Doubling Season can still help accelerate Sagas to their bigger Chapters, but it’s still a big hit to the card type in multiplayer Magic.
Not Fully Cooked
On top of the change to Sagas, the Secrets of Strixhaven MTG rules update also included a trio of errata, two of which affect brand-new cards. The most significant of these comes on Slumbering Trudge, which has had its text changed to the following:
“This creature enters with a number of stun counters on it equal to three minus X. If X is 2 or less, it enters tapped.”
This change was made because the previous text “does not function properly as part of a replacement effect.” In practice, it’s a nerf to the card, since it now enters tapped rather than becoming tapped via a trigger. This prevents you from tapping it in between for cards like Springleaf Drum, or to pay Convoke costs.
While not as impactful as the Trudge errata, both Choreographed Sparks and Spry and Mighty received changes here too. In the case of Sparks, this was simply the removal of the word “next” from its last ability. For Spry and Mighty, the card now requires you to choose exactly two creatures on resolution, clearing up ambiguity arising when the card resolves without you having two creatures.
None of these errata are world-shaking, but the fact that we’re seeing so many is a little worrying. As several players pointed out on social media, this is almost certainly a byproduct of the new sped-up MTG release cycle. With so many sets coming out so fast, mistakes like those corrected here are harder to spot. Since Wizards is seemingly committed to this new system, more errata like this are, unfortunately, near-inevitable.
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