We’ve had a couple of weeks to enjoy Secrets of Strixhaven, and the set has very much proved itself a winner. While it hasn’t majorly shifted any landscapes, plenty of cards here are seeing healthy competitive and Commander play. Fix What’s Broken, for instance, is a new MTG reanimation spell from Secrets of Strixhaven that feels very much at home in multiplayer Magic. Throw in some wacky combo potential in constructed, and this is a hidden gem worth taking note of.
Fix What’s Broken MTG
As part of a matched pair with Vicious Rivalry, Fix What’s Broken neatly represents the second act of a mechanical story. While it’s unfortunate that Fix What’s Broken lacks the ‘X or less’ clause on Rivalry, it’s still a very serviceable reanimation spell for Commander.
Though it seems restrictive, most Commander decks nowadays run relatively low mana curves, with two and three-drop cards dominating. This makes it fairly easy to get a ton of value out of Fix What’s Broken just by playing normally. Curve out and drop a bunch of your efficient creatures in sequence, like Orcish Bowmasters and Drannith Magistrate, and you can bring them all back for a second round later on.
Most Orzhov decks should be able to get some value out of the card for this reason, but it’s particularly good in those that care about specific low mana costs. Lurrus of the Dream-Den and Macready, Lamplight Mayor, for example, can easily reanimate a full board without building around Fix What’s Broken. If you’re using the sorcery like this, cheap self-mill like Stitcher’s Supplier and Overlord of the Balemurk is a must-add to build up critical mass quickly.
On the other end of the spectrum, Fix What’s Broken can also create huge value swings if you can gather multiple big creatures in the graveyard. Eight is probably the sweet spot here, with Reanimator staples like Avacyn, Angel of Hope, Archon of Cruelty, and Cityscape Leveler all being available. You’ll need to rely on graveyard tutors like Buried Alive to set these kinds of plays up, but the payoff can be more than worth it.
Value, Re-Constructed
Fix What’s Broken also has real potential in MTG Standard, with Orzhov Sacrifice being the most obvious home at present. This has been a fringe deck for a while now, but Fix gives it some much-needed redundancy for its key card, Raise the Past. Now the deck has a new, on-color way to bring back all of its two-drops, letting you resurrect Umbral-Collar Zealot, Bartolomé del Presidio, and Vengeful Bloodwitch in one fell swoop. It might not be enough to make the deck a meta contender, but it’ll certainly make it better.
Established decks aside, Fix What’s Broken also enables some pretty wacky combo lines in current Standard. As pointed out by Kamino Tabane on X, it can bring back Ark of Hunger, Lluwen, Exchange Student and Kheru Goldkeeper all at once. These three cards, alongside a mill source like Exhibition Tidecaller, create a loop that can take your opponent out in one turn. Alternatively, as MTG Creative Combos discovered, it can serve as a pseudo-Living End alongside creatures like Deceit and Trumpeting Carnosaur. While fun and interesting, it’s worth noting that neither of these strategies is good in the traditional sense because of their clunky components and color requirements.
Whether or not it ends up breaking out in Standard or Commander, it’s clear that Fix What’s Broken is a card with real potential. At its current low-end price of just $0.15 a copy, you could do a lot worse than grabbing this card now while the community is still sleeping on it.
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