So far, 2026 is certainly living up to its billing as an “endless spoiler season” for MTG. Lorwyn Eclipsed has barely gotten comfy on store shelves, and already we’re being treated to fresh spoilers from the next in-universe set, Secrets of Strixhaven. Today, we got to see a pair of exciting new mythics from the upcoming April expansion, on top of a deeper look at its product lineup and bonus sheet. If you were hoping for a breather in the run-up to TMNT, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.
Lorehold, The Historian
Original Strixhaven featured a full cycle of five mythic rare Elder Dragons, and it appears that Secrets of Strixhaven is no different. Lorehold, the Historian is a pretty exciting introduction to the new cycle, messing around with an MTG mechanic that we rarely see these days.
With Lorehold out, every instant and sorcery you draw has a Miracle cost of 2. This allows for some truly absurd discounts, especially on pricey plays like Insurrection or Rise of the Eldrazi. Other than Aminatou, Veil Piercer, we’ve never seen such an open-ended implementation of Miracle before, so I expect this will break something down the line.
Supporting the Miracle ability, Lorehold also lets you rummage on each opponent’s upkeep. Naturally, this is at its best in Commander, when you have two extra opponents to gain value from. This is also a guaranteed way to draw on each opponent’s turn, which, in turn, will let you cast a cheap instant via Miracle. With enough removal and disruption, Lorehold could easily enable a kind of Boros Control playstyle in Commander, which is pretty much uncharted territory for that color combination.
Even if this doesn’t pan out, Lorehold, the Historian feels like a generically good Boros legend. The body here is more than acceptable for the cost, and the rummaging is useful no matter what strategy you’re running. As a result, I expect to see a lot of this one in Commander come April.
Mathemagics
Mathemagics follows in the footsteps of Multiple Choice and Zimone, All-Questioning, in the way it sneakily brings elements of academia into Magic. In this case, it tests your familiarity with exponentiation by asking you to work out two to the power of the X value you put in to calculate your card draw.
The end result of this equation is, unfortunately, not very impressive. Once you get past the fun theming here, Mathemagics feels fairly weak at pretty much every possible X value. Two blue to draw a single card is bad, four mana to draw two is worse, and six mana to draw four is just too high an investment. Beyond that, things do get better, but only if you have truly absurd amounts of mana at your disposal. Sinking 12 into this to draw 32 will be rare even in Commander, since if you have 12 mana, you likely have infinite mana, which can be spent much better than this.
With this in mind, I have a hard time seeing Mathemagics catch on in any Magic format. It’s far too slow for Standard, and in Commander blue has plenty of superior card draw options. Given that it’s a mythic Wizards likely could’ve pushed things out a little and made it an instant, but even then, I’m not sure it would’ve seen play. With recent bangers like Stock Up and Consult the Star Charts available, there’s little reason to crack open the textbook to maximize Mathemagics.
The Mystical Archive Returns
Another big piece of Secrets of Strixhaven news we got with today’s spoilers was confirmation that the Mystical Archive will be returning for the set. This was a hugely popular element of Strixhaven the first time around, offering players the chance to pull some of the most iconic instants and sorceries in Magic history, in a slick new art style, in every pack.
Secrets of Strixhaven is kicking things off with a bang in this regard, revealing Stock Up as its first confirmed Mystical Archive pick. While it’s kind of hilarious to see a card that’s barely a year old make it into an esteemed ‘Archive,’ this pick is more than welcome. Stock Up is a true multi-format staple and commands a stable $7 price tag despite its uncommon status. Since it’s an uncommon in this new Mystical Archive printing as well, we should see a significant uptick in supply for the card.
As before, each Mystical Archive card will also have a Japanese variant available, with entirely different artwork. This time, however, there will also be rare ‘Silver Scroll Foil’ versions of these Japanese versions. For now, we have no information on how these, or any of the Mystical Archive cards, will be distributed in packs. Hopefully, Wizards sticks to the ‘one per pack’ policy from original Strixhaven, again reserving the Japanese variants for Japanese-language packs only. Given how stingy bonus sheet drop rates have gotten lately, I’m not 100% confident this will be the case, but we can only hope for now.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew!