Today’s Strixhaven: School of Mages previews focus around the cunning and broody school of Sliverquill! The students of Silverquill wield the magic of words, from inspiring poetry to arcane mockery. Stylish, intimidating, and relentlessly competitive, these mages are leaders with a sharp wit and charisma that can be used for good or for bad. This power is what fuels the internal conflict for Silverquill, causing tensions within the school. Sliverquill students opt to fight with the pen and their words instead of the sword.
Don’t forget, we have a dedicated spoiler gallery for Strixhaven: School of Mages if you want to keep up to date with the latest previews!
We already saw the Sliverquill Elder Dragon, Shadrix Silverquill previewed last week as part of the Strixhaven: School of Mages Campus tour which you can watch below:
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Strixhaven: School of Mages Silverquill Previews
With that, let’s pour through the Sliverquill previews from earlier today.
There seems to be plenty of emphasis on tokens in Inklings and various spells to remove threats. Traditionally, this seems a very Orzhov approach and it’ll be exciting to see how Silverquill fare in Limited and constructed Magic: The Gathering formats.
The highlights of today’s previews are Fracture and Sliverquill Silencer which are sure to see heavy play in various formats.
Fracture is an Instant that does the following:
Destroy target artifact, enchantment, or planeswalker.
This is already an upgrade on Despark which saw a lot of play when it was legal in Standard, and with Fracture able to remove planeswalkers, it’s sure to see a lot of play in Standard, Pioneer, and Modern.
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Then, we have Sliverquill Silencer which is a Human Cleric creature that does the following:
As Silverquill Silencer enters the battlefield, choose a nonland card name.
Whenever an opponent casts a spell with the chosen name, that player loses 3 life and you draw a card.
This is a unique effect and offers a similar design to Meddling Mage. What makes Sliverquill Silencer an exciting card its potential for Pioneer, in particular in Orzhov Humans as a way to disrupt troublesome spells. It’s tricky to say whether it’ll see play in Modern Humans since you already have Meddling Mage, but more copies of a similar effect can’t be a bad thing. Plus, the card draw off Silencer’s ability is a nice bonus that could be relevant in particular match-ups.
Outside of the Sliverquill previews, we have our first Mythic Lesson card of the set, Mascot Exhibition.
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Since Mascot Exhibition is colorless means you can slot it alongside any colored deck you are playing, but being a seven-mana spell may make it tricky to cast. However, maybe there is a world where Modern Tron runs this as a way to expand the battlefield in the late game since they can cheat on mana early on.
The idea that most of these Lesson spells are colorless lends to the flavor of Strixhaven: School of Mages, as it shows the progression of the students at Strixhaven University. They start out learning generic (colorless) Lessons, then fall into their respected schools where the Lessons they learn come with the color identity.
Strixhaven: School of Mages is set to release for tabletop on April 23, and it will be released on Magic: The Gathering Arena and Magic Online on April 15.
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