Ah Strixhaven, the Harry Potter mash-up that we never new we wanted, but we definitely needed. An interesting return to the ‘guild’ sets where there are only five supported color pairs. How was it?

Trophies

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Five trophies is a little above average for me in a given set. Funny how my trophies fell into two camps: either straightforward Silverquill BW aggro or pure Prismari power

Most Drafted

Commons

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Three way tie for most-drafted common. And–unsurprisingly–they are all aggressive cards! Expanded Anatomy won the award for “best card that would be mediocre in the 40, but INCREDIBLE in the lessonboard”. The learn/lesson mechanic really rewarded situationally powerful cards and Expanded Anatomy wasa great “slam the door when ahead on board” card. Heck, you can see it turning the Pledgemage into a 5/3 attacking flier.

The Enthusiastic Study shows a bit more of my biases. The card was not widely loved because the +1 toughness didn’t do great with all the x/1s in the format. I saw it as a “win a combat, drive some damage, and draw more fuel”. Again, I might just be a red mage at heart. Alarming!

Uncommon

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More mountains! ALARMING. Academic Dispute I loved since it enabled attacks & magecraft AND learn. Rootha–not an aggro card!–just made for a bunch of super fun things in the set. Everybody loved Rootha.

personal lessons

Similar to the “always identify two cards in a pack: fit & power”, Strixhaven really helped drive home the “speculate on a different lane” move. Since there are only five lanes (fewer if you count how badly Lorehold missed), it is vital to find the proper lane for your seat. Thus practicing being open-minded, taking that P1p5 Killian after four green/blue cards juuuust to make sure that you aren’t supposed to be Silverquill. Interesting that I’m much better at this than the ‘flat, cube/Kaldheim-esque create-your-lane’ style drafting

overall record

	# Drafted	Win Rate
Lorehold	3	56%
Prismari	9	67%
Quandrix	4	50%
Silverquill	7	76%
Witherbloom	3	50%

Overall, I clocked in at a 60% win rate over 28 drafts and 5 trophies. Not bad!

Summary

I really enjoyed Hogwarts: The Gathering but I tend to really love the guild sets with the clearer channels. The Lesson/Learn mechanic was a clear headliners for the set and a really good one. Balancing when to draft which half was fun and the flexibility for which lesson to pick during gameplay was also enjoyable. Honestly, it is kind of remarkable how enjoyable Strixhaven was given how badly Lorehold missed (the graveyard dynamic whiffed so it was really just budget Silverquill aggro) and Witherbloom was mediocre, needing uncommons to get there. Final Jed-Grade: B+ set.