Strixhaven: School of Mages came out at a very weird time for Magic. The set arguably had relatively low impact on the whole, appealing much more heavily to Commander players. Couple this with releasing in the peak of the pandemic and a lot of people didn't get the opportunity to play with these cards outside of MTG Arena. Players loved the story and the Mystical Archives subset, though, so while its impact may not have been massive, it had a lot of cool things going on - many of which were mythic!

With 21 cool mythics in the set, I'm going to go through and rank them all! Let's dive right in!

• 21. Harness Infinity
• 20. Mavinda, Students' Advocate
• 19. Kasmina, Enigma Sage
• 18. Ecological Appreciation
• 17. Body of Research
• 16. Rowan, Scholar of Sparks // Will, Scholar of Frost
• 15. Tanazir Quandrix
• 14. Blex, Vexing Pest // Search for Blex
• 13. Jadzi, Oracle of Arcavios // Journey to the Oracle
• 12. Extus, Oriq Overlord // Awaken the Blood Avatar
• 11. Mila, Crafty Companion // Lukka, Wayward Bonder

Number Ten

Blot Out the Sky is like the modern day Martial Coup, where it makes a bunch of tokens and if you make enough, it wraths the rest of the board. While it never truly broke out in Constructed formats, it did become a pretty popular Commander option much like Martial Coup. Perhaps more importantly, it was also a Limited bomb and casting a copy of it would almost certainly shut the door on any game it was played in.

Number Nine

Hofri Ghostforge is the definition of a card that's much more oriented to Commander than any other format. It just so happens that it's a pretty damn good one. In a world where Boros decks in Commander are known for focusing on either aggro strategies or equipment/aura strategies, Hofri offers you the opportunity to do interesting things. This is because with the card's second ability, you're able to build more of a value deck by re-utilizing ETB abilities of creatures again after they die. This made it stand out for many players and was an exciting option for Boros fans everywhere.

Number Eight

Shadrix Silverquill provided players with an interesting choice every turn: do I give my opponents something in order to benefit myself? There were a number of questions as to how this could fare in 1v1 Constructed play, but it had even more play in Commander. There it could allow you to play politics with ease with a little combo of both group hug and group slug. A great card for casual formats.

Number Seven

This card proved to be the definition of a fun-of one-of. You always ran exactly one copy in your sideboard if you happened to be playing any cards utilizing the learn mechanic. Too often, your lesson spells don't do much in the later game, or else you want to match the flexibility of options with your other sideboard slots. The card itself feels pretty weak and underwhelming, but the ease of access the learn mechanic allowed caused the card to show up in a massive portion of Standard decks. That alone warrants it getting a pretty sizable placement on this list.

Number Six

Players love a good Fireball effect and they love damage doublers. What if you Fireballed for five times the mana paid into it to as many targets as you can afford? This proves to be a powerful game ending card, either wiping out boards to clear the way for you to win or else burning all opponents in a game of Commander. The card has proven tremendously popular in casual settings and remains an awesome and flashy mythic to this day.

Number Five

I'd argue that when taken at face value, Professor Onyx isn't a terribly exciting card. What made it so notable was the fact that it could combo with Chain of Smog in eternal formats. This combo works by continuously targeting yourself with the Chain of Smog copies to create infinite copies of the card, thus triggering Professor Onyx's magecraft ability the same number of times. This spiked Chain of Smog's price for quite some time and proved a very potent game ender in the right sort of deck, especially in Commander.

Number Four

I wouldn't call Velomachus Lorehold the greatest thing in the set by a long shot. However, it did have one major claim to fame: it allowed for combos with Time Warp that created one of the most oppressive Historic decks ever. The power of this deck caused Time Warp to be banned soon after, where Lorehold would go back to seeing very little play.

Number Three

Beledros Witherbloom was a card that instantly turned everyone's heads. Longtime players would recognize the similarities to classic Magic creature Verdant Force, but this one goes further. First off, it's a big flying dragon, which is good enough in its own right. The much cooler aspect, though, is the fact that once a turn it allows you to untap all of your lands. This lets you get up to some serious nonsense and take over games with ease, making it an instant favorite.

Number Two

Galazeth Prismari saw some modest play in Standard, but immediately gained a lot of attention from Commander players. This was due in no small part to the fact that the card acted very similarly to Urza, Lord High Artificer in that you could turn any artifact into a mana rock with ease. Couple this with the fact that it was a reasonably cheap dragon with a solid body and you had a card players quickly fell in love with.

Number One

What makes Magma Opus my top mythic of the set is just how much versatility it had out of the gate. It saw modest Standard play, solid Commander play, and perhaps most importantly strong Historic play. There it forged the core of Torrential Gearhulk and Mizzix's Mastery decks for some time, lasting much longer past Prismari's time in the sun. Later on, it would also be a major player in Pioneer's Geological Appraiser Discover decks to combo off in the first few turns of the game and set up fast wins. This wide ranging play makes it easily the top mythic of the set for me by a lot, and frankly it's not even close.

Paige Smith

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