As he did with Lorwyn Eclipsed, Head Designer Mark Rosewater has teased a plethora of new information for the upcoming in-universe set, Secrets of Strixhaven.  He reminded everyone that the information he’s teasing is incomplete. 

Things To Expect

In the first section, he went over some keywords and mechanics. He also teased a few specific spells though he didn’t give enough information to make an informed guess about what they are. This was his first list:

• An ability word returns which first appeared on a second visit to a popular plane
• Four of the five school get a new mascot (aka creature tokens and sometimes cards)
• A mythic rare cycle that grants your instants and sorceries old keywords
• A new mechanic that redoes an old mechanic without its drawback
• A spell which costs XXU
• A mechanic that has been in Magic for many years finally becomes a card name
• A 6/6 with a mana value of 1
• A new Pox spell
• A spell that grants a specific deciduous mechanic to any cards of two specific card types
• A cycle referencing iconic spells from Alpha

Rules Text

The second section of this teaser was to introduce specific rules text found on different cards. With rules including ETB triggers, effects that check creature type, and effects that produce mana, there was a wide variety of rules text to go over. This is the second list:

• "Whenever [CARDNAME] attacks, you may cast target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard without paying its mana cost.”
• “each Pest, Bat, Insect, Snake, and Spider you control.”
• “add an amount of {R} equal to this creature’s power.”
• “you may exile cards from your graveyard.”
• “Exile an instant or sorcery card from your graveyard:”
• “where X is the number of differently named lands you control.”
• “Round down each time.”
• “When this land enters, choose a land card name.”
• “equal to three minus X.”

Creature Types

Every set includes it’s own creature types depending on the plane being visited.  Lorwyn Eclipsed re-introduced us to Kithkin, TMNT gave us Utrom, and there are going to be creature types that are specific to Secrets of Strixhaven as well.  Some of these creature types we’ve seen recently while others haven’t been seen in some time. This is the third list:

• Creature – Inkling Cat
• Creature – Spirit Camel
• Creature – Bird Pilot
• Creature – Plant Sloth
• Creature – Badger Pest
• Creature – Turtle Wizard
• Creature – Fractal Elk
• Creature – Giraffe
• Legendary Creature – Merfolk Bard
• Legendary Creature – Bird Skeleton Warlock

Card Names

The last list that Rosewater teased was a list of card names. There is no card type, mana cost, power/toughness, or rules text associated with these cards but they will all be in Secrets of Strixhaven. This is the last list:

• Applied Geometry
• Flow State
• Graduation Day
• Group Project
• Impractical Joke
• Procrastinate
• Pterafractyl
• Stress Dream
• Teacher’s Pest
• Wild Hypothesis

With the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles behind us, preview season for Secrets of Strixhaven is coming soon. The debut stream for Magic’s next set is happening over at Twitch and YouTube on March 31 at 10am PT.