5 Underrated Commander Cards From Strixhaven

Magic’s next in-universe set is Secrets of Strixhaven, which releases in April. This got me thinking about our first trip to Arcavios in Strixhaven: School of Mages. It was a set I really enjoyed, and it contains lots of cards that quickly became very important in many formats, including Commander. The set is especially replete with powerful instants and sorceries and payoffs for casting them.

For example, everyone knows that Storm-Kiln Artist is a treasure-making machine, that Archmage Emeritus is a card drawing value engine, and that Expressive Iteration is one of the best card draw spells we’ve ever seen. 

While it’s common knowledge that Strixhaven is packed full of cards like these, I do think there are some that are being overlooked. In this article, I’m going to take a look at 5 cards that I think people should be seriously considering for their Commander decks.

UNDERRATED COMMANDER – BLEX

Blex is really blexible. He’s a lord for multiple creature types, some of which are actually quite common – like Snakes and Insects. You can build a Commander deck that leans into all of those different creature types, or you can just use him as a nice Commander for a deck that is focused solely on one of those creature types.

I think it’s probably best to zero in on Insects and Spiders, though. This is partly because there are a critical mass of creatures with those types in Black/Green and partly because there are some other payoffs out there that overlap into both of those creature types. 

His blexibility doesn’t end with the variety of creatures he can buff, either. Because he’s a modal double-faced card, he also gives you access to a powerful Sorcery in the command zone.  You can spend 4 to draw up to five cards. And sure, you lose a lot of life if you decide to go that hard, but the potential is impressive. Always having access to both a lord and a draw spell in the command zone is very nice. 

Search for Blex is also another reason to go in the “Insect and Spider” route, because creatures with those types often like the graveyard, and Search for Blex can help you there.

WANDERING ARCHAIC

Wandering Archaic is far more heavily played than most cards I look at in my “5 Underrated Commander Cards” articles. However, even though the Archaic enjoys some moderate popularity, I don’t think this Avatar is nearly popular enough.

While a 5-mana 4/4 isn’t good, making your opponents pay a significant tax any time they cast an instant or sorcery – otherwise you get a copy of it for yourself can be pretty backbreaking. I mean, don’t you want to constantly be able to ask “Do you pay the 2?”, I know I do. While the Archaic does become a lightning rod for removal the moment it comes down, it can also copy that removal spell if your opponent isn’t careful. 

Like Blex, the Archaic is a modal double-faced card, and you can also cast it as a symmetrical card draw and life gain spell. It’s actually kind of funny that the front side is super frustrating for your opponents to play against, while the Sorcery side is something everyone will be happy with. You can read the room and decide which one to cast.

DOUBLE MAJOR

Like the Archaic, Double Major is more popular than most cards I write about in this series. Also like the Archaic, people should be playing it way more. There aren’t a whole lot of good ways to copy your Commander without the legend rule getting in the way, and Double Major is one of the most efficient ways to do it.

While not all decks are going to be super interested in copying their Commander, if you’re playing one who has abilities and effects that stack well together, Double Major should be an automatic inclusion. This is especially true if you’re using a deck that likes tokens in general too, as Double Major isn’t a bad way to copy other powerful creatures either.

It can get particularly nasty in an Adrix and Nev deck, since if you make a copy of it you’re going to be getting even more token copies in the future. Additional great Commanders for this card include Koma, which can even more quickly overwhelm your opponents with Serpents when there are two of the Cosmos Serpent in play, and Yarok, as getting two additional triggers out of everything is super absurd.

FIRST DAY OF CLASS

First Day of Class is far more niche than the cards we’ve looked at so far, but it’s a pretty nasty combo enabler so I thought it deserved a mention here. While it’s a real bummer “Learn” is just rummaging in Commander (I kind of wish you could have a Lesson-board in EDH, but that’s a topic for another article), First Day of Class gets its value when you combine it with -1/-1 counters.

It’s not the most intuitive thing ever, but any time a creature has both a -1/-1 and a +1/+1 counter on it, they both disappear. This makes it particularly potent alongside Persist, a mechanic that allows a creature to return to the battlefield as long as it doesn’t have a -1/-1 counter on it. 

So, if you combine First Day of Class and one of those creatures with a sacrifice outlet, the Persist creature can just be sacrificed as many times in a turn as you want. If you use a sacrifice outlet that doesn’t cost any mana, things get especially interesting. This is at its most powerful with Murderous Redcap, who can just kill all your opponents by doing 2 to each of them repeatedly.

Other Persist creatures need a little more help, but as long as you have something in play that damages your opponent when a creature dies or enters the battlefield, like Impact Tremors, it’s still a combo that ends the game on the spot.

It’s also worth noting that First Day of Class isn’t only useful in combo situations either – as long as you have any deck that churns out a lot of bodies in a single turn, it can be a good way to get a more conventional win too. 

For that reason, I think it’s particularly worth it for Rakdos Goblin decks, which can easily run the above combo, while still being able to effectively use First Day of Class when it’s used in a more straightforward manner. The brand new Grub, Storied Matriarch is actually a great fit for this, since she likes Goblins and -1/-1 counters.

ORIQ LOREMAGE

Oriq Loremage does something quite powerful that only a handful of cards can do – it can tutor up any card and put it directly into your graveyard. While Entomb is the gold standard for a graveyard tutor, you can only run a single copy of that, and I’d argue that this is the second best card in the game for tutoring up a card of any type and putting it in the bin. And it can even do it repeatedly where Entomb typically cannot.

While most decks would much rather tutor a card to their hand, there are plenty of decks that thrive off of getting a powerful card into the graveyard and then using something to let them get that card on the battlefield or stack way ahead of schedule.

For example, if you’re using The Beamtown Bullies to force your opponent to gain control of bad creatures in your graveyard, or Greasefang to reanimate super powerful Vehicles, Oriq should probably just be in your deck as it’s one of the best ways to consistently set those things up.

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I hope I introduced you to some cards worth consideration in your Commander deck. What Strixhaven cards do you think are being overlooked? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.