Secrets of Strixhaven releases on April 24th. In addition to the main set, there are also five precons – one for each of Strixhaven’s colleges. This article is going to take a look at the Quandrix Unlimited precon and discuss the best ways to upgrade it.

Quandrix College is all about numeromancy. It’s basically a super magical hybrid of mathematics and biology. They analyze and influence the natural world around them by observing symmetries and other patterns in nature and trying to recreate them. This precon reflects that, since you’re going to need to do a lot of counting as you produce tons of mana, make tons of +1/+1 counters and cast powerful X-spells. 

THE COMMANDERS

As is usually the case, we’ve got two brand new legendary creatures in the deck who can function as the Commander. Unsurprisingly, both Zimone and Primo are all about putting lots of +1/+1 counters on the board and spending tons of mana for powerful outcomes.

Primo is X-costed himself, and the more mana you produce the more massive he becomes. The most interesting thing about him is his ability to spit out Fractal tokens when a creature with base power 0 deals combat damage to a player. That’s really unique, and actually opens the door for him to be an interesting and effective Commander in a deck built entirely around base power 0. 

But even with only a few other cards checking that box, the very tokens he spits out can help you make even more of them. You might say that your creature tokens will increase exponentially.

Meanwhile, Zimone loves X-spells such as Primo. She gains counters when they are cast, and the more counters she has, the cheaper your X-spells get. In short, she can become a massive threat if left unchecked between her own massive body and the massive cost reduction effect.

While both of these make for awesome commanders, Zimone is definitely more fine-tuned for this particular deck, which is focused more on X-spells and +1/+1 counters than it is on 0 base-power creatures.

NEW CARD OVERVIEW

In addition to Zimone and Primo, this Commander deck contains 9 other brand new Commander deck exclusive cards, all of which do an excellent job of supporting this deck’s theme of X-spells and +1/+1 counters. Let’s start with a look at a couple of the X-spell payoffs.

Owlin Spiralmancer gives you a decently-sized flyer that has the ability to double X-spells. That’s going to give you incredible value in a deck like this. 

Meanwhile, Brass Infiniscope is a mana rock – something that is right at home in a deck that’s trying to produce as much mana as possible – but it’s also a life and card advantage engine. The more cards and life you gain, the more likely it is you can cast even more X-spells, so it can really snowball.

Lattice Library is both a payoff and an enabler for X-spell nonsense since it is an X-spell itself. It gives you a Fractal token up front, and from then on spits one out the first time you cast an X-spell every turn. Getting extra bodies out of the library can go a long way towards buying you the time to amass even more mana.

The precon also comes with some excellent counter payoffs. Nev gives your creatures with counters on them trample, while also getting +1/+1 counters any time you cast an X-spell.

Expansion Algorithm has the highest ceiling of any Proliferate cad we’ve ever seen. It’ll be quite rare for this deck to be lacking at least a few permanents in play with counters, so it’s likely to augment your board in a massive way.

Nexus Mentality is a powerful Instant. While moving counters from one creature to another isn’t something unique, the Mentality’s second option is. Sometimes your creature on board having a bunch of counters just isn’t nearly as good as drawing a ton of cards, and this can do the job. If you happen to have Zimone in play, you even get both modes, which can simultaneously turn combat on its head and draw you a ton of cards.

The deck also comes packing a couple of really good X-spells. Once prepared, the Shotcaller can spread +1/+1 counters all over your board while also sending your creatures into the air and drawing you a card, and preparing the Shotcaller is very doable.

Kinetic Ooze gives the deck an X-based Reclamation Sage. While it may be a little pickier about what it can destroy, it also scales all game long, giving you even more powerful effects when you have a ton of mana, and this deck is all about having lots of mana.

This deck also comes with a card that lets you cast a banned card! Yavimaya Bloomsage gives you a +1/+1 counter at the beginning of your end step, and if the creature you put that counter on has 7 or more power, the sage becomes prepared. This gives you access to Channel, an absurd way to generate mana, especially in a deck full of X spells.

This deck also includes the Turbulent dual land. It’ll enter tapped early, but by turn 3 or so there’s a good chance it’ll enter fully untapped. The dual typing also makes it very easy for you to search up this excellent fixing.

$50 UPGRADES

As we’ve seen, this precon comes with all the ingredients you need to go wild with X-spells and +1/+1 counters, and it even has some really important reprints that fit great in the deck. The most notable of these is Unbound Flourishing.  But we can do even better! For example, there are a few incredibly powerful X-spells that got left out.

Chord of Calling and Nature’s Rhythm are two of the best creature tutors there are. This is because both of them let you put the creature directly on the battlefield. This deck will have no problem pumping enough mana into them to always find you the optimal creature for a given situation.

I know that it’s a bit of a flavor fail to have a Witherbloom card like Pest Infestation in the deck, but it’s way too good not to include here. It’s great in virtually any Green deck, but in this one you can push X to new heights and destroy way more artifacts and enchantments while also getting more Pest tokens.

Doppelgang gives you a mass clone effect that can copy any permanent. Even just paying 2 for X can result in absurd outcomes because it gives you 2 copies of each of the permanents you target. And this deck is going to be capable of pumping a lot more mana than that into it.

Mathemagics deserves to be here for both power and flavor reasons. It might be the Quandrixiest card ever since it straight up uses exponents in the text box, but it’s also quite strong. You can use it to draw a ton of cards, but this deck is more than capable of making enough mana to actually make an opponent draw their entire library.

While this precon does largely have all the X-cost payoffs in that work with the Simic identity, there is one really great one that got left out – Nexos. He makes your lands produce double the mana for X spells, and that’s certainly something that this deck wants to be doing.

Here’s the upgraded decklist.

I removed the following cards to make room for the changes:

Biomass Mutation
Decisive Denial
Stroke of Genius
Eureka Moment
Forgotten Ancient
Oversimplify

FURTHER UPGRADES

While those upgrades can make the deck significantly stronger, there are some other great cards for the deck that you’ll have access to if you’ve got a more extensive budget for upgrades.

While Chord of Calling and Nature’s Rhythm are really good creature tutors, Finale of Devastation and Green Sun’s Zenith are even better in most situations. The Zenith tutors up creatures more efficiently (albeit only Green ones), and Finale of Devastation can grab stuff from the graveyard, and if you have a ton of mana at your disposal it turns virtually any board lethal.

Awaken the Woods is a great fit for this deck. Not only is it an X spell that makes lots of tokens, those tokens can also produce mana. That will make your future X spells far more potent.

Wan Shi Tong is a huge flyer that will also draw you a ton of cards and punish your opponents for tutoring, and Walking Ballista can turn into a game-ending machine gun in a deck that is as good as this one is at producing mana.

END STEP

This precon is going to be a lot of fun, especially if you like math. What changes are you going to make to the deck to make it better? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.