Welcome to Strixhaven!

I hope you brought your letter of acceptance. Avoid the deputy of detention, make sure you don't divide by zero, and you'll be just fine.

Classes are challenging, but rewarding. Sure, the profs may seem intimidating, but they're just big teddy bears.

Oh, Professor Onyx? Yeah she's a bit spooky. Doesn't talk about her past much, but... anyways, you have nothing to worry about. Unless you're one of those poor saps she takes on her field trips.

Yeah, they come back looking a bit shocked at times, but it's okay. Keep your head down, ask the campus guide if you need help, and gods willing you'll make it through your first day of class!

All Aboard the Magic School Bus What is this cube?

Well - it's not a cube! It's half of one.

The Magic School Bus demi-cube is not intended to be played on its own. Chock full of generically useful instants, sorceries, and utility artifacts, it's probably too creature-light to be a good play experience. Fortunately, our heroes and their wacky gothy teacher rarely stay within the confines of Strixhaven. That's where the magic school bus comes in!

Through the power of their beloved shape-changing vehicle, the students go on field trips across the planes, bringing a dynamic and ever-changing play experience to their companions.

Okay seriously, what is this cube?

The Magic School Bus is intended to be played alongside other demi-cubes. The goal is to allow unique and novel set-based or themed cubes, without the effort of putting together the staples, interaction suite, and land-base for each of those other cubes.

On game night, grab the Magic School Bus and shuffle it in with another demi-cube for a brand new draft experience!

Where can the magic school bus go?

This is a work in progress. As I work on finalizing this list and building the demi-cubes to go with them, I will add links to them here.

• The Magic School Bus Goes to Ikoria
• The Magic School Bus Goes to Innistrad (Currently defunct)
• The Magic School Bus Goes to Middle Earth
• The Magic School Bus Goes to Eldraine
• The Magic School Bus Goes to Kamigawa
• The Magic School Bus Goes to Baldur's Gate

Archetypes, Themes and Cards Colours

Decks are most commonly 3 colours, with 2 colour close behind. A few decks with more colours have been successful, but need to be leaning into a specific theme.

Each colour has one or two things it's trying to do.

White - Aggro

White is the most aggressive colour, with the worst removal. It wants to pressure and tax the opponent, then end the game in the air with birds and inklings.

Blue - Tempo or Control

Blue removal is mostly counterspells. Play lots of cantrips to get a cheap Terror or a huge Serpentine Curve, or just hold out for late and grind out the endgame.

Black - Sacrifice Attrition

Black has the strongest removal, and the largest number of clean 2-for-1s. With lots of ways to generate pests, it can sac them for value and to restore life it used as a resource early. Pair with red to add a steal-and-sac element with Claim the Firstborn, Mascot Interception, and whatever Treason-with-set-mechanic is included in the field trip.

Red - Spells

Red can play as part of an aggressive, control, or even combo strategy, but will almost certainly revolve around spells. With the lowest creature count in the school, and a wide array of enabling spells, it pairs well with blue and white especially.

Green - Big Aggro

AKA mid-range - green has a proactive strategy that wants to beat down with well-statted creatures. A little bit of ramp and +1/+1 counter synergy supports this.

Allied Colours

Strixhaven is an enemy colour set, so there are more enemy colour gold cards than allied colour. This has lead to a natural lean towards wedge colour combinations. I am constantly looking for allied colour cards to combat this.

I also run the full cycle of two-colour commands. The Elder Dragons of Arcavios are well aware of their Tarkirian brethren's powers.

Build-Arounds

A few of the residents of the school are singular in their purpose, inviting drafters to take them early and create entire decks around them.

Between the double cycle of summoning lessons and one-offs like Serpentine Curve and Emergent Sequence, it's possible, if challenging, to build a deck with no permanents and plenty of creatures.

A well made manufactor deck has no problem flooding the board with artifacts and generating value. Just make sure you don't get run over with a stack of food uneaten because you're too busy cracking clues digging for a win condition.

An overloaded Mizzix's can be a good game ender in a red-based spells deck. But it can also be a great way to cheat a Magma Opus into play on turn 3.

There are enough cheap buff spells floating around to make this old bird fly.

Weird Robots

Bizarre constructs have taken up residence in Strixhaven. Some, like the School Bus itself, are ever shifting (and offer some extra support for tribal synergies during a field trip) while others offer other interesting powers.

Lands

For fixing lands, I'm running a cycle each of the Ravnica bounce lands, the Temples, and the Snarls. I have been aiming to have another 10 or so lands in the field trip set.

Design

I love set, plane, and themed cubes. They're so much more interesting to me than "360 good cards". Plus, every time I've tried to curate my own cube with no pre-built restrictions, I've given up on it.

It seems like every new set I play, I immediately get halfway through designing a new theme cube, realize I don't want to put the effort in to figure out the interaction suite and land base and sleeve all those cards, and abandon it.

And I love the Mystical Archive! They are some of the most beautiful cards that Wizards has every printed, and I've long wanted a home to put them.

All that came together into this new design project. I am hopeful that it will lead to the type of cube experience that I really want to craft.

Design Restrictions

I am maintaining the following restrictions on the core Magic School Bus list to help with simplicity.

• No DFCs. This will also extend to field trip destinations, with the exception of specific thematic planes such as Innistrad.
• No tokens except for
  • the 5 Strixhaven mascots
  • supplies (food, treasure, clue)
  • Saprolings and Copies, for Artifact Mutation and Fractured Identity specifically.
• Avoiding "complicated" mechanics except for Learn/Lesson
• No cards with oracle text that substantially changes the printed card

Power Level

One of my goals is to run as much of the Mystical Archive as possible, so I am trying to build an environment where this is possible. That said, the Archive contains a very wide variety of power levels itself. Overly weak or overly strong cards may have to be cut.

Cut for Power Level Reasons

• Lightning Bolt
• Counterspell
• Channel
• Demonic Tutor (also for budget reasons)

Cut for Other Reasons

• The Storm cards
• Agonizing Remorse/Whirlwind Denial - redundancy

Cards That Might Be Too Strong

• Day of Judgment - a 4 mana wrath might be too punishing to any sort of aggressive strategy
• Mizzix's Mastery - in the UR spells shell this reads "8 mana, win the game" but that's likely okay
• Natural Order - this isn't broken with the targets in this cube, but depending on the targets in the showcase it could be a problem
• Primal Command - This does a lot and could be pretty swingy

Cards That Might Be Too Weak

• Divine Gambit - I want to believe in this card but it seems pretty bad

Helpful Filters

• Targets for Master Symmetrist
  • link
• Potential targets for Harmonic Prodigy
  • link
• Potential targets for Killian, Ink Duelist
  • all colours
  • Silverquill colours only
• Potential targets for Mavinda, Students' Advocate
  • link
• Potential triggers for Quintorius, Field Historian
  • Leaves the graveyard
  • Spirits
• Potential triggers for Dina, Soul Steeper
  • link