Limited

Drafting Prismari in Strixhaven

We’ll be concluding our campus tour with art class. Would you like to express yourself creatively while setting someone on fire? You might just be a fit for the Prismari school of magic. The synergy of Prismari is lots of mana and big spells. There are a few ways to get discounts on your big spells, via cost reduction mechanics and treasures, a few “spells matter” cards as well as good removal and disruption.

Let’s get started with a few key Prismari uncommons.

Ardent Dustspeaker was already mentioned when we were discussing Lorehold, but this is still a bull of a card for Prismari.

Creative Outburst – The only drawback to this card is how much you have to pay for it, but with a few cost reduction cards this can be quite a potent removal spell, or player removal spell.

Explosive Welcome – While not giving you the card advantage of Creative Outburst, it does give you another three damage. More damage is always welcome.

Expressive Iteration is everything Strategic Planning always wanted to be. You’ll be able to find a card to play now, and one for the future. This can be used on turn three to find a land drop, and to find more action late game, and given that this deck is often wanting to find the combo of big spells and cost reduction, this level of card selection will be quite valuable.

Igneous Inspiration is a premium removal spell, with solid card advantage tacked on.

Maelstrom Muse is the cost reduction you’re looking for. Just connecting with this unaugmented will allow you to cast a 7 mana spell on turn 5. This is a key part of the combo synergy for Prismari, take these highly.

Prismari Apprentice – All of the apprentices are playable. This one rewards you for any spell, and gives you a bonus if it’s big enough.

Rootha, Mercurial Artist – May be tricky to understand at first, but Rootha is doing several things for you. She’s giving you an early blocker and a way to reliably and repeatedly copy your spells. If you have enough mana, you can copy some very big spells in this school, but even copying a cheap removal spell is value enough.

Divide by Zero is just as welcome in this school as it was in Quandrix.

Kelpie Guide is another card that will slot right into this deck, though I expect Quandrix would want it more, both blue pairs are interested in the ramp.

We have a few more cards to get the creative fires burning at common.

Bury in Books will work in any blue deck, but I expect Prismari to be more adept at racing, and even more interested in taking advantage of the tempo aspect of this card.

Elemental Summoning – All of the summoning spells are good, but with the cost reduction mechanics you can get, and the solid learn cards in blue this one is worth going after for Prismari.

While Frost Trickster will likely play a little better in Quandrix, we’re still happy to pick them up.

Pop Quiz will allow you to get to the spells you need, and find your Elemental Summonings from your sideboard.

I honestly think Prismari will be better able to utilize Quandrix Pledgemage than Quandrix. This merfolk may have been sorted wrong. Don’t be afraid to bring these into a spell heavy Prismari deck.

Spectacle Mage is likely to be a key common for Prismari decks. Not only is it giving you a solid body, but you are quite interested in the cost reduction available from this card. This is a welcome addition and makes us more likely to cast big spells sooner.

Enthusiastic Study is quite a lot to pay for a combat trick, but once you start to think of combining it with double strikers and a deck with enough card selection to find both cards, you have an interesting proposition. I don’t think study makes it into every deck, but with a little work, you could win a game out of nowhere with this card.

Heated Debate is solid efficient removal.

Prismari Pledgemage and Lorehold Pledgemage will also be welcome in spell heavy prismari decks.

While Prismari doesn’t have as strong a theme as some of the other schools, this may actually be a benefit to you as you draft it. You could build a variant around magecraft creatures, combo people out with Twinscroll Shamans and combat tricks, or just play Maelstrom Muse into Creative Outburst and see if your opponent concedes, or wants to let you keep going. I’d again lean on blue for the Learn cards; unless you’re going for a Twinscroll build, the blue Learn cards are easier to work into a mana curve.

This takes us to the end of our campus tour. Strixhaven will be upon us soon, and we’ll see how close my predictions come to the truth. Armed with this knowledge I hope you do well in your first few Strixhaven drafts! Now let’s go crack some packs!