Gavin Verhey covered how Strixhaven: School of Mages made the college enemy color pairs different than their guild counterparts on today’s episode of Good Morning Magic.
The Magic team wanted to make a set focused on enemy color pairs, something that only been used twice in Apocalypse and Eventide, but the trick was making the pairs different from the guilds from the Ravnica block. The solution was finding the things that were not explored in the guilds and diving into other concepts. While Boros is all about attacking, Lorehold wants to use its graveyard. Similarly, Witherbloom wants to gain life and sacrifice things, unlike Golgari which is all about using its graveyard in different ways. Finding new identities for the color pairs allowed for some colors to try different things.
Strixhaven also gave players ways to identify with different color pairs than just how their guild preference plays. Players might be fans of Izzet, but lean more toward Silverquill for this set. Players could also be both Simic and Quandrix for different reasons. Verhey made sure to point out that the guilds aren’t going anywhere, but that there are more ways to express yourself than just how your favorite guild plays.
Verhey said next week Good Morning Magic will dive into the Commander decks from Strixhaven.