Magic: The Gathering's Secrets of Strixhaven is fully revealed and its release is fast approaching. That means it's once again time to see which cards you should be rating highly in Draft and Sealed, for the Prerelease and beyond.

The Best Commons and Uncommons for Secrets of Strixhaven Limited

We've got plenty of interesting options to choose from. I'll be looking at what I believe to be some of the strongest players in each color at the Common and Uncommon rarity. So, let's dive right in and see what Secrets of Strixhaven has in store for us.

White Commons

Eager Glyphmage is the latest in a long line of 3/3 Creatures that cost four mana and bring a buddy with them when they enter. A 1/1 Flyer is about the best token Creature you're likely to get at common, so be sure to value this highly.

Owlin Historian is the other common that stands out in White. A 2/3 Flyer for three is still okay in modern Limited. Surveil 1 is a very nice bonus, especially in Lorehold (). The Historian then pays you off for doing what the Lorehold already wants to do, receiving a +1/+1 pump whenever one or more cards leave your Graveyard. This is a decent card on rate, and can attack in for a lot of damage with minimal help.

White Uncommons

White has a few very good uncommons, but two really stuck out to me. Inkshape Demonstrator is an excellent pay-off for casting Instants and Sorceries. How fortunate for us that it shows up in a set that is all about that. Ward 2 is a nice bit of safety, in case you want to target your own Creatures. This Creature triggers off any Instant or Sorcery that targets, though, so you even get paid off for your removal spells.

I think Primary Research's win rate will tell us a lot about the Secrets of Strixhaven Limited environment. If this card ends up being as good as I hope, SOS will reward attritional, grindy decks. If the format ends up being all about attacking with pump spell backup, Research will probably be too slow. This is one to keep an eye on.

Blue Commons

I'm not blown away by Blues Commons, so maybe that balances out the excellent Uncommons. I'm going to pick something I believe to be sneakily better than you might expect. On paper, Essence Scatter doesn't seem that great in the Instants and Sorceries set, but if you counter a Prepared Creature, you're kind of getting a two-for-one. Even if you just counter a regular Creature, this is still an Instant that triggers your own "spells matter" cards.

Blue Uncommons

Blue has a lot of good Uncommons, but Flow State is surely among the best of them. Having an Instant or Sorcery in your Graveyard is going to be laughably easy to accomplish in this set, so this is almost always going to get you full value. This might even be the best Uncommon in the whole set.

Muse Seeker is still great, but maybe not quite as good as Flow State. Early on, this is a Looter, but that Looting will eventually draw you to the Lands you need to cast the expensive spells that turn this into a card draw engine. It takes a bit more work than Flow State, but the pay-off is well worth it.

Black Commons

Black's Commons seem fairly flat in power level. They're not bad, there just isn't much that stands out. Cheerful Osteomancer is probably the best of the bunch. Raise Dead is a solid Limited card, and while a 4/2 for four isn't the best it is some kind of body. There are going to be some nasty graveyard loops in Black in this set.

Black Uncommons

End of the Hunt might be the best version of this effect we've had so far. Being at Sorcery speed is a bit of a knock against it, but spending two mana to kill the biggest thing on your opponent's board is excellent. Admittedly, "most expensive" doesn't always equate to "best," but that is the case often enough that this card is going to be excellent.

Then there's Forum Necroscribe. I hard to re-read this card, because I assumed it said "to your hand," but this puts Creatures back into play. Sure, it's on a six-drop and requires you to have a spell to trigger it, but if you can jump through those hoops the Scribe pays you back big time.

Red Commons

Expressive Firedancer is one of those Commons that looks unassuming but suddenly hits you for six, seemingly out of nowhere. A 2/2 that grows for the turn is going to be decent in a deck full of Instants and Sorceries. A 2/2 that grows and gets double strike in a set full of pump spells is terrifying.

Red Uncommons

Stop me if you heard this one before, but Red also has a lot of good Uncommons. Garrison Excavator is my pick for the best of the bunch, but I think Red has the widest pool of Uncommons all around. Even so, Excavator is a bit of a speculative choice. "Leaves your graveyard" fell very flat in original Strixhaven. I'm sure they wouldn't make the same mistake twice, and if that's the case, making a 2/2 Flyer is an incredible pay-off.

If that doesn't quite pan out, Artistic Process has your back. Expensive spells was the Prismari () mechanic last time out, and it worked out quite nicely. Artistic Process will still be a playable card even if that's not true this time. It sure gets a lot better if you do build around it, though. The spread of modes here is very nice, too, covering a lot of bases in one card.

Green Commons

Studious First-Year is so obviously the best Green common that I'm not going to spend too much time on it. Rampant Growth is great, and it's especially good in this set that has both "spells matter" and "domain-ish" themes (thank you Converge).

I actually think Oracle's Restoration is a more interesting card, and maybe almost as good as First-Year. Yeah, a Sorcery-speed pump spell doesn't sound enticing, but gaining life and drawing a card sure does. This is one of those glue cards that just does enough of everything to make it better than it seems. Plus, even though one life isn't much, realistically that part reads "trigger all your Witherbloom () stuff."

Green Uncommons

Green seems to have the weakest pool of Uncommons, but Infirmary Healer looks solid. A 2/3 for two is about average these days, but Stream of Life is a lot better in this set than most. Gaining X life is sometimes great, but usually whatever. In this set, though, it does a lot more.

The obvious place for this is Witherbloom, but it's good in Quandrix () too, where it's a spell that scales as the game goes on. It's even good in the Multicolor Green decks as a way to bridge yourself into the late game.

Conclusion

The Uncommons in Secrets of Strixhaven look very good across the board. Even Green, despite me only picking one card to discuss, has plenty of solid choices filling its ranks. This is a common occurance in the Play Booster era, but it particularly stood out when looking through this specific set.

I don't typically cover gold cards when I make these lists, but there are a lot of good ones at every rarity. On top of that, the Mystical Archive is full of powerful cards, which might make it more difficult to read signals when Drafting.

Some of these Bonus Sheet cards are going to feel like acts of god, so you should treat them as such. Don't play around cards off the Bonus Sheet unless you're absolutely 100% sure that you can and should.

Once the set has been out on MTG Arena for a while, we'll see how accurate these predictions were. Until then, Draft well and may your Sealed pools be stuffed with first picks!