In our ongoing semester back at Arcavios' Strixhaven, Witherbloom () College got a new ability word: Infusion.

Infusion means "if you gained life this turn, the effect listed after Infusion happens or is active." Thus far, Infusion is a minor theme: there are twelve total cards with Infusion in Secrets of Strixhaven.

Traditionally, one of the leveling-up lessons new players learn is that pure lifegain, like Heroes' Reunion, is bad. This is essentially accurate, but bonus lifegain tacked on to playable cards is a different matter.

The Blight kicker on Requiting Hex may be used infrequently, but it does come up when gaining two life matters, and gaining life matters much more with the launch of Secrets of Strixhaven.

Luckily, gaining life in Magic is trivial. Creatures with Lifelink, Lands like Illegitimate Business and Adventurer's Inn, and value cards like Aang's Journey, Sami's Curiosity, and Moment of Craving all help you get Infusion online while furthering a normal game of Magic.

Infusion Synergies

As Witherbloom is the Green-Black school, most Infusion enablers will need to intersect with that color pair, but that does give us access to Sultai () and Abzan (). A non-comprehensive list of playable ways to trigger Infusion in Standard with the release of Secrets of Strixhaven includes:

• Scavenging Ooze
• Requiting Hex
• Ruin-Lurker Bat
• Deep-Cavern Bat
• Sheltered by Ghosts
• Archenemy's Charm
• Ancient Cornucopia
• Food (Anchovy and Banana Pizza, Candy Trail, Dubious Delicacy)
• Professor Dellian Fel
• Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER
• Esper Origins
• Virulent Emissary

Ancient Cornucopia is especially exciting, as casting a spell with Infusion off the Cornucopia will automatically turn it on. Professor Dellian Fel can keep you gaining life each turn and can remove problematic Creatures in a pinch; the ultimate ability will rarely come up, but it's a nice bonus to work towards.

Infusion Cards for Limited

Several of the Infusion cards are designed more for Limited than for 60- or 100-card decks.

You're generally happy to have Efflorescence, Lumaret's Favor, Old-Growth Educator, Tenured Concocter, and Ulna Alley Shopkeep in your Sealed pool, but I don't expect any of them to make the jump to Constructed formats.

Of these, the best is Old-Growth Educator, who is very large for and can productively block massive fliers when cast with Infusion active, but lacks an immediate effect on the board or a way to protect itself.

Potential Infusion Cards for Constructed or Commander

Follow the Lumarets is in the mode of Ancient Stirrings and Commune with Nature, but with the option to get two cards instead of one if you gained life this turn. That's not easy to do on turn two, but it's worthy of consideration in Pauper.

The popularity of gainlands (Blossoming Sands, Rugged Highlands) in Pauper means that Infusion is easy to achieve. Any card selection tool that lets you see multiple cards -- particularly ones that let you draw multiple cards -- has historically done well in tournament Magic.

Thornfist Striker looks like a Limited card -- and it's indeed excellent in Draft and Sealed -- but a 4/3 Trampler for is worth testing in Constructed. Note that attacking with any Pests gets you the Infusion trigger and boosts your army mid-combat, which can alter a complacent opponent's combat math.

Fifteen years ago, Skinrender was a reasonable card; ten years ago, Ravenous Chupacabra saw significant play in Standard. Poisoner's Apprentice may not be guaranteed to give an opposing creature -4/-4, but anything that resembles Nekraatal is worth noting.

In my experience, it has overperformed in Draft when paired with Bogwater Lumaret, which suggests a possible role in 60-card Magic.

I have a soft spot for a big Creature with a drawback, and Tragedy Feaster has a massive body with a minor drawback. Even on turns where you can't trigger Infusion, you can sacrifice an obsolete Creature or Pest token, and a 7/6 with a punishing Ward is quite a deal for .

Bebop and Rocksteady haven't exactly defined Standard, but it's one more card for the extremely fun Fight Rigging deck that sometimes pops up in Pioneer.

Infusion Cards Perfect for Constructed or Commander

Without the Infusion trigger, Foolish Fate is, at and Instant speed, a slightly more expensive Doom Blade or a faster Fell. With Infusion, though, it's extremely powerful, adding a Boltwave on top of a premium removal spell.

Elegy Acolyte, Cecil, Dark Knight, and Archenemy's Charm were all reasonable cards before Infusion; they look a lot more appealing with the release of Strixhaven.

Moseo, Vein's New Dean is a cheaper version of Celestine, the Living Saint that comes with a 1/1 Pest to trigger Infusion. He bucks the trend of Infusion a bit, as most cards with the ability merely care about whether you gained life each turn, so a single Pest attack triggers Infusion, whereas Moseo wants you to gain more life to reanimate larger Creatures.

Personally, I like Moseo as a value card that interacts well with Grave Researcher and Twilight Diviner.

Ditch a cheap card into the graveyard via Surveil and then bring it back with Moseo after casting a Debris Beetle or sacrificing a Food. The three life granted from a Food token is a critical point for Moseo: gaining three life lets you get back Twilight Diviner, Grave Researcher, Scrapshooter, Formidable Speaker, or Vastlands Scavenger at the end of turn.

That style of grindy, graveyard-based value deck is incredibly appealing, even if it is a bit fragile in an environment with Ghost Vacuum. What never goes amiss, though, is decent mass removal. Panic buttons that let you wipe the board, a la Wrath of God or Blood on the Snow, have been staples of Magic since day one.

So, we close with the most exciting card: Withering Curse.

Infest effects are useful, although they usually come with an added benefit (Drown in Sorrow, Golden Demise, Cry of the Carnarium). At , Withering Curse is a simple Infest with a huge upside: if you can trigger Infusion, it's effectively Damnation.

We've been using Deadly Cover-Up as our best Standard-legal Black board wipe for two years now, but Withering Curse gives you more flexibility. Previously, Cover-Up was your entire fifth turn; with Withering Curse, you can cast it and follow it up with a two-drop. You miss out on the Cranial Extraction effect, but a flexible Damnation/Infest hybrid that only requires you to gain life is a fair tradeoff.

In Conclusion, Try Infusion

Ability words are a paradox. While mechanics often suggest a deck -- put the maximum number of cards with that mechanic in a single deck and go off -- ability words are often more nebulous and flexible.

Most of them, from Adamant to Celebration to Radiance, are forgettable, but the ones that reward general game play, like Magecraft, Morbid, and Raid, tend to stick around.

Infusion is simple conceptually and rewards a popular line of play, so I expect to see it again. The word is tied to the Witherbloom College of Strixhaven, with their potions and Pest-squeezings, so it may have limited reach, but, like Morbid, it hits a simple binary and is thus open for further development.

If nothing else, I expect to see Withering Curse and Foolish Fate show up throughout Strixhaven's Standard tenure, and certainly in Commander decks for years to come. The stigma against lifegain has eased in recent years and infusion is easier to turn on than ever, as Food tokens keep popping up and Lifelink has been tacked on to creatures that were already powerful like Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn.