Strixhaven: School of Mages gave us not only the one main set to talk about when it comes to mythic rares, but it also provided an additional set to cover! Strixhaven was arguably the first set to feature a bonus sheet subset using actual rarities. Time Spiral and Time Spiral Remastered both used a singular rarity while Planar Chaos and Future Sight had "bonus sheets" with rarities but were still part of their respective sets.

With Strixhaven we were given the Mystical Archives, a set full to the brim with nothing but instants or sorceries. By offering this, it provided a guaranteed way for Limited players to set up their magecraft plays while also giving other players much needed reprints for a variety of formats. This set is especially interesting in that despite being made up of only reprints with no new commons, it still impacted the digital only formats of Historic and later Timeless on MTG Arena. As such, there's quite a bit of interesting context to cover with this rankings article, so let's not waste any time and dive on in!

Number Fifteen

Virtually every card on this list has proven itself in one way or another as a powerful staple of either Commander, Cube, or Constructed formats of the past. Increasing Vengeance is the black sheep of the bunch, being a card that's not particularly good in just about any context, and is seen as the one true dud mythic of the set.

Number Fourteen

By comparison, Blue Sun's Zenith is an excellent card. I personally have played quite a bit of this card thanks to Legacy High Tide, but it also happens to be a great card draw engine in games of Commander as well. The big problem with it, though, is that it was a card without the biggest demand and as such, it was one of the cheapest cards in the set with minimal interest to the greater Magic playing world.

Number Thirteen

This set's inclusion of Crux of Fate proved highly controversial when it came to light that the artist Jason Felix had traced over art done by two other artists. This marred the card's inclusion in the set, despite the fact that board wipes are always somewhat in demand thanks to Commander. The card was also far less desirable than many others due to the fact that it was quite readily available and was virtually worthless as a result.

Number Twelve

Primal Command has been a favorite of Cubes and Commander for some time, thanks to its extreme versatility for Green decks. Finding a creature and restocking your deck is great, or you could put a permanent on top of its owner's deck and then force them to shuffle it into their deck with the graveyard shuffle effect. This was a fun inclusion with very few reprints prior to this.

Number Eleven

Normally I like to look at cards printed given their context in the era they were printed in, and at the time Mind's Desire was a cool card to print but also wasn't super special either. However, the reprinting in this set would prove pretty big when the card was unbanned in Legacy two years later, ensuring players had availability to the powerful spell.

Number Ten

The Second Sun had long since approached - and passed - in the majority of its playability in Constructed Magic. However, once it rotated out of Standard, the card continued to live on in certain Pioneer decks as a way to close out games. Seeing it reprinted here wasn't super exciting, but proved nice to have more options put into the wild.

Number Nine

These days, Chaos Warp is one of the most commonly reprinted Commander cards out there. Practically every other set includes a Commander deck featuring a copy of it. This was true even at the time, with the card having 13 versions prior to this printing. Still, it's an evergreen Commander card that Red players everywhere need that also happened to come with interesting new art. Couple that with the great Limited utility and you've got yourself an excellent inclusion, if maybe a slightly unexciting one.

Number Eight

Day of Judgment falls into a similar camp as Crux of Fate where it was quite easy for players to get their hands on. However, the fact that it represented an unconditional board wipe made it the kind of card that practically any Commander player utilizing White needed copies of. Despite the affordable accessibility, more copies finding their way into players' hands was always welcome.

Number Seven

You may recall when I ranked Channel quite low in my Iconic Masters rankings due to the fact that the card was readily available and didn't need a reprint. Here, though, things are a little different. One notable element was that this set was far more widely drafted than that set, providing players a more frequent opportunity to do nonsense with it in Limited. More importantly, though, was the fact that it put the card onto MTG Arena, meaning formats like Cube and the newer Timeless can access it. In Timeless it was powerful enough to be restricted, showing that this time around there was a little more merit to including it here.

Number Six

Popular Commander card? Check. Popular Cube card? Check. Legacy staple for specific decks? Yup, that's checked too. Natural Order just hits a lot of spots where it's always been a hot card for players of all kinds. Seeing it get some fresh new art as well was highly welcome, and like many cards on this list would come to MTG Arena for the first time as well. The card was banned in Historic out of the gate, but would eventually be legal for play in Timeless.

Number Five

Mizzix's Mastery is another card that proved to have a rather substantial impact on MTG Arena, this time not being a card banned in Historic. Thanks to Magma Opus having a "cycling" ability of sorts, players would cast Mizzix's Mastery for cheap copies of powerful spells like this. Players used each of these with Torrential Gearhulk as well, making for a particularly potent control-combo deck in the format.

Number Four

Prior to being printed here, Teferi's Protection had proven to be a fairly difficult card to come by. Its first printing was in a set that had a famously small print run (Commander 2017) and then its only reprints were as a rare judge foil, as part of The List, and then in a Secret Lair. While the Secret Lair helped, Commander players everywhere were hungry for better access to the card, and the reprinting here gave it to them in spades.

Number Three

Few cards are as big of a Commander staple as Demonic Tutor. Banned in every format and restricted in Vintage, the only true homes for the card are in Commander or Cube. While it's now on the Game Changers list, thereby limiting its usefulness somewhat, at the time it was just a card any Commander deck playing Black wanted. Even now this remains fairly true and it's always hotly in demand. Including it here ensured more players were able to play with it and it even provided the incredible Japanese art version as well.

Number Two

Tainted Pact over Demonic Tutor? Huh? You'd think Demonic Tutor is the better card and to a point, you'd be correct. However, prior to this Tainted Pact hadn't seen a single reprint and was getting quite expensive thanks to Commander - particularly cEDH. Perhaps more notably, however, was the card's printing into Historic. When combined with Thassa's Oracle, it's possible to flip over your entire deck and win the game on the spot. This led to a powerful Historic deck that dominated after the next card was removed from the format...

Number One

It might be weird to put a card like Time Warp ahead of several of the cards on this list. However, if you were playing at the time, the card was no joke. Players used the card in a Jeskai deck alongside Velomachus Lorehold to generate an absurd number of turns that would chain together and end the game. This saw Time Warp get quickly banned out of the format, making its impact in the era monumental, and that doesn't even touch on how big it was to add more copies into the pool for Commander as well.

Paige Smith

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