A few short days after Magic: The Gathering’s new Secrets of Strixhaven set is released, Wizards of the Coast’s Secret Lair is dropping a Back to School Superdrop. It’s a bit of a strange assortment of crossovers with My Little Pony and Dwarf Fortress, along with different spirited interpretations of Strixhaven itself.
We’ve gone through and assessed the individual value of every card across the eight Drops, based on market value data taken from TCG Player. Each individual Drop is priced at $29.99 for non-foil versions and $39.99 for foil. Wizards of the Coast’s announcement blog also details bundles of every non-foil card, every foil, or absolutely everything included in Back to School. Broadly speaking, the art style here is all over the place, but at least two of the eight Drops have some big value worth considering.
Here’s a deeper look at what each Drop has to offer.
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Radiate is an interesting inclusion here since it’s never been reprinted since it was first released as part of 2002’s Torment set. It’s a bit costly at five mana, but it can quickly turn a single-target damage spell into a full board-wipe under the right circumstances. Defense of the Heart has the highest value here. The cheapest reprints hover just above $20 with the original priced at $24.80. Four mana for an enchantment that lets you tutor two creatures from your library into play as long as an opponent has three or more creatures? That’s great.
Arcane Signet and Sol Ring are staples for Commander, so it’s really just a matter of how much you like My Little Pony when it comes to those two. Reconnaissance Mission isn’t bad considering it helps you draw more cards, but blue has plenty of options for draw.
My Little Pony: The Lands of Equestria
- 2x Plains
- 2x Island
- 2x Swamp
- 2x Mountain
- 2x Forest
This one’s quite literally just 10 lands (two of each color) with My Little Pony characters in them.
Omens of Chaos
It’s fortunate that this particular drop comes with some very cool art featuring the main characters from the Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos novel, because the overall reprint value is fairly minimal, barely breaking $10 in total. That said, these cards are all spot-on representations of the five Strixhaven colleges with a decent amount of utility. It’s a good one to pick up for fans of the book or anyone looking to complement their Secrets of Strixhaven decks with some flashy cards.
Dwarf Fortress: Create New World
There are a couple of fun little “group hug” type cards in here, namely Secret Rendezvous and Communal Brewing, which can make things pretty interesting for Commander matches with multiple opponents. Communal Brewing has only appeared previously in the Ms. Bumbleflower Commander deck called Peace Offering from Bloomburrow. Secret Rendezvous previously got a whole cycle in the Final Fantasy set with art depicting the various party members Cloud Strife can go on a Gold Saucer date with in Final Fantasy 7.
The big draw here is definitely Terror of the Peaks. In addition to being a solid dragon body that costs five mana for a 5/4 with flying, it deals damage equal to the power of any other creature you play to any target. It’s one of those cards that presents such a significant threat that your enemies will try to remove it immediately. While the Dwarf Fortress crossover art doesn’t bring much visual appeal, the value here means that it’s well worth the money for the non-foil version of this Drop.
The Eyes Have It
This Drop has a lot of really interesting, cerebral art. Counterbalance has the highest value. Despite being a weird enchantment that doesn’t always work, it costs only two blue mana and will occasionally counter a spell — and all you have to do is reveal the top card of your library. It adds a quiet bit of pressure during long matches. Gitaxian Probe is the other interesting one here since it costs a blue Phyrexian mana (meaning you can pay two life instead of a blue mana), letting you peek at a player’s hand and draw a single card. The other three cards offer a typical blue mix of draw, surveil, and scry.
Mahō Gakuin Seishun Hakusho
According to one person on Reddit, Mahō Gakuin Seishun Hakusho roughly translates to “youthful days at magic school.” So this particular drop is essentially a manga/anime-themed version of Strixhaven reminiscent of high school slice-of-life stories. With his glowing gavel, the figure in Rule of Law reminds me of Hiromi Higuruma from Jujutsu Kaisen. And the aquatic humanoid student in Time Stretch evokes something like My Hero Academia.
Stinging Study delivers the highest value here, offering an instant-speed source of card draw that works really well in decks with Commanders that cost a lot of mana to cast — and it works even if they’re still in the command zone. Time Stretch costs a whopping 10 mana to cast but allows you to take two extra turns after the current turn. If you’re in a position to reduce the cost somehow and/or have that kind of mana, then it can easily let you win the game.
Notebook Genius
Similarly to Omens of Chaos, the real draw with Notebook Genius is the cool art from Mica Angela Hendricks. You can find singles for all of these for fairly cheap elsewhere. That said, each of these cards is actually quite good with simple, powerful abilities that instantly get your deckbuilding brain going.
Lier gives all of your instant and sorcery cards flashback. Bloodghast returns to the battlefield from the graveyard every time you play a land. Storm-Kiln Artist gets +1/+0 for each artifact you control AND he creates treasure tokens — which count as artifacts — every time you cast or copy an instant or sorcery spell. (Hint: Lier and Artist work incredibly well in a Vivi Ornitier Commander deck or any other red-blue spellslinging deck.) And Anhelo lets you sacrifice creatures to copy instants and sorceries.
Return to the Mystical Archive
The Secrets of Strixhaven set notably includes non-Standard reprints of famous instant and sorcery cards from throughout Magic’s history, something that Strixhaven: School of Mages also did. It’s called the Mystical Archive. Each of these cards also appears in the Secrets Mystical Archive as well, but this stunning lineup features illustrations from Japanese artists like Hisashi Momose and Kazuma Ichikawa.
We get one card of each color with cheap mana costs and effects that will make you say things like, “Oh that is SUCH a blue card.” Spell Pierce is a one-cost blue instant that counters a noncreature spell unless its controller pays two mana, making it one of blue’s most useful spells in the early rounds. The black sorcery Zombify returns a creature from the graveyard to the battlefield for four mana. None of these are all that complicated, but they tap into the core identity of each color in memorable ways.
For a look at the various bundle options, visit the official blog post announcing the Superdrop.
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