Drafting Soup in Strixhaven

Secrets of Strixhaven Limited is one of my favorite formats of all time. Despite its flaws, it restored a place where spells are more powerful than threats. We haven't played Magic like that in a long time. With Arena Limited Champs Qualifiers around the bend, it's a good time to brush up on Strix's dominant strategy.

As someone who currently plays mostly Limited, my team trusted me with running parts of the Limited meeting. I focused on the soup archetype, which is any deck that's more than just a single school, often four or five colors, and generally very controlling.

I will tell you what I told my team going into the Pro Tour: I'm not necessarily looking to draft soup at the PT, largely because realistic expectations for Arena and PT drafts have never been further apart. Strixhaven is a powerful format with a lot of heavy hitters, yet everyone at the PT knows how to draft multi-color decks. Because of that, it's hard to get the same kind of late pickups that you would on Arena.

Admittedly, I was off, but not by much. I noticed many friends were timid. They drafted conservatively, almost as if they were scared. This isn't uncommon at this level. It usually happens because of nerves, inexperience, and a lack of confidence. People are scared to 0-3, so they stick to their comfort zone of two-color combinations, maybe with a light splash.

I like to approach the format by drafting the best card from the first few packs and see what opens up. I'm generally biased towards Lorehold or Prismari as a base, even though Quandrix is the most reliably open. From there, I pick a two-color base and slightly branch off depending on what's allowed by the mana I'm picking up. If I start with two colors and lightly splash others for some removal, bombs, and converge cards, then I don't need as many lands compared to taking the best card each time and hoping the mana works out.

Let's say I start with a Quandrix, UG base of cards. I can then branch into both Prismari and Witherbloom splashes, providing access to cards like Grapple with Death and Prismari cards like Stress Dream.

This enables the converge outlets that I want to play. Arcane Omens, Sundering Archaic, and Snarl Song are examples of premium uncommon pickups in these spots. Bear in mind that Potioner's Trove is the format's best common for this strategy. Nothing else comes close. However, I don't want to start my draft with a Trove because it will bias my picks, and I may not end up with a powerful enough deck to play soup, in which case I'd rather have a linear aggressive deck that can punish slow starts.

Since a cash-prize Limited Qualifier is coming up, we will play most remaining drafts on Arena. The pods will be tricky. Some will be tough, others soft, and you can draft as you would in a normal Arena Bo1 draft.

I'm using my normal approach of identifying an open school and picking up powerful cards when they leak through. It's massive to play converge cards because they account for so much of the set's power level outside of rares. It's a huge win to play them when others aren't.

Since soup is such a massive part of the format, there's a lot of value in playing cards like Spell Pierce, Disdainful Stroke, other counterspells, and even cards that protect creatures in an aggro deck.

Because many soup decks play few creatures, you don't want to load your deck with removal if you're in an aggressive deck. I'd try to hard cap it around four, maybe a fifth if it's attached to a creature, such as Poisoner's Apprentice/Sundering Archaic. Generally, it's better to have some hand disruption, like Render Speechless, try to push damage in combat, and move through your opponent's creatures rather than having to kill them all.

This format has several polarizing matchups. Some soup decks will have wildly different power levels and pieces of important interaction for each other, so it's difficult to build your deck to beat aggro and have a heavy advantage in mirrors. In Bo1, you have to do your best to build a balanced deck because you can't fix it for game two and three.

Arcane Omens is by far the best card to have in these soup mirrors because it will still be good against aggro decks if you play it on curve or a turn ahead while destroying the opponent's ability to play a long game. You empty their hand and limit them to what's directly on top of their deck for the next few turns.

You want to have enough win conditions, though you don't need a ton, and you don't really need creatures. You can get away with a few copies of Visionary's Dance and a Divergent Equation to bring them back. If you play a low amount of win cons, you have to be comfortable playing long games that require planning and, at times, precise play, so you have enough left in the tank to close the game out.

I wouldn't be afraid to play some creatures. People believe it's like Constructed, in that if they have almost no win cons yet build a controlling deck, then they can blank their opponent's removal in hand and win a long game of card advantage. In reality, if you can't close, and they don't concede, then you may not have enough win cons to fight through their stocked-up removal. If you draw extra cards and they don't, then you'll get decked with a handful of spells because you can't get them to zero.

Ideally, you want a punishing bomb that closes the game on its own or a loop with Zealous Lorecaster, for example. This could be some Pull from the Grave nonsense, or even better, just enough Visionary's Dances and ways to bring them back to overwhelm your opponent. It usually doesn't take more than three casts, with two usually being enough.

To wrap this quick synopsis, I'd caution against drafting five colors, taking a bunch of cards with no overlapping colors, and expecting the mana to work out. It just doesn't work like that when people are competing for the Troves, Lands, and other fixing. Try to stick to four colors across three schools and expand from there as your mana allows.

Good luck!