The newest Magic: the Gathering expansion, Strixhaven: School of Mages, is a heavily multicolor set that rewards a wide variety of play styles. The red-white Lorehold school is capable of serious aggression and artifact-based archeology, while the green-blue Quandris school can ramp mana rather quickly. Meanwhile, the black-green Witherbloom school fosters new life from rot and compost.
The black-green color combination is best represented by the Golgari Swarm guild of Ravnica. Many black-green decks have focused on graveyard synergy and “aristocrats” builds, where larger creatures feed off their weaker allies for huge benefits. That’s how the Witherbloom school operates, based on the most recent previews.
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Witherbloom’s Aristocrat Creatures
Many aristocrats decks involve black mana, which is the color of death, sacrifice and exploitation. In this case, black is teaming up with green mana to make a deck that feeds on itself for incredible natural power. The Time Spiral Remastered set also had a black-green aristocrats deck, based on the Fungus and Saproling creature types. A player drafting the Witherbloom school in sessions of booster draft Limited can look out for these aristocrats deck and build a deck that shows just how brutal but effective the cycle of life and death can be. What is more, the Witherbloom draft player can also cash in on this school’s emphasis on gaining life points.
What kind of creatures will this aristocrats deck need? Dina, Soul Steeper is a great start, being a part of the legendary “student” cycle in the uncommon slot. Dina is very flexible, enabling both the aristocrats play style and the “lifegain matters” strategy. For aristocrats, Dina can sacrifice other creatures to gain some much-needed power. While those little 1/1 Pest creatures are obvious fodder, larger creatures such as Blex, Vesting Pest can be offered for even more power. And when Blex dies, its controller gains 4 life, which is also part of the Witherbloom playbook.
Blood Researcher isn’t a pure aristocrats creature; it can get +1/+1 counters when life is gained for any reason, but take note that those Pest creature tokens will gain 1 life each when they die, so sacrificing those Pests to Dina will trigger some lifegain, which in turn fuels Blood Researcher. There’s a good reason why those Pests gain life when they die.
Bayou Groff is a more straightforward aristocrat creature, a viciously undercosted 5/4 beater that requires a little blood tribute when it arrives. Offering up a Pest or one-drop creature should be easy, but in a pinch, this Plant Dog can be cast for {4}G. Then there’s the matter of Novice Dissector, a 3/3 that can pay {1} and sacrifice another creature to get a +1/+1 counter at sorcery speed. That’s nothing fancy, but it fits the theme just fine, and turning this Troll Warlock into a huge beater will turn the tide of any draft game.
Witherbloom’s Aristocrat Spells
Those aristocrat creatures are powerful in their own right, but they’ll need some magical support, and casting these instants and sorceries will also enable the magecraft ability in the process. Rushed Rebirth is a flexible spell, tutoring for a cheap creature when a target creature (friend or foe) dies this turn. In extreme cases, the player may cast this and target a large friendly creature, then feed that creature to Dina to boost its power. Then, Rushed Rebirth will find a decent-sized creature from the library and put it right onto the battlefield tapped.
Deadly Brew is slow but cheap, and it forces everyone to make a sacrifice. Witherbloom decks can lean right into that sacrifice and even get a permanent card from the graveyard to the hand to keep them fueled with undeath. Sacrificing a little Pest is a small price to pay to get back a fallen creature or permanent in the ripe graveyard.
Next up is Tend the Pests, which requires a creature sacrifice to cast. The player will then make some 1/1 Pests according to that creature’s power, meaning larger creatures (such as Bayou Groff) are a good target. If that creature is about to die anyway, the Witherbloom player can harvest it to fill the board with disposable Pests. After all, Strixhaven has some highly effective removal spells, especially in Silverquill colors, so Tend the Pests can largely negate the effects of those removal spells.
Plumb the Forbidden is a classic black card, drawing cards at the expense of life points and creatures alike. Doing this will generate some impressive card advantage, seeing how the Witherbloom school lacks blue mana, and losing a few life points shouldn’t be an issue. After all, countless Witherbloom cards can gain life with ease.
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