Secrets of Strixhaven Prerelease Guide

Nick Nazar 26 Apr 03, 2026

This April class is back in session at Strixhaven university! This semester we're going to study abroad at new locations throughout the plane of Archavios to uncover the Secrets of Strixhaven. Sharpen your quills and join us for a sneak peak at Magic's latest set!

Secrets of Strixhaven Prerelease Information

Never played at a prerelease before? No problem! We'll be hosting six different prerelease events during our Secrets of Strixhaven prerelease weekend of April 17 - 19. If you need more information, just keep reading. We've got a quick rundown of how our prerelease events work, some helpful tips and reminders for you below, and links to all of our events and preorder information to boot.

Sealed Prerelease Events

Each event will consist of a sealed event of some variety (regular or 2 Headed Giant), and last 3-4 rounds of play. More on that just a bit further down. If you’d rather draft a prerelease, we have you covered the Tuesday after!

Bonus Draft Prerelease Event!

Flight 7 - Tuesday, April 21 at 6:30 PM (this link will go live Wednesday, April 15 at 11 AM)

As soon as we open on Friday, April 17, we'll have the entire product suite available for you! And that’s not all - we’ll also be able to sell individual packs, including play and collector boosters, alongside bundles, commander decks…basically anything you could ask for to help you stir up trouble.

Preparing for a Prerelease at Phoenix

Once you've preregistered for your event(s) of choice, there's a small checklist of things to do before prerelease weekend rolls along. If you're planning to play at one of the in-person events, here's what you'll need to be aware of:

Food and Non-alcoholic drinks are allowed inside, so consider bringing a snack and water bottle in case you get hungry between rounds (we will also have sodas and snacks available for purchase).
Optional, but highly recommended: Download the Magic Companion app to your phone or tablet.
Optional, but highly recommended: Make sure you have a login setup with the MTG Companion App (if you play Arena, these login credentials are the same for both game and app).

What to do during Prerelease Weekend

If you're playing in one of our in-person events, just make sure you arrive at the store before the event's start time. We recommend aiming for about 30-45 minutes prior to the event to make sure you can get checked in, find a seat, and get comfortable in the space. You can do some trading, or pick up some sleeves or what have you, and it's way easier if you do that ahead of start time rather than during deck construction.

The Prerelease "How to"

All of our Secrets of Strixhaven prerelease events will be a sealed (or limited) format events. This time around we'll also ask you to choose from one of the five colleges that operate at Strixhaven University (Witherbloom, Prismari, Silverquill, Lorehold, or Quandrix). Based on your college choice, you'll receive 5 play boosters of Secrets of Strixhaven, a foil bonus rare, and a college-themed seeded pack inside of your prerelease kit. We'll give you about 45 minutes to open those packs, sort them, and build deck out of the contents inside. Here are all the deck building requirements:

Minimum Deck Size is 40 cards
You may use the contents of your prerelease booster packs (plus the bonus rare) to build your deck.
Aside from basic land, you may only use whatever is in your prerelease kit to build with. (No trading with other players or combining multiple pools, please).
There's no cap on the number of cards of the same name you can have in the deck (ex: if you open 5 of the same card, you can use all 5 if you want).
You may adjust your deck between games or matches. If you're just not doing well with what you built, maybe try a different combination of colors!

Once you've got your deck built, set the rest of your card pool aside until the end of the event. Don't trade anything away yet, cause those leftover cards will be your sideboard.

Prerelease Prize Support

All of our prerelease events are run with an eye towards having the best possible time, learning, and trying out new ideas and strategies that come from every new set. So with that in mind, we stick to a simple pack-per-win prize structure that looks a little like this:

4 Wins - 4 Packs
3 Wins - 3 Packs
2 Wins - 2 Packs
0 / 1 Win - 1 Pack

With the exception of the Friday at 3 PM event, each event will have a maximum of 4 rounds. All prizes will be awarded to players in the form of Secrets of Strixhaven play boosters once they've finished with the event. Only play 2 rounds and need to drop? No problem! Just let us know you're leaving and we'll give you whatever prizes are owed at that point.

Because the 3 PM Friday event will be constrained to 3 rounds in order to make sure that the 7:30 PM event can start on time, it will have a similar prize structure to the one listed above, but adjusted slightly. In order to accommodate the missing round, the final round of the event will count for 2 boosters (so you can still win as many as four packs if you 3-0 the Friday event).

Secrets of Strixhaven Mechanics

One of the best ways to prepare yourself for prerelease is to get familiar with the mechanics of the set. Secrets of Strixhaven gives us seven new mechanics to review! So let's get started, shall we?

Prepare

Abigail, Poet Laureat, a bird bard from Secrets of Strixhaven

It never hurts to be ready for anything! And in Secrets of Strixhaven, your creatures can be prepared to help you battle your opponent and cast fun new spells (and maybe a few really good old school 90's Magic too). When a creature is prepared, you can cast the spell on the right side of its text box, abiding all timing restrictions. Some creatures enter the battlefield prepared, while others become prepared based on some in-game requirements being fulfilled.

Repartee (Silverquill)

Never has language been so cutting! The college of Silverquill weaver their skill with poetry and magic together to great effect. The Repartee mechanic includes triggered abilities keyed around casting instant or sorcery spells that target creatures. What the trigger does varies based on the card, so read carefully. Your opponent's life total could depend on it.

Opus (Prismari)

Art is a blast and at the Prismari college, students learn how to put on the performance of a lifetime! Like the Silverquill, their Opus mechanic abilities look for their triggers when you cast instants and sorceries. Unlike their wordsmith counterparts however, opus isn't restricted to just targeting creatures, and on top of that opus will include bonuses for spending lots of mana on a single spell.

Increment (Quandrix)

Quandrix students love a math problem and their mechanic, Increment, capitalizes on this. Increment is a triggered ability found on a lot of creatures in this set. When you cast a spell, if the amount of mana used to cast the spell is greater than either power or toughness of the creature, put a +1/+1 counter on that creature. Just the thing for all of those number-focused folks out there in the multiverse!

Infusion (Witherbloom)

Need a little pick-me-up? Check in with some of the students over at the college of Witherbloom. They're sure to have an Infusion or two to help with whatever you might need! Infusion is a keyword mechanic on witherbloom cards that cares about whether or not you've gained life this turn. If you have it unlocks additional triggered abilities!

Flashback (Lorehold)

History majors that can bring the past (literally) back to life - the college of Lorehold focuses on delving into the graveyard. And what better mechanic to represent their school than returning mechanic flashback. If you're not familiar, flashback lets you cast the spell from the graveyard, with the side effect of exiling the spell once the flashed back spell finishes resolving.

Paradigm

College is all about discovering more about yourself and the world around you. Some lessons are learned and done, while others linger for the rest of our lives. On Archavios, these lessons live on in the form of a cycle of Paradigms - powerful spells that not only grant you a one-time effect, but then recur at the beginning of your main phase for the rest of the game!

Converge

Let's face it - sometimes one college just isn't enough. For those ambitious young students out there who've decided to double (or even triple) major, the converge mechanic is here for you. Converge spells care about the number of colors of mana spent to cast them, then use that number to effect the power of the spell.

Secrets of Strixhaven Prerelease FAQ

Here's a few commonly asked questions about prerelease events and in-store play events. If your question isn't on this list, please don't hesitate to reach out to us at the store! We're happy to answer any questions you might have.

Q: How well do I have to know Magic to play at a prerelease?

A: Not that well really! We ask that you have a working knowledge of the game (i.e., you know how to play, and no one's going to need to explain turn order or any of the basics), but beyond that we'll do our best to accommodate any and all skill levels. Prerelease events are a fun and casual environment, and if you're having a tough time with something we'll have a judge or tournament organizer available to help you through it.

Q: What should I bring with me to the event?

A: Here's a short checklist of items that are either required or good to have:

Optional but recommended: A well fitted mask to wear while at the tables.
A water bottle and energy bar or dry-snack (it's a good idea to have something if you're hungry and a round goes long).
Sleeves ( Strongly recommended for this event!) and a deck box (you also can buy these at the shop if you forget them)

Q: Should I preregister for the event?

A: If you're able to, yes absolutely! Preregistration locks in your spot at the event. The last thing you need or want is to show up on the day of and find out we sold out the night before (which is a thing that has happened in the past).

Q: If I preregister and can't make the event, what happens?

A: That depends on you! In the event you aren't able to make it to the event, please contact us to request a refund as early as possible. Refunds requested more than 48 hours in advance of the event can just be cancelled and refunded back to the card they were purchased with. Refunds requested inside the 48 hour window will be refunded back to store credit.

Q: Oops! I registered and forgot to show. What happens now?

A: Didn't show? Not a problem! We'll simply refund your ticket back to you in the form of store credit. This frees the prerelease kit up to go to someone on our waitlist.

Q: What if I need to swap from one event to the other, or one college to another, can I do that?

A: Sure! As long as there's still a spot at the event or college you want to swap to, yes definitely. Please email us (or contact us through the contact page of our website) and we'll get right on it. Please don't call - we need an email or contact form so that we have a record of when the request was made.

Q: I've never built a deck for limited before. Any pointers?

A: We've got a few! Here's a short list of handy tips when building a limited / sealed deck:

Stick to 40 cards! That's roughly 23 spells and creatures + 17 land. Those numbers will shift a little bit depending on what you open, but broadly that's where you should aim to be.
Play the colors that let you play your best cards.
Don't be afraid to experiment! You can switch your deck around between rounds and between games. Every card you're not actively using in your deck is part of your sideboard, so if one color combo just isn't working for you, maybe wait until the match is over and try swapping it around.
It's okay to ask for help from other players. This is a prerelease; we're here to have fun and enjoy the new set. You'll often find that we've got several players at each prerelease that enjoy helping and mentoring newer players through the deck building process.

Q: Any other advice on getting ready for a prerelease?

A: Yup! If you can, try to familiarize yourself with the set ahead of time. Keep an eye out for spoilers! By the time you're reading this, spoiler season will already have started and you can bet that there's a few really cool looking cards and mechanics out there that need reading up on.

Q: Where's the best place to park for a prerelease event?

A: If you're not familiar with Capitol Hill, you should know that parking is at a premium. If you're planning to drive to us for one of our events, we recommend either parking at the paid lot at Harvard & Pine, or parking at one of the park & rides along the light rail route and taking the light rail into the Capitol Hill stop. We're just across the street.

Having said all of that - if you're in a hurry and need to find parking right away, our neighbor, Dick's Drive-In, has now allocated a small number of parking spaces along the wall of our building as paid parking. You'll need to download the pay-by-phone app to get started, and instructions are available next to each paid parking space.

And that's it for our Secrets of Strixhaven Prerelease Guide! We hope you found this informative and helpful, and we hope to see you at one of our many prerelease events!