Secrets of Strixhaven (SOS) Limited Review: Green

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

Secrets of Strixhaven (SOS) will hold its prerelease events on April 17, 2026, and officially launch a week later on April 24, 2026. Want to learn more about how each card rates in Limited, with recommendations? Then check out this series of SOS Limited reviews!

• For an introduction to the mechanics, see this article: Secrets of Strixhaven Mechanics Explained

Rating Scale

5.0: An unconditional first pick that brings you close to winning on its own.
4.5: An unconditional first pick if you are in the right colors; brings a huge advantage.
4.0: Worth first-picking. Great synergy with the color pair’s theme, and can be the deciding card for splashing / switching colors or moving into the color pair.
3.5: The set’s top uncommons and commons, plus other cards of sufficient power. Good synergy with the color pair’s theme, and a key card for moving into the color pair.
3.0: An important card for the color pair’s theme, or another above-average card that you want in your final deck.
2.5: Average. Usually a decent curve filler.
2.0 to 1.0: Below average. You generally lean toward leaving it out, and can use it as filler when necessary, but not too many.
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable. Basically don’t play it; putting it in only helps you lose.

Ratings

Score: 3.0
Comment: At a school of magic, the last thing you need to worry about is spells. The Prepare creatures in this set provide a sorcery or instant without reducing your creature count, increasing how many times your abilities trigger.

Score: 3.0
Comment: On the turn it enters you can think of it as a five-mana 4/4 creature, but more important is the body growth it provides every turn. Vigilance lets it do offense and defense at once, and if you put the counters on a flying creature you can break through your opponent quickly.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Its starting body is tiny, so it can trigger the Increment ability many times. It’s also a creature that is hard to remove cleanly, and your opponent will need two cards to clean up both the creature and the token.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Even without the pump it’s a passable, good removal spell, and you can cast two spells in a row on the stack so both of them get the pump.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It costs three, it’s a sorcery, and it gets taken along with a deathtouch creature. It can pair with Orysa, Tide Choreographer, which I think is cool.

Score: 3.0
Comment: When things go smoothly you can meet the goal very quickly (for example by slamming Bogwater Lumaret one after another). It’s a card that crushes you on board if the opponent doesn’t remove it, and it fits the Black-Green theme perfectly. But if you’re not playing Black-Green it’s an unplayable card, and if your lifegain sources are insufficient you might not finish the quest by the end of the game, making it effectively a dead card.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It’s not that easy to gain life on your opponent’s turn, so it isn’t good enough on defense, but it’s relatively usable on offense. Still, permanently adding two counters at instant speed is pretty impressive.

Score: 4.0
Comment: A 3/3/4 vigilance body is already good, and the Prepare spell Regrowth can return any card from your graveyard, which is very versatile. But a four-toughness creature that has to attack with eight lands and not die, isn’t that a bit difficult? Unless you have instant-speed removal or give it evasion, it’s hard to Prepare repeatedly.

Score: 3.5
Comment: This set has a multicolor Converge theme and quite a few multicolor lands, so making a 4/4 or even bigger creature every turn is very valuable.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A super-powered Grizzly Bears! Take as many as you see. It doesn’t lose you a card on entering, guarantees a land drop in later turns, and also helps with color fixing.

Score: 3.0
Comment: If you’ve gained life, it’s a two-mana draw two, and being able to take either creatures or lands gives it a lot of flexibility.

Score: 4.5
Comment: Once it resolves, the opponent no longer has the capital to fight you in a creature war. +2/+2 for your whole board every turn is no joke.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A flexible, good card that is fine in the main deck, and four damage is enough to kill most fliers. Also note that you can’t cast the third mode if your graveyard has no cards.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A solid creature that has a chance to become a threat in the late game.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Stream of Life is very useful in this set’s Black-Green theme. When you need to trigger a lifegain effect you can cast it for two mana, and when you have spare mana you can pour mana into it to keep a safe life total. An X spell can also flexibly trigger Increment in Blue-Green decks, and even Opus.

Score: 2.5
Comment: If it doesn’t copy anything, there’s nothing special about it. Gaining life on your own turn is much easier than on your opponent’s turn, so this card is more like a combat trick used to make up damage.

Score: 2.5
Comment: A very ideal curve creature. Its enter-the-battlefield ability works with the Black-Green Infusion theme, and holding mana into combat can also put your opponent in a dilemma of blocking or taking damage.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Only being able to produce green keeps this cute lizard from scoring higher, but deathtouch guarantees at least a one-for-one trade, and it’s still a great two-drop for your curve.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It triggers Infusion while providing some damage, and it’s a good choice if you need to trigger Infusion frequently.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Another quality creature that is hard to clean up fully. The two Pest tokens mean two Infusion triggers, and you can attack separately so that you meet the Infusion condition in both of the next two turns.

Score: 3.0
Comment: One card can meet all the conditions for Converge, which is extremely efficient. Sacrificing a land is an effect rather than a cost, so if it gets countered you don’t have to sacrifice the land.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Although its body is easily traded with, it also has the chance to trade up. Being able to trigger Infusion repeatedly greatly helps the stability of Black-Green decks.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Although it’s a vanilla, a four-mana 6/6 has a big edge in this environment where bodies are generally small, and few creatures are bigger than it.

Score: 2.5
Comment: It’s only better in decks with four or more colors. Even cast with three colors it isn’t especially profitable, and in this set a 3/3 is more easily removed or traded with, so if you cast it, try to cast it with four or more colors for higher payoff.

Score: 3.0
Comment: A versatile early curve play! One mana followed by a two-mana ramp gives great tempo, and if you’re afraid of it getting killed, do the creature and the Prepare spell together on three mana. At the very least it’s a Wood Elves.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Is it too good for a common creature to have this many abilities? If you meet the Infusion condition, six power can eat most creatures when attacking, and even if the opponent tries to use a spell to remove it you get a card back in hand, so you don’t lose resources.

Score: 3.5
Comment: A strong creature that can start bringing value very early. The combination of pump and trample fits together well, and the ward ability is annoying too.

Score: 3.5
Comment: A mana dork with very high growth potential. Early on it produces mana, and in the mid to late game once its body has grown it can also join offense and defense.

Score: 4.0
Comment: A 4/4 with deathtouch can trade off all the defenders when it’s gang-blocked during combat. The Prepare spell has plenty of depth and can help you find your bomb creatures to keep applying board pressure.

Score: 2.5
Comment: Being able to cast it flexibly depending on cost is its biggest advantage. A plain curve filler.

Score: 4.0
Comment: Even at the very least, it makes your later creatures enter with at least one +1/+1 counter, which is already quite powerful. The ceiling is even scarier: creatures carrying five +1/+1 counters can force out every removal spell your opponent has.

Score: 3.0
Comment: Very flexible in use. In the early to mid game you can use it to expand your mana, in the late game to refill resources, and you can even ramp while looking for your next creature threat.

Conclusion

Green is really strong this time too! Besides Black-Green Witherbloom and Blue-Green Quandrix, if you want to play this set’s Converge theme, you’ll definitely need green’s fixing tools! So I think green can stay very flexible in Limited.
The Pest tokens in this set are not the same as the Pest tokens in the last Strixhaven set, so players please be sure to take note. They gain life better when attacking, and the biggest advantage is being able to gain life proactively to meet the condition of the Infusion ability.