My specs for Strixhaven - Zimone, Infinite analyst

First off, I really appreicated everyone's feedback on the Twilight Diviner and Springleaf Spec. Happy to see those paying off as well! I want to start off by saying this post revolves around Zimone, because my favorite colors are Simic, as I tend to gravitate towards blue and green. So if you’re speccing other commanders in the set, this isn’t going to do much for you..

My top specs for Zimone are mostly Tyranids from the Commander precon Tyranid Swarm. While there are many other great specs that I’ve also made for Zimone, I believe the spec that is going to pay off the most is the Tyranids. There’s a very good reason for it, too. While there are tons of great “X” spells in Simic, there’s also a lot of supply for many of the prints out there. The cards that come from Tyranid Swarm are only found in that one single Commander precon from four years ago, so supply is very, very tight, but the cards are also very very powerful for Zimone. I also suspect it would be extremely difficult for WOTC to reprint Tyranids in a Strixhaven product in any capacity. So I’m not concerned with these being reprinted anytime soon.

I want to give a major disclaimer here. The success of these specs comes down to demand and popularity for Zimone, mind you there are 5 precons. Also, these specs are only found in 1 precon printed 4 years ago, there isn’t a huge buffer of supply. So the price could get extremely volatile very quickly. In fact, most of the prices have already been climbing over the last few weeks. I wouldn’t go chasing the price higher. What I’ve been doing is waiting until people list way under the market value and scooping them up with haste.

I’ll list my Tyranid specs in order of what I see as most playable/valuable to the Zimone precon, and a short blurb about each one.

1. [[Nexos]] – This card is, in my mind, basically an auto-include in every Zimone deck that wants to build it optimally. There’s not even really a close comparison in power to what this card does for the deck. While it may sound crazy to say this card will be worth $15–$20 in a few months, I think that’s around where it will be selling. Remember, there isn’t a lot of supply.
2. [[Sporocyst]] – I would put this basically in the same tier as Nexos. The discount from X makes this a massive bomb for ramping pretty early.
3. [[Termagant Swarm]] – For 1 mana and X, this is also pretty insane in Zimone. It’s a bit slower than Nexos and Sporocyst, as it needs to die to get the tokens, but if you stack this card with another spec I made, [[Springleaf Parade]], you can see how strong that synergy can become.
4. [[Ravener]] – While this is objectively probably one of the worst Tyranids at face value, I believe this is a massive sleeper in terms of value and playability for this deck. There are two main reasons why I think this spec will pay off pretty big.
   1. It’s one of only two creatures in the game of Magic, the other being [[Wan Shi Tong, Librarian]], that is blue with an X value in it and has flash. Because Zimone only triggers once per turn, being able to cheat out a potential 6/6 that (a) lets you draw, (b) is a massive blocker, and (c) goads a creature that can be effective removal, for 2 mana, is pretty massive.
   2. My expectation is that all of these Tyranids are going to climb in price leading up to Strixhaven. As that happens, Nexos, Sporocyst, and Termagant Swarm will be viewed as the “pricey cards,” and I expect Ravener to be viewed as the more budget option for people building the deck. I suspect people will be far more likely to spend $3–$5 on a Ravener than $18 on a Nexos or Sporocyst.
5. [[Tyrant Guard]] – TG, I suspect, will see a lot of play, as it’s a great protection spell once it’s out. Three mana is a bit expensive to protect the board, but since it’s Ravenous, you get to draw if it ETBs big enough.
6. [[Broodlord]] – I think this is a pretty strong inclusion to Zimone, as it greatly increases her spell reduction. The only drawback is its base four mana, so it will eat up a lot of your resources. It definitely appears to be a win-more card as opposed to the previous specs.
7. [[Tervigon]] – IMO, this will be more of a budget inclusion, but I see it getting a lot of play. I think there are more efficient ways to get tokens out, such as Springleaf Parade, but it is pretty cool that you can make tokens every turn it makes contact with player life, and it’s only two base mana to cast.

I hope you enjoyed the read. I’m not telling you what to buy or what to do. These are just my thoughts on price and where I see them going over the next few months. Have a great weekend, all!