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Magic and schools go together like wizards and wands, and in 2026 the Magic: the Gathering universe is re-partnering with Random House to bring its stores into long-form prose fiction. Announcing during the MagicCon Atlanta 2025 preview panel, Wizards of the Coast is doing its first fiction novel in five years - returning to the magical school plane of Strixhaven for Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos.

"[Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos] is about Strixhaven's first-ever class of interplanar students who have arrived at the universe by omenpath," says Roy Graham, a Wizards of the Coast story lead, during the preview panel at MagicCon Atlanta 2025. 

Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos is primarily told from the point of view of a would-be mage named Eula Blue, whose life and home plane were wrecked after the multiversal war that's been going on in the MTG overarching story for years. 

"But the destruction of the war also brought something new: the ability to travel to other planes. And when Eula receives an invitation to study magic at a distant school called Strixhaven, she leaps to take it," reads Random House Worlds' description of the book. "Eula’s journey brings her closer than she ever thought possible to her fellow students, including the mysterious Segante, a boy whose secrets Eula longs to share. But not everyone is thrilled by the arrival of the new class, and Eula and her new friends quickly become targets."

Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos is a YA novel by author Seanan McGuire, writer of the recent novel Overgrowth (under the pseudonym Mira Grant), as well as the Feed and Parasitology series. This will be McGuire's first novel in the Magic: The Gathering universe; however she has written official short stories for five previous MTG sets, and wrote two comic series spotlighting the characters Ajani Goldmane and Nahiri the Lithomancer. Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos will be her debut in this plane with MTG fiction.

During the MagicCon Atlanta 2025 panel, Graham stresses that Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos is definitely in canon to the main Magic: The Gathering stories - as were McGuire's MTG short stories over the years.

As an added bonus, Wizards of the Coast is including a new variant version of the classic multi-color MTG card Command Tower in all print editions of Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos. This book comes out two months ahead of MTG's own return to Strixhaven in the April set Secrets of Strixhaven.

Strixhaven: Omens of Chaos is scheduled to debut February 17, 2026.

Whether you are a Commander player, a regular at your local game shop's FNM event, or simply love collecting Magic: The Gathering cards, you've landed in the right place. From Universes Beyond to the furthest reaches of the Magic Multiverse, we've got you covered here at Popverse. 

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