Color-Shifted Hexhaven Mechanics?
Could we see the Secrets of Strixhaven college mechanics show back up in Reality Fractured but color shifted to their new Hexhaven colleges?
I realize that many of them work rather easily in the new color pairs. Unfortunately not all five, so I'm wondering if we see a cycle of cards that are a throwback to the Strixhaven mechanics instead of being a larger part of the set.
Infusion is easy to see in Green-White with Vigorbloom, lifegain matters has been done in a few sets before for the two colors. It's also distinct from the Ravnica Guilds.
Repartee similarly can work well in Black-Red Stingerquill, as we've seen Red get mechanics like Heroic in the past. Both colors care about casting removal spells and can have some combat tricks too.
Flashback in White-Blue Fatehold is a little bit of a stretch from the flavor perspective, based on the discussion that the college is supposed to focus on ensuring a specific future occurs while flashback is about the past. But they still study the past to ensure a specific outcome in the future? And Blue can certainly get Flashback.
The last two don't work out as well, although they also could be pairs where the representation is pushed into a new direction (Like Lorehold being so different from Boros).
Increment in Black-Blue Theorix seems off. Counters can happen in Black but doing it in Dimir seems very unusual instead of a mill or graveyard theme. I could see changes made to make it a slower, grindier mechanic that fits with control.
And Opus in Red-Green Konstrari doesn't make much sense. The payoff for a big spell somewhat fits thematically for the color pair, although caring about instants and sorceries instead of creatures would be a big shift. No Green card has ever had Prowess, one stand in for caring about spells, and then the two Magecraft creatures from original Strixhaven.
I got excited when I first thought about Infusion and Repartee before realizing that it's not a perfect fit for all five mechanics. But Strixhaven itself had some very different archetypes than usual. Since we're getting a full ten pair draft archetype set and hopefully some mechanics that play up the alternate universe theme I wouldn't expect there to be a heavy focus on color shifted Strixhaven mechanics. But maybe we'll see a cycle or two?