In a shift from 2021’s Quantum Quandrix precon which focused on doubling your token production with Adrix and Nev, Twincasters, Quandrix Unlimited‘s Zimone, Infinite Analyst asks you to scale towards the infinite with X-cost spells.
Quandrix Unlimited may well be the strongest, most consistent of the five precons, as Zimone acts as a conduit for the deck’s performance by providing a continuously increasing discount to your X cost spells. But it only takes a few X spells to put you ahead of the game, even if Zimone gets removed later.
Quandrix Unlimited comes with a number of evergreen reprints and splashy new card designs – including one many Poison counter players are sure to pick up. Let’s dive in!
Read Ahead
College Philosophy
Quandrix is Strixhaven’s Numeromancy college – fractals, sequences, geometry, and the fundamental patterns underlying all of nature are studied here. Through green, Quandrix students connect with the natural world – and through blue, they seek to understand and manipulate it. They believe that reality itself is just math you haven’t solved yet.
Quandrix’s mascots are Fractals: artificial life abstracted from the patterns of nature. A fractal is a representation of life that can be scaled in size. In a student’s hands, fractals become pets, helpers, or combat allies.
This deck plays into the college philosophy by rewarding your mastery of scale. Each time you pour mana into an X-spell, Zimone makes it easier to cast the next and the next, rewarding patience and exponential thinking over brute force. The longer the game goes, the more the numbers stop making sense to your opponents.
Face Commanders
Zimone, Infinite Analyst
Zimone acts as a conduit for an X-spell based strategy. The first time you cast an X spell during a turn she gets bigger, and she discounts your first X spell each turn based on how big she is. A very ‘practice makes perfect’ commander, asking you to play your first X spell with no discount at all but promises rewards for your perseverance. Additionally, comparing Zimone to the other precon commanders like Rootha, Mastering the Moment or Quintorius, History Chaser, Zimone turbo charges your strategy but is not essential to it. She can be removed and you can still play your deck, just without quite as massive X spells.
Primo, the Unbounded
The backup commander of the Quandrix Unlimited precon is Primo, the Unbounded. His whole deal is going wide and going tall. He cares about base power/toughness 0/0 creatures hitting opponents and rewards you with new 0/0s with the +1/+1 counters on it equal to the damage they dealt. So if you have a 0/0 Fractal with 2 +1/+1 counters and a 0/0 Germ token with 4 +1/+1 counters hit a player, you’d be rewarded with a new 0/0 Fractal with 6 +1/+1 counters on it.
Combine this with your normal +1/+1 counter synergies like Hardened Scales and Branching Evolution and you could be threatening big beefy fractals in no time. Double ’em up with Adrix and Niv, Twincasters or get the best of both worlds with Doubling Season.
Hit multiple players to get multiple fractals, abuse double strike to get multiple fractals, and have fun with it. There’s no shortage of ways to abuse this; Primo rewards creative deckbuilding and has a higher ceiling than he might first appear.
Deck Gameplay
X-Spells are typically spells you want to cast towards the end of a game to pour mana into and overwhelm your opponents. Quandrix Unlimited changes this by making X-Spells what you want to be casting all game. Because of this, after a few turns of setup, your primary struggle is going to be sequencing – which X spells do you cast first and accrue moderate value off? Which ones do you save for later, when Zimone has 8 +1/+1 counters on it and you can cast a spell with X=14?
Early Game X Spell Recommendations
Stonecoil Serpent and Hangarback Walker – you could seriously consider playing these for x=0 on turn 3 when you cast Zimone just to get her set up for your turn 4. Especially Hangarback Walker, which has really no other synergy with the deck.
Elusive Otter’s adventure, Grove’s Bounty, could be used as your first X spell and it would give Zimone 2 extra +1/+1 counters to set you up for future turns. Similarly, you don’t want to actually pour a lot of mana into Ingenious Prodigy as he’s unlikely to draw you more than a few cards anyways and it gives him a few turns of actually being able to use Skulk.
Open the Way’s X is hard-capped at the number of players in the game, making this an excellent first or second X spell to cast. In a 4 player game, as your second X spell, you could be paying 
where X=4 (discounted by Zimone) to ramp 4 lands for 4 mana. That’s a rate you’d be hard pressed to beat!
Deck’s Strengths
Being a simic deck, you have the basics of MTG Commander covered – card draw and ramp. Pouring a lot of mana into these early/mid game sets you up for a strong late game, regardless of Zimone’s presence.
From there, you have a handful of big beefy Hydras to pummel your opponents, ways to double your X spells or the value of X, plenty of ways to double the number of tokens on creatures, and more. If Zimone sticks around and you get her evasion, even taking someone out with commander damage becomes a viable win condition.
Deck’s Weaknesses
This deck really wants a few turns to set up before it can start putting out nutty values for X – so if you spend 5-6 turns setting up without a massive ramp spell only to eat a board wipe, you might be down for the count. We can look to cover this with upgrades to protect our board with spells like Ripples of Potential.
Brand New Cards
Creatures
Kinetic Ooze
Kinetic Ooze is a very cool new card that is relevant at all points in the game. Early game it can knock out problem cards like Sol Ring and Rhystic Study, mid-game it does that and gets you a card, and late game it can outright win you the game by doubling +1/+1 counters on any number of creatures you control. Very synergistic in this X-spells deck but relevant for any green big mana counters decks as well.
Nev, the Practical Dean
There are a few creatures out there that provide Trample with a condition like Duskshell Crawler – Nev does this as well, but also gets bigger with your X spells. With cards like Branching Evolution he can grow very quickly, quickly becoming a problem for your opponents.
Owlin Spiralmancer
Players are typically incentivized to dump all of their mana into X-spell cards for the maximum impact. Owlin Spiralmancer literally doubles the spell. That’s nuts. Instants, sorceries, creatures – the first one you cast each turn gets copied. This is hard value.
Striding Shotcaller // Run the Play
Striding Shotcaller lightly synergizes with this deck with his prepared spell, Run the Play, which gives X creatures a +1/+1 counter and flying for a turn. Despite being an X spell, you are unlikely to want to run this as your first X spell of the turn, since the X is the number of targets and not how many counters you get. This means you’re probably getting Zimone’s discount on another spell and paying full price for this.
Still, paying 3 mana to give a 20/20 flying to knock someone out isn’t bad. Just note that Striding Shotcaller doesn’t enter prepared, so it takes a bit of effort to get this guy rolling. Hence, “Lightly synergizes.”
Yavimaya Bloomsage // Channel
If you’re not familiar with Channel, it’s a busted ritual spell that allows you to turn your life into colorless mana for any spell you cast that turn. Historically it was paired with Fireball to nuke your opponent out of the game. Channel is notably banned in commander.
However, Yavimaya Bloomsage brings it back as a prepared spell and has you jump through some minor hoops to get it online. The Bloomsage doesn’t enter prepared and can only become prepared on your end step by putting a +1/+1 counter on a creature and having that creature end up 7 power or greater.
Being that Channel is a sorcery, this typically means your opponents have a full turn cycle to remove the Bloomsage before you spend all but 1 of your life on some bomb X spell.
Instants & Sorceries
Quandrix Charm
Flexible, not super splashy, only 2 mana. A decent modal interaction card.
Nexus Mentality
This is splashy – it’s a combat trick or a burst draw spell. One of your two big beaters blocked but the other is on the way to combat damage? Move all the blocked creature’s counters onto the unblocked one to take that person out.
About to be board wiped with a Fractal with 20 counters on board? Turn those counters into cards.
4 mana isn’t the easiest to hold up, especially in an X-spells deck, but practicing some patience can yield some explosive rewards.
Expansion Algorithm
This card is just OK in this deck but I guarantee you every Poison counter player with blue is salivating at this card. This single card will be responsible for more poison counter kills than anything else – step aside, Radstorm! Pay 8 mana to give your opponents 6 poison counters?
Not to mention planeswalkers… this card is bonkers. Expect a hefty pricetag.
Artifacts & Enchantments
Brass Infiniscope
The Brass Infiniscope is a mana rock that also provides some incidental card draw and lifegain. With this deck heavily themed around X-spells, this basically will net you one card a turn, presumably the turn after you cast this. This card is better mid/late-game than it is early, as early game this comes down right after Zimone, basically delaying your gameplan by 1 turn since it doesn’t trigger Zimone. But if it’s during a rebuild mid game, it can start giving you life and cards as gas to rebuild.
Kind of an odd card, as you typically want to ramp early, but you might want to think twice about playing this on curve depending on how far along your opponents are.
Lattice Library
Lattice Library somewhat makes Zimone imitate Rootha, Mastering the Moment, giving you a fractal with +1/+1 counters equal to the amount of study counters on the Library whenever you cast your first X spell on a turn. Since it’s an X spell that you don’t necessarily need to dump a ton of mana into, it’s a good initial post-Zimone setup card, giving her the initial 2 +1/+1 counters and setting your future X spells to come with fractals.
This card also scales well with proliferate effects.
Lands
One new Turbulent Octopus land – Turbulent Wilderness – very cool new land cycle, one printed per Strixhaven precon. Typically you can play this turn 2 or 3 untapped since that’s the time your opponents in a 4 player pod are likely to have 8 or more total lands.
Notable Reprints
X-Spells Matter
Unbound Flourishing is the premier reprint of this precon, doubling the value you get out of X spells – either doubling the X value of permanent spells or copying spells/abilities with X costs. Elementalist’s Palette is a great include in this deck, scaling similarly well as Zimone does with each X spell you cast.
One more +1/+1
Ozolith, the Shattered Spire, Benevolent Hydra, and Kami of Whispered Hopes are all pricey reprints of +1/+1 counters-matter synergies. They all give you one more +1/+1 each time you add +1/+1s on a creature. Benevolent Hydra can turn its +1/+1s into at minimum 2 +1/+1s on another creature (probably Zimone) and Kami of Whispered Hopes can generate you a ton of mana if you find a way to add a bunch of counters on it.
Big Tramply Hydras
The problem with big fat creatures is that they need evasion to be able to get through other creatures. Goldvein comes with Trample and gets you a bunch of treasures when it dies; Primordial Hydra passively makes itself bigger each turn and gets trample once it’s got 10 or more +1/+1 counters on it.
Utility Reprints
There are a number of good utility cards reprinted in this precon as well. Evergreen ramp spells like Three Visits and Nature’s Lore fetch typed lands, meaning you can get Turbulent Wilderness. Reliquary Tower is great for decks that like to have big burst draw. Open the Way combines well with Zimone to get you 4 lands on the cheap.
Guardian Augmenter having flash and giving Zimone Hexproof can potentially require your opponents to have three removal spells to take her out (one gets fizzled by the Augmenter flashing in, a second to take the Augmenter out, and a third to once again try and take out Zimone).
Upgrade Recommendations
Early Game Options
I want to highlight Broodguard Elite as a great early game play with Zimone. Warp him in as your first post-Zimone X spell to get her those first two +1/+1 counters, then immediately give her the rest of the counters the Elite had as he warps out at end of turn.
Every class needs a clown right? Play this right after Zimone drops to kick start her counter generation.
Removal
If you’ve got a big beater up, Aggressive Biomancy can serve to both bolster your board and take out some problem creatures. Pest Infestation is similar for artifact and enchantment removal, though the tokens you create are likely to just chump block unless you find Biomass Mutation or something.
There are a few X-Spell Theft effects like Blue Sun’s Twilight and Dominate that can turn a problem into an asset.
I want to highlight Engineered Explosives as an option, as casting it for 0 pumps Zimone and gives you the option to active it for later to take out all 0 cost permanents. Just be careful not to take out your own fractals !
Board Protection
This deck, like many hedge funds, compounds on accrued value. Protect your assets and turn board wipes in your favor with staples like Heroic Intervention or on-theme phase out options like Ripples of Potential and March of Swirling Mist.
Or just outright counter it with a Repulsive Mutation and put a bunch of counters on a creature for your trouble.
Note that instant X spells on other people’s turn pair real nice with Zimone as a way to re-use her discount and add two extra +1/+1s before your untap step.
Evasion & Haste
Don’t get stopped by 1/1s – trample over the competition with Garruk’s Uprising or one of the variants of Duskshell Crawler. Avoid them all together and get cards for your trouble with Blitzball Stadium or Open into Wonder.
Personally, any deck that makes big huge threats that are summoning sick could use cards like Crashing Drawbridge to secure immediate value. Green’s also got Concordant Crossroads, but this effect is symmetrical so be sure to use it when you think you can take a significant lead by doing so.
Card Draw
There’s no shortage of X-cost draw spells in blue, but since this deck comes with Stroke of Genius I did want to highlight Drown in Dreams as a power-crept copy that can also potentially mill someone out. Here Comes A New Hero! is sorcery speed but does let you create a copy of a creature while drawing cards.
Terrasymbiosis will passively draw you a ton of cards. Note that you get to pick which “once each turn” you apply its effect to. For example, casting an X spell that nets you a Fractal with 20 counters on it will first put 2 counters on Zimone. You can choose to ignore the card draw option for Zimone’s 2 counters and instead draw 20 when the fractal enters as your ‘do this only once each turn’ effect.
Mind into Matter is this deck’s Rishkar’s Expertise.
Lastly, if you kill someone with Mathemagics, congratulations, you have won Quandrix.
Tokens & Counters
Build upon the Hydra sub-theme with Kalonian Hydra, which doubles the counters on each of your creatures when it attacks. This card pairs very well with haste boots or Crashing Drawbridge as your opponents will try to kill this before it attacks.
Branching Evolution, The Earth Crystal, and other doubler effects obviously pair nicely with this deck.
Doppelgang can get truly nutty as you pour more mana into it, getting you more copies of an increasing number of target permanents each time you increase the value of X.
Naturally, a deck that cares about creating tokens and +1/+1 counters will love Doubling Season.
Cheatypants
This card very nearly wins you the game for free. You put so many counters on things that your opponents need to deal with this quickly or you may just win the game by turn 6.
Recommended Cuts
Zimone’s prior incarnations aren’t great in the deck outside of flavor. The additional land aspect of Quandrix Prodigy isn’t bad if you’ve been burst drawing cards and want to get lands out of your hand, but the card draw option is clearly outclassed by basically any X draw spell could you put in the deck. All-Questioning getting you a progressively more beefy fractal whenever you end a turn with a prime number of lands is very, like, nerdy-student-and-her-pet flavor, but just not worth the card slot otherwise.
The extra land from Eureka Moment is nice, but if you’re really wanting to play lands from your hand consider PuPu UFO or Sakura-Tribe Scout. 4 mana is too much in a deck that wants to pump a lot of mana into an X spell.
I like this guy – I really do – but he is better off in a deck that wants to accrue value slow and steady instead of compounding like Zimone does.
Why is this even in the deck? You don’t have a way to sacrifice it, it doesn’t have evasion, and it can only buff itself. The primary purpose of this card seems to be to cast it for 0 on turn 3 after casting Zimone to get her counters started. But you could just run Clown Car!
Similarly, Lifeblood Hydra does have trample, but its card draw on death is better utilized in aristocrats decks.
Deekah can produce you some big tokens, but she costs 5 and costs 4 more to give those tokens evasion. These mana values are too high to make this a value add in this deck.
As previously mentioned, Stroke of Genius can be strictly upgraded with Drown in Dreams or cheaper X-draw spells. Ingenious Prodigy – this is a confused card. Skulk on a big boy? X spell that has card draw but you don’t draw X right away? Seems maybe fine to play him right after Zimone for some short term gas but just doesn’t seem worth the slot in the deck.
End Step
Quandrix Unlimited is one of the most synergistic out-of-the-box precons in the Secrets of Strixhaven lineup. It has a clear identity, a high ceiling, and the kind of exponential growth that makes your opponents do a double take. If you’re looking for a deck that rewards patience and punishes anyone who lets the math get out of hand, this one’s for you.
Check out our other Secrets of Strixhaven Precon Guides here: