Weal and woe weave together once more as we return to one of Magic's most iconic planes in Lorwyn Eclipsed, bringing with it a host of new typal payoffs and wacky designs. Not everything is as it seems in this set, and it and includes mechanics both new and revisited, with a number of callbacks to the original block. In this article we’ll talk about those mechanics, and offer some thoughts on what they mean for Commander and other formats.
Lorwyn Eclipsed will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on January 20th, and to the tabletop on January 23rd. Commander: Lorwyn Eclipsed will release on the same date.
Last time we covered the mechanics, and this time we'll be taking a look at the set's cards with Multicolor identities. As usual we won’t be looking at every card, but what we will be looking at we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play. This includes both the main set, and the Commander decks, released as a pair for Lorwyn Eclipsed.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Deepchannel Duelist
FromTheShire: It's nice to get more UB Merfolk cards since they are primarily only found in the original Lorwyn block. This is great, aggressively (or these days appropriately) costed with some additional upside to make your attacks safer. Slamming a lord on turn 2 feels great, and while Merfolk are likely going to be a little more reactive than say Goblins, you still want to be establishing board presence early. Can't overstate what an auto-include this is going to be in Standard.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty solid support for a Merfolk tribal deck. There's some very solid Merfolk tap abilities, and this will just let you do them again. And on top of that it's just a Merfolk buffer, so really all around solid card.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Deepway Navigator
Saffgor: The fair way to play this would be to flash it in in response to attackers, and profitably block with your fish-scented board. This card won't be used fairly, however, as it couples nicely with copy or flicker effects exiled with an Agatha's Soul Cauldron, or Emry, Lurker of the Loch and a number of bounce Artifacts. Jeskai Twin/Cauldron in Modern loves this, is my point.
FromTheShire: Very solid, used either for another lord effect plus pseudo-vigilance or for surprise blockers. The presence of this in the format does a lot to put doubt in your opponent's mind when you're sitting on open mana, which is great for dissuading them and leaving you free to cast card advantage or removal spells on their end step.
BPhillipYork: This is okay, im sure it's solid enough for constructed but not something I'd tend to run in Commander.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sygg, Wanderwine Wisdom//Sygg, Wanderbrine Shield
Saffgor: What an unremarkable card. The best thing one can do with Sygg is flicker or duplicate his trigger, and get a ton of card draw with a single hit (or Double Strike, given you're in White) but on the whole I'm unimpressed with this iteration.
FromTheShire: An unblockable 2/2 that can also transform and effectively make something else unblockable to punch through damage in a deck full with lords is pretty solid actually. You're probably not drawing a ton of cards off of it but every one you do will be clutch. The timing of the transform is a little unfortunate, and I expect this probably isn't a 4 of between being legendary and the competition at 2 mana the decks seems like it will have.
BPhillipYork: This is kind of a weird creature. There's some kind of scenario where you could make this guy flip multiple times in a turn with some weird cards, stack up instances of "draw a card" grab double strike or extra combats and go nuts. Perfectly fine though as just a solid Azorius Merfolk commander. Cheap, pops out early and get's some card draw going, and if you have other Merfolk enablers will work fairly well with some of those.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sygg's Command
Saffgor: More often than not this will pick modes 1 & 3, and with that in mind the card looks fantastic. If you're not copying, it's likely below-rate, but cmon. It's a Merfolk Sorcery.
FromTheShire: Make a copy of the lord you played on 2 and draw a card? Pretty good. And then you have 2 other modes that are situationally useful as well, I like it.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty mid tbh, the Merfolk copy is fine enough, and if that's what you're doing it for as a cheap clone, then the rest is probably just gravy toolbox on top. Really shines if you have some "when you cast a Merfolk spell" but there aren't really too many triggers like that, so this is generally just going to turn into "copy a Merfolk, draw a card". At 3 mana that's cheaper than virtually all clone spells with draw a card stapled on top, so perfectly fine.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Deceit
Saffgor: This new cycle of Evoke Elementals is designed brilliantly, preventing the usual tricks one can do with Ephemerate & Undying Malice-style cards. That being said, those tricks are...what propelled the cards to be good, so for the most part the new ones are only okay. Deceit itself looks to be one of the better ones though, as an excellent card for Dimir midrange in Standard.
FromTheShire: Agreed that this is on the higher end of this cycle. Discarding any nonland or bouncing any nonland for 2 are both reasonable if not aggressively costed effects, and then you get both plus a creature late game. You even get to force them to discard the thing you bounced if you want.
BPhillipYork: This is a neat card, but generally, in Commander at least I don't care enough about either of it's effects to want it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dream Harvest
Saffgor: In Commander, the only place this is remotely playable, you're getting at least 15 mana worth of cards from this—for a deck already aiming to cheat out spells on the cheap, this is an incredible addition to the pile! I'm specifically thinking of both Hidetsugu and Kairi & Marvo, Deep Operative, but there's other options as well. Paying 7 for this is perhaps a bit questionable, though.
FromTheShire: It's fortunate that this is 'or greater' so it's somewhat playable in Commander. Even so this is a pretty steep investment to get a bunch of random cards. Fun though, and in theft decks worth a look.
BPhillipYork: So this is a fun card to unpack. On the face of it it's potentially really powerful - minimum 4 cards to cast, and since they're free in theory you could get some huge spells out of this. It's also a card that is probably going to sort of scale up as the power level goes down, since lower power games tend to involve bigger more haymaker type spells. But 7 mana is a lot for a totally unpredictable effect, and many times you'll just get a couple of utility spells or a mana rock.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Voracious Tome-Skimmer
Saffgor: Well this is nutty, if the mana cost doesn't scare you. I think being triple pip edges it out of a lot of cEDH lists but in B4 and below you're very happy playing this in a control shell.
FromTheShire: A little pricey in Standard, and unfortunate that it doesn't have flash itself since it's going in a deck that wants to play at instant speed, but a great card engine. Nicely out of Burst Lightning range as well. Great in other formats as well.
BPhillipYork: This is a really solid, frankly powerful effect. At 3 mana this is almost certainly showing up in some cEDH decks, and while it may not make staple status, with all the free spells floating around it has the potential to be a really powerful draw engine, especially if you can arrange to have flash or it's used to go off and finish the game. 3 Mana though, and all of it being colored means it's not really broken per se, since you're investing quite a bit into it.
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Grub, Storied Matriarch//Grub, Notorious Auntie
Saffgor: This doesn't read as crazy, but extra combats and already-playable Goblin synergies that don't require a full-blown Goblin deck push me to saying this likely has a home somewhere. Yes it's slow to flip, but even just getting back a Skirk Prospector sacrificed to cast this on turn 2 seems solid. From there, it's just a solid, evasive aggro Commander.
FromTheShire: Getting back something important for 3 mana isn't the worst, this is slow though. It's going to be very interesting to see what the Goblin decks look like. A lot of the cards from this set seem to be on the grindier, value oriented side which is fine, but it's a little tough right now to see why you want to do that rather than dropping Howlsquad Heavy on 3 and hopefully Krenko, Mob Boss on 4 and just... ending the game.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty solid, again, a cheap, 2 color identity commander who can flip back and forth to generate affects. The desired play pattern is a solid Goblin card with a good ETB or leaves play effect that you want to blight to death and recur over and over, something like Siege-Gang Commander though that's a lot of mana to keep reinvesting.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Boggart Cursecrafter
Saffgor: 'Another' makes me wonder if this is good enough for 60 card, but in Commander, it's probably fine enough as a card you can find fairly easily. Don't love this compared to a Blood Artist, but density for an effect is important.
FromTheShire: This seems like a solid deterrent and way to turn your Howlsquad or Searslicer Goblin tokens into damage. Pretty frequently if your plan has played out on curve with Burnout Bashtronaut on one, Searslicer on two, and Howlsquad on 3 your token that must attack is getting blocked for free and you may not be able to tick up your speed, which is quite important. If you didn't draw your 4th land and have Krenko in hand this may well get you to max speed so you can activate Howlsquad in order to cast Krenko and whatever else is in your hand, activate Krenko, and make a whole mess of Goblins. At that point your opponent needs both targeted removal for this and a boardwipe or they're pretty much dead. It also has some synergy with Dropkick Bomber as sacrificing the creatures you gave flying to allows you to punch through a crucial few extra points of damage.
BPhillipYork: That's a really strong Goblin 2/3 for 2 mana and with deathtouch is just really really solid. Goblin decks tend to generate a lot of Goblins, and this means you can aggro with them and then punish everyone for them dying. Really choice, basically an auto-include in Goblin decks with black red color identity.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Grub's Command
Saffgor: The fact that last mode can whiff gives me pause on this one, and 5 mana is a lot. There is one specific use-case though: Pairing this with Goblin Recruiter to draw 5, including potentially a second copy of Grub's Command. Outside of that, I'm not convinced, and Recruiter isn't even Modern-legal.
FromTheShire: 5 mana in a Goblin deck is like, so, so many. So many mana. Goblin cost 1 or maybe 2. Good Goblin cost 3. SUPER GOOD Goblin cost 4. You pay 4, they die or you die. What is 5?
Maybe once we have cards in hand something a little slower actually becomes viable but this seems like a flexible but not great card for a Commander deck.
BPhillipYork: This is a solid enough modal spell, but it costs too much mana. The +1/+1 though is pretty solid if you need a big finisher once you've generate a bunch of tokens.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Shadow Urchin
Saffgor: Man, that's a cool effect. Works extremely well with Moonshadow, also arriving in Lorwyn Eclipsed, and the fact you can kill it with the Blight means it's possible to functionally draw 7 in Rakdos midrange for Standard. There's appeal to that, and Moonshadow has a few deck concepts cooking already amid the Spikes I talk to on the regular.
FromTheShire: Yeah this is a pretty cool piece for Standard. Even if this only gets you an extra card per turn it's not bad, and there are ways to get big bursts of impulse draw.
BPhillipYork: This seems fine, obviously, there's a basic drop it and whale away on people until it dies 4 turns later and then you get a draw 4. But that's really really slow. The secondary ability is any creature you control with counters, and that's potentially really big. It doesn't care about what kind of counters, and there's plenty of effects, like The Ozolith that let you keep counters around (okay technically it duplicates them). So suddenly you could situation where you are moving counters, sacrificing, getting to cast a bunch of spells, then sacrificing again. With enough mana this goes pretty berserk, and that's really where this Ouphe shines, enabling counter based decks to get massive card advantage.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Raiding Schemes
Saffgor: Awesome callback to Wort, the Raidmother and does dirty things with self-bounce or Buyback. Remember, you cannot conspire Colorless cards given there's no color to share, so this largely exists for decks like Bello or Scramble to make use of.
FromTheShire: Seems like it should come with tokens like Wort. Really nice to have a backup, noncreature version if they're your commander.
BPhillipYork: This is a very strong effect, goes infinite in a variety of ways, and is just... you know bonkers potentially. But it's also five mana, and most Goblins are black and red, though there are definitely potential Jund commanders. Gives a lot of backup to a Wort deck, and also makes it even easier to go infinite.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Vibrance
Saffgor:Sylvan Scrying plus in the early game, with that and a bolt in the late game? This seems awesome for any deck that wants a specific land, so if you're in RG and considering Sowing Mycospawn, add this to the pile!
FromTheShire: Getting ANY land is extremely clutch, especially with earthbending and the like running around. Being able to serve as removal in a pinch is always nice as well, even if it is sorcery speed.
BPhillipYork: This an okay evocation, especially because it's any land card. For mana 2 that's fairly rare, to get any land you want. Generally there's quite a few limitations at that low of a CMC. The other mode, essentially, dealing 3 damage is fine, and if you've got the 5 mana to pay it all to keep the creature it's a nice potential upside.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Brigid, Clachan's Heart//Brigid, Doun's Mind
Saffgor: Kithkin are a very safe type to give support to, and I'd say Brigid is the main Double-Faced Commander from the set you'll actively be flipping between modes for. The fact she can tap to pay for her own flip means on alternating turns she does different things well, and it being a Main Phase trigger even ensures you'll get to spend the spare mana. By a wide margin the best Kithkin Commander we've got.
FromTheShire: Gaddock Teeg would like a word. Although maybe you're just nicer to your friends than I am. I think ideally you really want to be going wide with other things than Brigid, you want to be tapping her for big mana every turn rather than flipping her back for the extra token. Obviously a wildly powerful effect.
BPhillipYork: So this is like, basically Gaea's Cradle in the Command Zone, but with a delay, which is just strong. Full stop. It's going to go berserk in a couple of turns if nobody stops you from pumping out more creatures to get more mana to pump out more creatures. It's generally not hitting till turn 4, so that's pretty fine, but if you go mana dork, turn 2 Brigid, turn 3 flip plus two more mana dorks then you've got 4 mana that turn, and then the next turn you've got like 11 mana (3 dorks, 5 lands, Brigid taps for 3 + whatever you cast for 3 mana on turn 4). That's a pretty abrupt ramping, and green has a lot of solid "when you cast a creature" effects to further fuel this nonsense.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Brigid's Command
Saffgor: This is essentially custom-printed for a deck led by the above Brigid, but that doesn't bother me! Even outside of that, it being +3/+3 and a fight is solid enough if you don't need the board help; this is a great card for a mediocre type.
FromTheShire: Helps you get wide or removes something, solid for 3.
BPhillipYork: 3 mana for a copy of a creature and a fight is pretty solid, and that's going to be the main use for this, but I don't know what Kithkin you really want to copy, probably the new Figure of Fable. But if you want to copy a Kithkin, then uh, do it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Figure of Fable
Saffgor: A Kithkin body early, a win condition late, sure this goes in every Kithkin deck (read, the hypothetical Brigid deck I've talked about twice here) but it's probably not worth it outside of that.
FromTheShire: Neat to see this templating return, however it still has the same problem as back in the day where you finish dumping 85 mana into this and it eats a Doom Blade and then you're sad.
BPhillipYork: For 11 mana over time you get a 7/8 with protection from your opponents. That's fine. It's like too much mana, but it's a decent beater.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Thoughtweft Lieutenant
Saffgor: Say the line, Bart.
FromTheShire: Seems like it requires a bit of an odd deck, you want a good concentration of Kithkin cards to trigger it, but Kithkin are famously not big beefy monsters and that benefit from trample so you need some of those, and then to hope to draw them all in the right order.
BPhillipYork: This is fine for uh, Kithkin decks, like, great, I guess but other than that pretty useless.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn//Isilu, Carrier of Twilight
Saffgor: This Commander is a trap, and I imagine people will figure that out pretty fast. Blanket Persist is absolutely insane, and goes infinite with a wooden spoon, but you need to untap with Eirdu to pop off. My take? Plan your infinites around the front side, and keep the back side as a nice-to-have. Something like the Spider-Man Convoke combo I covered in my Arachne Commander Focus is what I have in mind.
FromTheShire: Yeah this is the ultimate incarnation with the problem with how the cards in this set transform. You're really relying on nobody having anything, or you having a fist full of protection spells if you want to get to the back side because everyone knows you're the problem.
BPhillipYork: Convoke is really solid, and so is persist, and the ability to have either of these as a commander for an Orzhov shell is really good. Biggest drawback is the 5-mana cost, but you can ramp a bit in various ways, drop it to get convoke, then convoke out your combo, then slip it to get persist to pull the combo off. Really all around solid, just a bit telegraphed.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Abigale, Eloquent First-Year
Saffgor: Not only is Abigale my favorite of the new characters introduced in the Lorwyn Eclipsed stories, she coincidentally mirrors that title in her mechanics. I adore this design, and bringing the vanilla-ing matters concept from Monoblack with Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist to Orzhov is amazing. Great to blink, small enough to work with cheap recursion, and rarely bad when other players have threatening Commanders affray.
FromTheShire: Super interesting creature with a lot of neat things you can do with it such as removing the downside of things like Rot-Curse Rakshasa and having a huge flying beater very quickly. We'll definitely be seeing this a bunch.
BPhillipYork: This seems, kind of, I dunno, well kind of useless. Like the upside is what, you are dumping an under cost vanilla creature to put ability counters on it? It's fine, but lifelink, flying and first strike just aren't that solid abilities in Commander. Lifelink is probably the one that potentially scales the best, but since it removes all the creatures abilities, you can't pull off some combo with it, short of moving the counters around. And Suddenly you've got a lot of moving pieces to do something there's probably just an easier way to do. Maybe if the point is to get counters you can proliferate, and then move them around.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Emptiness
Saffgor: 6 mana for both modes is a bad rate, and the recursion is...fine, not exemplary. This is probably the least exciting member of the Evoke cycle.
FromTheShire: Seems entirely too fair for modern Magic honestly.
BPhillipYork: This is a really really good evoke creature. The first ability is a super solid reanimation, the second is a solid enough removal ability, and if you can pay for both that's decent.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Reaping Willow
Saffgor: Oh this enables a bevy of combos. The lack of a Finality counter is shocking, given Wizards' new design ethos, but you should expect to see this, the new Rhys, and Priest of Gix around together.
FromTheShire: Doesn't even have to be -1/-1 counters either for even more possibilities. Eh as a fair card, great as a combo piece.
BPhillipYork: This is a neat reanimator, and if you can proliferate, move counters, or be blighting, that will let you keep reanimating. So potentially this is just an endless source of reanimation.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Ashling, Rekindled//Ashling, Rimebound
Saffgor: The turn she flips you're able to cheat out a 5 mana spell, which I believe is the conceit of this entire card as a Commander. Cast 5 mana spells with ludicrous consistency, and pray that's enough. Seems a bit one-note for my tastes.
FromTheShire: Not consistent enough for Standard, and seems underwhelming for Commander.
BPhillipYork: This feels pretty mediocre, could be good enough early, but there's a lot of really solid commanders with blue and red color identity that do so much more.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Ashling's Command
Saffgor: Well, if that isn't a 5 mana spell with Ashling's name on it. Cute. This gets played in Ashling's deck, but the fact it's mana-neutral with a 3 mana discount available (by way of Mizzix or Vadrik, Astral Archmage) I can absolutely see this Command going places. The rate is just too good given any discounts, Elemental text nonwithstanding, and Izzet has plenty of that.
FromTheShire: It's not bad, and possibly blowing small creature decks out at instant speed is nice.
BPhillipYork: There are some really big strong Elementals to copy, so it makes sense this. All secondary modes are pretty decent, but draw 2 is probably the default. A kindred instant with draw 2 and copy an Elemental is all around just pretty strong.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sanar, Innovative First-Year
Saffgor: Everyone's first thought is Sanar, a 2-card combo, and 97 Lands. You're not unique in thinking that, nor is that idea a good one...but Sanar Color-matters is a very novel idea given the amount of Spectral Shift effects present in Blue. I think this is the new Commander for Blind Seer players, all 781 of you.
FromTheShire: Not a bad addition to the ranks of weird little guys with unique effects. You're definitely doing it for the bit though.
BPhillipYork: This is a really solid "vivid" card, and in multicolor decks it's just mad card draw. A bit expensive but you could even just run this as a commander, and plan to exile 2 cards for play each turn.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Twinflame Travelers
Saffgor: A Roaming Throne for just Elementals, sure. Definitely the type they're pushing hardest in Lorwyn Eclipsed, and this is just another piece of the puzzle.
FromTheShire: Are Elementals good? Then this is super good.
BPhillipYork: Solid, Elementals have tons of good triggers, a lot of good ETBs and other ones. 4 mana is a bit pricy for this, at 2 it'd be totally broken, at 3 I think it would be really strong. At 4 it's a sort of a conditional Panharmonicon stapled onto a body, but it's all abilities not just ETB.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Trystan, Callous Cultivator
Saffgor: In spite of saying 'Elf' a ton in the text boxes, this seems awful compared to its peers at first glance. See, Trystan isn't an Elf Commander—he's a self-mill Commander. A great one? No, certainly not, but ensuring you have a Mill 3 every turn plus extra on a repeated cast or recursion isn't shabby.
FromTheShire: Outside of maybe fitting into the Golgari self mill deck, this feels pretty underwhelming.
BPhillipYork: To me this just doesn't seem that exciting. Main use is just to enable a mill/reanimation strategy, and probably just completely ignore the Elf bit. Golgori reanimator is a solid enough shell, and paying 1 mana per turn to keep flipping it is very doable.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dread Tiller
Saffgor: Dies, period, from anywhere on the board? Good lord, count me in; at worst it floats into a fetch on death, and with more dedicated pieces on the board it'll readily go +3 on Land advantage. Kinda crazy.
FromTheShire: I've got a Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons deck that loves this, and actually good decks will love it even more. Note that this is a Commander card not a Standard legal one.
BPhillipYork: This is a really strong potentially. In a deck with infect or sources of -1/-1 counters, such as blight, then you just need to guarantee you'll have lands in your yard, but fetchlands solves that problem pretty easily, and then this just functions as a ramp and deck thinning source which is awesome.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
High Perfect Morcant
Saffgor: The people talking about this card's interaction with Flourishing Defenses have led you astray. Morcant is cool, represents some slow removal, and certainly can go infinite with several cards, but the overlap between Elves and -1/-1 counters is surprisingly shallow, even after Lorwyn. Moreover, even if you can go infinite with three different bodies getting repeated -1/-1s with Defenses and her proliferate, you still need a death trigger or similar to actually win.
FromTheShire: Tap 3 Elves to proliferate is just begging for abuse and I love it.
BPhillipYork: This is gross. Using Elves to proliferate is potentially really powerful. There's not tons of -1/-1 counter sources from Elves, but it's going to slowly kill off your opponents board state and you can be proliferating your win condition as well as value cards meanwhile.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lluwen, Imperfect Naturalist
Saffgor: The fact Lluwen isn't a Spellshaper is cowardly, that's clearly a Worm Feast he's casting! Honestly I think this is an underrated Commander, with a solid bit of filtering and a clear path to victory. 2 mana is a great price, and a 1/3 stops early aggression, I dunno why there's been no buzz about Lluwen.
FromTheShire: I think the biggest problem is it's directly competing with Overlord of the Balemurk, and not favorably.
BPhillipYork: I don't know. Generating lots of 1/1 worms for 5 mana by discarding a card is like, whatever?
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Trystan's Command
Saffgor: The untap is frightening here, given what Elfball usually gets up to, and the fact it can be removal, relevant copying, or great recursion frightens me. This coupled with an Eternal Witness effect will do the things any mass untapper will.
FromTheShire: I'd say it was expensive but lol Elves. There are a lot of extremely powerful Elves you would want to make a copy of like Elvish Archdruid, and a lot of them also synergize extremely well with untap abilities as luck would have it. The other modes are also situationally very useful as well.
BPhillipYork: Thankfully this is really expensive, to make it balanced, since there's so many good Elves, and Elves generate insane amounts of mana. The other modes are all pretty solid, a finisher, a way to get creatures back to hand from the yard, and solid removal. So, it's big mana, but Elves are definitely a source of big mana.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Morcant's Loyalist
Saffgor: I mention this here because, alongside Trystan's Command, you have a slow value loop that can help in a grind game. Kindred - Elf coming in clutch there.
FromTheShire: Very nice to get an Elf lord for Standard. The problem may well be that Elf decks are frequently also Badgermole Cub, Ouroboroid, and Craterhoof Behemoth decks, and those don't need a lord for anything. Very solid in Commander in a deck full of lords.
BPhillipYork: This is a decent enough Elf lord. Your standard +1/+1 and then some recursion stapled onto it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Bre of Clan Stoutarm
Saffgor: "Your end step"? I don't think this card is interesting, let alone good, and there's a ton of other Boros Commanders I'd consider before this, even for lifegain-matters.
FromTheShire: It's kind of neat but it's slow. Neat for Kalemne, Disciple of Iroas if you built that precon as Giant typal. Continues the trend of not being as good as the card it is calling back to.
BPhillipYork: I guess this card is (well obviously) related to Brion Stoutarm, and I guess it's fine. If you have a good way to consistently gain a lot of life, and then somehow force an important card onto the top of your library, then you could cast it for free. But that's really clunky, and slow.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Catharsis
Saffgor: I want to be hopeful that a Standard Boros deck may exist to make this worthwhile, given it counts itself among the Haste and +1/+1, but it's tough to say. 2 mana for 2 1/1s is a fine rate, and the top end is often game winning, but between those two peaks is a wide valley.
FromTheShire: The problem is the tokens it creates don't have prowess, and the RR mode wants to take advantage of having dropped other creatures that turn to gain the haste. With how aggressive red strategies are right now you've generally either won or lost well before you get to 6 mana.
BPhillipYork: The haste and +1/+1 is good enough as a finisher for some kinds of go-wide decks to make this potentially playable, but there's probably something better to do, and the upside of paying 6 mana just isn't enough. This seems like a card to file away and come back to in a few years when there are a lot more hobbits. Sorry "Kithkin".
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Kirol, Attentive First-Year
Saffgor: This saw immediate consideration for cEDH upon its reveal, and while I don't think it's necessarily going to be as strong as Kinnan or Winota, Kirol (or perhaps Kirol in the 99 of Zirda) seems to be the best Rule of Law Commander the format's yet seen. That said, while there's much to be done with him as an enabler, but I haven't seen an obvious 2-card that pushes him over the edge.
FromTheShire: The once per turn means played fairly this is more fun than busted as well.
BPhillipYork: People seem to really love copying triggered abilities. It's, like, fine. Cheap enough and you can slam it out on turn 3 and then use it and another creature to start copying right away. A sort of okay enabler, but in Commander I can't imagine there being enough red or white important effects to copy that I'd run this as a commander, so then it's just a utility creature.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Oko, Lorwyn Liege//Oko, Shadowmoor Scion
Saffgor: Unless that Oko +2 is doing something substantial for your gameplan I don't see this being played anywhere. Just too low-impact, and likely dies before you've got a chance to flip.
FromTheShire: I mean going to 5 loyalty when he comes down, or 4 but shrinking their best creature probably means he is going to live to flip pretty often in Standard. That said, I'm missing the vision on what exactly you're doing with him after that.
BPhillipYork: Sort of nice to see an Oko that isn't nuts. Actually this seems way too slow to be very useful to me. You're looking at 3 turns after you drop it to get the emblem, and you can't do the Doubling Season trick to insta emblem which is one of the best ways to use planeswalkers in Commander.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Tam, Mindful First-Year
Saffgor: So this is totally Jace & Vraska's Wiccan-esque kid right? Mechanically, Tam seems a fantastic tool for Simic as a Mother of Runes-style card, and she alone turns on Vivid effects like Bloom Tender. I do wonder if that's enough for the Command Zone, but expect to see Tam in a lot of 99s.
FromTheShire: Excellent protection piece.
BPhillipYork: This is sort of okay, Mother of Runes effects have never really appealed to me that much.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Wistfulness
Saffgor: Oh is that a 2 mana draw 2? Honestly, given Green cares about Creature casts period, that mode is probably worthwhile if you're okay playing an honest Mulldrifter. Better floor, lower ceiling.
FromTheShire: Exiling problematic things like Gods or The One Ring for 2 is pretty solid as well.
BPhillipYork: To me both modes are pretty valuable so this is really a modal spell, and you'd almost never opt to pay 5 mana unless you have more mana than you know what to do with.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Auntie Ool, Cursewretch
Saffgor: Do thing, draw card, 4 mana. It's the same pattern we see for a lot of these Precon face Commanders, and Ool is good enough for what she does. The fact you don't draw off of the Ward makes her less brutal to remove though, so expect to see her die a lot.
FromTheShire: Agreed that the ward really doesn't do a lot to protect her. She's fine.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty nasty. Could easily build decks around it, as well as throw it into Jund decks that are built around throwing out counters. There's some ways to make this go infinite, and it's also a Goblin so a fun Goblin kindred commander.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
The Reaper, King No More
Saffgor: A contender for 'sickest name of all time', the new Reaper King is my pick for the best Commander in the set. You get to steal efficient bodies like mana dorks and value pieces, sure, but the gas here is the fact the former King is 6 mana value, for 3 mana spent. That means effects like Burnt Offering, Priest of Yawgmoth, etc go plus on rate, and help push for things like a turn 2/3 Ad Naus or Peer. Deeply funny that they designed another Tergrid-style Commander though, like Wizards, do you realize people are gonna get mad about the wrong thing here?
FromTheShire: Played fairly this is fine, though you need to build in ways to kill things on other players turns in order for it not to be too slow and draw outsized hate since people hate when you steal their stuff.
BPhillipYork: This is a pretty brutal effect, and people will absolutely hate it. Forcing blights, infect, and stealing creatures makes for a deck that your opponents will hate. This is very much a creature you can build around, I just probably wouldn't.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Doran, Besieged by Time
Saffgor: The new Doran is probably a bit too fair to be good, but he's cute. Big butts-matter without allowing Defenders to attack is an interesting-but-retrodden design space. People are excited, that's fine, but Doran's just more of the same.
FromTheShire: Worse as the commander itself, this is nonetheless a great addition to the many Doran decks.
BPhillipYork: Power/toughness imbalance is an interesting thing to build around with cards like the Tree of Perdition.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Maralen, Fae Ascendant
Saffgor: Maralen goes from mediocre to devastating with any kind of Flash enabler, and this is an awesome spot to be in for a splashy dual-typal Commander. 5 mana is a lot (maybe even too much, given when she dies you lose access to that first suite of cards) but with Flash you're casting 4 spells for free every cycle, and that's going to be enough to win.
FromTheShire: Huge value engine, turning cheap Elves and Faries into whatever heinous nonsense your opponents are playing. It's extremely fair though and self levels to the power level of the table - they should be used to dealing with creatures of their own power level.
BPhillipYork: This is a great commander in my opinion and I've already started working on a deck and article around it. I think it's the sort people will hate, but it's so good. The fact it's every turn, not just your turns, is so key, and the ability to ramp with Elves and use Faeries for weird tricks is just gravy.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Ashling, the Limitless
Saffgor: Between needing a day 0 errata and being another in a line of 5 color slop Commanders, Ashling is my least favorite Legend of Lorwyn Eclipsed. She's good, sure, but in a boring way that plays itself. Wow, you sure did Evoke, let me reward you for doing so and mention WUBRG while I'm at it. Ugh.
FromTheShire: It's good but yeah it's pretty obvious how you're building the deck.
BPhillipYork: This is really bonkers for ETB effects, since you can evoke for 4, ETB, sacrifice, make a token copy, and get the ETB again. And it's not like Elementals can't reanimate. Really a crazy Elemental commander, and probably means I'll revisit Elemental 5-color goodstuff. I wonder if it's a coincidence that's its the exactly same mana cost as another great 5-color commander. Probably.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Mass of Mysteries
Saffgor: For one fewer mana, you have a more limited pool to target than Duke Ulder Ravengard. More colors is nice, but it's hard to get excited about this design.
FromTheShire: Myriad is like... fine. Ironically you mostly want to leave the Elementals from this set out since they only trigger on cast and instead focus on the older ones for their ETB's.
BPhillipYork: Yet another 5-color Elemental, and a solid one, if a bit pricy. To be honest for WUBRG it seems like all your Elementals should gain myriad, but that would probably be too crazy. Getting 3 additional ETBs or beaters on turn 4 or 5 is okay, but kind of durdley.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Eclipsed Cycle
Saffgor: I think the best two among these are the Kithkin and Merrow, with the former being a perfectly reasonable 2 mana 'draw 1'-ish effect, and the latter being in blink colors. These designs are neat, and I like seeing triple pip as a means to gate cards like these from being splashed in 3+ color decks.
FromTheShire: It is also nice that they get you a land so it's much harder to completely whiff at least. It's no Goblin Ringleader though.
BPhillipYork: This cycle is fine, enabler or mana fixer for kindred decks. It's strange to me that the mana costs are different, but a perfectly useful enabler to include in kindred decks.
Next Time: The Set’s White, Blue, and Black Cards
That wraps up our look at the Multicolored cards of Lorwyn Eclipsed! Join us next time as we begin reviewing the Monocolor cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about future build-arounds.
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Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
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