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 the last crop of noteworthy new cards, 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 White, Blue, & Black cards, and this time we'll be taking a look at the set's Red, Green, & Colorless cards. 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
Impulsivity
Saffgor: 7 mana is an awful lot, even for a cheat, as you're more often than not casting a spell of mana value ~7-9 anyway. If you can somehow cheat this out, you're in business, but I don't think it gets there outside of that. Likely the best of this cycle to actually Encore though.
BPhillipYork: Card with a near infinite ceiling and a bottom in the Marianas trench. Probably best use case is simply to bury and reanimate, rather than hardcasting for 7 mana, though elementals can ramp fairly well or just run in Temur. Do you have a huge sorcery or instant you want to cast? The encore is pretty hilarious and could be a game ender, but for 9 mana it better be; admittedly it's also 28 damage, or even more if you have ways to duplicate the tokens, or triggered additional ETBs.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Champion of the Path
Saffgor: This represents a lot of damage, and while there is an opportunity cost, it's only temporary. Stellar card, will end games in both 60 and 100 card formats.
BPhillipYork: Well this is like Dragon of the Peaks for elementals, so it's awesome for elemental kindred, and potentially will just end games with some of the new fat myriad effects, so this is a really solid way to make those truly pay off.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Collective Inferno
Saffgor: 5 mana is the going rate for a damage doubler these days, and this isn't even the best one with Convoke! Seems narrow and not cheap enough to warrant its limited pool, unless you're all-in on a single type.
BPhillipYork: This will show up usefully in many kinds of kindred decks; I can see goblins easily blitzing this out, but virtually any tribal focused deck that includes red can run this, though a lot of them really won't "want" to win via combat damage, the red ones are more likely to. Really solid for pirates too with all their evasion abilities.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
End-Blaze Epiphany
Saffgor: If you can comfortably cast this for X=2 I think it starts feeling really good, and more can help you dig in the lategame. The real problem for this card is the weird 3 toughness utility creatures, which often have 1 power (e.g. Drannith Magistrate).
BPhillipYork: This is okay, but unless you really have some need to dig for something specific, it's just bad creature removal. Best case scenario is probably pinging a creature you already know is going to die for 1, that's big, just to get the effect, but it's inefficient creature removal really.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Giantfall
Saffgor: Conditionally better Abrade, a card that's a staple across a number of formats? Seems awesome to have, even if it's not strictly better.
BPhillipYork: This is a solid modal spell, basically like an Abrade; instant speed, same CMC, and nicely flexible.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Goliath Daydreamer
Saffgor: This with some extra turns/combats starts getting out of hand very, very fast, especially with recursion ala Taigam Xerox, for my oldhead cEDH players. Despite his drowsy appearance, don't sleep on this card.
BPhillipYork: A really strong effect that makes this an amazing target for removal. But I can easily see this being used as a finisher type creature, for repeated buffs. For standard I assume it's a little below the curve, but the fact it's dream counters as opposed to linked to this creature or anything means even if your opponents remove it you can still do it. If it's additional combats, that's really dangerous.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Hexing Squelcher
Saffgor: Is this design probably a mistake? To a microscopic niche of players, yes, yes it is. But that's the thing—the folks most perturbed by this card are a subgroup within a subgroup, and on the whole this will be played fairly. Does it insulate combos? Sure, but only from Blue players, something Monored's needed for a bit. It's important we recognize the smallness of the issue at hand, because this is a card that's been blown way out of proportion.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty strong protection for your creatures, just a solid additional ping for 2 anytime they are targeted. It sort of buries the lede, which is that your spells can't be countered, which is huge stapled onto also a ward for all your creatures.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Kindle the Inner Flame
Saffgor: If you can cast this with Flashback, it's one of the best enablers for Dualcaster Mage combos out there, but that's a big 'if'. Still, even for 4 mana this effect isn't awful.
BPhillipYork: Pretty solid kindred sorcery, even more ETBs for elementals, which have a lot of ETBs.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lasting Tarfire
Saffgor: Thank goodness this says 'each', and purely on that basis (and costing 2 mana) I expect this to find a slot in a number of group slug-ish decks, like Rakdos Valgavoth.
BPhillipYork: I like that's it's every end step, as opposed to only yours, pretty strong sort of attrition card, though you need a plan that involves placing counters onto creatures every turn. Frankly plays pretty well with creature-less blight strategies and things like that.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Lavaleaper
Saffgor: This card's design is awesome, because it's a card for Monored, by Monored. In Commander, I mean—the fact it's only Basics means that multicolored players likely will benefit less than you, incentivizing plenty of real Mountains. Couple with Blood Moon etc and get your non-Basic hate deck flowing!
BPhillipYork: Wow this is like a card from legends. Sort of Concordant Crossroads stapled onto a Mana Flare.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Meek Attack
Saffgor: This has already been used for evil, in cheating out Agent of Treacherys in formats where real Sneak isn't around, and I don't like that one bit. Awesome card with essentially 0 fair applications.
BPhillipYork: Wow another Sneak Attack is really something. Obviously this one is a lot more limited, and it's a nice pun, I guess. There are some really crazy things still to dump out, and plenty of decks want to their creatures to die anyway, to get even more deaths and sacrifice triggers. Strong card.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Scuzzback Scrounger
Saffgor: I want to believe this is good enough, but comparing it to Enterprising Scallywag makes the card look grim. It's a strict downside instead of a hoop to jump through, but being on first Main Phase rather than End Step also makes it slower. No dice, pig.
BPhillipYork: This is a decent goblin for acceleration, and if you have a way to leverage blight counters then it becomes a combo piece.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Soulbright Seeker
Saffgor: If you squint, this is a Red mana dork, for a single, beautiful mana. That being said, the Elemental rider is a very real cost, and this feels a lot worse when cast for {2}{R}.
BPhillipYork: What a strange creature. It's basically pay RRR for RRRR and distribute trample, is a 2/1 for 1 but with behold an elemental or pay 2, it's really kind of strange design. Certainly a sort of autoinclude since it just generates 1 mana, but is that really all that important?
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Soul Immolation
Saffgor: Toughness-matters in Red was not on my bingo card, but this is a super interesting piece! Allows infinites which create an infinitely-large creature to kill, which is an important outlet to have (given the relative lack of multi-target Flings). Compare to Chandra's Ignition, and you'll find a kindred spirit.
BPhillipYork: There's some really funny things you can do with this, the funniest is probably The Walls of Ba Sing Se, just blasting everyone for 30 and clearing the board is a lot. But that's also 14 mana, but it's a pretty cool way to clear the board and also get all your opponents within spitting distance of death. I think having essentially another Chandra's Ignition is really good though, it's nice to have an alternative way for red to just massively blow out the game.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Spinerock Titan
Saffgor: So this has a nonbo with a few key damage-matters cards that also want single targets, e.g. Imodane, but where this excels is Heroic-style decks such as Zada. Closer to a storm piece than a removal amplifier.
BPhillipYork: Off the bat it's a solid beater, a 6/6 flyer for 5, though lacking haste, but with wither. Duplicating spells and giving them wither is interesting, since it means your nukes can get around indestructible and even if they can't kill something they can make it itsy bitsy. A good use case is to ignore the whole wither thing and just use it as a value generator, and then wither is just there, if you need it.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Village Pillagers
Saffgor: The lack of a once per turn on that last ability makes me hopeful for this card, especially given it comes out and doles -1/-1 counters to every opposing body like it's Christmas. I think, played properly, this is at-worst mana neutral, and at best a massive tempo swing, in Commander.
BPhillipYork: So this is a much more limited Pitiless Plunderer but works really well with the various blight effects. If your deck is dedicated to these sort of effects then pretty solid, or if you just want to clear the 1/1s because your opponents are running lots of mana dorks.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Jubilation
Saffgor: No Haste leaves me unimpressed, but Encoring it is fairly scary as an endgame for Bracket 2. Could be worse!
BPhillipYork: A solid enough finisher, though green is getting an excessive amount of them, 9 mana for green to give all your creatures +6/+6 an trample and summon 3 5/5s is pretty solid as a way to close out the game, though it's in the strange place that green isn't great at getting things into the yard necessarily, from which to myriad.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Aurora Awakener
Saffgor: This could lead to some preplanned piles, but I think it's closer to a value generator than a Polymorph-style piece in Green. Lands being permanents really muddle things on the card.
BPhillipYork: Basically an Auspicious Starrix variant, works really well in 5c reanimator, could have some fun loops where it keeps revealing permanents so you sacrifice it in response to keep reanimating it, with things like Animate Dead, which gets pretty gross pretty fast.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Bristlebane Battler
Saffgor: Go wide, get big, ideally be playable in Standard. May this defender of the realm do all three.
BPhillipYork: I don't really love these big creatures with lots of -1/-1 counters when they come into play, but at least there's enough of them now to let you deck build around them consistently.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Celestial Reunion
Saffgor: If you're Beholding for this, the game should end when it resolves, but otherwise it's just a reasonable Creature tutor that wants to find small targets.
BPhillipYork: So it's basically just a x-creature tutor with potential upside, which makes it really strong for certain kindred decks, elementals springs to mind, but also elves, hydras, etc.. But really, tutors are just strong and this will let you (expensively) grab a finisher.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Champions of the Perfect
Saffgor: If you're in Green, you're probably on some number of Elves, and if that's the case, meet 6/6 Beast Whisperer. Also a cool way to pick up a Mana Dork for later.
BPhillipYork: Well this is a very strong effect. Beast whisperer already exists, and is "better" but you can easily drop a mana dork turn 1 and once it's less important dump it to this to get that card draw.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dundoolin Weaver
Saffgor: This is very cheap access to this sort of effect, with a fairly minimal condition. It's probably not Eternal Witness, but a smaller pool versus an extra mana is a reasonable thing to think about.
BPhillipYork: This must be like a 4-of thing.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Elemental Spectacle
Saffgor: The big Commander Vivid payoff is...a bunch of big tokens? Booo, I was really hoping Tam would get real toys here. If this was in the main set, might be Standard playable as a topend, but in just Commander, it'll be instantly forgotten.
BPhillipYork: Unless you really have a lot of "when an elemental enters" effects, or "when a creature enters effects" I can't see much use for this. 6 mana for 5 5/5s isn't that great, wooh you gain some life. If you have a way to really leverage it then it's kind of crazy.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Ferrafor, Young Yew
Saffgor: Ferrafor combines a few different things Green likes doing, from counting counters to doubling things, and is extremely funny with things like Spacecraft, which accrue an alarming amount of Charge counters with ease. That's the thing, though, if you wanted a Monogreen 'lots of counters' Commander, you have the far better Maester Seymour, a deck I have in paper which is always a blast to break out.
BPhillipYork: Unfocused card that is probably not worth the cost, since on the one hand you are making a lot of 1/1s and then on the other you're doubling counters, all for the really unaffordable 7 mana, but maybe if the counters are making all your creatures bigger or something then suddenly there's synergy.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Formidable Speaker
Saffgor: Depraz asked for a cube card, and having played a preprint of this in irl Vintage Cube...uh, yeah you got it bud. This card is incredible, and likely has use across a number of formats, but you likely knew that already. It was one of our earliest reveals, and remains one of the most generically flexible from the set.
BPhillipYork: This is super solid low cost tutor, and then it's untapping a permanent, which given there are 3 ways there Gaea's Cradle now, can be pretty dangerous. Assuming you can do something with big mana, this is a solid way to generate it and grab your payoff in one 3 mana package.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Mutable Explorer
Saffgor: Second card ever to make just Land tokens, alongside the Green Overlord, and by jove I want to make a weird Landfall/copy deck. In terms of usage, this is like a weird Kodama's Reach with relevant types, so your mileage may vary depending on said type.
BPhillipYork: Just a solid changeling that makes a land, which is pretty new territory. Basically just a ramp spell with a kindred stapled on top of it, so I see this becoming more or less a staple for certain kinds of decks, decks that run lots of draw off creatures, lots of a single creature type, or need to ramp hard in the early game.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Prismatic Undercurrents
Saffgor: Now this is a Vivid payoff, and at Uncommon! In the best of all worlds this finds 5 Lands, and gives you an extra to chuck out each turn. Great with Six/Retrace or if you need discard fodder, excels with Windgrace, honestly just a fine card if you can get 3+ colors onboard.
BPhillipYork: For 5 color landfall decks this is amazing. For regular 5 color decks its aggressive, but slow mid game ramp. It also just things your deck a bit, even in 2 color or 3 color decks it gives you another land fall and will grab you several lands, so all around just a pretty solid card.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Puca's Covenant
Saffgor: The once each turn clause here prevents this from being board wipe protection, and for that reason, I'm out. So close to stellar, yet so far.
BPhillipYork: This is potentially really bonkers because of how cards like the Ozolith work. Especially if your creatures are dying because of -1/1 counters you can set this up to allow an infinite loop pretty quickly, and win the game with aristocrats effects. Also works super well with enchantments like Animate dead, since it's a permanent that will pop back up at a very reasonable amount of counters.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Sapling Nursery
Saffgor: This will almost always be 2-3 mana with a Yavimaya, Cradle of Growth and/or careful fetching, so evaluate it as such. With that in mind, I quite like it, and the ability to also make your Forests indestructible helps Land-animation strategies a great deal.
BPhillipYork: This is an okay very durdly card. Obviously once you get to like 4 or 5 forests it gets affordable, but do you really need 3/4s then? Maybe, and there's ways to have lands entering and leaving play and what not, but it's just ultimately pretty slow, which is very treefolk-y.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Selfless Safewright
Saffgor: Same issues as Collective Inferno above: It's a bit too pricy for how specific it is, and will always die to the wipe itself. What on earth is that 'other' doing there, Wizards?
BPhillipYork: Just a solid kindred protector spell, for kindred decks, or decks that happen to run a lot of one creature type, kind of a backup, but much worse, Heroic Intervention.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Springleaf Parade
Saffgor: Allow me a pithy moment to mention Zuberas in the context of this card: Dripping-Tongue Zubera & Floating-Dream Zubera were some of my favorite cards to build around in Pauper, and with the numerous Changeling tokens in this set, it's finally time to see that realized in Commander methinks. This is a fine take on a Cryptolith Rites, but what I yearn for is a ton of hyperspecific typal tokens.
BPhillipYork: I love this card for just like, Reaper King. Also turning your tokens into mana dorks is potentially really powerful, especially for Selesnaya decks, but many colors can do decent token decks now. So really solid all around card which can combo with various strategies.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Spry and Mighty
Saffgor: I'm having trouble evaluating this card, because while it is fragile to resolve, it...should in theory draw 5+ cards and present a fast clock, in the right deck. I just wish that buff was counters, not until end of turn.
BPhillipYork: If you're using mana dorks to get to big fatties and then close out the game, this is an okay way to recover your hand and also buff them that turn, but green really has better card draw and buff options, and this is only buffing 2 of them.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Virulent Emissary
Saffgor: Whoa, Soul Sisters-ish card with deathtouch? Lifegain is drooling.
BPhillipYork: It's fine if you need triggered life gain, the deathtouch is nice to just protect your board with random attackers.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Changeling Wayfinder
Saffgor: I know the card looks bad, but it is ultimately a Colorless Eldrazi that grabs a card, and that might have applications.
BPhillipYork: This is a solid card for decks that want to use basics, 5 color decks and want to mana fix, and that care about creature types for various reasons.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Chronicle of Victory
Saffgor: Card is bad, don't be fooled. Incredible art but this is the most 'new typal player' trap printed in a while.
BPhillipYork: This is that flag, but even more pricy. If you know you'll have mana and need cards, it's okay, but slow. So slow.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Dawn-Blessed Pendant
Saffgor: It's a little specific, but incidental lifegain and the ability to recur is neat, and does great work in colors that lack immediate access to that style of recursion.
BPhillipYork: This is like those super old garbage artifacts that gained you life when you cast spells for paying mana. 1 mana. To gain life, off one 1 spell. It also lets you grab something back, when you want, which is... okay.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Firdoch Core
Saffgor: It's a Colorless Eldrazi...mana rock. This card has some wide, wide applications (too many to list easily), but I can tell you right now there's enough cast-matters for various types to see this added to thousands of Commander decks the moment the set arrives in stores. It's pushed, but it's still a 3 mana rock...perhaps one of the best.
BPhillipYork: A changeling artifact is interesting. Also a walking mana rock. A lot of new sorts of design we haven't seen before is neat. I think this will show up a lot more than it really should, but it definitely mana fixes, and helps you get to various thresholds, and has some weird interactions like, making your Elvish Archdruid tap for more. Which is kind of strange. I think the biggest upside is like, decks that generate triggers off their kindred type entering, making this not a dead card if you draw it late, which is nice.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Mirrormind Crown
Saffgor: I want this to do funny things, but the timing makes it such that I'm a little unimpressed. A very safe design I wish were less so, imagine how crazy this could have been with Firion, Wild Rose Warrior.
BPhillipYork: 6 mana is so much for this effect, but there's definitely some hilarious creatures to slap this onto. The headache that is attaching this to Academy Manufactor is something I don't really want to think about.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
BPhillipYork:
Stalactite Dagger
Saffgor: We've gotten a few of this design before, the Changeling-making Equipment. This is by far the best, and in some Commander decks looking for that effect, it'll be added to the pile. Immediate thought is Jenova, Ancient Calamity to reduce the need for awful Mutants...until we get TMNT.
BPhillipYork: It's basically just a changeling for 2 colorless mana. If that math works out for your deck, then it's great. If not, then, it's basically just junk. A +1/+1 for 4 mana is definitely not strong.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Wickersmith's Tools
Saffgor: The funny bit is that cracking this card is likely less relevant than the things you can do once it stacks up a dozen or so counters. A lot of counter-matters effects are fairly counter-agnostic, so the sheer number this can accrue may be of interest in of itself.
BPhillipYork: It's a nit upticking effect on what is really just a 3 color mana rock that has a way to sacrifice is to do something later. But again, Reaper King.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Abundant Countryside
Saffgor: The card is fine, and there's worse things to do when you've got nothing to use your mana on.
BPhillipYork: I really like this as an affordable 5 color land for commander decks, especially bracket 1 and 2.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Eclipsed Realms
Saffgor: This is made for budget 5C typal players, and is good to have around.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty great for 5 color elementals, and is okay for other kindred, but elementals are the only one with really good 5 color representation, elves are okay there too. So totally fine, but only in kindred decks.
Have any questions or feedback? Drop us a note in the comments below or email us at contact@goonhammer.com. Want articles like this linked in your inbox every Monday morning? Sign up for our newsletter. And don’t forget that you can support us on Patreon for backer rewards like early video content, Administratum access, an ad-free experience on our website, and more.
This website uses cookies. Learn more.
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Credit: Wizards of the Coast
Goonhammer App and Patron Updates: April, 2026
Kill Team Tournament Report: Engage, Party, Repeat's March Madness 2026
Goonhammer Reviews: Tribal Conquest
