Nauctis First Look Spoilers Include Dubious New Take On Black Lotus

As previously promised, MagicCon: Atlanta kicked off today with the first look panel, and spoilers, for Nauctis: The Sunken Realm. What a batch it was, too, showcasing a number of mythics with serious potential across multiple MTG formats, including a new retrain of the ever-infamous Black Lotus Black Lotus {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color. .

Abyssal Lotus MTG

We’ve seen a fair few attempts to reimagine Magic’s most iconic artifact over the years, and they tend to fall into one of two extremes. Either they’re broken in their own right, like Lion’s Eye Diamond Lion’s Eye Diamond Discard your hand, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color. Activate only as an instant. and Jeweled Lotus Jeweled Lotus {T}, Sacrifice this artifact: Add three mana of any one color. Spend this mana only to cast your commander. , or they’re pretty much unplayable, like Radiant Lotus Radiant Lotus {T}, Sacrifice one or more artifacts: Choose a color. Target player adds three mana of the chosen color for each artifact sacrificed this way. (Activate only as an instant.) .

Abyssal Lotus, sadly, feels like it falls more into the latter category than the former. Needing eight cards in the ‘yard is a big ask first and foremost, meaning you won’t be able to make use of the mana boost here for a couple of turns even in older formats. Since it enters tapped, you also need to play it before the turn you need it, which makes it even more awkward.

Add in the fact that Abyssal Lotus exiles itself on use, preventing graveyard loops, and it feels like Wizards cranked all the safety valves to 11 on this one. That said, it’s unwise to write off any card with Lotus text, and it does have potential in the right decks and formats.

Dredge decks in Legacy and Vintage are the first things that spring to mind because they can quickly fill the graveyard to turn this on. It could also have a shot in Emry, Lurker of the Loch Emry, Lurker of the Loch Affinity for artifacts (This spell costs {1} less to cast for each artifact you control.)
When Emry enters, mill four cards.
{T}: Choose target artifact card in your graveyard. You may cast that card this turn. (You still pay its costs. Timing rules still apply.) lists in Modern, or possibly Standard Artifact decks as an easy free-roll artifact to drop.

Strangely, this card feels like it’ll have the least impact in Commander, which is almost refreshing to say given how focused Wizards has been on the format of late.

Tecton, Malignant Ruin MTG

Carrying on the Fathomless Descent theme, Tecton here looks like an incredibly powerful new legendary creature for Commander and beyond. The discount here means you should reliably be able to cast this for five or less in most games, even in decks that don’t actively try to fill the graveyard.

Add in some self-mill pieces, however, like Stitcher’s Supplier Stitcher’s Supplier When this creature enters or dies, mill three cards. (Put the top three cards of your library into your graveyard.) and Ripples of Undeath Ripples of Undeath At the beginning of your first main phase, mill three cards. Then you may pay {1} and 3 life. If you do, put a card from among those cards into your hand. , and Tecton can easily cost you just two mana. At that cost, it’s a great rate on the stats and keywords alone, as a 5/5 with Menace and Deathtouch is no joke.

What you’re really here for is that last ability, mind you, which replicates the notorious Korvold, Fae-Cursed King Korvold, Fae-Cursed King Flying
Whenever Korvold enters or attacks, sacrifice another permanent.
Whenever you sacrifice a permanent, put a +1/+1 counter on Korvold and draw a card. . This turns all of your sacrifices, whether they’re creatures, Treasures, or Fetchlands, into draw, which can get out of hand incredibly quickly in a lot of decks.

While Tecton lacks Korvold’s built-in sacrifice option and scaling, it makes up for that by being far more accessible in terms of color identity and cheaper to cast most of the time. I expect this card to become a full-on staple for a ton of Commander decks for this reason, especially Aristocrats and Treasure lists.

Even outside of Commander, Tecton could have a shot in Standard Jund Sacrifice lists as well. That deck can easily get Tecton down to a reasonable price, and with so many creatures and artifacts being sacrificed all the time, it provides a solid draw engine. It’s early days, but I’d be shocked if this wasn’t one of the chase mythics from Nauctis come next year.

Calmwater Mentor MTG

While Wizards has been on a bit of an anti-tutor run in their communications around Commander, every recent set seems to bring serious new options to the category. This year we’ve had Formidable Speaker Formidable Speaker When this creature enters, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for a creature card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
{1}, {T}: Untap another target permanent. , Pia, Aether Ascetic Pia, Aether Ascetic When Pia enters, you may discard a card. If you do, search your library for an enchantment card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. and Federation Resupply Federation Resupply Search your library for an Aura, Equipment, or Spacecraft card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle.
Beam me up {3}{W} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for {3}{W} if you also return a creature you control to its owner's hand. Then exile this spell.) to name just a few, and now Nauctis is getting its own powerhouse tutor in Calmwater Mentor.

For four mana, this is essentially two Imperial Recruiter Imperial Recruiter When this creature enters, search your library for a creature card with power 2 or less, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle. s stapled together, but shifted into white and with a better statline. Recruiter is a widely played Commander card, appearing in over 200,000 decks, so on pure rate alone Mentor has serious potential.

The simple math here doesn’t fully account for how much better tutoring up two creatures is than one, however. With Mentor alone, you can grab both Devoted Druid Devoted Druid {T}: Add {G}.
Put a -1/-1 counter on this creature: Untap this creature. and Vizier of Remedies Vizier of Remedies If one or more -1/-1 counters would be put on a creature you control, that many -1/-1 counters minus one are put on it instead. , giving you immediate access to your infinite mana combo.

There are plenty of other lines like this too, including Hermit Druid Hermit Druid {G}, {T}: Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal a basic land card. Put that card into your hand and all other cards revealed this way into your graveyard. and Thassa’s Oracle Thassa’s Oracle When this creature enters, look at the top X cards of your library, where X is your devotion to blue. Put up to one of them on top of your library and the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order. If X is greater than or equal to the number of cards in your library, you win the game. (Each {U} in the mana costs of permanents you control counts toward your devotion to blue.) , and Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker Kiki-Jiki, Mirror-Breaker Haste
{T}: Create a token that's a copy of target nonlegendary creature you control, except it has haste. Sacrifice it at the beginning of the next end step. and Village Bellringer Village Bellringer Flash (You may cast this spell any time you could cast an instant.)
When this creature enters, untap all creatures you control. . Mentor can essentially serve as a one-card win condition in decks running lines like this, which should make it an immediate staple in Commander.

Over in Constructed, I think Mentor has serious potential as well, but as more of a value piece. In Standard Lifegain decks, it can tutor up most of the creatures in the deck, then stick around to trade later, which essentially makes it a three-for-one in most cases. Given how well Brightglass Gearhulk Brightglass Gearhulk First strike, trample
When this creature enters, you may search your library for up to two artifact, creature, and/or enchantment cards with mana value 1 or less, reveal them, put them into your hand, then shuffle. has done in the format, I have a lot of hope for this new, creature-focused version as well.

Goramou the Coral-Taken

While less flashy than some of the other big mythics we saw today, Goramou looks like a legend with real potential. This is essentially another Containment Construct Containment Construct Whenever you discard a card, you may exile that card from your graveyard. If you do, you may play that card this turn. for lands only, letting you bring back the lands you pitch later rather than have them go to waste.

What’s really exciting is that it doesn’t just let you play the lands you discard; it puts them into play directly with its ability. This lets you get around the usual ‘one land per turn’ restriction even if you only use it once. With multi-discard sources, like Wild Mongrel Wild Mongrel Discard a card: This creature gets +1/+1 and becomes the color of your choice until end of turn. , you can even put multiple extra lands into play each turn.

The struggle with Goramou, at least in my eyes, will be finding a deck to support it. There just aren’t really any Gruul self-discard decks out there in Commander, which means this Shark is swimming in uncharted territory.

It could certainly strike out on its own, mind you, given the plethora of great discard support available in red. From Faithless Looting Faithless Looting Draw two cards, then discard two cards.
Flashback {2}{R} (You may cast this card from your graveyard for its flashback cost. Then exile it.) to Cool but Rude Cool but Rude (Gain the next level as a sorcery to add its ability.)
Whenever you attack, you may discard a card. If you do, draw a card.
{1}{R}: Level 2
Whenever you discard a card, this Class deals 2 damage to each opponent.
{1}{R}: Level 3
When this Class becomes level 3, search your library for a card, put it into your hand, shuffle, then discard a card at random. , a Goramou-led Commander deck seems like a very real possibility.

Shimmering Citadel MTG

Sadly, not everything from every batch of spoilers is exciting, and Shimmering Citadel is the sole dud from the Nauctis First Look. This is a new dual land and part of a cycle, according to Mark Rosewater, and it unfortunately doesn’t look great in any format.

With so many great untapped dual options available nowadays, an enters-tapped land needs to do something really special to be worth running. Some, like the Surveil lands, cross that threshold, but the majority don’t, and I think this new cycle will probably fall into that category as well.

In exchange for entering tapped, you get the option to use a very clunky Exhaust ability later. While drawing two cards is always good, the rate here is awful, feeling comparable to the much-maligned Final Fantasy Adventure lands. This might be even worse than those, actually, since you need to play out your tapped land and wait before you get access to your mediocre ‘spell’.

If this ability were repeatable, we might have something here for Control decks, but as it stands, this feels awful even in Commander. The other members of this cycle could redeem it if their abilities are considerably more efficient, but even then it’s hard to get excited about enters-tapped lands in 2026.

Sunken Treasures Crucible of Worlds Reprint

Rounding out today’s Nauctis First Look spoilers, we got a lone reprint: Crucible of Worlds Crucible of Worlds You may play lands from your graveyard. , seen here as part of the set’s ‘Sunken Treasures’ range. This is essentially the Nauctis equivalent of Box Toppers, with every booster box and Collector Booster box including one card from 20 possible options.

According to Mark Rosewater, 15 of these cards will be reprints, while five will be new designs, presumably from the main set, but perhaps not. As with The Hobbit’s Box Toppers earlier this year, the Sunken Treasures will also be available as regular pulls in Nauctis Collector Boosters, but with exclusive alternate art and foiling.

Crucible is a great card to kick off this collection with, being a solid $26 reprint on the low end. While there are plenty of alternatives for the ‘play lands from your graveyard’ effect nowadays, they’re all in green. So, Crucible fills a crucial role in Commander for non-green lists that want to leverage that effect.

Crucible of Worlds sees a good amount of Constructed play, too, showing up in decks like Modern Tron and even Vintage Workshops. This is a reprint with a lot of play value as well as financial value, and it looks absolutely fantastic in both of its new art treatments.

Between the new cards and the introduction of Sunken Treasures, Nauctis is already looking like a stellar MTG set. While we still have a few months to wait before previews begin in full, today’s First Look has been more than enough to whet your whistle.

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