We’re into day two of Lorwyn Eclipsed preview season now, which, incredibly, means we’re about halfway through due to the experimental short length. While this unfortunately means we’ll be done with spoilers very soon, it also means that the hype train is going full steam ahead at present. On top of some interesting new main set offerings, today also saw the reveal of both Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precons. This includes the much-anticipated Blight Curse.
Players have been hoping and praying for a Jund -1/-1 counter Commander deck for years, and this precon delivers in a big way. Not only is it packed with incredible new support for the archetype, but it also reprints the vast majority of its past cards, too.
The Reaper, King No More
We saw Auntie Ool, Cursewretch, the face Commander of Blight Curse, a while back, thanks to some Lorwyn Eclipsed leaks. The deck’s backup Commander is just as interesting, offering a cool new legend that could even see play in the higher brackets.
Assuming you can cast it consistently for just three or four mana, The Reaper, King no More is a pretty insane card. Placing a -1/-1 counter on two creatures is enough to take out a ton of widely-played staples, including Birds of Paradise to Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer. The fact that you can steal one of the creatures you kill, however, really pushes this into ridiculous territory.
In lower-bracket games, this should consistently be able to steal a mana dork while marking another creature for later shenanigans. In the upper brackets, you’ll get to swipe the likes of Esper Sentinel and Orcish Bowmasters for huge value. This isn’t even considering the potential to steal more creatures over time with -1/-1 synergies, either. I expect this to become a staple in high-powered Jund decks, with or without a wider -1/-1 counter theme.
Eventide’s Shadow
Eventide’s Shadow is by far the most exciting card in the main deck of Blight Curse. Even discounting the card draw here, getting to potentially wipe every single counter off the board with one card is huge.
Naturally, this is great with Blight Curse’s -1/-1 counters, but it’s also a great way to deal with decks built around +1/+1 counters, too. Since it lets you hit all permanents, you can even wipe out every planeswalker on the board if you so wish. Notably, the effect doesn’t even target, so removing counters from creatures with Hexproof and Ward is also on the table.
Once you factor in the card draw, which can easily reach double digits, we start getting into scary territory. Heck, just following up a Dark Depths with this should put you in a winning position in both hand and board. While it’s probably not consistent enough outside of counter-based decks, Eventide’s Shadow will be an auto-include in such decks forever.
Aberrant Return
Sadly, not every card in the Lorwyn Eclipsed Blight Curse precon is a banger. Aberrant Return, while interesting, feels a bit too overcosted for today’s Commander.
Six mana to reanimate three creatures, even with access to your opponents’ graveyards, isn’t too impressive. On top of that, those creatures come in weaker than usual, too, thanks to the -1/-1 counters. Even in a deck like Blight Curse, you won’t always have a way to take advantage of that, so it’ll be a downside a good chunk of the time.
While the ceiling on Aberrant Return is, admittedly, quite high if you can hit multiple big creatures in the late game, the existence of more efficient options like Reanimate and Animate Dead pretty much rules it out of serious play. This is an easy cut for those looking to upgrade Blight Curse in the weeks to come.
Grave Venerations
In a bit of a curveball twist, Blight Curse brings back Magic’s beloved Monarch mechanic for one card only. Grave Venerations feels more like an Aristocrats piece than a -1/-1 counter one, but it still packs enough generic value to more than earn its slot.
Since Grave Venerations makes you the Monarch on entry, you’re guaranteed at least one draw out of this. Factor in the creature recursion, and it’s a two-for-one right away. If you can reliably keep the Monarch for yourself, Grave Venerations will easily earn its keep.
These abilities are universally useful, but they’re not all that Grave Venerations has to offer. The card also serves as a resilient Zulaport Cutthroat effect, making it ideal for Aristocrat strategies. If you run Auntie Ool at the helm, Blight Curse can dabble in this style a fair bit. For the most part, however, this will really shine when transplanted into decks like Teysa Karlov or Slimefoot and Squee.
Oft-Nabbed Goat
Oft-Nabbed Goat is the platonic ideal of a fun Commander design. As soon as it hits play, it creates a kind of mini-game, where players have to balance drawing cards for cheap with getting Goat to five counters and giving you a huge burst of draw. Since it specifies “owner” and not “controller,” you’ll always get the five cards if this dies with five -1/-1 counters on it, no matter where it ends up.
Under normal circumstances, this is a pretty slow process. Each of your opponents can only nab Goat once on their turn, so even if they all go in for a card, you’ll be waiting a full turn cycle. With cards that place extra -1/-1 counters, however, things get much more interesting. Suddenly, it only takes a couple of greedy opponents for this to become a two-mana draw five, with a nice bit of extra burn tacked on as well.
The card has its weaknesses, of course, since opponents can remove it or sacrifice it early to deny you the full draw. This means that Oft-Nabbed Goat probably won’t see play outside of -1/-1 counter decks that can offset this weakness naturally.
Sinister Gnarlbark
Sinister Gnarlbark is the latest in a long line of cards that iterate upon the classic Phyrexian Arena. At an absolute base level, this will draw you an extra card each turn for four turns, assuming you always target it with Blight. Assuming you’re playing other creatures, however, it can easily go on longer than that.
By itself, this is solid, if unremarkable. Sinister Snarlback being more vulnerable to removal is a big knock against it compared to other traditional black draw effects. This means that the Treefolk gets its edge when you have ways to abuse the counters it makes. Blight Curse is full of these, of course, but you can also use it quite well in Aristocrats as a pseudo-sacrifice outlet. Throw a 1/1 token out each turn, and you can nab triggers on cards like Blood Artist and Morbid Opportunist on top of the card draw.
If you’re playing Aristocrats, or running Auntie Ool as your Blight Curse Commander, Sinister Gnarlbark can easily be an MVP. Outside of those scenarios, however, it feels fairly underwhelming. With more generic options like Unholy Annex available in MTG, this card is one you’ll really only want in specific decks.
Village Pillagers
Much like Eventide’s Shadow, Village Pillagers is a five-drop that really justifies its cost. Thanks to Wither, the Goblin’s enters trigger puts a -1/-1 counter on every opposing creature, which is a huge blow. This is obviously great against go-wide token decks, but even just softening up bigger creatures is good too.
By itself, this makes Village Pillagers a nice board-clearing option, but there’s even more text on this thing. Getting a Treasure each time an opposing creature with counters dies is massive, even if it enters tapped. It’s important to note that this ability cares about all counters too, not just -1/-1 counters. This means you’ll get extra rewards when creatures with +1/+1 counters or keyword counters die as well.
As a one-time board wipe and ongoing mana machine, Village Pillagers is very solid. It also makes a prime target for copy effects, since it’s not legendary. With two of these out, the riches you rake in will be prodigious. The fact that the Treasures enter tapped is a nice balancing check, too, ensuring that this card is a powerful option but not another infinite combo machine.
Ferrafor, Young Yew
Every Commander precon has its duds, and unfortunately for Ferrafor, it’s probably the biggest one in Blight Curse. Seven mana is a huge hurdle in current Commander, where curves are getting lower and lower by the year. A creature this expensive really needs to do something big to succeed, and Ferrafor just doesn’t.
While the Saproling generation here can be massive, you’ll rarely get more than a handful. It actually feels like a bit of a non-bo with the -1/-1 counter theme of the deck, since creatures will just die if they build up a lot of them. It’s a decent counter to +1/+1 counter decks, but at seven mana, it’s far too conditional to be worth running generally.
The activated ability here is also very underwhelming. Assuming you can keep Ferrafor alive long enough to use it, the card is unlikely to do much for you unless you’re stacking up +1/+1 counters yourself. Tapping to double the -1/-1 counters on a creature and kill it can be fine, but that kind of payoff for seven mana isn’t good enough. Nice as it is to see Saprolings in Magic again, this seems like a card you’ll want to cut as soon as possible.
Puca’s Covenant
Puca’s Covenant is a bit of a bizarre card, but once you wrap your head around it, the potential is huge. Provided you’re capable of killing your own creatures regularly via Blight, Puca’s Covenant becomes a repeatable Nature’s Spiral for your low-cost permanents.
The applications here go beyond that, mind you. Puca’s Covenant also serves as an excellent protection piece for +1/+1 counter decks, for example. If your opponent removes your built-up creatures with this out, you’ll just get to grab a replacement from your ‘yard, making it very difficult to lose a grindy game.
That said, Puca’s Covenant is very specific. It only works if you’re heavily invested in counters, and even then, it has that pesky once per turn clause. As a card advantage engine, it’s tricky to recommend compared to its peers, but it is undeniably interesting.
Dread Tiller
Dread Tiller isn’t quite Icetill Explorer, but it’s very much playing in the same ballpark. Whenever any creature with a -1/-1 counter on it dies, be it yours or your opponents, this lets you cheat in a land from your hand or graveyard. The latter part is by far the most interesting, since Golgari has no shortage of self-mill decks that end up with a ton of lands in their graveyards. If you’re dishing out -1/-1 counters, Tiller gives you easy access to said lands, with no limit as to how many can come in per turn.
Paired with something like Village Pillagers or Archfiend of Ifnir, this can easily provide a huge burst of ramp out of nowhere. Dread Tiller even adds a counter itself, meaning you can probably get at least one extra land drop out of it. While this can certainly be potent, it’s hard to deny that the card feels a bit out of place in Blight Curse. You can easily fulfill the trigger condition, sure, but the deck doesn’t have much in the way of land searching or self-mill to really make it work. The combination of self-mill and
As a result, I expect Dread Tiller to do more work outside its precon home. That said, finding a deck that combines both a self-mill and a -1/-1 counter theme might be extremely difficult. This is a powerful card in the right place, but whether or not that place exists is a different question altogether.
Wickersmith’s Tools
As a three-mana mana rock, Wickersmith’s Tools is off to a rough start right out of the gate. Most decks stick to one and two-mana options for ramp these days. This means that three-mana rocks really need to do something special. Some, like Midnight Clock, do manage it, but Wickersmith’s Tools doesn’t feel remotely close to that classic.
The upside on this card is that it builds up counters as you place -1/-1 counters, then you can eventually cash it in for an army of 2/2s. Immediately, this brings to mind Crowded Crypt, albeit with better tokens and a much trickier counter condition. Even in Blight Curse, it’s not always going to be easy to build up charge counters here, which makes the token potential dubious at best.
The fact that you can cash it in at instant speed to avoid board wipes is nice, but overall I don’t think this effect is worth running a three-mana rock for. You’d be better off playing a more consistent token generator in this slot, or one of green’s many, many better ramp options instead.
New Main Set Cards
In addition to the Commander-only cards, Blight Curse also features a couple of fresh inclusions from the Lorwyn Eclipsed main set. While these aren’t quite as pushed as their peers, due to their Standard legality, they’re interesting additions nonetheless.
Burning Curiosity is particularly intriguing, offering an easy way to Impulse draw three cards for just three mana. You get two full turns to play them, too, which is plenty of time in aggressive decks. In Commander, this is a very solid one-off draw piece, with some nice synergy potential in Blight Curse specifically.
Lasting Tarfire is a much less exciting card. The incidental burn here is nice, but unless you’re able to trigger it on your opponent’s turns, it’s not going to add up quickly enough to matter. We haven’t seen many ways to Blight at instant speed yet, either, so this is pretty unlikely. In Standard, Lasting Tarfire’s condition is likely too tricky to hit regularly, but the damage can stack up in multiples. Perhaps an aggressive list featuring cards like the leaked Moonshadow could use it down the line.
Notable Reprints
Finally, we have to mention the many, many notable reprints in Blight Curse. For starters, pretty much every -1/-1 counter support card Magic has ever seen is in here. Necroskitter, Blowfly Infestation, The Scorpion God, Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons: the list goes on. Many of these cards saw big price spikes over the last few weeks in anticipation of this deck’s release. Flourishing Defenses, in particular, shot up to over $20. The influx of supply this deck will bring, however, should decimate those prices very quickly. Consider this a cautionary tale on the dangers of precon-related speculation.
Fortunately, there’s value here outside of the cards that saw recent buyouts. Chimil, the Inner Sun is sitting pretty at $17 right now, and Tree of Perdition is a solid $13 card. Outside of that, the hits are slim. Ignoble Hierarch and Devoted Druid sit at the $1.50 mark, but little else beyond that.
One interesting reprint to note is Fire Covenant, which is getting its first printing in the regular modern frame with this precon. Outside of its original Ice Age appearance, we’ve only seen the card in Secret Lair drops. This is great to see, as Fire Covenant is a wildly underrated Commander card that deserves a lot more love. I don’t expect it to carry much value from here on out, but I do expect to see a lot more players running it.
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