With preview season for Lorwyn Eclipsed not officially due to start for another two weeks, the holidays are looking like a bit of a lull in terms of Magic content. It turns out, however, that we won’t be totally without new goodies to enjoy until then. Today, in an unexpected twist, we received leaks of the two Face Commanders from the Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precons.
While we already knew the themes of these Commanders thanks to the early reveal of the precon packaging, we didn’t know how good they’d be. Both of these legends look fantastic, with the potential to push their respective archetypes to new heights. Before we get into it, however, it’s worth noting that, as with all leaks, these could be fake. This is pretty unlikely given how recent leaks have panned out, but it is worth mentioning regardless.
Ashling, The Limitless
Ashling’s expected five-color incarnation is an intriguing one to be sure, granting Evoke to all of your Elementals at a base level. Four mana isn’t exactly cheap, but when you’re cheating out big swingers like Maelstrom Wanderer and Rumbleweed, it’ll feel absolutely fine.
This is also the perfect cost to get the most out of the new Lorwyn Eclipsed mythic Elementals, like Emptiness, without shelling out six mana for them. Notably, this also works with Elemental Kindred spells, so you can get discounts on Ashling’s Command and Consuming Bonfire.
With the second ability, each time you sacrifice an Elemental, like with Evoke, you get to bring it back as a token for one turn only. Unless you’re deep in the late game, that WUBRG cost is really never going to get paid, so it’s best just to think of this as a one-and-done bonus.
That said, entire strategies in older formats have been built around the idea of “scamming” opponents by resurrecting Evoke Elementals, and this lets you do that with every creature in your deck. It’s worth noting that it works with non-Evoke sacrifices, too, which enables a strange kind of Elemental Aristocrats brew. Feeding your Elementals into a Phyrexian Altar is a great way to get more value, while also generating mana to potentially keep them around.
The flexibility on this new Ashling is really what makes it special. You can use its abilities to fuel a huge chain of enters and dies triggers, or you can leverage the Haste on the tokens to power beefy early Elemental swings. Either way, this is almost certainly the best new Elemental Commander in the game going forward.
Auntie Ool, Cursewretch
Today’s Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander leaks also featured something many players have been asking for for a while: a dedicated -1/-1 counter Commander in Jund. Auntie Ool fills that role admirably, offering a surprisingly nuanced take on the concept.
Like The Scorpion God before it, Auntie Ool rewards you for putting -1/-1 counters anywhere. You’ll get some free damage if you put them on opposing creatures, and extra card draw if you put them on your own. Obviously, the latter is much more attractive, so you’ll want to build around it as much as you can. Persist creatures immediately spring to mind as a great route to pursue here, as well as big creatures that debuff themselves on entry, like Plague Belcher.
The extra damage for weakening opponents’ creatures is nice, but not hugely noteworthy. That pesky “one or more” clause strikes again here, meaning you’ll only ever get a single point at a time. This, unfortunately, makes the Ward ability here trivial to deal with. Outside of infinite combos, which this card almost certainly enables somewhere, it’s probably best to see this as a minor upside rather than a real draw for the card.
With that in mind, Auntie Ool will likely do its best work in a kind of Aristocrats-adjacent self-sacrifice brew. Using disposable creatures like Putrid Goblin, and -1/-1 counter placers like Harbinger of Night, you can power a constant draw engine. From there, you can close out the game in any number of classic Jund ways.
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