For the first time in months, MTG players finally have the opportunity to return to in-universe MTG. Lorwyn Eclipsed prerelease is right around the corner, and with prizing on the line, it’s best to go into the event with a gameplan.
Thanks to Wizards of the Coast, I was invited to the MTG Arena Early Access Event, where I played some Drafts to help you win some extra prerelease packs. After trying out Lorwyn Eclipsed for myself, here are some tips and tricks to keep in mind when playing your games.
Pay Attention to Your Hybrid Colors
The MTG Vivid payoffs in Lorwyn Eclipsed Limited aren’t something you want to sleep on. Offering a scaling payoff based on the number of colors you control, Vivid is interested in playing as many colors as possible. Sadly, the fixing in Lorwyn Eclipsed leaves something to be desired, which means that playing five colors may be more difficult than normal.
Thankfully, off-colored Hybrid creatures, particularly Changelings like Prideful Feastling, can help maximize Vivid across different two-colored archetypes. Rime Chill, for example, which felt like a notable power outlier, can commonly come down for four mana alongside some Hybrid Changelings. Shimmercreep can similarly do a great Siege Rhino impression, creating a three-life swing attached to a relevant body.
Honestly, all of the Vivid payoffs in Lorwyn Eclipsed look exceptionally powerful, which should give a bit more value to the colors of permanents that you play.
Fliers are Everywhere
After my first few Drafts, it became particularly clear that Flying creatures are a big part of Lorwyn Eclipsed. It is heavily archetype dependent, with Merfolk and Faeries having more fliers than others, but many massive bombs, like Bitterbloom Bearer and Spinerock Tyrant, also have the keyword.
This not only makes Reach a bit more valuable than usual, but Flying-based removal spells might be maindeckable. Unforgiving Aim should perform decently well in your prerelease games, removing a creature at best and creating an instant speed blocker as a floor. The Typal themes in this set mean that you might be short on playables constantly, making Unforgiving Aim a card to keep in mind. Of course, if you have enough strong cards to play without maindecking Unforgiving Aim, playing it in the sideboard can also be optimal.
Bounce Effects Are Powerful
Many of the more powerful and generic payoffs in Lorwyn Eclipsed are ETB ones. Cards like Rime Recluse, Glamer Gifter, Sourbread Auntie and Dream Seizer are powerful regardless of what typal deck you’re in, offering generic value that’s easy to recur.
This means that cards like Run Away Together and Flock Impostor have lots of opportunities to two-for-one your opponent. You can save your own cards from removal, and recur their entry effect. Run Away Together and Dream Seizer can be particularly nasty, bouncing an opponent’s bomb and discarding it late in the game.
Some Power Outliers to Watch
For the most part, building your Lorwyn Eclipsed prerelease decks should be straightforward. Thanks to the heavy Typal themes in this set, there’s a lot of synergy-based value here, allowing some pools to build themselves. That said, there are a few cards that are just generically strong, regardless of the archetype that you’re in.
If you can manage to cast it, Reaping Willow is a beating. Offering a 3/6 Lifelinker that reanimates another creature, this Treefolk can take over the game quickly. As long as one of your core colors is black or white, this card is worth trying to play.
We’ve seen a few two-mana equipment creatures in Limited lately that have been better than they looked, and I suspect Stalacitite Dagger may end up playing a similar role. I don’t think you want to go out of your way to pick this card highly, but the 1/1 Changeling tends to get buffed up by Typal payoffs, and the equipment becomes surprisingly relevant in board stalls. This is all to say that Stalacitite Dagger can perform fine as a way to streamline your curve in Lorwyn Eclipsed prerelease, but ideally, you should only be running one or two of them.
I ended up playing a lot of blue during the Lorwyn Eclipsed Early Access Event, and there were a few cards that stuck out among what I tried. Besides Rime Recluse and Glamour Gifter, Voracious Tome-Skimmer and Tanufel Rimespeaker were also quite strong. Tome-Skimmer is self-explanatory, but the presence of Convoke allows Tanufel Rimespeaker to do a lot more work than it looks. All of these cards’ efficiency are bolstered by Unexpected Assistance, which can refill your hand while triggering tons of payoffs.
Sealed Will be Difficult
Thanks to Lorwyn Eclipsed being a Typal-focused Draft set, your decks are largely synergy dependant. This means that, for prerelease, there’s a decent chance that your decks won’t feel very powerful. Even if you have incredibly strong payoffs for one creature type, it doesn’t really matter if you don’t open a lot of the same type. This made Bloomburrow a particularly frustrating prerelease experience, and it feels like it will happen again in Lorwyn Eclipsed.
That said, one big difference between Lorwyn Eclipsed and Bloomburrow is the presence of Changelings. These cards are typically a bit below-rate on their own, but they could fill the missing gaps you need for stronger cards to shine in your Sealed decks. Unfortunately, the fixing in Lorwyn Eclipsed seems to be quite weak, suggesting that it will be difficult to merge different typal payoffs to maximize Changelings. This also makes playing all of your strong cards even more difficult than it already was.
I’m not expecting Lorwyn Eclipsed to be a very powerful Sealed format, with your results heavily depending on the synergies you open. This isn’t the most fun Magic in the world, so I’m hoping that I’m wrong.
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