Hello and welcome back. Prerelease for Lorwyn Eclipsed has come and gone, and Release Weekend is upon us. Many players already have some cards to add to their commander decks or make some new ones led by one of the legends from the set, but today is another top ten non-creature-non-legendary picks for your commander decks to keep an eye out for during your fun at the LGS or other local play.
HONORABLE MENTION
Despite the set having some great typal/kindred cards, I won’t be selecting any for the main list because they do work best in the kindred decks and not across a broader swathe of strategies per se. That said, if you have a typal deck, you definitely want to pick some of these up.
CHRONICLE OF VICTORY
This card does cost 6 mana, but it’s designed in a way to give an instant benefit and later card advantage. It won’t go in faster typal decks necessarily, but the ability to give you kindred creatures some finishing power and giving you a path to end the game otherwise isn’t to be overlooked.
As a colorless artifact it can go in any typal/kindred deck, lending to its usefulness across the board.
THE TEN
MIRRORMIND CROWN
I’m a big fan of Esix, Fractal Bloom in my Xyris deck and this artifact does kind of the same thing with the exception of needing to be equipped. It’s a powerful ability in a deck with a good creature to equip to and a bunch of tokens. As an example, I’ve managed to make 30 Balor with Esix, and this being colorless has even better potential.
That said, the cast and then equip is something of an extra hoop, but this also means the creature you want to get copies of is also a bit more selectable. Faster decks that like tokens like Anim Pakal might not want this, but something a bit slower might to get a greater effect and board presence via enters and static abilities.
MIRRORFORM
Yet more mirrors, but this one is Blue instead of colorless. This card is arguably better than the crown by a lot, and at instant speed you can make your stuff a lot of the best stuff on board. This is a very powerful effect, especially to close a game to turn it on its head. Similar to Clone Legion in that way, it can protect you against dragons and angels as much as close a game by copying your own.
You can also use this as a trick to save your board from removal, making all your creatures into artifacts or lands.
The drawback here is that legendary cards are kind of a nobo with it. However, there are ways to abuse it there as well. Legends that like dying to trigger effects or benefit from other things dying could abuse this card. Immediately Hidetsugu and Kairi come to mind.
ADEPT WATERSHAPER
A 3/4 for two and White with one ability. Magic has come a long way. Joke aside, this card will be super useful in a deck that wants to swing and do it semi-often. Isshin immediately comes to mind, but it will also protect decks that make tapped creatures like Anim Pakal or cards that have Myriad to decks that can block or tap stuff in response to cast spells or pay costs like Convoke or Conspire. It’s a simple ability with a wide application.
SOUL IMMOLATION
The mileage will vary with this one, but having access to a potential one-sided board wipe and burn to opponents’ faces is always something that should considered for the extra reach in a game if the board gets too muddied up.
To pay the additional cost, you do want to have a decently high toughness on board. When you pay that blight cost though, you can put the counters on another creature, not specifically the one with the highest toughness. This lets you keep your probably biggest creature by blighting your smallest.
This will probably be seen in many Red and Green decks, but perhaps in others as well.
GLEN ELENDRA GUARDIAN
A decent body on a flyer at instant speed. Easy card to block with or get in some damage on your next turn, which can change a little bit of the math in a game.
Oh, it also has the ability to remove the -1/-1 counter to counter a non-creature spell. A little weaker against Green decks (countering the Heroic Intervention will feel good), but a good rattlesnake effect to keep some players off casting those kinds of spells for a moment. The counter removal limits you to one use of the ability unless you can restock some kind of counters onto the faerie which isn’t impossible. You could potential hold a table hostage for a while if you can.
MORNINGTIDE’S LIGHT
An unfortunate sorcery, but it has political potential added to the normal potential of abusing leaves and enters effects. It also helps protect you from damage while the creature you control that you target returns to the battlefield tapped.
This isn’t a totally straight forward card. Potentially you can reuse some enters triggers for yourself and protect yourself from damage for a turn. Being a sorcery is very unfortunate, but there had to be a drawback somewhere.
That’s because of the blowout and political potential this card has. While it is a sorcery, being able to get some other enter effects that can benefit you that you DON’T control can also be good, not to mention you don’t have to exile any of your own creatures. You could remove a bunch of blockers for a turn, potentially for a number of players’ combats, and get in damage. It also negates a number of counter dependant strategies and weakens them if they’re creature based and annihilates tokens. This all while you have some protection from damage.
This is specific protection. Life draining effects still hurt you, so be careful against those.
WISTFULNESS
Of the incarnation cycle we got, this one is probably the most relevant to Commander. It comes with removal and some card draw stapled on, and you can copy the enters ability to get some extra value.
It’s not as abuseable as the old Evoke elementals, but recurring it to hand later to cast it again still gives some extra value later in the game. It being a creature also makes it abuseable beyond that, especially when sacrificing or having creatures in graveyards matter. I see this often going into Simic and Sultai decks across many metas. The only thing really stopping its inclusion in those decks is the double pip required to get the mileage from it you need.
TWILIGHT DIVINER
Doubling is something we’ve seen a lot of over the years, seemingly getting one effect for something every other set at a minimum. This card might be the one we get this go, and it’s no slouch at the job. This time the effect focuses on recurring creatures and giving you and extra one when you get one or more. You only get one copy from among any recurred creatures, so doing a single recursion per turn might be a little better mileage than a mass reanimation spell in the early game.
The creature also gives some surveil to help get some targets into the graveyard which is fine but likely you have a stocked yard or can stock by the time the token copy matters. All in all a great include to drop later with a reanimation spell later in the game.
UNBURY
Recursion to hand isn’t as good as recursion to the battlefield, but when it’s instant speed sometimes we will consider it. At only two mana, it’s a decent bargain to have to recast a creature and works specifically well with the incarnation cycle from the set and card like Bringer of the Last Gift. As an added bonus, you can get two cards back if they share a creature type, increasing the advantage for typal decks.
NOGGLE THE MIND
Magic cards do a LOT these days. Sometimes you just need a little quiet to noggle about. I’m a big fan of these shut off effects, specifically against an opponent’s commander that is the key to a deck doing something. If you’ve ever had Song of the Dryad happen to yours, you know how debilitating it is to not have access to those abilities you probably built your deck around.
Flash gives the enchantment a lot of flexibility, specifically in stopping a loop of triggers from going off on your opponent’s turn or on yours.
AT THE BOUNDRY
That’s the picks for this set. There are still some other cards to consider as well, depending on your specific strategies in your own decks. Goblins got a lot of love from this set, and some of the changelings might add benefits to general typal decks.
Elementals also got a lot of good cards, including their own doubler in Twinflame Travelers, but since it was typal specific I didn’t put it on the list. If you have a typal deck of one of the types in this set, definitely don’t forget to check out the set in its entirety!
Until next time, find the light in the dark.
