Limited Guide: Lorwyn Eclipsed - Draft, Sealed, Prerelease

Hey everyone, how's it going?

2025 is in the books, and I hope you all had an excellent end of the year and got plenty of rest, because it's time to take the dust off our decks and start preparing for another set: the long-awaited return to Lorwyn.

In this article we will discuss the Limited of Lorwyn Eclipsed, talking about the mechanics, archetypes, mana fixing, and removal spells for Draft, Sealed, and Prerelease.

Mechanics

In this return to Lorwyn, we will have 4 main mechanics in the set: Kindred, Changeling, Blight, and Vivid.

We have an excellent article written by Judge Antonio Carlos, explaining how each of them works; [link]{}https://mtg.cardsrealm.com/en-us/articles/lorwyn-eclipsed-mechanics-explained{click here} and check it out!

Kindred

Here are some examples! Remember that cards that allow you to search for a specific type, such as goblins, for example, can be used to search for a card as long as there is no specification of the card type.

Changeling

In Limited, Changeling are an excellent option to fill gaps in deck building and maintain creature types within the intended archetype.

Blight

A mechanic that involves placing -1/-1 counters on your creatures based on the Blight level. This can be useful for activating sacrifice mechanics or utilizing creatures that are no longer as effective to enhance your spells.

Vivid

Vivid is an ability that cares about the colors of the permanents we control. In other words, cards with hybrid mana costs are extremely effective for this ability, since we can consider only one color when building our deck and count all the colors that are part of the card.

Now that we've covered the mechanics, let's explore the archetypes!

In Lorwyn, we'll have 5 archetypes related to the creature types of the color pairs.

Azorius Merfolk

In blue and white, we'll have an archetype focused on Merfolk creatures.

Our strategy will be to use the Merfolk's abilities to gain advantages over our opponent, whether by preventing a creature from blocking, reducing its power, or simply through raw card advantage.

Here we'll look for Deepchannel Duelist, which will be an important piece for our strategy, increasing the power of our other creatures.

Note that there are abilities triggered when we tap our Merfolk, such as Wanderwine Distracter, Silvergill Peddler, or Meanders Guide, which can be combined with spells with convoke, Protective Response, Omni-Changeling, or Unexpected Assistance.

Deepway Navigator is another interesting piece to enhance the damage of our creatures. Sygg’s Command allows you to choose two effects on one card with the versatility of four options; if it's in your colors, there's no reason not to use it.

Merrow Skyswimmer is interesting for moments when we can speed up our board, helping to flood the battlefield. Eclipsed Merrow allows you to dig for necessary lands or find more fuel to continue the game.

Adept Watershaper helps you pressure the opponent, but it's important to have access to protections to make attacks truly safe.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Selesnya Kithkin

In green and white, we have an archetype focused on the Kithkin creature type, and on increasing the number of creatures on the board.

Cards like Clachan Festival and Brigid, Clachan’s Heart are important because they create more than one body.

Champion of the Clachan is excellent for strengthening our board as a whole, enhancing this strategy of overpopulating the battlefield.

Another very interesting card for this type of strategy is Kinbinding, which, in addition to being a continuous source of creatures of the type we want, also increases the power of our board, doing everything we need.

Some interesting cards are Crossroads Watcher, with its interesting damage potential in an archetype where we play many creatures; Chomping Changeling, which allows us to remove artifacts or enchantments; and Eclipsed Kithkin, which allows us to find land or gas for our strategy.

Brigid's Command: all the abilities of this command are very relevant to the archetype, offering the possibility of using it as a combat trick or removal. Thoughtweft Lieutenant is a way to get past blockers, increasing the power of our creatures.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Izzet Elementals

In blue and red, we'll have an archetype focused on elemental creatures and their abilities.

Twinflame Travelers is a card that helps us enhance the strategy.

Within the archetype, there's a synergy with 4+-cost spells. Tanufel Rimespeaker is one of the best options, granting card advantage.

Flamebraider helps us ramp, increasing our mana availability for our creatures.

Champion of the Path provides an interesting playstyle by dealing direct damage to the opponent with the creatures we summon, especially if Twinflame Travelers is on the board.

Sunderflock is a considerable body with evasion, and significantly delays the opponent's game, if they are not playing elementals, by returning non-elemental creatures to their hand and opening a path to close out games.

Collective Inferno is a bomb that allows for a very aggressive playstyle, in addition to triggering abilities that care about mana costs greater than 4.

Flame-Chain Mauler is a more aggressive option alongside Soulbright Seeker, putting pressure on the opponent's life points very early. Spinerock Tyrant is a good creature in a vacuum; if you opened it and are playing red, even outside of the creature type, there's no reason not to use it.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Rakdos Goblins

In black and red, we have an archetype focused on Goblin-type creatures using the sacrifice archetype.

Boggart Cursecrafter and Boggart Mischief are important for applying pressure by killing creatures, making attacks interesting.

Bile-Vial Boggart is very effective in our plan, able to trade with larger creatures or remove blockers that are hindering us through sacrifice mechanics.

Elder Auntie are 2 bodies, increasing the number of creatures available.

Unlike what happens in game plans with sacrifice, in this collection we will use the Blight mechanic to sacrifice or kill our creatures.

Bogslither’s Embrace is an excellent removal option, accelerating our strategy and resolving the opponent's creature. Sting-Slinger is a direct damage option for the opponent.

Chaos Spewer, Heirloom Auntie and Gutsplitter Gang are options for a more aggressive game plan, focusing on punishing the opponent's life points to end the sacrifice pressure.

Bloodline Bidding is an excellent late-game option, when many of the resources are already in the graveyard and we manage to bring back all our creatures of the same type.

Auntie’s Sentence is very good in the early game, attacking the opponent's hand and gathering information or as removal for moments when the opponent has no more resources in hand.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Golgari Elves

In green and black, we have an archetype that cares about elf creatures and graveyard synergies.

Here, one of our key pieces is Morcant's Loyalist, which empowers our creatures and allows us to bring another elf from the graveyard upon death.

High Perfect Morcant is absurdly strong, forcing the opponent to downgrade their creatures, and then can use their own elves to increase the -1/-1 counters.

Scarblade Scout feeds our graveyard while also being a creature with lifelink. It combines well with Dawnhand Dissident, providing creatures to be exiled and used later. Dawnhand Dissident also works very well with the Blight mechanics, allowing us to remove negative counters to cast from exile.

Gloom Ripper is another card that works well for our archetype, boosting our field and removing an opponent's creature, depending on the number of elves on the battlefield and in the graveyard.

Moonglove Extractor can be interesting if we can use significant removal to generate card advantage.

Champions of the Perfect is the best card we could want: significant potential, provides card advantage, and has a low mana cost.

Moon-Vigil Adherents is an excellent late-game option, being very efficient with a full graveyard.

Morcant's Eyes is another card with excellent potential, controlling the top of the deck early in the game and creating a significant board in the late game.

Lys Alana Dignitary allows us to accelerate our mana availability if we have any elf cards in the graveyard.

Best Commons

Best Uncommons

Now that we've gone through all the archetypes, let's talk about the ways we can fix our mana colors.

Lands

In the set we have 5 allied-color shocklands, and after that the most accessible source of fix is Evolving Wilds and Eclipsed Realms for creature types... Making it quite complex to work with more than two colors in Limited.

We also have the land aura Shimmerwilds Growth, which allows us to choose a color for it to produce in addition.

Artifacts / Colorless

Among the artifacts, we have good options like Springleaf Drum and Firdoch Core, the latter allowing us to use it as a creature in later turns.

As a mana filter, we have Foraging Wickermaw, which isn't the most effective, but it does its job.

Creatures

We have some creatures that allow us to fix mana, and even nongreen sources, such as Flamebraider, which corrects color for elementals.

Another options in red are Flamekin Gildweaver and Noggle Robber.

In green we have Great Forest Druid generating mana of any color.

Removals are a very important aspect of Limited, and now we will discuss the main ones for each color.

We will highlight in text only the most unusual ones, but we will make sure to include all available removals in each color at the start of each section.

White

Ajani, Outland Chaperone is a planeswalker whose abilities include classic white removal. It kills 79.7% of the creatures in the set.

Curious Colossus, while not a removal spell, because it removes abilities and reconfigures the opponent's creatures, I took the liberty of considering it. It's a creature that changes the game's balance.

Pyrrhic Strike deals with 67.3% of the creatures in the set, in addition to the versatility of dealing with artifacts or enchantments.

Winnowing seems more efficient in Constructed than in Limited in a set where archetypes are focused on creature types. But if the opponent has a creature type that is isolated from the others, it can be extremely decisive.

Blue

For blue, I will not consider counterspells as removal.

Blossombind introduces a significant change in that it cannot receive counters, which prevents a use of Blight on the trapped creature.

Black

Auntie’s Sentence is useful at any stage of the game, whether protecting a creature from removal, attacking the opponent's hand, or removing a problematic creature in the late stages. It deals with 39.9% of the set.

Requiting Hex dals with 32.7% of the creatures in the set, so it has some value.

Darkness Descends has an interesting factor: counters. This allows you to prepare the ground for it and improve the board before bringing creatures into play.

Blight Rot, because of its counters, can be used as a combat trick, and is quite interesting for its mana cost.

Red

Cinder Strike is the main removal spell with Blight, and a very effective one, dealing with 79.7% of creatures.

Feed the Flames is another interesting removal spell, taking out 91% of the creatures in the set, making it the most effective removal spell in red.

Green

In green, we have the standard removal spells, most notably Unforgiving Aim which, although it's an artifact/enchantment removal spell, can create an elf, making it a possible main deck option.

Which archetype seems most appealing to you?

I'll say that Selesnya Kithkin seems promising, but the Golgari Elves' mechanics is also very well-designed and thought out.

I hope you enjoyed the article. Feel free to ask any questions in the comments!

See you in the next article! Until then.