Timeless: The 10 Best Cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed

The Magic: The Gathering 2026 release season has begun! Lorwyn Eclipsed, the first of three in-universe expansions this year and the first of seven releases scheduled for 2026, returns players to a plane brimming with mystical creatures and fables, marking a homecoming to the iconic realm of Elves, Goblins, Faeries, Kithkin, and Elementals.

With previews wrapped up, our review season at Cards Realm begins, where we highlight the most significant new additions for Magic's major formats. In this article, we focus on Magic Arena's non-rotating format, Timeless.

10 - Dawnhand Dissident

Dawnhand Dissident has some sweet interactions with +1/+1 counters alongside graveyard hate and a practical reanimation effect. Currently, Golgari Yawgmoth is a minor player in Timeless, so this new one-drop doesn't seem to serve a great purpose in the format. It deserves a mention, however, and due to a lack of better options, it earns a spot among the expansion's top ten cards for Timeless.

9 - Glen Elendra Guardian

Like the cards above, Glen Elendra Guardian doesn't scream "Timeless" as its target format, nor other "close neighbors" like Modern or Legacy. However, the mix of Flash flexibility and the potential for a pseudo-Negate is also worthy of mention.

8 - Goblin Sharpshooter

Goblin Sharpshooter is known in Legacy and Premodern for its ability to repeatedly handle small creatures while having a relevant creature type for some archetypes.

As a cheap sweeper, Timeless currently seems to have far better options for dealing with Ocelot Pride or other cards that flood the board. Furthermore, Goblins as an archetype still lack sufficient support to have a real impact on the Metagame.

7 - Tam, Mindful First-Year

A two-mana Giver of Runes that's green and blue has applications and potential for non-rotating formats, especially for decks that could run Tam, Mindful First-Year alongside a Green Sun's Zenith package — though Timeless currently needs a bit more support to make such strategies competitively viable as a Tier deck.

6 - Requiting Hex

Fatal Push is one of the format's most-played removal spells, sometimes complemented by Bloodchief's Thirst to maintain mana efficiency.

Requiting Hex could enter the one-mana interaction suite of black decks when needed, particularly when instant speed and lifegain are more relevant than the flexibility of dealing with Planeswalkerrs, since Blight 1 is negligible with Psychic Frog and Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student in the format.

5 - Hexing Squelcher

It's unclear why every Magic set in the last two years brings something absurd for red, but Hexing Squelcher is this Lorwyn's entry. It's essentially a two-drop that punishes both stack interaction and spot removal, with an efficient body and the bonus of stacking if we have multiple copies in play.

For Timeless, Squelcher's primary function will likely be limited to the Sideboard or to future potential. By not limiting the type of spell the opponent can't counter and being in a relevant creature type, it could serve to protect combos from a potential future Force of Will, ensure key spells resolve in red-based Storm sequences against Force of Negation, or enable archetypes like Goblins if cards like Goblin Lackey ever arrive and allow the archetype to replicate its explosive Legacy potential.

4 - Formidable Speaker

Formidable Speaker has potential, but like Hexing Squelcher, it might need a few more pieces to truly work. The current Timeless Metagame lacks a relevant strategy that genuinely benefits from this type of effect, and we don't have access to cards like Gaea's Cradle to generate absurd amounts of mana while setting up with this new Elf.

As in Modern, we could use it to enable two-card setups with Samwise Gamgee and Cauldron Familiar or fuel Agatha's Soul Cauldron with Walking Ballista while assembling a Yawgmoth, Thran Physician combo piece. Even in these cases, it still seems like something is missing to give Speaker a home whose power level matches Timeless' card pool.

3 - Manamorphose

Free spells are always welcome. Manamorphose brings Timeless one step closer to potentially having decks like Ruby Storm in the future while being a necessary addition for existing Storm variants in the format running Dark Ritual, Underworld Breach, and some combination of Grapeshot or Tendrils of Agony.

The card is also a major addition for Prowess decks, including the Mono Red variant often mentioned as a good budget deck to start with in Timeless' Best-of-One ladder.

2 - Painter's Servant

Grindstone is already available in Timeless, and Painter's Servant enables an infinite mill combo with the artifact.

In Legacy, the deck is known for having Mono Blue and Mono Red variants, and it's easy to imagine the blue version migrating to Magic Arena's format, with other variants possibly emerging, as the combo isn't locked to specific colors as the primary reason for a Mono Red shell in Legacy — blue's dominance alongside maindeck Pyroblast and Red Elemental Blast enabled by Painter's ability — doesn't exist in Timeless.

Of all the new set's cards, Painter's Servant is the only one with the potential to establish a new and extremely competitive archetype. Fortunately, the format already has the necessary tools to handle this combo, even if it can protect itself somewhat easily in a shell with Thoughtseize and Force of Negation or a core with Orim's Chant and similar cards.

1 - Faerie Macabre

Faerie Macabre became a staple in Pauper and Legacy over the past year due to its versatility in dealing with graveyards without using the stack and at no mana cost.

Being an activated ability, the only cards that can answer it involve Stifle effects, which aren't very common in Timeless today. Meanwhile, strategies that use the graveyard for interaction — like Reanimate with Grief or Wary Zone Guard with Strip Mine — are abundant and/or very popular.

While it doesn't promote a new archetype and may not bring substantial immediate changes, Faerie Macabre is the best Lorwyn Eclipsed card for Timeless, as it answers a Metagame already heavily invested in graveyards while bypassing stack interaction and even a Chalice of the Void at 1, which would lock out Surgical Extraction.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!