Pioneer: 5 Typal Decks with Lorwyn Eclipsed

Lorwyn Eclipsed is arriving. The new expansion returns players to one of Magic: The Gathering's most iconic planes, commonly remembered for its creature type synergies and the release of timeless staples like Ponder and Thoughtseize—but let's not be mistaken: creature type synergies remain Lorwyn's main hallmark and contribution to the game, and the new set doesn't disappoint.

In this article, we look for the main new additions from Lorwyn Eclipsed for the creature types with the most support in Pioneer, presenting five decklists based on typal strategies!

Elves

Elves have some historical support in Pioneer but have never posted results in the format. Lorwyn Eclipsed's biggest novelty is World Champion Jean-Emmanuel Depraz's card, Formidable Speaker, which lets you trim some creatures and work with redundancy to find Craterhoof Behemoth or Tyvar, the Pummeler to close out the game.

The strategy above still involves the classic Elfball: putting many creatures into play, generating absurd amounts of mana with Elvish Archdruid, and using that mana to cast Collected Company, increase your creatures' power with Elvish Warmaster and Tyvar, the Pummeler, or go for a lethal attack with Craterhoof Behemoth.

Goblins

Goblins in Lorwyn Eclipsed are notably focused on the Sacrifice mechanic, so we aim to leverage the payoffs of this theme in the expansion to create a Pioneer version of the deck focused on interactions and benefits when creatures die.

Skirk Prospector is our enabler that gets the wheels turning: the ideal setup involves having it alongside Rundvelt Hordemaster and Boggart Cursecrafter or Boggart Mischief to "recycle" your creatures with sacrifice effects, ensuring even resource trades with Goblin Instigator or with most of our creatures when Goblin Warchief is in play.

Merfolks

Deeproot Pilgrimage and Kumena, Tyrant of Orazca were the biggest beneficiaries of Lorwyn Eclipsed's additions, which granted the archetype a splash for Deepchannel Duelist and Deepway Navigator—two cards that tap creatures and thus allow extending the combo between these two cards and also with Smuggler's Copter to create more tokens.

Duelist also complements Vodalian Hexcatcher in providing a consistent go wide plan with our tokens, since it gives +1/+1 to Merfolk, and the new Silvergill Mentor provides two bodies with one card, helping to activate Kumena's abilities more easily.

Faeries

Faeries didn't receive as much support, but they gained some of the best creatures from Lorwyn Eclipsed, which interact well with the established Dimir base while enabling broader use of Spell Stutter as a relevant Counterspell.

Bitterbloom Bearer and Flitterwing Nuisance fit perfectly into the Tempo line that Kaito, Bane of Nightmares rewards, and we still have its interaction with Faerie Miscreant to generate card advantage, even finding slots to blend Faeries and Ninjas in the same way players do in Pauper with more consistency, despite the absence of Spellstutter Sprite.

Elementals

While Faeries focus on Tempo, Elementals can be approached with a list entirely based on value using the new cycle of Evokers with Wistfulness and Vibrance combined with the new trigger doubler Twinflame Travelers and the two-mana ramp of Flamebraider.

Among the classic bombs, we have Omnath, Locus of Creation and Beza, the Bounding Spring to hold the game while Cavalier of Thorns offers both Ramp and extra resources, plus being another five-mana Elemental that lets you cast Sunderflock for to clear the opponent's board—a trigger we can even copy with the new Ashling's Command.

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!