The draft archetypes of Lorwyn Eclipsed

Merfolk have been a part of Magic: the Gathering since it began back in 1993. In Lorwyn Eclipsed, they care about tapping creatures down, and they don't particularly mind whether those creatures belong to you or your opponent.

Many merfolk, like Pestered Wellguard and Wanderbrine Preacher, reward you with beneficial effects for tapping them. Others, like Meanders Guide and Silvergill Mentor,
allow you to tap other creatures to enable their abilities. By using these cards together, you can get two sets of payoffs rolled into one.

Remember to include lots of cards with the Convoke mechanic in your deck, since that will enable you to easily activate the abilities of all of the merfolk that want to tap.

Faeries have a reputation for being mischievous pranksters, and this is represented in game by them rewarding you for casting cards during your opponent's turn.

Voracious Tome-Skimmer rewards you with card drew for every spell that you cast outside of your turn, Nightmare Sower lets you put -1/-1 counters on creatures when you cast spells off turn, and there are huge selections of blue and black cards with flash that can be played while other players are acting.

With a faerie deck, your opponent will never be anticipating what you'll do next, and they'll constantly need to anticipate how you might disrupt their plans.

Goblins are usually known for swarming the field in massive numbers, but in Lorwyn Eclipsed, they have another trick up their sleeve. They are the creature type that cares the most about -1/-1 counters.

Whether you're using the blight mechanic to reward yourself for debuffing your own creatures, or using -1/-1 counters to weaken or destroy enemy threats, goblins have your back.

Lorwyn and Shadowmoor are even home to some uncharacteristically massive goblins, like Champion of the Blight, who comes crashing into play with a colossal 5/5 statline.

Vivid is a new mechanic in Lorwyn Eclipsed that rewards you for playing as many colours as possible. Both green/red and green/blue can work as the core for massive multi-coloured Vivid decks.

A Vivid deck centered in Green/Red wants to get as many colours on their board as possible to ensure that massive creatures like Squawkroaster, Wildvine Pummeler, and Prismabasher can be played as early as possible, and that they are as powerful as possible.

Remember to include plenty of cards with hybrid mana costs in your deck, since they count as both of their colours, making your vivid payoffs easier to build towards.

There are no humans on Lorwyn, instead, the plane is home to the Kithkin. These stout and sturdy folk who are bound together by a communal mental network known as the thoughtweft.

This is represented in game by Kithkin becoming more powerful the more of them that you play. Whether it's Bristlebane Battle gradually evolving from a 1/1 into a 6/6 the more creatures that you play, or Timid Shieldbearer allowing you to pump up your entire board, Kithkin decks want to go wide and then crash through the opponent's defences.

The blight mechanic is one of the most interesting new innovations in Lorwyn Eclipsed. When you "blight", you place a -1/-1 counter on a creature that you control. This sounds negative, but there are a variety of cards that let you turn this downside into an upside.

Reaping Willow can trade away -1/-1 counters to reanimate creatures from the graveyard. Then there's Bogslither's Embrace, which is a remarkably cheap removal spell, capable of exiling threats controlled by the opponent. If you're willing to blight, then you can play it for only two mana.

Black and white blight decks seek to outlast the opponent, removing their creatures and relying on powerful blight based effects to bring the game to an end.

When it comes to elementals in Lorwyn Eclipsed, four is the magic number.

Elementals in this set provide you with plenty of payoffs and bonuses for casting spells with mana value four or greater. Tanufel Rimespeaker allows you to draw a card every time you cast a spell that costs four or more, while Enraged Flamecaster burns away the opponent's life total when you meet this condition.

Naturally, there are also plenty of powerful elementals in the set that cost four or more, to further encourage you to go big.

Graveyard decks in Magic: the Gathering can take on all sorts of different forms. In Lorwyn, this time tested archetype is kept fresh thanks to throwing in of pinch elven spice.

Elves like Dawnhand Dissident and Iron-Shield Elf allow you to fill up your graveyard quickly. Then cards like Gloom Ripper and Moon-Vigil Adherents become significantly stronger as more and more elves enter your graveyard.

Not even death can keep an elf deck from amassing more and more power.

Red and white is a highly aggressive colour pair in this format, that wants to batter down the enemy as quickly as possible.

While traditionally aggro decks rely on an onslaught of low cost creatures to overwhelm the opponent, the giants of Lorwyn give a new spin to the archetype by adding in a handful of higher cost game enders.

Hovel Hurler lets you fling your attackers into the air, increasing their power and allowing them to fly over the opponent's defences.

You can go for a classic aggro deck and avoid including anything that costs more than two mana, or you can experiment with a few decisive power cards to help you give that final push.

To close out this analysis, let's return once more to the vivid mechanic.

With a green and blue vivid deck, you'll be able to assemble magic's entire colour pie quickly. Green has always been the best colour at "ramping", getting lands into play quickly. Meanwhile blue has always excelled at drawing cards.

By combining the strengths of green and blue, you'll be able to get all five colours online, allowing you to utilise the best possible version of powerful vivid effects on cards like Aurora Awakener.

As Lorwyn Eclipsed hasn't yet released, it's not yet possible to gauge which of these strategies will emerge triumphant and dominate its limited environment. Maybe elves will overpower the opposition, or maybe it'll be the goblins that take home the gold. However it all ends up playing out, it's always important to experiment as much as possible in the early days after a new set has released. Try out all of the strategies on offer and see what works best for you.

If you're looking for more Lorwyn Eclipsed content, you can check out our overview of the set or read our guide to all of its mechanics.

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