The 12 best Commander cards from MTG’s Lorwyn Eclipsed

From Hexing Squelcher to Bitterbloom Bearer, here are the biggest chase cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed

Lorwyn-Shadowmoor has always been one of Magic: The Gathering’s more Commander-friendly planes. With its emphasis on creature types and quirky but powerful mechanics, many of the best cards from that block’s various sets slot nicely into modern Commander decks. Now that the new Lorwyn Eclipsed previews are over with the set’s full launch on Jan. 23, it’s time to look at how some of these new cards fit into Magic’s most popular play format.

Whether you’re looking to upgrade your existing elf deck or want to capitalize on all the five-color tools that the new vivid mechanic has to offer, here’s a look at the 12 best cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed to improve your chances of winning in Commander.

12 Bloom Tender

Vivid is a new mechanic in Lorwyn Eclipsed that offers scalable effects depending on the number of colors among permanents you control. As such, any card with vivid works best in a five-color deck. Bloom Tender is technically a reprint of a card from Eventide, and it officially names vivid as an ability here. A two-cost 1/1 green elf, Bloom Tender taps to generate one mana of each color among permanents you control. So, if your permanents have all five colors, this mana dork taps to generate five mana (one of each color). Even in decks with two, three, or four colors, this is still an excellent resource for mana generation.

11 Thirst for Identity

At a cost of three mana (two colorless and one blue), Thirst for Identity is a rather cheap instant that lets you draw three cards, but you have to discard two cards or a single creature card. For decks with mechanics that interact with your graveyard in any way, this feels like a huge boon, especially because it gives you the ability to pick and choose what goes there. So it works really well in decks that focus on Mayhem and Madness interactions (letting you cast things for cheaper when they’re discarded) or Escape.

10 Personify

For two mana (one colorless and one white), Personify exiles a creature you control and returns it to the battlefield while also creating a 1/1 colorless Shapeshifter token with changeling (it has all creature types). Not only is this a solid way to mitigate combat damage or direct removal by blinking your creature out of harm’s way, but this will activate any enter the battlefield (ETB) triggers. In a set with so many -1/-1 Blight counter effects, this is an easy way to remove them all from said creature. And, for any typal decks focusing on a single creature type, the added changeling token gives you one more to add to your stockpile.

9 Tam, Mindful First-Year

One of the four Strixhaven students who got lost in Lorwyn-Shadowmoor as part of the Lorwyn Eclipsed short stories, Tam won’t be winning any fights, but she offers major protection for your other creatures. A 2/2 that costs two mana (one colorless and one green-blue hybrid mana), she gives each other creature you control hexproof from its colors. But her tap ability gives a target creature all colors until the end of the turn. Since she can also use this on herself, that makes her a top-tier protection resource in virtually any deck that dips blue and/or green.

8 Grave Venerations

Exclusive to the Blight Curse Commander deck, Grave Venerations makes the player “the monarch” when cast. With that, the player draws an extra card at their end step. But if an opposing player deals creature damage to them, the attacking player becomes the new monarch. Grave Venerations lets you also return a creature card from your graveyard to your hand if you’re the monarch. Furthermore, if a creature you control dies, you gain one life and each opponent loses one life. So this card can find a place in just about any black reanimation deck, whether it focuses on sacrificing creatures or milling cards — or even black-white lifegain decks. But it’ll really shine in any decks that already try to capitalize on monarch.

7 Formidable Speaker

A new elf creature that lets you cheat a creature from your deck into your hand, Formidable Speaker has you discard a card when it enters to then search your deck for another creature. For one colorless mana, you can also tap it to untap a target permanent. Separately, these specific abilities aren’t exactly top-tier, but Formidable Speaker is one of those cases where it is greater than the sum of its parts. It only costs three mana for a 2/4 and comes with both of these solid abilities, making it a staple in elf and reanimator decks.

6 Bitterbloom Bearer

A 1/1 that costs two black mana, Bitterbloom Bearer has flash and flying. At the start of your upkeep, you lose one life and generate a 1/1 Faerie creature token with flying. So it’s a creature with the same effect as the beloved Bitterblossom enchantment from Morningtide. Technically, you can put both in the same deck to churn out a swarm of flying faeries, but you’ll need a way to mitigate losing two life each turn. There’s a good reason this remains one of the most sought-after cards in all of Lorwyn Eclipsed.

5 Morningtide’s Light

Morningtide’s Light is a four-cost sorcery that becomes an unavoidable checkmate under the right circumstances. It exiles any number of target creatures then returns them to the battlefield at the start of the next end step. And it prevents all damage that would be dealt to you until your next turn. In four-player Commander, that means you can exile every single enemy creature on the board, leaving you free to go all-out on the offensive.

4 Kinbinding

Kinbinding offers a huge infusion of power for your creatures, for as many creatures entered that turn. The effect is always active, even during opponents’ turns, so creatures equipped with flash can help buff your defense in the middle of combat. This Lorwyn Eclipsed card quickly gets out of hand with popular Commander cards like Krenko, Mob Boss or Horn of Gondor, which offer ways to generate creature tokens consistently. But it works just as well in a deck focused on the amass mechanic that generates armies.

3 Mirrorform

Mirrorform is a six-cost blue instant that can be absolutely devastating if you have the right board set up. “Each nonland permanent you control becomes a copy of target non-Aura permanent,” reads the card. So if you’ve got a board full of cheap artifacts, enchantments, and creatures (even tokens) with just a single strong non-legendary creature, suddenly they all become that same creature. Note that since the permanents “become” the target, this won’t trigger any sort of ETB effects.