The full decklists for both Lorwyn Eclipsed Commander precons have been revealed and because this Magic: The Gathering spoiler season is proceeding at a break-neck pace, I bet you barely had time to properly look at them before the next burst of card reveals whirled past to distract you.
This breakdown of the Blight Curse and Dance of the Elements decks might be helpful, therefore. Below, we'll give you a run down of each deck, looking at the commanders, the best reprints and overall value, plus the top new cards.
Blight Curse
Commander
Blight Curse is all about -1/-1 counters, a theme Wizards of the Coast hasn't done anything with for years, so fans are pretty excited. The face commander is Auntie Ool, Cursewretch, a 4/4 goblin warlock who provides value whenever you throw around these afflicting counters.
Auntie Ool wants you to be putting -1/-1 counters on your own creatures as well as your opponents. You get to draw cards for blighting your own stuff and hurt your opponents a little when you hit them with counters.
The backup MTG commander is The Reaper King! No wait, now he's The Reaper, King No More. What happened, buddy? While lacking the draw effect of Aunti Ool, this new Jund version of everyone's favorite scarecrow is still plenty scary, with the ability to steal creatures that die once you've put a counter on them. He even hands out two himself!
As you'd expect, the face commander is a better fit for the deck as a whole, but The Reaper King will be very powerful when you play him, and with just a few tweaks to swap out cards that put counters on your own stuff, he could easily lead the deck. Who wouldn't want a Necroskitter you can pop in the command zone?
Reprint Value
Looking at reprint values for precons is always a little tricky, as the card prices are likely to drop now that the precons have been announced.
It's even more of a problem for this deck though because lots of -1/-1 counter cards like The Scorpion God and Necroskitter shot up in value in the run up to this reveal. Fans were clearly hoping these cards would be in high demand for players who bought the precons, not knowing they were already in the deck.
Their prices are going to crash ridiculously fast now, so to be on the safe side, I'll be measuring the reprint value based on card prices one month ago, before anyone started speccing on this deck.
That also means we'll be treating Flourishing Defenses, which spiked due to High Perfect Morcant, as a 50 cent card instead of a $14.50 card. I suspect its true value will end up lying somewhere between the two.
Most valuable reprints:
Chimil, The Inner Sun - 18.48
Necroskitter - $18
Tree of Perdition - $13.80
Liliana, Death Wielder - $6.50
Vraska, Betrayal's Sting - $6.31
Total reprint value: $129.14
That's about $50 less than you might see on other breakdowns of the deck, but we've already explained our reason for subtracting from the reprint value.
There's some expected -1/-1 synergies here, although the priciest card, Chimil, feels very random. Tree of Perdition is another we didn't expect - but I suppose it's a very funny creature to stick -1/-1 counters on and then force your opponents' life total down.
Best new cards
Village Pillagers
If you squint very hard you could imagine this as a replacement Dockside Extortionist. Kinda. I think it's a great card even outside of a dedicated counters deck, wiping out 1/1s with a Chainwhirler type effect and giving you treasures whenever your opponents' stuff dies.
Oft-Nabbed Goat
Stop the presses! This might be the best card Lorwyn Eclipsed has to offer. It's such a fun design, and liable to cause a fight at your table as players squabble over who should or should not be stealing the goat. Then it dies, and you zap everyone and draw a bunch of cards.
Dread Tiller
There must be some shenanigans smarter players than me can pull off with this and Persist creatures.
Grave Venerations
A super neat aristocrats card that does the drain life thing and also resurrects your important stuff. It's that rare monarchy card that triggers on your end step, meaning if you have enough tokens to chuck at your opponent you're guaranteed to get something back.
Dance of the Elements
Commander
This five color elementals deck has an interesting face commander, since you only need red mana to cast Ashling, The Limitless and then she can help you play your other elementals whether or not you've got the right mana colors for them. That means if you wanted to you could build a deck with fewer colors, then throw in a couple of your favorite off-color creatures for Ashling to cast.
In Dance of the Elements though, Ashling mainly serves to let you double up triggers as your elementals create copies and get sacrificed to provide a burst of value.
Mass of Mysteries does a similar thing but on a grander scale. You'll need all five colors to cast it, but once on the field its myriad effect will pop off - just imagine this thing alongside Risen Reef!
Reprint Value
The total reprint value for this deck is almost exactly the same as the Jund one, but at the top end it packs some pricier playing pieces.
Most valuable reprints:
Cream of the Crop - $24.70
Timeless Lotus - $15.97
Omnath, Locus of the Roil - $8.75
Endurance - $8.69
Kindred Summons - $6.07
Total reprint value: $129.61
Best new cards
Springleaf Parade
This is a really strong, versatile card that's great in many places. It could be useful in tribal decks that don't have a lot of ways to create a large mass of creatures, or in any token deck just to generate mana. You can play it early or late and still be happy.
Impulsivity
This deck has an entire cycle of bizarre elemental incarnations with encore and I love them all (which is why there are two more on the list) but the most fun is probably Impulsitivity. This is a super pricey card, but if you're playing some kind of rampy big spells deck, Impulsivity will let you cast something huge for free.
Then if you can get to nine mana you get to do the same thing three times, stealing whatever the best spells are in anyone's graveyard.
Lamentation
Lamentation could be a good alternative to Noxious Gearhulk for decks that don't care about artifacts. If you can activate its encore ability while multiple players are still in the game you'll be able to clear the board of any big threats, while gaining a significant chunk of life.
Belonging
White often gets the worst cards in a cycle and at first I thought that had happened here too, but looking more closely I actually think Belonging is really good. For six mana you get 9/9 worth of stats, and when you encore it you not only get to swing a 6/6 at everyone, you get an instant army of nine tokens which stick around.
That's before we even think about typal synergies. Put this in an Allies deck. Play this with Reaper King. The possibilities are endless!
Check out the full decklists on the Magic website, and feel free to join our Discord - I'd love to know which of the two decks you're most excited about!