Best Commons and Uncommons, Hidden Gems, and Trap Cards for The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) Limited

New set is upon us and after a week of drafting The Lost Caverns of Ixalan we can see the first data patterns emerging. But despite only 5 days of play, the sample sizes for 17Lands.com data are large enough to draw some conclusions on the format and its synergies.

I will look into the early numbers and try to convert them into actionable advice for you based on card power in each of the color pairs, looking at best commons and uncommons for each of them (top commons), cards that perform well but may be somewhat counterintuitive, or picked relatively low in draft (hidden gems) and at some cards that may looking promising, but underperform (“It’s a trap!” cards).

But before we go into the nitty-gritty of each color pair, good to take a step back and look at the format state in general.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) Limited Guides

• 📈 Tier List 🆕
• 🧪 Alchemy: Ixalan 🆕
• ☀ White Review
• 💧 Blue Review
• 💀 Black Review
• 🔥 Red Review
• 🌳 Green Review
• ⭐ Multicolored
• 🏔 Artifacts and Lands Review

• Draft Guide 🆕
• Over and Underperformers 🆕
• Best Commons and Uncommons, Hidden Gems, and Trap Cards 🆕
• Archetypes and Example Decks
• Removal Guide
• Combos and Synergies
• Sealed and Prerelease
• Mechanics

General Picture

Even after few days in the Caverns of Ixalan, one thing is clear. 17Lands.com users prefer playing Jeskai colors. Red, White and Blue are much more popular than Black and Green. And 17Lands.com users usually are better informed players who have a higher win rate, so it is a good idea to follow what they are doing with attention.

Will it come to you as no surprise, that the popularity of Jeskai colors is warranted by the win rates of each color?

Blue has the highest win rate, but given the small differences between the 3 top colors, it is impossible to authoritatively claim if one or the other of the three has any sort of advantage over the others. Why do Jeskai colors have this advantage? I doubt it is based on raw power of the cards. It just happens to be so that Artifact synergies in this set, combined with small creatures that provide value on ETB, are the most powerful strategy in the format. And WUR colors are doing exactly that. From UW fliers, RU pirate artifact Aggro, RW tap two things strategy or even UW control, they all tap into the most powerful thing you can be doing in LCI that doesn’t include bombs.

But how does it look at the color pair level?

The biggest winners of the first week are Azorius and Izzet, with 59% win rates. Both lean heavily on the Artifact strategies, but in a slightly different way. UR will in most cases be a straightforward tempo aggressive deck, whose plan is to get early board presence and use card-inefficient tempo spells to gain just enough time to win the game. WU is a much more tricky archetype. There definitely is a tempo build of WU based on a similar philosophy as the RU. But on top of that, there is a slower, grindier version of WU that is based on slow accumulation of value using cards like Clay-Fired Bricks or Master's Guide-Mural to accrue value and pieces of excellent W removal in this set (see my removal guide), to stem the early bleeding.

Boros, Selesnya and Gruul are Tier 2 decks. Still pretty good but not as powerful as the first two. They are all a bit more on the aggro side of the spectrum, with Boros being the Artifact Aggro, Selesnya not having that much identity, but capitalising from the access to some very good aggro cards in both colors plus a solid signpost uncommon, and Gruul benefits from doing something very different from any deck – Dinosaur typal deck.

The remaining archetypes are mostly linked to graveyard synergies (UB, BG, BR) and those seem to be either not strong enough or need much more time to be properly figured out. My guess is that as time progresses the gap between them and the top archetypes will reduce, as Descend decks will become better and Jeskai colors will be more contested. They are joined by Simic, which on paper should be an explore deck, but probably needs to be played differently in order to be successful and Orzhov, which was designed to be a go wide sacrifice deck, but that theme doesn’t seem to work so WB decks also will need to be reimagined in order to become competitive.

How to Look At Early Archetype Data?

Early data has multiple problems associated with it. Firstly – sample size is still small. This introduces a lot of noise into data and some results may be confusing. On top of that, people are still perfecting their card evaluation, drafting strategies and plans for their decks, which means that the numbers you get are frequently bases on imperfect builds and games against opponents who don’t understand the format well. Additionally, the week 1 metagame will be somewhat different to the metagame of the stable format – pick orders change most dynamically in the first two weeks. This is something that we should always keep in my mind to avoid falling into data traps and concluding that bad cards are actually good.

But not perfect data doesn’t mean it is useless. In most cases, the week 1 win rates are reflective of the power of the given card later in the format. Color pair win rates change, but I don’t remember a situation where a top color pair after week 1 fell to the bottom of power ranking at the end of the format. So despite certain limitations, you can get a lot of information from week one data. What I usually do in the first weeks is I look at each color pair and look at three categories of cards both at common and uncommon rarities:

• Top common/uncommon: those are the cards at those rarities that have the highest Game in Hand Win Rate in decks from a given color pair;
• Hidden Gem: those are the cards that are doing pretty well but are going late in the packs and/or are somewhat surprisingly successful as their theme in not necessarily aligned with what the signpost uncommon theme is telling us to do. If that is the case, it is a good hint that maybe you should be trying to do something else from what the design team planned;
• It’s a Trap!: those cards do poorly, despite being drafted relatively highly and/or being on theme for what the signpost uncommon is suggesting you to do. Again – if that is the case, it is a hint that the “official” theme of the color pair is not what you should be doing.

I found time and time again that just by looking at those categories at two rarities, so 6 cards in total, you can get a decent idea of what makes each pair tick and, importantly, what doesn’t. Especially if you link this with the general format overview you can see above. Armed with that knowledge – let’s dive into each colorpair.

Azorius (WU)

We start with the top color pair – the one to beat. Azorius decks are a force to be reckoned. They come in two flavours – an aggro version based on small flying creatures aided by some Artifact synergies – and it is those builds we see in the data. Waterwind Scout and Staunch Crewmate are perfect additions by providing a great attacker, and fuelling you with lands from the map or a spell from the Crewmate or a +1/+1 counter you can put on the Scout itself but also on a 1/1 flying lifelinker for example if that is more important for you. Azorius wants to lean on Artifact synergies for an additional reason: it gives you access to the mythic uncommon of the format, Zoetic Glyph. Putting it on a Map, 1/2 Vigilance flying creature or Tinkerer’s Tote makes it into a 5/4 hasty threat that dies into more value – amazing.

Particular surprise was the high win rate of the Inverted Iceberg. I saw it more as a curve-topper for a Dimir deck, but it seems it does well also in WU decks – unfortunately the data doesn’t tell us exactly if the card is best in control archetypes or does it also do well in the more tempo aggressive version but my guess is, it does well in either, in aggressive decks being a great play on turn 5 so you still have 3 mana left to cast the card you potentially drew from it and giving you the ability to craft it on curve without compromising early turn curve-outs that put pressure on opponent’s life total.

The two traps are the Glorifier of Suffering and Mischievous Pup. Both have the same problem – the attack opponent on the ground, where your strategy is not that strong, and also, they don’t do it particularly well. Most of green or even red decks will have no problem outvaluing your 3/1 and even a 4/3. The counters from the Glorifier are nice to have but the cost of sacrificing something is pretty steep. Especially if you have to sacrifice a Map or a Gnome, that you can’t later use to craft something. You will do much better waiting a couple of turns and using the same resource to craft the Inverted Iceberg or some Clay-Fired Bricks in that case. And keeping mana up for the Pup is not something you can be doing in this format realistically: there are very few plan Bs for that – you will often end up with either wasting 3 mana or playing it as a vanilla 3/1 ground creature – both are potentially game losing scenarios.

Orzhov (WB)

Orzhov did pretty badly in the first week of the format. And part of it seems to me is because players tried too hard to go into the sacrifice synergies, which proved to be a bad strategy. Notably, the signpost uncommon, Bartolome del Presidio, had a pretty low win rate. But some cards were doing really well. At common, Oltec Cloud Guard showed that it is just an all round powerful card. Two bodies and evasive threat being one of them is more than enough. A surprise overachiever was Another Chance – filling the graveyard while drawing cards is exactly what the decks seems to want.

At uncommon, the Deep-Cavern Bat is a black all-star. It performed very well in every black color pair including WB – don’t sleep on this card, it is a reason to start drafting black. Orzhov seems to be a deck that needs a lot of uncommons, so make sure you don’t force it but only go into it when you think black is open. One card that had surprisingly good stats here is the Synapse Necromage – making multiple bodies strikes again and triggering death triggers should be much easier here.

In general, Orzhov looks like a deck that wants a controlling plan but with many smaller evasive threats. Yuo want to supplement them with plentiful removal in those colors, card draw that black has access to and craft Artifacts from both colors. One I liked in particular is the Clay-Fired Bricks. Avoid the trap cards though. Broodrage Mycoid is one of them – but it is representative of multiple black cards with “if you descended triggers”. You don’t trigger this often enough to generate enough value. In part because the value from those is so low – Fungi not being able to block is a big drawback if your game plan is not ultra-aggressive. A big surprise in terms of low win rate was the Bitter Triumph Card does well in other black color pairs, but in WB it had middling results. I don’t know if this is a data glitch or a trend, so I would watch the win rates of this card in WB in coming weeks.

Boros (WR)

Boros had a great start to the format, but after few days it dropped in win rate. Still it is one of the better color pairs, mainly on the shoulders of the power of Artifact synergies. Oltec Cloud Guard is the top common also here, but a very surprising hidden gem is the Acrobatic Leap And in hindsight it makes sense – cheap trick that is great against blue aggro decks that rely on evasion for kills, plus in the late game you can send your own creature to the skies for lethal? Sign me in!

At uncommon Spring-Loaded Sawblades are amazing. Turns out you can play this type of effect in aggressive decks if it comes with a serious threat attached to it. And while you wait to deploy the Vehicle, it can tap to one of the “tap two” effects. Another card that did surprisingly well in WR is the Diamond Pick-Axe. Making your attacker bigger and generating cardboard you can use elsewhere is exactly what Boros seems to want.

In general you want to play this deck as an aggressive plan with cheap creatures supplemented with equipment and backed up by removal. It can get more midrange with some bomby late drops providing late game value engines. There are some notable traps though. One is the Adaptive Gemguard Card looks like custom made for Boros, but has a low win rate – probably because it is a card that should go only into some WR decks, but is put there too often. There are not that many 4-drop slots – make sure you don’t overload them and Oltec Cloud Guard is just so much better than that. Another trap is the Enterprising Scallywag. Looks like it could fit in Boros, by generating extra pieces of cardboard, but in reality it just doesn’t trigger enough, making it a vanilla 2/2 more often than not.

Selesnya (WG)

Selesnya shocked people following the data on day 1 by being the highest win rate archetype. The hype didn’t last, but reality is, WG is still a solid color pair, despite its main mechanic not being supported at all. The recipe is simple: white early creatures + green mid-range creatures + combat tricks and a good signpost uncommon to tie them all together.

The best common in the archetype is Staggering Size. Big boost to power and toughness plus trample is exactly what Selesnya needs. Making creatures bigger is also represented by the hidden gem in Deconstruction Hammer, which can act as a creature boost early and as a removal for one of many annoying and high power craft cards later. And both those cards work well with the signpost uncommon for Selesnya by making sure the creature’s power is higher than the base value. Top uncommon for the WG is the Ruin-Lurker Bat – a card that proves excellent in any white color pair but here the combination of early powerful set of abilities on an evasive threat and the fact Selesnya is all about enhancing creature size makes it even better here.

The traps for Selesnya embody the important truth about the decks like this: you want to use your early mana to cast threats and your early threats to attack your opponent. Not to cycle a creature for lands or tap your creatures to convoke something. This is why in WG Nurturing Bristleback is almost always a 7-drop creature – lacks the flexibility it can have in other decks where fetching a land can be a good mode, reanimation is an option and triggering Descend is important. Angel is a great cards in Artifact based decks, where some idle cardboard can be used to cast it cheaply, but WG is not about it so it will be more often a 5- or even a 6-drop, not good enough rate for what you get.

Dimir (UB)

Dimir had a rough start to the format but that is partially to be expected. Slower and more controlling decks are more difficult to figure out, especially when their strength has to rely on synergistic interactions rather than on the raw card power. But it looks like there is some potential in UB Descend builds. Data suggests that UB wants to play some of the descent theme, but you want to fill your graveyard without losing board presence, you don’t need to go all in on that. And despite Descent being the highlighted mechanic, you should lean as much as possible into the Artifact synergies, leaning on cards like Inverted Iceberg and Orazca Puzzle-Door.

A card that over-performed is Tithing Blade Combine two medium cards, with one filling an important role of stemming the early bleeding and you get a solid common. And the poor knockoff version of Organ Grinder in Sage of Days did better than I expected – some card selection combined with filling in the graveyard and a body that trades well defensively ticks several boxes for Dimir.

At uncommon Zoetic Glyph is still great here – just safely assume that in most blue decks the card is going to be powerful. But Scampering Surveyor was a bit of a surprise for me. 59.5% win rate is way more than I expected, but often the card is going to be a 3-for-1, ramping you early and then allowing to trade an unneeded land into some action if it picks one of the common caves.

The traps? Cards like Deep Goblin Skulltaker and other descended payoffs underperform again. You will see this theme across board – think hard before putting any of those cards into your draft decks. Despite some games where they singlehandedly win, there will be many more when they are just a waste of space. As an uncommon – a card I was pretty high on before the release: Waterlogged Hulk. A repeatable source of self-mill looks like is just not good enough in the modern Magic with aggressive decks making mockery of such a slow engine. I still have hope there will be ways of making the card better, but before that happens, it would be irresponsible from my side to recommend playing it.

Izzet (UR)

UR is as good as it is simple. Play your Artifacts and enjoy the ride. Stay to the lower spectrum of your mana values. Cards like Oaken Siren, Volatile Wanderglyph, Goblin Tomb Raider are all great. Not as great as Waterwind Scout – combining everything what this deck wants to do: attack in the air and produce artifacts. This will be particularly good if you already did a chunk of damage with your 1 and 2 drops.

Another card that surprised me early is Unlucky Drop. Driven by curiosity, I looked at the win rates of bounce spells and spells putting a creature on top of controller’s library in recent sets and all of them did a good job, with the notable exception of Misleading Mores from WOE, but that can be blamed on blue not being aggressive enough. Time to add this type of spells to your notebooks with an annotation “probably will be good” in the future set evaluation.

At uncommon, if there is a pair where Zoetic Glyph is even better – that would be UR. This includes the combo of it and the Diamond Pick-Axe with the potential of making a 5/4 hasty indestructible creature on turn 3. Lodestone Needle is still slightly underdrafted given its power and it is particularly strong in UR. Worth noting – all the craft Artifacts work very well with the Shipwreck Sentry, allowing you to make that additional Artifact drop on turns you have no Artifacts to play from hand and keeping the pressure going.

Traps? Expensive creature that has an early ability you can’t afford using early is not what you are looking for so Seismic Monstrosaur is not anything you will be interested in. At uncommon, Digsite Conservator has a similar problem. You will rarely be in a situation where you can afford to pay 4 mana to use the discovery ability and because graveyard synergy decks are weaker, you don’t need the exile clause. It may be better as a sideboard option in BO3, or when graveyard synergies improve their win rate in the format.

Simic (UG)

Simic underperforms yet again. those are tough times for the UG aficionados. But there is hope. Looking at the data, it may well be that part of the UB problems are linked to bad deckbuilding. The archetype was advertised as UG explore, but data paints the picture of UG good cards and aggro as the way you are supposed to build those decks. Staggering Size being the top common makes me think the deck should be built similarly to Selesnya, but with blue as the base color. Early evasive blue drops plus blue tempo plays and Artifacts supplemented with green top end and removal.

Artifacts are always important in blue as Zoetic Glyph is such a powerhouse, and you might want to have good targets for it. Lodestone Needle is one of the Artifacts you want to play anyway and does a good job implementing you racing aggressive game plan. And if you get some Explore synergies – it could help with that without going all in on that strategy.

The notable trap in UG is the Poison Dart Frog. Great in some other green archetypes, it underperforms in here. I can’t really explain what exactly causes that, but it would be rude not to notice the fact. Another strange underperformer at uncommon this time is the Thrashing Brontodon The reason might be that the good UG decks are more U than G and GG in the casting cost makes it inconsistent. You really want to drop Thrashy B on turn 3 – that’s why it rhymes.

Rakdos (BR)

Rakdos is still a bit of a mystery for me. One thing I do know – the advertised synergies are not the way to play it. I never drafted it yet, but the data paints a picture of grindy attrition deck that wants to stabilise the board early. Cards like Tithing Bladeand Deep-Cavern Bat do exactly that – limiting the opponent’s hand, board is a key part of your plan. The other side of that coin is you are spending cards to achieve it. Bat being a creature and a discard spell makes it sort of a 2-for-1. Tithing Blade can later turn into a slow but reliable win con.

Similarly to the previous 2, Fanatical Offering also fits in the plan by converting less useful cardboard into fresh cards. Combining stripping resources and drawing cards is a valid plan. If you do it well, your win condition doesn’t matter that much. Similarly to Orzhov, Rakdos can use anything if the first part of the plan goes well. But BR lacks the quality evasion WB had in the form of Oltec Cloud Guard. In its absence it may lean to a slight reanimator package, and Defossilize having good numbers points towards it. Point strengthened by the fact both R and B landcyclers do OK in the archetype.

Idol of the Deep King is a much better offensive card that it is a defensive one. On offence you can kill a blocker and boost offence or go face to deal last missing points of damage. On defence it can deal with an attacker but other utilities are limited making it worse. That might be the reason it underperforms. Same story with the Dreadmaw's Ire. You can only use it on attacks and this may be something you won’t have the luxury of doing early in a good version of the deck, which makes the card, great in aggressive R decks, less appealing in Rakdos.

Golgari (BG)

Golgari is another archetype that didn’t perform great in the early days. And another one where leaning into the advertised synergy seems like a trap. What seems to work in Golgari is value piles. Good cards, card draw, removal and not a care in the world for the self milling unless you want to reanimate things. Join the Dead is the top common, but surprisingly close we have In the Presence of Ages, a quirky draw spell. It being good makes me think that the deck should have quite a number of creature spells, otherwise the card would miss too often.

Deep-Cavern Bat is as good as in any other B combination, but we haven’t seen Jade Seedstones so far. Boosting one creature and getting a 7/7 body and some life later sounds like a good plan. You want all the good green late drops like Pathfinding Axejaw and Frogs to play them earlier or Marionettes to survive long enough.

I don’t have to mention anymore how bad the descending creatures are but you can paint a picture yourselves. What was more surprising is how poorly does the signpost perform. I still think that it can be good if you don’t go too aggressively on the Descend synergies and just lean on some self mill cards like the draw spell and the mentioned Marionette and Another Chance.

Gruul (GR, or Smash)

Last but not least – Gruul. And this is the only consistent archetype that does what it says on the tin and doesn’t require Artifacts to do so. Simple plan is to get as many cheap Dinosaurs as possible and cheap ramp to play the more expensive ones earlier. This is why Frog is particularly good in Gruul – curving into turn 3 Pathfinding Axejaw is what you want to do. But also the 3 mana Armored Kincaller is a great card, buying you extra time to deploy larger threats. In fact, there is a group of 6-7 commons that are very close on power level that you want to be playing. Abrade is one of them – this is exactly the kind of deck that wants it in order to get rid of earlier threats because once you get to turn 7-8 it is you who should be having an advantage.

In the uncommons – we have a first color pair where the signpost is the best card. Itzquinth, Firstborn of Gishath fulfills all the roles – great early but even better late when it can kill almost everything. A surprisingly good addition is the Tendril of the Mycotyrant. It is a 2 mana 2/2 early – if you need to chump block with it to survive longer, don’t hesitate. But later it fits into your ramp strategy and can churn out hasty 7/7 monsters to make your opponent’s life miserable. Uncommon is also where you will find all the 2-3 mana dinosaurs apart from the Kincaller – those are all essential and have very high win rates. You want to prioritise those.

As I mentioned, you don’t need Artifacts in RG. Actually for most part you want to avoid them. Yes, some expensive ones will be good, but you don’t want to do anything with the synergies, that’s why, unlike in all the other R decks, Goblin Tomb Rider is bad in Gruul. So is the Careening Mine Cart. It is just not on plan – you don’t want to drop your guard early to make some treasures, you want to preserve your life total to avoid having to leave your 7/7 to block later – you want to cushion your life total enough that you can instantly start attacking with your large threats and force your opponent to be on the defence. A perfect game with the Dinos will have you stabilise the board early and turn the corner on turns 6-7 so you can start eating your opponents board and even if they deal with some of the threats, leave them incapable of mounting a second offensive.

Conclusions

Format is still developing but hopefully this article draws you a good picture of where it’s at in the first days. The contents of this article and more are also available in a video form you can find on my YouTube channel, if you liked the read make sure to check the rest of it: