Lorwyn Eclipsed (ECL) Limited Set Review: White

It has almost been 20 years since the original Lorwyn release, and I can still remember playing that prerelease! Crazy how time flies when you’re playing Magic! There’s some fun new mechanics, as well as a return to some well-supported Typal (Tribal) archetypes. Let’s jump right on in!

5.0: Disgustingly powerful and basically unbeatable. Either answer it the turn it comes down or just pack up your cards. (Gruff Triplets, Virtue of Persistence, The Eternal Wanderer)

4.5: Incredible bomb that still gives your opponent a slim chance. (Virtue of Loyalty, Imodane's Recruiter, Realm-Scorcher Hellkite)

4.0: Great rare or the absolute best uncommons and removal. (Faunsbane Troll, Gumdrop Poisoner, Talion’s Messenger)

3.5: Great role filler or removal that you never cut. (Candy Grapple, Hearth Elemental, Torch the Tower)

3.0: Good playable that I’m basically never cutting. (Shrouded Shepherd, Spellscorn Coven, Sharae of Numbing Depths)

2.5: Decent playable and the bar I hope nearly every card in my deck to reach. (Evolving Wilds, Archon's Glory, Flick a Coin)

2.0: Mediocre filler that normally is your 20-23rd card(s). (Mintstrosity, Ice Out, Grabby Giant)

1.5: Replaceable, overall bad filler. Could also be decent sideboard cards. (Titanic Growth, Scarecrow Guide, Territorial Witchstalker)

1.0: Bad filler. Gets cut most of the time. (Dark Tutelage, Kindled Heroism, Impact Tremors)

0.5: Very unhappy to main deck this, but maybe it has fringe sideboard applications. Cards that “could” be situationally decent, but bad in most situations. (Smothering Tithe, Rhystic Study, Mana Flare)

0.0: Unplayable in every possible situation. They rarely print cards this bad these days. (Hew the Entwood, One with Nothing)

Adept Watershaper

Rating: 3.5 // 5.0

The floor on this is a 3/4 for 3, which is a really nice stat-line to begin with. This thing really pops off with other convoke cards, especially if they have instant speed.

Ajani, Outland Chaperone

Rating: 4.5 // 5.0

3 mana Planeswalkers are notoriously hard to kill when played on curve. While the ultimate isn’t all too exciting, this makes the rest of the game incredibly difficult for your opponent to navigate.

Appeal to Eirdu

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

Pump spells that only provide +1 toughness can be a little tough to help you win certain combat steps. This is neat, but doesn’t look efficient enough for me.

Bark of Doran

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

There’s a decent amount of creatures this works on, like turn 2 Summit Sentinel and play/equip/attack turn 3 with a 4/4. Having said that, I’m not a huge fan of this card overall.

Brigid, Clachan’s Heart // Brigid, Doun’s Mind

Rating: 3.5 // 5.0

This is just a solid, all-around value creature. You probably won’t use the mana side more than once or twice, but you can still keep flipping it to get more tokens.

Burdened Stoneback

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

Despite the sorcery speed activation, this seems like a very strong 2 drop.

Champion of the Clachan

Rating: 4.0 // 5.0

Flash makes this card really shine. Either by “saving” a kithkin/changeling or just playing a 4/5 to ambush an attacker.

Clachan Festival

Rating: 1.0 // 5.0

Unless you have some really strong mana generation or kithkin synergies, I’d avoid this card.

Crib Swap

Rating: 1.0 // 5.0

This is similar to Stroke of Midnight, which has historically been unplayable. I’d assume this will be similarly underwhelming.

Curious Colossus

Rating: 4.5 // 5.0

While this isn’t quite Plague Wind, it’s attached to a 7/7 body. You should win most games that you get to play this.

Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn // Isilu, Carrier of Twilight

Rating: 4.5 // 5.0

This is the modern version of Baneslayer Angel. The passive ability of the front side is pretty inconsequential, but the back side is very powerful.

Encumbered Reejerey

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

This is an incredibly strong 2 drop. It works well with convoke, and doesn’t take long for it to remove all of it’s counters.

Evershrike’s Gift

Rating: 1.0 // 5.0

I have a hard time picturing where this will be good.

Flock Impostor

Rating: 2.5 // 5.0

Even if this is just a flash Wind Drake, the fact that it’s a shapeshifter makes this a lot stronger than most expect.

Gallant Fowlknight

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

This is only for aggressive White decks that want quick games.

Goldmeadow Nomad

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This is hard to evaluate, but I’d venture to guess that it’s fine in most decks that want a 1 drop.

Keep Out

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This is a sub-par removal spell. It doesn’t work all that well in aggressive decks, so keep that in mind.

Kinbinding

Rating: 3.5 // 5.0

This works really well on offense, and not so great on the back foot. It still provides a 1/1 per turn, but has potential to be underwhelming in some games.

Kinsbaile Aspirant

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This is a solid 1 drop for aggressive White decks. Outside of that, it doesn’t seem very good.

Kinscaer Sentry

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

The attack trigger is close to irrelevant. The majority of this creature’s strength is in the power of a 2/2 first strike life link for 2.

Kithkeeper

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

In a perfect world, you would get 8/8 worth of stats for 7 mana, which is about on par for a 7 mana creature in limited. If you try to go all-in with this as an attacker, you really open yourself up to losing the game if they kill it. I’m not a big fan of this one as of now.

Liminal Hold

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

Bumping up Banishing Light‘s mana cost to 4 seems like a nice move from a design standpoint. It doesn’t change this from a solid piece of removal.

Meanders Guide

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

A 3/2 for 3 is never too exciting, as it trades with most opposing 2 drops. It seems hard for everything to line up where this would actually be good.

Moonlit Lamenter

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

This seems like a solid tool for most White decks. I would be hesitant to put it in aggressive white decks. It works best paired with Black or Red, where you can put more Blight counters on it later.

Morningtide’s Light

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This is a tricky card that has 2 mores, more or less. The first mode is to take out all of your opponents blockers, and make a huge attack. The second mode is to Flicker all of your own creatures to get their ETB abilities to trigger. I’m not sure how good either mode actually is, but there’s definitely some decks that would play this.

Personify

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

The strength of this card will depend on the strength of your ETB abilities. Using it strictly as a protection spell, feels okay, but I think you want to have a lot of solid options before playing it.

Protective Response

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

A very strong piece of removal for any deck.

Pyrrhic Strike

Rating: 3.5 // 5.0

It would be a rare occasion that you can’t cast this spell. It’s not hard to find 1 (or more) targets when you cast it, often trading up on mana at instant speed.

Reluctant Dounguard

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This seems fine in in Kithkin decks, that spit out creatures quickly.

Rhys, the Evermore

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

Rhys has a lot of powerful plays he can enable. He’s not super strong if you don’t get the persist ability out of the deal, but that’s not too hard to enable.

Riverguard’s Reflexes

Rating: 1.5 // 5.0

This should help you win most combats, but 2 mana is a higher casting cost than I’d prefer on a +2/+2 trick.

Shore Lurker

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

The surveil 1 shouldn’t be overlooked. It should be fine in most White decks.

Slumbering Walker

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

This is on the slow side, but that makes sense for a sleepwalking Giant. Even if you don’t have creatures to reanimate, you can still remove counters, which is a nice boon.

Spiral into Solitude

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

Great removal for any White deck.

Sun-Dappled Celebrant

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This guy is at it’s best when played on turn 4 (big surprise – I know). I’m not sure how strong this is outside of decks that can reliably cast him early.

Thoughtweft Imbuer

Rating: 2.5 // 5.0

This is a nice Kithkin/go-wide payoff. It’s not legendary, so it could be awesome to see multiples in play.

Timid Shieldbearer

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

This seems like an overall fine 2 drop.

Tributary Vaulter

Rating: 2.0 // 5.0

I’m not too sure how I feel about this one, even in a Merfolk deck. I assume this is good in an Azorius Merfolk build, but I’m not sure how it performs outside of that.

Wanderbrine Preacher

Rating: 2.5 // 5.0

This is typically better than having lifelink, especially with convoke cards. It won’t be too difficult for this thing to gain 4+ life in any given game.

Wanderbrine Trapper

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

Not only is this a strong 1 drop, it transitions well into the late game, helping to enable other “tap” synergies.

Winnowing

Rating: 3.0 // 5.0

This seems really strong in most situations, but I could see this being dead when your opponent only has 1 creature type in play (and/or shapeshifters).

Top 3 White Commons:

Spiral into Solitude Liminal Hold Wanderbrine Preacher

White has some very powerful early game in this set, with some very powerful 1-3 drops. It doesn’t have much going for it late-game-wise, but can be used as a support color for slower decks with it’s removal spells. I’ll be breaking down Blue next, stay tuned!

Lose and Learn, Learn and Win!