Deep Dive into Lorwyn Eclipsed’s Commander Precons

Lorwyn is back and with a bang. Kithkin’s are back, new Merfolks, Goblins, Elementals, Giants, Faeries and Treefolk to customize, upgrade or even make new fun decks. We love it all. It also came with a couple of new Commander precons, both of which nudge you to consider playing one of two new Legendaries included within each deck as your Commander. These decks release on January 23, 2026!

Each deck comes ready to play and includes:

• 1 Traditional foil face Commander with borderless art
• 1 Traditional foil featured Commander with borderless art
• 98 Non-foil cards, including 10 new to Magic cards
• 10 Double-sided tokens or punch-out counters
• 1 Reference Card
• 1 Deck Box

So let’s take a look at each of them.

Dance of the Elements

First we have Dance of the Elements, a 5-color Elementals deck; the foil commanders included are the face Commander Ashling, the Limitless, and Mass of Mysteries.

Ashling, the Limitless is a mono-Red Elemental Sorcerer that gives all your Elemental spells on your hand Evoke 4 which means you cheat (cast) any of them into play for 4 mana of any color however you have to sacrifice it after it enters the field, which doesn’t sound that good on its own, but a lot of our Elementals have ETB effects, and coupled with Ashling’s second ability it becomes even better. Ashling’s second ability creates a copy token of any non-token Elemental you sacrifice and it gains haste, the copy has to be sacrificed at the next end step unless you pay 1 of each color.

So, not only are you getting to cheat into play powerful effects but you also get to attack with them, or use their tap abilities. Our most powerful cards can all benefit from Ashling: Maelstrom Wanderer, Titan of Industry, Avenger of Zendikar, Vernal Sovereign, Bane of Progress, Greenwarden of Murasa, and Cavalier of Thorns are all Elementals that can be cheated into play, cause devastation, and give you a huge advantage very early on.

The deck also includes a new set of Elemental Incarnations, one for each color Belonging, Jubilation, Lamentation, Impulsivity, and Subterfuge which can be evoked by Ashling, and at a later point you can bring them back (and copy them again) with their Encore ability. Truly powerful and even unfair.

The backbone of this deck is our mana base, as well as our mana dorks and ramp spells. Flamebraider and Smokebraider both give us a powerful two mana ramp “only” for Elemental spells or abilities. Selvala, Heart of the Wilds can easily give us a huge amount of mana, as well as letting us draw extra cards; Selvala’s mana ability can also be used in response to an Evoke ability, taking extra advantage of our Elementals that will die when they enter. Faeburrow Elder gives us extra mana for each color among our permanents. And Jegantha, the Wellspring while not as good as a mana dork early, can pay for itself when copied by Ashling, and from then it’s an extra 5 mana for free.

Staples like Cultivate and Kodama's Reach help with the ramping on the sorcery side, while Abundant Growth and Fertile Ground help on the Enchantment side. Springleaf Parade turns all of your tokens into mana dorks for just 2 mana.

The deck of course also includes mana rocks to help with our fixing and ramping, since after all this is a 5-color deck and Ashling’s ability isn’t free either: Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Fellwar Stone, Chromatic Lantern, Timeless Lotus.

Also included in the deck are two Incarnations that broke modern: Endurance and Fury, two very powerful Elementals with Flash that can completely ruin an enemies gameplan in the blink of an eye.

On the “supporting” cast we have Yarok, the Desecrated which doubles all of our ETB effects. Muldrotha, the Gravetide which lets us play lands from the Graveyard, as well as re-play spells from the Graveyard each turn, giving us virtually infinite replayability. Horde of Notions which also lets us play Elementals from our graveyard, and without playing their full cost. Finally, the other featured Commander Mass of Mysteries gives one of our Elementals Myriad each turn, which means whenever our creature attacks, a copy of it will be made for each other Opponent, tapped and attacking.

Versions of Omnath can never be missing in an Elementals deck: Omnath, Locus of the Roil can burn our opponents non-stop with our recursive posibilites, or just silently buff our creatures and draw cards. Omnath, Locus of Rage gives us extra Elemental tokens for each land played, and turns all of our Elementals (of which we have plenty of) into possible bolts in the case of death.

Apart from that, we have an arsenal in the form of varied Elementals like: Mulldrifter to draw extra cards; Shriekmaw to Doom Blade a creature; Shimmercreep to drain all of our opponents; and Ingot Chewer to destroy artifacts. The posibilities are endless, and no game path will always be the same when playing this deck.

Lastly, some very powerful cards that are included in this deck are Haunting Voyage to return all of our dead creatures into the battlefield; Elemental Spectacle to potentially give us 5 Elemental 5/5 tokens as well as gaining life; Kindred Summons to cheat many Elementals into play directly from our deck; Descendant's Fury to let us sacrifice our creatures for some triggers as well as create a bit of chaos; Garruk's Uprising to keep our hand plentiful and give all of our creatures trample; and Blasphemous Act and Shatter the Sky as possible reset buttons.

It also includes the following tokens:

• 2x Rhino Warrior // Elemental (0009) tokens
• 2x Elemental (0010) // Copy tokens
• 1x Elemental (0002) // Plant token
• 1x Elemental (0002) // Copy token
• 1x Copy // Shapeshifter token
• 1x Copy // Plant token
• 1x Treasure // Shapeshifter token
• 1x Treasure // Copy token

This deck was certainly crafted to exploit Ashling’s ability to the max. You can find the decklist here:

Blight Curse

Now let us explore Blight Curse, a Jund (Black-Red-Green) colored deck which features Auntie Ool, Cursewretch as the foil face Commander, and The Reaper, King No More.

Auntie Ool, Cursewretch is a Goblin Warlock with Ward-Blight 2, and whenever one or more -1/-1 counters are put on one of our creatures, she makes us draw a card. If the counters are put on a creature we don’t control, its owner loses 1 life.

This deck is built around -1/-1 counters all around so much so that even our mana dorks play within the theme: Channeler Initiate, Devoted Druid. Having these counters on our creatures usually benefit us, but it is a very delicate balancing act between having -1/-1 counters, not having counters, needing counters, or preferring not to have them at every single point of the game.

First lets explore ways of “infecting” our opponents creatures with -1/-1 counters; we have plenty of options in the form of creatures like Dread Tiller which also doubles as a payoff letting us cheat lands into play from our hand or graveyard; Necroskitter with its Wither ability, while again also doubling as payoff, letting us steal our opponents creatures once they die; Massacre Girl, Known Killer giving all of our creatures Wither, while at the same time giving us the ability to draw extras cards; Skinrender putting 3 -1/-1 counters on a creature, which sometimes means instant death to the target; Soul Snuffers putting a -1/-1 counter on all creatures; Archfiend of Ifnir weakening all of our opponents creatures with each discard or cycling; The Scorpion God putting counters at will by paying 3 mana; Carnifex Demon infecting everything if needed.

Midnight Banshee having Wither as well as infecting every non-black creature each one of our upkeeps means plenty of -1/-1 counters; The Reaper, King No More puts up a counter on up to two creatures and also lets us steal creatures that die with a -1/-1 counter on them (once per turn); Village Pillagers inflicts 1 damage to each enemy creature and since it has Wither, it will turn into a counter, also a payoff in that whenever a creature with any counter on it dies, you create a trasure token; and finally Grim Poppet which lets use transfer -1/-1 counters pretty much at will.

Now for our payoffs that weren’t already mentioned, everything and anything that takes advantage of us putting -1/-1 counters anywhere: Ferrafor, Young Yew creates an army of Saprolings while also having the ability to double all counters on a target creature; Kulrath Knight turns our opponents creatures useless if they’re “infected”; we can weaken Tree of Perdition enough to exchange target opponents life down to 1; Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons and Flourishing Defenses turn every -1/-1 counter into creature tokens, 1/1 Snakes with deathtouch and 1/1 Elf Warrior tokens respectively, invading the battlefield in a matter of moments; Puca's Covenant gives you recursivity; Blowfly Infestation keeps the counters going; Wickersmith's Tools can silently gather counters and suddenly “explode” into a myriad of 2/2 Scarecrow tokens; and even an unamusing card like Oft-Nabbed Goat can give your plenty of card advantage.

Even our Planeswalkers have counters in mind: Vraska, Betrayal's Sting Proliferates for 0; Liliana, Death Wielder turns a -1/-1 counter into certain death, while also being able to put new counters in play.

Everlasting Torment keeps pressure up by not letting anyone gain life or prevent damage, while also making all damage dealth have Wither, thus allowing you to squeeze even more value from your cards. Chimil, the Inner Sun makes your spells uncounterable as well as Discovering 5 each turn. Grave Venerations pings all your opponents whenever one of your creatures dies. Evolution Sage and Contagion Clasp let you proliferate every turn, adding counters whenever you need them. While Aberrant Return and Puppeteer Clique let you bring back creatures from the death, at will.

This deck also includes the following:

• 3x Zombie // Elf Warrior tokens
• 2x Treasure // Scarecrow tokens
• 2x Snake // Scarecrow tokens
• 1x Saproling // Scarecrow token
• 1x Saproling // The Monarch (helper) token
• 1x Saproling // Poison (helper) token
• 1x Punch-out counter card

Playing with -1/-1 counters is (in my opinion) quite hard to manage properly and hard to keep track of, however this deck is full of synergies around this theme and it seems to be optimized quite well for it. My first deck ever was a Blue/Black -1/-1 counters from Shadowmoor, and it was poorly thought out (as most precon decks were back then), however Precons have kept getting better and better, especially Commander precons; they can be considered the crown jewel of MTG Precons.

Closing Thoughts

Both of these decks were carefully crafted for their respective gameplans and thus come ready to play out of the box. They also bring very good value in the form of reprints and new cards so they’re a great choice for both novices looking to test the format, and seasoned players looking to get their hands one some juicy reprints; both of them cost about $50 (on Amazon) while having a card to value price of around $150-$180 (at the time of writing this article) each which is a pretty good deal.

Of course, being precons you can’t expect these decks to be highly competitive, though they will fair well on a casual table. Both of them could use some upgrades and tweaks (both to the mana bases and other main components of the decks) to reach even higher highs but it is a good, and well thought out starting ground.

Be it if you want to explore an explosive gameplan with Dance of the Elements or a more intellectual and careful gameplan with Blight Curse, both of these decks seem to provide a great experience for the cost.