Play Magic With Tom LaPille

I thought that it was too late to finish the set review out, but I’m going to keep going because I’ve had a couple of requests. I’ve had a lot more experience with the cards before writing this than I did for blue and white, so my thoughts should be a little bit clearer. As before, I am only going to comment on things that I find comment-worthy.

Dread - 3BBB
Creature - Elemental Incarnation (Rare)
Fear
Whenever a creature deals damage to you, destroy it.
When Dread is put into a graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into its owner’s library.
6/6

This is a really nice card. It’s very close to being a dragon with evasion and that body, but this is way more than just a dragon. Solar Flare decks in the past two standard formats were built around exactly this kind of creature. When Kamigawa was around, they used Kokusho and Yosei, who have big effects on the game even if they just die. After those rotated they featured Angel of Despair, Skeletal Vampire, and sometimes Akroma, who both play both offense and defense at the same time. This card comes from the latter school of good big creature. The built-in No Mercy means that racing a Dread is difficult if you have any kind of life total, and it’s big and evasive enough that a lot of people are going to have no choice but to try. The combination of its offensive and defensive strength is very reminiscent of Skeletal Vampire, and because of that I think this card is going places. This is one of the first places I’ll be looking if I build a black deck that wants to tap out for big stuff.

Dreamspoiler Witches - 3B
Creature - Faerie Wizard (Common)
Flying
Whenever you play a spell during an opponent’s turn, you may have target creature get -1/-1 until end of turn.
2/2

This card is a very nice subtle design. I think the best cards in terms of making for good Magic games are ones that are more interesting than bluntly powerful, and this card is very interesting. It’s obvious that you can just eat little guys with it, but then you might have occasion to use a Peppersmoke to eat a 2/2 or perhaps just play another Faerie and trade your 3/3 for your opponent’s 4/4. I also love that this card is a much more subtle implementation of the tribal theme. This is obviously a faerie card because of how many faeries have Flash, but it the lack of an explicit keying makes it feel a little less embarrassing to have it without friends and easier to make work with non-tribe aligned cards.

Exiled Boggart - 1B
Creature - Goblin Rogue (Common)
When Exiled Boggart is put into a graveyard from play, discard a card.
2/2

I don’t get it. I don’t think I could be paid to play with this card. The tension here isn’t even fun. A vanilla 2/2 is not worth this kind of punishment. I know the rule says that only green and white can get a Grizzly Bear, but I think it might be a bad rule. At this point we’ve seen a decent amount of green and white Grizzly Bears with extra abilities, like Ashcoat Bear, Woodland Changeling, and Kjeldoran Outrider. I don’t understand why black and red can’t get a simple grizzly bear if white and green get to go above and beyond that for 1C. Either way, this drawback is just uncalled for. Perhaps it could deal one damage to me if it died instead? I refuse to give him a full card.

Eyeblight’s Ending - 2B
Tribal Instant - Elf (Common)
Destroy target non-Elf creature.

This is a great little card that recently graduated from the Rend Flesh School of Cards That Are Awesome Out Of Block Context. Keep this in the back of your mind for any constructed format that isn’t Lorwyn Block. I’ve seen people forget that they can play cards like this in constructed, but you can and you probably won’t mind if you can actually afford three mana to kill a creature.

I have flavor issues with this card and the changelings. Imagine the following scenario. An elf winnower sees an Avian Changeling. It’s flying through the air, so it’s certainly not a natural elf. He therefore decides that the flying thing must be killed. He climbs into a tree to get in archery range, but it flies closer to him and takes the form of an elf with wings that hovers in the air. The winnower thinks to himself “Oh well, guess it was an elf after all. Good beats!” and then lets the thing go. This does not work for me. I think any reasonable elvish assassin would recognize the flying elf-thing in front of him as, you know, not an elf, and go ahead and take it out. I guess Lorwyn elves are as stupid as they are obsessed with beauty?

I may also just be bitter that I lost at the prerelease to someone who had a Mirror Entity and three Harbingers, and my deck’s only removal spells were two of these. It still strikes me as incredibly odd though. Moving on….

Fodder Launch - 3B
Tribal Sorcery - Goblin (Uncommon)
As an additional cost to play Fodder Launch, sacrifice a Goblin.
Target creature gets -5/-5 until end of turn. Fodder Launch deals 5 damage to that creature’s controller.

A good reason to play goblins, perhaps even in constructed. I don’t really know what to say other than that this card is one of the hardest-pushed tribal cards in the set. Five damage is an awful lot. If you open this in a draft, you now have a path to walk down.

Footbottom Feast - 2B
Instant (Common)
Put any number of target creature cards from your graveyard on top of your library.
Draw a card.

This is the kind of card that you want exactly one of in a limited deck. It’s reasonable early and is overwhelming if the game goes long and you get to draw real cards for four or five turns. Try to get one if you are black.

Knucklebone Witch - B
Creature - Goblin Shaman (Rare)
Whenever a Goblin you control is put into a graveyard from play, you may put a +1/+1 counter on Knucklebone Witch.
1/1

Wizards has spoken volumes about this card by putting it at rare. Your constructed goblin decks start with four. I don’t know if that goes anywhere, but much like Militia’s Pride this card is not supposed to be seen very often in limited and that decision would not have been made without reason.

Liliana Vess - 3BB
Planeswalker - Liliana (Rare)
+1: Target player discards a card.
-2: Search your library for a card, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.
-8: Put all creature cards in all graveyards into play under your control.
5

After watching some games this weekend, I have grown to appreciate just how silly the planeswalkers are. There are very few ways to actually kill one other than attacking, and that is easy to defend against. The problem with this one for me is that she doesn’t really do one thing well. Jace and Garruk broke into constructed in a big way at States, but they are both singlemindedly strong at doing what they do. Jace is going to draw a lot of cards and might accidentally mill someone; Garruk is going to either make an army or power an existing one over any defenses. Liliana is more of an enabler than a path of her own, and she seemed to be somewhat without a home. She is obviously insane in limited and worth putting in your cube, but she probably can’t take a game down for you singlehandedly.

Mad Auntie - 2B
Creature - Goblin Shaman (Rare)
Other Goblin creatures you control get +1/+1.
{T}: Regenerate another target Goblin.
2/2

I wonder sometimes whether having eight Goblin Kings and eight Elvish Champions in a format at once was a bad idea. I guess we’ll find out soon. Otherwise, play this blah blah goblin deck blah blah.

Makeshift Mannequin - 3B
Instant (Uncommon)
Return target creature from your graveyard to play with a mannequin counter on it. As long as that creature has a mannequin counter on it, it has “When this creature becomes the target of a spell or ability, sacrifice it.”

Instant speed reanimation is something that we haven’t seen in a long time. This drawback is rough, but you lose that in exchange for getting the ability to ambush people. Ambushing people is fun, so I support this decision. Perhaps for 3BB we could get this as an instant at uncommon without strings attached, and man would that be cool. It’s not nearly as much fun when a Prodigal Pyromancer can breathe on a giant monster fresh from the grave and it just crumbles to the ground.

Oona’s Prowler - 1B
Creature - Faerie Rogue (Rare)
Flying
Discard a card: Oona’s Prowler gets -2/-0 until end of turn. Any player may play this ability.
3/1

Don’t play this card without a way to discard cards for fun and profit or a way to have fun or profit when your opponent discards cards. By this, I mean that you should either reanimate things or cast The Rack. Minus two hundred points to your house if you were thinking about Megrim. The stats on this are impressive, but it’s too easy for people to just discard extra useless cards to it until it can be otherwise dealt with.

Profane Command - XBB
Sorcery (Rare)
Choose two - Target player loses X life; or return target creature card with converted mana cost X or less from your graveyard to play; or target creature gets -X/-X until end of turn; or up to X target creatures gain fear until end of turn.

This is a nice big splashy card that asks a lot of questions before you put it in a deck. Every effect here is very expensive for the price. Cryptic Command compares very reasonably to Repulse and Dismiss, but this one does not compare particularly well to Zombify, Last Gasp or Dirge of Dread. Another issue is that the white and blue commands are very cohesive. Austere Command is actually just Wrath of God worded in a very complicated way with some bonuses, and Cryptic Command’s abilities that all encourage you to sit back and play control. Profane Command doesn’t know what it wants you to do, and tries to do everything. To put this card in a constructed deck, it seems to me that you have to know that there are multiple modes that will have applications in most of your potential matchups and I’m not sure how often that will happen. In the interest of fairness, I have had colleagues tell me that this card is incredible. I am waiting to see that for myself, but I do not believe yet.

Design-wise, this card is awesome. It gives people tons of options and is very fun to actually play. It’s also in my cube, but I don’t think it necessarily belongs in your next constructed deck.

Shriekmaw - 4B
Creature - Elemental (Uncommon)
Fear
When Shriekmaw comes into play, destroy target nonartifact, nonblack creature.
Evoke {1}{B} (You may play this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it’s sacrificed when it comes into play.)
3/2

This card is awesome, and is quietly one of the best creatures in the set. One and a black for Terror is baseline, and a 3/2 with fear is surprisingly large. I’ve been gaining an appreciation for simple cards that play really well, and this is one of my favorites in Lorwyn.

Thoughtseize - B
Sorcery (Rare)
Target player reveals his or her hand. Choose a nonland card from it. That player discards that card. You lose 2 life.

This card could probably have been uncommon. It’s not very complicated and I think it would be kind of cool in limited. My assumption is that Wizards needed a chase rare that had nothing to do with the tribal theme, and this got promoted. It’s definitely on the edge of being rare with the life loss, but this would have still been a chase card at uncommon. Mike Turian said in an interview that Wizards doesn’t set out to make cards worth forty dollars when asked about Tarmogoyf, but it sure seems to me like they were trying to make Thoughtseize worth twenty.

This aside, I think this card actually sucks in a lot of ways. Two life is a lot if you start drawing multiples, so I think you would be hard pressed to maindeck more than three of this in a format that has legitimate aggressive threats. It also gets worse as your mana base gets more painful, especially in extended with tons of Ravnica dual lands and fetchlands. This is not a card like Duress that you can just put in any deck, and for that I appreciate its design. You’ll put this in a deck when you need its effect, but the life loss should scare you away if you don’t really need it. I don’t expect that this card will hold its $25 price tag for that much longer because its applications aren’t universal.

The cool thing about Lorwyn’s black cards is that other than the tribe-aligned cards, it’s not obvious what we should do with them. Knucklebone Witch and Mat Auntie actually say “goblin” on them, so we know where they belong. The rest of the cards I’ve talked about for constructed are all powerful and interesting, but don’t have obvious homes. If you can find the right place for them, they will do good work for you. I’m no longer worried about Lorwyn being bad for Magic now that I have played with the set some more. The cards in this post are representative of the reasons for that. Tribal or not, Lorwyn has brought us another bunch of interesting cards that will give us interesting games. We can’t ask for anything more.

If you want me to focus on other things instead of finishing this, please let me know and I will.

Related Articles

Lorwyn White Commentary

Lorwyn Blue Commentary

Lorwyn Cube Update

I’m back from the prerelease, and I’m moving onto blue with a better perspective on the set for limited. Essentially, I didn’t really enjoy it and I think that it is a step backward from the previous two exquisitely designed blocks, but that is a topic for another entry. Today we talk about blue.

Ameboid Changeling - 1U
Creature - Shapeshifter (Common)
Changeling (This card is every creature type even if this card isn’t in play.)
{T}: Target creature gains all creature types until end of turn.
{T}: Target creature loses all creature types until end of turn.
1/1

This card is absurd in limited. Everything in the set is all about creature types, and not only does this thing have all of them, it can give them and take them away. I was constantly infuriated while playing against this card, and I loved it every time I had it. Two of my three removal spells were Eyeblight’s Ending, which is pretty embarrassing when your opponent just sits there with one of these guys out. I got to use it myself to blank a lot of my opponent’s crucial interactions. Basically, take this card high even though it doesn’t look like a superstar. Everyone will be doing that in a month, but until then you can get it a little easier. I’m not sure if I would play more than two of this, but the first two are quite spectacular.

Cryptic Command - 1UUU
Instant (Rare)
Choose two - Counter target spell; or return target permanent to its owner’s hand; or tap all creatures your opponents control; or draw a card.

This card is very splashy. However, I am less excited about it than a lot of people are. For example, Pat Chapin posted a deck today that had a full four of it on Star City. Four mana is a lot to pay for a counterspell in this day and age, so I don’t really see that lasting very long. Dismiss saw a lot of play back in Tempest, but Dismiss was the top of a curve of counterspells that included Force Spike, Counterspell, Mana Leak, Dissipate, and Forbid. If Cryptic Commands were your thirteenth to sixteenth counterspells, I would be all over them, but we don’t have support like this for such a reactive strategy and if the first spell you counter is with Cryptic Command, an aggressive opponent will have done something by then and it’s unlikely that tapping four for a counterspell will be attractive. If your opponent randomly lets you Command them before combat and you get to tap their guys or bounce a guy, then you’ll be thrilled, but I think people know better than that. Of course, if no one is punishing you for taking so long to just counter a spell, then this card is absurd. I’m sure it will see play, but I’m not convinced it will be universal.

Also, this card is a diamond of beautiful design in what otherwise to me seemed like a wasteland of bizarrely costed and uninteresting cards. This and the white command are so elegant. I wish the abilities on the other three felt more synergistic; they feel somewhat forced to me.

Faerie Harbinger - 3U
Creature - Faerie Wizard (Uncommon)
Flash
Flying
When Faerie Harbinger comes into play, you may search your library for a Faerie card and reveal it, then shuffle your library and put that card on top of it.
2/2

This is obviously not going to make it in constructed, but provides me with a great opportunity to expound on how awkward the changeling mechanic is. Every harbinger can get every changeling card. This sounds like a good idea at first, and I thought it was really clever. Now I think it was a really bad idea. It doesn’t really work for me when you play Boggart Harbinger and get a Mirror Entity, a Shapesharer, or even a Wings of Velis Vel. I don’t even mind if they are going to get a removal spell; Tarfire is something that goblins obviously do, so I’m down with a Goblin getting it. However, a goblin searching out a Wings of Velis Vel or a Nameless Inversion just feels wrong to me, and it’s downright infuriating when someone has a Mirror Entity and some harbingers. It also feels strange to me to have shapeshifter cards trigger a Merrow Rejeerey or get returned by Wort, Boggart Auntie. It’s just too easy for impressive things to happen if you load up on Shapeshifters.

In Lorwyn draft, I imagine that people will take changelings really high for the same reason that artifacts are taken highly in other formats; that is, they don’t force you to make a commitment to a tribe, so you can feel out what everyone else is doing before you move in on anything. I think this is contrary to the spirit of a tribal set. If we are going to play games about creature types, we should play games about creature types. I wouldn’t want to let people avoid that by just getting them all so easily.

Were I designing this set, I would not have included any Tribal - Shapeshifter spells, and I would have made the Shapeshifter creatures have every creature type only when they were in play. I would also have pushed each individual tribe harder by including another Tribal spell for each tribe. This is the same logic behind not putting power in the cube- you don’t want to reward people for doing too little work. Make them work for what they get, and they will enjoy it more.

Fathom Trawl - 3UU
Sorcery (Rare)
Reveal cards from the top of your library until you reveal three nonland cards. Put the nonland cards revealed this way into your hand, then put the rest of the revealed cards on the bottom of your library in any order.

This is a nice card, but we have to weigh it against a lot of options that currently include Careful Consideration and Tidings, and I don’t think it compares favorably to those. Control decks need to keep hitting lands, which this card just can’t. A non-control deck that would be interested in drawing cards probably can’t pay five mana for the privilege, so this card may turn out to be homeless outside of block constructed. It is, however, going in my cube, so if that is the case it’s still not a total loss.

Forced Fruition - 4UU
Enchantment (Rare)
Whenever an opponent plays a spell, that player draws seven cards.

This card is wonderful. I could never have created it and I will never play with it, but this is a spectacular carrot for Johnny. Find him, trade him your copies, and trust that the ensuing shenanigans will be worth it for someone.

Guile - 3UUU
Creature - Elemental Incarnation (Rare)
Guile can’t be blocked except by three or more creatures.
If a spell or ability you control would counter a spell, instead remove that spell from the game and you may play that card without paying its mana cost.
When Guile is put into a graveyard from anywhere, shuffle it into its owner’s library.
6/6

I didn’t talk about Purity in white, so I’ll talk about this here. Essentially, these are dragons for limited, big dumb and fun cards for casual Timmies, and otherwise blanks. Is this a good thing? My friend Sam Stoddard complained about this cycle for limited, but I think I have less of a problem with it than he does. My only issue with them is the evasion abilities, since they just end games quickly instead of doing cool things and then ending games. I think the coolness of the goofy abilities that those cards have is lost somewhat because it’s too easy to focus on the fact that your opponent is going to just die in two or three turns, so why bother in this case trying to counter spells and steal them? I would rather see abilities this cool showcased with fewer distractions.

Jace Beleren - 1UU
Planeswalker - Jace (Rare)
+2: Each player draws a card.
-1: Target player draws a card.
-10: Target player puts the top twenty cards of his or her library into his or her graveyard.
3

Unlike Ajani, this is everything a planeswalker should be. Timmy gets to mill twenty cards(!), Spike gets to draw a lot, and both of the minus abilities feel mechanically connected to the plus ability. It is also surprisingly cheap. I think this guy may break through to constructed, but even if he doesn’t, he is so cool that tons of people will have fun playing with him. A success in every way.

Mistblind Clique - 3U
Creature - Faerie Wizard (Rare)
Flash
Flying
Champion a Faerie
When a Faerie is championed with Mistbind Clique, tap all lands target player controls.
4/4

By “Flash”, what this card really means is “Play this card only during your opponent’s upkeep.” This card is brutal. Sometimes you will save a guy with it I suppose, but if you’re on the attack and you get to make someone’s turn disappear with this, you shouldn’t lose. I suspect it will do obnoxious things in block constructed. I’m not sure how I feel about such a brutally powerful ability on a faerie; I wish it were something more subtle and tricky. Stealing an entire turn feels like something too brute-force for a faerie to be interested in doing. I can’t come up with anything better on the spot now, but this card feels out of place to me.

Mulldrifter - 4U
Creature - Elemental (Common)
Flying
When Mulldrifter comes into play, draw two cards.
Evoke {2}{U} (You may play this spell for its evoke cost. If you do, it’s sacrificed when it comes into play)
2/2

This card is glorious. It is so simple and so good for limited, but also slow and fair. Everything about this set that has nothing to do with the tribal theme is incredibly well-designed in my opinion, so I don’t think that Wizards is losing the touch. I just think they pushed the tribal theme in an unfun direction. Wait six months or so and that will all go away, and we’ll get more cards like this again.

Paperfin Rascal - 2U
Creature - Merfolk Rogue (Common)
When Paperfin Rascal comes into play, clash with an opponent. If you win, put a +1/+1 counter on Paperfin Rascal.
2/2

I really don’t like clash. Nessian Courser is a whole hell of a lot better than Grey Ogre, so the clash here is very important to win if you want a real card. I only kind of mind the randomness issue, and the fact that you get to send the card away if you don’t like it is fine consolation for revealing a land on a clash. My problem is that clashing takes a lot of cards from zero to hero, or vice versa. Gilt-Leaf Ambush is especially egregious in this regard, since losing that clash changes the card from a three-mana double kill spell to Raise the Alarm, but I don’t particularly like this card either. I also find it very odd that blue can randomly get a creature that is exactly equal to a green card we just saw in Future Sight. Clashes should mean less than this.

Ponder - U
Sorcery (Common)
Look at the top three cards of your library, then put them back in any order. You may shuffle your library.
Draw a card.

Nice. Show us more of this and Mulldrifter and fewer Paperfin Rascals.

Sentinels of Glen Elendra - 3U
Creature - Faerie Soldier (Common)
Flash
Flying
2/3

This card is very annoying to play against. I don’t know how I feel about a flash 2/3, since it makes attacking into a lot of open mana with any reasonable early creature almost always a bad idea. If this were 2/2, it would be fine, but this can ambush any 2/2 flyer and it doesn’t get bigger than that very often at common in flying. At least they didn’t print a flash 3/3 ground guy or anything. Or like, a flash 3/3 that became a 6/6 until end of turn when it hit play. Oh wait, they did. Creatures like this encourage people not to attack, which creates giant ground stalls, which I don’t think are very much fun. Why would we have a creature block only to punish people for attacking into four mana this harshly?

Shapesharer - 1U
Creature - Shapeshifter (Rare)
Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times.)
{2}{U}: Target Shapeshifter becomes a copy of target creature until your next turn.
1/1

This and Mirror Entity are the two rare shapeshifters that make me want to rip up every harbinger I see. This card is fairer than Entity, but is still really awesome in limited and will still never do anything in serious constructed. At least Entity has some hope of escaping into the real world.

Silvergill Adept - 1U
Creature - Merfolk Wizard (Uncommon)
As an additional cost to play Silvergill Adept, reveal a Merfolk card from your hand or pay {3}.
When Silvergill Adept comes into play, draw a card.
2/1

This card is just crazily undercosted. If cards like this are what it takes to get people to build around creature types, is it really worth it? Drawing a card isn’t even cool or tricky or interesting or clever on this guy, it’s just really good. This card just feels lazy to me, even though I know it will play well.

Silvergill Douser - 1U
Creature - Merfolk Wizard (Common)
{T}: Target creature gets -X/-0 until end of turn, where X is number of Merfolk and/or Faeries you control.
1/1

I hate to say this, but I feel like blue is starting to steal other colors’ pieces of the pie again. Just last block, this was white. Now it is blue, and consistently activates for more than -2/-0. We’ll find that blue gets to reach into green’s bag too.

Sower of Temptation - 2UU
Creature - Faerie Wizard (Rare)
Flying
When Sower of Temptation comes into play, gain control of target creature as long as Sower of Temptation remains in play.
2/2

This is another great simple design that works independent of the tribal theme. I realize that this message is getting repetitive, but I want to reward what good behavior I see, since it seems to me that such behavior is not so common in this set. We should celebrate it where it can be found.

Wings of Velis Vel - 1U
Tribal Instant - Shapeshifter (Common)
Changeling (This card is every creature type even if this card isn’t in play.)
Target creature becomes 4/4, gains all creature types, and gains flying until end of turn.

Okay guys, this is a little absurd. Now the blue mage gets flyers from the faeries, a really strong shrinking effect from the merfolk, and the second best common pump spell in the set? Really? This card has to have been a mistake. I mean, it’s fun and all, but did it have to be 4/4? Blue is not normally this direct about winning in combat, so I find this card very jarring, especially at common. This card also doubled for me as a Lava Axe in a lot of situations, which felt more red than blue. I like blue more than the average bear, but giving it access to literally everything just feels wrong. This card may cost blue mana, but it is definitely not blue.

The more I play with and think about this set, the less sense it makes to me overall. I do understand that Legions was the best selling set that Magic has ever seen to this day, so they had to come back to the tribal theme. However, I feel like this set bribes you into playing creature type centered strategies in ways that aren’t particularly fun, where Onslaught block tended to just give you the tools to do it if you wanted to. If you look at, say, the Soldiers in Onslaught Block, you have a few cards like Daru Stinger, Frontline Strategist, and Gempalm Avenger that reward you for reaching critical soldier mass, but there are plenty of cards like Glory Seeker, Daru Lancer, or Deftblade Elite that were strong cards that you could just play in any deck. I wish this set’s metaphorical Glory Seekers were better across the board instead of being relegated to the background. I also wish that Wings of Velis Vel did not exist. If it is a mistake, it’s not on the level of mistake that Sprout Swarm was, but I still don’t like it.

Lorwyn is a set that emphasizes creatures, and specifically creature types. It is arguably the hardest that Wizards has ever pushed creatures as a theme. As a result, these cards in general are going to force you to choose your creature type to stand by if you want to be competitive. Onslaught Block was the first time Wizards did this, but they didn’t quite do it right because the only tribe to break through in constructed was goblins, and it was only a tier two deck by the end of block season thanks to the overwhelming natural strength of the cards not aligned with creature types that came in Scourge. It appears that Wizards worked very hard to not make the same mistake this time. I hope you like swinging with guys, because you may not have another choice.

The cards in this set are by and large not very subtle. Unlike Time Spiral block, which just gave us a ton of interesting and good cards and told us to have fun with them, this block is going to tell you exactly what you should do with the cards in it. Some people will love this, and some will feel that their decks are being built for them. I think Magic loses a lot when it’s too easy to see what to do with the cards we have, but I trust that there are enough sexy-looking but bad strategies to trap people who don’t mind having fun at the cost of winning less. Time will tell if this is the case.

White has three tribes going on inside of it. The kithkin are a swarm deck that has a ton of little creatures. There are a lot of obvious cards here, so just take them all and you’ll probably come out with something reasonable. The merfolk in Lorwyn are a giant Rube Goldberg machine that just wants to tap and untap a lot- I wish I were kidding, but I’m not- so I suggest letting them do that if you want them to do good work for you. Finally, white has giants, but the nature of giants means that they are all large, awkward, and slow, so at this point I don’t think we’ll be seeing any “giant decks” even in block constructed. This may change if Morningtide gives us small, cost-efficient and against-flavor giants. Wizards chose not to give us a green-white kithkin-aligned land, which indicates to me that they believe that it’s the best of the two-color tribes.

I’m only going to talk about cards that I think are worth talking about for constructed. If I miss something, yell at me in the comments.

Ajani Goldmane - 2WW
Planeswalker - Ajani (Rare)
+1: You gain 2 life
-1: Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control. Those creatures gain vigilance until end of turn.
-6: Put a white Avatar creature token into play with “This creature’s power and toughness are each equal to your life total.”
4

The designs of the planeswalkers are very odd to me. It appears to me that each of them was carefully designed to make every kind of player happy, which makes them feel awkward. Take Ajani. Ajani likes life. He’ll give more of it it to you, and he’ll even make you a Serra Avatar if you give him a back massage and a bubble bath. Casual players love life, so this is a fine design. However, good players don’t like life (just ask Gerry Thompson or Tim Aten), so we get a random non-life ability to keep the card reasonable for someone who knows that life isn’t important. The question becomes how worthwhile having a semi-permanent Marshalling Cry every turn is. Ajani is obviously a limited bomb, but it remains to be seen in constructed how often big creature stalls happen. This card will probably be reasonable in block constructed given that half of the sets in that format will push you to play tons of creatures, but the permanent bonus to your creatures could maybe push this into standard. Just don’t have any illusions about ever wanting to activate the other two abilities.

Austere Command - 4WW
Sorcery (Rare)
Choose two - Destroy all enchantments; or destroy all artifacts; or destroy all creatures with converted mana cost 3 or less; or destroy all creatures with converted mana cost 4 or greater.

This card is beautiful. Wizards is contractually obligated to put a Wrath of God variant in each block, but this is the creature block, so we can’t just kill all creatures. That would be no fun. Instead, we let the creatures pick who gets God’s wrath. Those who come with giants will choose three or less, people who brought kithkin will choose four or greater, and the people who don’t care about climbing on the footholds that Wizards gives us will just kill everything while we are playing some kind of control deck that turns out to be the best deck in the block format despite Wizards’ best efforts. All kidding aside, this is a very smartly designed card. It’s splashy, skill-rewarding, and doesn’t force you to not play creatures to play it. It also costs two mana too much, so it will likely not be worth playing outside of block constructed. However, Akroma’s Vengeance made the transition out of Onslaught block constructed, so I wouldn’t be shocked if this card did too.

Avian Changeling - 2W
Creature - Shapeshifter (Common)
Flying, changeling
2/2

These cards are beautiful designs. In limited, they give you a real shot at having two or even more tribes actually work in a deck. They may not be elegant looking, but they will play very well. In constructed, we aren’t held back by pedestrian concerns like card access and having to play stuff like this to fill out the theme means you’re not trying hard enough, you are using two tribes when you probably shouldn’t, or you’re building something like a casual elephant deck that needs a better mana curve. Don’t play this card if you can help it, but if you do I guess I could understand.

Burrenton Forge-Tender - W
Creature - Kithkin Wizard (Uncommon)
Protection from red
Sacrifice Burrenton Forge-Tender: Prevent all damage a red source of your choice would deal this turn.
1/1

This guy is quiet, stands in the corner at parties, and doesn’t do a whole lot when you talk to him. He’s good friends with this next card though, so you’ll probably see him around for the next year if you want this guy on your team:

Cenn’s Heir - 1W
Creature - Kithkin Soldier (Common)
Whenever Cenn’s Heir attacks, it gets +1/+1 until end of turn for each other attacking Kithkin.
1/1

This is the first of many unsubtle cards in the set. The message here is that if you want to play kithkin, you are going to play a lot of kithkin. You won’t be able to put many spells in your deck, and you are also going to have to do a little reaching with cards like our awkward and awkwardly-named friend the Burrenton Forge-Tender. If the kithkin entourage has to contain too many bad cards, you might end up with an inconsistent deck that has to draw an Heir or a Wizened Cenn to keep going. This problem is likely to solve itself with Morningtide, at which point we’ll have a real contender.

Entangling Trap - 1W
Enchantment (Uncommon)
Whenever you clash, tap target creature an opponent controls. If you win, that creature doesn’t untap during its controller’s next untap step. (This ability triggers after the clash ends.)

It is extremely unlikely that you can build a deck around clash. Also, this card assumes the opponent will play creatures. If you can build a deck around clash and all of your opponents play creatures, then have we got a card for you! I expect someone to make this work in block constructed but for it to not be very good.

Galepowder Mage - 3W
Creature - Kithkin Wizard (Rare)
Flying
Whenever Galepowder Mage attacks, remove another target creature from the game. Return that card to play under its owner’s control at end of turn.
3/3

The fair thing to do with this card is to use it as the top end of a kithkin deck to remove blockers. This probably isn’t worth doing. Thankfully, we have unfair things to do, all of which involve removing our own creature for fun and profit. Momentary Blink and this card will be good friends for a year or so.

Goldmeadow Dodger - W
Creature - Kithkin Rogue (Common)
Goldmeadow Dodger can’t be blocked by creatures with power 4 or greater.
1/1

This is another terrible kithkin card you may be forced into playing. Moving on….

Goldmeadow Harrier - W
Creature - Kithkin Soldier (Common)
{W}, {T}: Tap target creature.
1/1

This is more like it. You might not think this is a constructed card, but this will probably be one of two default kithkin one-drops since it’s essentially a removal spell that also happens to attack, and in the worst case being a 1/1 kithkin is oddly worth an awful lot more than a card and one mana in this world thanks to Wizened Cenn, Cenn’s Heir, and Militia’s Pride. The other default one-drop is….

Goldmeadow Stalwart - W
Creature - Kithkin Soldier (Uncommon)
As an additional cost to play Goldmeadow Stalwart, reveal a Kithkin card from your hand or pay {3}.
2/2

…Isamaru, hound of Kithkin. You will happily play four of this in your kithkin deck, and it will be useless everywhere else. Hooray for linear block themes!

Hoofprints of the Stag - 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Elemental (Rare)
Whenever you draw a card, you may put a hoofprint counter on Hoofprints of the Stag.
{2}{W}, Remove four hoofprint counters from Hoofprints of the Stag: Put a 4/4 white Elemental creature token with flying into play. Play this ability only during your turn.

Finally, something that’s interesting on its own. The first thing to realize is that this card is actually blue, despite the white mana cost and border. No one who isn’t drawing cards in unnatural ways will get anywhere near utilizing this card’s full potential, but a Jace Beleren or suspended Aeon Chronicler will let us get an Air Elemental every other turn, which starts to be impressive. Multiple copies of this card are even scarier; imagine casting Careful Consideration and then pooping out two Air Elementals. We will see this card in constructed if there is a deck that can get 1W early and naturally draws extra cards.

Judge of Currents - 1W
Creature - Merfolk Wizard (Common)
Whenever a Merfolk you control becomes tapped you may gain 1 life.
1/1

This is our introduction to the merfolk. Given what the rest of the merfolk do, this has a lot of potential to gain a serious amount of life. A second one will put you into the stratosphere if your merfolk engine is going.

Knight of Meadowgrain - WW
Creature - Kithkin Knight (Uncommon)
First strike
Lifelink
2/2

Another card that will go in your kithkin deck. I hate saying that again, but I have to leave the cards that are good. This one has legs in standard too, but it’s really just another solid bear. Critical mass of these guys will almost always give us a reasonable deck, as we have seen from Kamigawa block and Tempest block, and we certainly have critical mass here. This card could also be promoted to core sets.

Militia’s Pride - 1W
Tribal Enchantment - Kithkin (Rare)
Whenever a nontoken creature you control attacks, you may pay {W}. If you do, put a 1/1 white Kithkin Soldier creature token into play tapped and attacking.

This didn’t look impressive to me on first glance, but when I found out that this was rare I snapped to attention. Wizards doesn’t want you to have this very often in limited, so they meant this to be a constructed card. Because of that, I think it’s safe to start every kithkin deck you make with four of this card. Actually, we probably already have something like 28 cards to start the kithkin deck with. Another one of them is next!

Mirror Entity - 2W
Creature - Shapeshifter (Rare)
Changeling (This card is every creature type at all times)
{X}: Creatures you control become X/X and gain all creature types until end of turn.
1/1

Lorwyn already wants us to have a ton of creatures in play, so now we get to make them all huge. This card is going to be a block constructed superstar, since it is every creature type and you’re already going to have a ton of little creatures out. It’s also randomly a shapeshifter, so it goes in your merfolk and kithkin decks. It probably won’t do much outside of block when the creature type bonus isn’t important and when you can’t get away with playing excessive amounts of creatures so easily.

Neck Snap - 3W
Instant (Common)
Destroy target attacking or blocking creature.

I don’t have anything particularly enlightening to say about this, but I love cards like this that give white ways to kill things at strange times. This is a great and simple limited card that could easily be promoted to a core set. Well designed.

Oblivion Ring - 2W
Enchantment (Common)
When Oblivion Ring comes into play, remove another target nonland permanent from the game.
When Oblivion Ring leaves play, return the removed card to play under its owner’s control.

Now we’re talking! In my cube, we play Chaos Orb as an untargeted Vindicate. I don’t think I have ever passed Chaos Orb, and this comes really close to that functionality. The fact that it is a common almost surprises me because of how powerful that is. We will see this card in standard. The interesting question is how often people will be able to surprise you with instant speed enchantment removal. I suspect that in constructed that will not often come up, so this card is safe before sideboarding almost always and still most of the time afterward.

Summon the School - 3W
Tribal Sorcery - Merfolk (Uncommon)
Put two 1/1 blue Merfolk Wizard creature tokens into play.
Tap four untapped Merfolk you control: Return Summon the School from your graveyard to your hand.

If there is a good Merfolk deck, this is probably in it. The obvious decks in this format are very easy to build, and this was deliberate on Wizards’ part. Hopefully some non-obvious ones will turn out to be awesome too. I wouldn’t want my competition to have it too easy.

Surge of Thoughtweft - 1W
Tribal Instant - Kithkin (Common)
Creatures you control get +1/+1 until end of turn.
If you control a Kithkin, draw a card.

This needs to be tried in any kithkin deck, but I think there isn’t going to be a lot of room for spells in such a deck. This may be a kithkin spell, but it doesn’t interact with Cenn’s Heir, Wizened Cenn, and Militia’s Pride which are the real reasons to go kithkin right now.

Thoughtweft Trio - 2WW
Creature - Kithkin Soldier (Rare)
First strike, vigilance
Champion a Kithkin (When this comes into play, sacrifice it unless you remove another Kithkin you control from the game. When this leaves play, that card returns to play.)
Thoughtweft Trio can block any number of creatures.
5/5

This thing is large and in charge. The only real question is if you can support four of them in a dedicated kithkin deck. I think it’s probably worth it if you can, because this thing is a monster. This is probably one of the best champion cards because the kithkin that you are championing are much more cheap and disposable creatures of the other tribes. There are a whole lot of very inexpensive kithkin that aren’t particularly impressive on their own that you will be playing. I expect that a correctly built kithkin deck in block has something like twenty-four creatures that cost two or less, so this card will always have a friend you don’t mind having him piggyback.

Veteran of the Depths - 3W
Creature - Merfolk Soldier (Uncommon)
Whenever Veteran of the Depths becomes tapped, you may put a +1/+1 counter on it.
2/2

Oddly, this card is almost reasonable without being part of a merfolk Rube Goldberg machine. It hits for three and then four without any help, which gets impressive in a reasonable amount of time. With a little help from its friends, this guy will be able to get large really fast. This is an important part of the merfolk deck, if that deck is good.

Wispmare - 2W
Creature - Elemental (Common)
Flying
When Wispmare comes into play, destroy target enchantment.
Evoke {W}
1/3

I predict that while playing block constructed, you will at some point put this in your sideboard with a heavy sigh and it will be correct even though it looks terrible.

Wizened Cenn - WW
Creature - Kithkin Cleric (Uncommon)
Other Kithkin creatures you control get +1/+1.
2/2

This is a four-of in your kithkin deck. It might look something like this:

4 Goldmeadow Harrier
4 Goldmeadow Stalwart
3 Goldmeadow Dodger
4 Wizened Cenn
4 Cenn’s Heir
4 Knight of Meadowgrain
4 Mirror Entity
4 Thoughtweft Trio
4 Militia’s Pride
2 Ajani Goldmane
23 Plains

I hope it’s really not that easy to do in practice.

Lorwyn mainly gives us cards that are good with other Lorwyn cards. In white, we have seen a very obvious kithkin deck and a few pieces of the merfolk machine. I omitted almost all of the giant cards because they don’t seem good. If we try to transport these cards outside of Lorwyn, we end up with a small set of reasonable cards that includes Knight of Meadowgrain, Oblivion Ring, Austere Command, and maybe Ajani Goldmane. I don’t begrudge Wizards for making the choices that they made when building this set, since it is quite obviously going to play amazingly well with itself. I only wish that they had included more cards that had legs elsewhere.