The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) Limited Guide: White

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) will hold its prerelease events on November 10, 2023, and launch officially one week later on November 17, 2023. Want to learn more about Limited card ratings and some potentially fun synergies? Then check out this series of LCI Limited guides!

For the mechanics, see this article: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Mechanics Explained

Rating Scale

5.0: Unconditional must-pick
4.0: Worth a first pick
3.5: Strong enough, but not necessarily a first pick
3.0: Above average (you’ll really want it in your final deck)
2.5: Average, maybe around the 6th or 7th pick in a draft
2.0 to 1.0: Below average (you’d rather not play it than play it)
0.5 to 0.0: Unplayable (basically never play it, it will only help you lose)

White

Number of white cards by rarity

C: 19
U: 14
R: 9
MR: 2

Kappa: 4.0

Since this set is a real artifact set, apart from drawing a clunky hand early, you basically never worry about having nothing to fish back. You can fish for self-removing artifacts like Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot, support artifacts like Oteclan Landmark // Oteclan Levitator, or, more directly, artifact creatures. It can also upgrade a creature into a flier as a threat, and with excess mana it can add counters to your creature. It is a very comprehensive recursion card. Its only downside is that if the thing you want to dig back is exiled from the graveyard in response, you’re helpless.

Kappa: 1.5

A reprint of the same type as Escape from Orthanc. On defense it feels the same as the equivalent green combat trick. This one gives flying, which can be used on offense, but even so it only provides 1 extra point of damage, so the situations where it can be used are quite limited.

Kappa: 3.5

White has a very strong artifact theme this time: Gnome tokens, Dusk Rose Reliquary, Spring-Loaded Sawblades // Bladewheel Chariot, Deconstruction Hammer and other excellent artifacts that don’t care about being tapped, not to mention that outside mono white there are many other artifacts you can tap freely. If you truly have no artifacts but need a big creature, in an emergency you can tap small creatures to grow it. The only difficulty is that it has no protection against removal, and being an artifact creature itself makes it more likely to be removed. But as long as the opponent has no removal, in about three turns it should grow to a size of roughly 7/7 to 9/9, with an ability that doesn’t tap itself and isn’t even limited to once per turn, which is extraordinary for a common.

Kappa: 2.0

It plays like Samite Herbalist, but this set doesn’t have as many ways to tap it proactively. Apart from other creatures’ abilities, it relies on Vehicles. Just treat it as a two-mana 2/2 with a bonus when attacking or crewing.

Kappa: 1.5

My first reaction was: could you really open that many Caves in six sealed packs? (Never mind whether the colors match.)
Even so, with just two Caves you can meet the minimum cost, and the follow-up counter effect is a freebie. In a draft you could gather every Cave at the table to play it, but that would wreck your color picks and you couldn’t take a pile of useful cards. To do this you’d want at least 5 Caves for stability, then 5 Bats kill the opponent in 4 turns. Collecting Caves and related cards desperately, playing something like the Domain strategy of the DMU era, I believe will be one of the draft themes, with decent potential, and needs more testing.

Kappa: 2.5

The body finds a Plains and gains 2 life, and also provides an artifact for your own tapping. Nothing great, nothing terrible. Considering the Craft ability needs 7 mana, the timing for playing this requires a rather defensive, very late-game approach, or a ramp strategy. After Craft it becomes a Glorious Anthem that also makes two 1/1s, a good reward for ramp strategies, and the two small tokens ensure there’s not much of a gap on the turn it flips. Be careful that you may easily lose life during the ramp phase, so watch whether your life total is still safe when you get to 7 mana. Overall it’s a decent resource card, and if you put it in a ramp theme and flip it, you can also gain a board advantage along the way.

Kappa: 2.0

A reprint of the same type as Gideon’s Reproach, Wanderer’s Intervention and a few other cards. However bad it is, it’s still a removal spell that directly kills an opponent’s attacking creature, and paired with your own small creatures as a combat trick it can also kill a creature with toughness of five or more. But if the opponent doesn’t move, it means nothing, a filler removal spell.

Kappa: 3.0

Sorry, it turns out this really is the Brothers’ War venue. I originally thought the effect of making the opponent’s artifact enter tapped was too awkward to use, but seeing the pile of artifact creatures in this set I immediately changed my mind. An activated ability at the level of Gorilla Shaman is hard to use by itself, but this set has Gnome tokens and quite a few cheap artifacts, and at the very minimum, choosing X = 0 can clean up tokens. Another good point is that it has 4 toughness for two mana, so use it as an Ageless Guardian plus two useful bonus abilities, a two-mana defensive creature.

Kappa: 1.0

Short Sword with a free Disenchant attached, but the two halves are used in quite different ways. If you only use the former and want to play aggro, this Equipment is too weak, and if you want to make use of the latter, the cost is too high. It only suits decks that have scraped together a pile of stuff to play aggro, or situations after sideboarding where you truly have no other way to remove an enchantment or artifact but need to.

Kappa: 2.0

Although it’s cheap removal, if you haven’t prepared suitable fodder it amounts to a 2-for-1 against yourself, and because it exiles artifacts, if the opponent has a way to remove artifacts this removal is useless. This set has quite a few ways to remove artifacts, and ward 2 as cover doesn’t change the fact that it’s harder to use. You need to prepare fodder before using it, or simply use the additional cost as a way to enable descend.

Kappa: 2.5

As long as you have the mana, it’s a semi-permanent token-making machine. Early on it’s an ordinary 3/3, and in the late game when it turns into attrition, it can keep making tokens as blockers. As long as the opponent has no trampling or flying creatures, it’s roughly like spending 5 mana to negate an attack. Still, a five-mana activation cost is a bit high, and it has no keyword abilities of its own, so you should only want to play one as a decent creature.

Kappa: 2.5

White artifact-theme ramp. Many Craft abilities cost quite a lot of mana, and this artifact helps ramp in many ways. Because the second ability looks at total mana value, it can’t eat tokens, but it can swap a noncreature artifact for another artifact creature to return as a threat. It’s a way out when there’s no other way, and its versatility isn’t as high as the first ability.

Kappa: 2.5

An instant-speed version of Inspired Charge plus part of Surge of Salvation. Mode 1, as an instant, can be used as a combat trick, or when pushing the whole team in one big wave. Mode 2 can serve as protection in response to removal, and both modes are very practical. If you flip a discover 2 or higher, it can at minimum be used as a buff card, making it a versatile instant-speed response.

Kappa: 3.0

Removal that answers a wide range of things. People often compare it with Fateful Absence, but I think it’s harder to shine in this Limited format. First, giving the opponent two Map tokens hurts too much in a Limited format built around creature combat. One slip and the opponent’s flying threat gets +1/+1 twice, and getting rid of that grown threat costs another removal spell. LCI’s main focus is on the artifact side, so there shouldn’t be many enchantments you must clean up, and removing planeswalkers goes without saying, with only one target… But however bad it is, it’s still universal removal, and having one in your deck isn’t too bad. If you have more removal, its rating can rise further, and if the opponent has a bomb-level enchantment, or you really draw Quintorius Kand, this is also a relatively easy way to deal with it. Overall, this card’s rating varies with the rest of your removal and the quality of the opponent’s deck.

Kappa: 2.5

One of the few white cards related to sacrifice. At minimum it can eat one creature and become a 4/3, a passing grade. But if you haven’t prepared small tokens or small creatures as fodder beforehand, the efficiency worsens, and in that case you’d want another creature suited to placing counters (for example Kinjalli’s Dawnrunner, Warden of the Inner Sky) to put counters alongside and restore balance. At worst, since the sacrifice is optional, you can play it as a three-mana 3/2 vanilla, so it’s a middle-of-the-road three-drop, and depending on the user’s deck and skill it has potential for 2.5 or more.

Kappa: 3.0

Played honestly, it’s a 6-mana 4/4 flier, which is far too slow. The additional cost works like a convoke variant, and of course deploying lots of artifacts and tokens (for example Tinker’s Tote) to summon it quickly is one way, but if you do the math, an ordinary 2-drop and 3-drop plus four mana and tapping those two creatures can already call it, which is effectively a four-mana 4/4 flier, better than the standard. The card’s strength is that an ability that seems very hard actually works in ordinary decks too, and in the late game, with plenty of mana, you can cast it normally. In Limited fliers are king, let alone a four-toughness flier. The downsides are that you can’t cast it when you’re short on creatures in a losing game, and when you do cast it you’re almost wide open for a turn, and getting answered by removal is even more dismal, plus the two white-specific mana makes it less versatile, so whether to play it depends on how many creatures and artifacts your deck has.

Kappa: 2.5

White’s Unearth. White lately is far too all-purpose, and every time it’s stealing black’s abilities… Back to the point: this card depends entirely on whether you have enough graveyard support. If you do, you can pull a quality three-drop with one mana ahead of schedule. Basically play one copy. Apart from the very earliest clunky hands, there will always be somewhere to use it. Also note that it comes back tapped, so in an emergency it can’t be a blocker.

Kappa: 3.5

Backup Agent… no wait, this one’s base toughness is 2??? That means even with no other creatures, at minimum it can call a two-mana 2/3 vanilla??? Not to mention that placing counters works with many of white’s cards this time??? Simple is the best, a simple and brutal strong two-drop.

Kappa: 3.5

At minimum it’s a three-mana 1/1 double striker that also gets you a land, or possibly a 2/2 double striker. Very powerful: basically no creature at two mana or less can beat it, and with various Equipment, buffs, or counters it can push its destructive power up another level. After you settle your colors, it’s one of the main threats you must take.

Kappa: 4.0

Flash with three useful ETBs. Mode 1 ensures you come out a size bigger after a round of creature trades, so besides being a counterattacker, it isn’t easily traded off by the opponent’s small creatures. Mode 3’s graveyard exile has great significance in this set, and being able to exile a graveyard at instant speed greatly increases the possibility of a 0-for-1, for example responding when the opponent is doing graveyard recursion to make them fizzle. Finally, mode 2 is for when the other two modes are meaningless, simply gain 2 life and scry 2, ensuring the quality of your next draws. Apart from its weak base toughness of 1, whichever mode you pick it’s a strong card that is never useless at any time, and combined with the uniqueness of instant-speed graveyard exile, it’s worth a first pick.

Kappa: 2.5

A living Ethereal Guidance, equivalent to paying 2 more mana for a 4/3 creature, improving your staying power. Combined with this set’s many white fliers it can push a wave, or combined with lifelink creatures it can take a sip to extend the game. A very good backbone card for white this time. But with no other creatures it’s just a five-mana 4/3 vanilla, and mono white has no strategies for producing lots of tokens, so when picking you still need to watch whether you have enough creatures.

Kappa: 1.0

With 0 power it’s doomed to be unable to trade with the opponent’s creatures, and can only stand there early as a meat shield against aggro. The second ability only draws a card and gains life when it’s crafted while on the battlefield, which means the two abilities can’t both be activated. Against a non-aggro opponent even the meat-shield role isn’t served, and it can only act as a delayed card exchange. Only use this card if you have no better artifact to Craft with or tap.

Kappa: 2.5

A card that supports aggro: each turn it makes your creatures bigger in power and gives them vigilance, so you can attack and switch to defense at the same time, combining offense and defense. Unfortunately, since it doesn’t increase toughness, ground threats easily get traded off by the opponent’s creatures. Aggro decks generally have many small-toughness creatures, which makes vigilance optional, and three mana is subtly heavy. I recommend pairing it with fliers, simply treating it as a continuous buff that strengthens attacks every turn, or playing one copy with medium or large creatures, forcing the opponent to trade with two creatures so that you can’t keep dealing damage while also defending with vigilance.

Kappa: 2.5

Ladies and gentlemen, a one-mana common creature with 3 upsides! It plays like Swooping Lookout. Although two keywords on a single creature are already strong, it still needs other counters and Equipment. When it dies it makes your other creature explore, at minimum ensuring a land or making your creature bigger, maintaining the aggro tempo. The problem is that white doesn’t have many aggro cards this time and must be mixed with other color combinations, but that doesn’t affect this card meeting the standard of strength.

Kappa: 3.0

With flash, a very flexible rescue puppy. Besides saving a creature targeted by removal, it can also recur an artifact you’ve already used once for another enter-the-battlefield effect. Its own power fits the three-mana standard, and its toughness of 1 is fragile, but flash can dodge the opponent’s removal to some degree and lets you choose what to trade with. Being a creature, it can also satisfy the descend condition. The only worry is that three mana is a bit heavy for a rescue or recursion card, so you must make good use of its 3 power to make a trade.

Kappa: 5.0

Apart from scattered Gnome tokens and Bats, white alone isn’t a very prolific token color this time (mono-white commons and uncommons have only 5, 3 of which come with Craft conditions, Cave counts, or extra costs). Its real value lies in working with other color pairs, mass-producing Bat or Fungus tokens to drown the opponent in an irreversible sea of creatures. It has vigilance itself, so it can join the attack too. Another feature is the condition to return to the front face, which is a fairly simple one among this set’s gods: as long as you successfully mass-produce tokens once, you’ve guaranteed at least three attackers, and you can complete the die-and-return loop on your own, undoubtedly a bomb. To fully unleash its strength you still need other cards that produce tokens to start the system. I suggest first-picking it, then taking lots of token-producing cards that go with it.

Kappa: 2.5

The base 4/4 body is worth four mana, and the remaining two abilities are worth one mana. Mode 1 can recur an artifact, getting two cards’ worth of resources from one card, like Reconstruction. Mode 2 can also do a Mystic Speculation. Both are enter-the-battlefield effects worth one mana, and especially mode 1 doesn’t lose you cards. A standard one-card pick, but note that its cost is quite heavy, so don’t take too many.

Kappa: 2.0

A 3/2 flier with a 1/1 freebie. The freebie works with various artifact themes. Nothing great, nothing terrible. Although the stats are a bit small, in Limited having flying makes you king, and it can be used when you lack attackers. Remember not to take too many, or your deck gets very clunky.

Kappa: 2.5

Enters for one mana and scry 2, sorting the top two cards of your library so that later draws are higher quality. This is similar to Candy Trail from the previous set, but this one is white only. The body is an artifact whose work is done upon entering, and it also helps achieve various tap-artifact themes. After Craft it becomes a 1/4 flier. Although it can carry another creature into the air when attacking, its own power is only 1, so unless you have a really good attacker, it’s better to let it stand there, keeping the opponent’s Bats and other small fliers from coming over to hit your face. A decent card.

Kappa: 3.0

Pacifism? Arrest? Realmbreaker’s Grasp? This card is stronger than all three. First, it is the most basic soft removal equivalent to Pacifism. Then, in this set it can be attached to artifacts, meaning it can hinder the opponent’s Craft ability, and attached to a Vehicle it stops Crew. It’s fair to say attaching it neutralizes many artifact bombs outright, making it an excellent soft removal and disruption card. In addition, this card can stop mana abilities, which may work wonders when you need to prevent the opponent from ramping.

Kappa: 3.0

A variant of Banish from Edoras, made an instant but costing 1 more. It’s fairly high-quality removal in white this time. Against an attacking opponent it can act as a three-mana exile removal, and exiling can also stop the opponent from using Craft abilities or reusing things through graveyard recursion. In the worst case in a long game, you can also spend 6 mana to exile one of the opponent’s key creatures directly. Note, though, that early on it’s very weak against creatures with vigilance.

Kappa: 5.0

Resplendent Angel! Re! Turn! Although this set doesn’t have much lifegain support, the only single cards that can gain 5 or more life are Jade Seedstones // Jadeheart Attendant after Craft (and its Craft consumes other cards, so strictly speaking it can’t be counted as entirely a single card). Counting lifelink too, there is only Throne of the Grim Captain // The Grim Captain after Craft and Gargantuan Leech. Even so, a base three-mana 3/3 flier is already plenty, and what makes Resplendent Angel a bomb is still its own 6-mana activated ability, giving itself lifelink and gaining 5 life at once to meet the condition on its own. Even without relying on the activated ability, using two cards to gain 5 or more life and make an Angel, widening the board gap in one go, is hugely profitable. In summary, if the opponent doesn’t clear Resplendent Angel quickly, as soon as she makes her first Angel the board gap widens dramatically. She should be first-picked at any time, and you should take various lifegain means to support her.

cephille: 2.5

Creatures really are getting stronger and stronger. What on earth is a one-mana 1/1 creature with three upsides… I remember back then Ghastly Gloomhunter was already pretty good in ZNR Limited, and putting an Aura on it, or kicking it out in the mid-to-late game, was quite fierce. In this set, with suitable Equipment or Auras it should perform well too.

Kappa: 3.0

Battle cry is about to become an evergreen keyword ability, isn’t it? (Though only 1 to 2 cards per set.)
On entering it’s effectively a 2/1 plus a 1/1 flier, and when it dies it spits out another 1/1 flier. The stats-for-cost already pay off, and battle cry by nature requires charging the opponent with a feeble body to trigger, which easily leads to unfavorable creature trades. Conversely, you don’t have to go out of your way to trigger battle cry: send the flying Bats to hit the opponent, let the body take the trade with the incoming creature, then counterattack with two Bats. I lean toward using it like Lingering Souls.

Kappa: 2.5

Plainscycling 2, a good option when mana-screwed and also a good option when playing multiple colors. When you have too much mana, the body it calls is of passable-or-better quality, can save your life, and with 5 toughness the flier also ensures the opponent’s air force can’t easily come over. After stabilizing the board it can also serve as a starting point for attacks. Overall it’s a very convenient card, but because the body costs 6, when you can’t be sure you’ll reach six lands, I suggest cycling it without hesitation to thin your deck.
Incidentally, this cycling cycle is the only one where, on seeing it, I didn’t immediately feel the one-mana LTR cycling cards beat it, probably because Eagles of the North is really so-so…

Kappa: 3.0

A strengthened Iron Verdict, and this card is an artifact, so it can trigger other color pairs’ descend conditions. After Craft it is a powerful Vehicle with an unusually easy crew condition: you can tap two artifacts, or crew 1, so a single Gnome token easily gets the job done, and you could even view it as using two spent noncreature artifacts on the battlefield as a creature, convenient in many ways. Note that the removal part is rather passive, waiting for people to attack, and you can’t always remove the creature you want, and the Vehicle is only a 5/5 vanilla. As with all Vehicles, without a crew it’s just decoration, so at the drafting stage you must watch your creature count.

Kappa: 2.0

A variant of Nimble Hobbit. There’s no tap-the-opponent’s-creatures theme this time, so treat it as a filler two-drop. In the late game with extra mana it can force through one blocker, but it’s not a two-drop you’d prioritize. Interestingly, her ability can tap your own creatures (though that’s meaningless).

A personal note: it’s a shame, because this card has pretty art.

Kappa: 2.5

Just read the ability as vigilance. The difference is that there are still moments it becomes tapped, so it can eat tap-down removal. Three mana with 4 toughness is excellent enough, and as the centerpiece for counters or Equipment it can race for some life. As effectively a vigilance creature it can naturally use combat tricks, and without other cards to go with it, it can also hold off midrange creatures of three mana or less on its own.

Kappa: 5.0

A white bomb. On entering it first makes an upgraded Urza’s Saga-style token that looks at not only artifacts but also creature count, and counting only this card it has a 2/2 body at minimum. The real value comes after it transforms. The condition is tapping 5 artifacts or creatures, which is very easy, and this card alone provides 2 sources. After that, every time you summon a creature or artifact with the transformed land, you get another token of the same kind, which is equivalent to making 2 for every creature spell, quickly widening the board resource gap. The conditions for use are very simple, and it’s worth splashing white just for this card.

Kappa: 3.5

Three mana for 3 artifacts, the biggest support for this set’s artifact theme: grow Adaptive Gemguard, push a wave with Malamet War Scribe, the body can gain life in an emergency, and even with other color pairs it can proactively trigger descend for one mana. In the worst case it’s a lifegain pack plus Raise the Alarm. A very versatile backup card.

Kappa: 5.0

If I could, I’d rate it 6.0. First the front side, an AOE sweeper similar to Slaughter the Strong, but most importantly the creatures on both sides are chosen by you, meaning you can keep only the opponent’s least threatening creature, clear the other threats, and forcibly pull the opponent’s board advantage to parity. At this point it already rates 5.0. And this artifact can still Craft into a flying creature, so the opponent can only choose each turn between casting spells or attacking you. As long as the opponent’s board is empty you can safely hit their face, and as long as the opponent can’t kill you from the board, you needn’t worry about suddenly dying by accident, while you can safely use this card to kill the opponent. It can sweep the board and serve as a starting point for a counterattack, and also restrict the opponent from attacking your face, forcing them to choose only one between racing for life and building the board. Calling it the strongest bomb of this set is not an overstatement. The only mercy is that the front side’s AOE sweeper only works when cast, so it can’t be dug back with Fabrication Foundry.

Kappa: 2.0

A bit like Seasoned Hallowblade, but the activation condition is changed to require 1 mana and sacrificing another artifact or creature, which makes it feel immediately much worse to use. Although it’s a decent core for white aggro, it can’t be fed infinite resources, and unlike a discard activation, when the opponent sees nothing to sacrifice on your battlefield they can be sure to block you to death. You can’t pre-pay resources from your hand like discarding, and it doesn’t create synergy with descend either. Then on the combat side, this set has lots of 1/1 tokens, and if every attack costs a payment, without a special plan you’ll soon run out of ammunition, not to mention that indestructible is very weak against -X/-X and exile removal (black alone has 6 of them this time), so think twice before pouring all your resources into this creature. If you really want to make it work, I suggest pairing it with lots of Equipment or counter-placing methods, and using Tinker’s Tote, Synapse Necromage, descend + Broodrage Mycoid and the like to provide enough fodder.

Kappa: 3.5

Besides the common +1/+1 counters, this set also has finality counters, but they commonly appear only on creatures returned from the graveyard, and I believe not many people will dig this one up, so the condition is equivalent to just treating it as three +1 counters. Once the condition is met, at minimum it’s a 4/5 flier with vigilance. Picture a Serra Angel and you’ll know how strong flying plus vigilance is. Besides other creatures placing counters, it can also tap 3 artifacts or creatures on its own to reach the condition, but it’s sorcery-speed only, which leaves a big window, and there’s a risk of being answered with removal so that you’re wide open for a turn. It’s a high-risk high-reward creature, and I suggest taking lots of Tinker’s Tote to make the task easier and minimize the risk during the growing process.