The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) Limited Review — Multicolor, Colorless, and Lands

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

The Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI) has its prerelease on November 10, 2023, and officially launches a week later on November 17, 2023. Want to know more about how each card rates in Limited, and some fun possible combos? Then check out this LCI Limited review series!

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

Rating Scale

5.0: Unconditional first 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 of 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)

Multicolor

Number of multicolor cards by rarity
C: 0
U: 10
R: 10
MR: 7

As usual, I’ll put the ten non-common legends, one for each color pair, up front. These ten cards are a miniature of the mechanic of each of the ten Limited archetypes in this set. To understand LCI Limited, you have to start with these ten cards.

cephille: 3.0
The black-green legend, a native fungus dweller of Ixalan’s underground, carries two reminder texts, Descend 4 and Descend 8, which tells us this color pair in LCI Limited cares about those two states. Descend cares about the number of permanent cards in your graveyard: four or more is Descend 4, eight or more is Descend 8, and once you get there you receive a bonus. It’s a relatively simple, easy-to-remember theme in LCI Limited.

On its own it is a respectable 3-mana 3/3. With Descend 4 it gets an extra +2/+2 and trample (5/5 trample), and with Descend 8 it gets another +2/+2 and can’t be blocked by more than one creature (7/7 trample, can’t be blocked by more than one creature).

But before we go on, let’s estimate how feasible these two themes are in Limited. A basic 40-card Limited deck has roughly 17 lands, 15 creatures, and 8 noncreature spells. Without counting self-mill, unless all your noncreature spells are permanents, you are only likely to hit Descend 4 in the mid game and Descend 8 in the late game.

From this estimate, to reach Descend 4 or even Descend 8 faster in black-green, you have to specialize your deck construction: play as few nonpermanent cards as possible, and add some self-mill or ways to actively sacrifice permanents.

The Descend theme is actually a tribute to the Ascend theme from Rivals of Ixalan (RIX). That theme matched the story of RIX, in which several factions raced to find the Golden City, and the Ascend ability was designed around having ten or more permanents on the battlefield to obtain the city’s blessing, symbolizing finding the treasure. Descend, on the other hand, cares about the number of permanents in your graveyard, which echoes the story where the factions begin to dig into the ruins beneath Ixalan’s surface, discover traces of the ancient gods, and set off a chain of events.
I wrote this note because I hope that, besides the power level of the cards and the possibilities for deckbuilding, you will gain another dimension from which to appreciate the charming flavor of how MTG’s card design ties into the story. I believe it can spark your interest in many earlier sets!

cephille: 2.5
The black-white legend’s ability is sacrificing a creature or artifact to get a bonus, and its creature type, Vampire, is the most representative tribe of this color pair. As a 2-mana 2/1 it is a bit weak, but don’t forget this set has plenty of artifacts and ways to make tokens to feed it. It is also a free sacrifice outlet, so it works with the Descend theme as well!

Hm, let me seriously double-check that this is an English card. The name Bartolomé del Presidio comes from Spanish! A little trivia: the setting of Ixalan draws on Mayan mythology from South America and the Spanish colonial campaigns, so the vampires in the story, Mavren Fein and Vona, also have Spanish names. Very flavorful!

cephille: 3.5
The red-white faction is the Sun Empire. What the Empire has plenty of is Humans and Soldiers, and its signature set theme is Discover. When it attacks, you can tap two untapped artifacts and/or creatures to Discover 3. A 4-mana 4/4 body lets it attack steadily, and if your board meets the conditions you gain extra value from Discover 3 as your board keeps spreading wider and wider. It looks like red-white in LCI Limited is about going wide and generating resources.

For a detailed explanation of the Discover ability, see this article: The Lost Caverns of Ixalan Mechanics Explained
The flavor of Discover feels just like archaeologists digging up ancient artifacts: the more you Discover, the deeper you dug, and the bigger the reward may be! No wonder this set’s planeswalker is Quintorius Kand, the newly sparked archaeology major from Strixhaven, so well suited to go investigate Ixalan!

cephille: 2.5
The blue-red pair is represented by the Pirates, notorious across Ixalan’s seas, and this time LCI’s theme is a buff your Pirates get whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control. As for the card itself, a 2-mana 2/2 that puts a +1/+1 counter on target Pirate you control whenever an artifact enters is basically a Pirate lord. The more you plunder (Treasures, Map tokens, and all sorts of artifacts), the more your Pirates get fat and sleek. Personally I think it’s pretty strong!

cephille: 3.5
Red-green on Ixalan is of course the Dinosaur tribe. This 2-mana 2/3 baby dinosaur has haste, and when it enters you can pay an additional {2} to have target Dinosaur you control deal damage equal to its power to another target creature. I think it is very strong in Limited. Even if you cast it on an empty board, you can choose between a 2-mana 2/3 haste, or paying four to have it deal 2 damage to another creature. When you have another Dinosaur with higher power on board, the 4-mana mode is a premium removal creature that keeps pressure on the board. The more Dinosaurs you have, the better the enter-the-battlefield removal gets, so unless I have to, I’ll cast it for four most of the time.

cephille: 3.5
The green-white legend’s first ability doesn’t seem directly related to the archetype’s theme; it feels more like an add-on. The archetype’s theme is the second part: bonuses when you control one or more creatures with power greater than their base power. This card lets you draw a card whenever a creature with power greater than its base power deals combat damage to a player, which is a very strong card-advantage engine. So it is a perfect home for your pump spells, Auras, Equipment, and spells that put +1/+1 counters on creatures. Even better, it doesn’t have to attack itself; any of your other creatures that qualify will draw cards. And don’t forget that if a creature with first strike and one without both connect, or a creature with double strike connects, you draw two cards!
Its first ability is half a Grand Abolisher: your opponents can’t cast spells during your turn, which makes pumping your creatures while attacking much safer. And if you want to do something naughty on your own turn, casting it first guarantees that nothing, including counterspells, will interfere. Awesome!

cephille: 3.0
The white-blue pair’s theme corresponds to Craft with artifact, so its signature non-common card is not a legendary creature. Craft with artifact is an activated ability usable only at sorcery speed. It requires you to additionally exile a certain number or more of artifacts and/or permanents from the battlefield or your graveyard, and doing so transforms the card. It is basically like a sacrifice, turning the card into a stronger artifact.

As for the card itself, a 5-mana artifact that makes a 4/4 white-blue Golem artifact creature token is already worth its cost. Craft with artifact costs seven, and after transforming, you can tap it the turn an artifact enters under your control to make a 4/4 Golem, and if you can untap it you can make even more! Of course, given the high activation cost, Craft is basically a mid-to-late-game finisher in Limited. If you plan to use it, remember to bring a few artifacts or cards that make artifact tokens in your deck.

cephille: 2.5
Blue-green on Ixalan is of course the Merfolk tribe, and the returning keyword Explore is this color pair’s main theme this time. The legend itself is a 2-mana 2/3. When you explore and reveal a land, you can put a land card from your hand onto the battlefield tapped (it doesn’t have to be the explored land; any land card already in your hand works). When you explore and reveal a nonland card, besides putting a +1/+1 counter on the exploring creature, you can also put one on it. I think it’s somewhat ordinary: great if you have lots of explorers, but not necessarily worth playing without them. You need to build around the Explore theme for it to shine.

cephille: 3.5
Blue-black also uses the Descend 8 reminder text, and basically goes for stacking permanents in the graveyard to get bonuses. But as I said about black-green, Descend 8 is actually fairly hard to reach, so we should still judge the card by its effect before reaching Descend 8, and treat the payoff as a bonus. The legend’s creature type, Skeleton, also has some synergy cards in this set, which reveals this new tribe joining the Ixalan family.

As for the card itself, a 5-mana 6/4 with vigilance and menace is a very capable body, balancing offense and defense with some evasion. Once it lands, your opponent basically has to trade two creatures with it or spend a removal spell, or fall behind. Its Descend 8 ability lets you pay six at sorcery speed to return it from the graveyard to the battlefield (without even entering tapped!) with a finality counter on it. This is another new type of counter: a creature with a finality counter is exiled instead of dying, although if you have another way to return it to your hand and recast it, it’s a live dragon again. Remember that it counts itself as one of the permanent cards for Descend 8, so you can play it mid-game, trade it off, and bring it back late.

cephille: 2.5
This time the black-red theme is about whether you descended this turn as your end step begins. Besides being a 2-mana 2/2 deathtouch, a body well suited to trading up, if you descended this turn, each opponent discards a card or sacrifices a permanent, and if they do neither it deals 3 damage to them. Basically, as long as you can trigger Descend consistently, you can pull ahead of your opponent in hand, board, or life total. BUT, Descend only cares whether a permanent card was put into your graveyard, so tokens like a Treasure you sacrificed for mana don’t count, which is worth keeping in mind.

Having covered these ten non-common legendary cards, let’s move on to the rest of the multicolor cards!

cephille: 3.0
A 3-mana 2/2 flyer with ward {2} is an ordinary body, but its activated ability lets a creature or artifact with an ETB (Enter the Battlefield) ability gain value a second time. If your deck has enough targets, it becomes very strong, and if not, it’s still a usable Wind Drake.

cephille: 2.0
A 2-mana 2/2 with ward, paid by three life, and every time you gain life you can explore. Combined with lifelink or drain abilities, she has a chance to become very big or to draw a pile of lands. Of course we shouldn’t expect her to grow to 20/20 and wipe the board. Note that if your deck doesn’t have much life gain she is just a bear.

Kellan: I don’t want that little ruby from my hometown anymore. The foreign vampire girl with glasses is way better!

cephille: 1.5
A blue-black ancient god that is an 8/8 for two mana? That’s way too good, right?! Wait… it can only attack or block with Descend 8? We might as well look at the second ability, which is more realistic: treat it as a four-mana activated rummage engine that mills yourself or your opponent when you discard. Honestly, though, both routes look too slow, and I wouldn’t want to take it in a draft deck.

cephille: 4.0
A 3-mana 1/2 looks terrible at first glance, but if you have a non-Gnome creature that can attack, cast her and attack: she grows and makes at least one 1/1 Gnome to attack alongside. If you can stack a pile of +1/+1 counters on her, even better! Note that she triggers this ability when she attacks herself, too. I think this is a good card that earns considerable advantage with only a little investment. And don’t forget her ability connects with both the green-white and blue-red themes, so you can splash her in other decks if you need to!

cephille: 4.0
Aside from not being able to attack the turn it enters, as long as you can keep crewing it to attack, you will profit enormously. Note that the whole text is a single triggered ability, so if you don’t attack with it, you can’t do the look-at-the-top-card part or anything else that follows.

This ship is also the love boat from Jace and Vraska’s swashbuckling adventure back in Ixalan! Although the captain and the guest crew went missing after the Phyrexian multiversal invasion, the ship still sails Ixalan’s seas, undaunted by any hardship.

cephille: 3.5
A 4-mana 4/4 that can explore at the beginning of your combat is already great, and on top of that it can become a copy of another creature you control. It’s also a Merfolk, so when playing blue-green you’ll want this in your deck.

cephille: 3.5
Gishath makes a strong comeback! An 8-mana 7/6 with vigilance, trample, and haste that puts that many Dinosaurs from the top of your library onto the battlefield, one per point of combat damage dealt! In a Dinosaur deck, doing this once basically decides the game. The downside is still the eight-mana cost, but the haste on entering offsets that somewhat. As long as your deck has lots of Dinosaurs and some ramp, it should be a reliable Limited finisher.

cephille: 3.5
The only Adventure card in this set, which also reveals that Kellan is an outside visitor who came to Ixalan from the plane of Eldraine. A 2-mana 2/3 that, when attacking, can put a creature with mana value 3 or less from the top of your library into your hand, and if it’s anything else you may put it back or into your graveyard. The lower your deck’s curve, the better it is. The Adventure side is a 1-mana green sorcery that, in 1v1 Limited, basically gives you one or two Map tokens, which can later let Kellan or your other creatures explore and get bigger to join the fight. It’s a very good 2-drop for your curve.

This shows that Wizards is starting to use this approach to let keywords with distinctive flavor tied to a specific plane appear in sets outside that plane. On one hand, devoted players get more new toys; on the other, it increases the complexity of Limited (somewhere between MOM and a regular set). That should be a good thing, and it makes Limited play more varied.

cephille: 4.0
Farewell, Dreadbore! For two mana you can cleanly kill a creature, or occasionally kill Quintorius Kand. The other mode, destroying a noncreature, nonland permanent with mana value 1 or less, is something you’d hardly ever choose in Limited when you can only pick one. Of course, if you triggered Descend that turn, taking a token with you is a nice bonus.

cephille: 3.0

The fungus tyrant from beneath Ixalan arrives! A 3-mana 1/1 trampler that gets bigger with every Fungus or Saproling, and at the beginning of your end step it makes as many 1/1 black Fungus tokens that can’t block as the number of times you descended this turn. I find this one rather subtle because it can’t actively make Fungi by itself to grow, so you must consider that it is very weak on an empty board. Of course, if you can discard, self-mill, or use sacrifice outlets to trigger Descend multiple times on your turn, you can naturally build a board advantage, but that is then partly offset by the Fungus tokens being unable to block.

cephille: 4.0
A 5-mana 5/3 that gives other Dinosaurs haste reminds me of Regisaur Alpha, but this time it makes two Dinosaur eggs first, and then over two turns makes two 3/3 Dinosaur tokens. I think it is super strong in Limited: your whole Dinosaur team gets haste and you also get two 3/3s.

cephille: 5.0
Quintorius’s passive ability should be the core of your build: simply casting spells from exile drains your opponent for 2, producing a 4-point life swing, which is very strong. As a 5-mana planeswalker, [+1] making a 3/2 Spirit token shows he can protect himself; [-3] does Discover 4, letting him keep generating more resources once he sticks around, but Discover is usually an unstable way to generate resources in Limited, so using [+1] two or more times and heading toward the ultimate [-6] is probably the safer line. The ultimate lets you exile any number of cards from your graveyard, adding one red mana for each, and then you may play those exiled cards this turn. You’d basically only want to ultimate when you have at least two worthwhile cards in your graveyard. If Quintorius survives after [-6], combining the passive ability to gain card advantage and a life swing at the same time is just wonderful to think about!

cephille: 3.5
As long as you have other creatures and artifacts she is a very strong Reflection of Kiki-Jiki, and she can even copy artifacts and legendary creatures/artifacts. Remember that the token she makes is also an artifact, so although it’s not directly related, it still connects with the Pirate theme designated for blue-red.

Our silk-and-metal master Saheeli also lost her spark after the great Phyrexian invasion, but that’s fine: after crossing the Omenpaths she arrived on Ixalan and found her lover, the battle poet Huatli, and the two of them are living happily on Ixalan.

cephille: 4.0
With Sovereign Okinec Ahau on the battlefield, every creature you control with power greater than its base power gets bigger and bigger whenever the Leopard King attacks. Combined with pump spells, a quick calculation: if I cast Staggering Size on any of my creatures, giving it +3/+3 until end of turn, then when the Leopard King attacks I also put 3 extra +1/+1 counters on that creature, and if I pumped the Leopard King itself it becomes a 9/10 behemoth that turn. In short, if your pumped creature survives the punch, your opponent’s creatures will have a hard time catching up to your size again.

cephille: 2.5
At worst it returns a land card from your graveyard (for zero mana), and with the Fathomless descent reminder text, more permanents in your graveyard is of course better. In black-green it should be a good mid-to-late-game recursion tool, but be careful not to mill it into the graveyard yourself.

Slitherhead, is that you!?

cephille: 4.0
A 4-mana 4/4 flyer that also has the black-white Vampire tribe is basically worth this score by itself. And when you can trigger its sacrifice ability across multiple turns, at least a 4-point life swing each turn plus a steady stream of 4/3 flyers should quickly help you win the game.

cephille: 2.5
Without reaching Descend 8, picking just one mode is fairly weak. Its ceiling is a sorcery-speed Recoil for a nonland permanent plus a Strategic Planning.

Colorless

Number of colorless cards by rarity
C: 6
U: 8
R: 6
MR: 2

cephille: 2.5
For two mana it is a Treasure that can ramp you and then trigger Descend, and in the graveyard you can pay five to activate it, exiling it to Discover 5. It’s worth playing as the 23rd card to generate resources.

cephille: 2.5
A 3-mana 3/3 Vehicle with crew 1 that makes a Treasure every time it attacks, which fixes colors, ramps, and triggers artifact-enters effects. A very worthwhile investment.

cephille: 2.0
A 3-mana 2/1 is a poor body, and the free Map token isn’t necessarily useful either. Unless you want artifacts for Craft or are building around other artifact themes, I wouldn’t want to use it.

cephille: 4.0
One word: “Value!” It’s a colorless artifact, so play it whenever you open it; your opponent will soon fall behind in the resource battle from repeated Discover 5 triggers and lose.

cephille: 2.0
I would only want to play it in three or more colors; otherwise, putting a land on top of your library is something you won’t even want to do in the mid-to-late game, and the 2-mana 2/1 is just an ordinary filler. It does have the option of searching for a Cave, so if you’re playing a Cave theme you can consider one copy.

cephille: 1.0
A card-draw source that your opponent might steal, and after at most five cards drawn it becomes a Treasure. But I really don’t want to put a card in my own deck that might refill my opponent’s hand. Given the choice, I’d rather use other draw options; even something like Divination is probably better than this.

cephille: 2.5

A 2-mana 2/1 is just filler. Sacrificing it exiles up to four cards from a single graveyard to stop the opponent’s Descend 4/8/Fathomless themes, but the sorcery-speed timing is still a bit awkward. When it dies, you may pay four to Discover 4 as a bonus. Add all of that up and I’ll give it an average score.

Wait, this set has Gnomes and Golems everywhere. Is it really not just cards left over from The Brothers’ War, given new life on Ixalan recycled and reused?

Wizards: “I hate players with sharp instincts like you the most.”

cephille: 1.5
A 4-mana 3/4 artifact creature is still basically filler. Its attack trigger exiling a card from the opponent’s graveyard is also used to stop the opponent’s Descend theme, but it isn’t very reliable.

cephille: 2.5
A 5-mana 2/5 flyer with ward {2} that, for just two mana, puts cards from your own graveyard on the bottom of your library, and can also proactively stop the opponent’s Descend. Creatures with this kind of function score very low in other sets, but in this set it is a playable card, so I’ll give it a slightly higher score.

cephille: 2.0
Deathtouch on your own turn encourages you to put it on a little guy and send it in to trade off, and reach on the opponent’s turn lets your ground creatures block the opponent’s flyers. It’s an Equipment that balances offense and defense, and a 2-mana equip cost is acceptable.

cephille: 3.0
A 3-mana looter is a good card in any midrange deck, and once you reach the permanent version of Delirium, you can pay four to transform it into a land that taps for five colors and ramps you. That said, by the time your board lets you comfortably loot into better cards, you may not need the ramp that much, so the transformed side is a bit awkward in Limited, but a 3-mana looter is well worth playing either way. In a normal set I might give it just 2.5, but because of Descend in this set I’ll give it a higher score for now.

cephille: 0.0
Let me try a rough estimate, assuming I cast it on turn 1, play a land every turn, and add no other permanents:

Turn 1: 0 time counter
Turn 2: 1 time counter (+1 = 1 land untapped), double to be 2 time counters
Turn 3: 5 time counters (+3 = 2 lands + itself untapped), double to be 10 time counters
Turn 4: 14 time counters (+4 = 3 lands + itself untapped), double to be 28 time counters
Turn 5: 33 time counters (+5 = 4 lands + itself untapped), double to be 66 time couters
Turn 6: 72 time counters (+6 = 5 lands + itself untapped), double to be 144 time counters
Turn 7: 151 time counters (+7 = 6 lands + itself untapped), double to be 302 time counters
Turn 8: 310 time counters (+8 = 7 lands + itself untapped), double to be 620 time counters
Turn 9: 629 time counters (+9 = 8 lands + itself untapped), double to 1,258 time counters, BOOM!

By this estimate, it takes at least nine turns to make your opponent lose 1,000 life and win, and you also have to pay two mana for it every turn. Of course, if you cast it in the mid-to-late game you might start from something like the Turn 3 or 4 state above, but that still takes at least six or seven turns to win, and for Limited this win condition is far too slow. Besides, in LCI, an environment full of artifacts, the odds of facing artifact removal rise sharply, and it’s even worse if it gets destroyed before accumulating 1,000 counters. So my advice is not to play this card in Limited; win with a normal Limited build instead.

cephille: 4.0
A 4-mana 4/4 artifact creature with ward {2} is no slouch in size, and it makes triggered abilities of your chosen creature type trigger an additional time. Captain Storm, Cosmium Raider putting +1/+1 counters on a Pirate twice when an artifact enters? Palani’s Hatcher making four 0/1 Dinosaur eggs on entering, and hatching two eggs into two 3/3 Dinosaurs at the beginning of your combat? As long as it’s on the battlefield and you chose the matching creature type, you can pull it off easily. Great!

cephille: 2.0
A 6-mana flash spell that deals 6 to a target creature can kill the vast majority of creatures in this set, and early on you can even cycle it away if it’s stuck in your hand. I don’t think it’s all that good, but if you haven’t picked up enough removal, it’s still playable.

cephille: 3.5
Wow! For four mana, a one-shot Rampant Growth that can find a Cave and also gives you a 3/2 artifact creature. A very nice 4-drop.

cephille: 0.5
The Sorcerous Spyglass reprint got downgraded! But I think it’s still a sideboard card in Limited, since it basically exists to stop the opponent’s activated abilities, and in terms of resource trade you are down a card to start with.

cephille: 2.0
Acceleration early, then in the mid-to-late game it exiles one or more colored creatures/artifacts to join the fight. But to become a flyer of size 2/2 or bigger it probably has to eat at least two cards, so don’t expect much combat power from it; it’s better to treat it simply as ramp. Note that after transforming, its power and toughness depend on how many colors the cards exiled for Craft have, so if you exile one or more colorless artifacts to craft it, it transforms into a 0/0 and goes straight to the graveyard (which is fine if you need five mana to trigger Descend).

cephille: 1.5
A very interesting card: cast for one, equip for one, and if you want to tap a creature/artifact you pay two more. As a tapper that keeps creatures lying down, or as a way to stop the opponent’s artifacts from using their abilities, it should be fairly efficient. And don’t forget it gives your creatures reach; plenty of Limited players will probably overlook it and have their flyers blocked and killed. Oh, and the eight-mana tap-and-Discover 10? Of course there’s a chance to do it, and it could be very strong if you do, but it’s too late in the game to earn extra points for that.

cephille: 3.5
Paired with some creature/artifact sacrifice outlets, or the Treasure and Map tokens this set probably has plenty of, equipping it for +3/+3 or more and vigilance shouldn’t be hard. A 2-mana equip cost is reasonable too, and with suitable deckbuilding you can fatten one creature and then switch to another. It’s worth an early high score.

cephille: 4.0
Seven mana is a bit much so I can’t give it too high a score, but it enters as at least a 3/3 plus three 1/1s, a 6/6 worth of stats overall, which isn’t bad. The best part is that when it attacks it keeps making 1/1s equal to its power, and it comes with a two-mana ability to sacrifice another artifact and put counters on it. Basically, right when it lands you have a good chance of stabilizing the ground, then you find a way to pump it and swing back. Even if it dies in combat, remember the 1/1s it made when attacking are standing around and can block your opponent forever. These 1/1s and the card itself are all artifacts, so it should be a great finisher for the blue-red Pirate theme.

cephille: 1.0
Maybe the self-mill Descend theme could play it, but this set has no universal tribal glue like ZNR’s Stonework Packbeast. Considering that the four creature types, Dinosaur (white-green-red), Merfolk (blue-green), Pirate (red-black-blue), and Vampire (black-white), would basically require playing five colors to assemble, and that building a deck that can flip it is relatively hard, I personally wouldn’t want to play it. I’ll give it a 1.0 for now; if someone develops a great draft approach, tell me and we can see whether this score should be adjusted!

cephille: 3.5
A Treasure Map reprint! Pay one, tap it each turn to scry 1, and after three turns you get three Treasures and a land, and if you have too many Treasures you can sacrifice them to draw cards! Super profitable. I always want a Treasure Map in my Limited deck to help me win.

Lands

Number of lands by rarity
C: 7
U: 4
R: 7
MR: 1

Delving Into the Caverns: How Caves Affect LCI Limited

Number of Caves among the lands: 13
C: 7
U: 4
R: 2

Before going through the lands, I think I need to add some extra explanation about Cave cards. Note that in every LCI draft booster, the basic land slot can also show up as a common Cave, which means in a sealed event with at least six packs you can expect to open 3 or more Caves, and in a draft, if the player upstream doesn’t take them, you can pick up even more. Besides the ten two-color archetypes mentioned earlier, LCI Limited should have an eleventh hidden archetype, “five-color Caves,” and the drafting approach may be somewhat like the five-color gates deck in RNA Limited. That’s also why so many of the Cave cards introduced below can help you fix colors.

Besides the 13 Caves introduced below, some cards also have a Cave on their back face after transforming:

Number that transform into Caves: 5
C: 0
U: 3 (one each of black, red, green)
R: 2 (one each of black, red)

Although Caves obtained by transforming are relatively unreliable and conditional, so we shouldn’t count on them too much for the Cave count, it’s still worth watching for good opportunities to include them in your Cave theme.

Finally, if you open a decent number of Caves and Cave payoff cards in sealed, you can make this mechanic a secondary plan to reinforce your deck. In a draft, you should consciously raise the pick order of Cave cards a bit and watch whether a lot of Cave payoffs are being passed to you; with luck, you can collect those payoffs after one lap around the table and transition into the arms of five-color Caves.

cephille: 2.5
A Cave color-fixing land that you only play in Limited when you need it, but it has an extra mid-to-late-game use of making your creatures bigger, so I’ll still give it a bit more.

cephille: 1.5
Pioneer welcomes Cavern of Souls! But that’s not the point of this article. In Limited, if you draft a tribal deck or open a cohesive one, Cavern of Souls is a very nice land against blue, or you need to be in a three-plus color tribal deck to use it. In most situations it is a land that might get your other creatures or noncreature spells stuck, so be careful when using it.
One idea: if you open a creature bomb in a color your deck can’t use, you could consider having the Cave name that creature’s type to fix for it, but that’s still very unstable.

cephille: 1.5
A land creature that becomes a 3/3 for two mana looks good at first, but it additionally requires three or more other Caves among your battlefield and graveyard besides itself, which is a very harsh condition in Limited, and by the time you can really transform it, a 3/3 body may no longer matter. I’d only put it in my deck when I need Cave cards.

cephille: 1.0
For mana, please use basic lands; this card probably wasn’t designed for Limited.

cephille: 1.5
Although other Caves can become Mana Confluence, life is still precious in Limited and I wouldn’t want to hurt myself for mana. At most it’s an option for color fixing.

cephille: 2.5
These five Caves are identical except for the colors they can produce. Mid-to-late game you can also pay five and tap and sacrifice it at sorcery speed to Discover 4, which is a mid-to-late-game way to generate card advantage. Play it if the color is right.

cephille: 3.0
A graveyard-hate card for the Cave theme: the more colors of cards it eats, the more colors it can produce itself, which should be a very nice mid-game fixing land. When needed, it can also exile three permanent cards from the opponent’s graveyard to stop their Descend 4 or Descend 8. A land that is useful in both main deck and sideboard games is great; if you get one, try not to play it too early, because mid-to-late game it can earn you more resources!

cephille: 3.0
It’s a Cave, it fetches a land to fix colors, and it lets you descend; I hope all my Limited decks have at least one of these.

cephille: 3.5
Counting itself, with four lands it becomes a 2/3 flying land creature, and when it attacks it can make a Map token, which lets you benefit from Explore and earn a lot of value. Flying also gives it more chances to attack and earn Maps.

cephille: 3.5
Counting itself, with five lands it becomes a 3/3 land creature, and when it attacks all your other creatures get +1/+1 until end of turn, which is very strong. This can also trigger the green-white above-base-power effect, so play it whenever the colors are right.

cephille: 4.0
Counting itself, with five lands it becomes a 4/4 deathtouch land creature, and when it attacks it can mill the target player for four cards, which is a very strong ability in Limited. You can basically choose yourself and quickly reach Descend 4 or higher, and milling is also a powerful way to attack in a 40-card Limited deck, but be careful: if you mill your opponent, their Descend cards can get bonuses too, so you need to decide whom to mill by timing. Of course, a five-mana ambushing 4/4 deathtouch creature that appears while blocking gives you a lot of advantage by itself, so it’s very flexible to use.

cephille: 3.5
Counting itself, with five lands it becomes a 3/4 land creature, and when it attacks you can untap another attacking creature to give it +2/+0 until end of turn, which is very strong. Remember it transforms into a Dinosaur, so when you need that tribe you can use it as one too!

cephille: 3.5
Counting itself, with four lands it can transform into a 2/3 menace land creature to hit people, and when it connects you can rummage, which is very nice. Play it when the colors are right.

cephille: 1.5
As a rare Cave, it’s basically a land that helps you fix colors. Note that when choosing a color as it enters, think carefully about how this land can support your game plan, and don’t choose a less important color based on your current hand and end up color-screwed in the mid-to-late game. Its second ability, producing two mana, can only be spent on activated abilities of sources that are lands; the basic uses are paying for the five-color Caves’ sacrifice-to-Discover 4, or occasionally activating a transforming land. Unless you’re playing the Cave plan, I wouldn’t pick it early; in a non-Cave deck, basic lands are enough.

cephille: 1.0
A new colorless utility land that destroys nonbasic lands. Compared with its predecessors Field of Ruin and Demolition Field, it has a slightly lower activation cost, but it can’t search for a basic land itself and gives you a Treasure as compensation instead. In Limited, since it has the extra Cave type, you might put it in your deck to boost your Cave count for the bonuses, and it’s also a trigger source for Descend and for artifacts entering, so at the right time it can go in your deck. Of course, if the opponent has few nonbasic lands it’s just a land that makes colorless mana, and sometimes it will get you stuck yourself, but that shouldn’t happen often.