Fine-Tuning: Modified Lorwyn Eclipsed Theme Precons

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

Introduction

With the release of the new year’s in-house Standard set, Lorwyn Eclipsed has put out, for the first time in a long while, a pair of Standard theme precon decks. Although the mana bases are beginner-level simple builds, the contents are quite good, and you can take them straight into games against Standard decks and have a fair amount of interplay. I believe new players who buy this product will want to strengthen them further, but buying this set alone already costs a chunk, and before even getting familiar with the game, spending several hundred or a thousand more on lands and pricier cards is really hesitation-inducing… This article introduces ways to quickly strengthen them using only pocket-change commons and uncommons (CU)!

Angels Theme Precon

Deck Overview

Angels Precon Decklist

The Angels theme is built around Giada, Font of Hope, which accelerates casting Angels and passively strengthens their bodies, together with resource-generating Angels such as Inspiring Overseer, Exemplar of Light, and Starfield Shepherd, and the Angel lord that gives your whole team lifelink, Lyra Dawnbringer. The Angels theme itself has Pioneer-level power, and its core components were reprinted in Foundations, so it has quite a long shelf life. This precon has a clear strategy, and decent output and resource generation. As long as you can develop smoothly you can easily beat the opponent, and it even comes with two copies of Split Up to turn around a losing board, so taking it straight into games against ordinary Standard decks isn’t without a chance. Is there a pocket-change way to improve a deck like this? There actually is.

Key Changes

I wonder whether readers have noticed that two cards in this precon don’t mesh well with the whole. First is Exemplar of Light: it places a +1/+1 counter when you gain life and draws a card the first time each turn you place a +1/+1 counter. Although it’s an Angel that combines resources and output, the only sustained life-gain sources in this deck are the two copies of Lyra Dawnbringer; everything else is one-shot life gain or counter placement, so Exemplar of Light runs very inefficiently in the precon. The interacting cards in the precon are as follows:

On the other hand, Llanowar Elves is also a very out-of-place presence. Ramping to three mana on turn 2 only lets this precon cast Inspiring Overseer, so I don’t see a need for acceleration, and drawing Llanowar Elves in the mid to late game has no impact at all, so it’s clearly not a suitable card choice. Therefore, the author swapped Llanowar Elves for the new set’s Virulent Emissary. The Emissary gains you life when your other creatures enter, reliably triggering Exemplar of Light’s ability while increasing the player’s survivability, its built-in deathtouch deters the opponent’s ground creatures, and it can be tutored up with Starfield Shepherd, a very high fit with the precon.

Modification: Llanowar Elves -4, Virulent Emissary +4

4 cards swapped, estimated modification cost 80 (NT$)

Angels Modified Decklist

Pirates Theme Precon

Deck Overview

Pirates Precon Decklist

The Pirates theme is built around the discard Vehicle Pirates from Aetherdrift, supplemented by the Pirate tribal synergies from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan. Judging from the precon’s rare configuration, discard synergizing with Inti, Seneschal of the Sun, Fearless Swashbuckler, and powerful rare Vehicles triggers the abilities of Marauding Mako, Scrounging Skyray, and Captain Howler, Sea Scourge, thereby boosting output and refilling resources.

Key Changes

Unlike the Angels theme, of Aetherdrift’s Pirates only the one-mana Marauding Mako has made it to the table, and there’s no tournament-level constructed template to reference. That said, this precon’s card selection clearly can’t keep up with the current Standard speed, and the coordination between cards also needs work.

First, we remove the weak Scrounging Skyray and the too-slow Magmatic Galleon, and bring in Enterprising Scallywag, which goes with the discard theme, and expand the Staunch Crewmate count. In the Pirates deck the author built earlier, Staunch Crewmate was a core card of the Pirate tribe: it can take a Pirate or an artifact, helping the player meet Vehicle conditions. Enterprising Scallywag’s graveyard trigger can be set off by discarding or exploring, sending out Treasure to help adjust tempo. Next is lowering the overall curve; to fill the removal gap left by removing Magmatic Galleon, we use Invasion Submersible, which can activate itself. Broadside Barrage is a bit too costly in the current environment, so we swap it for the 2-mana powerful removal Obliterating Bolt. This slot could also use other similarly positioned cards, such as Abrade, Iroh’s Demonstration, or the new card Sear. Spell Snare, which is hard to use in Standard, is swapped for the removal Glacial Dragonhunt that can interact with the discard strategy. In addition, this deck mixes in too many non-Pirate spells, giving Secluded Courtyard a color-screw risk, so we replace it with the color-fixing land Capital City, which has built-in cycling and works with the deck’s strategy.

Removal list: Scrounging Skyray -4, Spell Snare -2, Broadside Barrage -2, Magmatic Galleon -2, Secluded Courtyard -4

Addition list: Enterprising Scallywag +2, Staunch Crewmate +2, Glacial Dragonhunt +2, Obliterating Bolt +2, Invasion Submersible +2, Capital City +4

14 cards swapped, estimated modification cost 140 (NT$)

Pirates Modified Decklist

Gameplay Demo

Angels Modified

As the video shows, adding Virulent Emissary makes the already quite extensible precon version more resilient. For example, in the first game, if that slot had been Llanowar Elves, it could have lost for lack of life. Plus it can be tutored up with Starfield Shepherd, so you needn’t worry much about not drawing it. The fit is so high you’d wonder whether the slot was arranged in advance.

Pirates Modified

The modified version raises the density of cheap removal, and performs noticeably better than the precon version against low-curve creature decks. In addition, Invasion Submersible performed impressively: besides being flexible soft removal itself, its ability to untap and attack on its own makes Fearless Swashbuckler’s conditions easier to meet, producing the large amount of looting the original design intended.

Conclusion

Standard currently has some archetypes that are hard to interact with, such as Sultai Reanimator, Jeskai Artifacts, or decks built around Badgermole Cub; even the modified versions won’t easily get an edge out of the main deck against them. But against traditional archetypes like aggro and midrange, you should get plenty of fun out of the games, and I hope all the new players who buy this product can fully enjoy it.