Lorwyn Eclipsed: The Set Review

The Verdict

Our score Criteria stated below

Overall

8.0/10

A record-breaking return with a strong reprint sheet.

Limited

7.5/10

The most forgiving format in this archive, in a good way.

Commander

8.5/10

Shocklands, Evolving Wilds and Bloom Tender.

Opening value

6.5/10

Good reprints, modest new cards.

Mechanical depth7.5

Archetype variety8.0

Format balance8.0

Commander impact8.5

Financial depth6.0

Newcomer accessibility7.0

These are our scores, not a community aggregate. Limited is graded on the archive: speed, archetype spread and how much the die roll decides. Commander is graded on EDHREC inclusion rank. Opening value is graded on median prices and concentration.

How It Was Received

Sourced, not scored No aggregate exists

Lorwyn Eclipsed returned to a plane the game had left alone for eighteen years, and it converted that goodwill into the best selling Magic premier set on record at the time, surpassing the previous non-crossover high by a significant margin according to Hasbro's first quarter 2026 earnings call. It held that record for about three months before Secrets of Strixhaven took it.

The reception was warm and largely uncomplicated: a beloved plane, a day and night transforming cycle that gave the set a strong visual hook, and kindred archetypes that new players find easy to read.

The archive found the gentlest format here. Lorwyn Eclipsed has the smallest play advantage of any set we measured, at 4.1 points, against Bloomburrow's 6.8. That means the die roll decides less of the outcome than anywhere else in this collection, which is a genuine and underrated virtue in a Limited format.

Reception sources: Star City Games, Secrets of Strixhaven breaks the Lorwyn Eclipsed record; Wizards, everything announced for 2026; MTGGoldfish, Lorwyn Eclipsed.

The Mechanics

Kindred, and a day and night cycle Median win rate vs set baseline

Evoke

+3.71

The biggest positive we measured here, though on only 5 cards. Paying less for an immediate effect is exactly what a fair format wants.

Vivid

-1.28

Comes into play tapped for a counter you then spend. Real cost, thin payoff. 14 cards.

The set's structure is kindred: four of the top five decks are tribal, led by black-green elves at 56.9 percent. But kindred is not automatically good here, and the clearest evidence is blue-black faeries finishing last at 50.6 percent. Having a creature type is not a plan.

The seven transforming legends, dawn face on one side and dusk on the other, are the set's best design work and the reason its identity reads instantly.

The Money

Market signal Prices retrieved 17 August 2026

Prices move, so this is a snapshot. Base price means the cheapest printing, which is what the card actually costs you. Where a premium treatment runs materially higher we note it separately, because special treatments otherwise flood the top of any value list.

Card	Rarity	Base	Why it costs that
Hexing Squelcher	Rare	$21.72	The set's most expensive new card.
Chronicle of Victory	Mythic	$21.57	Commander demand for a repeatable value engine.
Bitterbloom Bearer	Mythic	$16.23	A transforming legend from the day and night cycle.
Steam Vents	Rare	$15.67	A shockland. Again the reprints do heavy lifting.
Bloom Tender	Mythic	$13.26	A famous and previously expensive green mana creature, reprinted.
Blood Crypt	Rare	$12.30	Shockland.
Hallowed Fountain	Rare	$11.36	Shockland.
Moonshadow	Mythic	$10.98

Most valuable

$21.72

Hexing Squelcher

Median rare

$0.38

The typical rare slot

Median mythic

$1.58

The typical mythic

Top 10 cards

48%

of the set's total value

Reprint driven, like its neighbours. No new card clears twenty-two dollars and the median mythic is only $1.58, which is low. What holds the set up is a shockland cycle plus Bloom Tender and Evolving Wilds. Open it for the lands, not for the mythics.

Two Formats, Two Sets Of Cards

The finding worth the reviewLimited percentile vs EDHREC rank

We hold both the Limited archive and Commander inclusion data. As with the other 2025 and 2026 sets carrying shockland reprints, the divergence is dominated by lands.

Built for the 99, not the 40

Real Commander cards that underperform in draft

Hallowed Fountain EDH #63 Limited p26
Shocklands are Commander staples and draft filler.
Steam Vents EDH #65 Limited p32
Blood Crypt EDH #69 Limited p24
Temple Garden EDH #83 Limited p22
Springleaf Drum EDH #578 Limited p10
Hexing Squelcher EDH #690 Limited p11

Great in the 40, invisible in the 99

Draft all-stars nobody sleeves for Commander

Ashling's Command Limited p100 EDH #6,411
The best card in the Limited format.
Gloom Ripper Limited p99 EDH #12,136
Kinbinding Limited p99 EDH #7,167
Trystan's Command Limited p99 EDH #8,017
Figure of Fable Limited p98 EDH #15,700
Soul Immolation Limited p98 EDH #6,634

Shocklands again. The four most played cards in this set in Commander are duals that do very little in a two colour draft deck, which is why they sit around the 20th to 30th percentile in the archive.

And the set's own cards are honest. Once you exclude reprints, the expensive cards are reasonable draft cards. The six most valuable average the 56th percentile, dragged down by the lands rather than by bad design.

Commander

Where the set keeps living EDHREC rank, lower is more played

273 of the 278 cards carry an EDHREC rank. The rank is global across all of Magic rather than relative to this set, so a card at #50 is the 50th most played card in the format overall. For reprints the rank belongs to the card, not to this printing.

**Evolving Wilds**A reprint, and the most played card in the set.

By colour identity

WhiteCrib Swap (#2,433), Personify (#6,089), Adept Watershaper (#6,962)

BlueRun Away Together (#1,685), Harmonized Crescendo (#3,122), Glen Elendra Guardian (#6,130)

BlackBitterbloom Bearer (#2,090), Graveshifter (#2,858), Bloodline Bidding (#2,919)

RedHexing Squelcher (#690), Collective Inferno (#3,528), Flamebraider (#5,665)

GreenBloom Tender (#260), Formidable Speaker (#1,559), Blossoming Defense (#2,589)

ColourlessEvolving Wilds (#19), Springleaf Drum (#578), Chronicle of Victory (#1,722)

By strategy

Lands and mana bases

The reason to care about this set in Commander. A shockland cycle plus Evolving Wilds.

Hallowed Fountain, Steam Vents, Blood Crypt, Temple Garden

Ramp and fixing

Bloom Tender is the best mana creature reprint in this archive.

Bloom Tender

Kindred

Elves, merfolk, kithkin, elementals and goblins all got support, which is a lot of tribal decks served at once.

Bitterbloom Bearer

Transforming legends

Seven dawn and dusk legends is seven potential commanders with a built-in gimmick.

Bitterbloom Bearer

Value engines

Chronicle of Victory is the set's clearest repeatable-advantage card.

Chronicle of Victory

Control and interaction

Hexing Squelcher is the most expensive new card and the most played piece of blue interaction.

Hexing Squelcher

Reprints

Thirteen, and the lands are the point

A full shockland cycle is the single most valuable thing a set can reprint. They are the backbone of every two colour mana base in every eternal format, they never rotate, and they are expensive. This alone justifies the set's existence for a lot of players.

Constructed And Pauper

Market signal, not play data Read the caveat

Be clear about what this section is. We do not hold play-rate data for Standard, Pioneer, Modern or Pauper, and we are not going to invent it. What we do hold is legality and price. Price is a reasonable proxy for constructed demand, because a rare does not carry a high price unless somebody outside of draft wants it. Treat what follows as market signal.

Standard legal

278

cards at release

Pauper pool

commons added to the format

Set size

278

distinct cards

One of each

$299

total base value, non-basics

The market signal is again reprint-led. Bloom Tender and the shocklands are eternal cards whose prices are set elsewhere, and the set's own contributions are modest by comparison, with Hexing Squelcher the clearest constructed-shaped card.

For Pauper, 90 commons entered the pool. The kindred commons are functional in tribal Pauper shells, particularly elves.

Who Should Buy This

Straight answers

Buy it if

You need duals. Shocklands plus Bloom Tender is a lot of eternal value in one product.
You want a fair Limited format. Smallest play advantage in this archive, so games are decided by drafting and playing rather than by the coin flip.
You have a tribal deck. Five creature types got real support.

Skip it if

You want big new cards. Median mythic $1.58 is among the lowest here.
You already have your mana base. Strip the reprints and the set is pleasant rather than essential.
You want faeries to be good. Blue-black finished last at 50.6 percent.

The one line version

Lorwyn Eclipsed converted eighteen years of goodwill into a sales record and, more importantly for players, into the fairest Limited format in this archive. Its own cards are modest and its mythics are cheap, but a shockland cycle plus Bloom Tender means it gave the wider game more than most sets that sold worse.