this post was submitted on 10 Jan 2026
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So I've been anxiously awaiting Lorwyn - I wanna love this set so badly, and it looks like a lot of care was put into its creation. I love draft and so I've specifically been wanting a great draft environment that's replayable and fun and has some cool build-arounds and maybe one of those hard-to-do decks like shrines from Avatar.

So only seeing 5 main archetypes worries me. Especially because they're tribal and that's lower on my list of archetypes I enjoy... To be fair, it seems like they aren't just straight tribal - Goblins is blight and Elementals is 4+ cost spells - for example.

I'm fairly new to draft/magic - so is this a bad sign?

My hope was to build a set cube, so I guess I could tweak/expand the other 5 color pairs. My understanding is that they're just missing some support, I heard they're missing a signpost card each, but if they also lack depth and aren't really a cool thing to do in draft then I worry the format won't feel very replayable...

Although ๐Ÿ˜ญ maybe I'll only have time to draft 5 decks since it'll only be at my LGS for 5 weeks before TMNT...

From the prerelease guide: https://magic.wizards.com/en/news/feature/lorwyn-eclipsed-prerelease-guide

There are five two-color draft archetypes in Lorwyn Eclipsed, each of which is tied to one of the set's prominent creature types. There are also draft archetypes for the other five color pairs, but those are focused on mechanical themes rather than creature types, and they aren't the focus of this guide.

While it isn't impossible to build a deck that's outside of these five color pairs, we'd recommend sticking to one of the suggested draft archetypes for your first few outings with Lorwyn Eclipsed. Don't worry, there's plenty of texture to be found in these five archetypes.

The last sentence feels hard to trust...

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[โ€“] Phantaminum@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

I'm not an expert on draft but from what I have seen, Lorwyn appears to be really flexible. You clearly can do species tribal but you can also do class tribal(let's say warriors here)

5 colors seems to be an archtype as well, vivid clearly points that way, also mono color using hybrid cards seems legit!

I was looking forward for Lorwyn mainly because I wanted to see Jesper Ejseng arts and I am not disappointed!

Edit: re reading my comment it feels like I need a wrap up, wizards provides an standard way of playing, buy there is a lot of hiden archetypes this time. Just look for some cool enablers and payoffs and you can have your own archtype!

[โ€“] UnPassive@lemmy.world 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Thanks! That perspective quiets my worries. I did more research and it seems like there are other color pairs with obvious themes - like UB fairies/playing cards on your opponents turn. I just hope that those color pairs are deep enough to support without a ton of luck.

I guess WR is probably giants, and WB might be treefolk. So I'm feeling hopeful!

[โ€“] Phantaminum@lemmy.zip 3 points 17 hours ago* (last edited 17 hours ago) (1 children)

Hey, I'm back a bit late. People are uploading draft gameplay to YouTube (just saw prof's one) and it seems very sinergystic between archtypes!

[โ€“] UnPassive@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

Sweet!! I've been waiting for some gameplay and analysis

[โ€“] nocturne@slrpnk.net 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Especially because they're tribal

It is called Kindred now. And Lorwyn is the king of Kindred.

[โ€“] UnPassive@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

I also hear it called typal, not sure if that means the same thing though!

[โ€“] lovestha@mtgjudge.social 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

@nocturne @UnPassive it does. But kindred is the best term.

[โ€“] nocturne@slrpnk.net 4 points 2 days ago

I did some reading after this, as I had never heard typal.

Mark says a deck relying on creatures of the same type, elves, goblins, warriors, etc would be a typal deck.

Where Kindred is a direct word replacement for the word tribal. So it is only used officially when printed on a card.

Personally, I too think Kindred is the better word and should be used in both cases.