Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed Standard Metagame Breakdown – MAGIC PLAY

The decklists are in, the numbers are crunched, and the first Pro Tour of 2026 is ready to launch! Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed kicks off tomorrow, January 30, in Richmond, Virgina, as a closed event for invited competitors and ends on February 1. There, 306 of the world’s best Magic: The Gathering players will bring their Standard decks to battle for $500,000 in prizes, coveted World Championship invitations, and the prestigious Pro Tour trophy. The field is stacked with elite talent, featuring Top Finishers from Regional Championships, online qualifiers, and seasoned Pro Tour veterans.

The competition begins with Lorwyn Eclipsed Booster Draft on Friday and Saturday morning, followed by five rounds of Standard each afternoon. On Sunday, the Top 8 will face off in a single-elimination Standard showdown to crown the next Pro Tour champion.

To follow all the action, catch the live stream on the Magic Twitch channel or the Play MTG YouTube channel. The broadcast begins at 11 a.m. ET on Friday and Saturday, and at 10 a.m. ET on Sunday. Be sure to check the viewer’s guide for all the details.

Standard Metagame Breakdown

Standard, Magic’s rotating 60-card format, currently encompasses expansion sets from Wilds of Eldraine onward. Most recently, hundreds of new cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed added fresh options into the metagame, opening the door to entirely new archetypes. With so many new tools entering the format, the Standard decks for World Championship 31 break down as follows.

Izzet Lessons, the breakout deck from Magic World Championship 31, has largely fallen off, representing only a modest slice of the field. This weekend, the spotlight belongs to Llanowar Elves, Gene Pollinator, Badgermole Cub, Spider Manifestation, Quantum Riddler, and Nature’s Rhythm. As many as 106 competitors (34.6% of the field) submitted decks built around this formidable core of mana acceleration creatures and powerful payoffs.

Quantum Riddler [DcVXPTardYTwehtVUeYxw]
Badgermole Cub [LerH8gGFQprXZ5n6Qbelh]
Gene Pollinator
Nature’s Rhythm
Spider Manifestation

This does not come as a surprise after Magic Spotlight: The Avatar in Lyon, where Simon Nielsen won with a finely tuned Simic list. Since then, the strategy has continued to rapidly evolve, most notably at last weekend’s United States Regional Championship. There, Tristan Wylde-Larue took home the trophy with his own take on the mana acceleration plan, defeating Mason Buonadonna’s more traditional Simic build in the finals. Wylde-Larue cut Ouroboroid and added Formidable Speaker, Brightglass Gearhulk, Seam Rip, and Explosive Prodigy, facilitating a toolbox approach where Nature’s Rhythm can fetch anything from threats to removal. His success had a massive impact on the Pro Tour metagame.

Though Pro Tour decklists were due just three days after the conclusion of that Regional Championship, a wide range of variants have emerged. Some builds remained firmly Simic, occasionally adding Explosive Prodigy as a light splash. Others adopted Wylde-Larue’s Bant foundation and tweaked the card choices by emphasizing the white splash, abandoning red cards altogether, or experimenting with black options. For naming purposes, we made the decision to not let a single one-pip silver bullet or sideboard splash redefine a deck’s color identity from its base colors. As a result, Simic or Bant Rhythm decks that splash for a single Explosive Prodigy are still listed as Simic or Bant decks, and a Simic Rhythm deck may feature Doorkeeper Thrull in the sideboard. Five-Color Rhythm, however, goes a step further. It pairs Explosive Prodigy with additional five-color ramp effects and multiple black silver bullets that can meaningfully alter matchup dynamics. This distinction makes it different enough to warrant its own archetype label. Even so, the shared core across all these builds remains strikingly similar.

While Nature’s Rhythm decks are designed to extract maximum value from Badgermole Cub, using Mockingbird to copy it, they are not the only decks that include Cub or a critical mass of mana accelerants. Many Bant Airbending lists, for example, have also expanded their creature ramp packages and are similarly capable of producing absurd amounts of mana early on. In total, 137 players (44.8% of the field) registered lists featuring Badgermole Cub, underscoring the card’s dominance. Although Airbending, Rhythm, and other decks diverge in how they ultimately spend that mana, Badgermole Cub and Llanowar Elves were tied as the most-played nonland main deck cards in the field. In total, 548 copies of each will be sleeved up in Richmond.

Standard Archetype Summaries

All Standard decklists for the tournament will be published on the Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed event page at the start of Round 4 on Friday, January 30, around 2 p.m. ET. Until then, here’s a closer look at the most-played decks of the tournament.

Simic Rhythm (48 players): Simic Rhythm heavily relies on the mana acceleration from Llanowar Elves, Gene Pollinator, Spider Manifestation, and Badgermole Cub to quickly flood the battlefield with cheap creatures while ramping toward a game-ending payoff. A turn-three Ouroboroid can quickly scale the board’s power to astronomical heights, but the best draws are even more spectacular. With the right draw, you can generate ten mana by turn three, allowing Nature’s Rhythm to fetch a game-ending Craterhoof Behemoth as early as the third turn.

Bant Rhythm (46 players): Bant Rhythm shares the same explosive foundation as its Simic sibling, but adds white for at least one copy of Brightglass Gearhulk to fetch a variety of one-mana interactive tools. Key options in the main deck or sideboard typically include Meltstrider’s Resolve, Seam Rip, and/or Soul-Guide Lantern. Brightglass Gearhulk can also fetch Mockingbird, who can copy Brightglass Gearhulk to keep the chain rolling.

Sultai Reanimator (31 players): Sultai Reanimator is a graveyard-centric combo deck that intends to fill the graveyard while digging for Superior Spider-Man, which can enter as a copy of Bringer of the Last Gift to effectively end the game on the spot. Lorwyn Eclipsed brought several powerful updates. Formidable Speaker stands out as an excellent setup piece, discarding Bringer of the Last Gift while tutoring up Superior Spider-Man. Furthermore, Deceit and Wistfulness improve the deck’s resilience against graveyard hate while synergizing with Superior Spider-Man, who can enter as a copy of one of these Elemental Incarnations.

Bant Airbending (20 players): Bant Airbending uses its namesake mechanic to remove opposing permanents for tempo or to reset its own creatures for fresh value. Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Aang, Swift Savior form the backbone of the strategy. Alongside Doc Aurlock, Grizzled Genius, they can airbend each other endlessly to create infinite Ally tokens.

Izzet Spellementals (15 players): Izzet Spellementals is built around a high density of cheap instants and sorceries that draw cards, interact early, and stock the graveyard for Eddymurk Crab and Hearth Elemental. Because both creatures are Elementals, they can reduce the cost of Sunderflock to just two or three mana, allowing it to sweep the opponent’s board and decisively swing the game.

Izzet Lessons (13 players): Izzet Lessons, the breakout deck of Magic World Championship 31, revolves around a dense suite of Lesson cards, many of them efficient removal spells. That structure makes it easy to put three Lessons in the graveyard. With Gran-Gran on the battlefield, Accumulate Wisdom effectively becomes Ancestral Recall and Combustion Technique resembles Swords to Plowshares. All builds incorporate Artist’s Talent and Monument to Endurance for a self-sustaining flow of value.

Dimir Midrange (11 players): Dimir Midrange disrupts opponents with a mix of removal, discard, and countermagic while pressuring them with cheap, evasive creatures. Once Enduring Curiosity hits the board, those creatures can refill your hand, and Kaito, Bane of Nightmares provides additional card advantage.

The Most-Played Cards from Lorwyn Eclipsed

Lorwyn Eclipsed made a major impact on Standard, strengthening established archetypes and introducing powerful new build-around cards. The table below outlines all new-to-Standard cards across the 306 submitted decklists.

Formidable Speaker [1ROabEqJav1ayycvSvItdA]

By the total number of copies, no card left a larger footprint than Formidable Speaker. Overall, 146 players (47.7% of the field) included at least one copy of Jean-Emmanuel Depraz’s World Championship card for a combined 419 registered copies across 43 Bant Rhythm, 41 Simic Rhythm, 31 Sultai Reanimator, 9 Five-Color Rhythm, 6 Bant Airbending, 5 Sultai Elementals, 2 Sultai Rhythm, 2 Four-Color Reanimator, 2 Bant Omniscience, and 5 singleton decks.

Across a wide variety of archetypes, Formidable Speaker fills an astonishing number of roles. It finds silver bullet singletons to answer nearly any board state, improves the consistency of various combo decks, sets up the graveyard for Superior Spider-Man, converts excess lands into material threats, and can untap a permanent that taps for more than one mana. All that utility comes stapled to a relevant 2/4 body that matters on the battlefield. This weekend, Formidable Speaker stands out as the most-played new card from Lorwyn Eclipsed.

Wistfulness [bf7maGG21Ilk1tdFxrK1s]
Deceit [6DJVTbHjtUcIy6iKynro6t]
Vibrance [iM0hSuiLCndly0LE7gFlo]
Emptiness [6oNdhJftb2oGLpNjZlMpOC]

Lorwyn Eclipsed also introduces a potent new suite of evoke Elementals. Among them, Wistfulness and Deceit emerged as the most-played ones, fitting neatly into dedicated Elemental shells while also boosting Sultai Reanimator. Wistfulness also frequently appears as a one-of in the sideboard of Rhythm or Airbending decks, ready to be fetched by Formidable Speaker in matchups where removing an artifact or enchantment is essential. Meanwhile, Deceit has led to the emergence of various new control and combo decks, offering both early interaction and a late-game win condition.

Deceit has a particularly elegant synergy appears with Superior Spider-Man. When cast for {U}{U}{B}{B} and entering as a copy of Deceit, Superior Spider-Man triggers both the bounce and discard effects for just four mana. Sultai Reanimator, Dimir Excruciator, Grixis Elementals, Grixis Reanimator, Sultai Elementals, Four-Color Reanimator, and Grixis Control can all leverage this interaction. Many of these decks, including the novel and exciting Dimir Excruciator deck, may not have been competitively viable without this interaction.

Sunderflock
Ashling, Rekindled [258IVkgmsVH0W8KH1XeoPs]
Flamebraider

A number of dedicated Elemental decks also made their way into the field, with Sunderflock as the clear headliner. For potentially just two or three mana, Sunderflock presents an enormous 5/5 flier that resets the opponent’s entire board. Everything from Llanowar Elves to Badgermole Cub to Quantum Riddler gets bounced, including earthbent lands. A lone Explosive Prodigy might stick around, but that single Elemental is unlikely to change the outcome. In total, 41 players (13.4% of the field) included at least one copy of Sunderflock. While Lorwyn Eclipsed introduced support for several typal decks, Elementals have emerged as the clear standout creature type.

Sunderflock is backed by Hearth Elemental and Eddymurk Crab in Izzet Spellementals and by a suite of evoke Elementals in other builds. Most of those decks are anchored in red-blue, using Ashling, Rekindled and sometimes Flamebraider to accelerate into Vibrance, Wistfulness, Deceit, and more. Although these decks can often generate all colors of mana with lands like Cavern of Souls or Eclipsed Realms, the decision was made to let archetype names for Elemental decks be based on the smallest color combination that supports the deck’s spells, disregarding singletons. So, an Izzet Elementals deck may be capable of paying black mana for Deceit, but two copies of a black card like Not Dead After All (which can return an evoked Elemental for just one mana) is required for the deck to be classified as Grixis Elementals.

Blood Crypt [1UEI5nXCUkXNS4QuQmxQs7]
Hallowed Fountain [5Zu8l3dY0KIVaNzgmLIEMC]
Overgrown Tomb [3forD3M07YBpKncZIXYbu4]
Steam Vents [3SbqkOUFxRBYgTEUsPO2XG]
Temple Garden [5L647A4Dt5JoTH8xHz9QeX]

Mana bases in Standard were already strong, but shock lands rank among the best dual lands ever printed. As a result, their immediate popularity comes as no surprise. Temple Garden, Steam Vents, and Hallowed Fountain are the most played ones, improving the mana bases of a wide range of decks from Bant Airbending to Izzet Lessons.

Spell Snare
Requiting Hex
Sear

Several interactive spells also made their mark on the format. Requiting Hex and Spell Snare in particular offer suitable answers to a turn-two Badgermole Cub, while Sear efficiently handles larger creatures and can even answer planeswalkers.

The list of impactful new additions does not stop there. Oko, Lorwyn Liege has emerged as an elegant sideboard option for Simic Rhythm and beyond, Shimmerwilds Growth lets Formidable Speaker act as ramp, and a long tail of new cards are used by only one player each across a remarkably long list of Standard decks. Taken together, these cards underscore just how deep Lorwyn Eclipsed‘s influence runs.

See the Decks in Action This Weekend

While the format may currently be dominated by Badgermole Cub, Lorwyn Eclipsed has sparked a fresh wave of innovation in Standard. Formidable Speaker has reshaped how decks are built, while Elementals and a suite of new interactive spells have carved out meaningful roles of their own. Against that backdrop, it will be exciting to see if Sunderflock can rise above the field when the stakes are highest.

If you’re eager to see which cards and strategies will ultimately prevail, and which competitor will earn a place in the long history of competitive Magic, be sure to follow the action this weekend. Coverage begins on Friday, January 30, at 8 a.m. PT at twitch.tv/magic and the Play MTG YouTube channel!