I'll be honest, Lorwyn Eclipsed Limited has gotten a little stagnant for me. ECL, while featuring a set of robust Constructed cards and amazing art, has a surprisingly shallow Limited format, mainly in Draft.

I've been drafting the set pretty consistently since its release, both in paper and online on MTG Arena. Since I'm playing in the Los Angeles Team Draft League this season, it was imperative for me to get my reps in, so I know the ins and outs of the format. However, I've hit a bit of a wall in terms of navigating my drafts.

Whether by skill or pure dumb luck I've fallen into drafting Golgari Elves for the majority of my drafts. This was a deck that I was able to draft both online and in paper early, and it showed me just how powerful this archetype is.

Golgari Elves probably has the most synergistic cards and recursion out of all the archetypes. At uncommon you have card's like Morcant's Loyalist and Morcant's Eyes, just insane value/engine cards. Even at common, you have evasive threats and ways to offset lifetotals in the form of Dawnhand Eulogist and Safewright Calvary.

Elves also just carries other uncommons extremely well, like Unbury and Dundoolin Weaver. Overall, it's a very hard archetype to beat, and if you're the only Elves player at the table your deck usually ends up being pretty absurd. Here's a deck I just 3-0'd with at my local store in a six-person pod, even with someone hate-drafting a High Perfect Morcant and a Marlen, Fae Ascendant from me.

Other than Elves, I've drafted the Elementals deck a couple of times and have had success with it. Izzet-based Elementals is a great deck because so many cards in that archetype give you the ability to splash, like Flamekind Gildweaver or Kulrath Zealot.

It's a great deck to be in because you can usually splash any good bombs or removal that come your way. For example, I had a Curious Colossus that was easy to splash in a 2-0 Izzet Team Draft deck. Merfolk is a deck that I've yet to play a lot of, but it plays and drafts similar to the Elf-archetype.

The only other real supported archetypes in this set are Goblins and Kithkin, and while I've lost to the Kithkin deck a few times, it sometimes lacks key cards to put enough pressure on Elf opponents with high-toughness creatures. Goblins I've lost to once, but the creatures are so puny in relation to Elf creatures, plus it usually can't finish off Elves decks once they have some of their lifegain elements in play.

If I had to rank the clearly supported archetypes in this set, it would be:

1. Elves
2. Elementals/Vivid
3. Merfolk
4. Goblins
5. Kithkin

But Roman, you might ask, what about the other five color combinations? If I'm being honest with you my short answer is - they all just kind of suck. Boros doesn't have enough Giants to be a deck, Simic is just a worse version of Izzet, Faeries doesn't have enough support, the list goes on and on. However, I have been wondering as of late, what to do in scenarios where I'm cut hard from Elves and Elementals.

On one hand, Elves feels like a deck that has such a deep card pool, it can support up to two-players in an 8-person pod. Similarly, Elementals/Vivid also feels like a few people can have passable decks. This usually leaves a Merfolk, Goblins, and a Kithkin player leftover, with the last player sharing one of these archetypes. Is this set only supposed to support five different archetypes, though?

Today I wanted to chat a bit about how to draft and build some of the lesser-known decks in the format, and which to avoid. First, let's start with my very first draft of the format, in which I drafted a non-theme deck and lost pretty badly to my friend who ended up 3-0ing, also with a non-theme deck!

Drafting Orzhov

I opted to pack one pick one a Sunderflock, and while in retrospect that was a good financial decision (thanks Pro Tour ECL) I ended up drafting a weird sort of four-color Control deck around it, when instead I should've been Izzet Elementals. My friend and Team Draft League teammate Shaun opted for Orzhov, and ended up winning with this deck.

Orzhov is probably my pick of the best non-theme deck from this set. Black is very deep as a color, and since you need engine cards in this set you can leverage the power level of Reaping Willow to your advantage. While you might not have as much synergy as Elves, you can utilize cards like Blighted Blackthorn to continuously Blight onto your Reaping Willow to rebuy some of your value 3-drops like Flock Imposter and Moonglove Extractor.

Orzhov also gives you access to some of the best removal in the format. Black gives you Bogslither's Embrace and Nameless Inversion while White gives you Liminal Hold, Keep Out, Protective Response, and Pyrrhic Strike.

Keep in mind that while this archetype has some great value cards and removal, you need to have ways to both win the game and generate value. This is why cards like Reaping Willow, Moonlit Lamenter, and Gnarlbark Elm should be high on your list of cards to point you to this archetype.

Drafting Dimir

Moving on, the next deck I want to discuss in Dimir. While Dimir's theme is Faeries, there really isn't enough support for a typal archetype. Rather, I think Dimir wants to be similar to the Orzhov deck - a grindy Black deck that focuses on removal and value engines with the added bonus of killing your opponent with flyers.

The "theme" of the Dimir Faeries deck is to get bonuses from casting cards on your opponent's turn. The only real payoffs for this are Voracious Tome-Skimmer, Illusion Spinners, and Unwelcome Sprite - none of these cards really being all that powerful. Voracious Tome-Skimmer is the only real "engine" card of the three, as it allows you to draw cards. Similar again to Orzhov, I think this is a deck that can capitalize on value cards like Reaping Willow and Blighted Blackthorn. Honestly, I think the way you beat theme decks like Elves and Kithkin is to put a wall of high-toughness creatures on the ground while you chip away in the air with your flying creatures.

For interaction, this deck really wants Nameless Inversion, Rime Chill, Swat Away, and Wild Unraveling. For the amount of mana value four or greater cards you can play with some sort of discount this is probably a solid Tanufel Rimespeaker deck, another high-toughness creature. There are a few other key cards that you might not expect that can make this archetype perform well.

Rooftop Percher has pretty much made every deck I've played this format. Not only is it just a solid body that can disrupt Elves decks while gaining life, it also being a Changeling makes it so much better with cards like Morcant's Loyalist and Gathering Stone. This is another card I'd highly pick in the Faeries deck due to it being a good flyer and off-setting cards that might make you lose life like Blighted Blackthorn and Voracious Tome-Skimmer.

Another card that I think is secretly good in this type of deck is Dawnhand Eulogist. While this card does require an Elf in your graveyard for its effect, I think that if you pick up enough random Elves that are just good creatures (Moonglove Extractor, Scarblade Scout) you can always trigger this card.

You can also get this trigger off having a Mischievous Sneakling or a Prideful Feastling in your graveyard, two Changelings that are already playable in this archetype. Best of all taking this card for your deck actually lets you "hate pick" it from the Elves player, so don't think you can't play this even if you aren't exactly in Golgari Elves.

Drafting Simic, Boros, and Gruul

As for Simic, Boros, and Gruul, well I don't really have a lot to add. Because of how deep the Elementals archetype is, often your Simic deck should always just be Temur, and I'd prioritize picking up the Basic Landcycling Elementals in addition to other fixing like Evolving Wilds, Noggle Robber, and Firdoch Core to make sure your deck can support 3-4 colors.

The same thoughts also apply to Gruul as you have enough mana-fixing in Red to support other colors, so I'd focus on just trying to be a Temur/four-color deck than straight Gruul Aggro or Midrange.

If you truly have to be a Boros deck, I think there is value in a build that has cards like Feisty Spikeling, Hovel Hurler and good removal like Sear and Feed the Flames. You probably also want Blight combos in this deck like Brambleback Brute and Sting-Slinger. Heck, with enough Goblins, Boneclub Berserker even being a 4/4 for four might just be good enough.

In this archetype I'd probably also take Burdened Stoneback and Boldwyr Aggressor highly - Boldwyr Aggressor might be the card that makes your deck playable due to how it interacts with Changelings like Gangly Stompling.

While I have yet to play all these decks, as the Magic Gods keep putting Elf cards in front of me, I do think it's important to be vigilant and to understand how to draft undervalued decks, especially in a pod of eight people.

Decks like Orzhov and Dimir I probably wouldn't aim to draft outright, but if I think the colors are open then sometimes you do what you have to do. Even if Elves is the de facto "best deck," it doesn't mean that everyone at the table will be in that archetype. Sometimes it's better to be in a brew archetype than to be the third Elves player with a subpar deck.

These lessons don't just apply to Lorwyn Eclipsed, but to any set that only has a handful of supported archetypes. With smaller sets on the horizon, like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, some of these lessons may ring true for the future of Limited Magic, and hopefully you can navigate your drafts correctly, even if the best archetype is entirely closed off from you.

Happy drafting!

-Roman Fusco