Lorwyn Eclipsed just dropped and I'm on my third week of writing about new commanders from that exciting new set. Some weeks my columns feel like they write themselves. I do my best to find interesting angles on new legendary creatures, but this week I ended up doing a mid-week rebuild after I thought I had a solid plan.

Before I dive into today's build and how I scrapped a 100 card first draft, let's look at today's commander.

This two mana Golgari Elf Druid has two hybrid Black/Green symbols in its casting cost and in its activated ability. One could build this as a mono-Black or mono-Green deck, but I'm going to be using both colors for today's list.

Lluwen's enter the battlefield trigger will have me mill four cards, and then I may put a creature or land card from among the milled cards on top of my library. That's not great, but it's not all that terrible. It points me towards self-mill, which works nicely with Lluwen's activated ability. For five mana Lluwen can tap and have me discard a land card to create a 1/1 Black and Green Worm creature token for each land card in my graveyard.

My first thought was to lean into the mill aspect. I built a list with a ton of creatures, loaded it up with enchantments like Mortal Combat and Tombstone Stairwell, and prepared to write about yet another creature-heavy self mill deck. I then realized I was avoiding the elephant in the room.

I really wasn't excited about Lluwen's activated ability.

I thought about how one might combo with Lluwen to make a zillion worms, but quickly realized that the requirement that you have to discard a land is a show-stopper. It's that extra piece of the puzzle that makes things much more challenging. You can make a bunch of Worms, you can sacrifice some to a Phyrexian Altar to make colored mana, you can untap with a Thornbite Staff, but none of that solves the need to keep discarding lands.

Making a zillion worms isn't necessary to win games, but making a small handful of 1/1 creature tokens really isn't going to do much to set me up to threaten a win. It took a look through EDHRec.com to get me to realize that I really ought to give it a shot. There are lots of cards that can work with a lands-in-graveyard strategy even if I can't wind Lluwen up and make him go brrr like some more combo-friendly commanders.

Lands in Hand

If my biggest concern is that I won't have any lands in hand when I want to activate Lluwen's ability, that seems like a good place to start.

I've long leaned on cards like Skittering Surveyor and Pilgrim's Eye as ways to keep hitting land drops when I'm not building in Green, but one of the first cards that I ended up running in this list was Satyr Wayfinder. Those first two will enter and let me tutor a basic land to my hand, but Satyr Wayfinder will have me look at the top four cards of my library, put a land from them into my hand and put the rest into my graveyard. I want lands in my graveyard, and I want lands in my hand, so this card is just about perfect for this deck.

My ramp packages in Green used to reliably include Rampant Growth, Kodama's Reach, and Cultivate - especially if I was building in two or three colors. As the format has sped up, those last two are less played in mid and higher-powered EDH, In this list they serve to both help me hit my colors, help me ramp, and help me put a land into my hand. In the early game that might just mean having an extra land drop, and in the late game that might be just what I need to activate Lluwen's ability.

Another way to make sure you have lands in hand is to draw an insane number of cards. I could probably be running more card draw, but I did swap out a bunch of lands for cycling lands, which can be used to draw a card and put another land in the graveyard. I like cycling in this deck, but what I love is drawing a boatload of cards all at once. Regal Force and Shamanic Revelation can both do that, setting me up to both have a land to discard for a Lluwen activation, and have lands to discard to help me make more worms.

Lands in Graveyard

Making sure I have lands in my graveyard is a major piece of the Lluwen puzzle. I'm running a slew of cycling lands, but there are plenty of other self-mill options in Black and Green I can lean on to try to load up my graveyard. I'm running Springbloom Druid, Harrow, and Cycle of Renewal as ramp options that will have me sacrifice a land. That isn't self-mill, but it will help put lands into the bin.

One shot self-mill effects aren't ideal, but I'm running a few as part of an overall self-mill package. Deadbridge Chant will mill me for 10 cards at a hefty casting cost of six mana. I'll also get a random card back on my upkeep and if it's a creature it'll go directly into play. Some of my self-mill is attached to creatures. Aftermath Analyst and Undead Butler each have me mill 3 cards when they enter, and the latter has a death trigger that will return a creature card from my graveyard to my hand. Grisly Salvage will have me reveal the top 5 cards of my library and I can put a creature or land into my hand and the other four go into my graveyard.

Repeatable self-mill is really what I'm looking for. Scion of Halaster will have me look at the top 2 cards of my library when I'd draw my first card each turn, and I'll put one of them into the graveyard and draw the other. I've got self-mill attack triggers on Colossal Grave-Reaver, Six and World Shaper, and activated abilities on Skull Prophet, Syr Konrad, the Grim, and Sinister Starfish that can put cards into my graveyard.

My favorite self-mill card in Green, and the reason I eventually got excited about this list, is Hermit Druid. In a combo deck you might not be running any basic lands at all, and you would activate him and mill your entire library. In this deck I'm running 14 basic lands, so there's a good chance I'll mill a small chunk and hopefully hit a few nonbasic lands to set up for a decent Lluwen activation. Dropping my basic land count and adding in a few more nonbasic lands, including Field of the Dead, would definitely be a way to make this deck more degenerate.

While Lluwen's activated ability is the main payoff for having a bunch of lands in my graveyard, I'm definitely running a few more ways to turn this strategy into a real threat.

Syr Konrad, the Grim is a great way to turn a big army of Worm tokens into a problem for anyone wanting to wipe the board, but my favorite card in this list might be Mirkwood Bats. This Bat from Lord of the Rings will have each opponent lose 1 life whenever I create or sacrifice a token. I'll probably never tap Lluwen to create 40 Worms, but making even 10 Worms with a Mirkwood Bats in play will become a problem my tablemates will have to answer, If I can do that for two or three turns in a row, I should be able to threaten a win.

Formless Genesis is a Kindred sorcery that has the Changeling keyword, so it is every creature type even though it isn't a creature. This three-mana spell will have me create an X/X colorless Shapeshifter creature token with changeling and deathtouch where X is the number of land cards in my graveyard. Uurg, Spawn of Turg is also in the list. That Frog Beast has five toughness, but has power equal to the number of land cards in my graveyard. It will also let me surveil 1 at the beginning of my upkeep, and has an activated ability that lets me pay a Black and a Green mana and sacrifice a land to gain 2 life.

I've got a few other cards that could present threats. Scouring Swarm is in the list as an odd little Insect that is like Scute Swarm, in that it makes a copy of itself whenever I sacrifice a land. That only happens if I've got seven or more lands in my graveyard - otherwise I'll just create a 1/1 Black insect creature token with flying.

My focus on loading up my graveyard with lands led me to include both World Shaper and Splendid Reclamation. While it's nice to solve all of my mana problems, I am concerned that returning all of my lands to play from the graveyard will screw up any plans I have to use Lluwen to make 1/1 Black and Green Worm tokens. I expect that I'd need to play this list a lot to be able to make an informed decision on whether it's worth running those cards or not.

It's notable that I didn't lean heavily on cards with the delve keyword. If a card with delve is in your graveyard, you can mill yourself for a number of cards and then put the delve card from your graveyard into your hand. It's a powerful ability and if you enjoy playing with delve you might want to run Golgari Thug and other cards that have that keyword.

The Worms Crawl In and Out

When I say that I'd need to play a list to figure out how I would want to refine it, I'm not kidding. Almost every list I share here is a starting point, and will absolutely need to be tweaked to better match your meta, your playstyle, and the power levels you are trying to play at. Commander in lower brackets is a weird format, in that we're trying to win, but we are also trying to create entertaining games where the result leaves everyone feeling challenged and fulfilled. Lower bracket EDH is not "win at all costs" but rather "play to win whilst also trying to make sure everyone has fun".

I'm not incredibly bullish about today's list. I'm concerned that you might want to run cards like Orbs of Warding so you can't be targeted with a Bojuka Bog, but that's going to be a bit of a meta call. If you see targeted graveyard exile a lot, you'll want hexproof so you can't be targeted. I'm also concerned that five mana is going to be too high a price for the number of 1/1 Worm tokens you're able to generate, and that the deck is going to be too slow. The good news is that slower decks aren't unplayable in EDH, they're just going to have to settle in at a lower power level in order to be fun and playable.

Lluwen, Imperfect Naturalist | Commander | Stephen Johnson

• Commander (1)
• 1 Lluwen, Imperfect Naturalist

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Aftermath Analyst
• 1 Beast Whisperer
• 1 Braids, Arisen Nightmare
• 1 Bramble Familiar
• 1 Caustic Caterpillar
• 1 Colossal Grave-Reaver
• 1 Creakwood Liege
• 1 Eternal Witness
• 1 Hermit Druid
• 1 Icetill Explorer
• 1 Mirkwood Bats
• 1 Nadier's Nightblade
• 1 Nyx Weaver
• 1 Old Rutstein
• 1 Pilgrim's Eye
• 1 Reclamation Sage
• 1 Regal Force
• 1 Rumbleweed
• 1 Sakura-Tribe Elder
• 1 Satyr Wayfinder
• 1 Scouring Swarm
• 1 Sinister Starfish
• 1 Six
• 1 Skittering Surveyor
• 1 Skull Prophet
• 1 Springbloom Druid
• 1 Sylvan Safekeeper
• 1 Syr Konrad, the Grim
• 1 The Gitrog Monster
• 1 Thrashing Brontodon
• 1 Timeless Witness
• 1 Trystan, Callous Cultivator
• 1 Turntimber Sower
• 1 Undead Butler
• 1 Uurg, Spawn of Turg
• 1 Voracious Varmint
• 1 World Shaper

• Spells (17)
• 1 Beast Within
• 1 Cycle of Renewal
• 1 Grisly Salvage
• 1 Harrow
• 1 Midnight Tilling
• 1 Tragic Slip
• 1 Withering Torment
• 1 Cultivate
• 1 Damnation
• 1 Dread Return
• 1 Formless Genesis
• 1 Kodama's Reach
• 1 Life from the Loam
• 1 Reanimate
• 1 Shamanic Revelation
• 1 Splendid Reclamation
• 1 Worm Harvest

• Enchantments (7)
• 1 Deadbridge Chant
• 1 Deathreap Ritual
• 1 Guardian Project
• 1 Phyrexian Arena
• 1 Ripples of Undeath
• 1 Scion of Halaster
• 1 Undergrowth Recon

• Artifacts (1)
• 1 Skullclamp

• Lands (37)
• 7 Forest
• 7 Swamp
• 1 Ash Barrens
• 1 Barren Moor
• 1 Blasted Landscape
• 1 Bojuka Bog
• 1 Capital City
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dakmor Salvage
• 1 Deathcap Glade
• 1 Desert of the Glorified
• 1 Desert of the Indomitable
• 1 Evolving Wilds
• 1 Fabled Passage
• 1 Festering Thicket
• 1 Golgari Rot Farm
• 1 Lotus Field
• 1 Polluted Mire
• 1 Slippery Karst
• 1 Tainted Wood
• 1 Terramorphic Expanse
• 1 Tranquil Thicket
• 1 Undergrowth Stadium
• 1 Verdant Catacombs
• 1 Woodland Cemetery

Buy This Deck Export text

If you wanted to tune this list down even further, I think you could have a lot of fun with a deck focused on Worms and Wurms. There are only a handful of Worm cards in Magic, but a surprisingly large number of Wurms. Lluwen happens to be an Elf Druid, but leaning into Elves or Druids wouldn't necessarily help you make a low powered deck. Ultimately I do think the most interesting way to go is to lean into self-milling and making a little Worm army.

If you wanted to try to push this list up in power I'd probably try to assemble that multi-card combo that would let you activate Lluwen more than once a turn. I still don't know how you'd solve the "discard a land" problem, but better deckbuilders could probably figure that part out. You might notice that I'm running The Gitrog Monster, so it's worth mentioning that at a certain point in the process of powering up a deck you might just need to swap to a better commander, and Gitrog would probably be the one you'd wind up with if you were heading into B4 or B5 territory.

Final Thoughts

As I wrap up this column, I find myself wondering if the best build path would be to lean into card draw as much as humanly possible in Black and Green. That might seem odd, but card draw is one of those things that it can take time to fully appreciate. I still find myself undervaluing draw because it's not as exciting as lots of other things in the game. Drawing lots of cards in a list like this would simply mean you get to discard lands at a pretty high rate. That's what Lluwen wants and an intense focus around drawing cards would play very differently than the list I've shared today.

I've noticed that Lorwyn Eclipsed has a big focus on creature types. I'm not against building kindred decks and I'll probably explore a few over the next month or so. I also hope to dive into some brews that are more than just a pile of Elementals, Faeries, Goblins, Merfolk, or Kithkin. I'm admittedly curious about what kind of deck I might build now that we have a bunch more Kithkin in our card pool.

That's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading and I'll see you next week!