Lorwyn Eclipsed has a lot of cool cards, but there’s one in particular that lit a deck-building fire under me: Twilight Diviner.
Cards that double effects are strong, and something of a go-to for Wizards when they want to print something splashy, powerful and fun. So much so, in fact, that it’s gotten a little tiring to see the latest “doubler” effect in new sets. Not so for Twilight Diviner, a card doubler that – to me at least – has a reasonable amount of hoop jumping to access.
TWILIGHT DIVINER
Twilight Diviner is a three mana 3/3 that makes a token copy, once per turn, of a creature that entered or was cast from a graveyard. While most doubler effects are super easy, this one requires you to fill your yard before you get any benefit, so to me that takes the card from “busted and boring” to “wow, actually interesting”. You also get to surveil 2 when it enters, which helps you dig for at least one trigger off of its own back, as a treat.
There are some really obvious Commanders that love this card – think Muldrotha, Terra, or Sefris – but it’s the slightly kookier and less popular Commanders that interest me most here: think Mirko, Obsessive Theorist or Chainer, Nightmare Adept.
CHAINER, NIGHTMARE ADEPT
Chainer synergizes perfectly with Twilight Diviner. You already want to be casting creatures from the graveyard or otherwise reanimating them (with Doomed Necromancer, Apprentice Necromancer and Animate Dead), so getting a token copy of whatever you bring back is just icing on the cake. Outside of combo decks, Chainer decks have been displaced a little in higher brackets due to the sheer power and consistency of Commanders like Terra and Henzie, so getting new tech to build a more casual B2 or B3 deck is perfect.
To get access to Twilight Diviner as soon as possible – and to get access to the creatures you want to get token copies of – you need to run some Entomb effects. Aside from the eponymous card, you want Oriq Loremage, Buried Alive, and Vile Entomber, to name a few. Oriq Loremage is really sweet here as it’s not only repeatable, but can be activated immediately if Chainer has given it haste.
I last played Chainer about 5 years ago. It’s a fun list – which you can check out in this brilliant video I did with the Professor – but it’s had a whole host of upgrades since then.
CARDS THAT MAKE ME GO HMMMM
For starters, there are some great new ways to start filling the yard. Ripples of Undeath from MH3 is one such all-star, and it’s one of the most efficient ways to keep the yard filled while grabbing a few key pieces back.
Barrowgoyf is a similar low-cost permanent to keep cards milling over. It’s a great blocker and great attacker, and the damage trigger is perfect for a deck like Chainer. Getting some incidental lifegain is also very underrated.
Monument to Endurance from Aetherdrift is one of the more cheesy engine cards printed for decks that like to discard cards, and it’s a great fit for Chainer. It can replace the card you discarded, help with mana, and help with a clock.
Lord of the Forsaken from Midnight Hunt was a spicy potential include for Chainer, but a little on the pricier side a few years ago. Since then, we’ve had a reprint in the Tarkir Dragonstorm Commander decks, so it’s now a much more budget friendly include. It does everything you could want.
Milling yourself outside of Dimir has become a lot easier in the past five years. Incarnation Technique is a favorite of mine in Henzie, but March of the Machine gave us some solid Chainer tech too. Breach the Multiverse is something of an all-star, and Archpriest of Shadows enjoys Haste in this deck quite a bit.
CARD QUALITY JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER
In recent sets we’ve had some fantastic support cards for Chainer too. Long gone are the times we were shoehorning Muck Drubb into the deck. Now it’s time to indulge in Redirect Lightning from Avatar, or Return the Favor from Outlaws of Thunder Junction. Removal, too, has gotten much better, with Withering Torment now offering an even better answer to enchantments than Feed the Swarm.
You have cheap discard fodder that’s later an extra combat in Fear of Missing Out, mana generation from Descent into Avernus, and Electroduplicate, Snort and Nibelheim Aflame when it comes to discard fodder with Flashback.
It’s never been a better time to try a Chainer deck.
END STEP
Sometimes it’s really fun to revisit an old deck, and sometimes what’s needed is seeing a new card that gives you the synergy and fun you need to pull the trigger.
Twilight Diviner might be one of the most exciting cards in Lorwyn Eclipsed for me, and I can’t wait to play with it. What deck are you going to slot it into?
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.