My Top 10 Cards for Lost Caverns of Ixalan
We did it. After a busy year, we finally made it to the final major release for Magic: The Gathering in 2023. In this article, I’ll talk about my top picks from Lost Caverns of Ixalan (LCI), including cards from the Commander set (LCC) and the Universes Beyond: Jurassic World (REX) cards that can be found in Set and Collector Boosters. I hope that you’re excited to explore this set with me. Let’s dive right in!
Zoyowa’s Justice
Outside of artifact destruction and direct damage, red’s options for removal are often fairly limited. This new spell allows you to make someone shuffle a problematic artifact or creature back into their library and then discover equal to its mana value. This means that they’ll be able to cast the first spell they reveal on top of their library with mana value less than or equal to that of the card that they shuffled into their library.
If your opponent has something as powerful as The One Ring on the battlefield, odds are that almost anything else that they might cast out of their library is going to be an improvement. You might also need to get rid of a problematic creature such as Elesh Norn, Mother of Machines without worrying about the possibility that she’ll immediately be reanimated out of the graveyard. More removal options are always welcome.
Carmen, Cruel Skymarcher
From my perspective, this is the most interesting Orzhov aristocrats commander of all time. There’s just something enjoyable about a flying beater that grows with each sacrificed permanent that also reanimates things whenever she attacks. She even bears more than a passing resemblance to my favorite card in casual Commander, just with the addition of black to help enable her to do her thing even better.
You’ll be able to quickly buff her up with Fleshbag Marauder and friends while playing a game of attrition with your opponents, or you can take the nuclear approach and cast a spell like Cataclysm to make her into a gigantic attacker that can revive permanents while quickly dispatching opponents. If mass land destruction is appropriate at your table, you could do a lot worse than Carmen in the command zone.
Illustrious Wanderglyph
Why do I feel like I’ve seen this card before? If you need an army in a hurry, this card will quickly flood the board with Gnome tokens. It will also likely get you the city’s blessing within a single turn cycle if you played it on curve, giving your artifact creatures +2/+2. If your opponents don't act, it's only a matter of time until they get Gnomed by your massive army of tokens that just keeps getting bigger and harder to deal with.
I wanted to take a moment to call out the incredible synergy that Illustrious Wanderglyph has with commanders like Losheel, Clockwork Scholar and Bennie Bracks, Zoologist. It should be very easy to draw a ton of cards each turn cycle as you pump out Gnomes. Giving white’s historical synergy with tokens, I’m surprised that it took so long for white to see a card that makes a creature token on each turn without any conditions.
Ghalta, Stampede Tyrant
It wouldn’t be an Ixalan set without Dinosaurs, now would it? This new iteration of Ghalta makes it easy for you to put a whole bunch of creatures into play right away, which should make for some fun gameplay in your stompy decks that include green. The fact that it costs eight mana also hardly seems like a concern, given how easily green can pull ahead of other colors with land ramp and mana dorks.
Ghalta can be even scarier if you’re playing Greater Good, which can be used to sacrifice it in response to its enters-the-battlefield trigger (ETB) to draw twelve cards and potentially put out a massive number of creatures to overwhelm your opponents! You can also rely on other more conventional green stompy enablers like Garruk’s Uprising to refill your hand to do it again next turn!
Tishana’s Tidebinder
We’ve probably all played against commanders and other cards that seem to warp the game around themselves as soon as they enter the battlefield. It might feel like the only way to deal with something like that is to remove it immediately, which is only a short-term solution when dealing with someone’s commander. If a problem card has an activated or triggered ability, this flashy Merfolk might be the solution.
If Chulane, Teller of Tales or some other crazy value engine commander is running wild, this might be the perfect way to deal with it and slow your opponent down a bit. Or maybe you want to give Oko, Thief of Crowns a taste of his own medicine when he tries to turn your commander into a 3/3 Elk! Tishana’s Tidebender is happy to help. I’m expecting to see this card a lot because it stops so many popular staples in their tracks.
Francisco, Fowl Marauder
Here’s a black Pirate with partner to go along with the pair from Commander Legends. When your Pirates deal damage, Francisco can explore to his heart’s content. Being a 0/1, he’ll have to wait to help out until after he’s already explored and gotten a +1/+1 counter by revealing a nonland card. That doesn’t seem like a big hurdle, but it seems more likely that Francisco will be played as a combo enabler than an aggro beater.
All you need to do is have a nonland card on top of your library and you can exile Walking Ballista out of your graveyard with Agatha’s Soul Cauldron—a feat made easier by the fact that you can cast Walking Ballista for zero mana so it will die instantly—in order to enable Francisco to deal damage to your opponents until you win the game. I know that it’s hard to believe, but we finally managed to break these two harmless cards.
Hunting Velociraptor
If you’ve ever seen Jurassic park, you know just how scary these things can be. The use of the prowl ability here feels very strong and also very faithful to the source material. The fact of the matter is, a lot of Dinosaurs in Magic are pretty powerful and being able to cast them for just three mana feels broken. It shouldn’t be too difficult to swing in with a Dinosaur and cast multiple of its friends in the same turn to pull way ahead.
It’s also important to remember that prowl doesn’t specify that a card needs to be cast from your hand. This means that you could cast Gishath, Sun’s Avatar from the command zone for three mana if you’ve dealt damage with a Dinosaur this turn. You can also cast Zacama, Primal Calamity on the cheap and still untap all of your lands to have access to even more mana to use to cast Dinosaurs or activate Zacama’s abilities!
Dauntless Dismantler
Two mana for a 1/4 Human that has multiple powerful abilities in the Uncommon slot? You have my attention. This card feels primed and ready to take on the current Commander meta where it feels like almost every card barfs out Treasure, Food, Clues, or some other flavor-of-the-month artifact token. It will also punish opponents who rely too much on mana rocks to accelerate ahead of everyone else.
Did you realize that Jeweled Lotus needs to tap in order to activate its ability? Making it enter tapped is a huge tempo loss for commanders that want to get out early and start doing powerful things right away. It will also stop that Dockside Extortionist from feeling so scary, especially since you can always pay one white mana and sacrifice Dauntless Dismantler to remove all of those pesky Treasure before they untap.
Permission Denied
As cool as it is to finally have a Magic card with Samuel L. Jackson in the artwork, that actually isn’t why this card made my list. A counterspell for noncreatures at two mana that also prevents your opponents from casting noncreature spells for the rest of the turn feels pretty powerful, even though it’s not without its limitations. You can’t use it proactively and it doesn’t do anything to stop problematic creatures.
If you’re running Dovin’s Veto, this new card might compete for that slot and it generally outpaces the efficacy of Render Silent. One of the main considerations with a card like Permission Denied is that it can be difficult to hold up the necessary mana to cast it while still advancing your board. That said, preventing your opponents from interacting is enticing, especially if you can win at instant speed after casting it.
Kutzil, Malamet Exemplar
This is another great Uncommon that really feels like a powerful addition to most decks that are able to play it. Not only does Kutzil prevent your opponents from casting spells during your turn, but he can also allow you to draw cards if your deck uses anthems, +1/+1 counters, Auras, or Equipment. This makes it feel like an incredible card for decks that want to go-wide while stopping opponents from interacting.
Some recent commanders that might want to consider this card in the 99 include Ellivere of the Wild Court and Galadriel, Light of Valinor. Both of these commanders are excellent at flooding the board with creatures and raising their power through Virtuous Role tokens or +1/+1 counters to enable Kutzil’s card draw. Preventing your opponents from casting spells during your turn also stops combat tricks and removal from ruining your day.
Author’s note: The busy Magic release schedule made it impossible for me to dedicate an article to The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth Holiday Release, but I did do a Commander Spotlight article for Galadriel, Light of Valinor. You can find it here if you’re interested!
Bonus: Reprints
This set features some pretty cool reprints of popular Commander cards. This might be a good time to consider picking up some of these if their prices drop down significantly or if you just like the new artwork. While Cavern of Souls feels like the biggest hit in the main set, I’m also very excited about Growing Rites of Itlimoc and Resplendent Angel because these cards have crept up a lot in price over time.
The Commander precons this time around have some hot reprints that should make a lot of players happy. If you’ve been waiting to pick up cards like Akroma’s Will, Black Market Connections, and Exquisite Blood, this might be your best chance to get them at a reasonable price for the foreseeable future. Overall, I was very impressed by some of the reprints on offer in these Commander decks.
I also wanted to mention that Mana Crypt is in the Special Guests sheet for this set, which will hopefully make it a little bit easier to grab one. It remains to be seen exactly how impactful this reprint turns out to be. That said, I’m optimistic that including popular cards such as Amulet of Vigor and Wedding Ring as Box Toppers and in Draft and Set Boosters will hopefully ease the prices of many popular artifact staples.
This has been a busy year for Magic, but I’ve really enjoyed sharing my highlights from each major release with readers. I hope that this set gives you plenty of exciting new toys to play with and I look forward to seeing all of the cool things that people do with these new cards when I sit down to play some Commander in the coming days. Thanks for sticking with me while I explored Lost Caverns of Ixalan!
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