Phase II - Microsealed League Formats for 4 Players
Packed with tribal/linear synergies, Lorwyn is basically "Advanced Ixalan," but instead of pirates and dinosaurs, you have boggarts and giants, pushing on a unique theme of Celtic folklore. Despite the linear themes, this set has been presenting some very intricate and varied drafts, and I recently reworked it to align with the 4-player microsealed format adopted by cubes in the latter half of the Planar Cube Series.
The Great Aurora is over. Balance has been restored to the mystical realm of Lorwyn, but dark remnants of the Shadowmoor phase remain.
This small cube is based largely on the original Lorwyn block but draws upon Shadowmoor, Eventide, and other sets as appropriate to create an intricate, fun, and balanced format.
Cards have been selected assuming that each of 4 players will receive a quarter of the commons (33 each), an eighth of the uncommons (9 each), and a sixteenth of the rares (3 each) for a total of 45 cards. You can separate these into packs and draft, or you can play microsealed, which is described below.
ArchetypesTribal themes are the most apparent and span specific 3-color combinations.
The other 3-color combinations have minor subthemes:
These themes have multiple builds possible within the shard/wedge, and the inclusion of hybrid cards and monocolor incentives make monocolor decks viable as well. Uncommons and rares have numerous build-arounds that lead to additional unique builds.
MicrosealedEach of 4 players receives a pool of 45 cards, as described above. From these pools, players build one or two 15-card "microdecks." To play with 15-card microdecks, simply use the following house rules:
(I typically try to develop a session structure to encourage building more than one microdeck and to connect the way the session plays out to the story of the plane. Unfortunately, I have not done that yet for Lorwyn.)