9 January 2026

A new MTG Lorwyn Eclipsed card is about to steal the fun away for all the wrong reasons

By newsgame

Despite the massive hype surrounding it, Lorwyn Eclipsed was treated to a mild and mostly uneventful spoiler season compared to Magic: The Gathering‘s new Marvel Heroes set coming later this year, and even compared to the last few sets of 2025. Yet, in the face of slow reveals, Lorwyn Eclipsed is proving to be an entertaining set already, with plenty of fun, unique cards that can reshape Magic: The Gathering‘s various formats. There is a lot of financial weight on Lorwyn Eclipsed’s shoulders, though, as the original Lorwyn block was a commercial flop, and returning to the plane after 19 years can rekindle that spark only if Wizards of the Coast sees some success in it.

Luckily, there are some amazing cards to collect from Magic: The Gathering‘s Lorwyn Eclipsed set, starting with the new Special Guest prints with fantastic and thematic art, going all the way to some incredibly powerful commons, uncommons, and rares that will inevitably see play. This can be seen especially with a card called Hexing Squelcher, a regular rare that is going to change multiple MTG formats once it finally comes out — but it will also take the fun away from the game.

What Does MTG’s Hexing Squelcher Do and Why Is It Good?

Hexing Squelcher is a 2-CMC 2/2 goblin creature that can’t be countered, has ward (pay 2 life), and gives both these effects to your spells and creatures, respectively.
A 2-mana uncounterable creature that makes spells uncounterable is incredibly strong.
Ward (pay 2 life) disincentivizes removal spells in MTG.
Hexing Squelcher, being a Red creature, means it can be used as an asset to counter Blue/control in otherwise fast decks.
It has synergy with MTG‘s Goblin decks.

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MTG’s Best Red Lorwyn Eclipsed Card is Already Clear

Hexing Squelcher is arguably an OP MTG card for several reasons and in multiple deck archetypes across the game’s formats, but it could also end up becoming the thing it’s trying to fight the most. What this means is that Hexing Squelcher is the quintessential Blue/control counter, making spells uncounterable and giving all creatures ward that forces opponents to lose life if they want to target them. Still, its mana cost makes this a very easy card to splash into Blue/control decks, too.

Hexing Squelcher is a callback to the OG Vexing Shusher in the Lorwyn block, also a goblin creature that made spells uncounterable.

How Hexing Squelcher is Warping MTG’s Formats

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Hexing Squelcher costs 1 generic and 1 Red, which is great value in and of itself. However, the generic portion of its mana cost and the single Red pip make it incredibly easy to use in the same decks it’s designed to fight. This could lead to several issues:

A revival of the Izzet domination in MTG’s Standard: Izzet has been the go-to color combination in Standard for a long time, and while MTG‘s Vivi ban combined with Avatar’s release made Standard more varied, Izzet is still at the top of the meta with three different deck archetypes – Izzet Lessons, Izzet Looting, and Izzet Splash.
A lockdown of MTG’s cEDH: Magic: The Gathering‘s cEDH decks are Commander decks cranked to eleven with powerful combos, expensive and incredibly powerful cards, and top-tier optimization. However, these decks mostly run very few removals, and cEDH games are all about counterspells and interaction to secure victory, or rather, to prevent others from winning before you do. Hexing Squelcher breaks that balance, as the first to cast it can easily secure their combos, especially in decks like Blue Farm.
Burn decks in Modern and Legacy will burn brighter: A lot of Burn decks in MTG rely on their cheap, powerful damaging spells to do their work and take down the opponent, and having a 2-mana 2/2 creature that can attack for more damage while protecting all creatures and making all burn spells uncounterable is incredible value. It breaks cards like Chalice of the Void and Force of Will, too.

Hexing Squelcher is pre-selling online for over $37 for a regular copy and almost $90 for its special treatment.

MTG’s New Lorwyn Eclipsed Rare is Virtually Unbeatable

Magic the Gathering Dockside Extortionist card art

With all this in mind, it’s hard to argue in favor of Hexing Squelcher when it can be virtually used in any deck, warping both counterspell-heavy and removal-heavy formats alike. Plus, outside of single-copy formats like Commander, one could theoretically run 4 Hexing Squelcher in a single deck, leading to a board state that is hard to break through.

It’s hard to predict how MTG‘s meta will adapt across multiple formats, but considering that this is pretty much guaranteed to be a hit in Commander, other formats will inevitably follow suit once more testing is done. The problem in this case is that Hexing Squelcher can create a snowball effect, leading more and more decks within a format to use it in order to beat it.