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Magic: The Gathering regularly introduces new mechanics, and Blight is the latest addition from the Lorwyn Eclipse set. This mechanic plays a significant role in the set, with one of the new Commander pre-constructed decks built around it.
Blight is a keyword that involves sacrificing and typically involves placing -1/-1 counters on your own creatures. Despite its simplicity, it offers a surprising level of strategic depth, enabling powerful combos in both Standard and Commander formats.
What Is Blight?
Blight is an action that lets you put a number of -1/-1 counters on a creature you control, with the number specified on the card. When you activate Blight, you can target any creature you control, not necessarily the one receiving the counters. Unless the card says otherwise, the counters are placed on a creature you own.
You’ll mostly see Blight on black and red cards in Lorwyn Eclipse, but it only appears on 23 cards overall. This limited presence means it’s not overly disruptive, yet there are enough cards to build a useful deck around it.
How To Use Blight
Using Blight effectively depends on how your deck is built. For example, a card like Dawnhand Dissident, a low-cost black creature, can Blight to perform specific actions. It can Blight to either surveil (look at the top card of your deck and decide to keep it or put it somewhere else) or exile a card from a graveyard. Since it’s a weak creature with low toughness, sacrificing it to perform these effects is not costly.
Another card, Gristle Glutton, can Blight to discard a card and draw a new one. This is especially useful in aggressive decks that want to cycle through their cards, even if they’ve already played their mana-accumulating lands. With a toughness of three, Gristle Glutton can be Blighted three times before being destroyed if it’s your only creature, or you can distribute the counters to keep it alive longer.
Maximizing Blight’s potential depends on deck design. For example, pairing it with other effects that modify counters or manipulate graveyards can create powerful synergies.
If you’re interested in seeing how this ability fits into top-tier decks, check out our guide to the best Lorwyn Eclipse archetypes, which showcase some of the most effective ways to use Blight.
Will Blight Appear in Future Sets?
It’s unlikely that Blight will become a common feature in future sets. Adding -1/-1 counters mixes poorly with abilities that add +1/+1 counters, which is probably why no new +1/+1 counter cards appeared in Lorwyn Eclipse, according to Mark Rosewater. The mechanic’s limited use and awkward synergy mean it probably won’t return until Lorwyn itself is revisited in a future set.
Most keywords tend to be tied to specific sets or plane themes, such as Foretell on Kaldheim or Ninjutsu on Kamigawa. Similarly, Blight’s future appearances are uncertain, and it’s reasonable to expect it to remain a Lorwyn-specific mechanic until the plane gets featured again.
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