WotC Axed a Lorwyn Spin-Off of Ikoria’s Broken Companion Mechanic

Last updated on January 14, 2026

Lurrus of the Dream-Den | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

Lorwyn Eclipsed nearly introduced a companion-like mechanic, according to Mark Rosewater and Mark Gottlieb’s article on ECL’s design. The mechanic, dubbed Leader, would let players “fetch one leader per game from your sideboard if you meet a certain condition.” Leader never saw print.

What Is Leader?

Lurrus of the Dream-Den | Illustration by Slawomir Maniak

The theoretical leader mechanic would have allowed players to put a leader from their sideboard into their hand by meeting conditions, bringing the focus of leaders from who your deck was constructed to the current state of the board. The example leader ability given in the article was “: Tap any number of faeries you control with total power 6 or more: Put this card into your hand from outside the game. Activate only one leader ability each game and only as a sorcery.”

Connecting the draw condition to the battlefield instead of deckbuilding makes the mechanic less broken by making it harder to achieve. With the current companion rules, you can put them into your hand the moment you have mana. Short of land destruction, the opponent has no say in when they comes down. But a mechanic like this, contingent on controlling enough creatures of a certain type or a similar restriction, gives the opponent more agency in the game. While praising a mechanic for giving your opponent agency sounds strange, an interactive game is an engaging game, and generally makes things fairer.

Leader, as suggested, also lends itself well to future designs. Companions have a design limitation, as the companion restriction must be something clearly and easily tracked by your opponent, like only cheap spells, only one copy of each spell, etc. But leader could be far more flexible; the given example is typal themed, as expected from a Lorwyn set, but an artifact-themed leader could be activated only when you control X artifacts, a spellslinger leader lets you pay mana when you cast Y spells a turn, and so on. But a question hangs over all this: Do we need another companion?

A Brief History of Companions

Lutri, the Spellchaser | Illustration by Lie Setiawan

The companion mechanic debuted in 2020 with Ikoria: Lair of Behemoths (IKO), a monster-themed set that included a cycle of ten two-color cards with the companion mechanic. Players could include a companion in their sideboard as a companion if their main deck meets the restriction printed on the companion ability, such as no duplicate cards or no spells with a mana value lower than 3.

Companions got off to a rocky start as Lutri, the Spellchaser was pre-banned in Commander. Its restriction is “each nonland card in the deck must have a different name,” which (virtually) every Commander deck already adheres to. It would have just been a ninth card for the Izzet+ players.

The fear of Lutri’s dominance would soon be proved valid as companions took over multiple formats. Lurrus of the Dream-Den caught bans in Legacy and Vintage (though it was later unbanned in Vintage) and Zirda, the Dawnwaker was also banned in Legacy on May 18, 2020. This proved ineffective, and led to a rules change on June 1, 2020: Whereas players could originally cast their companion directly from the command zone, they must now pay mana on their turn at sorcery speed to put it into their hand, from where they can cast it.

Even with this rule change, companion would remain a problem. Lurrus would catch additional bans in Modern and Pioneer, Yorion, Sky Nomad got banned in Modern, and Jegantha, the Wellspring has been banned in Pioneer and Modern.

But companion wasn’t all doom and gloom. They’re incredibly fun cards in Limited and Cube, making any Draft format with them far more engaging. Few cards make you reevaluate your card choices the way companions do, leading to unique drafts you don’t get in formats with average bombs.

Leader could have huge implications for future sets. That Wizards would even consider something companion-adjacent suggests an interest in exploring this design space further, which could be exciting. Companion is one of the most broken mechanics in Magic’s history, but it’s also one of the most creative. If power creep must break formats, I would rather Wizards did so by pushing the mechanical boundaries of the game then acting surprised that colorless, near-unrestricted card draw it too good.