Innocuous Lorwyn Treefolk Is a $0.25 Combo Engine

Last updated on January 16, 2026

Reaping Willow | Illustration by Igor Krstic

Lorwyn Eclipsed has a promising new uncommon that works as a combo engine, Reaping Willow. The card is poised to be a great Limited card with legs as a casual combo piece in Commander.

Lorwyn Eclipsed’s Mythic Uncommon in Limited?

Reaping Willow | Illustration by Igor Krstic

Reaping Willow has the potential to be a “mythic uncommon” in Lorwyn Eclipsed Limited due to its powerful abilities and substantial size. Mythic uncommon is a slang term for an uncommon card worth picking over practically every other common and uncommon, and most rares. The Willow has potential to reach these heights due to its size and ability. A 4-mana 3/6 lifelink has a substantial statline for its cost. Of course, it enters with a much smaller body thanks to the -1/-1 counters, but it has a built-in ability to use them—that also reanimates a small creature. Card advantage stapled to the large body has potential.

Looking beyond the card itself, it also has strong synergy with blight cards. Reaping Willow might be the ideal creature to put -1/-1 counters onto with cards like Pyrrhic Strike and Chaos Spewer; not only do you reap the rewards associated with those blight costs, you prime yourself to active the Willow again and again. Chaos Spewer looks particularly enticing; since it puts both needed counters on Reaping Willow, you can effectively reanimate it forever.

Of course, this isn’t a shoe-in, and Reaping Willow has downsides. The most prominent of these is the daunting triple-pipped cost. It’s Orzhov hybrid mana, so it be be paid for with white or black mana, but the only color combination that handles it without struggle is Orzhov. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t play this in Azorius or Rakdos, but it might be tricky. Getting full value also takes time. You need to untap with this, unless you play it and activate it the same turn. In formats chock full of good removal or hyper-aggressive formats, a 4-mana play that needs additional time and mana could be too slow; while the card reads well now, the context of the format and how it develops will seriously impact how playable it is.

Commander Combo Engine

Metastatic Evangal | Illustration by Volkan Baǵa

Reaping Willow has Commander potential as a casual combo engine. It works well in casual decks specifically because the combos require many, sometimes expensive, parts; it’s as far from Thassa's Oracle/Demonic Consultation as you can get.

Going infinite with Willow requires ways to get two counters onto it, plus a creature to keep reanimating, plus (potentially) a sacrifice outlet to get that creature into the graveyard.

A key creature to any Willow loop will be Metastatic Evangel, a creature that lets you proliferate whenever another creature enters. Turning one counter into two makes the enter thing much easier. Sacrifice outlets that produce mana like Phyrexian Altar are also important; so is Pitiless Plunderer. But enough abstraction. Let’s look at a combo or two.

The first combo uses Willow, the Plunderer, Ashnod’s Altar, the Evangel, and any creature that costs 3 or less and puts a counter onto a creature when it enters; for this example, I’ll use Backup Agent. Assume you control all permanents, and Willow has 2 -1/-1 counters.

Sacrifice the Backup Agent to Ashnod’s Altar, getting 2 colorless mana and a Treasure from the Plunderer. Then pay for Willow’s ability using the Treasure and one of the floating Altar mana to reanimate Backup Agent. When it enters, you’ll get two triggers: One from the Agent, and one from the Evangel. These abilities MUST be stacked such that the Agent’s ability resolves first, putting a +1/+1 counter onto Willow, then the Evangel’s ability resolves, proliferating said counter. You can now rinse and repeat for various effects, though infinite colorless mana and infinite death triggers are most likely to win.

A similar but slightly easier combo requires the Willow, Mikaeus, the Unhallowed, the Evangel, Phyrexian Altar, and any non-human creature that costs 3 or less. This time, the Willow should have no counters.

Sacrifice the Willow to Phyrexian Altar. This triggers undying, which brings it back into play. The undying counter cancels out one of the two -1/-1 counters, leaving the Willow with a single -1/-1 counter, which the Evangel proliferates into two. Then sacrifice your random creature the Altar. It comes back from Mikaeus’s undying trigger. Sacrifice it a third time, then reanimate it with Willow, leaving you with infinite mana after a few more loops.

These are just two of the potential lines with Reaping Willow. These convoluted Rube Goldberg sacrifice engines are exactly what I want out of a Bracket 3 EDH deck, and I can’t wait to see what other players dream up.