Eirdu and Isilu, Carrier Cards: Lorwyn Eclipsed Headliner Analysis (January 2026)
Why Eirdu and Isilu matter right now
As of January 2026, Magic: The Gathering is returning to one of its most stylistically distinctive planes with Lorwyn Eclipsed, a set whose official marketing and story framing repeatedly emphasize a single idea: Lorwyn and Shadowmoor are no longer neatly separated.
Wizards of the Coast describes a plane where you can “cross the boundry into the eternal day of Lorwyn… under the watchful eye of their sun god Eirdu—while the twilight god Isilu resides across the border…” on the set’s official product page. That same official framing, reinforced by the Planeswalker’s Guide to Lorwyn Eclipsed, introduces Eirdu and Isilu as massive, newly awakened forces tied to the plane’s shifting day/night identity.
Mechanically, that duality shows up in a single, striking “carrier” card: Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn // Isilu, Carrier of Twilight—a double-faced mythic legendary creature that literally turns into its opposite side. With the set’s preview season and major competitive events lined up across January and early February 2026, this is one of the most timely cards to analyze if you’re looking at Lorwyn Eclipsed through the lens of gameplay, story, and high-level metagame preparation.
What follows is a detailed, fact-grounded look at what we know—when the set arrives, how Wizards is positioning its headliner, and what Eirdu/Isilu actually do, based strictly on published official sources and widely used card databases/retailer listings.
The Lorwyn Eclipsed timeline (and why timing matters for analysis)
The practical reality of any MTG “headline card” discussion is that context is set by the calendar. Wizards has spelled out a clear schedule for Lorwyn Eclipsed and it is front-loaded into January:
- Preview season begins: January 5, 2026 (Wizards’ “Where to Find Lorwyn Eclipsed Previews”).
- Full Card Image Gallery date: January 12, 2026 (Wizards’ collecting guide).
- Prerelease window (WPN stores): January 16–22, 2026 (Wizards’ collecting guide).
- MTG Arena release: January 20, 2026 (Wizards’ collecting guide).
- Tabletop global release: January 23, 2026 (official product page).
This sequencing matters because it outlines exactly when Eirdu and Isilu stop being “preview theory” and start being tested reality. Players get early hands-on time in paper during Prerelease week, Arena players get access on January 20, and the tabletop market follows immediately after on January 23.
Then, the schedule accelerates into a competitive proving ground:
- Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed: January 30–February 1, 2026, at the Greater Richmond Convention Center (403 N 3rd Street, Richmond, Virginia, USA), per the official Magic.gg competitor fact sheet.
- That same fact sheet lists operational specifics like in-person registration windows (Thu Jan 29, 5:00–8:00 p.m.; late registration Fri Jan 30, 8:00–8:30 a.m.) and even hall hour estimates (e.g., 8:00 a.m. openings).
- The Pro Tour uses Lorwyn Eclipsed Booster Draft + Standard Constructed, which means any “carrier card” hype becomes immediately measurable: does it show up in Standard lists, and does it influence draft tables?
In other words, Lorwyn Eclipsed is not landing quietly. Wizards has tied the release window to major organized play visibility, with the official Pro Tour hashtag #PTECL and a $500,000 total prize pool.
A quick note on “headliners”—and where Eirdu/Isilu fits
Before zooming in on Eirdu and Isilu, it’s worth clarifying how Wizards is using the term “headliner” for Lorwyn Eclipsed.
In Wizards’ own “Collecting Lorwyn Eclipsed” article, the set’s official headliner is Bitterbloom Bearer, including a serialized borderless version featuring art by Rebecca Guay. Wizards describes this serialized card as “double rainbow foil” and “individually numbered,” and notes that it appears in Collector Boosters and is English-only even in non-English boosters.
That’s the collecting headliner, in the modern MTG sense: the chase item that anchors Collector Booster excitement and social media attention.
So where does that leave Eirdu and Isilu?
They are not positioned (in the cited official collecting text) as the serialized “headliner” chase card. Instead, their role reads more like a set identity headliner—a card that embodies the set’s core narrative and mechanical tension. The Wizards product page explicitly names them (sun god Eirdu, twilight god Isilu) in describing the plane’s borderland. Then the Planeswalker’s Guide elevates them further, describing them as awakened beings whose presence influences the plane’s merging.
Bitterbloom Bearer may be the official collectible crown jewel, but Eirdu // Isilu is one of the clearest “this is what the set is about” cards revealed so far.
The official story framing: two gods, one unstable border
Wizards’ Planeswalker’s Guide to Lorwyn Eclipsed provides the clearest factual foundation for who Eirdu and Isilu are in this new Lorwyn return.
The guide describes Lorwyn and Shadowmoor’s boundary becoming unstable, creating “eclipsed realms” where light and shadow grind together. Within that context, Wizards states:
“As the aspects merged, two great beings awoke… Eirdu, the incarnation of the sun, and Isilu, the incarnation of the moon.” — Planeswalker’s Guide to Lorwyn Eclipsed (DailyMTG).
The same guide describes Eirdu as “the living embodiment of Lorwyn and a symbol of the sun,” and Isilu as “the living embodiment of Shadowmoor and a symbol of the moon.” It also describes their scale and influence—massive entities whose presence can reshape or shift boundaries.
Then the product page supplies a simpler, marketing-facing version of this lore, telling players that you can cross into Lorwyn “under the watchful eye” of Eirdu, while Isilu “resides across the border.”
This matters for analysis because it means Wizards has strongly anchored these characters as representations of day and night, and as forces linked to the plane’s current instability. When a card then presents them as two faces of a single transforming mythic creature, it is clearly designed to reflect that official story beat.
The “carrier card” itself: Eirdu // Isilu as a transforming mythic
The card Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn // Isilu, Carrier of Twilight is a double-faced legendary creature. While Wizards’ dynamically loaded card image gallery page was not reliably extractable in the earlier research snapshot, the card’s rules text, collector numbers, and credited artists are indexed by multiple major MTG card databases and by a major retailer listing.
From those sources, the base version is indexed as:
- Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn (collector number #13a, artist Lucas Graciano)
- Isilu, Carrier of Twilight (collector number #13b, also credited to Lucas Graciano)
A separate Booster Fun variant is indexed as:
- #286a / #286b, artist Omar Rayyan (listed as an “inverted” frame-style variant in the mtg.wtf indexing)
Even at the level of raw presentation—two collector numbers in sequence, two different artist credits across variants—this card is not treated as filler. It’s positioned as a premium mythic with multiple print treatments, designed to be seen and discussed.
Eirdu’s side: convoke for creature spells, with a built-in switch
On the front face, Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn is listed as a {3}{W}{W} legendary creature — Elemental God, 5/5, with flying and lifelink.
The central mechanical text on Eirdu’s side is:
- “Creature spells you cast have convoke.”
In straightforward terms, that means Eirdu turns your creatures into potential “rituals” by allowing you to tap creatures to help pay for creature spells. Because this is granted broadly—“creature spells you cast”—the effect scales with board presence.
But the design doesn’t stop at “white convoke god.” Eirdu is also a transforming card with an explicit, repeatable trigger window:
- At the beginning of your first main phase, you may pay {B} to transform Eirdu.
That timing detail matters. It isn’t “once per turn at sorcery speed” in vague terms; it’s anchored to a specific step: the beginning of your first main phase. That makes the transformation a structured choice point on your turn.
Isilu’s side: persist for your nontoken creatures, and a switch back
On the reverse face, Isilu, Carrier of Twilight is listed as a legendary creature — Elemental God with a black color indicator, also 5/5, with flying and lifelink.
Isilu’s central mechanical text is:
- “Each other nontoken creature you control has persist.”
Persist is a historically powerful mechanic—particularly in formats where sacrificing creatures or trading in combat is common—because it gives your nontoken creatures a built-in “return once” resilience (in the classic rules implementation). Here, Isilu grants it broadly to your board, but explicitly excludes tokens and uses the phrasing “each other,” which means Isilu is not included in its own persist-grant.
And, mirroring Eirdu, Isilu carries an equally explicit transformation option:
- At the beginning of your first main phase, you may pay {W} to transform Isilu.
So the full design is a two-way hinge: pay {B} to go from dawn to twilight, and pay {W} to go from twilight back to dawn, at the same recurring moment each of your turns.
Why the “carrier” design reads like the set’s thesis statement
With only the facts in hand (and deliberately avoiding speculation about metagame dominance), it’s still possible to say something concrete about design intent because the card’s structure aligns tightly with Wizards’ official messaging.
Wizards’ product page makes the day/night boundary—and the gods watching over each side—central to the plane’s premise. The Planeswalker’s Guide then describes literal merging and “eclipsed realms,” and frames Eirdu and Isilu as awakened embodiments of sun and moon.
The card translates that into three factual design pillars:
- Two identities on one card (double-faced).
This mirrors the “two realms becoming one unstable plane” story hook Wizards describes.
- A recurring choice point each turn (first main phase).
The plane’s instability is not a one-time flip; it’s presented as ongoing. The card likewise invites ongoing, repeated flipping depending on what you need.
- Symmetrical color “keys” to flip.
From the published rules text: {B} transforms Eirdu into Isilu; {W} transforms Isilu into Eirdu. That establishes a clean, factually stated relationship between the two halves and the two colors that represent them.
Even the names are intentionally explicit: “Carrier of Dawn” and “Carrier of Twilight.” Combined with the story’s sun and moon embodiments, it’s difficult to find a more direct mechanical metaphor for the set’s premise.
The wider January 2026 ecosystem: products, packs, and what players will open
An “analysis” for January 2026 also needs to reflect what players are actually buying and opening. Wizards has provided unusually specific MSRPs and product descriptions for Lorwyn Eclipsed.
From the official collecting guide, Wizards lists:
- Play Booster MSRP: $5.49
- Collector Booster MSRP: $26.99
- Commander Deck MSRP: $49.99
- Bundle MSRP: $57.99
- Draft Night MSRP: $89.99
- Theme Deck MSRP: $23.99
This matters because Eirdu/Isilu is a mythic, multi-variant DFC, and those tend to be focal points of both drafting excitement and collector attention—particularly when the set has a packed release-to-Pro-Tour window.
Wizards also introduced (starting with this set) two new product lines relevant to how people learn and play the format:
- Theme Decks: Wizards states these are 60-card ready-to-play Standard decks, and the first two are themed around Angels and Pirates.
- Draft Night: Wizards describes it as built for Pick-Two Draft for four players, and specifies the contents: 12 Play Boosters, 1 Collector Booster, 90 basic lands, 10 double-sided tokens, plus an insert.
Even without making claims about where Eirdu/Isilu will land competitively, the fact pattern suggests Wizards expects Lorwyn Eclipsed to be played in multiple ways immediately: casual “ready-to-play Standard” via Theme Decks, curated drafting via Draft Night, and the full competitive spotlight via Pro Tour Standard + Draft.
Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed: the first major Standard test
The Pro Tour is often where “mythic build-arounds” either become real or get quietly dismissed. Wizards’ official fact sheet lays out the conditions under which that will happen:
- The Pro Tour uses Lorwyn Eclipsed Booster Draft and Standard Constructed.
- Standard decklists are due Wednesday, January 28, 2026 at 12:00 p.m. (Richmond local time) via Melee.gg.
- The event runs a 16-round Swiss structure with 50 minutes per round.
- The total prize pool is $500,000, with $50,000 to first place and a published Top 8 payout schedule.
The venue and timing are also explicit: Greater Richmond Convention Center, January 30–February 1, 2026.
For a card like Eirdu/Isilu—mythic, legend, transformational, and clearly tied to the set’s identity—this is a near-immediate spotlight. The timeline from Arena release (Jan 20) to decklist deadline (Jan 28) is short, and the tabletop release (Jan 23) leaves only a brief window for paper acquisition before the Pro Tour.
Those are not opinions; they’re calendar facts—and they help explain why January 2026 coverage is likely to focus heavily on a handful of highly “message-driven” cards like this one.
What we can verify—and what remains unverified from primary pages
To keep the analysis honest, it’s also important to be explicit about verification boundaries.
- The official Wizards Card Image Gallery page for Lorwyn Eclipsed exists, but it appears to load card data dynamically; in the earlier research snapshot, the raw HTML did not expose individual card entries.
- As a result, the precise rules text and variant indexing for Eirdu/Isilu in this research set comes from cross-referenced major card database indexing (mtg.wtf) and a major retailer listing (Card Kingdom), rather than a static Oracle/Gatherer dump directly from Wizards’ gallery.
That said, the facts reported above are consistent across the indexed sources cited in the research list, including mana cost, creature type line, stats, keyword abilities, and the bidirectional transform payments at the beginning of the first main phase.
Where this leaves Eirdu/Isilu in January 2026 coverage
When a set’s official story says that two beings embody sun and moon, that the plane is splitting and merging into “eclipsed realms,” and the product page itself foregrounds those gods in describing the world’s boundary, it’s notable that one of the most prominent mythics is literally designed as a two-sided god that flips between white convoke and black persist.
Meanwhile, Wizards is simultaneously pushing a serialized headliner (Bitterbloom Bearer) for collectors, listing specific MSRPs across product types, and anchoring the set’s competitive debut with a $500,000 Pro Tour in Richmond only a week after tabletop release.
That combination—the lore, the calendar, the product lineup, and the tournament schedule—creates a very specific January 2026 reality: Lorwyn Eclipsed is arriving with a clearly defined narrative axis (day vs. twilight), a clearly labeled collectible chase target (Bitterbloom Bearer), and at least one mythic “carrier card” that appears engineered to carry the plane’s identity mechanically in Standard, Limited, and beyond.
Key verified facts at a glance (for editors)
- Preview season begins: Jan 5, 2026
- MTG Arena release: Jan 20, 2026
- Tabletop release: Jan 23, 2026
- Pro Tour Lorwyn Eclipsed: Jan 30–Feb 1, 2026, Greater Richmond Convention Center (403 N 3rd St, Richmond, VA), $500,000 prize pool
- Eirdu, Carrier of Dawn: {3}{W}{W}, 5/5 flying lifelink; “Creature spells you cast have convoke”; can transform at beginning of first main phase by paying {B}
- Isilu, Carrier of Twilight: 5/5 flying lifelink; “Each other nontoken creature you control has persist”; can transform at beginning of first main phase by paying {W}
- Bitterbloom Bearer is the set’s official headliner, including a serialized borderless Rebecca Guay version (Collector Boosters; English-only even in non-English boosters)
- MSRPs: Play Booster $5.49; Collector Booster $26.99; Commander Deck $49.99; Bundle $57.99; Draft Night $89.99; Theme Deck $23.99
If you want the next iteration to be even more “MTGArena.Pro-style,” I can restructure this into a data-first deck-tech analysis framework (card role taxonomy, synergy clusters implied by convoke/persist, and a “what to watch at #PTECL” checklist)—while still staying strictly within the verified facts above.