At MagicCon Las Vegas, Wizards of the Coast unveiled the first glimpse of the upcoming space fantasy set, Edge of Eternities, and our first glimpse looks promising. While the vast majority of the set remains unknown, it seems only appropriate, as Magic: The Gathering fans, for us to look at the cards previewed and speculate wildly on how they'll affect Standard moving forward.
Disclaimer: any predictions called out here are purely speculation. This exercise is especially challenging because we also have a banned and restricted announcement coming next Monday, June 30th, so the effective meta decks will likely be completely different by the time Edge of Eternities drops. All the same, we're going to have a great discussion and look at some fun cards, so let's get into it.
Mother Flipping Shock Lands
This is not a drill. Five of the ten shock lands will be coming to Standard with the release of Edge of Eternities and they're looking better than ever. The specific shocks included are:
Tons of decks will become immediately more powerful in Standard as soon as these arrive since they allow decks with three colors to consistently curve out on turn two and three even with cards that have specific color requirements like Bartolome del Presidio, Abyssal Harvester, and/or Skirmish Rhino.
The three-color combinations that benefit the most will be those that have multiple shocks represented: Mardu, Esper, Naya, Temur, and Sultai. If you've ever wanted a chance to run Aven Interrupter in the same deck as Qarsi Revenant and hit both consistently, now's your chance, especially since we also have all the verges which can be enabled by these.
The First of a New Subtype
Edge of Eternities is bringing with it a new subtype called spacecraft. These are similar to vehicles, except instead of crewing them, we use a new mechanic called station. Station is similar to crew but is different in a few key ways. You still tap creatures and their power dictates how well they perform the task, however, instead of turning the vehicle into a creature until the end of the turn, with spacecrafts, you put charge counters on them equal to the stationing creature's power. Once the charge counter threshold is reached, the spacecraft becomes a creature for as long as that condition is met.
So far, only one spacecraft has been revealed – The Seriema – and it looks interesting. It's a three-mana artifact that upon entering allows you to search up a legendary creature into your hand. This effect is awfully slow for the current standard, but could be powerful if a combo involving a legendary creature sees play. Its crew ability also gives all other legendary creatures indestructible in addition to it having a 5/5 body in the air.
This card doesn't look particularly playable unless the Standard format slows down dramatically following the bans, but it's an interesting design for more casual formats or artifact-heavy decks. Notably, however, this does trigger Simulacrum Synthesizer and can be fetched off of a United Battlefront, so that deck could find a use for it potentially.
Our Next Colorless Planeswalker
With Ugin, Eye of the Storms legal, folks have been champing at the bit to make a colorless deck work in Standard. While a dedicated colorless deck hasn't emerged in major rotation yet, Wizards of the Coast is committed to giving the idea a lot of support. The latest iteration is Tezzeret, Cruel Captain, a three-mana walker that walks an odd balance tightrope.
On the one hand, a colorless planeswalker in a Standard set can be played in literally any deck in nearly any format, but this Tezzeret's abilities are all very focused on artifacts. Even the ultimate doesn't do anything if you don't have artifacts lying around. That said, in artifact-heavy decks such as eggs or cheerios, this thing has insane top-end potential by being able to ultimate early and maybe even multiple times. I fully trust a combo deck is going to rise up with this beast soon after release, but I also doubt you'll see him played anywhere beyond that.
Notably, this Tezzeret can be tossed onto the battlefield with United Battlefront and his 0-loyalty ability can even untap the Repurposing Bay many of those United Battlefront decks are running. I suspect he'll fit right in in that deck and possibly elevate it a fair amount. His -3 ability also allows a main deck toolbox including Ghost Vacuum, Soul-Guide Lantern, and/or Dusk Rose Reliquary.
Black Hole Sun
Won’t you come?
Sothera, the Supervoid is a crazy card that will see tons of play in Commander and probably some amount of play in Standard. This card is what would happen if Grave Pact and Leyline of the Void had some kind of bizarre child that really wanted to see Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER succeed.
Part of the challenge with sacrifice decks is that by their very nature, you're going down on resources in order to trigger your engine. Many cards replace themselves (Infestation Sage, Market Gnome), or provide multiple bodies to work with (Resolute Reinforcements), but the payoff still needs to be worth it in the end. An effect like Grave Pact, or Sothera, the Supervoid, helps add value to every sacrifice by stapling an edict into the mix. As you're churning through bodies to get your Sephiroth or Vengeful Bloodwitch triggers, your opponent's board will be picked apart as you go.
This kind of resource grind is already powerful with cards like Momentum Breaker and Hopeless Nightmare, so it'll be interesting to see if Sothera sees play at four mana, but I can imagine this being potentially potent at the very least coming out of sideboards against decks with strong creatures like mono-black demons.
Conclusion
This set is sure to have an impact on Standard if, for no other reason, the addition of the shock lands. I also can't wait to see what other previews are in store for us as we move closer to the release date on August 1st, 2025.
Please let us know in the comments below what cards you’re most excited for, and make sure to stay tuned for the streamer event and other previews in the coming weeks.
Thanks for reading, and happy brewing!
