After a long, leak-free streak, it seems that Wizards is letting things slip once again. The run-up to Edge of Eternities has already seen a few small leaks, including some uncommons, an Eldrazi, and a mythic rare land. Today, however, mere days away from the official debut, the floodgates have well and truly opened. A whole bunch of new cards have been leaked, many of them at higher rarities, too.
The big hitters here include a new interpretation of Reserved List classic Gaea’s Cradle, and a potential upgrade to Temporary Lockdown. These are joined by some stellar archetype-specific tools, including a spicy draw spell and a nice new Aristocrats piece. As always with leaks these should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, the quality is high enough here that I very much doubt they’re fakes.
Evendo, Waking Haven
- Type: Land – Planet
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: This land enters tapped.
Tap: Add G.
Station (Tap another creature you control: Put charge counters equal to its power on this Planet. Station only as a sorcery.)- STATION 12+
G, Tap: Add G for each creature you control.
Today’s Edge of Eternities leaks included the green member of the new mythic rare planet cycle, Evendo. We already saw the black one, Susur Secundi, and unfortunately, this one seems to follow the same pattern. The issue here is that Wizards seems to have played it way too safe with this cycle in general.
Sure, the Gaea’s Cradle text here is exciting. If you can fully Station Evendo, you have the chance to make an absurd amount of mana. The problem is getting to that point. Tapping 12 power’s worth of creatures is a huge ask, even in slower formats like Commander. In Standard, it’s basically impossible until you’re deep into the game. At that point, having access to a lot of mana is unlikely to make much of a difference.
On top of that, there are several other safety valves at play too. Always entering tapped is a huge downside, and even once you’ve unlocked the Cradle ability you have to pay an extra green before you can use it. This means you need at least three creatures in play to go mana positive. As Gaea’s Cradle retreads go, I’d play Growing Rites of Itlimoc before I played this. Unless we get some serious Station support, this seems unlikely to see play.
Cosmogrand Zenith
- Mana Value: 2W
- Type: Creature – Human Soldier
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: Whenever you cast your second spell each turn, choose one –
- Create two 1/1 white Human Soldier creature tokens.
- Put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.
- Stats: 2/4
On to a slightly more exciting mythic now. Cosmogrand Zenith is a very solid creature, letting you build a board or buff one each time you cast two spells in a turn. This is essentially a continuation of Tarkir: Dragonstorm’s Flurry ability, albeit not keyworded as such.
As an aggressive threat, Zenith is pretty scary. It’s easy to cast this followed by a combat trick or cheap creature on four, and immediately nab one of the effects. It’s even easier to double down on subsequent turns, since three will likely be the top of your curve in a deck that wants this. Imagining this alongside Cori-Steel Cutter makes me very grateful for Monday’s bans.
Without Cutter in the format, prospects for this card are shaky. Boros Convoke is the natural home, but that deck loses most of its key pieces to rotation not long after Edge of Eternities comes out. Mono-White Token Control is on the up right now, mind you, so this could slot in there. While it looks like more of an Aggro piece, a steady stream of tokens is great in the deck.
Past Standard, Cosmogrand Zenith looks interesting for even Modern. Playing this alongside some Mishra’s Bauble and other zero-mana spells in Jeskai Prowess strategies can create incredibly explosive board states. Zenith looks like an all-timer.
Pinnacle Starcage
- Mana Value: 1WW
- Type: Artifact
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: When this artifact enters, exile all artifacts and creatures with mana value 2 or less until this artifact leaves the battlefield.
6WW: Put each card exiled with this artifact into its owner’s graveyard, then create a 2/2 colorless Robot artifact creature token for each card put into a graveyard this way. Sacrifice this artifact.
Of all the Edge of Eternities leaks from today, Pinnacle Starcage is the one most likely to see real play. For three mana, this is a slightly more restrictive Temporary Lockdown. Lockdown is a Standard staple right now, so it stands to reason that a card this close to it would at least see some testing.
The downside here is that Starcage only hits creatures and artifacts. This means your opponents will get to keep any annoying enchantments they have lying around, which is relevant in Pixie matchups. Pixie took a beating in the bans, mind you, so it may not be much of a problem going forward.
The advantage of Starcage over Lockdown is the activated ability. Getting to deal with the exiled cards permanently and build a board at instant speed is fantastic, even for eight mana. This gives the card a lot more value in long games, which makes it ideal for Control decks. With Lockdown rotating in September, this is a clear successor for any decks that want the effect.
Consult The Star Charts
- Mana Value: 1U
- Type: Instant
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Kicker 1U (You may pay an additional 1U as you cast this spell.)
Look at the top X cards of your library, where X is the number of lands you control. Put one of those cards into your hand. If this spell was kicked, put two of those cards into your hand instead. Put the rest on the bottom of your library in a random order.
On the subject of Control decks, Consult the Star Charts is another excellent new piece from Edge of Eternities. This is a draw spell reminiscent of Pillage the Bog from Thunder Junction; a card which did see a bit of play early on. While this one only lets you dig as deep as your lands, and not twice so, it has the big advantage of coming at instant speed.
For Control decks, this is a massive deal. Dreams of Laguna from Final Fantasy is seeing play in Azorius Control for this reason, and Consult is much, much better than that. As soon as you have three or more lands, the selection becomes pretty good, and it only gets better over time. The ability to kick it and grab an extra card is fantastic, too.
Players are already comparing this card to Dig Through Time, a draw spell good enough to get banned in Modern and Legacy and Restricted in Vintage. While these comparisons are definitely hyperbolic, there’s some truth to them. Consult is a very efficient draw spell indeed, and will likely be fighting for slots with Stock Up come August. The card notably synergizes scarily well in Vivi Ornitier combo decks.
Timeline Culler
- Mana Value: BB
- Type: Creature – Drix Warlock
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Text: Haste.
You may cast this card from your graveyard using its warp ability.
Warp – B, Pay 2 life. (You may cast this card from your hand or graveyard for its warp cost. If you do, exile this creature at the beginning of the next end step, then you may cast it from exile on a later turn.)- Stats: 2/2
We’re moving down to the lower rarities now, and the Edge of Eternities leaks still have plenty to offer. Timeline Culler, for example, is one of the most interesting recursive creatures we’ve ever seen. For one black and two life, you can Warp it out of your graveyard, putting it right into play. That puts it in a similar spot to much more conditional options like Gravecrawler and Nether Traitor.
In Standard, this is a powerful piece in the aggressive Mono-Black deck that’s been building up over the last few sets. Between Bloodghast, The Last Ride, and Cecil, there’s definitely something there to work with. The fact that Culler is a fine creature on-rate, and essentially infinitely replayable unless your opponent exiles it, really gives it a shot.
In Commander, Culler will likely enable a huge number of sacrifice combos. With Phyrexian Altar or Warren Soultrader, you can sacrifice and recast it as many times as your life allows. Throw in a Blood Artist effect or two, and you should be able to drain the table out before those life payments catch up to you. It’s very rare for recursion in Magic to be this easy, so expect to see Culler show up in a ton of Aristocrats decks going forward.
Ruinous Rampage
- Mana Value: 1RR
- Type: Sorcery
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Text: Choose one –
- Ruinous Rampage deals 3 damage to each opponent.
- Exile all artifacts with mana value 3 or less.
Three mana to hit each opponent for three is nothing to write home about, but the option to exile all artifacts with mana value three or less with Ruinous Rampage is huge. This could allow the card to see some play in older formats.
Meltdown sees regular Modern and Legacy play as an answer to artifact-heavy decks like Affinity, and Rampage is better in a lot of situations, as long as you can afford to pay the mana. The lack of flexibility hurts, of course, but exiling instead of destroying is a big deal. This is especially relevant in Vintage, where it prevents Lurrus decks from recurring many of their fast mana sources.
Exciting as this effect is, Rampage is unlikely to make much impact outside of the sideboard. The burn effect, while sometimes relevant, isn’t enough to waste a slot on really. I’d expect to see this tested in older formats, though whether it sticks or not will depend on how metgames develop.
Vote Out
- Mana Value: 3B
- Type: Sorcery
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Text: Convoke (Your creatures can help cast this spell. Each creature you tap while casting this spell pays for 1 or one mana of that creature’s color.)
Destroy target creature.
The last card from the Edge of Eternities leaks is, unfortunately, something a lot of players have been worrying about. As a card, Vote Out is a totally fair design. It’s a worse version of the Convoke removal spells we’ve seen in the past, like Pile On and Lethal Scheme. Being sorcery speed and offering no other upsides pretty much confirms this as a Limited player only, mind you.
The problem with Vote Out is that it’s a very explicit reference to the video game Among Us. Players have been complaining constantly over the past year about Magic getting too self-referential in its sets. After Murders at Karlov Manor and Outlaws of Thunder Junction, they even started referring to them as ‘Hat Sets.’ Edge of Eternities has been avoiding similar allegations so far, but this card could change that.
Among Us isn’t exactly a well-worn sci-fi trope or anything. It is, however, the kind of wacky reference that a lot of players don’t enjoy in their Magic sets. If we see more cards like this, the Hat Set discourse could be back with a vengeance. That would at least get people talking about this card, however, which is unlikely in any other scenario.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage!