With just a few days to go before Edge of Eternities is released, it’s time to get serious about where the new cards might see play. While there are some gems in there for constructed, overall we’re looking at a lower-powered set here. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some real Commander gems, mind you. When there’s more room to breathe, cards that take a little while to wind up can deliver real results. The following are our picks for the best Commander cards in Edge of Eternities.
Honorable Mention | The Station Lands
The mythic Station land cycle is probably the biggest question mark in all of Edge of Eternities. On the one hand, they all have incredibly powerful upsides that could easily be abused in the right decks. On the other hand, there are so many guardrails on these things that they feel more like amusement park rides than wild, untamed planets.
Entering tapped alone is quite a big deal these days, even in Commander. The standard for dual lands is much higher in general than it used to be. With players running Surveil lands and Triomes as tapped lands in their decks, there’s much less room for utility lands that can’t enter untapped somehow.
On top of that, tapping 12 power’s worth of creatures is pretty tough for most decks. Unless you’re running something like Ghalta as your Commander, this will likely require you to tap down your whole board multiple turns in a row. When you’re clearly telegraphing the huge power boosts these lands offer, that’s not a smart move.
That said, it would be unwise to count any of these lands out before testing. If they’re going to see play anywhere, it’ll be in Commander. Perhaps there are sneaky interactions we’re all missing that make these must-plays going forward.
5 | Sothera, The Supervoid
- Mana Value: 2BB
- Type: Legendary Enchantment
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: Whenever a creature you control dies, each opponent chooses a creature they control and exiles it.
At the beginning of your end step, if a player controls no creatures, sacrifice Sothera, then put a creature card exiled with it onto the battlefield under your control with two additional +1/+1 counters on it.
One of the best of new Edge of Eternities cards for Commander, in our eyes, is a new take on an absolute classic of the format. Grave Pact, and its more modern retread Dictate of Erebos, are pretty notorious for being overpowered and unfun. In Aristocrats decks, these enchantments can totally lock your opponents out of the game creature-wise, which then often leads to a scenario where everyone waits for you to win. Sothera plays in the same design space, and is pretty powerful as a result.
Since everyone needs at least one creature out to keep Sothera around, you’re encouraged to use it more as a grindy value tool than a continuous board wipe. In exchange, Sothera exiles opposing creatures rather than forcing sacrifices. This gets around a ton of problem cards that Pact and Dictate don’t. When Sothera eventually does sacrifice itself, you get your pick of the exiled creatures to ‘reanimate,’ too. Chances are you’ll hit at least one juicy target by the time you’re done, so this can be a big value swing in your favor.
Sothera is both more interesting and less problematic than Grave Pact and Dictate of Erebos. Any casual deck running one or both of these cards will almost certainly make the switch. Ultimately, the card is much weaker than its obvious inspirations, but it’s also much less likely to get you uninvited from Commander night.
4 | Terminal Velocity
- Mana Value: 4RR
- Type: Sorcery
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: You may put an artifact or creature card from your hand onto the battlefield. That permanent gains Haste, “When this permanent leaves the battlefield, it deals damage equal to its mana value to each creature,” and “At the beginning of your end step, sacrifice this permanent.”
Terminal Velocity is a bit of a mish-mash of different effects. For starters, it’s a six-mana, sorcery-speed Through the Breach that can also hit artifacts. That alone is pretty interesting. There are a lot of great artifacts that are fantastic when cheated out, Portal to Phyrexia perhaps best among them. Through the Breach sees more play in Modern than Commander, but this effect can still be devastating in the right deck.
What makes Terminal Velocity really interesting is that it doubles as a board wipe. When the creature you cheat out leaves play, it smashes every other creature on the board for damage equal to its mana value. Assuming you bring out something sizable, this should easily sweep the board. It’s worth noting that this ability doesn’t need the creature to die, so if you blink it to avoid the sacrifice trigger, it’ll still go off. The creature is also the source of the damage, so you can use this alongside any Deathtoucher for an easy clear.
It looks simple, but there’s a surprising amount of play to Terminal Velocity. I can easily see it showing up in Ramp decks, Reanimator decks, and everything in between.
3 | Exalted Sunborn
- Mana Value: 3WW
- Type: Creature – Angel Wizard
- Rarity: Mythic Rare
- Card Text: Flying, Lifelink.
If one or more tokens would be created under your control, twice that many of those tokens are created instead.
Warp 1W (You may cast this card from your hand for its Warp cost. Exile this creature at the beginning of the next end step, then you may cast it from exile on a later turn.)- Stats: 4/5
At some point, Wizards of the Coast is really going to have to keyword the Panharmonicon effect. With every new set that comes out, we get more and more effect-doublers like this. Heck, Edge of Eternities actually has two, with Starfield Vocalist literally being Panharmonicon on a body. We’re more interested in the other one, however: the token-doubling Exalted Sunborn.
We’ve seen plenty of cards with this effect over the last few years, and pretty much all of them have gone on to be pricey staples. Whether it’s Elspeth, Storm Slayer, Mondrak, Glory Dominus, or Ojer Tak, Deepest Foundation, this ability has never come cheap. Exalted Sunborn is one of the more exciting takes on the idea, too, since you can have it come down temporarily for just two mana to juice up an early token turn.
This gives the card a lot more flexibility than its peers, even if it loses points later on in terms of raw value. Most white token decks will love this as more redundancy, and for enabling some wild plays that the other five/six mana options just can’t. On top of that, it’s also an Angel and a Wizard, which opens the doors for some interesting typal synergies if you want to dabble in those.
2 | Moonlit Meditation
- Mana Value: 2U
- Type: Enchantment – Aura
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: Enchant artifact or creature you control.
The first time you would create one or more tokens each turn, you may instead create that many tokens that are copies of enchanted permanent.
Speaking of tokens, Moonlit Meditation is, for our money, another of the best Commander cards in Edge of Eternities. This card does something we haven’t really seen before. It enchants a creature or artifact, then causes your first token production effect each turn to make copies of that instead of its usual fare. The possibilities here are pretty much endless.
Obviously, you can set up some pretty easy combo wins with this. Enchant a Terror of the Peaks, for example, and a single Gleeful Demolition will let you deal 60 damage split across the pod. You can also go exponential with Hare Apparent and something like Impact Tremors. Alternatively, you can just go for huge value plays with big beaters like Terastodon or Archon of Cruelty.
These are all fantastic use cases for the card, but what may really end up earning it spots in decks are the more mundane ones. Since it can enchant artifacts, you can use this on your Sol Rings and Arcane Signets. Set up like this, Moonlit Meditation becomes a terrifying ramp engine in blue, a color that doesn’t normally get access to them. It also works spectacularly with cantrip artifacts, Arcum’s Astrolabe in particular. There are a ton of use cases for this card, and it’ll only get better with each subsequent set released.
1 | Icetill Explorer
- Mana Value: 2GG
- Type: Creature – Insect Scout
- Rarity: Rare
- Card Text: You may play an additional land on each of your turns.
You may play lands from your graveyard.
Landfall — Whenever a land you control enters, mill a card.- Stats: 2/4
Icetill Explorer is probably the least surprising entry on this list. The card’s text box is just ridiculous: it combines Exploration and Crucible of Worlds, two cards that players are happy to pay full price for, on a single body with no mana cost markup. It even throws in some incidental mill, to fuel future land plays. If you want a picture of power creep, this card is a great example.
Naturally, any self-mill deck is going to love this. A well-stocked graveyard means you’ll be getting two lands out most turns without fail. It’s also ideal in Landfall decks, for obvious and similar reasons. What’s wild about Icetill Explorer, however, is that there’s a pretty good argument for just running it in any green deck. Fetchlands are very common in Commander, and this lets you use them repeatedly to thin your deck and fix your mana. The ability to double-dip on lands is also just generically good, even on a four drop.
In addition to just being good in general, Icetill Explorer is also an ideal card for the ever-evolving Insect Typal decks in the format. These decks tend to care about both lands and graveyards, particularly if you’re running Zask at the helm. Explorer brings both themes together perfectly. These decks may not be top-tier just yet, but one day they may well be, and Explorer will be indispensable.
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