With nearly 32,000 cards in the game at the present count, Magic: The Gathering is almost impossible to fully comprehend. Just when you think you’ve seen everything it has to offer, a decades-old card will show up to show you how wrong you are. With each passing year, more and more gems like this are being hidden, buried in the avalanche of new product that arrives almost constantly.
Fortunately, there are Magic archaeologists out there to dig up the gems for us. Today, these plucky players have stumbled upon Eon Hub, a forgotten MTG artifact with a truly unique effect. If you like messing with time or getting the most out of wacky cards, then this one should be right up your alley.
Eon Hub MTG
While seemingly simple, Eon Hub is actually anything but. For five mana, you get an artifact that makes everyone skip their upkeep step. That doesn’t sound huge, until you consider just how ingrained the upkeep is in countless MTG cards that see regular play.
With Eon Hub out, players will no longer ‘draw’ cards off of Dark Confidant, for example, or reanimate creatures with Sheoldred, Whispering One. There are countless other cards and effects that play in the same space, too, and they all flail helplessly in the face of Eon Hub. Commander decks built around Obeka, Splitter of Seconds, in particular, fold hard to this card. Even outside of that dream matchup, however, there are a ton of cards that this incidentally hoses.
Despite this far-reaching potential, Eon Hub is very much a cult classic in the modern game. It sees scattered Commander play, but nothing major. Today, however, the card has strayed back into the spotlight thanks to a post from Ordinary_Patience449 on the r/magicTCG subreddit, pointing out the card’s potent synergy with iconic Game Changer The One Ring.
With Eon Hub, you get to dodge your upkeep, and therefore the life payments that “balance” The One Ring out. While this was mostly suggested in jest, the ensuing thread actually got a lot of players talking about what Eon Hub can do, and what it brings to the table in Commander.
Unexpected Synergies
The best way to take advantage of Eon Hub is to lean into MTG cards that have a negative effect during your upkeep. Cards with the Cumulative Upkeep mechanic are a great starting point: with Eon Hub, you’ll never have to pay for these cards more than once, making them all incredibly above-rate. Mystic Remora is probably the best example, providing an absurd draw engine for just a single mana overall. You can also get nastier with the likes of Glacial Chasm; however, keeping your life total safe while you assemble your combo win.
Other upkeep-related mechanics, like Vanishing and Fading, are brilliant fits here too. Crack in Time becomes a free exile-based removal spell every single turn with Eon Hub, for example, while Parallax Tide lets you exile five lands, for four mana, with no further consequences.
Outside of these mechanics, Eon Hub also has plenty to offer simply by removing general upkeep drawbacks. Interestingly, a lot of the best options here will keep you alive indefinitely. Soul Echo, for instance, is a two-mana way to remove traditional damage as a factor with Eon Hub in play. Solitary Confinement does something very similar, though you will need some on-board way to get around skipping your draw step in that case.
Because of these synergies, Eon Hub is at its best in combo decks that benefit from a drawn-out game. It even lets you use Pact of Negation as protection, and Summoner’s Pact as a tutor, without ever having to properly pay for them. These lines may not make you particularly popular in your pod, but as payoffs for dropping a five-mana do-nothing artifact, they feel appropriate.
Niche But Nice
Though these synergies are potent in the right deck, they are admittedly very specific. If you’re not playing a few of them in your list, then running Eon Hub on the off chance you’ll hinder your opponents’ game plans isn’t the best move. Because of this, the card’s under-the-radar status makes perfect sense. Only around 1,100 decks include it according to EDHREC, which is low for any card, but particularly for a colorless artifact that can theoretically go anywhere.
While this sounds like a knock against the card, it’s actually anything but. Given how incredibly niche it is, most players won’t be expecting an Eon Hub in a given game. This means they’ll likely underestimate it when you play it against them, and aim their countermagic and removal elsewhere, giving you free rein to execute your strategy.
Another benefit of Eon Hub being such a well-hidden gem is its price point. Near mint copies of the card can be had for less than $1.50 right now, which is wild considering how unique and powerful it is. It’s worth noting that this is a card with a lot of potential financial volatility, mind you. Back in 2024, we saw the card spike to around $12 in response to the printing of Obeka, Splitter of Seconds. Since Eon Hub only has a single printing, any future surges of demand like this could do something similar.
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