One cool aspect of Edge of Eternities is undoubtedly the bonus sheet. Featuring a multitude of lands from throughout Magic’s past with gorgeous, borderless treatment is a great way to get players excited.
Unfortunately, while we’ve had some heavy hitters like Ancient Tomb, most of the lands revealed thus far have been surprisingly disappointing. Luckily though, today, we’ve got a few more Stellar Sights cards to share that make for excellent inclusions. To kick things off, we need to look at one of the game’s strongest lands ever printed.
Strip Mine
Strip Mine is getting a reprint in the bonus sheet out of nowhere. This land can be one of the most frustrating cards to play against. Many players loathe land destruction and Strip Mine provides this effect at low cost.
On its own, Strip Mine isn’t too scary. After all, activating its second ability sets both players back a land. However, it doesn’t take much before you’re getting the better end of the deal.
By playing Strip Mine alongside any way to regrow lands, such as Life from the Loam or Wrenn and Six, you can essentially lock your opponent out of ever sticking lands. Even ignoring these types of synergies, simply pairing Strip Mine with other tempo elements like Daze is a recipe for success. This strategy is fantastic in Legacy with Wasteland and Strip Mine is a strictly better version since it hits basic lands.
There’s a reason this land is banned in Legacy and restricted in Vintage. With this reprint, Strip Mine will be coming to MTG Arena, which almost certainly means it will need an immediate ban in Historic. It should have major Timeless implications and may need to be restricted there as well. Being able to tutor up Strip Mine with Sowing Mycospawn and Primeval Titan is very dangerous.
Despite not being legal in many formats, this elite land still commands a pretty hefty price tag. Fourth Edition copies sit around $16 according to TCGplayer market price. This is still leagues below Ancient Tomb’s price, but it’s a great addition to the bonus sheet, regardless.
Grove of the Burnwillows
Next up, we have Grove of the Burnwillows. Grove is a much fairer land than Strip Mine. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its uses, though.
Currently, Grove sees a ton of play in Gruul Basking Broodscale combo in Modern. Its ability to tap for red, green, and colorless mana makes it shine in a shell that wants to cast both Writhing Chrysalis and Kozilek’s Command. As a combo deck, you aren’t concerned about your opponent gaining a couple life during the game. You’d much rather preserve your own life total, hence why Karplusan Forest is much worse here.
Years ago, players would pair Grove with Punishing Fire, using the life gain clause to their advantage to rebuy Punishing Fire from the graveyard over and over. With Punishing Fire banned in Modern and the size of many of Legacy’s threats exceeding two-toughness, this duo has died down.
Despite its Iconic Masters reprint, Grove maintains a price tag of roughly $10 in its cheapest form.
Lotus Field
- Card Type: Land
- Rarity: Mythic
- Card Text: Hexproof. This land enters tapped. When this land enters, sacrifice two lands. Tap: Add three mana of any one color.
Lotus Field is a more recent printing, debuting in Core Set 2020. Since the set came out, this land has been a Constructed staple, used in a variety of ways. A single land that can tap for three colored mana is easily abusable, and having Hexproof means Lotus Field strategies don’t fold to land destruction.
In Pioneer, players have been utilizing Lotus Field alongside Thespian’s Stage and Hidden Strings as a way to generate tons of mana for years. Lotus Field is mostly known as a combo card, though it’s also popped up in Azorius control decklists with Strict Proctor in the mix from time to time.
Meanwhile, in Modern, Amulet Titan has adopted Lotus Field as a tool to help maximize Aftermath Analyst as a combo piece. You’ll even find some players jamming Twiddle Storm, even if the deck has its limitations. Lotus Field is worth $6.50 in its cheapest traditional form.
Plaza of Heroes
The last land we wanted to showcase is Plaza of Heroes. Plaza of Heroes is a neat land that drastically improves the manabase of any multi-color legends shell.
While not super popular, five-color legends is a deck in Standard that has gained some traction since the ban announcement. Plaza makes it much easier to play out your legends of all colors in the early turns, and from there, Relic of Legends gives you a ton of mana to work with. Plaza even gives you the bonus of protecting your most valuable legendary creatures, which certainly comes up.
The bad news is that Plaza of Heroes, Relic of Legends, and payoffs like Jodah, the Unifier rotate with the release of Edge of Eternities. This is really awkward timing, but at least there are some other archetypes, including Kethis combo in Modern, that still use a playset of the land. Plaza currently sits near $6.50.
All in all, the Stellar Sights Bonus sheet fell a bit short of expectations. From a financial perspective, most of the lands are duds, which can make the pack-cracking experience less intriguing (unless you open one of the top cards like Ancient Tomb or Strip Mine). The artwork on these cards is beautiful, there are just a lot of other promising choices that could’ve made this bonus sheet an all-timer.
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