Magic’s newest expansion takes us to the very brink of the Blind Eternities. The edge of it, even. A new set means new cards, and we’re continuing our review with the white, blue, and black cards.
Edge of Eternities will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on July 29th, 2025, and to the tabletop on August 1st.
Last time we covered the multicolor cards, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, but what we will be looking at we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.
Astelli Reclaimer
Saffgor: This compares extremely poorly to Sevinne’s Reclamation, and lacking any keywords beyond Flying means it’s probably under the power curve for the Monowhite control deck in Standard.
BPhillipYork: The fairly telegraphed play here is to return something like Necromancy and thus a huge fattie from your yard. At 3 mana and then re-usability for 5 this is perfectly useful for this sort of play. There’s quite a few sacrificial enchantments now, as well as artifacts that go away for various reasons, but this isn’t something I’d run much of unless I’m planning to use it to cheat out reanimation enchantments or have some other specific graveyard target in mind.
FromTheShire:Â Not hitting creatures is certainly a downgrade, but there are plenty of things you could want to return with this in Standard. A second Temporary Lockdown or Pinnacle Starcage can be backbreaking, buying back Rediscover the Way or Caretaker’s Talent is solid, and once you get up to 5 you have even more targets. This is also the kind of card that is meh when it releases but later enables something very powerful. It’s always worth watching cards like this that do something their color doesn’t get very often too.
Beyond the Quiet
Saffgor: A 5 mana wipe that exiles, but unlike recent ones like Sunfall isn’t a win condition. Very boring stuff here folks.
BPhillipYork: Well it’s Wrath of God + which is always useful and pretty much shows up in every set at this point.
FromTheShire: 5 mana mass exile is never boring in my book, that’s a great rate for permanently dealing with a board and this can even once in a while happen to clip a Spacecraft as well. Plus Sunfall literally just rotated out of Standard a couple of days ago so if mass exile stays relevant, this is what you’re looking at. Ultima is seeing play as a 2 of in several control decks with now, so time will tell if hitting artifacts is worth more than exiling.
Cosmogrand Zenith
Saffgor: I’m going to buck the trend on this card, as I actually don’t think it’s that good; Zenith is far closer to a Preacher of the Schism than a Cori-Steel Cutter. While this does let a deck like the Cutter lean into a more midrange gameplan, it’s much much slower and will have a radically different play pattern. Good, but not Cori good.
BPhillipYork: Second spell each turn is nice in a sense because you can cast it on all 4 players turns, but short of some kind of really cool trick you won’t have enough mana to do that. And if you did you’d probably do something more impactful. However it’s a fairly useful set of modal triggers, since you first generate some tokens and then start pumping them, and if you’ve got a go-wide and tall deck having both available when you need them is pretty great.
FromTheShire:Â I agree it’s not Cutter good because very few things are, but this is still quite the aggro card. Decks like Boros/Jeskai Aggro/Convoke absolutely love making tokens for their Imodane’s Recruiter, the question is actually if this is fast enough most likely.
Emergency Eject
Saffgor: Nothing beats the universality of Generous Gift, as the times a 3/3 creature is an actual issue compared to not being able to remove a problem land are few and far between.
BPhillipYork: I think it’s great to have this permanent destruction with you get a token in Commander. It gives white flexible, cheap-ish permanent destruction and plays sort of nicely with the political nature of commander. People seem to feel less bad when they get something blown up but get something in return. There’s always tech plays where you target your own permanent for some reason, and this has some upside in that it’s not contingent on successful destruction.
FromTheShire:Â Gift is better but you should have more than one piece of spot removal and this is a very solid second.
Exalted Sunborn
Saffgor: This is an interesting design, as a sort-of Sorcery that doubles tokens for a turn, but casting it for 5 afterwards is going to feel rough. Seems far more interesting in a deck that can blink, sac, or otherwise recur it.
BPhillipYork: Oh good, another thing that makes more tokens when you make tokens as a replacement effect. There’s getting to be a lot of these now. This one has a pretty nice upside in that if you have a “when a creature ETB’s” effect it will be in play before that trigger resolves, and it also can be cast twice to get it’s upside if necessary.
FromTheShire:Â 2 mana to double your tokens for a turn seems like a pretty easy investment. This probably doesn’t supplant Elspeth, Storm Slayer but having access to them both is pretty intriguing.
Haliya, Guided by Light
Saffgor: Ah, ‘your’ End Step. Takes this from interesting to unplayable, and you can’t even Warp from the Command Zone.
BPhillipYork: This is really solid support for some kind of ETB deck that includes white. Generally I wouldn’t want to run this as a commander, its warp won’t work and it just doesn’t do quite enough, but it’s probably doable as a mono-white weenie deck if you are only targeting bracket 2. To me it really reeks of being a piece of a Boros creature ETB Impact Tremors with lots of tokens deck.
FromTheShire:Â A Soul Sister than likely draws you a card each turn? Pretty solid.
Hardlight Containment
FromTheShire:Â Most Standard decks don’t pack much artifact removal, so a lot of the time this is just 1 mana exile a creature which….hard to do better than that. Even if they have it, a lot of the time it’s 2 mana or more, so 3+ with the ward, plus you got at least a turn of tempo? Very solid. Probably goes in decks with things like Carrot Cake or token generation.
Lightstall Inquisitor
Saffgor: Unless you’re playing a Giada deck or blinking this to high heaven, this won’t see play in eternal formats, but in Standard this plays exceptionally with Aven Interrupter, and I could see a Wx tempo deck that uses both come about.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty obnoxious. It scales so well into multiplayer, costs only 1, and will flicker and renimate really well.
FromTheShire:Â Cheap and annoying, though giving your opponents the choice of what to exile is a noticeable downgrade. At least this doesn’t have to still be on the field for the cost increase to happen.
Lumen-Class Frigate
FromTheShire: On the one hand, there are plenty of 2 power one drops so you can turn the anthem on on turn 2. On the other hand, the kind of aggressive deck that would like an anthem likely doesn’t want to take a turn off from attacking so I’m not sure that this has a home.
Pinnacle Starcage
Saffgor: Sidegrade to Temporary Lockdown, and it’s pretty good! Slots right into Monowhite Control in Standard, and has some value loops in eternal formats being an Artifact.
BPhillipYork: This is a pretty good board reset, and has a huge potential upside if you can spike out 8 mana. Presumably if you do that you can win the game off generating so many 2/2 tokens somehow, but hitting 11 mana, 4 of it white, is a lot to aim for. You could also use this to create some strange recursions with this.
FromTheShire:Â Really great mini sweeper, there’s a reason Lockdown sees lots of play, especially with how aggressive the format is right now.
Scout for Survivors
Saffgor: This makes me want to revisit my not-really-typal Polukranos Reborn aristocrats deck; wow, what a house if you’re getting back 3 mana value 1 creatures.
BPhillipYork: Well this is potentially strong if you have 3 targets for that will work, or a need to return something that costs 3 or less, which there are quite a few useful targets for this.
FromTheShire:Â Adds a solid chunk of power to the board for 3, or gets back up to 3 great utility creatures.
Starfield Shepherd
Saffgor: Goes right with Scout for Survivors, and can get you a Walking Ballista in Heliod. Banger, but this set feels like it has a lot of tutors.
BPhillipYork: To me this seems really solid, since if you get it early you can fetch something important, and frankly any white deck should be running Esper Sentinel. The ability to get a Plains instead can be pretty nice if that is what you need, and there’s various other combo pieces this could be used to fetch, like Nomads en-Kor for Cephalid Breakfast, which has largely been replaced by stronger combos, but even so.
FromTheShire:Â Excellent little tutor.
Sunstar Chaplain
Saffgor: Hilariously, if this entered tapped that would be a massive upside. Potentially a tool for Boros convoke in Historic/Pioneer but I’m not feeling this one.
BPhillipYork: This seems like a solid way to get +1/+1 counters out, especially if you have mana dorks, or dorks that care about power in particular.
FromTheShire:Â If you have ways to generate a bunch of counters this can put in a ton of work.
The Seriema
Saffgor: Tutors in the Command Zone are rarely fun when played too many times, and I worry the Monowhite identity here is stifling (speaking as the guy who only builds Monocolor Commanders).
BPhillipYork: Fetching legendaries is pretty nice if there’s a massive value piece or combo enabler, and this can also be used as support for a legendary matters deck by handing out indestructible and also letting you get a legendary you need.
FromTheShire:Â Excellent for legendary matters decks, both finding a piece you need and then protecting your crew.
Cerebral Download
Saffgor: This does just mill your library with infinite tokens of a certain type, which does interest me as part of an outlet. 5 mana is a lot, but not when you have infinite.
BPhillipYork: With Treasures and Food and Clues, this could potentially be a huge surveil, and also used to fill your yard, so for those kind of decks this could be an important piece, especially to set up on your predator end-step before going off.
FromTheShire: Potentially massive amount of card selection and draw 3 is great. You’re going to be stoked on a turn where not enough happened to require you to interact and you can fire this off.
Consult the Star Charts
Saffgor: Now this right here gets windmill slammed into Eluge, the Shoreless Sea. I think this gets close to something like a Dig in UGx as well, and there’s a world where this becomes the better card for control over something like Stock Up given it’s an Instant.
BPhillipYork: If you have a lot of land this can be a huge selection card, but if not it seems pretty mediocre. If you’re planning to include this in a deck you you have to be thinking when are you likely to cast it, when you have 4-6 lands it’s probably okay but there really are strong things out there.
FromTheShire:Â Better as the game goes long, I think this is interesting in a field currently playing Opt and Stock Up. The instant speed certainly helps but you’re going to need 5 lands and to pay 4 to match Stock Up, and that doesn’t feel like quite where you want to be. It depends a lot on how the meta shifts though, this could easily become the superior choice.
Emissary Escort
Saffgor: This does put on a fairly fast clock with a big Affinity piece, but no evasion means it’s probably not good enough.
BPhillipYork: The whole genre of 0/moderate toughness artifact creatures that get power pumped somehow don’t really appeal to me, particularly in commander.
FromTheShire:Â The biggest problem is that it’s mana value which is harder to cheat than power or toughness, and if you are getting out big mana artifacts you’re probably in pretty decent shape anyway. Unless of course this next guy becomes an archetype…
Mm’menon, the Right Hand
Saffgor: I know people are excited for the jellyfish named after a Muppets tune, but is it bad to say I see this as just a replacement if your scene isn’t okay with you playing the good Urza? Now, that is their right, as Urza, Lord High Artificer leads to some terrible gameplay, but as anything but a replacement I don’t find this guy compelling. Weird backhanded compliment aside, the alternate art for Mm’menon is gorgeous.
BPhillipYork: This seems super solid for like, from exile matters decks. Really nasty in Grixis, if you can get a Prosper, Tome-Bound out this can go really berserk, generating Treasures to tap repeatedly for mana.
FromTheShire: Yeah this is very, very powerful. Looking at and casting from the top of your library is excellent, turning your random nonsense artifacts into mana rocks is great…. we’ve established this. Yes it’s “tempered” by only being able to spend the mana for things off the top but if you can’t solve that riddle in Commander do better. It’s expensive enough that I don’t know if it will become a thing in Standard but people are certainly going to give it a go.
Moonlit Meditation
Saffgor: This card is made for low power Commander where it will do revoltingly silly things. Very here for it, and I think people should test this with the Artifact Lands.
BPhillipYork: Replicating the same artifact over and over is pretty dangerous, particularly as support for Mechanized Production win con.
FromTheShire:Â Love it, this is going to spawn so many meme decks.
Quantum Riddler
Saffgor: Incredible piece for Wheel decks, alongside the underplayed Phial of Galadriel. Love this as a 2 mana draw 2 alongside a wheel on the same turn.
BPhillipYork:Â Personally I preferred Jim Carrey as the Riddler. The draw extra cards seems way to hard to pull off unless it’s some kind of combo, like using Skirge Familiar, where it might get truly gross.
FromTheShire:Â Outside of wheel decks you really don’t want to consistently be in a position to take advantage of this effect.
Scour for Scrap
Saffgor: Being an Instant means you can potentially line this up alongside a stacked yard and find a combo in one go on the opponent’s End Step, but wow 4 mana is a lot.
BPhillipYork: Wow, a flexible tutor or reanimate artifact for blue, with any casting cost, is just a super utilitarian spell that goes amazingly well into decks that have an artifact combo piece. Or both.
FromTheShire:Â Sometimes you really want a particular artifact, and as someone still very much running Fabricate and things like Trinket Mage in the right decks 4 mana at instant speed is not much at all. Plus you also get an artifact back from your yard, not something you get very often? Banger.
Starfield Vocalist
Saffgor: I’m tired of this effect, and I’m someone who started right when they printed Panharmonicon for the first time. Fine card, but good lord could we give this guy a vocal rest?
BPhillipYork: Okay, this is this set’s Panharmonicon[, this time it doesn’t care about the set mechanic other than having warp itself. Got it.
FromTheShire:Â Good luck, cause people love this effect. For good reason too, because it’s fun. As long as we’re doing the thing might as well hit all of the colors.
Starwinder
Saffgor: I think this needed Flash or something, at present it’s a bit telegraphed even if it draws a ton of cards.
BPhillipYork: This is just over cost really for what it was does. If the warp cost was like 2, that might be worth considering, but you can get permanent sources of draw when a creatures you control deals combat damage, so I’m not sure what the upside is meant to be here.
FromTheShire:Â Solid enough that it’s going to be an auto include in every Leviathan deck, too expensive to not just be a Coastal Piracy instead in other decks.
Synthesizer Labship
BPhillipYork: The payoff for getting this to 9 doesn’t seem worth it, even though it can kind of help generate crew for itself.
FromTheShire:Â On its face animating one artifact per turn isn’t wild, since it flies it’s not terrible chip damage though, and this is from a 1 mana artifact that also can do other things late game. If an artifact deck emerges my guess is it’s doing much more explosive and busted things and doesn’t care about the grindy value you can find here.
Weftwalking
Saffgor: There once was a Hearthstone card called Duskfallen Aviana, and this makes its same mistakes. I wouldn’t just call this bad, I would call this game-losing-ly bad. If this sees competitive play I will eat my shoe.
BPhillipYork: This is a weird Timetwister with global weak Omniscience stapled on top. Super dangerous, but certainly could be used to enable something like an extra turns deck.
FromTheShire:Â The only way I could see this being anything right now is as like additional copies of Omniscience in that combo deck? Like you reanimate this with Builder’s Talent if you haven’t milled Omniscience yet, and then you cast an Omniscience from your hand as your first spell for the turn. But like…. the cost of Builder’s Talent is the problem with that deck right now, not finding your Omniscience. I’m sure people will try it in a deck full of haymakers with the idea that your free spells will be much bigger and better since your deck is built to expect it. In Commander you will get smoked insanely hard even if you’re dropping massive Eldrazi or similar with this.
Alpharael, Stonechosen
Saffgor:Â 5 mana is not where an attack trigger wants to be, especially as a 3/3. He is hot though.
BPhillipYork: This is kind of hilarious to me, so trivial to get over the hump to get this trigger to go off, just tap a Treasure. Since the way it triggers would let it go on the stack regardless of whether or not you’ve satisfied the trigger, you can react to it by blowing something up, which means it’s super dangerous, because at that point blowing up Alpharael, Stonechosen won’t help.
FromTheShire: The dream is curving Bloodletter of Aclazotz into this but that’s not happening before turn 6 barring ramping, and a Standard game is frequently well over by that point. Extremely funny with it, Wound Reflection, etc in Commander to absolutely dome someone.
Archenemy’s Charm
Saffgor: This is the worst of the Arch- cycle in my opinion, but it’s still very good, and historically Monoblack is the strongest single color. Likely to see play, but unlikely to feel broken anywhere.
BPhillipYork: These modes are okay but too expensive for BBB, unless you have some really important lifelink target that will let you win the game if it goes off.
FromTheShire:Â I mean Vraska’s Contempt saw a ton of play, though we are a few years removed at this point. The additional modes provide further upside, and we did just have Cut Down, Sheoldred’s Edict, and Go for the Throat rotate out.
Chorale of the Void
Saffgor: Huge for theft and mill decks, in that it gives them a real path to victory beyond durdling. 4 mana is a lot, but lining this up with extra turns or control pieces will see it sing.
BPhillipYork: This is great, mill or kill someone’s creatures, steal them. People love that. Also incentivizes you to just keep blowing stuff up, or really just using Treasures.
FromTheShire:Â At least it’s an attack trigger not a deals combat damage trigger.
Elegy Acolyte
Saffgor: One-sided Gix that makes bodies to get in? Sign me up, this is a great little army in a box, especially for Standard.
BPhillipYork: This is really nice for black, which doesn’t have access to this effect all the time. It will also generate bodies to make its trigger, which is pretty nice.
FromTheShire:Â Already looking forward to having my opponent curve Unstoppable Slasher into this to really seal the deal.
Embrace Oblivion
BPhillipYork: If this wasn’t a sorcery it would be bonkers, but as it is you won’t be able to use it in commander when you need it, and that’s a huge problem.
FromTheShire: This is going to depend extremely heavily on if some kind of Spacecraft deck emerges. If it does, this is a phenomenal sideboard card. If it doesn’t, it’s probably trash.
Entropic Battlecruiser
Saffgor: 3 is a lot, and this lacks the common modern templating of ‘one or more’, so killing people with wheels is very real. In 60 card formats, this also likely comes down at just the right time to put the screws on in a discard strategy.
BPhillipYork: I love discard decks, and so I love this. Pump it up, get yet another punish your opponents for screwing them trigger. And if you get it up 8, which is a lot, but even so, you can force the discards too. Not quite a Hypnotic Specter, but close.
FromTheShire:Â We can now play a version of 8 Rack in Standard with Bandit’s Talent and I am HERE for it.
Faller’s Faithful
BPhillipYork: This is neat, I think the default will be killing your own creature to get the draw, particularly if it’s something with an easy ETB. Kind of sad it can’t it itself, since that would be super convenient for recursion and it doesn’t do much once it’s on the board. But also a nice way to take out an opponent creature that needs to get and you have the upside of a 3/1 body, though you will generally hand out 2 cards for the privilege.
FromTheShire:Â Absolutely mainly for targeting your own stuff for card draw, triggering void, and the like. Solid.
Hymn of the Faller
Saffgor: A slight upgrade on Night’s Whisper in the right decks, big fan of this, but it won’t shatter any formats.
BPhillipYork: Nice, another variant on blacks life loss draw, as expected has the sets mechanic worked in.
FromTheShire: Not splashy but surveil 1 draw 2 for 2 mana is a very solid enabler.
Requiem Monolith
Saffgor: Oh come on, as a sorcery? This is absurd before a huge wipe, and allows you to translate creature damage to player damage, but arguably in the wrong color, and certainly at the wrong speed.
BPhillipYork: I love this for some hilarious like, Brash Taunter shenanigans. The sorcery speed means you can’t abuse it by reacting, which makes it pretty ponderous in my opinion.
FromTheShire: Yeah I’m not sure where this lives. It’s not where you want to be in Standard, in Commander you’re running it basically on the off chance you get it out before you Blasphemous Act…. There are ways to make it work but it’s exactly that, work, to get it done.
Scrounge for Eternity
Saffgor: Black getting what amounts to unconditional ramp in the form of Landers is a pie break in my eyes, and for that reason I think this is stronger than it looks. In Commander, this helps accelerate your Urborg/Coffers engine, and gets back your Commander if it’s a reasonable mana value. Huge ups on this in Korvold.
BPhillipYork: This seems fine, it’s a solid cheap sacrifice / reanimate, and you get lander token, to either ramp or else sacrifice for more draw.
FromTheShire:Â It double ramps you in a way, turning a token or other utility idiot into a much bigger threat while also giving you a Lander. I would probably play it already based solely off of returning something directly to the battlefield.
Sothera, the Supervoid
Saffgor:Â Grave Pact but far less torturous, in that it can win the game and turn itself off. I have a feeling this will often pop the turn it comes down though, as checking if any player has no creatures feels too easy.
BPhillipYork: Strange card, kind of a variant of a couple of existing cards like Grave Pact but it exiles instead of killing, and you get one of them if someone has no creatures. Generally if you want creatures to die, you want them to die, since triggers more often care about dying than leaving the yard, which, in my opinion leaves this with limited upside.
FromTheShire:Â The fact it triggers if ANY player controls no creatures is a huge downside for me. If it could be consistently manipulated to keep exiling their creatures it’d be great, as is it feels like a bunch of the time it will either trigger when you don’t want or be uncastable, and then not get you an impressive creature when it does sacrifice since they got to choose what to sac.
Sunset Saboteur
FromTheShire:Â Interesting, and if the mono black decks can pivot to still have a critical mass of removal so you constantly keep them off the second creature they need to block this is quite the threat.
Susurian Voidborn
Saffgor: A 1 mana Artifact-flexible Blood Artist is just plain strong, and unlike so many Warp cards before it, you don’t feel bad casting this for 3 mana later on. Unlike Paul Blartist though, it only checks you, but triggering for both Creatures and Artifacts probably makes up for it.
BPhillipYork: This is pretty nice, both creatures and artifacts, and it has a warp cost in case you can just combo off and win the game that turn. Also a space vampire.
FromTheShire:Â Big surprise, yet another Blood Artist variant is very playable. Sure you’d rather be paying less but in Commander the most important thing is getting additional copies of the effect you want.
Temporal Intervention
Saffgor: Thoughtsieze you can’t use turn 1 is clever, but good lord if Rakdos Scam was still around I would be shivering to know they could use this alongside Grief.
FromTheShire:Â This seems like a great tool for the 8 rack deck, we currently have Duress which is fine but getting additional copies that can hit creatures is even better. Void should be fairly easy to trigger so the rate is great as well.
Timeline Culler
Saffgor: There’s been talk of this and Sephiroth being a Standard deck, and I like the idea, but the templating here is not good. The reminder text including Warping from graveyard is bound to give a new player the wrong idea, and I would strongly urge Wizards to be more careful.
BPhillipYork: There’s a lot you can do with this, easily a huge combo piece if you can gain 2 life from casting a creature. Obviously, days since Phyrexian Altar was broken is always 0, but having creatures that easily recur themselves is really useful for a number of black archetypes.
FromTheShire: This is almost certainly going to be a deck, being able to recur something from the graveyard over and over like this is so good. We even have Bloodghast in the format already as well.
Umbral Collar Zealot
Saffgor: Is that a free, flexible sacrifice outlet with above the curve stats…in Standard? Kind of shocked this was printed, and at Uncommon no less. If anything makes true aristocrats work, this is it.
BPhillipYork: This is really just a combo piece, blatantly. Free sacrifice outlet, and it even does something useful. Also cheap, and while not the desirable 3 toughness, at least it’s not 1.
FromTheShire:Â Yup not a ton to say here other than this is exactly as wildly good as it looks. Like it even does artifacts too? Nuts.
Xu-Ifit, Osteoharmonist
Saffgor: As a Commander this suffers from Black lacking good blink tools, but in the 99 this rattles with potential. Love the design on the whole though, it’s great to see fairly uncomplicated gameplay loops that don’t need to involve Finality Counters or once per turns.
BPhillipYork: This card reanimates big bodies, but even more so generates big arguments, since certain effects occur in an earlier layer before ability removing abilities. Currently if you reanimate a Magus of the Moon, it will still turn all non-basics into mountains. So that’s fun.
FromTheShire:Â Definitely going to be a lot of looking up of oracle text. It’s a great card though.
Zero Point Ballad
Saffgor: I really like this in Commander for X=1, but beyond that use case it’s mostly just a worse Toxic Deluge.
BPhillipYork: This is a cool card, I like a board wipe that has huge potential upside, controllable, and lets you do things like board clear weenies and only run fatties.
FromTheShire:Â Kind of like a Pest Control that can go long, having this kind of flexibility with what is going to get exploded is great. Since it’s mono black it may see more play, and I expect to be seeing it a decent amount against small creature aggro decks.
Next Time: The Set’s Red and Green Cards
That wraps up our look at the white, blue, and black cards of Edge of Eternities. Join us next time as we review the red and green cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds.
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