Modern Set Review: Edge of Eternities

Edge of Eternities is right around the corner. Magic: The Gathering's space opera set and the card game's last in-universe set of 2025 will be released on August 1st, bringing with it both the Standard rotation and some important new features for Modern.

With the rise of artifact-based decks following the Mox Opal unban, cards like Tezzeret, Cruel Captain and Pinnacle Emissary deserve attention for the wide array of choices they offer these archetypes. And speaking of artifacts, Hardened Scales and the mechanically similar Dice Factory could be some of the biggest beneficiaries of the new set, which features several cards, namely artifacts, which interact with +1/+1 counters.

Outside the artifact spectrum, Cosmogoyf could be a standout for fair decks in the format due to its growth potential alongside Nethergoyf, Psychic Frog, or even Nihil Spellbomb with Urza's Saga, while Warp's ability offers some potential alongside Ephemerate or Birthing Ritual.

Check out our full review of Edge of Eternities for Modern below!

Lightstall Inquisitor lacks a good body and type to be relevant in an Orcish Bowmasters Metagame. Being a Wisard might be worth some testing in a list with Flame of Anor, but it doesn't interact with Flare of Denial, one of the core pieces of Wizard decks in the format.

It's worth mentioning because this type of ability is a few tweaks away from being a card that could impact Modern, whether with a more efficient body or an additional line of text in the ability that would allow to look at the opponent's hand. This kind of design has tons of potential for the future.

Temporary Lockdown doesn't see play in Modern, and the most popular white sweeper in the format is Wrath of the Skies, which scales with the amount of mana and energy we generate. However, being an artifact in the current Metagame makes Pinnacle Starcage worth mentioning, although it also makes it more vulnerable to interaction.

Portable Hole sees play in some lists, and Seam Rip does something similar, but with a card type that's less prevalent in the current Metagame. It could be an option for decks like Enchantress.

Dewdrop Cure rarely shows up in Modern, and Scout for Survivors is a more potential option in cases where it matters most. Returning Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride or combining Guide of Souls with Ajani, Nacatl Pariah casting one card and putting +1/+1 counters on each of them gives a good impression of this card's potential.

There are some possibilities with Agatha's Soul Cauldron, Heliod, Sun-Crowned and Walking Ballista with Scout for Survivors, or even with Samwise Gamgee and Viscera Seer / Carrion Feeder for the combo with Cauldron Familiar, but it's necessary to know if this offers something that Dewdrop Cure doesn't already do with more mana value range in recursion since we don't care much about the creatures' body size when we're focusing on a combo.

Starfield Shepherd is quite decent in lists that run enough one-drops to be worth the two mana required to cast it. While it seems conditional and too expensive for Boros Energy, lists closer to the old Soul Sisters, which can run Ocelot Pride and Guide of Souls with Martyr of Sands and similar spells searched by this card, are an option.

Furthermore, Warp only exiles the creature on the End Step, which offers interactions similar to Ephemerate with Evoke, or also with effects that sacrifice the creature to search for something like Birthing Ritual, allowing, with Starfield Shepherd, to put a creature with a mana value of six or less onto the battlefield.

While this interaction exists with any Warp card, it seems that Shepherd is the only one among them that might actually find some (little) space in Modern.

Consult the Star Charts seems like a worse version of Impulse in the early game and shouldn't be very present in most blue decks in the Metagame, but it might be worth testing in Azorius Control or even Izzet Wizards lists, which tend to push the match into the late game, where both the two-mana mode and the Kicker can dig deep searching for appropriate threats and answers.

For faster decks or more combo-oriented blue archetypes, Stock Up is definitely a better card.

Honorable mention. Cryogen Relic is an Ichor Wellspring that interacts with the board in some cases and can be a pitch for Force of Negation and Subtlety. I don't know if there's room for this type of card in the format today, but there are some less popular archetypes that could try it in some slots.

Between Frogmyr Enforcer, Kappa Cannoneer, and other creatures with Affinity or alternative costs, it's easy to turn Emissary Escort into a two-mana threat that also interacts with these archetypes' core gameplan.

It could be worth testing with Affinity, especially if we can play it on the first turn with Mox Opal followed by any other bomb like Kappa Cannoneer the following turn.

Archenemy's Charm's cost makes it restrictive in terms of the archetypes it can play, and strategies like Mono Black Coffers and Necrodominance aren't popular enough in the current Metagame to justify this card as a potential staple.

It's a versatile maindeck option, can work well in attrition games, and maybe there's even a Midrange variant that might want to run a copy, but it seems to be closer to Pioneer's power level than Modern.

Void fixes Revolt's problem interacting with Fetch Lands, so Temporal Intervention requires a few extra steps to function as an improved Thoughtseize.

This new spell might work well in lists with Ephemerate like Orzhov Blink, or even alongside the Clue tokens from Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student or with Mishra's Bauble, but it remains to be seen whether the current Metagame demands more copies of Seize instead of cards like Inquisition of Kozilek, which typically complement one-mana discard package.

Zero-Point Ballad competes with Toxic Deluge as sweeper against small creatures that can scale into larger threats as the game progresses.

It seems best if the opponent's list has tons of X/1 creatures, but for other archetypes, there are doubts about whether paying X mana is better than paying that same amount in life—in some cases, it's worth it, and in others, not so much.

Might be worth trying in the sideboards, or it may even reach the point of existing a split between it, Toxic Deluge and other cheap sweepers in lists that don't have access to Wrath of the Skies.

Devastating Onslaught can win games if it copies the right creature more than once. The problem is that the archetype capable of paying the cost for a lot and that has sufficiently impactful creatures are Eldrazi decks.

Currently, Eldrazi lists rely more on legendary creatures to win games, or they've swapped out bombs like Reality Smasher for Writhing Chrysalis or Sowing Mycospawn, which aren't that great to copy with the new card.

Of course, putting two or more Sire of Seven Deaths on the board with Haste in the same turn will be a headache, at the very least, but if we have a Sire in play, aren't we already winning against most fair decks anyway?

Vampires' Vengeance sees play, and Lithobraking has enough mechanical similarities to deserve a mention.

I believe that hand filtering or costing less with sorcery speed like Pyroclasm will still be a better option than searching for lands in decks that care about this effect in the format, so Vengeance will likely remain in the sideboards.

At sorcery speed, it's hard to imagine that popping a Mishra's Bauble or similar to turn Plasma Bolt into Chain Lightning would be enough to justify its inclusion in Red Prowess or Burn lists, but a new variation on the "one mana, three damage" formula can't be ignored, even when it seems worse than other variants that do the same thing with less restrictive conditions.

Rust Harvester can do some crazy things with Arcbound Ravager and Hardened Scales if we can untap with it, and it can even perform a combo-kill with its ability if we have enough artifacts and +1/+1 counters on the board.

It also has good interactions with Agatha's Soul Cauldron, which can exile it to turn all your creatures into removal and/or Burn, or even function as another win condition route if we have enough mana and power on the board to activate multiple creatures filled with +1/+1 counters.

Tannuk, Steadfast Second would be very troublesome in a Metagame with Fury and The One Ring. Since both are currently banned from Modern, it's hard to imagine it having a place in the format.

Weapons Manufacturing easily creates tokens in the Mox Opal decks, which interact with cards like Grinding Station and Arcbound Ravager to win the game.

Between Vivi Ornitier and the new Pinnacle Emissary, as well as Cori-Steel Cutter, there are already enough payoffs for these strategies in the format, but it's worth mentioning another card that can win games outside combat.

Tannuk wasn't the only card that arrived too late. Frenzied Baloth seems to be the perfect pick for a format where The One Ring was so prevalent, but it shouldn't have much relevance in the current Metagame without perhaps being a one-of-one in lists with Chord of Calling to dodge Counterspell, where costing less than Prowling Serpopard and similar cards can make a difference.

I think we have enough Hardened Scales 5-8 variants to the point Loading Zone isn't relevant at all, especially when compared to Ozolith, the Shattered Spire, which interacts with Urza's Saga tokens and can be sacrificed to Arcbound Ravager when necessary.

It might be pure nostalgia, but Cosmogoyf seems to me to be one of the best Edge of Eternities cards for Modern.

For a long time, there's been a debate about whether Dimir Tempo decks need a splash for specific cards, and the main answer has been that there aren't enough relevant cards worth the risks of deckbuilding concessions and being more susceptible to Blood Moon effects. Cosmogoyf offers a complementary threat that, while it doesn't offer any added value—not everything can be an Uro, Titan of Nature's Wrath—grows quickly in these lists.

Between the exile effect of Psychic Frog, Abhorrent Oculus, and the graveyard hate that opponents often run in this matchup, there are enough ways to turn the new Goyf into a 5/6 and only grow from there, being able to finish games with one or two attacks if we keep the board clear.

It also interacts with its other older brother, Nethergoyf, which shows up in Jund Saga lists, where Nihil Spellbomb is also commonly included as a one-of-one to search with Urza's Saga. With the right amount of cards in the graveyard, Spellbomb or similar effects can function as a pseudo-Temur Battle Rage with the new creature, trading the Trample for added utility against various archetypes in the current Metagame.

Whether it's with Jund, Psychic Frog, Abhorrent Oculus, Ketramose, the New Dawn, or even alongside Death's Shadow, there's a lot of potential for Cosmogoyf in Modern. It's just a matter of wondering if there's still room for a large creature that does nothing but have a large body in the current format when it interacts so well with so many core cards in the Metagame.

Dyadrine, Synthesis Amalgam turns all the extra +1/+1 counters Hardened Scales offers into card advantage each combat, combined with a creature with Trample— a critical ability alongside Arcbound Ravager.

The new robot also scales in power as the game progresses, and trading the +1/+1 counters on your creatures for an extra card in hand and a 2/2 Robot that interacts with the core cards from this strategy could be worth the splash in Scales decks.

Often, Pinnacle Emissary will be read as a one-mana spell that creates a 1/1 token for each artifact you cast.

It interacts with the core of Cori-Steel Cutter and Emry, Lurker of the Loch archetypes in the format, and it also works in Affinity lists and/or to speed up Kappa Cannoneer.

Emissary essentially works with any archetype in its color combination that makes the necessary concessions to leverage Mox Opal. All that's left is consider whether there are enough slots in the most established decks in the format today to make it work.

If we keep Syr Vondam, Sunstar Exemplar at power four or higher permanently, it becomes a recurring removal with Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and is lethal alongside Ephemerate and other Blink effects.

Its first ability helps slow the opponent's clock and trigger the LTB, in addition to interacting with the same Blink effects we want to use or with abilities like Evoke, but having to repeatedly set this up can be too costly for Orzhov lists today, especially when Vondam doesn't generate any value on its own.

Despite its creature type, Anticausal Vestige doesn't interact well with the current Eldrazi setup and seems too slow in Modern for other archetypes, even with its Warp cost.

Tezzeret, Cruel Captain does a lot in many decks for a very low cost and benefits from the artifact-centric nature of some Modern archetypes and how much they, for the most part, benefit from Mox Opal.

We've mentioned Hardened Scales a lot in this review, but we're forced to do so again because all of Tezzeret's abilities interact with it, and the archetype requires little effort to grow the Planeswalker. Perhaps even to the point of playing his Emblem the turn after he entered.

The tutor ability, while similar to Urza's Saga, can find cards with a mana value like Chalice of the Void, Walking Ballista, and also finds all the targets known from Saga in recent years, which adds more redundancy in fetching the necessary pieces to answer your opponent's threats, or even in combo lists with Blade of the Bloodchief and Colossus Hammer, or perhaps artifacts with colored mana costs such as Portable Hole.

Tezzeret will see play, but we are not sure how much play he will actually see. Not every list can handle multiple copies of a three-mana card with more passive abilities, and he won't always be able to solve the problems your opponent poses. Three mana to "do nothing" in a turn may be far from ideal for some matchups, especially in archetypes with more proactive plans.

Honorable mention of the set's "card that perfectly curves the amount of mana Tron generates and can be searched for by Karn, the Great Creator."

The Endstone seems like a win-more rather than something Tron or Eldrazi really need today, but there are situations in some specific matchups where the opponent is unable to deal 10 or more damage in a single turn, at which point this card essentially "locks" the game while offering constant card advantage.

There may be cases where a creature like Kappa Cannoneer attacks for lethal with Secluded Starforge's first ability, but are they worth the cost of playing a colorless land that doesn't generate any added value during the game and requires an absurd amount of mana to put tokens into play?

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!