Edge of Eternities spoiler season has quickly come to a close, generating a lot more excitement than I expected. The mechanics of this set—alongside some of the best art we’ve seen in years—have got me pumped to go to Magic outer space. First, let’s tackle the elephant in the room: rotation is gonna make predicting this standard environment pretty difficult. We’re also still reeling from arguably the largest single ban announcement of all time. We’re losing key interaction pieces like Cut Down and Leyline Binding at the same time as a lot of lands.Wizards isn’t printing all of the allied or enemy colored shock lands to make things simple, instead they’re printing a haphazard assortment in Breeding Pool, Godless Shrine, Sacred Foundry, Stomping Ground, and Watery Grave:
We are losing all pain lands (although they’re primed for a reprint soon, so I’ll never sell my precious 7th Edition Adarkar Wastes) and the allied fastlands. This means that some color pairs have no pain lands, fast lands, OR shock lands. I saw a helpful matrix somebody made on Twitter to visualize which colors have the strongest manabases post-rotation, but unfortunately, it’s been lost to the algorithm, so I recreated it:
I initially thought that the selection of color pairs for shock lands was random, but visualizing it like this makes it clear that they’re just alternating color pairs instead of their usual groups of five. Standard manabases will be sink-or-swim: the delta between Boros (excellent) and Azorius (struggling) is staggering. Our only recourse? Pray for missing shocks in Universes Beyond sets. Given what we know, Standard will suffer further for Universes Beyond’s sins.
Lightstall Inquisitor
A fascinating addition to the Foundations Angel decks. Its effect isn’t powerful alone, but tutorable with Starfield Shepherd and bounce-synergistic with Nurturing Pixie. This will be a turn-1 groan test akin to Hopeless Nightmare. With Giada, Font of Hope, it can hit as a major threat on turn 3 post-tutor. While the effect is relatively mild, creature typing and synergy will make this competitive.
Seam Rip
Oh Portable Hole, you’re as beautiful as the day you were powercrept. Seriously, though, not much to write about here; the strength of Seam Rip is self-evident. We’ll be seeing this in sideboards and mainboards of many metas to come. Every standard format should have this card, and I’m glad that a new iteration of it is back.
Pinnacle Starcage
Depending on who you ask, Pinnacle Starcage is either an upgrade or a downgrade on Temporary Lockdown. Yes, it misses your own enchantments like Authority of the Consuls or Rest in Peace, but missing your opponents enchantments and being easily removable by virtue of it being an artifact means that it’s a lot weaker than Temporary Lockdown was. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still powerful, but it’s much worse. Again, every standard format should have this card to keep those low-to-the-ground decks in check, so it’s healthy that it’s back. I would also be remiss if I didn’t mention that it triggers Simulacrum Synthesizer.
Cosmogrand Zenith
Cosmogrand Zenith is not in the same universe as Cori Steel-Cutter. The comparisons to it are so vapid and surface-level. The things I’ve seen on Twitter comparing the two are painful, but I get it—it says “whenever you cast your second spell each turn”! They must be the same! Regardless, it’s still a good card, there isn’t a true home for it anywhere outside of Boros, which lacks the card advantage that made Izzet Prowess so oppressive. If we see more support for Human Typal, the typing of the tokens could be relevant in the future.
Annul
Obligatory sideboard reprint appreciation post. Thank you Annul. I appreciate you Annul. Please don’t counter too many of my Caretaker’s Talents or Enigma Jewels. Kindest regards, Beale.
Consult the Star Charts
A solid Stock Up alternative for control. Instant-speed kicker offers optionality when holding counters, which is going to be a lose-lose to play into, similar to how Dimir Midrange can hold up 2 flash threats, a removal spell, and a counter. It won’t replace Stock Up in midrange, but it has strong potential to be superior in draw-go shells.
Umbral Collar Zealot
Umbral Collar Zealot is the exact card that Raise the Past shells needed to rise to prevalence. It’s an unconditional sac outlet that also fills the graveyard even more through surveilling. With the Orzhov mana base being in such a strong spot post-rotation, expect to see this card a lot. I’m currently favoring the lifegain synergy version of this deck over the strictly-sacrifice build with Sephiroth since it doesn’t completely fold to Rest in Peace, but either way this card fills 4 slots.
Sunset Saboteur
This card’s downsides are justified by immense upside. Double evasion on an insanely aggressively statted creature is just asking to be broken in some way. Sunset Saboteur is unassuming, but it warps the pace of the game completely. Your opponent is forced to hold back two creatures to block, can’t target it without 2-for-1ing themselves, and if you have a removal spell they’re completely blown out. This card wasn’t even on my radar until I started delving into lines of play, but after theorycrafting, there’s not a single card in standard that’s better on turn 2 on the play than a Sunset Saboteur. It’s also an outlaw, relevant for not dying to Shoot the Sheriff. That said, against aggro or lower-to-the-ground midrange builds, Sunset Saboteur will suffer. Whether it’s a sideboard option or in the maindeck, keep an eye on it.
Nova Hellkite
A meta-dependent but potent tool, Nova Hellkite looks quite powerful. It picks off meta-prevalent 1-toughness creatures like Llanowar Elves, Spyglass Siren, Floodpits Drowner (which, to be honest, stunts this card’s viability a bit), the various tokens from Caretaker’s Talent decks, Sunset Saboteur, etc. It also has relevant creature types, having powerful curve-outs alongside Sarkhan, Dragon Ascendant. It’s also easy to imagine Burn getting even better with this card post-rotation, considering the Boros mana base is so powerful.
Frenzied Baloth
It’s not metabreaking or anything of the sort, but finally green is getting some pushed creatures after so much time out of the spotlight in the Standard meta. It’s certainly a strong beater, so maybe it’ll allow for a monogreen deck to come to prominence given the shrunken mana base of post-rotation Standard, but it lacks a clear tier-1 shell.
Icetill Explorer
Icetill Explorer is a peculiar and powerful combo card in combination with Hedge Shredder. There’s huge potential for a land combo deck shell with this and Lumra, Bellow of the Woods. All you need is a land payoff, like Iridescent Vinelasher. We’ve seen decks like this succeed in the past using Nissa, Resurgent Animist, but with her gone the deck may lack consistency. It may also slot nicely in as a 1- or 2-of in existing green landfall shells.
Tezzeret, Cruel Captain
Tezzeret is absolutely powerful, but it will take a bit for it to find its strongest home in Standard. Enigma Jewel being untapped and tutored with this is certainly powerful, Synthesizer Labship is as well in tempo builds like Simic Cookies or Izzet Artifacts when fetched off of him. Arguably, the strongest part about Tezzeret is his high loyalty for such a cheap cost, often coming in as a 4 loyalty planeswalker that grows quickly if not killed immediately. For now, he’s likely stuck in tier-2 deck hell.
Adagia, Windswept Bastion
For my hot take of this set, I think one of the often-hailed as complete garbage Planet lands will see play—Adagia. Specifically, it will see a slot or two in Caretaker’s Talent decks. They don’t care about the drawback of tapping a couple of their creatures to enable this, and can create extreme swings that decide any control matchup. Whether it’s making another Caretaker’s Talent or creating an unimpeded Overlord of the Mistmoors out of thin air, it will be a great addition to the deck.
If you made it to the end of this article, I appreciate you. I’m always creating and posting about my standard brews on my Twitter, so give me a follow! I’m also starting a podcast soon, where a friend of mine and I will conduct a fantasy-style draft and follow up throughout a standard season, tracking how well cards perform compared to our expectations. If that interests you, follow as well! I will be posting about it soon.