Figuring Out Edge of Eternities Draft

While I got a small taste during early access, Edge of Eternities has finally been released. EoE has had a lot of criticism. While I don't find the set great, it's reasonable enough to keep me excited.

Edge of Eternities is an extremely unique environment, and no, I don't mean outer space. The spacecraft mechanic has proven to be a tough nut to crack. It's better than I expected, despite the pitfalls. Stationing the spacecraft is unintuitive, which is a new puzzle to learn and solve, making the mechanic cool.

I've heard a lot of feedback about how the games feel very hard to play, but I haven't had that feeling. I'm definitely playing a lot of games poorly, but not more than usual.

I have developed some color preferences, including a color I'm soft banning from ever drafting. White is far too weak overall, and I don't like any of the common creatures. It is bordering on how bad blue was in Alchemy Horizon's Baldur's Gate, a set notorious for having a color that was about as close to unplayable as possible.

White's primary identity is its creature base. When the core of those creatures is too weak, it's hard to compete with a color such as green that has a plethora of creatures above the curve.

As far as my favorite color, well, it's always blue. For whatever reason, amongst the less-informed players, blue is always undervalued. However, green will likely be the best color. The commons are all strong, and green has a bunch of mana fixing in the form of Landers, which I discussed last week.

EoE has a wide gap between its good and bad cards, so being able to splash any color and play any strong card you get, especially when the most aggressive color is weak, is critical because you want access to as many strong cards as possible.

I've been playing best-of-three so far, so I don't have the hand smoother on best-of-one on Arena. However, I noticed a lot of games are decided by mana issues. It's not that I can't play my splash card or anything, but my normal two-color decks have struggled to have access to two colors of mana early in the game. This is a bit of variance, but it's also due to not having a cycle of common dual lands. Without being able to reliably fix my mana base with a dual land or two, I've been training myself to adjust by playing 18 lands in a lot of decks to help that issue. I often want more lands because I want to play a lot of card draw and top end. The games can get grindy, with you focusing on progressively going over the top of your opponent.

For this reason, seven-drop commons, which are traditionally off the table, have overperformed for me. I want cards like Nebula Dragon and Pinnacle Kill-Ship in almost all my decks. The set is rampy, and having these at common is a good excuse to plan for a longer game and try to overpower your opponent in the end game.

Below is an example of how I like to build even my non-green decks.

Izzet Control

Give me all the seven-drops in my green decks. As you can see in the picture below, I want to win the long games. Ideally, this deck would have more removal, but I didn't get enough here. The sweet spot is two or three seven-drops, but it's also dependent on how many good mana sinks you have.

Green Ramp

Currently, I want to always start in one of the Temur colors. This includes passing on strong white rares early to get into my lane. While black is far from banned, I don't want to start in black because I prefer the gold signpost uncommons in the other color combinations. However, I'm going to end up splashing cards like Gravkill in most of my decks, so I have no problem taking good removal early.

Black has underperformed for me, but not nearly as much as white. I was lucky enough to achieve the set's ultimate goal of going infinite with a four-card combo of Umbral Collar Zealot with two Perigee Beckoners that can infinitely loop in and out of the graveyard, and the kill comes from Susurian Voidborn pinging them each time. It's a cool infinite combo that's difficult to execute. I didn't need to do this in the game, but it was cool that I got the chance.

To infinity and beyond!

There are a lot of sweepers in the format. There's a red Pyroclasm effect at uncommon and a variety of ways to sweeper the board at rare. Always play around it when possible. You can do creative things against cards like Terminal Velocity, Zero Point Ballad, and Singularly Rupture by not fully stationing your stations and instead getting them to the point that your follow-up creature after a sweeper will get into combat.

EoE has been a new challenge. While far from my favorite draft environment, it's been fun to explore outer space and figure out a new set of play patterns with the new mechanic. Stationing is a unique and interesting mechanic because it changes how you play games, rather than just adding card value to the cards. Most mechanics, like flashback and cycling, are just tacked-on ways to give a card more value.

With so many upcoming EoE Limited events, I'll be focused and streaming the set regularly, hoping to master the final frontier.