Beyond the QuietBeyond the Quiet | Art by Serena Malyon

Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of Dawnsire, Sunstar DreadnoughtDawnsire, Sunstar Dreadnought, which as a legendary Spacecraft is now legal as your commander.

I'm not sure where I was going with all that, especially given that I'm here to talk about instants and sorceries in Edge of Eternities. So let's do that!

Archenemy's CharmArchenemy's Charm

Three mana to exile a creature or planeswalker is fairly reasonable overall, especially at instant speed. UnmakeUnmake is still in almost 3,700 decks after all. Once you factor in that's just one of three possible modes though, things get really interesting.

Returning up to two creatures or planeswalkers to hand isn't a bad option, but the choice to put two +1/+1 counters on a creature you control and give it lifelink has a lot of synergy with multiple decks.

Now, triple black pips is a bit of a hard ask in some decks; I'm not sure I'd be comfortable with it even in a two-color list. In mono-black though it's really easy to hit, though I'll note it's by no means an auto-include. Still, it's a card I'm probably going to strongly consider in any all black lists moving forward, and that says a lot, given all the competition.

Cerebral DownloadCerebral Download

Five mana to draw three isn't a great rate, even at instant speed. Where things get really interesting with Cerebral Download is in a deck with a heavy artifact theme, given the "Surveil X, where X is the number of artifacts you control."

Artifact token decks, particularly Treasure decks, but also ones built around Food, Clues, and all of the above, qualify, as do Equipment builds, and just plain old-fashioned artifact creature and artifact shenanigan lists. In those archetype decks and in others, this isn't a mere draw three, but instead a draw the best three of a dozen, fifteen, maybe twenty cards - and that's amazing.

Things get even better when you can then put the rest of the cards into your graveyard, which is functionally a second hand for plenty of decks. This isn't a Stock UpStock Up situation where it's a great draw option in every deck, but in the decks where it works it's amazing.

Consult the Star ChartsConsult the Star Charts

Once you get past turn two or three, Consult the Star ChartsConsult the Star Charts is very comparable to ImpulseImpulse, a card that's in almost 50,000 decks. A few turns further than that and you start looking at kicking it then the ceiling gets way higher.

Assuming you're hitting your land drops each turn, an unkicked Consult lets you dig deeply, and if you're ramping you dig even further faster, with the option to pay an added to keep an additional card. It's an instant as well, which is just another notch in this card's space helmet.

Devastating OnslaughtDevastating Onslaught

Making a temp token copy of an artifact or creature you control for is a respectable rate, and Devastating Onslaught isn't just locked to making one token. The more mana you have, the more you can spend, and the more tokens you can generate as it lets you spend to make as many tokens as you have mana.

That's a very powerful effect in a general sense, but in a deck filled with creatures with enters triggers, it's a crazy amount of value. Brews heavy on ETB creatures should probably at least be considering adding this card, but it also has a home in ones that care about tokens, haste (like Ognis, the Dragon's LashOgnis, the Dragon's Lash), or sacrificing things.

It just does a lot in a lot of different decks.

Emergency EjectEmergency Eject

Emergency Eject is white's third variant on green's Beast WithinBeast Within after Generous GiftGenerous Gift and Stroke of MidnightStroke of Midnight. It's probably the worst of the three effects, but worst in this context is still very good; I'll almost always be happy to pay three mana to destroy a non-land permanent at instant speed.

Whereas the previous versions of this card made creature tokens, Emergency Eject makes a LanderLander token, which is an artifact that lets you spend two mana to tap and sacrifice it to search your library for a basic land that to you into play tapped. The fact that they don't get a chump blocker is nice, but I'm not sure ramping your opponent is better, even if they have to spend two mana to do it.

It's still a very good card, but the question winds up being whether it's good enough to either displace one of the previous variants, or whether or not you want three of these in your deck. Basically, Emergency Eject's biggest bar to entry in decks will be competition from the other iterations.

When Generous Gift was released there was rarely a question about whether or not it was an upgrade over the alternatives. That's just no longer the case with Emergency Eject.

Planetary AnnihilationPlanetary Annihilation

And the award for "Card mostly likely to make Reddit users post asking if a card that destroys a bunch of lands counts as mass land destruction" goes to . . . Planetary Annihilation.

Yes, destroying a bunch of lands counts as mass land destruction. Yes, you knew that before making a post that wasn't asking for clarification so much as it was asking for permission. Yes it's still a solid card.

It's not a way to keep green land ramp decks in check, because that's not what mass land destruction does, but in the right shell in the right bracket it's a very useful control tool given the stapled-on board wipe.

Scour for ScrapScour for Scrap

What's better than an instant speed tutor that lets you search up an artifact card to hand for ? One that can also return an artifact card from your graveyard to your hand at the same time.

Despite being a modular card, Scour for Scrap contains the magical words "Choose one or both." Sure, both those modes are maybe a bit over-costed, but the fact that you don't need to choose between the two as Scour lets you pick both at the same time more than offsets that cost

Once you evaluate the combined options the card's strength becomes so much more obvious. So tutor up that artifact and recur another while you do it. That's well worth four mana.

Singularity RuptureSingularity Rupture

I suppose you can technically use Singularity Rupture in a mill deck, and I'm sure it'll see play in that kind of list, but I'm going to bet a whole lot of graveyard players wind up targeting themselves with the "mill half your library" trigger. I've probably seen more TraumatizeTraumatize casts over the years targeting the caster for this reason, and I would bet we see the same here.

That said, if you're in a deck built around mill as a win condition, you're going to need to run board wipes anyway. So why not make your board wipe a card that can also be used to mill your opponents?

Either way, whether you're using it to remove an opponent's library or to enable your own Living DeathLiving Death-esque plan, it's going to see significant play.

Space-Time AnomalySpace-Time Anomaly

We've gotten a recent micro-trend of cards that mill based on life gain, starting with Hope EstheimHope Estheim. As with Singularity RuptureSingularity Rupture however I would guess that outside Hope lists we primarily see Space-Time Anomaly be used to self-mill in some kind of reanimation package more than we see it used as a way to mill an opponent out.

A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy . . .

That wraps up our coverage of the notable instant and sorcery cards in the Edge of Eternities set. This is a set much more based on notable permanents than one-off spells, but even in a set like this there are impactful keepers.

Thanks for reading, and remember, EDHREC your deck before you wreck your deck!

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