Welcome to the Edge of Eternities (or EOE), the latest set from Magic: The Gathering. Edge of Eternities is a twist on the typical MTG set; a foray into the genre of Science Fiction, or rather “Science Fantasy”. Think spaceships and aliens, and you won’t be far wrong. EoE is set in the planetary system of Sothera, with 5 planets (each one based on a different colour of mana) circling a supervoid star that is a point of contention between religious orders.
Edge of Eternities will be the final set this year based on Magic’s intellectual property. The remaining sets on 2025’s product schedule are all “Universes Beyond”, sets based on other IPs – Marvel’s Spider-Man and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Because this is a preview article, I’m just gonna throw a lot of the cards I’ve been given access to at you, along with a few notes about the story and how well the designers have done at creating a set that is a little bit out of the norm for Magic: The Gathering.
A novel approach to storytelling
For me, one of the key ingredients to a good Magic set is the flavour; I’m less interested in the individual cards than I am in the overall feel of the set and how well it fits in with the existing Magic: The Gathering setting. So when I initially heard that Edge of Eternities was a sci-fi-themed set, I was a little dubious. The story accompanying the set release has done a lot to win me over. Written by published sci-fi author Seth Dickinson, it’s approximately 80k words in length, split over 11 “episodes”. That’s as long as an average novel! The story is also accompanied by a podcast version, voiced by professional voice actor Jesse Inocalla.
The story itself is relatively disconnected from the ongoing story arc, but still fully within Magic canon, according to MTG story lead Roy Graham:
“The EOE story will be the most stand-alone main story we’ve done since my tenure as story lead. Like I said, it’s canonical, and there are certain revelations in the lore and story that will have big implications for everything else, but it focuses almost entirely on new characters, in a new setting”
Just a note, if you do take the time to read it (which I recommend!): the first episode may be a little difficult to understand. It jumps around a lot, but gives a good introduction to what is happening in the Sothera system. Stick with it; everything will start to make sense eventually.
The story follows the ship captain Sami (Human) as they search for their cat Mirri while hustling a side job for the Metalman, a.k.a. Tezzeret, who is the only familiar face in the story. The cast of characters includes first mate Tannuk (Kav – a sentient Kavu); Alpharael (Human), acolyte of the black aligned Monoist religion; and Haliya (Human), squire of the white-aligned Summist religion. It also features a sentient artifact of immense power that we eventually come to know as The Endstone…
Cool one-off’s
There are a couple of cards that have been revealed in the Press Briefing kit I received that should probably be called out specifically. The set includes small amounts of some fan favourites – Eldrazi and Slivers. Anticausal Vestige has already been revealed previously, and at the time of printing, it’s undetermined if this is the only Eldrazi in the set. It seems likely, though.
While there are apparently no actual slivers in the set, Thrumming Hivepool is an extremely potent artifact that creates Sliver tokens and will slot straight into existing Sliver decks in a heartbeat. Finally, Archenemy’s Charm is the black entry in the continuation of a supercycle that provides flexible instants with 3 different modes for 3 coloured mana pips.
Set Mechanics
Warp
For a cost (generally a significant discount on the card’s casting cost), you may cast the card from your hand. At the start of the next end step, it gets exiled. You may cast it from exile on a later turn for its actual mana cost.
These cards allow you to take advantage of the creature’s effects when they enter or leave the battlefield an additional time. They also play well with the other set mechanics – Void and Station.
Void
Has an effect if a non-land permanent left the battlefield, or if a spell was warped this turn. The effects seem to be quite varied based on the two we’ve seen so far:
Station
This ability requires you to tap creatures (at sorcery speed) to add charge counters equal to their power to the permanent. Extra abilities are added to the card as the counters go over certain thresholds. In the cards revealed from the set so far, Station is found on the new artifact subtype Spacecraft and the new Land subtype Planet, as seen in the following screenshots.
Uthros, Titanic Godcore is a “fixed” version of the Urza’s Saga card Tolarian Academy. I’m looking forward to seeing if deckbuilders out there will be able to break the card or if Wizards of the Coast has sufficient guardrails in place to prevent it from being overpowered.
Lander Tokens
This one is a minor theme, but another new card subtype introduced in Edge of Eternities is Lander Tokens, which can be tapped and sacrificed for 2 mana to find a basic land from your deck to put onto the battlefield tapped. While the secondary effect of Biotech Specialist is nice but minor in sealed environments, it may end up being abusable in Gruul decks in other formats that have access to generating treasure tokens.
Booster Fun Variants
The Edge of Eternities set features a bonus sheet – Stellar Sights lands. These are curious for several reasons: the font used in the name, the fact that the name of the land is in the middle of the card, and finally, that they have no set symbol. WOTC have indicated that the lack of an expansion symbol is something they are continuing to experiment with, so it may also be seen in future products.
The lands that have been revealed so far with this treatment have been somewhat mediocre, but at least they will be relatively common. 1 in 8 play boosters will contain one. The second variant has the same lands with a different frame, Poster Stellar Sights. This frame is based on classic travel posters. While the poster version is likely to be a lot rarer, each Edge of Eternities Collector Booster contains at least 1 Stellar Sights land or Poster Stellar Sights land, with non-foil, traditional foil and galaxy foil treatments.
The Special Guest cards for the set are somewhat unusual as well, based on 70s pulp sci-fi covers. They feel like they would be more at home as part of a Secret Lair…
Surreal Space
The surreal space art style also draws inspiration from 70’s pulp sci-fi novels. I prefer these to the special guest styles; they have a feel to them that evokes some of the surrealism seen in early magic cards, while using a much cleaner and more readable template.
Japan Showcase
10 Mythics from the set show up in the Japan Showcase frame; here are 3 of them:
Reflecting on Edge of Eternities
While I had some initial concerns about how the sci-fi theme of Edge of Eternities would translate into existing MTG fantasy lore, I’m now really looking forward to the set. We’ve yet to see the bulk of the cards, but I think they’ve done a great job based on those seen so far. The story is a particular standout. I’m hoping that the trend continues; that is, because Universes Beyond products come with an existing background, it will free up resources to put more focus into developing lore in the future.
By and large, I think the art shown so far is pretty awesome. We’ve seen some initial exploration of space themes in the Unfinity set released three years ago, which I feel has fed into a lot of the artwork we’re seeing here. The EoE full art celestial basic lands and shocklands have been revealed for a while, so I haven’t included them in this article, but side by side, they fit right along with the lands from Unfinity.
Edge of Eternities pre-release events begin on July 25th, with the official set release on August 1st 2025.
About the Author
Ric Bullock
he/him
Ric is a board game afficiando who has been playing Magic: The Gathering for way too many years.
