Exploring Edge of Eternities: Fun & Jank Episode 42

🚀 “Houston… we have a problem.”

Edge of Eternities just launched, and I’m already lost in orbit. There are so many shiny new cards to try that my wildcards are burning up on re-entry.

But hey, that’s the fun of brewing during a fresh set drop, right? I was getting a bit of brewers-block towards the end of last season, but now we’re back in action! And every deck we built on stream this week was one small step for jank, one giant leap for jank kind.

Welcome back to Fun & Jank Episode 42! Today we’re going to talk about the initial cards we tested on stream, what shells we threw them into, and some other ideas I have rattling around in my head. These will be in no particular order, and by no means is this an exhaustive list of notable cards. I just wanted to show off the first few things we had a chance to play with.

#1: Hemosymbic Mite

When I first saw Hemosymbic Mite, my mind immediately went to its big brother: Syr Faren, the Hengehammer. A card that we played countless times in the Greenie Weenie deck we took to Mythic a few seasons ago. Mite is basically copies 5-8 of Syr Faren, but has some notable characteristics.

Let’s look at it in a vacuum.

• As a one-drop, Mite hits the board early, but it’s rather unassuming. Most of the time we landed it, our opponents didn’t really pay attention to it. Which exactly what we want so we can set up for a one hit knock out.
• It’s ability triggers when it taps! We didn’t play any in our list, but there’s countless green pump spells that untap a creature too (Biosynthic Burst, Bull's Strength, etc). So it’s possible to build a shell that chains together multiple instances of Mite’s ability together.
• Two of them together gets a little silly as they can compound and pump each other depending on how you stack your triggers.

So by itself, it’s a rather simple one-drop that can help swing big within a turn or two. Luckily for us, we already had that Greenie Weenie shell to test it out, and we got to play it alongside Syr Faren. Spoiler alert! They’re two peas in a pod. However, also want to talk about another piece of this package that EoE has graced us with.

#2: Frenzied Baloth

If Hemosymbic Mite is the early-game engine, Frenzied Baloth is the mid-game hammer. It feels like someone from WOTC was watching our stream and decided to make a card just for this deck. Trample and Haste is a great combination because it applies pressure immediately, but also benefits greatly from getting pumped by Mite or Syr Faren. The uncounterability clause is great against control, and unpreventable damage has come in clutch against The One Ringdecks. This guy kind of plays 3 different roles but only costs one slot in our deck. I love him! This card instantly made Greenie Weenie feel more threatening.

Let me show you what I played on stream.

Updated Greenie Weenie

This version can hit harder and faster than our previous build, but the trade off is that we don’t have as many tools to re-stabilize against removal and sweepers. We had to drop Chittering Illuminator, which was a powerful engine for the deck. However, you can do some crazy lines off of Mite and a good curve.

We pulled of the following on stream:
1.) Land + Hemosymbic Mite
2.) Land + Syr Faren, swing for 1
3.) Land + Frenzier Baloth, cast Scale Up on Mite and swing all.

That is a 6/4 Mite, an 8/8 Syr Faren, and an 11/10 Baloth attacking on turn 3. The deck can get nuts with a good hand, which happens fairly often.

Gameplay

We went 4-1 in our best-of-3 “league” on stream, Losing to Eldrazi, but winning against another Eldrazi, UW Control, UB Ninjas, and Esper Sorin (get rekt).

Deck felt great overall and I’m excited to continue tuning it. With the meta making me dedicate so many sideboard slots to Sorin and Eldrazi, I look forward to seeing if there’s a change to the ban list down the line.

#3: Pain For All

While this aura is solid in general aggro decks (hello, Screaming Nemesis), it really shines in Storm Herald combo. Burning Anger has always been clunky and awkward to hardcast, but Pain for All gives us a much cleaner, more flexible win condition.

If you’ve played any version of Storm Herald combo, you know the game plan: load up your graveyard with gigantic Auras (Colossification, Epic Proportions, etc.), slam Storm Herald, and one-shot your opponent by using the ability granted by Burning Anger. While this is powerful already, your plan-b of hard casting enchantments like Burning Anger is not great. However, Pain for All can take it’s place and actually give you a decent option if the main plan goes haywire.

Firstly, if for whatever reason you only have Pain for All in your graveyard, its much more worthwhile to jam a Storm Herald anyways. Let’s say we have Herald + two Pain for All. That deals 6 damage by itself when it enters, we get to attack for 3 damage, and if our opponent blocks they take double the damage that their creatures deal to Herald back in their face. Pain for All is also just way easier to cast on a Herald if we have it in hand, or if we were only able to bring back a pump aura.

Storm Herald Combo v3.0

Storm Herald, Pain for All, and Colossification make up the core of the list, and everything else is there to either dump cards in the yard, or find and bring back a Storm Herald. I’d like to highlight how strong Founding the Third Path is in these shells as well. We can cast Glimpse the Unthinkable for free, mill ourselves four extra cards, and then cast anything from our graveyard (mainly Unearth) to hopefully assemble the combo. I was happy to see it every time we drew it.

Gameplay

Unfortunately, we got absolutely stomped on the best-of-one ladder. So many people are playing incidental grave hate (our opponent had Surgical Extraction the first turn of our first game). Despite that, we put in a lot of reps and had a lot of fun. We even pulled of a turn-2 win! This version of the deck is definitely more of a glass-cannon than others, but I still think it has potential in the right meta. I’d like to try a more midrange-esque version in the future so we can at least put up a fight against decks with interaction.

#4 Meltstrider’s Resolve

I want to mention this card because I was impressed by it’s versatility. It can be slotted into a variety of decks and we ended up jamming it into a Mono-G Auras list on stream. Some cards just do a little bit of everything, and Meltsrider’s Resolve is one of those.

• Removal: When it enters, your creature fights an opponent’s creature. You’re already getting a card’s worth of value the moment it resolves.
• Evasion (kinda): It makes that creature harder to block (“can’t be blocked by more than one creature”), which means you’re suddenly way better at forcing damage through stalled boards.
• Pseudo-Protection: That +0/+2 isn’t flashy, but it lets your creature survive fights it otherwise couldn’t and dodge smaller burn-based removal.

I can see it finding a home not just in Bogles style builds, but also green based aggro much like the Greenie Weenie list from above. One mana fight spells don’t see a ton of play, but I think the extra value stapled onto this one might push it into some sideboards at least. Is it strong enough to make RW Auras splash green? Probably not — the mana base for that deck is already tight. But if you’re already in green, this is a versatile tool worth trying.

Mono-G Auras

(Side Note: If you remove the rare lands, you can play this in Historic Artisan)

Gameplay

I think this deck was mainly just my excuse to play Lion Umbra, but we ended up doing pretty well with it. Bogle decks are rather straightforward so I won’t bore you with the details. The best part was playing the totally well-known and powerful Historic staple….Sixth Sense and making opponents stop to read it. Umbra was very strong to hedge against large creatures and board wipes, and Meltstrider's Resolve felt solid whenever it resolved. This deck should have probably gone into an “Honorable Mentions” article, but I felt it was fun enough to throw in here since we were trying out new cards.

Closing Thoughts

That’s our first transmission from the brewing space station, but we’re far from done with Edge of Eternities. Most of the cards we talked about today are upgrades or new tools for older archetypes we already love, but there are still plenty of cards rattling around in my head. We’ll be back next time with more interstellar nonsense!

Thanks for reading.

As always feel free to comment and leave any questions you have below! Make sure to come back next week for even more Fun & Jank!

If you want to see these decks in action, come hang out with me on stream where we test, refine, and have a ton of fun together!

Happy Brewing!