Nova Hellkite – Edge of Eternities
Date Reviewed: August 11, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.88
Casual: 4.50
Limited: 4.63
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 3.88
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
The warp ability is closely related to evoke, seen in Lorwyn and Modern Horizons 2. It has many of the same uses, but the differences are important – the fact that you get a warped creature for single turn before it leaves, possibly to return, changes how you evaluate them. It also lets you have warp creatures with haste, and those creatures are potentially very dangerous. Efficient creatures with haste have been one of the most effective weapons in red decks’ arsenals for many years, and are especially demoralizing when you play them right after the opponent has used a sweeper. But Nova Hellkite is slightly more efficient than the average efficient haste creature, at both of its possible costs: you usually don’t get single-use haste creatures that are hard to kill at three mana. And at five mana, it doesn’t have quite as much table impact as the likes of Glorybringer, but it doesn’t really need it when it still demands opponents find an answer or lose.
I can’t even tell you how much I like this card’s art. To what extent is the dragon’s dark form blocking out the nebula behind it, and to what extent do the shape of the nebula and the placement of the background stars merely suggest the outline of a dragon? This art might go down as a modern classic in Magic illustration.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Every set needs at least one dragon with great, big, long wings, and Nova Hellkite fits the bill here. The ping may not look special, but a lot of useful utility creatures sit at 1 toughness, and that extra ping can sometimes be good at dissuading a block on combat, because haste lets this swoop a couple turns ahead of schedule. As a turn three play, I’d say this is deceptively vicious, four damage to the face and picking off something else, just to come back later to do it again. Being a dragon also helps when we’ve just come from a set that was very heavy on the swooping friends, so that’s worth mention. I think this’ll be a house in Limited and quite good besides, thanks to haste making this a more efficient clock than it might otherwise be.
Constructed: 3.75
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 4.75
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Thijs
Coming Soon
Constructed:
Casual:
Limited:
Multiplayer:
Commander [EDH]:
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