Echoes of Eternity – Modern Horizons 3
Date Reviewed: May 24, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3.38
Multiplayer: 4.13
Commander [EDH]: 4.38
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
As you know, I have a standing interest in Magic’s story, which puts Modern Horizons 2 and 3 on a much higher level than a lot of innovation sets: they have much more of a story than some of those do. While Conspiracy‘s Fiora, Battlebond‘s Kylem, and Global Series: Jiang Yanggu and Mu Yanling‘s Shenmeng all became canon planes sooner or later, the recent Modern Horizons sets looked at stories from Magic’s past. The second instalment was about Dakkon Blackblade and his friends and enemies, and the third incorporates an alternate look at the Battle for Zendikar block where the Eldrazi won.
If they’d used spells like this, they would have. Easily. Sometimes I get distracted by the Eldrazi creatures’ gigantic power and toughness stats and forget that they’re one of the few classes of spells where the phrase “triggered ability of a spell” actually makes sense. It only takes a few moments of looking through a database to realize that most of those triggers are balanced by the fact that you only get them once. Come to think of it, you can say the same about that second clause. I think the only Eldrazi it doesn’t double effectively is Endless One, and that reduced effectiveness probably isn’t enough to preclude playing them in the same deck. And you’ll notice that it counts as an Eldrazi itself – I’m glad they went with that, even though it makes for some absolutely wild interactions.
Constructed: 3.5 (maybe optimistic, but the game states it leads to are crazy enough that it might be worth trying to make space for it)
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3.5
Multiplayer: 4.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
Before getting too far, let’s start from the top: the typeline. “Kindred” is the same type as what previously was called “Tribal”, so there isn’t a tenth type running around now. All previously “Tribal” cards (like Bitterblossom) are now “Kindred”, and it has the same property of being a type with access to all creature types. (Also, remember that it is a proper type, not a subtype or supertype.)
Now we turn to the start of Modern Horizons III cards and the return of Eldrazi en masse, as exemplified by Echoes of Eternity. This is…a pretty nasty support spell for the tribe, all in all, as well as more generic “colorless support”. Eldrazi are known for their cast trigger abilities, and some of them do really rude things on top of not being as easy to counter. The most “obvious” one is using Emrakul, the Aeons Torn to take two extra turns, but that’s a bit extreme. Doubling colorless spells can also really make things into a nightmarish scenario, since this gives you double of colorless artifacts and makes Eldrazi into a really fun two-for-one package deal, among other things.
The thing that keeps this spell in check is its mana cost. While six mana is reasonable, it also has a triple colorless demand that both makes it harder to cheat on and harder to splash. It being an Eldrazi does mean both Eye of Ugin and Eldrazi Temple are viable venues for making this do even more profane things faster, and it is part of a tribe and archetype known for cheating a bit when it comes to getting up the mana curve. The real downside is that this is a “do nothing” enchantment on its own; your opponents will need to answer it, but most Eldrazi and spells they’d want to run are “fair” enough to give time for responses.
Constructed: 3.5 (I think this can be very scary, but it needs to come out reliably in early tuns to have a chance to do its thing)
Casual: 4.5
Limited: 3.25 (the set looks to have a lot of colorless spells, but this forces you into a bit of an “on rails” approach)
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (if you can support this, it’s going to be disgusting)
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