Bonus sheets in Limited are a hotly contested topic. Do they make a format more exciting, or ruin it completely? After drafting a lot of Edge of Eternities, I can safely say that my mind is made up: they finally nailed how to do a bonus sheet without compromising Limited.
EDGE OF ETERNITIES STELLAR SIGHTS
Cascading Cataracts | Cathedral of War | Celestial Colonnade | Contested War Zone
The Stellar Sights bonus sheet in Edge of Eternities is made up of reprints of popular lands. While I am a little unsold on the fact the card type is written in the rules box and not the type line… because the name of the card is in the type line box… I do think the artwork is, for lack of a better word, stellar. It’s evocative, beautiful, treacherous, and altogether enthralling.
There are some good reprints here too, with in-demand cards like Ancient Tomb, Gemstone Caverns, Mana Confluence and Lotus Field.
THE PROBLEM WITH BONUS SHEETS IN LIMITED
Fellow writer Jacob has talked about the inherent issues with adding extra cards to Limited environments. For Final Fantasy in particular, he pointed out how the colors on the cards were hard to figure out, and how having so many older mechanics without reminder text is seriously confusing for newer players at a prerelease.
While the Stellar Sights lands have some less-than-stellar choices when it comes to “what a Magic card looks like”, they do manage to stick to a strong aesthetic discipline. The Creeping Tar Pit and Grove of the Burnwillows are definitely UB and RG cards, and the Eldrazi Temple has the familiar Hedrons we’ve come to associate with the Eldrazi.
Lands that can produce mana of any color have the familiar design tropes of these types of lands: the five colors of mana, if not a rainbow of color.
The Poster arts are a little more “out there”, and being able to figure out what any Stellar Sights lands tap for when they’re stacked on top of each other in play is more challenging when the name of the card isn’t in the familiar spot at the top of the card. This does present some issues, but not to the same degree as unexplained mechanics on cards.
In Framing a Magic Accessibility Issue, I talked about how card frames are an essential part of Magic’s visual language, and how departing from them can cause issues with accessibility. I still think that the NEO full art basics are the peak of accessibility, with their left-aligned mana symbols aligning perfectly to show available mana when stacked. The Stellar Sights lands are far away from this, but being lands – and being relegated to one position on the board, below and separate from other permanents – it’s something that is overall less of an issue than for other permanent types.
Accessibility isn’t the only issue with Bonus Sheets – and indeed, the playability (or warping effect) of certain cards on gameplay is arguably the greater issue. Some of the absolute bomb cards you can open on Bonus Sheets can lead to easy wins and hard to answer threats. So, let’s have a look at how Stellar Sights impacts Edge of Eternities.
EDGE OF ETERNITIES ASKS A LOT FROM YOUR MANABASE
Let’s talk a little about Edge of Eternities limited. Last week I wrote about the things I’ve learned playing EoE draft, but something I didn’t cover was the environments demands on manabases.
Games in EoE require you to hit your colors, play double-pip spells, and curve out. There isn’t much fixing outside of Landers, and Landers themselves are hard to come by outside of Green decks. Because of the heavy requirements on you to get the right colors, it’s very hard to splash unless you’re in green. You basically need multiple lander sources, a Command Bridge, and hopefully a shockland.
While this makes for a less splash-happy format (and one that encourages going deep on color pair archetypes), it also leads to frustrating games.
So, with all of that said, picking a land out of a pack to add to your deck is a real commitment.
WHICH STELLAR SIGHTS LANDS ARE MUST-PICKS IN LIMITED?
The card I’ve felt has served me the best when I’ve drafted it is Bonder’s Enclave. The Secluded Starforge is an incredible rare to draft because mana-sinks are so hard to come by. Getting extra card draw with Bonders’ Enclave in any deck is one of the better options, and it comes in untapped, too.
Of the Zendikar creature-lands, Celestial Colonnade and Creeping Tar Pit are obviously the best, as they can give you an evasive beater to get those last points of damage through. Much like Celestial Colonnade, Stirring Wildwood is great on the defense, too. Getting a dual-color land with late game utility is great in these color pairs.
Raging Ravine is also one of the better ones, but less good because of the mana investment and lack of evasion. Same goes for Shambling Vent – the body isn’t usually big enough to matter. Needle Spires is sometimes good, but Boros is a deck I really don’t want to be in.
Colorless lands are easy to splash in Commander, but not so much in Limited. Mirrorpool is a strong effect but comes in tapped, so I am not likely to take it – especially with needing another colorless source to work. Mutavault on the other hand is only a 2/2, but satisfies the “good and cheap” part by being only one mana to activate. If I’m playing a tapped colorless source, it’s Cathedral of War. The teamwide counters from Atmospheric Greenhouse or buff from Lumen-Class Frigate win games, and getting that +1/+1 on a lone flyer is sneakily good.
If you can reach the late game and have mostly single-pip color requirements, Endless Sands can be an okay mana sink. It can save a creature from removal, of which there is plenty in the set. Inventors’ Fair is also nice as some passive lifegain that can grab a spacecraft or equipment.
Mana Confluence is one I’d take higher than Ancient Tomb, as color fixing is a premium in the set. I don’t like the life loss on either though – there really isn’t enough room to be losing life every turn, and there aren’t enough aggro decks that want Ancient Tomb and can finish a game fast enough to not be punished by it.
You might be thinking that I’ve been pretty medium on most of these, and not mentioned even more. That’s because most of the time taking one of these lands is a medium at best pick. The format can’t support colorless lands or too many tapped lands.
STELLAR SIGHTS WORKS GREAT AS A BONUS SHEET
Because so few of the lands on the Bonus Sheet are going to crack a game of Limited wide open, they have way less of an impact on the format than previous Bonus Sheets. Occasionally you get a nice bit of fixing, a creature-land, or a mana sink, but most of the time, they’re less good than taking a good common for your deck.
The end result of this is a Limited format that has a Bonus Sheet but is not defined by it. Now, how much of that is due to the cards chosen, and how much is down to Lands being altogether less game-warping than say, Enchantments, is another question entirely. But, even if lands are less busted than Enchantments like Rhystic Study or Doubling Season (hi, Throne of Eldraine!), the design team have still gone out of their way to make a Limited format where you’re encouraged to play two color decks and not risk too much for a greedy splash.
Design have set the groundwork for this Bonus Sheet to augment the set’s value and cool factor without risking it ruining the Limited environment, and I think that’s a stellar achievement worth shouting about.
What do you think? Let us know on socials. Edge of Eternities Finally Gave Us a Good Bonus Sheet for Limited
Kristen is Card Kingdom’s Head Writer and a member of the Commander Format Panel. Formerly a competitive Pokémon TCG grinder, she has been playing Magic since Shadows Over Innistrad, which in her opinion, was a great set to start with. When she’s not taking names with Equipment and Aggro strategies in Commander, she loves to play any form of Limited.