Best Instant-Speed Tricks in Edge of Eternities

Why instant-speed spells matter in MTG

There’s nothing quite like an instant speed spell in Magic: The Gathering. Instants, as many of you may know already, are named as such because you can play them at almost any time (so long as you have priority, which we won’t go into now, but it’s basically when your opponent has stopped taking actions). This can be in response to them casting a spell, at various points during the combat step, or, my favourite, at the end of the opponent’s turn.

The possibilities here are endless enabling a huge amount of flexibility, meaning you can wait until your opponent has shown their hand (figuratively) and chose the best course of actions. What this means hugely varies by colour, too.

Blue, for example, is almost the only colour with access to counterspells (apart from some outliers like Mana Tithe), so often you pass to your opponent with mana available to counter their spells. If they don’t, blue decks also have other instant speed spells (e.g. those that draw cards) that, if your opponent doesn’t try to cast anything, you can use at the end of their turn when the option for them to cast anything but another instant has passed.

The more aggressive and creature focused colours – especially red, white and green – have a lot of combat tricks at instant speed, meaning you can wait until your opponent decides how to block, and then surprise them with an instant that pumps the creature's power or toughness, or grant another ability like first strike. All colours have these to varying degrees, distinct according to their portion of the colour pie. Black, for example, tends to offer power boosts (sometimes at the expense of toughness) and deathtouch, while green is famous for the big power and toughness boosts with iconic cards like Giant Growth.

Flash, too, is the keyword meaning a permanent can be played at instant speed, providing all kinds of tricks (especially if the creature has an enter the battlefield effect), or provide a surprise blocker, or even a surprise attacker as if you play it at the end of your opponents turn it won’t have summoning sickness for your own.

Edge of Eternities has all kinds of interesting options for instants, like take a look by colour.

White – Combat tricks and defensive spells

White has seven instant spells to take a look at, mainly combat tricks and defensive spells.

Cards like Dual-Sun Technique enable you to either end a creature by giving surprise double strike, or maybe even end an opponent who is suddenly taking double the damage they were expecting from an unblocked creature. Likewise, Zealous Display adds to the damage output, but in the other direction, giving all creatures +2/+0, meaning you can go ‘wide’ rather than go ‘tall’. Zealous Display also untaps your creatures if it's not your turn, which is great defensively too, making your whole team surprise blockers who just got more powerful.

Defense is a key theme of white’s instants, with cards like Focus Fire dealing damage to attacking creatures (as well as blocking, meaning it's got flexibility if you in fact are the aggressor). Reroute Systems isn’t about attacking or blocking, but helps protect your board by making a creature or artifact indestructible. Emergency Eject is the ultimate aggressive or defense card, destroying a nonland permanent altogether, removing a pesky blocker or dangerous attacker.

Blue – Counter magic and tempo control

The classic blue instants are counterspells, and Edge of Eternities is no exception. These days, three mana is typically the cost for an unconditional counterspell which typically comes with a little upside linked to the set’s mechanic, and here it’s Unravel, which enables you to also draw a card if the spell you counter was paid for with less mana than it’s mana cost (interacting with Warp, basically). Divert Disaster is a Mana Leak variant, and Annul is here as a reprint.

Bounce and ‘tap’ effects are other classic blue instants, fitting into the ‘tempo’ strategy of just doing enough (at a low mana cost) to keep your opponent off balance. The answer may only be temporary, but they’ll buy you enough time for victory. Mental Modulation, Desculpting Blast, and Lost in Space all contribute to this category.

Lastly, blue wouldn’t be blue without draw spells, and instant draw spells are the best so you can keep your counter magic open and cast them at the end of turn when the coast is clear. The set also has artifact and land themes so Cerebral Download draws you cards once you’ve surveilled according to the number of artifacts you control, while Consult the Star Charts lets you look at cards according to your landcount.

Black – Removal and graveyard recursion

Black’s instants fit into one of three categories: combat tricks, removal and graveyard interaction.

Gravkill and Archenemy’s Charm are strong removal options, actually exiling creatures to ensure they stay gone. Archenemy’s Charm also enables you to return creatures and planewalkers to your hand from your graveyard (which is powerful at the end of your opponent’s turn, enabling you to drop them on your next turn), and also has a combat trick in pumping a creature. Dark Endurance and Depressurize are two other interesting combat tricks too.

Red – Aggression and damage bursts

Red players are simple creatures – they just want to see the world burn! Really, aside from artifact removal, red is all about direct damage and combat tricks. Simple stuff.

Full Bore and Rig for War are classic low cost creature pump spells to help your aggressive creatures kill your opponents, win combat, or at least trade with bigger bodies.

Lightning Bolt – even after all these years later – is still too good for Standard, so we have a two mana version in Invasive Maneuvers, which while being only able to hit creatures, can scale up to dealing extra damage if you control a spacecraft. Lithobraking goes further, providing a ‘mini wrath’ at instant speed.

Green – Surprise buffs and flexible interaction

Green is the colour of creatures. That means not only does it get relatively few instants, but the ones it does get tend to be creature-focused.

Green, like red, can deal with artifacts, but also enchantments, as we see with Seedship Impact. That aside, we get creature buffs like Biosynthic Burst – good on offense, defense, but also as a removal counter, or ‘fight’ type spells like close combat.

How to use these spells in Limited and Constructed

First we need to think about the difference between limited and constructed. With Limited, removal is very strong, and you’ll take almost whatever you can get – even the really costly ones (although, not too many of them). These pricey spells don’t really wash in constructed, where you don’t really want anything above a cost of two mana.

Limited, and especially Sealed, tends to be more creature and combat focused than constructed, and as such a single combat trick can decide a match, as can a mass-pump spell which can turn a race in your favour. These combat tricks, unless super efficient like Monstrous Rage, just aren’t really worth a card in constructed.

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