Magic: The Gathering's science-fantasy set adds spacecraft, and a rules change for the Commander format

While Final Fantasy may be the current hotness, MagicCon: Las Vegas dedicated most of its preview panel to an expansion that's coming later in the year. Edge of Eternities is a set that takes Magic to the limit of its multiverse as well as its genre, with a science-fantasy setting that has room for jellyfish aliens, religious wars in space, and a whole species who can travel at faster-than-light speeds by "weftwalking".

Also, it's got spaceships.

Instead of using the existing rules for vehicle cards, as the Doctor Who set did, Edge of Eternities will differentiate spacecraft by making them a separate card type with a slightly different rule. While they still have to be crewed before they can be used, the crew don't have to be tapped every turn. The new rule is called stationing, and it means you tap creatures to add charge counters equal to their power to a ship. Once you've got enough charge counters, your spacecraft becomes an artifact creature able to function independently of whoever's stationing it.

It'll be interesting to see whether the spacecraft type shows up in future sets. Obviously other expansions set in the Edge could use it, but so could a hypothetical set based on Guardians of the Galaxy or The Expanse or any number of sci-fi settings.

Another new thing announced is a change coming to the Commander format. From now on, legendary vehicles and spacecraft will be valid Commanders. You can finally build a Commander deck around the Jackdaw from Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag, RMS Titanic from Doctor Who, The Prydwen: Steel Flagship from Fallout 4, or even Grond from The Lord of the Rings. (Grond! Grond! Grond!) Wild times.

Edge of Eternities is also bringing back five of the shocklands, which will please the players who never shut up about them, when it releases on August 1. The preview panel followed Edge of Eternities with a glimpse at a couple of cards from the upcoming Avatar: The Last Airbender set, and revealed two sets due next year. Both of them are returns to popular planes, with Lorwyn Eclipsed returning to the home of the elves on January 23, and Secrets of Strixhaven heading back to the Magic's magical university at some point later in 2026.