Two for the Price of One | Exclusive Edges of Eternities Previews
Edge of Eternities is almost here, and today, thanks to Wizards hooking us up, we've got not just one but two exclusive Edge of Eternities cards to show off for you today! While our highest-rarity card is an uncommon, that seems to be a good thing in 2025, considering most of the seven cards banned a few weeks back were either uncommons or commons. Lower-rarity cards just keep getting better, and we've got some good ones for you today: meet Honored Knight-Captain and Radiant Strike!
Let's start with the easy one: Radiant Strike is a new common removal spell that, in all honesty, is likely too expensive to see constructed play at four mana. But being able to blow up an artifact or tapped creature and even gain some life as a bonus might make Radiant Strike a solid pick in limited, considering that killing creatures is always important in limited, and Spacecraft mean that non-creature artifacts are a major part of Edge of Eternities.
From my perspective, as someone who mostly plays constructed, Honored Knight-Captain is the much more exciting of the two cards. It doesn't look like all that much at first read, as a two-mana 1/1 that comes along with a 1/1 token and then can sacrifice itself in the late game to tutor an equipment directly onto the battlefield for six mana. But its potential becomes much more obvious once you start to think about similar cards from the past and all of the things that Honored Knight-Captain can do.
Honored Knight-Captain is a twist on cards like Goblin Instigator, Resolute Reinforcements, and Raise the Alarm (among others), which have a pretty decent track record from the past. It turns out that making two creatures for two mana is pretty powerful, especially in tribal decks or go-wide aggro decks. It was only a few months ago that Resolute Reinforcements was a legit Standard staple in Boros Convoke. and it currently sees Pioneer play. And both Goblin Instigator (Goblins) and Raise the Alarm (BW Tokens) have seen competitive play in the past. While Honored Knight-Captain might be a tick worse than Resolute Reinforcements since it doesn't have flash (and most go-wide decks aren't going to want to pay six to tutor up an equipment), this doesn't seem like a deal-breaker as far as seeing play in the right archetype.
The most obvious home for the card in Standard is in Boros Convoke itself. While the deck does lose Knight-Errant of Eos at rotation, we still have cards like Warleader's Call and Arabella, Abandoned Doll that reward you for going wide with small creatures. And with Izzet Prowess and Mono-Red nerfed (and Temporary Lockdown rotating), it's very possible for a similar deck to develop. If you simply toss Honored-Knight Captain into the deck to replace the rotating convoke theme, you end up with a pretty solid-looking aggro deck.
The creature types on Honored Knight-Captain are weird. While it is technically a Human Advisor Knight, the tokens it makes are Human Soldiers, which means if you are looking to play the two-drop in a tribal deck, you'll likely be looking toward Humans so that both creatures will be on theme. Humans don't really have a similar card. The closest I could find was Gather the Townsfolk, which does work the same (making two 1/1 Humans for two mana) but is so old that it isn't even legal in Pioneer! I guess it's also possible to play the card in Knights or Soldiers, although it is awkward that the token isn't the right creature type for the deck.
Over the short term, I'd be surprised to see Humans become a tier deck in Standard. But with cards remaining legal for three years now, there's always a chance that one of these decks will develop at some point in the next few years. Worst case, Honored Knight-Captain should show up Human Commander decks, where getting two on-tribe bodies for the price of one seems pretty solid, and doubly so if your deck has an equipment sub-theme.
Of course, we've mostly talked about Honored Knight-Captain as a Resolute Reinforcements–style go-wide card so far, but the two-drop does way more than that: for six mana, it can tutor an equipment directly onto the battlefield. While six mana is enough that I would be surprised if this ability were the primary reason people played the card, it can do some pretty powerful things in the late game and opens up the possibility of Honored Knight-Captain seeing play in an equipment deck. Of course, you can just use the ability to snag a Skullclamp or Lightning Greaves in a Humans deck. But it gets even stronger if your deck is actually built around equipment.
In Standard, it's probably at its most powerful when grabbing equipment that makes a creature to equip to, like Dissection Tools, Machinist's Arsenal, and friends, which essentially allow Honored Knight-Captain to tutor a creature onto the battlefield. In Commander, you can do tricks like snagging Mithril Coat at instant speed to protect a creature, or super-expensive equipment like Excalibur, Sword of Eden at a discount. While I don't think Honored Knight-Captain is an auto-include in equipment decks in Commander, especially if you are playing a lower-bracket deck or a budget build, I think it's a reasonable option for adding multiple bodies to the battlefield to equip to while also potentially finding your best equipment in a given situation!
All in all, I really like Honored Knight-Captain. While it isn't a flashy mythic, it is a nuts-and-bolts type card that holds a deck together with its two-for-the-price-of-one value. I think there's a decent chance that some Standard decks will want it, and it will most likely show up in some Commander decks too! Oh yeah, and don't forget that Radiant Strike also exists for all of you limited fans out there.
Wrap-Up
Anyway, thanks again to Wizards for hooking us up with a couple of sweet preview cards! What do you think of Honored Knight-Captain and Radiant Strike? Do you have a deck you want to play them in? Let me know in the comments, and as always, you can reach me on Twitter @SaffronOlive or at SaffronOlive@MTGGoldfish.com.
