What makes for memorable games of Magic?

Is it an efficient gameplan, gracefully deployed to secure victory? Perhaps a massive army of creatures overwhelming opponents? Each is epic in their own way, but what if victory could be achieved by a single spell? One so conceptually powerful, it actually forbade you from casting additional spells. Enter the Epic mechanic, an all-or-nothing cycle that repeatedly generates strong effects, but at the price of your ability to sling cardboard.

Introduced in Saviors of Kamigawa, Epic spells were meant to provide dramatic finishing moves over a series of turns. If Mythic existed back in 2005, you can bet this cycle would've upticked in rarity, as the thematic feel captures the sort of grand moment Mythic cards are meant to convey. They're the final gambit. The play that'll either win you the game, or lose it.

Whenever you cast a spell with Epic, two game-changing parameters are set. On the plus side, that spell will now copy itself on each of your future upkeeps, no mana required. However, that repeated spell will have to carry you on its own, for the second parameter prevents you from casting any additional spells. For the rest of the game. Abilities and triggers are still fair game, but chances are most cards in hand will be stuck indefinitely after playing an Epic spell.

The ultimate high risk, high reward situation. At least in theory. Ultimately, this cycle didn't turn out to be successful, with only one member seeing tournaments and most of the others seldom seeing Commander play. Only five Epic spells exist, meaning we can take our time and explore each in detail.

Enduring Ideal - At 7 mana, Enduring Ideal is challenging to cast, but among all the Epic cards, its effect is most likely to win you the game. Believe it or not, this card actually has some competitive pedigree. Not only did it occasionally pop up in Modern, but it also earned a Top 8 in a Standard Worlds Tournament back in 2006. For a card that prevents you from casting any future spells, that's not too shabby.

Though when you stop and think about it, if Enduring Ideal is a central piece of your strategy, your deck is already built to ignore the drawback. By grabbing protective enchantments (Solitary Confinement, Transcendance, Phyrexian Unlife, etc.) first, then following up with Stax pieces to lock opponents (Blood Moon, Stasis, Humility, Back to Basics etc. ), you'll protect your life total while denying foes the ability to interact. When played in Standard, Akira Ashara used Form of the Dragon to provide both offense and defense, shutting down enemy attackers while sending a pseudo-Lava Axe at his opponent each turn. Or stealing opposing finishers via Confiscate.

In Commander, most of these defensive and Stax tools will buffer you from all three opponents. If you're concerned about enemy interaction, Dovescape will nullify all enemy spells. Worried about a flock of angry bird tokens heading your way in response? Follow up your Dovescape by tutoring for Sphere of Safety, and suddenly all those birds have nowhere to attack except other opponents. While they pit their aerial armies against each other, you'll continue shutting down their gameplan (Overwhelming Splendor), start dropping threats (Nyxborn Behemoth), or simply find cards that'll win you the game (Helix Pinnacle).

It's still a risky and time-intensive strategy, but with the right support pieces, completely turns the game on its head.

Eternal Dominion - Coming in at a titanic 10 mana, Blue's member has the highest casting cost. For an Epic spell, Eternal Dominion certainly feels thematically powerful, but is it enough to win you the game on its own? That comes down to two big questions: One, can you survive long enough to reach the insane CMC? 10 mana is no joke, requiring a heap of Treasure tokens or spells that can bypass casting costs (Spelltwine, Mind's Desire). Secondly, do opponents have anything in their deck that keeps you alive long enough for Eternal Dominion to take over the game? Tempting as it may be to grab a Blightsteel Colossus, will it be enough to save you from the ire of your opponents?

As mentioned in Commander Psychology: Avoiding Subconscious Mistakes, players loath having their cards stolen and used against them. And you just cast a spell that does that turn after turn for the rest of the game. Anger is likely to ensue, and as such, you'll need strong protection before you can start searching up threats. Problem is, while Eternal Dominion is flexible in what permanents allows you to search for, it's entirely out of your control what cards are in enemy decks. You can't tutor Instants/Sorceries, so most 'wrath effects are out of the question. Any idea how many folks in your playgroup run False Prophet or Planar Collapse? The One Ring is certainly a common inclusion, but without the ability to use any of the cards drawn off it, it'll only provide you one turn-cycle's worth of protection.

In the case of Enduring Ideal, you're probably already running protective elements (Solitary Confinement, No Mercy, Sphere of Safety, etc.) to immediately tutor for, then once safe, you can begin grabbing more threatening enchantments. With Eternal Dominion, survival depends cards in other decks. Even if you were to grab a monster-sized threat each turn, your opponents will still be able to use disruption, potentially leaving you wide-open to counterattack.

Tough to pull off, though I imagine it's crazy-fun when you can get it to work.

Neverending Torment - Milling is always fun, but while Neverending Torment is kind enough to exile enemy cards rather than place them in the graveyard, it's far more suited for 1-vs-1 Magic than Commander. Against three opponents, each using a deck that starts with 99 cards, wiping out an entire table is going to take forever. And it'd be a forever where you'd have zero spell-based form of response, protection, or follow-up to your opponents' next moves. Barring Reliquary Tower, your maximum hand size would also cap you at seven cards at maximum, which simply isn't enough. What's worse, Neverending Torment has zero impact on the board state, requiring you to set all any and all protective measures beforehand. It's not like you'll have access to board wipes after casting this spell.

Even if Neverending Torment hit all players simultaneously, it'd be a risky proposition. But against one only copy? Slim chance.

Undying Flames - Like with Neverending Torment, multiplayer hits Undying Flames hard. A single opponent starting at 20 life is a universe away from three opponents starting at 40. While less costly than most of its counterparts, you have very little control over damage dealt each turn.

Ideally, you'll send that damage directly at opponents, akin to burn-finishers like Crackle with Power. Unfortunately, you're most likely to hit 2-4 mana nonland cards each upkeep, making victory a tall order. Even if you built your deck to consistently reveal high CMC cards, you're limited to hitting only a single target at a time. And you may need to start targeting enemy creatures, as once you begin burning opponents directly, you can bet they'll start attacking in retribution.

Maybe with enough damage-multipliers (City on Fire, Fiery Emancipation), especially in decks where your Commander is the damage-multiplier (Solphim, Mayhem Dominus), Undying Flames could get there, but the mountain's still a tall climb.

Endless Swarm - I can see what designers were going for here: Sit back behind blockers until your slithery army is large enough to smother everyone. With the inability to cast spells, your hand size, and army of 1/1 Snake tokens, will likely increase as turns go by, though without the assistance of Reliquary Tower, you're capped out at seven snakes each turn. A fun ticking-clock, but unfortunately too easy to disrupt. Especially at 8 mana.

With three opponents starting at 40 life, the number of tokens required to overwhelm the table will take multiple turns to build up. At any time along the way, opponents can pressure you with attackers to whittle your forces down. Even once you've hit a critical mass of snakes, a simple 'wrath effect takes you back to square one. While Endless Swarm can be a fun Hail-Mary pass in a deck driven by Seshiro the Anointed, Jetmir, Nexus of Revels, or other swarm (Beastmaster Ascension, Collective Blessing) and/or token (Parallel Lives, Annointed Procession, etc.) synergies, everything rides on your army surviving.

Snakes are also generated during your upkeep, meaning you'll have to wait a whole turn cycle before they can attack, giving opponents time to deal with any supporting pump-effects that'd otherwise make the snakes more lethal than simple 1/1's. And because of the Epic-clause, you'd have no spell-centric way of interacting with disruption, other than being patient for more snakes.

All these hurdles make winning a daunting task. Though for sheer storytelling potential alone, Endless Swarm could be fun at more casual (lower bracket) Commander tables. Pairing this card with Cathars' Crusade would hilarious.

While I can envision a future where a new oddball Epic card pops up, likely in a Commander or Modern Horizon product, it's highly unlikely the mechanic will ever make a true return. Despite Enduring Ideal's mild tournament presence, the original cycle proved mostly unpopular among players. It's not hard to see why: Casting spells is a core element of the game, so shutting off one's ability to do so, even when you get a copy of a powerful effect each turn, is often not enough to win consistently.

For designers, coming up with the proper balance of Epic-drawback vs. effect must be challenging, as the spell needs to be strong enough to carry the remainder of the game on its own, but not so busted as to be easily abused. In a way, it's almost fitting the mechanic has so few cards, keeping thematic to the name. If there were a whole bunch of Epic cards, they wouldn't feel quite as special.

Not all design experiments are bound to succeed, but it's interesting to explore the why/why-nots behind them. I'd rather Wizards of the Coast keep putting out bizarre, boundary-pushing mechanics, despite the danger of being over-powered (Remember Companions?), or in the case of Epic cards, not quite strong enough. Failure cases aren't always a bad thing, as they make for interesting looks into the various cogs n' gears driving design, and at the very least, are highly memorable.

Thanks for reading, and may you have an Epic day!

-Matt Lotti-

@Intrepid_tautog