Eventide Spoilers and Set Information

Pedro Furtado (djorso) 11 days ago Collecting, MTG Cards, MTG Products, Set Overview

Overbeing of Myth | Illustration by Chippy

Released in 2008, Eventide was a small set and the direct sequel to Shadowmoor, a strong hybrid mana set. While Shadowmoor focused on allied color pairs, Eventide balanced the scales and focused on enemy color hybrid mana—to even the tide, some might say. It was also the first set to focus on enemy color pairings in a long time.

Naturally, a set this old won’t be the powerhouse it once was due to power creep, but Eventide has plenty of interesting cards and aspects. With Lorwyn Eclipsed releasing in 2026, it’s time we revisited this unique set and see what it has to offer.

Let’s go!

Table of Contents show

Eventide Basic Information

Flickerwisp | Illustration by Jeremy Enecio

Set Details

Set Symbol
Set Code	EVE
Number of Cards	180
Rarities	60 rares, 60 uncommons, 60 commons
Mechanics	Chroma, Enemy Hybrid Mana, Persist, Retrace, Wither

Important Dates

Previews Start	June, 2008
Full Gallery Available	July, 2008
Release on Magic Online	August 12, 2008
Prerelease Week	July 12-13, 2008
Paper Release Date	July 25, 2008

About the Set: The Story

The plane of Lorwyn is subject to a natural event called The Great Aurora, which turns a bright, colorful plane into a dark, dangerous one. These different planes are depicted in Lorwyn and Shadowmoor, similar to night and day, but with a much longer duration. The plane is peaceful and bright during the day cycle, but in the night cycle, it’s very dark and aggressive, with many races succumbing to madness (like kithkin and elementals). Oona, Queen of the Fae is a very powerful being who was unnaturally extending the night cycle. That naturally led the protagonists of the story like Rhys the Redeemed, Ashling, the Extinguisher, and Maralen of the Mornsong to confront her, defeat her, and reestablish the natural day and night cycle.

Eventide Mechanics

Eventide is a small set, so it follows most of Shadowmoor’s themes and mechanics, with additions and variations:

Chroma

A mechanic that would later evolve into devotion, chroma cares about the number of mana symbols you have among your permanents. Primalcrux is a clean example of this mechanic: It’s a 6/6 trampler because of its own green mana symbols. We can make it bigger by playing more green permanents. While most chroma and devotion cards play the same way, chroma is able to track mana symbols in zones other than the battlefield, while devotion only ever counts permanents you have in play.

Enemy Hybrid Mana

Shadowmoor’s big theme was allied hybrid mana, but Eventide emphasizes enemy-color hybrid mana. Many allied color cycles in Shadowmoor were finished here in Eventide, such as the lieges, the avatars, and the filter lands. Almost half the cards in the set use hybrid mana, and it’s the MTG set with the most enemy hybrid mana cards overall.

Persist

Persist is a mechanic that makes the creature return to the battlefield with a -1/-1 counter if it didn’t have a -1/-1 counter when it dies. This mechanic is infamous for producing combos with cards that make your creature return to the battlefield with a +1/+1 counter. You can give persist to undying creatures, or use a card like Renata, Called to the Hunt to create awesome combos. Glen Elendra Archmage is the best persist card in this set.

Retrace

Cards with retrace can be cast from your graveyard by discarding a land in addition to paying the mana cost. This converts often-useless lands drawn in the late game into real power. Cards like Worm Harvest and Call the Skybreaker add strong late-game power to your decks.

Wither

Wither is the father to infect, a mechanic that makes creatures deal damage to each other via -1/-1 counters. This negates persist and makes blocking harder in general; players don’t want their creatures shrunk, and indestructible won’t work either. Good examples of wither cards in this set are Necroskitter and Needle Specter.

Eventide Card Gallery

White

Blue

Black

Red

Green

Multicolor

Colorless

Lands

Notable Cards

Cycle of Lieges

The Eventide lieges are creatures with anthems for other creatures in their colors, and they give you some benefits for playing cards in those colors. These are perfect inclusions for most 2-color Commander decks. A small nod towards Balefire Liege, which turns your Boros spells into Lightning Helixes, or Deathbringer Liege, who turns your Orzhov cards into Murders.

Cycle of Enemy Filter Lands

One of the best 2-color land cycles, the filter lands are very good when you have to cast cards with hard color requirements. You can have a sequence like turn 1 Swamp, then play Fetid Heath on turn 2 and cast a card. These are very cheap today thanks to the constant reprinting in Commander precons.

Cycle of Spirit Avatars

These creatures all cost 5 hybrid mana and are pretty powerful (by 2008 standards) if you can cast them reliably. They add a lot of devotion, so you might be interested in that as well, especially those with black or green mana. Nobilis of War still packs a punch in aggressive decks, while Overbeing of Myth is nice if you care about card draw.

Money Cards

Bloom Tender is an absolute staple in EDH, and it has been reprinted only once. Ramp and color fixing on a 2-mana card that’s also an elf? Sign me up.

Glen Elendra Archmage is a nice Negate on a stick, and you can use that twice thanks to persist.

Waves of Aggression is a strong extra combat card, and with retrace you can cast it again and again, as long as you have a land in your hand to discard.

Helix Pinnacle is an interesting win condition, especially in EDH decks that care about proliferate and counter-doubling.

Ward of Bones isn’t the best stax piece, but it offers a unique enough effect to see play here and there. It’s never been reprinted, so that contributes a lot to the price tag.

Necroskitter is one of the better -1/-1 counters payoffs considering that you can kill a creature via negative counters and steal it for yourself.

Regal Force is a nice card draw engine that was once a staple for elf decks or token decks.

Interesting Constructed Cards

Flickerwisp sees play in blink decks as a flying, disruptive value creature.

Slippery Bogle is a classic Voltron card, and we have decks called “Bogles” for a reason.

Figure of Destiny was a highly playable 1-drop for a long time, as a creature that you can invest mana into to grow it over time. This card ended up inspiring the level up mechanic later.

Cold-Eyed Selkie is an evasive creature that can draw many cards with the help of auras and pump spells.

Sapling of Colfenor is an interesting treefolk and high-toughness commander.

Nettle Sentinel is a classic elves and combo piece that you can untap and tap to enable certain chains, especially with Heritage Druid around.

Available Products

Small sets usually have fewer products than the larger sets, so here are the different products you can find for Eventide.

Eventide Booster Pack

This is your typical Booster Pack with 15 cards. An Eventide booster contains a rare, 3 uncommons, 10 commons, and a basic land, plus an extra rules card or creature token.

Eventide Fat Pack

Eventide was sold in Fat Packs, which contained 8 booster packs, along with some goodies, like 40 lands, a spindown life counter, and more.

Eventide Booster Box

For those who want to get product in bulk, Eventide Booster Boxes came with 36 booster packs. It’s perfect to fire some Draft, or a small casual Sealed Deck tournament.

Eventide Preconstructed Theme Decks

Eventide has five preconstructed theme decks, mixing Shadowmoor and Eventide cards, with more of the latter. Each of these is an enemy color deck with different subthemes:

Life Drain is a deck that thrives on lifegain. If you have more than 25 life, Divinity of Pride will be a huge 8/8 flier, and you can gain enough life with the likes of Voracious Hatchling.
Sidestep is a deck that wants to be tricky. You have lots of cards that can switch power and toughness, like Inside Out and Crag Puca. You can also give your creatures flying, or steal their creatures with Dominus of Fealty.
Death March is a midrange deck. It combines creatures that get -1/-1 counters with effects that extract them. There’s also a minor graveyard sacrifice theme with cards like Desecrator Hag and Doomgape.
Battle Blitz is a aggressive deck. It has some synergies with cards that let you tap creatures that can untap by themselves, so you can do it again. Like combining Power of Fire with Hateflayer. Your classic creatures plus burn spells aggro.
Superabundance is a midrange deck, and what you’d expect from this color pair. Shorecrasher Mimic can attack as a 5/3 trampler very often, and cards like Fable of Wolf and Owl will dominate in the long run.

Wrap Up

Slippery Bogle | Illustration by Dave Allsop

Eventide was, ultimately, an interesting experiment in hybrid mana. It had interesting cards for Constructed MTG that see play to this day, mainly in formats like EDH. But figuring out how you can build a deck in Limited with that much hybrid mana was a heck of a challenge. I think it was a strong follow-up to Shadowmoor in an age when MTG didn’t use hybrid mana that much.

What are your memories from Eventide? Do you have any good (or bad) experiences with the set? Let me know in the comments section below, or let’s discuss it over in the Draftsim Discord.

Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time around!

Note: this post contains affiliate links. If you use these links to make a purchase, you’ll help Draftsim continue to provide awesome free articles and apps.

Follow Draftsim for awesome articles and set updates:

Eventide info Eventide news Eventide spoilers MTG MTG cards MTG collection MTG EVE MTG Eventide MTG products MTG set info MTG set overview MTG set spoilers MTG sets

Pedro Furtado (djorso)

Pedro started playing Magic way back when in Fourth Edition. After a long hiatus, he now plays mostly MTG Arena Standard and Limited. His biggest MTG regret is trading a bunch of Force of Wills for Serra Angels.

Collecting

0 0

The 16 Best Starter Decks Ranked and How to Upgrade Them

Pedro Furtado (djorso) April 10, 2025

Commander

0 0

Here Are the Best Commander Precon Decks for 2026

Ignacio (Iñaki) November 5, 2025