Pro Tour Edge of Eternities concluded yesterday with a clean finish for American Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer, who piloted Tamehi Belcher and some impressive limited decks to his first PT Top 8 and first win!

Modern as a format seems wide open: Frank Karsten’s analysis reveals more than a dozen decks had positive records in Swiss, a list which doesn’t include the deck that took home the top prize! It truly feels as though a player can pick their favorite style of deck, even at the highest level of play. Which deck they bring to the Pro Tour can tell you a lot about a person. 

But the basic lands they choose to include? That says even more.

Modern is no longer under Blood Moon’s reign of terror. Most decks only have a few basic lands, dedicating most of their mana base to cards that can tap for multiple colors of mana or provide other utility. To wit: 25% of the decks in the Top 8 are bereft of basics in the maindeck, with only a singleton Island in their sideboards.

This scarcity, to me, makes the decision for which basics you use all the more meaningful. And with over 1,800 pieces to choose from, which basic lands you select to include at Magic’s highest-level event is perhaps the most important statement you can make. 

So as we’ve done before here at Cardboard by the Numbers, today we’ll be exploring the basic lands that won Pro Tour Edge of Eternities.

1st Place: Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer

Tameshi Belcher | Island – LEB

Michael DeBenedetto-Plummer took down 2025’s sole Modern Pro Tour with Belcher, an act that will lead many Magic players to learn that “wait, it doesn’t count MDFC lands?” and for this guy to get another tattoo.

Now, we can’t know for sure what DeBenedetto-Plummer’s singleton Island was. In my research of each of his games played on-camera, he didn’t seem to side it in once. Since none of these games featured a Blood Moon or Magus of the Moon, this is pretty reasonable, but makes our job a bit harder.

However, footage from previous Modern and Standard events demonstrates he is quite consistent with his basic land preference, opting for Beta lands across the board with Mark Poole’s sunset Island as his go-to for blue decks. I feel confident in assuming this was the case here at yesterday’s Pro Tour, and the choice needs no justification. With evocative art that’s stood the test of time, Beta is one of the classiest ways to play Magic. 

Update: DeBenedetto-Plummer confirmed to us that he did use Beta Islands!

2nd Place: Francisco Sánchez

Azorius Control | Plains – UGL 84 | Island | UGL 85

Francisco is likely to have popularized Azorius control with his incredible play over the weekend, but I hope he’s also popularized the Unglued basics too. I personally prefer the art on these to many of the later un-sets with a frame that makes them feel unique enough from other cards to distinguish them as lands. These basics are like brown shoes that go with nearly any outfit, and are never a bad choice.

4th Place: Mikko Airaksinen

Tameshi Belcher | Island – ONE 268

Like our PT champion, Mikko Airaksinen was on Belcher in Atlanta, and his sole Island never left his sideboard from what I could see of his televised matches. However, he generously shared a photo of the singleton basic after his final match for the purpose of this article, so we can confirm that the oil got him. 

The Phyrexian-language lands from Phyreixa: All Will Be One are deceptively popular. They’ve appeared in many of these articles we’ve done before, yes, but they’re also amongst the most represented in the best-selling basic land pages on TCGPlayer and other online retailers (which we try to track as best we can!). The love for Phyrexia that WotC staff have poured into the plane is indeed infectious and these lands’ continued popularity is proof of it.

4th Place: Makoto Horiuchi

Esper Blink | Plains – BFZ 252 | Island – BFZ 259 | Swamp – BFZ 261

Battle for Zendikar’s basics are also a commonplace at top tables, but for a much different reason: they were really the first full-art basic land that was widely available. Pretty much across the board for anyone who started playing Magic in 2009 or later, players seem to have a strong preference for full-art lands, and BFZ was long the easiest way to get a full stock of them. Being the most-printed set at the time, our math puts the number of available BFZ basics at around 5x the number printed in the original Zendikar 6 years earlier, so it only follows that these lands would wind their way into decklists for the decades to follow for anyone who played during this era.

8th Place: Mason Buonadonna

Amulet Titan | Snow-Covered Forest – ICE 383

Now this is Magic: the Gathering. Ice Age’s basic land suite is perhaps the highest quality of the game’s first 20 years, only surpassed by one that will be discussed later in this article. Snow lands aren’t really relevant to Mason’s deck from what I understand, but there’s some psychological damage you can inflict on your opponents all the same by playing them if they were deep into Modern during the Acrum’s Astrolabe era, where almost all players felt the need to play snow lands regardless of whether or not they were actually playing the Astrolabe.

Snow-covered Forests theoretically should be harder to find a suitable version for your deck, since there are only eight in existence compared to the 359 in the “not snow” category. However, it helps when almost all of them are bangers. Personally, I’d struggle to pick a favorite from these three as though you were asking me to pick a favorite child. Good choice, Mason.

8th Place: Jonny Guttman

Esper Goryo’s | Plains – PTK 166 | Island – PTK 169 | Swamp – PTK 174

Jonny was one of the camera’s favorites over the weekend, and I was happy for it thanks in no small part to his choice of basic lands…though Goryo’s is a pretty fun deck to watch on its own, especially with Jonny in the pilot’s seat. The white border of his Portal: Three Kingdoms trio may irk some, but besides the practical matter of making your basics easier to find with a fetch, they do a fantastic job framing the Chinese landscapes within.

I personally find the Plains and the Island to be the weakest sets in this expansion, but I cannot deny the immense vibes that emanate from a deck using this suite of basics. I’d love to see more top players consider this period of Chinese history as a source of inspiration for future manabases!

8th Place: Noé Offman

Simic Neoform | Island – UNH 137 | Forest – UNH 140

Unhinged is the most common choice we’ve seen tracking Pro Tours, and for good reason. Not only are these John Avon classics some of the most stunning representations of the basic land types in the game, but they were a move forward in basic land technology that would define card formatting for the future of the game.

They may have been the only true “full art” lands for their first five years of existence, but for more than a third of Magic’s history, Unhinged lands were the gold standard. It was an Event when Zendikar released in 2009 with a full art basic in each pack – only the second “full art” and the first time in a standard booster product – but the special quality Unhinged lands was not diluted by Zendikar. Unhinged’s basics had their own frame still, and one that gave an impressive 20% more real estate to the artwork. 

It wouldn’t be until 2017’s Unstable – a full 13 years after the release of Unhinged – that we’d get a land with more land on it.

Still, there’s powerful nostalgia wrapped up in the Unhinged five, and they’re in the same boat as pizza and Final Fantasy limited: incredibly popular for good reason. 

8th Place: Justin Schabel

Izzet Prowess | Mountain – MIR 346

Justin wins my pick for the classiest taste of PT Edge of Eternities’ Top 8. If asked to pick my favorite of the four John Avon Mountains illustrated for Mirage, I’d give you a different answer each day of the week. Mirage 346 is the fan favorite of the bunch (shoutout to the Dominaria Remastered team for having possibly the best taste in basic land reprints I’ve seen), with both its intense twilight reds and oranges and its central mountain set far back in the frame, but still imposing in its dominance over the landscape.

What are your favorite lands of the bunch? Who do you think is the style winner of PT EOE? Let us know in the comments or on our social channels, and thanks so much for reading! If you’ve enjoyed this article, sign up for our newsletter and be sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Threads!!

Miles Atherton is the editor-in-chief of “Cardboard by the Numbers” and has been playing Magic since 2006. Since studying Agricultural Economics at UC Davis, he’s built a career as an award-winning marketing executive in the entertainment industry with a love of data journalism and now consulting for White Box Entertainment. He’s also written for Anime Trending, Anime Buscience, Anime News Network, and Crunchyroll News, serving as Executive Editor of the latter from 2016 to 2021.