It’s February, and what does that mean? It’s time for the first main MTG set of the year. Last year kicked off with a murder mystery that people hated but I loved; well, this year is kicking off with a death race. Well it’s only a death race if you die, according to Wizards. Anyway, I have been playing with Aetherdrift, and there is a mixed bag here.
Aethers? Drifts? What’s going on here?
So as mentioned, Aetherdrift is a massive violent race. The race uses the Omenpaths to go through 3 different planes. These are Avishkar, Amonkhet, and Muraganda. So why take part in a death race? Because first place gets the Aetherspark on offer. This means it appeals to planeswalkers who have been desparked and anyone wanting to get their hands on the ability to move through planes easily. For example, a big demon who took over his entire plane and wants to be able to do more bad stuff. That’s right, our man Valgavoth has sent a contingent from Duskmourn.
So we have this race kick-off. Winter from Duskmourne has Loot trapped in a cage, which helps with knowing when Omenpaths are going to open up. That means Jace is trying to save Loot; meanwhile, you have Chandra, who wants to win the race to help her desparked partner Nissa, and then everyone else wants to win for their own reasons.
The story is actually pretty entertaining, so I recommend checking it out here.
The style
Each set has their own unique styles, from the plane itself to the quirky alternate art cards. Aetherdrift has so much unique style, some of which I did not like until it grew on me, and I now love it. The normal art style on the cards is fun thanks to the blending of the three plains. You have old gods from Amonkhet, you have Indian styles from Avishkar, and primeval oozy stuff from Muraganda. This wide splash of styles makes checking out the cards heaps of fun.
Some of the full art cards, especially cards like the gods, take that cool style and make it look even more awesome sauce. Then there are the alt art cards. There are heaps of cards that are designed to look like old skateboarder/racing decal styles. These ones didn’t tickle me until I saw some in person, and now I love them. The absolute insanity of the designs is fantastic and much the style you would expect from a unique artist on a Secret Lair drop. Cracking them in boosters is so much fun. Some of the nice alt arts are even in the common and uncommon slots. The Burner Rocket I snagged in a pre-release event stood out to me as it looks dope as hell.
So fancy pantsy art cards are across the rarity spectrum, and they look cool as hell! The full art cards are from a driver’s seat perspective, and to look at them, they are cool as hell. Having said that, the yellow border foil versions, which look cool, are hard to see the land type from the other side of the table. There are also anime-style cards that you can nab in Collector Boosters, which look dope, but I haven’t seen one in person yet. One day….
Fast new mechanics!
The first thing to note is if you are new to Magic, you may not have hit vehicles or mounts. This sees either creatures dropping who can attack, or you can saddle them and attack by tapping another creature to gain some added benefit. Vehicles, on the other hand, aren’t creatures unless they have been piloted by tapping your other creatures. There are a lot of vehicles in this set that can slap hard, but they can be slower as you have to get your creatures out and the vehicles and not lose either. One of the things that helps here is a new Pilot token, which can be generated, which creates a 1/1 that can pilot vehicles for 2.
The biggest new mechanic is speed. Here, if you play a card with “Start your engines”, you start your speed off on 1. Then every time you deal damage to an opponent, the speed goes up once per turn, until on speed 4, where you are at max speed. A bunch of other cards are affected by this. For example, some cards reference increasing power or effect based on the speed, and others have additional benefits if you’re at Mac Speed. This is an interesting mechanic, as sometimes you hit Speed 4 on turn 3; other times, you struggle to get your engines going.
Then there is exhaust. A bunch of cards have an exhaust cost, which you can pay at any time to use its ability once per game. This can be as simple as getting to add some +1 counters to your creature through Loot, which has 3 different, useful, exhaust mechanics.
There are heaps of cards that feature the cycle mechanic as well. This is a useful mechanic because you can discard a card for its cycle cost to get an effect. This may be cycling it to grab a land, or draw a card or anything else. This is great because if you are stuck in an awkward spot, that card being thrown out to grab a land may be the difference between playing your next creature or not. There are also cards that you like discarding cards, so they work well together.
There are some other weird quirks, like one of the rares I pulled in my prerelease kit, Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion. Basri has an Exert ability that taps your creature down for an extra turn to use. This is fine, except in a set filled with exhaust cards I accidentally exerted my Basri thinking I was exhausting it.
On the whole, I like the flavourful use of the mechanics and how they play.
How does it play?
Pretty cards are one thing, and an easy thing to get money out of me, but Magic is a game. So the biggest question is how much fun this set is to play. The good news is, shockingly, good.
Playing sealed was OK. There are heaps of synergistic decks you can build, but with some seriously strong bombs, it’s super easy to run into a wall. I had plenty of fun tweaking with it, dabbling, and jamming the games at pre-release.
Draft, on the other hand, is fantastic. There are some serious synergies you can build if you stick to a theme. Maybe you’ll build an aggro start your engines deck, maybe you want to load up your board with artifacts, maybe you want a control deck. You can stick to one of these and have it pop. What I like is when your early picks don’t force you into a lane. For example, I started drafting an artifacts matters deck, but as I collected the coloured cards for it, I found myself building a fantastic midrange Izzet deck that wanted me to discard cards to slap my opponent. It freaking popped!
The key for me to enjoy drafting a set is that you can pivot synergies or change how your deck is going to play easily. I loved Bloomburrow, but I struggled with it in the draft. Aetherdrift is so incredibly fun to draft.
When it comes to constructed formats, with so many cards being vehicles, I don’t see them making a splash too soon, but as I say that, there are a bunch of individual cards that may change some current decks or elevate some of the decks that weren’t quite good enough.
How can you buy Aetherdrift?
There are heaps of ways to buy the cards from Aetherdrift. There are the usual Play Boosters and Collector Boosters, and of course Commander Decks. I will cover the Commander Decks soon, but for now, the packs.
Play Boosters are the usual packs you can buy and play with. Box Toppers have returned. Here, if you buy a play Booster Box, in the box is a special pack with 2 cards. One is a yellow foil full art land, and the other is a yellow foiled rare or mythic from the main set. I love box toppers and love them being back! You can also buy Collector Boosters, which cost a lot more but come with more rares, include more full art cards, and have the chance of pulling dope cards like the anime art cards.
There are two bundles available. The first is a normal bundle, which, like normal, contains a storage box, 9 Play Boosters, a die, 40 lands including one of each of the full art lands, and a Lumbering Worldwagon promo card. As always, I love the bundles and think they provide solid value.
The other bundle is the Finish Line Bundle. This one packs in 6 Play Boosters, 2 Collector Boosters, 1 box topper, 20 lands including one of each of the yellow special full arts, 3 of the lands that start your engines in full art, a die, and 5 circle stickers showing each mana symbol. From a value side of things, it’s dang good value if you collect boosters, and fun to crack open.
The Commander decks
Unlike previous sets, there are only two Commander Decks this time. I like the idea of two Commander decks, but the last few sets have dropped 3-4 bangers. Either way, you only have to choose between, or buy, two decks this time. The two options are Living Energy and Eternal Might.
As usual a precon Commander deck, comes with a 100-card deck that is ready to play. It also comes with a little cardboard deck box, a Collector Booster sample pack that has 2 cards, and a guide for how to play the deck. The guide has been cut down to focus on the face commander, and I do miss things like the thick commander proxy and the life clicker wheels. The Collector Booster sample is fun; you get a guaranteed Rare or Mythic and normally a fun alt art other card. Sometimes you pull something dope; sometimes you don’t. Either way, you get a little bit of that pack cracking dopamine. But the real value is in whether the Commander Deck is worth it.
I have been playing around with the Living Energy deck which is fun to play. It is led by Saheeli, Radiant Creator. Saheeli gives you energy tokens every time you cast an artifact, and then she lets you turn artifacts into copies of other permanents using that energy. The mix of artifact synergy is a fun and relevant vibe to the Aetherdrift set, and the use of energy gives it a little bit of its own unique flavour. It’s a super fun deck to play when it pops but does struggle with some big cards that take a while to get the chance to drop. But once the rhythm is going, it’s bananas fun.
The Eternal Might commander deck is headed by Temmet, Naktamun’s Will. This one seems to be based around getting Zombies up and running and buffing them. I haven’t played with this deck, so I can’t say too much more than what I have gleaned from the cards, but it also looks fun.
Should you check out Aetherdrift?
My initial feelings on Aetherdrift were mixed, but the more I play with these cards, the more I like it. The draft experience is fantastic; there are some powerful cards worth collecting, and the art style has grown on me a lot. It’s not my favourite set in the last 12 months, but I do look forward to playing more of it!
And remember to buy your cards from your Local Games Store. Better yet, buy them from mine!
When it comes to flavour it may not be my favourite set, but bugger me it's fun to play!
