Magic: the Gathering Aetherdrift Review, Part 3 of 4: White, Blue, and Black Cards

Magic’s newest expansion takes us back to the plane of Avishkar, formerly known as Kaladesh, as the New Culture Collective prepares for their second annual multiplanar Ghirapur Grand Prix death race. A new set means new cards, and we’re continuing our review with the white, blue, and black cards.

Aetherdrift will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on February 11th, 2025, and to the tabletop on February 14th.

Last time we covered the multicolor cards, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at everything, but what we will be looking at, we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play.

 

Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion

Marcy: I don’t know why ‘exerting’ to make a cat is so funny, but as an owner of cats, they are really tiring.

Loxi: It’s a really neat aggro tool for 60 card formats, but in Commander this mostly will be a tech piece to protect your cats. 3 mana to protect your board from most things and replace itself? Yeah, that’s aces for a board-based archetype.

BPhillipYork: That’s an interesting cat-man. 1 cost 2/1 used to be broken back in the day, now it has 2 separate useful abilities, cycling to give hexproof and indestructible for 3 is really solid. It’s only cats or this would be like an auto-include, especially because cycling things to get an effect is very difficult to stop. Creating a 1/1 white cat every other turn is also fine, really cheap token generation to be honest. The cadence is a bit slow but it also probably is more realistic for curving out a deck. Fun commander or an include for a Rin and Seri, Inseparable deck.

FromTheShire: One of the biggest problems for typal decks is dumping your hand onto the battlefield into a boardwipe, and this is an excellent option for preventing that from happening. I have long run things like Rootborn Defenses, and would gladly slot this in to a Cat deck to fill the role.

 

Bulwark Ox

Marcy: Really strong in games where it can get a few turns of attacking off before getting sacrificed to protect your board or some vastly more important creature you own.

Loxi: Somewhat like above, I think this primarily exists to sacrifice itself in a +1/+1 counter deck and the ability to add extra counters in a pinch is just frosting. I think this really shines as an extra layer of defense that you can proactively keep on board for when you need it – two mana is a solid rate for this!

BPhillipYork: The last Ox was good at crewing vehicles, this one is good at being ridden. Giving out +1/+1 counters for attacking is really solid, though you’d need yet another creature tapping down to saddle it. Even so handing out those tokens and then getting the benefit of being able to sacrifice this thing to protect them is really solid.

FromTheShire: Agreed with Loxi, this is a great on board trick for counters decks.

 

Canyon Vaulter

Marcy: As far as a ‘pilot’ goes, it’s a card! The 3 Power is what matters here, and since you are unlikely to use this for anything but piloting, I think this could work in a Vehicle/Mount deck, and nowhere else.

Loxi: Think of it this way: does your deck have enough combat focused vehicles/mounts that reliably giving them evasion is useful? If yes, this isn’t too bad for the rate. If not, I’d stick with something that can buff your full board instead.

BPhillipYork: Yeah okay, a variant on this thing is good at mounting or crewing, sure. Handing out flying is pretty useful in a dedicated vehicle deck, and it’s 3/1 stat-line is pretty useful for 2 mana for a deck that wants to crew and mount things anyway.

FromTheShire: Some vehicles are either wildly dangerous if you connect, or desperately need to get their tiny bodies through in order to keep getting their trigger, and this is solid to hand out evasion.

 

Cloudspire Captain

Marcy: Very solid lord effect on a pretty cheap costed body, and then the extra effect of helping you Crew/Saddle things makes this card very, very strong in decks that want to play both, which I feel is going to be pretty common in a lot of aggro decks.

Loxi: First and foremost, this art goes absolutely wild. This card’s solid enough, anthems are always good and if your main goal is vehicular manslaughter, this will be a welcome add.

BPhillipYork: So we’re just getting deeper into the theme of deck that includes vehicles and mounts, it’s a mount lord, so that’s fun.

FromTheShire: I’m not sure if an anthem effect is what Mount and Vehicle decks need to be viable but there’s nothing wrong with this and it probably goes in the deck in Commander at least.

 

Gloryheath Lynx

Marcy: I suppose for it to put the Plains on the battlefield it would be pricier, but this is still nice. I think if anything though it takes a little too long to pay off? You have to play it for 2, and then wait a turn, and then saddle it for 2 the following turn. Not impossible but that’s 2 turns to get a single land out of your deck, but then again, deck thinning is pretty strong.

Loxi: I’ve mentioned before that I think cards that “draw you lands” are really underrated, since players sometimes mistake them for “false ramp” instead of reading it as “draw a card, it’s always a land.” A well statted creature that draws you cards for little effort is welcome in a lot of low to the ground decks, and this is no exception.

BPhillipYork: This one is extremely solid, and playable even in a deck that doesn’t really care about vehicles. Yes, you’re tapping down two, but getting those plains into your hand to play (or dump for something) is really useful, effectively card advantage (okay well, white’s general equivalent anyway).

FromTheShire: While it’s not outright ramp this is really good card selection, and if a Crew/Saddle deck is running those big top end threats this ensures you’re never missing your land drop for turn which is very valuable.

 

Guardian Sunmare

Marcy: One of the first cards in this set that ‘puts on battlefield’ when tutored, and has some solid weight to it when used. I could see a lot of exile effects and various other ‘when enters’ cards at 3 mana that this wants to snatch up.

Loxi: This card screams “wipe my board” when you stick it, but it gets a ton of value if you can keep it out for a while. Ward will often help at least stall players from killing it off too quickly. I think this could see some play in equipment decks actually; you often have a bunch of dorks hanging out that act as support pieces, and this can help fish a lot of really good artifacts out of your deck.

BPhillipYork: This is pretty intense; there’s some really crazy stuff you can do with this, for example fetching an reanimation enchantment like Animate Dead. Any number of echo creatures, or other things that are cheap because you pay an additional cost. That being said it costs 5 mana and is saddle 4, so it’s sufficiently slow that it’s probably not crazy, but this is functionally a powerful tutor for nonland permanents that is repeatable which is pretty bonkers.

FromTheShire: As a tradeoff for being expensive, this is quite hard to remove without black kill spells and can meaningfully rumble in combat without being particularly afraid. Tutoring stuff directly onto the battlefield is stupid powerful even if it tops out at 3, love it.

 

Nesting Bot

Marcy: I mean I can’t be too mean, this is 1 mana that comes back and also gets a little bigger if you have Max Speed. Could be worse for a 1 drop.

Loxi: I have to confess, I don’t love these creatures that replace themselves in commander. I think they often aren’t as good as things that can repeatedly loop themselves from the graveyard, but as far as this archetype goes it’s hard to beat at one mana and nets you good artifact synergies. There’s a place for it, but I don’t think I’m jumping to put this in a commander deck.

BPhillipYork: Yeah okay if you need meat to slaughter for benefits, great. Or artifacts to slaughter for, well benefits.

FromTheShire: This seems like a solid speed enabler for turn 1 for aggressive decks.

 

Perilous Snare

Marcy: I guess this is sort of like an Oblivion Ring that ‘does more’ when you have Max Speed. I wasn’t sure that was a thing we needed, but apparently even Oblivion Ring gets power crept eventually.

Loxi: It’s not bad, I tend to prefer sweepers or really efficient spot removal in Commander but sometimes you just a flexible removal piece to send something to Narnia for a bit. The max speed bit is a nice bonus but I doubt it’s a game changer, this is really for decks that benefit from having this effect on an artifact over a creature.

BPhillipYork: Well isn’t that special. I mean this is the standard, white, 3 cost, exile something until it leaves, with the set mechanic grafted on. Pretty predictable.

FromTheShire: This sits in kind of a fine spot I think, there’s a bunch of this type of effect that see play, and then it has some upside if you hit max speed.

 

Salvation Engine

Marcy: A pretty beefy Artifact Lord that has one of the biggest bodies in the set. Artifacts are already pretty difficult to remove, and this thing doesn’t even have to attack to have impact.

Loxi: Oh hell yeah, this rocks. The anthem means it provides quite a bit of power on the turn you play it, so it’s pretty solid to play into a developed board. It’s pretty agnostic to any type of artifact, so you don’t need to be deep on vehicles to want to include this guy. It’s going to get back some scary stuff in a dedicated artifact deck and has some real junk in the trunk with 10 toughness. Solid card, I expect to see this in many decks cashing in on these new vehicles.

BPhillipYork: Yeesh so this can return something really nasty, like Portal to Phyrexia, which is bonkers, it costs 5 mana but it’s 4 colors + 1 colored, then you need crew 6. So fairly difficult to get it going, but could be fairly gross if you’re repeatedly returning huge artifacts, and there are definitely some big ones with ways to usefully have them die, like Phyrexian Triniform

FromTheShire: Damn. Really good anthem, great body to swing with, and then getting back ANY artifact is wildly powerful.

 

Skyseer’s Chariot

Marcy: Certainly a hater card if I’ve ever seen one. It’s kind of interesting because removing this is difficult if you don’t crew it, since you would then need specifically something that can target an artifact, but then also you’re spending your mana to just kind of hate on something.

Loxi: A lot of commanders have activated abilities, and even more decks involve powerful pieces that need to pay hefty taxes to activate. This can make those decks slow to a halt, and for 2 mana it’s not going to slow you down at all. It’s pretty good in Hatebears too, since most of your stuff can crew this easily.

BPhillipYork: Solid way to screw up an opponents game plan, make their activatable commander difficult to use. Most commanders that are commonly played have triggered abilities, but this will mess up Sisay, Weatherlight Captain for example, and can also be used to shut down some kind of repeat strategy, or just as a minor stax piece.

 

Spectacular Pileup

Marcy: Now this is what I call podracing. A Wrath that has a remove protection effect and also cycling is really, really interesting, and might be one of my favorite board clears in quite a while.

Loxi: As much as this sounds wild, I think it’s only mediocre. Things like Teferi’s Protection are still going to juke this just as easily as a 4 mana wipe. It’s definitely really good in certain scenarios and cycling really helps this, but there are board states where this actively won’t be better than any other wrath. It’s still not bad by any means; it does hose a lot of common protection pieces, but this will definitely be a meta call.

BPhillipYork: Okay, so now it’s Wrath of God that can’t be stopped by giving indestructible. That’s bad game design in my opinion, but whatever. Because of how the stack works you can’t stop this from destroying your indestructible stuff, which feels off somehow. But by all means play it if people are protecting their board state with indestructible.

FromTheShire: A wrath that removes indestructible is EXTREMELY good as that is the way most decks get around them in the current game. Yes T-Pro exists but it’s an outlier – if you don’t have basically exactly it or Ghostway in hand, your stuff is getting blown up. This is an instant Commander staple, well worth the one extra mana.

 

Tune Up

Marcy: This has some edge cases but there are a few cards already in Standard that basically do this for free, but the added ability of making a vehicle a permanent creature is a little nice, but still likely too expensive to make it worth running this card.

Loxi: It’s very fine, but I think most people look for these effects stapled to something that provides value. I’d really only put this in a dedicated reanimator strategy.

BPhillipYork: Well this is Resurrection but for artifacts and costs 3 and W instead of 2 and WW. I don’t think I’ve seen Resurrection playing in the last decade. Returning artifacts is potentially more powerful, with again, things like dumping to the yard in order to Tune Up them back into play but it seems kind of overcomplicated unless it’s a game winning strategy.

FromTheShire: At the very least this is a Saffron Olive Against the Odds card we’ll be seeing. I think the permanent animation might be enough to get it there but I won’t be shocked if not.

 

Valor’s Flagship

Marcy: I really like the variable cycling here, which I think is very, very useful in making this card have some utility early in the game before you are likely able to cast it for the full 7 mana.

Loxi: The Protoss invasion of Magic is going swimmingly, I see. This has a pretty startlingly low crew cost for having a buttload of stats, and being able to ditch it for a bunch of crew is handy if a bit expensive if you’re only doing a few. It’s a big flexible beater, and it’s going to do that job quite well.

BPhillipYork: That’s very cheap to crew, for a 7/7, with flying, and first strike, and lifelink. Also a great target for Tune Up especially if you cycle it to get pilots, then tune this thing up, and then you won’t need to crew it. But after all that it’s just a big fat beater. Really seems like meat for Greasefang, Okiba Boss deck.

 

Voyager Glidecar

Marcy: Sort of similar to Soldier card effects from a few sets ago, but it only goes on this particular card which is maybe less useful.

BPhillipYork: Well it’s complicated, but not good, unless you in some way have a lot of 0/1 creatures or something running around. I guess crew it with Eldrazi spawn?

 

Bounce Off

Marcy: Does what it says, which mostly has utility in this set but not sure if it has much out of it.

BPhillipYork: Yeah okay, unsummon + vehicles.  I mean whatever, that card is as old as magic.

FromTheShire: Tempo decks get a little extra utility out of their bounce spell, not bad.

 

Diversion Unit

Marcy: I do find this kind of funny, the art is kind of cute and also sad but in a funny way. Overall though it’s got some utility assuming you get it down early.

Loxi: This being an artifact and very cheap means there are tons of ways to both recur and fetch this, which makes it a solid piece. Stormcaller Siren is popular in Pirates for good reason, and if you have synergy for small evasive dorks in your artifact deck, I can see some real play here.

BPhillipYork: Solid threat always to have sitting on the board.

 

Mindspring Merfolk

Marcy: The Exhaust is good but only really seems meant for Merfolk, which isn’t really a typal in Standard at the moment.

BPhillipYork: This is really nice for a merfolk deck. Like really solid, almost too solid.

FromTheShire: Worth it in Merfolk for the card draw alone.

 

Mu Yanling, Wind Rider

Marcy: Wow, this card does more than some of the bigger cards in the set. Flickering this would just generate a lot of vehicles, and then there’s the fact that you are going to draw cards off flying (even without vehicles, Blue tends to like flying). Very solid.

BPhillipYork: That’s like both sides of the trick in one card really. Like a flying Coastal Piracy and also gives your vehicles flying and also make a vehicle. That’s a lot in one package. Solid commander to build around, a bit slow but perfectly fine for random games if you desire to do vehicle assaults.

FromTheShire: Evasion and card draw all wrapped into one? Sign me the hell up, this card rocks.

 

Possession Engine

Marcy: The idea of stealing and locking down a creature that then only powers up vehicles (or does nothing but be tappable) is interesting. I don’t know if it is ‘good’ but a very interesting card for sure.

BPhillipYork: Oh neat, so you take control but then you can mostly use it to crew vehicles. Who am I kidding you’ll steal something with triggers anyway. But it’s a nice idea.

 

Repurposing Bay

Marcy: Artifact Birthing Pod? No way this doesn’t cause problems. Very good card and going to be abused very easily.

BPhillipYork: Wow. So artifact version of Birthing Pod. Dangerous really because artifacts generate tons of mana and there are a lot of ways to untap artifacts, more than creatures, and you could easily see this running a combo really fast.

FromTheShire: It’s fine, everything’s fine, don’t worry about it.

 

Riverchurn Monument

Marcy: While you are paying for ‘any number’ of people to mill, you’re probably milling both yourself and your opponent. The Exhaust seems like it will probably win a game, assuming Mill is your win con (either self or otherwise).

Loxi: Paying for your mill effects isn’t great, but having the constant threat of just blasting everyone out of the game if you can get halfway there is genuinely terrifying. I wouldn’t go to this for self mill, but this can really help milling other players out as a win condition.

BPhillipYork: Neat for mill decks. I like having  the way to mill someone a lot right there at your fingertips, this is potentially a win condition, 4 mana, but you need people to have like 40-50 cards in the yard, which is obviously the hard part. Still blue isn’t too bad about that.

 

Spikeshell Harrier

Marcy: I suppose this answered my ‘does anything lower speed’ question. Although it feels like getting speed is far easier than losing it, so does this really matter?

Loxi: Players can get speed way too easily in Commander for this to matter much, so this really I can only imagine will see play in limited and maaaybe 60 card. Granted, it’s pretty solid for limited for sure.

BPhillipYork: Okay, because, yeah, I’m really going to be super concerned about a 4-turn clock, where instead of ending the game you get to do something better. So you have to slow that down. Funny that a mechanic called speed is so slow in Magic.

FromTheShire: I mean are we just going to ignore that this lets you blue shell someone? The trolling is the point.

 

Thopter Fabricator

Marcy: Not broken but still quite scary in generating thopters off of drawing cards, which we all know Blue wants to do.

Loxi: This is fantastic for three mana, and it’s especially great because it lets you convert your thopters into even more damage by crewing a larger body. If you’re playing blue and drawing cards (see: playing blue) then this is a sweet pickup.

BPhillipYork: Solid token generation off drawing cards which you generally always always desperately want to do, so potentially a good card. Probably have ways to sacrifice the 1/1s to draw cards which gets really close (what is Skullclamp, surely not a busted card that distorted a whole format and is still in eternal formats).

 

Transit Mage

Marcy: So for 3 mana you get a 4 or a 5 cost library into your hand. I feel like there’s some sort of meta numbers joke here I’m not quite getting?

Loxi: I’m really glad to have another one of these, as I’ve played many of them as ways to fetch flexible pieces for combo/control strategies or to guarantee you hit a key card for your deck by basically having a wild-card that isn’t just a Black tutor. I don’t think it’s better or worse than the others (see: Trinket Mage and co.), but that will heavily depend on the other things you include in your deck.

BPhillipYork: Oh we’re back to these mages that search for things with specific casting costs. Well good, they are balanced and solid, but not broken.

FromTheShire: I believe this completes the cycle so we can search any artifact with the appropriate mage now. Trinket, Tribute, Trophy, Transit, Treasure, checks out.

 

Unstoppable Plan

Marcy: “Untap all nonlands” is very strong, and in some cases, might be enough to really mess up what your opponent wants to do, or leave you with a lot of things to mess with them on their turn. I feel like this will show up in decks for sure.

Loxi: Well ok, that’s just pretty disgusting. Having this in blue is just downright terrifying for any decks that want to play at instant speed, and even more so if your main source of mana ramp is through artifacts or mana dorks.

BPhillipYork: Yeah that’s good. That’s a good card. If you have activated abilities or something it gets pretty gross. Fits nicely into my Estrid, the Masked deck, which is itself a stax torture piece. This works really nicely with all the effects that want you to do things on your opponents turn(s) but unfortunately its only your end step.

 

Vnwxt, Verbose Host

Marcy: Been a while since we had a ‘no maximum’ card, and I feel like the CMV is low enough to make this playable.

Loxi: I like this for decks that want extra Spellbook effects, “hand size matters” as an archetype often always wants to have one and this provides quite a bit for a small bit of mana.

BPhillipYork: Well this is a solid max speed effects, so just wait 4 turns and then I’ll um, draw more cards.

 

Waxen Shapethief

Marcy: Pretty fair card, which also means it is maybe “just okay”. Ironically as opposed to Philip, I think this is ‘pushed’ versus older cards, but in a modern meta, it barely does much really.

BPhillipYork: Wow. Clone wasn’t good enough so now it has flash, cycling, and artifacts also. Okay only ones you control, but you’re not usually cloning something your opponents control, you’re usually setting up a combo, which means multiple of something.

 

Carrion Cruiser

Marcy: I like the self mill ‘lose one get one’ option. The body on it doesn’t really matter that much, but it’s nice to have once you’ve used it for the other purpose.

Loxi: Having the flexibility to get a creature or a vehcile from your yard is really nice when you’re indiscriminately self milling, and I think this could be decent for that alone in Greasefang, Okiba Boss.

BPhillipYork: So this is a card to make a Greasefang deck? I’m not crazy right, it has like no other use in Commander.

 

Chitin Gravestalker

Marcy: I… Guess if you were doing a draft? There’s a lot of cycling and self-discard and mill in this set but I don’t know if that makes it worth running this card.

BPhillipYork: This is a bad card. Do not play it.

FromTheShire: Have we moved beyond a Gurmag Angler-esque card? We’re going to find out. I at least really, really like this for Pauper where it immediately slots into multiple archetypes like Dredge, Reanimator, and Cycle Storm. The biggest downside is that it does die to Galvanic Blast.

 

Cryptcaller Chariot

Marcy: Self-discard seems potentially strong in this set as a lot of Black cards in the set feature things that either enable it or provide you benefits for doing so, and I’m very curious to see how this shakes up the meta; alone, this card is still quite powerful, but with some of these other cards and effects, I think this could start being a big Zombie engine easily.

Loxi: The real kicker here is getting to work for each card you discard, this is absolutely wild in Wheels, Cycling, or any deck that just naturally discards for value. Obvious synergy in that a single zombie can crew it, making it a really crazy amount of stats if you have the setup for it.

BPhillipYork: Dang. Dang. Wow. That’s potentially super breakable. Skirge Familiar + this + anything = profit.

 

Cursecloth Wrappings

Marcy: I feel like we are going to see this get abused by turning it into a reanimator toy of some sort, even if the ‘cost’ is just the original CMC.

Loxi: Zombies are an archetype that really gets amped up by having multiple anthems, and seeing the return of Embalm is awesome. I really like this, my only qualm is that it is a bit slow since you have to pay 4 mana on top of what you grab, but if you feel you can stick this safely it will get a lot of value for each turn you can keep it in play.

BPhillipYork: Well this is a nice way to reanimate stuff as zombies, which is quite useful. It’s pretty pricy though, you have to pay full price, much better to reanimate and cheat them out them pay full price.

 

Demonic Junker

Marcy: By limiting this to ‘up to one’ they manage to prevent it from turning into Arcbound Ravager 2, but this card is still insanely strong for a meta that still has a lot of ‘free’ artifact token generation. Very, very easy to see this hitting the field very early.

Loxi: As mentioned earlier, Affinity is quite stupid. It’s often easy enough to just read the generic mana as 0 for the cost, and in that case this becomes a wildly efficient removal spell that has plenty of other synergy to recur/replay this to pummel away at everyone’s boards. It’s basically a Fleshbag Marauder for artifacts, but targets instead of forcing a sacrifice. Solid stuff.

BPhillipYork: Wow, that’s pretty nasty. I’m guessing this is doing work in 4-of formats, because affinity or artifacts is dangerous on an ability like this. For commander it’s okay, pretty solid, nasty if you have ways to sacrifice and Tune Up it, or else get it back, or just flicker.

 

Gas Guzzler

Marcy: Seems good for Rogues, seems like it has potential in a self-sacrifice deck but I’ll wait for the set to release to see if such an archetype really has legs in current Standard.

Loxi: I really like this in Rogue decks actually, you’ll often have some extra dorks you don’t mind losing for cards and you can reliably speed up quite fast since your deck is pretty evasive.

BPhillipYork: Potentially strong sac outlet for draw, but so slow to get there.

 

Gonti, Night Minister

Marcy: This feels far more of a card for Commander than Standard, because the effect seems more impactful in settings with larger players; otherwise, this is just ‘you’ look at cards and steal them from your opponent. That said, at 4 CMV Gonti is a good mid-game to late game threat that needs an answer before he starts taking over the game.

Loxi: It’s a really interesting take on group slug, I like the concept of this being some sort of hybrid between giving other players value but still incentivizing a fast game pattern. It’s going to cause a hell of a lot of chaos, but if you play this you know you’re down for that anyway.

BPhillipYork: Well people will absolutely hate this card and blow it up. That being said, I encourage playing it; then people will have a strong incentive for blowing it up attacking each other.

 

Grim Bauble

Marcy: Good little removal that ‘does more’ later.

BPhillipYork: Cool. Creature removal that does something later as an artifact, neat.

FromTheShire: I hate how much I’m going to see this card already. This card is excellent against the red aggro decks right now, sniping Monastary Swiftspear, Hired Claw, Emberheart Challenger, Manifold Mouse, Heartfire Hero… In the latter case it even shrinks the creature so you don’t get to fling some damage when it dies. Plus it offers some more utility later? Gross.

 

Intimidation Tactics

Marcy: Duress But Specific cards are odd because they sometimes lose their versatility once a few turns have gone by, or if your opponent isn’t running a lot of creatures, so the cycling is a nice touch, but still not sure it’s worth putting in a deck over something like duress or just cheap removal.

BPhillipYork: Oh kay this effect wasn’t strong enough, well it’s limited to creatures and artifacts which is actually pretty limiting vs certain decks. Anyway I would not play it in Commander.

 

Momentum Breaker

Marcy: Itsy Bitsy Invoke Dread?

BPhillipYork: Dang. This is strong. Everyone else sacrifices a creature, or discards, and you can sac it later to draw cards. Very strong, cheap, solid card.

FromTheShire: Hitting Vehicles as well is a nice bonus, good card.

 

Quag Feast

Marcy: What a weird card. The self-mill aspect is nice but since you have to target something to cast it, this card could be very dead in hand if there’s nothing to target, and also kind of clunky removal stapled onto it.

BPhillipYork: Okay for mill decks, creature removal in general is quite good, so the mill before upside probably doesn’t make up for the sorcery speed and lack of reliability. Someone could wreck your yard in response, for one thing.

 

Shefet Archfiend

Marcy: Well, pretty solid board cleaner for small creature decks, and the fact that you can cycle it into your graveyard makes it versatile, and very likely a target for reanimation over summoning at a hefty 7 mana.

BPhillipYork: Well -2/-2 is good, and will clear most of a board, but it costs 7, so you need to be reanimating it, which it usually has cycle to get it into your yard, so solid all around for control and reanimation.

FromTheShire: Solid reanimation target that wrecks aggro and weenie decks, and is even a demon for your Unholy Annex.

 

Spin Out

Marcy: While not the best removal spell in Black at the moment, I think it is at least expected that this set would include a card that targets Vehicles because of how prevalent they are, and how some of them can do things without being creatures ‘also’.

BPhillipYork: Um, not as good as the version that does creatures and planeswalkers.

FromTheShire: Maybe it’s not as good in Commander, and even then I might argue because of how bad Planeswalkers are in the format, but this is a strict upgrade in the current Standard since it can interact with a narrow range of artifacts which is something black rarely can do.

 

The Last Ride

Marcy: While I mostly play Standard this is really funny in how bad it is for Commander. Anyway, in Standard, it is sort of a ‘extra steps’ Death’s Shadow, a card that Standard hasn’t really had a version of in quite some time, so I’m curious to see if this becomes a big deal or not. I think the fact that it has to be crewed will make it a little more clunky, sadly.

Loxi: Obviously this isn’t scaled for Commander, but it’s a really cool version of Death’s Shadow that can do some real nightmarish shit if you build around it.

BPhillipYork: I love these kinds of cards. There’s some really strange edge cases you can get into with this, which are fun. But the basic 2+B, pay 2 life, draw a card, that’s decent enough. Funny anyway, but won’t see much play in Commander.

FromTheShire: Love new Shadow variants, and this one has card draw and life loss stapled on? Hell yeah.

 

The Speed Demon

Marcy: Since hitting max speed is really easy as we’ve established, this is likely always going to be a Draw 4, Lose 4 on a decent sized body, meaning it’s also a problem your opponent has to answer. There’s an odd spot of 5 mana ‘problems’ in Black at the moment too, many of which are also demons, so I’m curious to see how this shifts any decks that rely on them.

Loxi: Drawing 4 cards and losing 4 life every turn is bonkers, even if it’s on the end of your turn. This card is sweet, Demon decks will have a field day with it but I can see any Dimir control decks that can manage the life loss taking real advantage of this; it’s really potent if you can play at instant speed with your deck, that way the timing of the draw doesn’t hurt you much.

BPhillipYork: This is a solid enough speed card, I finally see one. Drawing 4 per turn would be solid. 5 mana for a 5/5 flyer trample with that is solid enough.

FromTheShire: This is the reason Shefet Archfiend is probably like a one of or sideboard card, because this is a house as a reanimation target. Hell, you might even just hard cast it.

 

Next Time: The Set’s Red and Green Cards

That wraps up our look at the white, blue, and black cards of Aetherdrift. Join us next time as we begin reviewing the red and green cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about the future build-arounds.

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