Aetherdrift Commander Set Review

Aetherdrift prerelease is February 7-13, with release on February 14. It’s a large set with many good cards. Let’s review it for Commander.

You can find other recent Commander set reviews here:

• Foundations
• Jumpstart 25
• Duskmourn
• Bloomburrow
• Assassin’s Creed
• Modern Horizons 3

Our Commander Set Review focuses only on the new cards, and not the reprints. It’s also not going to be covering the forgettable cards that are only really good in Limited or as additions to very budget or niche decks, as we’re more interested in what cards are good to collect and build with in the future, too. Mindspring Merfolk is good in a Merfolk deck, and Gas Guzzler in Edgar, sure. But you know that. Let’s look at the rest.

Be sure to remember that the verge land cycle is completed in DFT. I know I’m picking up a bunch of these.

AETHERDRIFT: WHITE

Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion is here today, to talk to you about what makes the best pet. Basri is firmly in camp Cat, and while I can see the appeal, I’m more of a dog person myself. Still, he’s a phenomenal pickup in all sorts of decks that go off-theme to play cards like Selfless Spirit or Boromor, Warden of the Tower. I think most of the time I’d want to draw him later for that cycling ability in Commander. 

Bulwark Ox is not a creature I will be playing primarily to saddle, but mostly as a two-mana way to give my board both hexproof and indestructible. This set really wants people to play Selfless Spirit but on-type/on-strategy, doesn’t it? Still, it’s neat that the Saddle ability helps enable keeping your board. Pretty decent.

Guardian Sunmare is going to be talked about a lot, and for good reason: it’s a tutor, to the battlefield, in white. When you start to unpick the hoops you have to jump through to get this effect, though, I’m not sure the juice is worth the squeeze. Saddle 4 is a lot, and it has to last around the table. If you’re looking for value, I’d rather be drawing cards; if I’m digging for a combo, there are better tutors and redundancy to run over this.

Perilous Snare is an easier-to-remove Banishing Light, being an artifact. However, to make up for that downside, you do get to put counters on your stuff, one at a time, at sorcery speed…

When do you want this over Banishing Light – or Skyclave Apparition, or Grasp of Fate, for that matter? Well, not that often. If you’re starting your engines, or if you’re in an artifact deck really deep that can recur artifacts easier than mana value 3 or less permanents. In those decks, with cost reducers? This and Dusk Rose Reliquary get better.

Salvation Engine is a nice anthem, and in Vehicles decks in particular, you can bet it can self-crew or swing in with haste pretty easily. A solid enough piece, if a little more niche than the Sun Titans of the world. 

Skyseer’s Chariot is an interesting one, because it’s a hatebear that’s also a car. This is hugely relevant in cEDH, as it reduces the amount of removal available to deal with it. It can also attack pretty well to trigger Tymna, and for that reason, it could well see some play. 

I’ve been harping on about playing more board wipes for longer than many of you reading this review, I’m sure, but Wizards are dropping more and more sweet wipes for Commander that solve the (imaginary, pretend) issue of them being “dead” late, or a tempo loss to play. Just play Spectacular Pileup, which gets around Heroic Intervention, and then cycle it if you draw it late and you don’t want to cast it. Easy.

Valor’s Flagship certainly isn’t Parhelion II, but to be fair, the latter is a war machine/Angel deployment transport, and the former is… not?

It’s expensive at seven mana, and honestly feels designed to be cycled away before using recursion to power it out down the road. The abilities on it are solid for stabilizing in the mid to late game, and so it’s still pretty playable all things considered. 

Top 5 Best White Common/Uncommon:

1. Roadside Assistance: Makes your Mount or Vehicle bigger, summons a Pilot, and gives lifelink.
2. Detention Chariot: Able to be cycled into the yard at will before recurring it to O-ring stuff.
3. Gloryheath Lynx: Digging for Plains cards is underrated.
4. Alacrian Armory: Auto-piloting more reliable than a Tesla, that’s for sure.
5. Cloudspire Captain: A lord for vehicles and mounts that can Crew 4.

AETHERDRIFT: BLUE

I’m stoked to see Mu Yanling return, and even more so to see her on a pretty playable card. She doesn’t fly herself, but can jump vehicles, and also provide up to one card per player hit in each of your combats, provided you hit with a flying creature. I don’t love that it’s not straight up coastal piracy, but I think feel like if it was, it might be a little too good. Vaguely wanna build it just because it’s Mu Yanling and I can play Schema Thief. 

Possession Engine is a card Mu Yanling will want to be playing. It’s a Mind Control effect with a nice little bonus – it stops the creature attacking and blocking, but not from crewing. Juice them and put them in the engine. We need more gas. 

Birthing Podracer is a card for the ages. Birthing Pod has long been a fan favorite, with iterations on it over the years proving popular and powerful too. Moving to an Artifact Pod in Repurposing Bay, making it blue, and making it unaffected by summoning sickness (sorry, Oswald!) makes this quite the home run. Two mana to activate goes some of the way to keeping it more balanced, but it’s still a monster of a card in all sorts of decks. I can see this seeing plenty of play in cEDH and Casual Commander alike.

Riverchurn Monument is the kind of mill card that scares me, because it tends to “combo” with a bunch of mill favorites like Bruvac, Phenax, God of Deception, and ways to make players mill a lot of cards (Maddening Cacophony, anyone?). If you’re playing against a mill deck, this feels kill on sight, because you never know when the other half of a “combo” might come out to finish y’all off. 

Thopter Fabricator is a sweet little Thopter engine, and if you care about flyers, artifacts, or making tokens, it’s definitely worth a look. The fact the smaller Thopter tokens it makes can eventually crew it and swing as a 4/4 for just a three mana investment is really quite good. It’s also not limited to your turn, or just opponents’ turns. 

Dramatic Reversal’s enchanting sibling, Unstoppable Plan features Jace & friends assembled to twiddle with your mana rocks and value engines. His friends this time seem much more coerced into being there, though. Must be a lonely life.

Obviously not as busted broke as the aforementioned instant, which can be put under an Isochron Scepter – but still not terrible for decks that want to play at Flash speed. Might be decent in my new Alela, Cunning Conqueror brew, actually.

Vnwxt, Verbose Host is a card I have no idea how to pronounce. It is, however, one of the better payoffs for Max speed, and potentially a viable Commander if you want to get to Max Speed as soon as possible. Would I play it outside the CZ? I’m not sure I’m too interested in the unreliable factor of gaining speed when it’s not a focal point of a deck. 

Waxen Shapethief is a classic Flash Clone. You trade off the ability to Clone opponents’ stuff for having Cycling and for being able to copy your artifacts. Is that worth the exchange? Well, in some decks that care about cycling and discarding cards, probably. Elsewhere I might still prefer the likes of Mocking Doppelganger and Phyrexian Metamorph.

Top 5 Blue Common/Uncommons:

1. Diversion Unit: A fun little Mana leak adjacent effect that is easily recurred
2. Caelorna, Coral Tyrant: Two mana 0/8 is gonna be an 8/8 effectively in some builds
3. Hulldrifter: It’s Mulldrifter, but a Thopter. Yay!
4. Transit Mage: Completes the cycle.
5. Spikeshell Harrier: It’s a legally distinct blue shell, haha.

AETHERDRIFT: BLACK

Cryptcaller Chariot should be read more like a static artifact or enchantment, because what you care most about here isn’t the fact it’s a vehicle, but that you can cash in on Zombie tokens whenever you’re discarding one or more cards. Four mana to produce a Zombie for each card discarded is more than serviceable, and eventually you can service your vehicle with a 2/2 Zombie crew member to block with a 5/5 for days – or go in swinging if that’s what’s required. I like this one quite a bit. 

Ah, Whip of Erebos. A card that swung in and out of vogue, and is now very much back in vogue. Cheap reanimation plus lifelink is what makes it playable. What happens if you get rid of the enchantment typing, and exchange the flat four mana rate and exile on end step for a Zombie anthem and Embalming equal to mana cost?

Well, you get a card that is mostly relegated to Zombie decks, if you ask me, but a card that could be pretty viable in decks that populate tokens. Consider what you can do with Renewed Solidarity and Nesting Dovehawk, and the right Orzhov or BW/x Commander.

Wow, Demonic Junker is a goodie. Sure, you’ll have to target something of your own if you have it, but you don’t have to blow it up. In an artifact deck, this is likely costing two to three mana on average, which for blowing up three creatures and leaving behind a vehicle is a really good rate. You can of course weld and reanimate it, too, and so I consider this a pretty premium pick for a lot of artifact-matters builds. 

Gonti, Night Minister rewards you for stealing stuff. It’s only been a year since the last Gonti who cared about that kinda thing, and so you’re getting closer to Gonti typal, should you so desire. As far as this iteration goes? Well, it makes mana. It’s very similar to other versions of this effect, though, so I’m struggling to get excited about it. 

Ha, it’s Death’s Shadow, but as a car. Pretty neat that it can be played and not immediately die in the early game, and pretty neat that it enables itself as card draw engine. This is Commander, though, and there are better draw engines. I’m not seeing a whole lot of use for this one beyond being a cheap 13/13 in decks with life manipulation.

Meanwhile, The Speed Demon is a Mythic much more suited to Commander. Do you remember when Bloodgift Demon was playable outside a Demons deck? This is much better. You can increase your speed on the same turn that you set speed at 1 from 0, so it’s likely that you can ensure you draw 2 at the endstep the turn you play this, which is a pretty good rate all things considered. 

Top 2 Black Common/Uncommons:

Wickerfolk Indomitable looks like it has some weird combo lines, and Pactdoll Terror is a sweet drain piece for artifact decks.

AETHERDRIFT: RED

Bursting onto the scene for red is the Boommobile. Anything that enters and makes a chunk of mana is worth a gander, and I’m sure anything with Zirda in the CZ or as Companion will be very interested. It’ll be sweet in Depala, also, and it can go infinite with Deadeye Navigator, presuming you have a way to capitalize on the creatures entering infinite times (you will need to crew the vehicle to flicker it, mind). 

Most of the exhaust and max speed creatures are pretty forgettable unless you’re in the right build. I’d still add the Bashtronaut to a Max Speed deck, but I’m less high on it for Goblins. The same can be said for Draconautics Engineer; maybe in an activated ability deck that can flicker a lot, but otherwise, not so high on it. 

Chandra, Spark Hunter is the epitome of a 5/10 Magic card. She’s ostensibly fine, and she can maybe help you out in a mono-red or Boros or Izzet vehicles deck. She screams that she’s replacement level, though, and I wouldn’t bother with her in a Chandra deck. 

Count on Luck is the red Phyrexian Arena. Is it worth playing? Well, it adds a hefty three devotion to red, which might be a consideration for you. I’d play this mostly in mono-red, to be honest.

Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer is a */5 that lets you Trash for Treasure when he enters or attacks. It’s definitely on theme, I can’t deny that. I think it’s a potentially great card in a shell like Osgir in particular. 

We’ve had one extra combat, yes. But what about second extra combat? You’ve heard of that, right?

Full Throttle gives you two extra combats, and the untapping creatures to enjoy them. I’m partial to a little extra combat, as a treat. This feels like getting dessert.

Hazoret, Godseeker is here to tune up your engines – and she’s got just the tool to do it. I feel like this card quickly veers off to a fork in the path, though. It’s much more of a constructed format card than a Commander one, and outside of niche builds, I don’t see it being that easy of a card to make work.

“Goblin’s Cradle” is on a Goblin, no less, and it needs Max Speed to even get there. Thankfully, the card itself is well worth playing in a Goblins deck either way. It grants the team haste, and makes tokens each combat – the two things Goblins decks love. Definitely worth the gamble. 

Top 5 Red Common/Uncommons:

1. Magmakin Artillerist: Wow, what the heck. This card is insane. 
2. Adrenaline Jockey: Sweet, sweet burn damage.
3. Marauding Mako: the most unassuming one-drop, until you wheel.
4. Outpace Oblivion: decent removal that can do decent damage later on, especially with buffs.
5. Push the Limit: Mass reanimation, with haste, and auto-crewing.

AETHERDRIFT: GREEN

On to green, and we have Agonasaur Rex. A five mana 8/8 Trample is nothing to sniff at, and it puts a real clock on opponents. It helps you get big power on the board quickly, and its cycling ability is actually quite good. It’ll save your Commander a lot of the time, whether it be Surrak and Goreclaw, Gishath, or even Ghalta herself. I like this one quite a bit. 

Dogs are better than cats – as I pointed out quite some time ago – and so I’m all in on this corgi pal. It’s a continuous removal engine for artifacts, and those tend to overperform. 

Lumbering Worldwagon might well replace Kodama’s Reach/Cultivate in a lot of decks. You might lose the land to hand, but exchanging it for repeatable ramp on a vehicle creature sure to get some good attacks seems worth it. Green is the color most able to achieve Crew 4. 

Look at this goofy little parade! All kinds of snot monsters seeping out from Muraganda’s in-built defence mechanism. This is a really fun enchantment, and while it’s more of a shoe-in for decks that want vanilla creatures like Ruxa, Patient Professor, it’s honestly not the worst enchantment finisher for a deck full of evasive bodies – like Merfolk, or Edric, Spymaster of Trest. 

It’s a Piper, in the command zone! Something to get hot and bothered about for sure. Elvish Piper and similar effects have always been powerful, but how is having one for certain in the CZ? Well, I happen to think it’s pretty good, especially given it encourages swings elsewhere with everything attacking an opponent of yours gaining trample. I can see many decks eschewing the vehicle part completely and opting mainly for creatures and artifact creatures, and I think that’s perfectly fine.

I’ve gone on record to say that people need to play more three mana 2/4s, so it’s safe to say that a three mana 5/4 is another statline I’d be overjoyed to have as a blocker. Blockers are important in Commander these days. A three mana lord that starts that big? Dino decks are eating good.

Thunderous Velocipede surprised me. It’s kind of a reverse-World Tree effect, in that instead of growing your little ones larger, it grows your little ones a… little, and your large ones a lot. For just three mana, and a 5/5 when crewed, I actually think this card will overperform and see very little play. 

Top 3 Green Common/Uncommons:

1. Defend the Rider: A nice protection trick that can instead give a surprise blocker.
2. Dredger’s Insight: nice incremental lifegain on an effect you already wanted
3. Elvish Refueler: the auto-include card for decks playing with Exhaust

AETHERDRIFT: MULTICOLOR

For the multicolor cards, we’ll be skipping constructed playables like Oildeep Gearhulk in favor of cards with more broad appeal. Which is sad, because the Dimir Gearhulk has fabulous artwork. 

Aatchik, Emerald Radian is a good Aristocrats Commander or card for the 99 of another Golgari Aristocrats build. It makes a bunch of tokens, and gives you the impetus to sac them. Not the most interesting card in the world, but one that will perform well enough.

Think back to Ranger of Eos – it found Soul Sisters, or Serra Ascendant, Mother of Runes maybe, or more recently, Esper Sentinel. This thing can get you the same creatures, but also Shadowspear, The Ozolith, Authority of the Consuls, Ethereal Armor and Grafdigger’s Cage. An immensely powerful card that gets better the better your toolbox gets. 

Speaking of toolboxes, GW is the home of classic toolbox commanders like Captain Sisay. Caradora, Heart of Alacria is a more casual option, limiting you only to grabbing mounts or vehicles. Certainly an idea for a toolbox Commander that isn’t so stax focused, and you get a bit of +1/+1 counter synergy alongside it too. I’m grabbing Seraphic Steed and Nautiloid Ship pretty often with this. 

Coalstoke Gearhulk doesn’t quite make it into my Henzie build, but its still a phenomenal little Reanimator card for other decks. I really like that it gives whatever you reanimate menace and deathtouch in addition to haste, meaning you maximize the chance you can connect with it to trigger damage triggers, if it has any – or just straight up damage. 

I love a good board clear, and Explosive Getaway is really neat. You get to save one of your things (at five mana) which is a really good rate. You also get to enjoy its EtB again when it comes back, giving you that little bit more value. Not as oriented toward attacking as, say, Duneblast – and not as universally lethal –  but otherwise? I really like it. 

Far Fortune, End Boss looks to be the premier Start Your Engines! Commander of the set. You get two colors to max out on synergy with, and you get a good attack trigger, and a payoff. Is it worth building? Well, yes and no. I feel like Isshin, Two Heavens as One might be the better attack + slug/drain/burn Commander, and I think for the hoops to jump through and suboptimal cards it requires, Far Fortune is more of a flavor pick than a power pick. 

Ketramose, the New Dawn is a card I really love. It asks you to play control, but also gives you cards for your troubles – solving one of the issue with control in non-blue decks in Commander. You can use flicker and graveyard hate to maximize your draw, and then the wincon is really up to you. 

Kolodin, Triumph Caster might secretly be one of the best vehicle Commanders of the set, and it’s a set not even about enemy color pairs. Giving haste to all mounts and vehicles is one thing, but also having them be auto-crewed and auto-saddled when they enter is sweet. The only synergy you’re missing out on there is the one that lets you boardwipe after playing vehicles, but you can still untap and wrath before playing more stuff, so it’s not a huge loss. 

Are you exhausted by Loot? Or are you a mascot enthusiast? Either way, we have a Temur legend to evaluate. This is just a good-stuff kinda card, and I’m not sure what you’re really doing with it as a Commander. It doesn’t really pull you in a direction, other than “tap creature typal”, but even then, I’d rather be in Naya for access to Samut and other white cards. In the 99 of existing Temur decks, it’s a solid value engine I’d probably play if I had nothing better to play.

I’m much more excited by Mendicant Core, Guidelight. A two mana Commander is the sweet spot for getting to Max Speed as soon as possible. If you play a one drop before this, and connect after playing it, you’ll be at Max Speed potentially as soon as Main Phase 2 of Turn 4. The Max Speed reward is really good, and you also get a Commander Damage clock in your back pocket. Am I crazy to want to put this into Arna Kennerud, or make it a Voltron deck of its own?

Mimeoplasm, Revered One is our first catch up with the Mimeoplasm for quite some time! This time, it relies a lot less on opposing graveyards – to the order it only cares about your own. It also involves a bit less math, as it just gets three +1/+1 counters per creature you exile, unless you have counter modifiers in play. Becoming a shifting mass of creatures, you can pay 2 at any time to switch to something advantageous.

For someone that really dislikes Sultai, I think this actually looks kinda fun. 

Usually overrun effects are a dime-a-dozen in green, and new ones tend to tread the same ground. Not true of Pyrewood Gearhulk, though, who ends up adding something spicy into the mix: Damage can’t be prevented the turn it enters. You know, the turn you give your board buffs to swing out. I really like this one, and will be playing it in Gruul decks for sure.

Redshift, Rocketeer Chief is a really good commander for a +1/+1 counters deck, or one that care about boosting power with something like Unnatural Growth. While it is tempered somewhat by the fact you can only spend mana on activated abilities, there’s one baked into the card: a one off pseudo-omniscience effect.

That’s a powerful and scary ability in Gruul, and it’ll end up playing out similar to the new Ghalta, which I am terrified of and slaps people around basically every time it resolves.

Riptide Gearhulk might be the most EDH playable Gearhulk this time around – for flicker/blink decks. Getting to flicker this and bounce three things into opposing libraries is downright nasty, and provides another controlling option for UW/x flicker decks to take advantage of. When you do wanna hit face, the double strike and prowess will come in super handy. All I can think about is Rite of Replication. Am I a bad person?

Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied is here to remind us that the natural embodiment of the ebb and flow of a river is one thicc froggie mommy. 

That aside, I always loved the ebb and flow of Bounty of the Luxa, and putting that kinda mechanic onto a creature is a lot of fun. This seems like a really fair Simic Commander, which is saying a lot. I also think it’ll be pretty good within counters decks as a blocker that incrementally draws cards until you’re happy to swing with it.

Samut, the Driving Force, at face value, looks like a Naya vehicles deck. But is she? I’m not so sure. Start Your Engines on a 6 mana Commander is asking a lot, but given you get cost reduction based on your speed and not having Max Speed (and the same goes for your buff to the team), the payoff seems reasonable. In practice, Samut seems somewhat similar to Henzie. You’ll cast her, and then next time you cast her, you’ll get a greater reduction.

I don’t think she’s a vehicles deck, though. She’s so open ended that I’m excited to see what people do with her. Enchantress? Raise the Alarm spells?

Winter is a really interesting one. To me, it reads as a control oriented gamepiece, available in the CZ, that can produce virtual card advantage by merit of being a ticking time bomb. Your win con is probably using cards like Tezzeret, Master of the Bridge and such to lean into the life loss aspect, but you could do any number of wincons really. 

Zahur, Glory’s Past is another cheap card that starts engines. Is the Max Speed worth the gas? Yes and no. There are easier ways to achieve this, but getting a way to do it on a sac outlet is pretty interesting. The fact of the matter is that in the 99, Max Speed isn’t really a goal worth going for on everything but the most powerful cards. This isn’t one of them.

AETHERDRIFT: COLORLESS AND LANDS

The Aetherspark is a big splashy equipment suited mostly to decks that hit hard and have ways to cheat the equip cost. You don’t want to be ticking this up as Planeswalker in order to equip it; you want to be using an Equip 0 from Puresteel Paladin or another modifier, and then you want to be doing big damage, before using it for the mana ramping mode. Drawing cards is fine, but there are easier ways to do it in Equipment decks. If you can equip, swing, and make 10 mana in one turn, then this is worth playing.

Lifecraft Engine is a cool little vehicle version of a card that was previously usually a creature construct. The deck that really loves this is Magda, and any other other decks that play Dwarves and Vehicles, as there’s a lot of crossover.

Marketback Walker is a nice early to mid game play in a counters deck, provided you have a way to sacrifice it later to cash in for a hand refill. I wouldn’t be so hot on it if you don’t pack ways to crack it in your own time, as it’s otherwise prime exile fodder once it gets four or more counters. 

Now this one I like, a lot. Monument to Endurance is a really strong value engine, and one that far surpasses the likes of Phyrexian Arena provided your deck is set up to use it. If you play a lot of wheels and spells or abilities that loot through cards, this is worth a look – and multiply that recommendation by 100 if your Commander discards cards, as I feel it’s close to an auto include if it does. 

Finally, Radiant Lotus, our Lotus of the year. And by heck if it isn’t cracked. I want forewarned if you’re playing this with Academy Manufactor in pre-game chats, okay?

This is roughly equivalent to Nyxbloom Ancient for a lot of decks, and for decks that have production of artifact tokens in the ‘zone, it’s probably better. What a bonkers Magic card.

Top 5 Multicolor/Colorless Common/Uncommons:

1. Haunt the Network: Another win condition for Dimir artifacts that isn’t straight up combo.
2. Skyserpent Seeker: Is this just better than Explosive Vegetation variants?
3. Voyage Home: nice cheap draw
4. Amonkhet Raceway: good Max Speed payoff
5. Aetherjacket: Buzz buzz!

END STEP

I hope you enjoyed this set review. Aetherdrift is a monster set, with many, many cards. What will you be playing?