My Top 10 Cards for Aetherdrift
The Ghirapur Grand Prix is underway with Aetherdrift! This set promises high-octane cards and a multiplanar race to win the Aetherspark. This is quite a different concept from previous sets and showcases the possibilities of the Omenpaths when it comes to developing new settings and ideas for Magic. In this article, I’m going to showcase my top 10 cards from Aetherdrift for Commander. Start your engines, folks!
By the way, I’ve been doing Commander articles for a few years and I wanted to address the fact that I missed covering the reprints in Innistrad Remastered. This was the first major release that I’ve missed during my streak, because I was dealing with personal issues. On to the cards!
Gas Guzzler
With the reprint of Edgar Markov in Innistrad Remastered, I expect to see him more often for a while. Gas Guzzler offers a cheap Vampire body that can effectively function as another copy of Skullclamp once you’ve reached max speed by turning small bodies sideways in the early turns and draining opponents with creatures such as Blood Artist. The main catch is that you’ll only be able to use black mana to draw cards.
Howlsquad Heavy
This card is perfect for decks that want to fill the battlefield with tons of little Goblins and go wide. It shouldn’t be difficult to achieve max speed if you’re able to keep your foot on the gas and deal damage to your opponents every turn, allowing Howlsquad Heavy to generate massive amounts of mana to put even more Goblins into play. I’m looking forward to seeing this Goblin go completely out of control.
Guardian Sunmare
White’s had quite a resurgence within the past few years, and Guardian Sunmare is no exception. This Mount allows you to tutor small nonland permanents directly to the battlefield, which is a new ability for white that I’m very excited to see. If your commander has power 4 or greater, this card makes it easy to tutor out all sorts of powerful nonland permanents. I’m totally here for this type of expansion to the white color pie.
Ketramose, the New Dawn
Ketramose brings a new type of exile matters synergy to Orzhov that definitely has a ton of potential. Whether you’re sending this to exile with removal, exiling cards from graveyards, or blinking things, you’ll be able to draw a lot of cards with this commander. I’m looking forward to seeing the interesting things that people do with him. I also wanted to shout out the incredible flavor text on the standard version of this card.
Unstoppable Plan
One of the struggles of playing decks that include blue is that you want to be able to advance your gameplan on your turn while also being able to keep things untapped in order to play at instant speed as needed during your opponents’ turns. If you’re playing a bunch of mana rocks and other powerful cards that tap such as The One Ring, Unstoppable Plan almost feels like a no-brainer inclusion.
Brightglass Gearhulk
A new cycle of allied color Gearhulks offers a lot of potential, but none of them stand out to me more than Selesnya’s Brightglass Gearhulk. There are so many great zero-or-one-drop permanents out there and this card will let you grab your two favorites in a pinch. The only thing holding me back from putting this card higher on the list is that it probably only fits well into decks that dip heavily into both white and green.
Monument to Endurance
This is such an interesting artifact for decks that discard a lot of cards and one that I think brings a lot to the table for commanders such as Rielle, the Everwise or Nekusar, the Mindraker as a way to get value out of discarding cards. I’m sure that there are even more cool ways to use this card that I’m not thinking about, giving all of the crazy things that I’ve seen people put together in Commander.
Repurposing Bay
This is literally just Birthing Pod for artifacts in blue. We’ve seen this type of effect before, including in a repeatable form with Oswald Fiddlebender, but this card offers another way to cheat out your best artifacts once you’ve gotten value out of the ones that you’re sacrificing. Repurposing Bay feels like an instant staple for decks that are playing a ton of artifacts as a way to cheat out powerful artifact engines and combo pieces.
Radiant Lotus
While it does cost six mana, it seems extremely easy to go mana-positive with this card and take an absolutely massive turn by sacrificing artifacts that you don’t need in order to create a massive amount of mana. This is especially true when you’re dealing with cards that create artifact tokens. It is worth noting that the ability on this card is not a mana ability because it needs a target, so make sure to play around that Deflecting Swat!
Hashaton, Scarab’s Fist
This card is bonkers. It’s so easy to discard cards, which means that you can quickly get tons of powerful creatures onto the battlefield on 4/4 Zombie tokens. I’m hearing rumblings about Hashaton in cEDH, but I’m also looking forward to seeing him as a build-your-own Zombies deck in casual EDH. I’m especially excited to see Roaming Throne double Hashaton’s discard triggers and the abilities of the Zombie tokens.
I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t love the concept and aesthetic of Aetherdrift, but there are still plenty of super cool cards in the set. I’m definitely looking forward to upcoming in-universe Magic sets such as Tarkir: Dragonstorm and Edge of Eternities, so I’m hoping that they deliver excellent cards and an enjoyable setting for me. I hope that you find plenty to enjoy in Aetherdrift and beyond.
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