The Best Aetherdrift Cards (1 of 5)

Aetherdrift Has Some Cards Completing The Track

I am unhappy with the power level of Aetherdrift. Maybe I simply don’t see the inherent potency of vehicles or the “Start your engines” mechanic, but this list series is going to be different from the one I did for Foundations. Mainly because I couldn’t find five good enough Standard cards in each color. I only found three in blue.

So, to reflect this, the layout will be a little different. We’ll still do WUBRG order, and alphabetical order within those categories, but some articles may have cards from multiple colors. By happy accident, I found twenty-five Aetherdrift cards to talk about, so that’ll still break down to five cards per article.

But, enough preamble: let’s begin.

Basri, Tomorrow’s Champion

No idea if the inevitable popular cat deck will be any good, but this is such a solid addition to it, if so. Basri has good stats as a generic aggro threat and can make chump blockers (with very helpful lifelink) throughout a game. And that cycling ability can make a swarm of cat tokens—in whatever way they may be produced—stick around through more hairy combats.

Interface Ace

I feel like I must have read this Aetherdrift card wrong—but I’ve looked it over multiple times. So, I must ask, who thought it was a good idea to print this at common? It can crew two vehicles a turn at way higher levels than most creatures. I know I said above I’m unimpressed with most of the vehicles, but if you’re going to build a deck around them, it should probably include Interface Ace.

Salvation Engine

Here’s one of the few Aetherdrift vehicles I am not disappointed with. And that’s mainly because it serves a good function, even when it can’t be a very powerful creature. I’ve seen enough artifact aggro/combo shells to know how much that anthem ability can change the course of a game. I do wish it was a little cheaper costed, but that would probably be far too powerful.

Spectacular Pileup

There are indestructible gods in Aetherdrift, and one of them is so good it’ll turn up in a future article. There are also plenty of other ways to give indestructible to creatures. That all leads to Spectacular Pileup being a step above the various other board wipes we have access to. I also just love when more niche cards have cycling on them so they don’t clutter up your hand when you don’t need them.

Gearseeker Serpent

Someone is going to find a way to break this card wide open. I don’t know how yet, but putting affinity on anything is dangerous, and Aetherdrift did it multiple times. Gearseeker will likely be the top end of some kind of fun affinity deck that uses either tokens or cheaply costed artifacts to pull off various advantage plays, and I’m excited to see that.

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And those are the first five in our Aetherdrift series. The other two blue ones will have to wait—much like you, dear reader—until next week.

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