Magic: The Gathering feels like it’s in a transitory era right now, still coming down from the ambitious Phyrexian Invasion story arc and approaching a prolonged wave of Universes Beyond crossovers with other IPs. Talk of major adaptations has resumed as well, and the game will likely see an influx of newcomers as Legendary Entertainment’s movies (and that Netflix anime, if it’s not dead in the water) hit people’s screens.
In this exciting time for the world’s premier trading card game (TCG), an ambitious new set has officially arrived: Aetherdrift. Widely released this weekend, the latest Standard-legal set is all about racing, and centered on a in-fiction grand prix that spans several planes across the Multiverse. Its gold trophy? The Aetherspark, an artifact which can turn anyone into a bona fide planeswalker—which was a coveted ability before most planeswalkers lost that gift in March of the Machines Aftermath.
So, what makes Aetherdrift worth all the buzz, and why has it got us excited to shuffle up some new decks?
5) Gold “First Place Foils”
MTG has long been known for its first-class art, and in more recent years Wizards of the Coast has been experimenting with all manner of thematic frame variants for each new sets. For Aetherdrift, the most prominent variant are First Place Foils, a new golden foiling process. Card art images truly don’t do them justice; what looks yellow in online card galleries actually pops a lot more in person.
Foils have become somewhat common or pedestrian over time; I’m personally much more excited to pull any of the various card frames than a foil version of a regular card. Aetherdrift offers a way to make foils exciting all over again, leaning into the racing theme in an unexpected way. What better prize to award the winner than golden cards?
The only downside here is that First Place Foils are somewhat limited. They appear only in Box Topper packs, the small sample “boosters” included in Aetherdrift Play Booster boxes, Collector Booster boxes, and Finish Line Bundles. Each contains 2 cards in the new golden treatment: 1 of 10 full-art basic lands, and 1 of the 127 rare or mythic rare cards from the set.
4) Gathering An Aesthetic
“Racing” is a pretty broad term, aesthetically. For some it might conjure images of Formula One, or The Fast & The Furious, or even Mario Kart. Wizards of the Coast didn’t cherry-pick from any one inspiration alone for Aetherdrift, however; they took most of the racing things you could name and ran them through the full power of the MTG creative team’s imagination. The result is something unique that suits the Multiverse without feeling like a cheap excuse to “just do a set about racing.”
First of all, the set focuses primarily on Avishkar, formerly known as Kaladesh, a rich setting that was due to explored in greater depth. The prominence of artificers here makes it the perfect place to host a fantasy analogue for a real-world Grand Prix.
Then, through the use of various two-colour factions (just like Ravnica, Strixhaven, and Bloomburrow), the various teams competing get to cover a wide swath of thematic ground. The Goblin Rocketeers (R/G) showcase the best of goblin ingenuity; the Endriders (B/R) bring a level of Mad Max postapocalyptic insanity; the Champions of Amonkhet (W/B) channel ancient chariot races as they honour their Egypt-inspired home plane; and the Cloudspire Racing Team (W/R) even adds a dash of Tron-esque technology.
All of these inspirations (and many more) blend to create something that feels both like an homage to its source, and like a Wacky Racers cartoon playing out on the tabletop… yet still authentically Magic. Perhaps nothing encapsulates this better than Aetherdrift’s “Borderless Rude” treatments, which channel the graffitied spirit of Ed Roth’s classic hot rod art for some of the gnarliest competitors’ cards.
3) The Need For Speed
Naturally, if you’re going to make a game about racing, you’ve gotta go fast. But how do you convey that in a game like MTG which, depending on your play style and the scenario, can be as slow and methodical as a good round of chess? Through clever mechanics, of course.
Aetherdrift introduces Speed, a new trait that mimics the velocity of a racer. At the start of a game, players are at “Speed 0,” until you play a card with the new keyword “Start Your Engines!” Once you play one, your Speed becomes 1; on your next turn, if an opponent loses any life, you can increase your speed by 1, but only once per turn. Speed caps out at 4, so essentially, you can’t hit “top speed” until at least your third turn if you play your cards right. Nor can you slow down once you’ve shifted gears.
So, why does speed matter, aside from the thematic reasons? Some Aetherdrift cards have effects or abilities that depend on your current speed. You need to be at “max speed” to activate the abilities of Far Fortune, End Boss (dealing additional damage any time you control) or Vnwxt, Verbose Host (who draws additional cards). Meanwhile, The Speed Demon is a Legendary Creature that has you draw cards and lose life equal to your speed in your end step—becoming a bigger asset and liability simultaneously as your hypothetical racer goes faster.
Like many of MTG’s boldest experiments, it’s a hefty concept on paper but a fun, thematic element in actual play. In a way, it reminds me of the Level Up cards from Rise of the Eldrazi, just on a bigger scale and not so fragile that it hardly seems investing in.
2) Theme Or No, Aetherdrift Feels Like Proper MTG
As exciting as the upcoming Universes Beyond collabs are for many fans, there’s another sizable chunk of the player base that has heavy reservations. For the first time, non-Hasbro brands and IPs will be part of Magic: The Gathering‘s Standard format, and what was once a fun sideshow that let you put a couple fun pieces of art in your Commander deck is now taking up oxygen from authentic, original MTG creations.
(Dungeons & Dragons did crossover with MTG in 2021, but both games are Wizards of the Coast brands, and they play well together.)
At the same time, I’ve had reservations with a couple of the concepts behind recent sets; Bloomburrow proved me wrong, but some of the other main sets post March of the Machines haven’t resonated with me in the same way that Neon Dynasty, Strixhaven, or Zendikar Rising did. I expected Aetherdrift to wash over me somewhat too, especially as I’m not generally into racing media.
However, this bold gamble seems to have paid off. That uncouth collection of influences, when filtered through the MTG creative team, has yielded something that feels cohesive for the Multiverse and fun to play. Before we plunge into a period of less original sets, Aetherdrift offers something that is so authentically Magic: The Gathering as the Zendikar block was, with its “kaiju Eldritch gods,” or as Strixhaven was with its spin on magic academy stories.
1) Full Throttle Storytelling
Springboarding off that last point, I’m also wary of venturing so deeply into Universes Beyond because of the cost to the overall story behind MTG. I’m a “Vorthos,” or a player who relishes the story and “flavor” behind the cards, and the type of player who’s as invested in the companion media as keeping up with the latest meta.
The Phyrexian Invasion caught my attention for changing up the narrative stakes in such a drastic way—spreading corruption and war across the Multiverse, then irrevocably changing the power dynamic of planeswalking. I miss the days of (good) novels that tied into each set or storyline, but the fiction on the game’s homepage is flourishing. Since the invasion, from Wilds of Eldraine on, the creative team has been laying down a new, intriguing route with the “Omenpath Era,” a new paradigm for the universe.
But after this, it’s off to Tarkir for Dragonstorm, then into a full “space-fantasy” set called Edge of Eternities this August, and a double header of Marvel. I’m beyond stoked for the Final Fantasy Universes Beyond this June, but I’m already lamenting the loss of MTG’s story… or at least, a temporary yet thorough neglect of it.
However, that’s one thing that has me excited for Aetherdrift. The ramifications of its prize, the motivations for its competitors (particularly Chandra’s desire to win the Aetherspark for her girlfriend Nissa), the way it ties together so many plot threads from recent storylines despite being “a set about going vroom-vroom”… This is peak storytelling for a TCG, one of the game’s strengths that practically no competitor has been able to touch throughout its long history.
Aetherdrift, in this way, feels like a last big breath before a deep dive. And just like Bloomburrow, I’m ready to toss aside my reservations, hop behind the wheel, and rip some packs.
