Magic: The Gathering - Aetherdrift Review
I’m pretty sure that when I first saw the news of the motor racing themed Magic: The Gathering – Aetherdrift set I just chuckled and immediately rejected it as being entirely not for me.
I’m not a car person, I’m not really into racing of any kind, and historically I haven’t loved the way vehicles work in Magic gameplay either.
Despite all of this baggage I’ve been enjoying Aetherdrift quite a bit. Probably more so than any other themed core-set from the past year in fact.
What makes the set so great is in how it manages to keep its race theme as a front and center mechanical element but a completely unobtrusive one.
The big new keyword ability the set adds is ‘Start your engines!’ and it functions kind of like shifting up gears in a car. A special speed-tracker card sits in each player’s sidebar throughout the game that has three slots on one side and a fourth on the other. The ‘Start your engines!’ keyword itself appears on a good number of Aetherdrift’s permanent cards, and when triggered it advances you into slot one. From there, you advance one slot further on the track whenever an opponent loses life during your turn. Several of Aetherdrift’s most fun and powerful cards feature abilities that only pop once you’re at slot four or ‘Max Speed’.
It’s a brilliantly simple system that drives home the feeling that you and your opponents are competitors in a high-speed race with remarkable elegance. It’s also one of the least obtrusively implemented theme mechanics any Magic set has sported in ages. It’s simple yet deep, and designing it as such is absolutely the smart move given that Aetherdrift is the first major core set to release after the beginner-oriented Foundations.
It’s also just a direction I really love to see for Magic in general. One of the biggest barriers to enjoying its gameplay is over-complexity of card interactions and sheer mechanical bloat, and so I hope that this kind of uncluttered design philosophy continues.
I had a particularly fun time at pre-release fielding the Aether Syphon artifact which can be tapped for a cost of two to draw a card, and while at max speed forces all opponents to mill two cards each time you draw. A wickedly good bit of banter, especially in four-player games where multiple competitors are fielding them.
The other new keyword introduced is ‘Exhaust’. It doesn’t feature all that commonly in the set, and simply means that the particular action that it’s attached to can only be performed once.
As for my preconception for vehicle cards as being an annoyance that I didn’t care to deal with? Well packaged thematically up like this I actually enjoyed them a whole lot. I don’t think I’m going to really begin incorporating them into my custom decks or anything, but when in Rome, it feels only right to gun the engines like the Romans do!
It’s entirely possible to craft an Aetherdrift deck without using vehicles, but you’ll be missing out on a large degree of power, utility, and of just the overall vibe if you decide to do so.
Speaking of vibes, Aetherdrift’s uh… drift between the Hanna-Barbera Wacky Races cartoon, F-Zero, and iconic Australian surfwear brand Mambo. The Commander deck I was sent as part of the review package features a big goofy mummy, and some of the critters featured throughout the set look like they should be emblazoned upon a tattered hot rod show souvenir t-shirt. It’s a specific blend of silliness that I find immensely pleasing, and I’ve been glad to see that it never really veers into bro-ey car culture tropes at all.
I did not expect much from Magic: The Gathering – Aetherdrift, and maybe my expectations being so low helped in allowing me to enjoy it so much. Regardless, I have to praise the sets designers for taking what could easily have been an overly-complex theme and executing upon it in such an approachable but strongly communicated way. It’s just a fun set to actually play the game of Magic with, and I can’t wait to go full-throttle at more opponents with it soon.
Magic: The Gathering – Aetherdrift was reviewed using products kindly provided by Wizards of the Coast.
