Aetherdrift Set Review - Enemy & Wedge
Ben MacreadyFebruary 14, 2025
Pathfind your way to the best mutlicolor Loot (and a few other cards) in Aetherdrift!
Loot, the Pathfinder | art by Ernanda Souzà
White | Blue | Black | Red | Green | Artifacts & Lands | Allied & Shards | Enemy & Wedges | cEDH | Reprints | Pauper/Budget
Red, Set, Brew!
Today we'll be racing through all of the notable enemy color cards from Aetherdrift.
All sorts of wacky racers have signed up for Ghirapur Grand-Prix, there are Shark Pirates, Bikers that look like they've stepped straight out of Tron, and even a few Gods have turned up.
Let's charge right in and have a look at the best racers that the multiverse has to offer.
Mythics
Loot, the Pathfinder
Magic: The Gathering's answer to Pikachu is back again in Aetherdrift in what may be his most powerful appearance yet. Loot, the Pathfinder has three incredibly strong Exhaust abilities that are all callbacks to iconic cards from the game's past.
As a reminder, Exhaust is a mechanic granting a card an impactful ability that can only be activated once per game. For one green mana, Loot can do his best Black Lotus impression, without even needing to sacrifice himself afterward.
For one blue Loot can imitate Ancestral Recall and for one red he can pretend to be a Lightning Bolt.
The key to fully utilizing Loot is exploiting these Exhaust abilities as much as possible. Blue has access to a wide variety of cloning options many of which, like Irenicus's Vile Duplication, Spark Double, and Double Major, can get around the legend rule allowing both Loot and the clone to stay in play.
You can also blink Loot into and out of play using cards like Conjurer's Closet, Displacer Kitten, and Blur to gain refreshed access to each of his abilities.
Loot is more than just these abilities though, he also has a very powerful selection of keywords in double strike, vigilance, and haste.
This opens up a whole world of Voltron strategies and you can kit him out with cards like Rancor, Whispersilk Cloak, and The Reaver Cleaver to really push the damage through.
Don't let Loot's adorably marketable appearance fool you, he's a menace and easily one of the strongest commanders from Aetherdrift.
Mimeoplasm, Revered One
The Mimeoplasm is back, and the years since 2011 have only made it hungrier. Whereas before, The Mimeoplasm only gobbled up two creatures from the graveyard, now Mimeoplasm, Revered One can eat as many creatures as you have the mana to pay for, and then copy their abilities for a small payment of .
Decks built around Mimeoplasm, Revered One will need two things in abundance.
- Creatures with powerful effects for it to copy like Valgavoth, Terror Eater, Sire of Seven Deaths, and Kona, Rescue Beastie.
- Self-mill cards like Hermit Druid, Satyr Wayfinder, and Stitcher's Supplier to get those powerful creatures into the graveyard.
What makes Mimeoplasm, Revered One so great is that it can switch between multiple abilities in a single turn. You can grant it become unblockable and hexproof by having it copy Invisible Stalker, and then when the damage is about to come through you can have it switch into Unstoppable Slasher so that it takes half of their life with its attack
The deckbuilding possibilities for this card are as endless as The Mimeoplasm's appetite. Just reading it got my brain buzzing, and I'm sure your mind is whirring with combos as well.
Ketramose, the New Dawn
Clearly Ketramose is a fan of Star Wars because that flavor text sounds a lot like it came from Kylo Ren.
As with all of the gods from Aetherdrift, Ketramose, the New Dawn is incredibly powerful for his cost, but can't actually attack or block unless a condition is met.
In Ketramose's case, there need to be at least seven cards in exile before he can get going. This means you'll want to build a deck that can exile cards like there's no tomorrow.
Essentially every white deck already runs Path to Exile and Swords to Plowshares so that's a good start. Lion Sash is a great two-drop in any deck, but its exile ability is even more useful than usual here.
Rest in Peace exiles every graveyard, and then ensures that any cards that would end up in the graveyard go into exile instead. Skyclave Apparition provides both a useful exile effect and a relevant 2/2 blocker.
As for black, while pricy Deadly Rollick is a fantastic exile removal spell. Dauthi Voidwalker not only exiles cards that would go to an opponent's graveyard, but also lets you play them yourself, and of course, there's Bojuka Bog.
The fact that Ketramose, the New Dawn turns exile effects into card draw, negates the usual drawback of running single target removal spells in EDH. Normally a Swords to Plowshares would cost you a card, whilst only impacting one other player. Now you can exile as many cards as you want, and reap the rewards.
Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied
The next god on our list is Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied. Just ask anyone who has been unfortunate enough to come up against her in Aetherdrift Limited, and they will tell you how threatening a card she is.
This novel commander challenges you to play quite an interesting game. Rather than just scatting as many +1/+1 across your creatures as you can, Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied wants you to carefully control the number of counters that you place on her.
At the start of your main phase, you want her to have an odd number of counters, but then by the time that you make it to the combat step you want her to have an even number so that she can attack.
You want to get effects that can double counters during your main phase, since whenever a number becomes doubled, the result is always even. Bristly Bill, Spine Sower is great for this.
Not only does his landfall ability let you put more counters on Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied and your other creatures, but he also has an invaluable doubling effect.
Vorel of the Hull Clade also works nicely with Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied since he can double counters too.
Of course, you won't just want to put counters on your commander, you'll want to build a whole deck full of powerful cards that care about +1/+1 counters like Gyre Sage, Herald of Secret Streams, and Kalonian Hydra.
Just stay away from effects like Hydra's Growth, and Court of Garenbrig since those cards double counters during the upkeep, meaning that you won't be able to draw those extra cards during your main phase.
As the god of the Luxa river, Sab-Sunen, Luxa Embodied can keep the counters flowing and your game plan going. She's an all-around terrific commander all around.
Saheeli, Radiant Creator
Saheeli may no longer be a planeswalker, but she has access to green now, so every cloud has a silver lining.
We've gotten a lot of great energy commanders recently like Satya, Aetherflux Genius, and Dr. Madison Li and Saheeli, Radiant Creator deserves her place amongst them. The commander she's most reminiscent of though is Mishra, Eminent One from the Brother's War commander decks back in 2022.
Like Mishra, Saheeli turns other permanents you control into artifact creatures that die at the end of combat.
While she needs to pay energy in order to do this, the artifact creatures she makes are 5/5s rather than 4/4s and she can work with any kind of permanent, rather than merely artifacts.
Try and find as many cards as you can that have powerful enter the battlefield or death triggers to get the most out of Saheeli's effect.
The precon Saheeli comes in includes Rogue Refiner and it's wise to do so since this card almost refunds the energy spent to copy it and it draws you a card.
Other great creatures to duplicate include Volatile Stormdrake, Kappa Cannoneer, and Wurmcoil Engine. Other permanents that Saheeli would be happy to copy include Ichor Wellspring, Fiery Emancipation, and Mystic Sanctuary.
Whether you're just playing with her precon, or you build your own deck around her, Saheeli, Radiant Creator can provide plenty of dynamic permanent duplicating gameplay.
Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic
As the backup commander of the Living Energy precon, Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic overlaps artifact creature based strategies with energy based ones.
You want to damage the opponent with as many artifact creatures as you can to generate a massive influx of energy, which you can then sink into building a huge flying Nalaar Aetherjet token.
There are plenty of artifacts out there that care about energy so you're spoiled for choice. To name a few useful examples, Assaultron Dominator from Fallout generates two energy as it enters play, and can then spend energy to make additional keyword counters which it can place on the Aetherjet.
Gonti's Aether Heart generates an impressive two energy energy every time its controller plays an artifact, and can trade in eight energy for an additional turn.
Bespoke Battlewagon can be tapped down to generate two energy, it also comes prepacked in the Living Energy precon so you won't need to shop around for it.
While Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic may not be quite as exciting as Saheeli, Radiant Creator, the face commander of her precon deck, there are still a lot of inbuilt artifact and energy synergies that she's well poised to exploit.
Rares
Aatchik, Emerald Radian
Someone at Wizards of the Coast must be a fan of Insect typal decks because they have been getting commander after commander recently.
From The Swarmweaver in Duskmourn: House of Horror, to Vrestin, Menoptra Leader in Doctor Who, to Amzu, Swarm's Hunger in Ravnica: Clue Edition. With such a buzzing swarm of competitors lurking out there, what does Aatchik, Emerald Radian do to stand out?
Well, when Aatchik, Emerald Radian enter play it brings a whole bunch of Insect tokens with it, assuming you've been a good Golgari player and you've been enthusiastically self-milling every turn.
As these Insects die Aatchik, Emerald Radian gradually gains more and more power, although this would be much more impactful if Aatchik, Emerald Radian had flying, trample, menace or some other form of evasion built in.
Rather than attempting to beat the opponent down using Aatchik, Emerald Radian you're probably better placed running a Sacrifice build and combining the drain effect on Aatchik, Emerald Radian with other cards like Zulaport Cutthroat and Blood Artist to gradually drain the life of your opposition.
With a mana value of six, Aatchik, Emerald Radian is a bit on the costly side, and honestly doesn't really provide enough power to balance this out.
This commander is better than Izoni, Thousand-Eyed, but frankly it can't compare to the likes of Fumulus, the Infestation, orZask, Skittering Swarmlord for those looking to pull of graveyard based Insect strategies.
Fearless Swashbuckler
One complaint that some players have about Aetherdrift is that its emphasis on Vehicles makes many of its cards less than practical in Commander where Vehicle strategies are difficult to support.
In a two player format, you only need to worry about keeping a Vehicle crewed on your own turn and on your opponent's turn. In a four player game of Commander, there are twice as many turns in which your Vehicles will need to stay crewed. This makes Vehicle strategies fairly onerous.
Fearless Swashbuckler is an example of a Vehicle support card that, while it has a powerful card draw effect, only works in a very small number of decks.
Unfortunately, due to this card's Izzet color identity, it's ineligible for inclusion in decks helmed by many of the most popular Vehicle-oriented commanders.
Greasefang, Okiba Boss, Depala, Pilot Exemplar, and Miriam, Herd Whisperer all turn their nose up at Fearless Swashbuckler because its colors just aren't the right fit for them.
Fortunately, there is one commander out there who absolutely loves our Shark Pirate pal, Edward Kenway. The protagonist of Assassin's Creed: Black Flag generates treasure tokens equal to the number of tapped Pirates, Sharks, and Vehicles under his owner's control at the end of the turn.
Since Fearless Swashbuckler grants Vehicles haste and wants to attack themself to trigger their draw ability, they fit right into the crew thatEdward Kenway is putting together.
This card can also be run in Vehicle-based Kykar, Wind's Fury builds, and with Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic. Beyond these three decks though, Fearless Swashbuckler doesn't have much of a home anywhere else. It's a support card for a niche strategy in colors where that strategy typically isn't represented.
Captain Howler, Sea Scourge
It's appropriate that Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is in a set about racing, since this commander loves wheels. If you've got Captain Howler in your command zone then wheel effects like Reforge the Soul, Fateful Showdown, and Jace's Archivist shoot up in value since they'll provide a significant buff alongside refreshing your hand. Fateful Showdown is a particularly good option since it also functions as a removal spell.
If you want to be really mean, you can run a Narset, Parter of Veils who will ensure that you'll be the only person drawing your hand back after a symmetrical wheel effect.
If you want to be a bit less mean, Rielle, the Everwise will let you draw twice as many cards when you wheel everything away.
Of course, your deck can't just be wheel effects alone. You'll also need some creatures to target with Captain Howler's effect. Aetherdrift has given him two crew mates that synergize perfectly with him.
Scrounging Skyray and Marauding Mako both gain +1/+1 counters whenever you discard a card letting them grow strong even before Captain Howler soups them up.
Unblockable creatures like Slither Blade, and Triton Shorestalker also make great targets for Captain Howler's ability.
You can eschew targeting other creatures, and try to close out the game with commander damage by making Captain Howler unblockable through an effect like Aqueous Form, or Aether Tunnel.
This discard-oriented Shark Pirate is off to a strong head start, as they're the most popular Aetherdrift commander out of the gate.
Given how strong Captain Howler, Sea Scourge is, not to mention how difficult to remove they are given their ward effect, they're likely to remain in a leading position going forwards.
Debris Beetle
If you've ever wondered what Siege Rhino would look like if it was a bug... and also a car, here's your answer. In most decks, I'd personally rather run Vampire Sovereign or Siege Rhino since, despite having worse stats, you don't have to go through the hassle of crewing them.
All the same, the fact that this card is an artifact does open it up to potential recursion shenanigans. In a Jund deck, you just need a copy of Goblin Welder, Thornbite Staff, and any other artifact and you'll be able to loop Debris Beetle's powerful enter the battlefield ability over and over again until everyone else is dead.
In Sultai, Yarok, the Desecrated will cause this card to drain 18 life from the rest of the table every time it comes down, and you'll also gain access to all of the blinking effects at blue's disposal to help you pull this off again and again.
Don't just cram Debris Beetle into any deck, make sure you've got a reliable way of exploiting its powerful ability, but then you can go nuts.
Explosive Getaway
Explosive Getaway is a Storm's Wrath variant that lets you blink one of your creatures away to safety before it strikes the board.
You'll want this in decks that run creatures that want to take damage like Brash Taunter, and Stuffy Doll Dinosaur decks will enjoy this card since many Dinosaurs have plenty of toughness and also the Enrage keyword which activates a beneficial effect when they are damaged.
Your Trapjaw Tyrant will be able to exile one of your opponent's surviving creatures, your Bellowing Aegisaur will pump up your board with +1/+1 counters, and you'll be able to clone your Polyraptor. The ideal commander is probably Wayta, Trainer Prodigy who doubles triggered abilities brought on by damage.
All in all, just like Storm's Wrath this card can't hold a candle to Blasphemous Act which remains Red's premier board wipe. The splash of white in Explosive Getaway's color identity also opens it up to competition from white's vast selection of board wipes like Wrath of God and Sunfall.
Nevertheless, if you have a deck where you want your creatures to take some damage, but not so much damage that it would kill them, this card has its uses.
Kolodin, Triumph Caster
Mark my words, Kolodin, Triumph Caster will be one of the commanders to watch from this set. Kolodin is such a great pilot that he can make vehicles drive themselves, and mounts boldly charge off with no need for a rider.
The strategy here is clear, you want to go for an aggressive deck loaded up with as many Vehicles and Mounts as you can get your hands on.
The key to getting the most out of Kolodin is to pick Vehicles and mounts that have a low mana value, but high crew and saddle costs.
Consulate Dreadnought is amazing here, coming down as a hasty one mana 7/11 when Kolodin is in play.
Other great choices include Colossal Plow, Surgehacker Mech, and Unswerving Sloth which all provide plenty of value for their cost.
On future turns, your Vehicles and Mounts will still need to be crewed. You can get around this by bouncing and recasting them with cards like Essence Reliquary, Glint Hawk, or Shepherd of the Flock.
Certain blink effects, like Scrollshift, and Felidar Guardian can also be used, just so long as they are capable of targeting artifacts and returning them to play immediately.
Aggro commanders can sometimes struggle in EDH, given that they are up against multiple opponents all of whom have twice as much life as they would in other formats.
Nevertheless, Kolodin, Triumph Caster has what it takes to push his aggressive strategy past the finish line.
Sita Varma, Masked Racer
Sita Varma, Masked Racer has been designed in such a way that her Exhaust ability is difficult to exploit. Typically you can get around Exhaust's once per game limitation by simply bouncing the creature with the effect into and then out of play.
Unfortunately for Sita though all of the counters that she accumulates will disappear when she leaves the battlefield, making this counterproductive.
Never fear though, so long as you put Elvish Refueler into your deck, you will be able to repeat Sita's ability once per turn, for as many turns as you want to.
Now it's just a question of how to build around this ability. What you'll want to do is pump Sita's stats as high as possible.
Whether you do that by kitting her out with Voltron tools like Blackblade Reforged, or you cover her with as many +1/+1 counters as you can is up to you. You'll also want to go as wide as possible, to ensure that Sita's ability pumps up as many creatures as possible.
Green and blue are filled with great low-cost creatures like Skarrgan Pit-Skulk, Cloudfin Raptor, and Mist-Cloaked Herald all of whom greatly benefit from the massive power boost that Sita can provide.
If you ever manage to cast Colossification on Sita and then use her Exhaust ability to spread the buff to the rest of your board, you will be my personal hero.
Zahur, Glory's Past
Orzhov Aristocrats decks are nothing new. Does Zahur, Glory's Past bring anything exciting to the table?
Well, the fact that this card slots a sacrifice outlet, with activation cost, into the command zone is nice even if Zahur can only sacrifice one creature per turn. It's Zahur's second ability that makes them really exciting though.
Every time a nontoken creature you control dies, Zahur makes a tapped 2/2 Zombie token. This essentially means that you get to sacrifice each of your creatures twice. You can kill them off once initially, and then get rid of the Zombie token they spawn as well.
This card has some infinite combo potential when you use it alongside cards with Persist. If you have Zahur, Glory's Past in play alongside Putrid Goblin, Cathars' Crusade, and a sacrifice outlet then you'll be able to generate infinite Zombie tokens that gradually gain increasingly high stats.
If your sacrifice outlet happens to be a Phyrexian Altar then you'll also be gaining infinite mana, and if you have a Blood Artist in play then you'll be dealing infinite damage and infinite life as well... I feel like I've said the word "infinite" so many times in this paragraph that it's beginning to lose all meaning.
Now Zahur is made manageable by the fact that you need to be at max speed in order to use of that busted second ability. This means that you need to play Zahur, or another card with Start Your Engines! and then damage an opponent during each of your turns for four turns before you can use it.
While Zahur, Glory's Past is an infinite combo commander, it's also a "fair" one. Zahur's incredibly powerful ability is telegraphed to opponents very far in advance, giving them plenty of time to prepare and to disrupt you before your game plan goes nuclear and finishes them all off.
Uncommons & Commons
Boosted Sloop
Boosted Sloop is a vehicle, but one with an ability that is interesting enough that you may never end up crewing it at all. This card lets you draw and discard every time you attack.
Naturally, Captain Howler, Sea Scourge can make great use of this card, since he loves when cards get discarded, but Boosted Sloop has a home in plenty of other decks as well.
Madness cards can be cast when discarded, turning the downside of this card's effect into an upside. Granted, most madness decks are in Rakdos, rather than Izzet, but Flubs, the Fool would surely appreciate the chance this card grants him to get some discarding done.
There are also plenty of Grixis commanders that love using the graveyard as a resource like Sedris, the Traitor King, Kess, Dissident Mage, and Marchesa, Dealer of Death. Boosted Sloop helps rapidly fill the graveyard for decks like this so they can get their game plan going.
This card may just be an uncommon, but I would strongly advise against underestimating it. Don't sleep on the Sloop.
Skyserpent Seeker
If you've ever wanted a Needlethorn Drake stapled to an Explosive Vegetation this is the card for you. Fliers with deathtouch make for absolutely outstanding blockers.
Just leave this card in play and untapped and you'll make all of your opponents significantly less likely to attack you for fear of losing their best creature if they try.
Then once you've made it to turn four, activate the Exhaust ability of Skyserpent Seeker and you'll race ahead of the opposition in terms of the amount of land that you have available.
While you can't choose which lands Skyserpent Seeker will grab for you, they don't have to be basic which is reasonably rare for ramp effects.
For an uncommon, with a value of less than a dollar, Skyserpent Seeker does a lot. This card stands out even in Simic, a color pair with no shortage of ramping options.
Formula Fun
Any set that gives us new Gods to play with is always worth a look, and I feel like Aetherdrift has given us some high-octane commanders.
Personally, the card that I'm most excited to build around is Captain Howler, Sea Scourge. The concept of a Shark Pirate harpooning their way through the competition feels like something straight out of Wacky Racers, and the card's pretty powerful as well.
There's plenty here to suit a variety of tastes though, leave a comment if any of these cards will be accelerating their way into your next brew!