Now that Innistrad Remastered spoiler season has finally concluded, it’s time to look ahead towards Aetherdrift. Aetherdrift is the first premier set in 2025, scheduled to release on February 14. This sweet set brings us back to the plane of Avishkar (formerly known as Kaladesh), so if you’re a fan of vehicles and pilots, you should be in for a good time.
Speaking of vehicles, we actually have a neat spoiler to share with you today. This card will be featured as the buy-a-box promo for the set. Like many buy-a-box promos of the past, this card is unlikely to be one of the chase rares of the set. Nonetheless, it does have some potential to make a splash in Standard and Commander. Let’s take a look at the vehicle in all its glory.
Lifecraft Engine in Standard
The new Aetherdrift spoiler is none other than Lifecraft Engine. Lifecraft Engine is a cool take on a typal support card. Similar to Patchwork Banner, Lifecraft Engine provides a buff to all creatures of a chosen type of your choice when it enters. This alone is interesting, but not enough to get me excited.
However, having this effect come attached to a 4/4 vehicle may be enough to tip the scale. At first glance, Crew 3 may seem like a steep cost. But because Lifecraft Engine pumps all your creatures of the type of your choice, you really only need to follow this up with a two-power threat of that type to enable an attack.
MTG Foundations reinvigorated player interest in typal strategies. Elves, Goblins, and Cats have all popped up in Standard, but none of them have broken out onto the big scene. Part of the issue has been a lack of payoffs for filling your deck with creatures of a specific type. Sure, Arahbo, the First Fang and Rundvelt Hordemaster are great, but you need extra support in games where you don’t draw them.
Lifecraft Engine is a step in the right direction. It’s a big threat that dodges Go for the Throat, making it easier to apply pressure versus midrange decks without exposing your Anthem to removal. The Vehicle itself is the chosen creature type, too, meaning it gets the additional bonuses from your other “Lords” when it attacks. Playing Manifold Mouse and giving this big vehicle Double Strike sounds very strong.
I’m most tempted to try Lifecraft Engine in white typal decks because of its synergy with Split Up. Against opposing creature decks, you can use Lifecraft Engine’s crew ability as a means of tapping a bunch of your creatures on command. From there, casting Split Up to destroy all untapped creatures can be a major blowout in your favor.
We’ve seen players have success doing something similar with Unidentified Hovership. Lifecraft Engine offers the same synergies for more aggressively slanted archetypes.
Lifecraft Engine in Commander
This concept of using Lifecraft Engine as a means of tapping your creatures for profit becomes even more intriguing when thinking about a few specific Commanders. First and foremost, Lifecraft Engine should be an auto-include for any Magda, Brazen Outlaws shell.
Lifecraft Engine does everything Magda wants. It allows your Dwarves to tap and make Treasures on command. If pumps all your Dwarves in the process. Then, when you attack with Lifecraft Engine, you get an additional Treasure for your troubles since Lifecraft Engine makes itself a Dwarf.
Notably, Magda isn’t the only legend that pairs nicely with Lifecraft Engine. Lifecraft Engine is great in a Depala, Pilot Exemplar for similar reasons as listed above. It works perfectly with Dionus, Elvish Archdruid and Emmara, Soul of the Accord, while pumping all of your Elves or Soldier tokens in the process. Lifecraft Engine is a better support card than may appear at first glance.
Some Interesting Oddities
In addition to the card’s gameplay applications, there are a couple cool things to note about Lifecraft Engine. Right off the bat, it’s worth noting that the card was spoiled within the first episode of the Aetherdrift story.
This isn’t exactly anything new, as spoilers were distributed throughout the storyline prior to the release of March of the Machine. That being said, some players really enjoyed having preview cards shown within the story. Wizards had stopped including previews in stories for a while since then, so perhaps this is a sign of what’s to come with future releases.
Another intriguing detail about Lifecraft Engine is that there appears to be three versions of the card, all with different artwork. Other recent buy-a-box promos, such as Twitching Doll from Duskmourn, featured two different arts instead (one for the buy-a-box promo itself, another for what you’d find in the main set).
Lifecraft Engine, by contrast, has buy-a-box promo art, a different art for the traditional main set version, and yet another art for the borderless variant (shown above). The borderless variant is also the only one to boast flavor text, which may be a reference to Door of Destinies. It’s possible this is a collector booster exclusive, but that remains unclear.
All in all, Lifecraft Engine is a unique design, and we’re excited to see it in action in a little over a month.
