Afterburner Expert | Aetherdrift | Art by April Prime
30, Jan, 25

MTG Aetherdrift Is Secretly Stacked With Great Graveyard Support

We may have a Duskmourn 2.0 on our hands...

Based on much of its art and marketing, it’d be fair to assume that Aetherdrift is an MTG set about Vehicles and nothing else. Naturally, an artifact theme comes along with that, but it still seems very focused on its goal. Now that we’ve seen most of the set, however, it’s clear there’s quite a bit more going on under the hood. In addition to its superficial Vehicle theme, Aetherdrift is also a surprisingly deep set for MTG graveyard synergies.

You might have somewhat expected this from the Golgari Speedbrood faction, but it actually goes far beyond that. Aetherdrift as a whole is saturated with great graveyard effects, in pretty much every color. Some of these are cards you may have missed as previews have proceeded, but they’re well worth checking out now. They may just form the foundations of a powerful Standard deck in the near future.

Sensational Self-Mill

Self-Mill Cards

Self-mill effects are the cornerstone of most successful graveyard decks in MTG, and Aetherdrift delivers these in spades. We’ve looked at Molt Tender before, as one of the most exciting uncommons in the set. It bears revisiting, however, considering just how good it can be in graveyard decks.

A 1/1 for one that mills one card a turn isn’t the most exciting rate in the world. In fact, it compares pretty unfavorably to Duskmourn’s Patchwork Beastie. That said, the ability to generate mana of any color by exiling cards from your ‘yard really puts this over the top. You typically don’t need all of the cards you mill in a given game, and this can accelerate you into your big turns nicely. If you get this going on turn one, the mill is pretty significant, too.

If you’re looking for more concentrated self-mill, then Dredger’s Insight might be more your speed. It’s a very similar effect to the likes of Cache Grab and Say its Name, both of which have seen Standard play. You mill four cards and get pretty much anything you want back. What puts this a cut above those other options is the fact that it’s also an enchantment that provides ongoing healing. Cards leave graveyards all the time in decks like these, so the extra life here is far from insignificant.

Finally, Quag Feast rounds out Aetherdrift’s self-mill suite with a bang. It may only mill two cards itself, but it’s also an unconditional answer to pretty much any creature in the format once you get your graveyard going. It looks fairly slow at sorcery speed, but this is a card that advances the graveyard game plan on two fronts, so I think it’s one to watch.

Repeatable Recursion

MTG Aetherdrift Graveyard Recursion

The next step after self-milling a bunch of MTG cards into your graveyard is to find a way to abuse them, and Aetherdrift also excels in this regard. The set brings a number of creatures that can return from the graveyard for big tempo gains, provided you can mill them there in the first place.

We’ve talked about Bloodghast before, and it is definitely the best creature in this category. You can recur it just by dropping a land, and it can even gain Haste later on. This is a graveyard piece with Modern and Legacy pedigree, so it’s more than capable of powering such decks in Standard.

Afterburner Expert is a new option in this category, and it’s a very interesting one indeed. As a three mana 4/2 its stats aren’t terrible and it can even block, which Bloodghast can’t do. The condition to recur this creature, using an Exhaust ability, is much more specific, however. You can loop two of these with each other since they have their own Exhaust ability, but at four mana that’s not very efficient. Whether this will be viable or not really depends on whether or not we get a good, cheap Exhaust effect. Right now the best option is probably Draconautics Engineer, which can bring your Experts back with Haste, but that pushes you into red which isn’t ideal.

Finally, we have the far-less-exciting-but-still-possibly-viable Wickerfolk Indomitable. This isn’t a free recursion like its peers; you’re going to be paying full price and then some to get this out of the graveyard. In some decks, I think this could be worth it, however. Indomitable is a 4/3 that can block, and sacrificing a creature or artifact is often easy, or even an upside. Keep an eye on this one; it screams ‘sleeper uncommon.’

Revved-Up Reanimation

MTG Aetherdrift Graveyard Reanimation

The above creatures all support a more tempo/combo breed of MTG graveyard deck, but Aetherdrift has plenty of support for classic Reanimator too. If you like dropping impractically expensive creatures in the bin and bringing them back for value, then you’re in luck.

Broodheart Engine is undoubtedly the most exciting Aetherdrift option in this category. It comes down for two mana and starts filling your graveyard with its Surveil effect, then it acts as a four mana reanimation spell once you’ve dumped something worthwhile in there. It’s a very self-sufficient, very powerful card. Sure it’s worse than Zombify or Rite of the Moth when topdecked, but it’s so much better early that it more than makes up for that.

To go in a slightly different direction, Dune Drifter is a nasty graveyard tempo tool, especially in older formats. In Standard, this is clearly intended to support the Orzhov Aristocrats/Max Speed with Zahur et al, but step back in time and it’s a super-cheap way to get an Ocelot Pride or Lotus Petal back. This is a very exciting card, especially in nontraditional graveyard decks.

To come back to tradition for a moment, however, Aetherdrift also packs some very nice reanimation targets. The best of these, for my money, is Aatchik, Emerald Radian. This is a reanimation target that scales with the contents of your graveyard, making it ideal in the kind of self-mill deck Aetherdrift supports. It also presents a nice diversity of threats. A wide board of Insects can attack and block well, and if your opponent deals with it you’re left with a huge Aatchik and they’re left with a low life total. I expect this to see testing in Standard and be an absolute house in Commander.

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