After months of slowly building hype and anticipation, the release of Aetherdrift is finally almost here. Later this week Prerelease events will kick off the fun, and the MTG Arena release will follow early next week. As usual, between all the new cards, mechanics, Commanders, and combos there’s a lot to be excited about as this release date looms ever closer. For MTG Arena., however, Aetherdrift has even more in store.
As we covered recently, Achievements are finally coming to MTG Arena when Aetherdrift releases next week. On top of this, it’s also worth getting excited about the Special Guests for Aetherdrift since many of these are new-to-Arena. Sadly, while a lot of these cards look great fun, some of them might be a little too much for Arena’s Historic format.
For better or worse, Wizards of the Coast is well aware of this. So, to keep things fair and smooth, Wizards has announced a new Historic pre-ban that will take effect next week.
Chrome Mox Is Banned
Out of the ten Special Guests for Aetherdrift, there’s little question that Chrome Mox is the most special. Not only is this card the most expensive, routinely selling for around $100, but it’s also the most powerful. Banned in Modern since the format’s inception, this card is brutally powerful, offering fast mana of essentially any color.
On its own, while you do have to Imprint something onto it, Chrome Mox has the potential to speed up basically any deck. This effect is especially strong in Affinity decks since Chrome Mox is also a free artifact. Considering that Aetherdrift is also introducing a few new Affinity cards, it’s little wonder Wizards has decided to be careful.
Explaining their decision in the recent MTG Arena Announcements post, Wizards didn’t have to go into much depth. Given how iconic Chrome Mox is and how problematic fast mana can be, this simple explanation is understandable. It’s definitely for the better that Chrome Mox isn’t free to run amok in Historic, speeding up combos and aggro alike.
“ Chrome Mox is—putting it lightly—an infamous card. Moxen are generally dangerous in fair formats, so we’re cautious about where we allow them to be played. Since Chrome Mox is one of Aetherdrift’s Special Guests cards, we decided to preemptively ban it in Historic …”
Wizards of the Coast
Thankfully, as Wizards went on to say, Chrome Mox won’t be banned in Timeless. Beyond just being playable in this format, it’s basically guaranteed that this card will be popular too. Right now, Chrome Mox sees extensive play in both Legacy and Vintage decks. If it’s good enough for these formats, then it’ll absolutely be Timeless playable too.
Notably, according to WotC_Jay on Reddit, Chrome Mox will also be legal in Brawl. That said, given this card’s power, Wizards will be watching it closely, so it may end up being banned eventually. For now, however, this Commander classic will hopefully provide some added juice to decks where needed.
Revised Recipies
Alongside pre-banning Chrome Mox to keep Historic safe, Wizards revealed they’ll be continuing their revised crafting costs for Special Guest cards. First introduced with MTG Foundations, this allows these cards to be crafted more appropriately, without being such a drain on resources. Considering how scarce mythic wildcards can be on Arena, this is certainly good news.
Currently, Wizards hasn’t announced the exact crafting recipes for each of the ten Special Guest cards in Aetherdrift. According to Wizards, more information on the adjusted rarities will be revealed soon. Given that Aetherdrift is launching on MTG Arena next week, details should be confirmed by February 10th at the latest.
While Wizards has yet to provide all the details, we can still assume what we’ll see. Since each of the Special Guest cards is a reprint, we can look back at their past printings to determine their regular rarity. While there is a chance that Wizards will mix some things up to stimulate the in-game economy, here’s what we personally expect to see.
| Cavalier of Dawn | Mythic |
| Thoughtcast | Common |
| Whir of Invention | Rare |
| Bone Miser | Rare |
| Lord of the Undead | Rare |
| Chandra’s Ignition | Rare |
| Galvanic Blast | Uncommon |
| Pathbreaker Ibex | Rare |
| Chrome Mox | Mythic |
| Skysovereign, Consul Flagship | Mythic |
Ultimately, there’s no guarantee that our predictions will be accurate, so we’ll have to wait until next week. That being said, these predictions do follow the trend of matching the rarity of the last printings the Special Guests saw. This was the precedent that Foundations set that will hopefully be continued by future releases.
The Last Hurrah
While the release of Aetherdrift is just around the corner, the set isn’t fully finished, not on MTG Arena at least. As usual, this set will be getting an extra Alchemy release a few weeks after the main release. Typically, there’s a three-week gap between release dates, so I’d expect Alchemy: Aetherdrift to release on March 4th. As a note, however, this release date is currently unconfirmed.
Currently, there’s no telling what Alchemy: Aetherdrift may contain. Typically, we can expect to see a continuation of the main set mechanics with a flavorful digital Twist, such as Conjure. While this is all fairly straightforward, there’s a non-zero chance that Alchemy: Aetherdrift will have a trick up its sleeves.
Throughout the spoiler season for Aetherdrift, Garruk was mysteriously missing. They seemed to appear on the art for March of the World Ooze, but they weren’t in the actual set. Technically, this could just be a throw-forward tease to a future set, however, that seems somewhat unlikely.
Looking ahead, none of the 2025 sets appear to be a suitable home for Garruk. In theory, Garruk could show up on Tarkir thanks to Omenpaths, but there’s little reason why they would. The same is true of 2026’s return to Lorwyn set as they only have a vague connection to that plane.
Ultimately, it makes sense for Garruk to be on Muraganda and show up in Aetherdrift. Since they didn’t appear in the main set, we can only think they’re being saved for the Alchemy set. Admittedly, it would be rather strange for this to happen since Alchemy rarely gets first dibs on characters and cards. Still, it would be even weirder for Garruk not to show up at all, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
