We haven’t seen much of Aetherdrift just yet, which isn’t too surprising in the grand scheme of things. Announced back at MagicCon: Las Vegas, this set is still months away as it doesn’t launch until February 2025. Despite this wait until the set’s release, we’ve already been given a taster for the set thanks to early spoilers.
While we haven’t seen much of Aetherdrift, what we have seen looks quite powerful, Brightglass Gearhulk, in particular, looks like an amazing future threat. It may be easy to write off a write-off at first glance, but this card has some serious multiformat potential. Thanks to its ability, it may well see play in Standard, Pioneer, and even Modern!
Find an Absurd Amount of High-Value Cards
Brightglass Gearhulk is a decent creature on-curve, but its ETB ability is why this creature absolutely excels. It might not seem like much at first, but tutoring any two one-mana artifacts, creatures, or enchantments into your hand is incredibly versatile. No matter what you need at a given moment, Brightglass Gearhulk should be able to find you exactly that.
If you’re running an aggressive deck, for instance, Brightglass Gearhulk can find you two creatures to cast on your next turn. Alternatively, an enchantment-focused deck can easily find the equipment needed to overwhelm an opponent. While the mana cost Brightglass Gearhulk can tutor is somewhat restrictive, there is no end of great targets to tutor up.
While keeping the pressure up is often a solid game plan, Brightglass Gearhulk offers significantly more versatility. This is especially true post-sideboard, where Brightglass Gearhulk can, hopefully, find the hate pieces you need. If you need to shut down graveyard shenanigans, Ghost Vaccum or Tormod’s Crypt are easily acquired. Similarly, Brightglass Gearhunk can tutor creature removal like Dusk Rose Reliquary or Portable Hole into your hand.
To put it lightly, there is no end to the incredibly useful cards that Brightglass Gearhulk can find as soon as it enters. This is even more true in Commander, where there are even more utility cards and mana rocks to grab. Having a reliable way to tutor up not just one, but two cards like Sol Ring, Mana Vault, or Mox Opal into your hand is insane, even on turn four.
No matter what you’re going on, in any format, Brightglass Gearhulk is a serious value engine that’s not to be taken lightly. The card can already do work on its own, but if you start to flicker it, you could theoretically tutor up most of your deck.
Creating a New Archetype
I’m going to make a bold claim: Brightglass Gearhulk is going to create a new deck in Standard. Likely an aggressive-slanted midrange creature-based deck (more midrange-y than Mono Red) that uses Brightglass Gearhulk as a value toolbox option.
Brightglass Gearhulk is essentially three cards for one. You get to impact the board with a relevant body with First Strike no less, and you get to find two one-drops that can fill any number of roles. These can be silver bullet sideboard cards to gain an edge over specific matchups, one-drop creatures to flood the board with, or even massive threats. You can have access to five copies of Ghost Vacuum in your main deck, and it will only cost one slot.
Interestingly, both Goldvein Hydra and Jadelight Spelunker are legal targets for Brightglass Gearhulk in the Standard format. This means that Gearhulk is also capable of grabbing gigantic threats that you can play on curve. Considering that Llanowar Elves is Standard legal, it is very possible to play a turn three Brightglass Gearhulk, tutor up these two cards, and play them on-curve for your future turns. Just one artifact creature equates to three turns of action. This also gives your deck a lot of game in mulligan situations where you could normally lose a midrange mirror. You might lack cards on paper, but Brightglass Gearhulk is essentially three spells in one.
If you need to play into faster decks, Brightglass Gearhulk can find smaller creatures to gum up the board, but it can also find removal like Dusk Rose Reliquary to stem the bleeding. You don’t even need to take a turn-off to do this since the Gearhulk directly impacts the board.
While the card isn’t quite as good as Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, there are some similarities. Fable is essentially a two-for-one that fixes your hand. Brightglass Gearhulk is a mana-restrictive three-for-one that does the same thing. Fable is definitely the stronger card, but the correlations are there.
Brightglass Gearhulk in Pioneer
This level of versatility could even impact formats beyond Standard. In a wide format like Pioneer, having access to a gigantic list of silver bullet options can give a midrange deck game against every archetype. Yorion, Sky Nomad has the potential to put Brightglass Gearhulk on a pedestal. You have an 80-card deck to tutor from, and Yorion can flicker Brightglass Gearhulk to find even more value. This could easily fit in a Niv-to-Light deck in the Pioneer format, as Niv-Mizzet, Reborn can even hit it in the top ten cards.
While the card could have Modern potential in a four-color control strategy, this seems like a bit of a stretch. Brightglass Gearhulk is definitely strong enough to potentially see play in the format, but four mana may be too slow.
A Cute Commander Trick
The first thing I thought of when looking at this card was if there was a tutor target that could flicker the Gearhulk. Interestingly, there is an artifact that Brightglass Gearhulk can find that flickers it: Voyager Staff.
For three total mana, you can flicker your Gearhulk and continue to tutor more one-drops. Of course, Voyager Staff could, and should, have synergies with other cards in your deck, as well. It isn’t a game-breaking idea, but it is a fun tool to consider for your Commander deck.
Sadly, Voyager Staff is only legal in Modern, Legacy, Vintage, and Commander. This value-combo is likely too slow for Modern, but there are additional synergies with this card and Evoke elementals like Solitude. While it’s unlikely to be competitive, it could be a fun experiment.
As an added bonus, Voyager Staff can be tutored up with Urza’s Saga.
Massive Potential
Brightglass Gearhulk can successfully tutor your way out of a ton of different scenarios and is a decent body on its own. The restrictive mana value makes the Gearhulk more of a build-around than a utility card, but the reward for doing so is worthwhile. I would expect to see this card all over Standard and Commander. The only real question is if the mana value hurts the card too much.
