Mu Yanling | Global Series Jiang Yanggu & Mu Yanling | Art by Lin Xuantai
24, Jan, 25

The Last Desparked Aetherdrift Planeswalker Is a Character Nobody Saw Coming

Guess Garruk will have to wait...

In Mark Rosewater’s now-traditional teaser article for Aetherdrift, it was revealed that a total of four desparked planeswalkers would be making an appearance in the set. As you’d expect, speculation on the identities of these characters was rife. Many suspected Garruk, based on some early artwork that seemed to show him. Basically no one predicted that one of the desparked planeswalkers in MTG Aetherdrift would be Mu Yanling, however.

If your reaction to the above was “Who on earth is that?” then you’re not alone. We’ve only seen Mu Yanling on three cards before, and the last was printed six years ago. She’s a fairly obscure character, which makes her a very interesting pick for this set. Her past appearances have also been very underwhelming power-wise, so this new take has a lot of work to do to make up for that.

Mu Yanling Is Back In MTG Aetherdrift?!

Mu Yanling, Wind Rider MTG Aetherdrift
  • Mana Value: 2UU
  • Rarity: Mythic Rare
  • Type: Legendary Creature – Human Wizard Pilot
  • Stats: 2/4
  • Card Text: When this creature enters, create a 3/2 colorless Vehicle artifact token with crew 1.
    Vehicles you control have flying.
    Whenever one or more creatures you control with flying deal combat damage to a player, draw a card.

Mu Yanling, Wind Rider, or “New Yanling,” as I’m sure at least some will end up calling it, is an Aetherdrift MTG card with a lot of text on it. For four mana you not only get a 2/4 body, but a 3/2 Vehicle token too. These are the same motorbike-style tokens that Chandra, Spark Hunter creates, which is an interesting flavor mix.

Mu Yanling grants all of your Vehicles Flying too, which means this underwhelming token will actually be swinging for three in the air the turn after you drop her. You can even use Mu herself to crew the Vehicle if you really want to. There’s a good chance you will since her final ability draws you a card for connecting with Flying creatures. This has a pesky “one or more” clause that stops it from being quite as good as Enduring Curiosity. Given how powerful that card is, however, this might be a good thing.

There’s enough synergy between Mu Yanling’s abilities to make it a pretty solid standalone card. That said, it’s clearly intended as a support piece in a larger Vehicle deck. In such a deck, Mu will grant your Vehicles crucial evasion, while also providing bodies that can crew them. Don’t forget, you can use Mu to crew the 3/2 on the turn she comes down, then use that to crew something else. By chaining crews like this you can get some truly beefy Vehicles off the ground, like Thunderous Velocipede or Earthrumbler.

It is worth noting that Mu Yanling’s last ability doesn’t care whether the creature that deals damage is a Vehicle or not. This makes it a nice piece of generic Flying support if you don’t care for Vehicles.

Potential Playability

Standard Synergies

So that’s the new Mu Yanling from MTG Aetherdrift. Where do I expect it to see play? To be honest, I think prospects are fairly slim here. The card seems far too slow for the likes of Pioneer or Modern, which really limits our pool of options to Standard and Commander.

In Standard, by far the most likely home for Mu Yanling is in Dimir Midrange. This is a deck that already runs a bunch of early fliers, such as Spyglass Siren and Deep-Cavern Bat. These will let you draw cards once Mu Yanling hits, or they can crew your 3/2 Vehicle to essentially ‘buff’ their offensive power. While it’s obviously not as good as Enduring Curiosity, it does provide some nice redundancy for the draw effect. I could see a mix of both being played in the deck post-Aetherdrift.

Beyond Dimir Midrange, there aren’t really any established Standard decks where I can see Mu Yanling slotting in. It could well make a name for itself in a new Vehicle-focused brew, however. The Last Ride in particular seems like a brilliant card to pair with Mu Yanling in some kind of aggressive Dimir Vehicles deck. Get your life low enough and you can easily be swinging for big damage in the air with this one, for just a one mana initial investment. I think staying low to the ground will be important for a list like this, so Vehicles like Subterranean Schooner and Unidentified Hovership will be good picks.

In Commander, I can see Mu Yanling being used as a fair Mono-Blue Vehicles Commander, or slotting into the 99 of a more generic artifact deck. Making an artifact on entry is solid, and the potential for card draw gives it value throughout the game.

A Surprising Choice

Mu Yanling MTG Aetherdrift History

Playability aside, the fact that Mu Yanling is coming back in MTG Aetherdrift at all is a bit of a twist. The r/MagicTCG thread discussing the card is full of bemused players who had no idea she would be the final desparked ‘walker in the set. Treant7 put it quite succinctly: “I would have guessed every dead planeswalker in the history of this game before Mu Yanling.”

This reaction makes a lot of sense. Mu Yanling is hardly the most prolific character in MTG history, after all. Her initial appearance came in Global Series: Jiang Yanggu & Mu Yanling. This was a set of two planeswalker decks designed specifically for the Chinese market, released in 2018. It’s unusual for a card to be available exclusively in a product like this, but to this day this is the only way to get the original Mu Yanling. Fortunately, she’s a pretty underwhelming mono-blue planeswalker, so the scarcity isn’t much of an issue.

Mu Yanling would return a year later, as Mu Yanling, Sky Dancer in Magic 2020. She actually got two versions here, the other being Mu Yanling, Celestial Wind, the face card of a planeswalker deck. Sky Dancer was significantly better due to its low cost, but neither version saw any real play, in Standard or otherwise.

So Mu Yanling is a character with few printings and no real competitive impact to speak of. It’s understandable that most players were surprised by her appearance in Aetherdrift, then. While her new version doesn’t look amazing, I think it has a better chance of seeing play than her previous planeswalker incarnations. Sometimes a spark is a disadvantage, it seems.

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