This weekend, the massive Regional Championship in the United States had all eyes on the Modern format. Most notably, an incredible win rate for Grinding Breach has raised concern about the format’s health.
However, this weekend also gave us our first glimpse at Aetherdrift in a Standard setting. Multiple large Standard events took place this weekend, including a massive tournament in Japan with 477 players. While Aetherdrift didn’t seem to make an enormous impact right out of the gates, one player managed to get second place with a neat Gruul deck built to maximize a handful of new cards.
This archetype takes elements from traditional Gruul Delirium and adds a sweet exhaust package into the mix. This elite performance deserves to be highlighted, so let’s dive in and see exactly what the deck is trying to accomplish.
New Build-Arounds
- Mana Value: 2G
- Rarity: Rare
- Stats: 4/2
- Card Type: Creature- Goblin Artificer
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Card Text: Exhaust- 2GG: Put two +1/+1 counters on this creature. (Activate each exhaust ability only once.) Whenever you activate an exhaust ability, return this card from your graveyard to the battlefield.
At a baseline, this deck is looking to beat the opponent down with burly, efficient attackers. The most expensive creature in the deck costs three mana, so the goal is to get on board quickly and get the opponent dead.
However, what sets this deck apart from the more popular Gruul Prowess strategy is that here, there’s a graveyard theme that helps give the deck more longevity. Not only does fueling the graveyard make creatures like Patchwork Beastie real threats, but it helps enable a very powerful new Aetherdrift rare in the form of Afterburner Expert.
Afterburner Expert is a very interesting card. On the surface, paying three mana for a 4/2 with minor upside thanks to its Exhaust ability doesn’t sound all that appealing. However, what if I told you that you didn’t need to pay any mana to get this card into play, and that you could recur it somewhat consistently? Well, thanks to Draconautics Engineer and a boatload of ways to get Afterburner Expert into the graveyard, we aren’t joking.
Draconautics Engineer is quite a strong two-drop. If the opponent can’t kill it right away, you can presumably make a 4/4 Dragon later in the game. In many games, though, you won’t actually want to deploy Draconautics Engineer turn two. Instead, you want to take advantage of the card’s synergy with Afterburner Expert.
Draconautics Engineer conveniently has two separate exhaust abilities, one of which has a low cost of one mana. So, once you get a couple copies of Afterburner Expert into your graveyard, you can immediately cast Draconautics Engineer, pay one mana to use its first exhaust ability, and resurrect your Afterburner Experts all at once. Now, your opponent is staring down a huge battlefield.
This puts the opponent in a bind. If they kill your Afterburner Experts, you can activate the second exhaust ability of Draconautics Engineer and bring them right back. On the flip side, if they kill your Draconautics Engineer, your Afterburner Experts threaten to end the game in no time. This synergy is quite strong, especially when you factor in all the ways you have to churn through your library.
Maximizing a Great Synergy
- Mana Value: 1G
- Rarity: Uncommon
- Card Type: Enchantment
- MTG Sets: Aetherdrift
- Card Text: Whenever one or more artifact and/or creature cards leave your graveyard, you gain 1 life. When this enchantment enters, mill four cards. You may put an artifact, creature, or land card from among the milled cards into your hand. (To mill four cards, put the top four cards of your library into your graveyard.)
In order to fully abuse Afterburner Expert while continuing to put pressure on the opponent, this deck utilizes two creature-based discard outlets in the form of Fear of Missing Out and Inti, Seneschal of the Sun. Both cards are aggressively slanted while simultaneously helping you enable Afterburner Expert and Patchwork Beastie.
Beyond simply being able to discard copies of Afterburner Expert you draw naturally, this deck also features ways to mill over the potent creature. Seed of Hope is a nice cheap tool in that department, but the real prize is Dredger’s Insight.
Dredger’s Insight does everything this deck wants. It fuels your graveyard. It digs for Draconautics Engineer. Plus, anytime your Afterburner Experts get returned to play from your graveyard, you gain life. This is very valuable given how popular red aggro decks are in Standard at the moment.
A Great Finish
- Mana Value: R
- Rarity: Common
- Card Type: Instant
- MTG Sets: Wilds of Eldraine
- Card Text: Bargain (You may sacrifice an artifact, enchantment, or token as you cast this spell.) Torch the Tower deals 2 damage to target creature or planeswalker. If this spell was bargained, instead it deals 3 damage to that permanent and you scry 1. If a permanent dealt damage by Torch the Tower would die this turn, exile it instead.
Overall, it’s nice to see new cards making a big impact right out of the gates. Making it to the finals of such a big event is no easy feat, and it’s clear there’s some appeal to playing this deck in the current metagame.
First of all, this deck presents a fast enough clock to give ramp strategies like Domain the fits. On top of that, though, the presence of Afterburner Expert makes it much easier to beat the various black midrange decks of the format. Afterburner Expert conveniently dodges Cut Down and Go for the Throat is only a temporary answer.
If this deck becomes more popular moving forward and you’re looking for a good way to gun for the matchup, cheap removal that exiles should be at a premium. Torch the Tower and Anoint with Affliction do the trick just fine.
You can also try to use graveyard interaction like Ghost Vacuum to your advantage by getting rid of copies of Afterburner Expert before they can come back to play. Graveyard hate also interacts favorably versus Patchwork Beastie, since it can’t attack unless you have Delirium.
The danger there, though, is that graveyard hate does nothing to stop this deck’s onslaught of pressure. Casting Afterburner Expert for three mana is always an option. Being able to beat down and grind through removal or hate is one of this deck’s biggest strengths, and we’re excited to see how it continues to perform as the format evolves.
