Magic: The Gathering Sets The Stage For Aetherdrift's Ghirapur Grand Prix, Unveils New Cards And Mechanics In Dev Stream

Aetherdrift is the first non-remastered set of the year for Magic The Gathering, and with it comes new cards, new story developments, and brand-new mechanics. But what’s the general gist of this set? Why are people even racing across the multiverse? And what’s the ultimate prize here? We’ve got all the answers, a spotlight on some fun new cards, an explanation of how the new mechanics work, and a brief overview of the story of the set.



A Brief Overview Of Aetherdrift

 

Aetherdrift is all about a multi-day and multi-plane race between a series of new characters and a series of classic characters from across the Magic The Gathering multiverse, all in an attempt to win a prize known as The Aetherspark: a prize that can help the winner travel across the universe and one that contains an artificial Planeswalker spark. 

 

The reason for holding the race, however, is much more political than it might first seem. The plane of Avishkar (formerly known as Kaladesh) is holding the race to show the rest of the multiverse how strong it is when it comes to traversing the multiverse, and essentially using it as a warning that they are not to be messed with, which is important since the governing body of Avishkar changed after a revolution (which happened off-screen just after the Phyrexian War, and also resulted in the name change from Kaladesh to Avishkar in-universe), and is now governed by people for the people.

 

 

This also isn’t the only plane featured in the set, however. Amonkeht is returning and is helping to host the race as part of an effort to help the plane rise from the ashes of conquest now that they’re free from Nicol Bolas and a concentrated effort to rebuild and repopulate this once flourishing plane.

 

The final plane, Muraganda, is an interesting one. Unlike the other two planes, which have been the focus of their own sets, this has only cropped up a few times and has never really been explored. It’s described as a primordial plane, one where both Magic and life itself are young and new to the world. Since it’s so primordial, however, it’s not actually in the race: instead, it’s being used as a stage of the race, one that can provide terrifying threats to the racers in the form of native flora and fauna. 



New Mechanics In Aetherdrift

 

As with all major Magic The Gathering sets, Aetherdrift brings with it several new mechanics and cool card interactions. We’re going to break them all down for you and explain how you’ll be racing your opponent to victory.

 

 

  • Start Your Engines: Start Your Engines is an interesting new mechanic. It introduces something called ‘Speed’ to Magic The Gathering, in which you gain one ‘Speed’ once on each of your turns, whenever an opponent loses life. Your speed starts at 1 whenever a card with Start Your Engines enters the battlefield, and when you hit Max Speed (which is 4), cards gain new abilities. A really interesting thing to note, however, is that you don’t lose the ability to gain speed if the card with Start Your Engines leaves the battlefield. Instead, you can keep amping everything up. 

 

  • Exhaust: Exhaust abilities always (at least from what we’ve seen so far) include an X cost alongside a regular mana cost. These do a variety of things, ranging from adding +1/+1 counters to a card to dealing damage to any target. The important thing to note, however, is that you can only activate each Exhaust ability on a card once while that card is on the battlefield, which means you have to be extremely strategic about when you use it. 

 

 

The Most Exciting Cards Revealed For Aetherdrift So Far

 

The Aetherspark

 

The Aetherspark is the grand prize of the entire race and is also the very first non-Mystery Booster Artifact Planeswalker. It’s equipment that can use its +1 ability to attach itself to any creature that you control, while also putting a +1/+1 counter on that creature. While it’s attached to a creature, it can’t be attacked (meaning it’s harder to make it lose loyalty counters) and it gains loyalty counters equal to the combat damage that the creature it’s attached to does during your turn.

 

The -5 ability draws you two cards, which is a very useful ability that you can hit really quite quickly considering the starting loyalty of the card is 4. The Ult for the card costs ten loyalty, and adds ten mana of any one color to your mana pool, meaning that you can cast massive spells without needing a whole lot of ramp.

 

Winter, Cursed Rider

 

Want more protection for your artifacts? [card]Winter, Cursed Rider[card] is the perfect card for you. It gives all artifacts that you control ‘Ward- Pay 2 life’, and also has an Exhaust ability that allows you to exile X artifact cards from your graveyard, and each other non-artifact creature on the battlefield gets -X/-X until the end of the turn where X is the number of cards exiled from your graveyard, meaning pure Artifact decks can get a wild amount of value out of this simple two-drop.

 

 

Muraganda Raceway

Muraganda Raceway features the new Start Your Engines mechanic and is a land that taps for one colorless mana. At a glance, this doesn’t seem too great, but once you hit that max speed it instead taps for two mana. This card will likely be a stand-out due to the fact you can hit Max Speed within four turns, and as a late-game land drop, it can have an immense amount of value if you’ve already amped up your speed.

 

Chandra, Spark Hunter

 

Chandra, Spark Hunter depicts beloved Planeswalker Chandra attempting to win the race so that she can get the Aetherspark and hopefully respark her girlfriend, Nissa, who lost her spark during the Phyrexian Invasion of the multiverse.

 

In terms of the card itself, however, this is going to be a staple in decks that are all about vehicles. At the beginning of combat on your turn, it makes a vehicle you control an artifact creature and gives it haste, meaning you can attack with vehicles that would normally take a while to crew. 

 

The +2 for the card allows you to either sacrifice an artifact or discard a card and if you do, you get to draw a card. The 0 ability, however, is great for token swarm decks, as it makes a 3/2 colorless Vehicle artifact token with crew 1 (which as you may have already noted, can then be given haste with the first ability of the card). 

 

The Ult for the card, which costs seven loyalty, makes it so that whenever an artifact enters the battlefield under your control, it deals three damage to any target. This can do a couple of things: it can essentially Lightning Bolt your opponent, which could win you the game in a pitch, or it can kill a creature that’s been giving you a lot of trouble.

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