Aetherdrafting

Aetherdrift is officially here! I finally have my first drafts under my belt, and I've been pleasantly surprised by the format.

My initial reaction was that it would likely be too fast, punishing, and, as far as flavor is concerned, boring. Combat slugfests lead to a monotone design where cards don't work together and synergies never truly come together.

Make no mistake, Aetherdrift comes across as a fast, tempo-oriented format, but there's still a heavy incentive to focus on the "thing" you're doing. You still want your cards to help each other, and you still need to follow strong fundamentals.

Vehicles require you to play combat exceptionally well. You need to know when to block and when to press your advantage. Often, the best play is to trade off your vehicle as soon as possible to unlock the creature that you need to crew it.

Interaction is important, especially cheap interaction. Cards like Bounce Off and Road Rage are premium because one-mana interaction can be used to break up your opponent's fast starts or press your tempo advantage on the play. They're important and versatile cards.

Vehicles, much like equipment or auras, can be stranded without ways to utilize them. For this purpose, it's important to contextualize the board and how the game is likely to play out. If your opponent is short on creatures and overloaded with vehicles, killing that random 2/2 isn't just killing a 2/2, it's likely shutting down a larger creature because the opponent has vehicles left outside of combat on each turn.

It feels like there's a lot of value to be gained in the games more so than in drafts. The signpost uncommons, especially the gold uncommons, are potent within their archetypes. Picking up a late gold uncommon is a strong indication that the archetype is open and it's almost always worth jumping in if you can manage. I don't recall being this impressed with so many uncommons so early.

Haunt the Network, Emabalmed Ascendant, and Veteran Beastrider are all examples of cards that vastly outperform a normal signpost gold card.

The set is new, so I've only drafted one day. Here are a couple of my first decks.

This Dimir Affinity deck was my first deck. I was skeptical of the finished product, but I got a trophy in my first draft. Haunt the Network hard-carried in combination with lots of early damage from Diversion Units. Cheap fliers have more value in this set than usual because of the max speed mechanics.

This was my best deck but not my best record. I only managed a 4-3 record with this masterpiece. One of my losses was when I disconnected in the middle of turn 2 before I could play my land and came back to the opponent with three lands and two creatures in play, so I just scooped.

Loot is strong, and I'd take it over any non-rare p1p1. There's some merit to taking other single-color rares over it, but in general, just slam Loot.

I like this archetype as long as red remains underdrafted, which is what it feels like at the moment, though it's early. I heard rumblings of red being a weak color, but it seems fine and potentially very good.

The biggest thing I learned from drafting this archetype is that you want strong top-end to close out with your early game, but both are important.

This is another Izzet with a splash deck that was almost as good as the last and performed even better. Transmit Mage is alongside some strong tutor targets in Cryptcaller Chariot and Possession Engine. The Engine was my best card outside of maybe Thopter Fabricator, but Cryptcaller never got to impact games. I only drew it deep into games with an empty hand. It seems like it would be strong to play on curve, but it does have that issue.

Bounce Off was impressive in this deck, as I had a lot of ways to pick up extra cards, and the tempo play was more valuable when I could recover the lost cards while having the ability to overpower the opponent later.

Izzet was open today, and I brought the boom with the Boommobile on multiple occasions, but overall the deck was not great. This deck lacked ways to pick up extra cards and needed to draw a nice mix of lands and spells while also curving out nicely.

I won about half my games with this deck. In almost every game, I was struggling to stay alive and trying to find ways to chip in my last few points of damage with a Magmakin Artillerist or a top-decked Lightning Strike.

I didn't learn much from this draft, seeing that it was the third time I drafted Izzet on my first day of drafting. However, I did learn not to forget that my Adrenaline Jockey is a symmetrical ability while casting a Road Rage on my opponent's turn at four life.

I'll blast more Aetherdrafts for the next few weeks. As a Limited-focused player, I'll be sure to clue you in on the tips and tricks I pick up along the way. So far I'm enjoying the format far more than I thought I would, which is a relief because I thought I was going to struggle to fire up the queue with this format.