Aetherdrift Limited Set Review: Blue | Magic: the Gathering

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Preorder Aetherdrift at Card Kingdom: www.cardkingdom...
The full card gallery for Aetherdrift dropped earlier today, and that means it’s time for my Limited Set Review! In this video I give you my thoughts on every Blue card in the set.
What my grades mean:
I use a letter grade system, and my grades usually fall into a bell curve (Very few A’s and F’s, lots of C’s.)
A - Bombs that are always your first pick, they completely warp the game in your favor, and they easily pull you into their color(s). You always first pick these. These are cards you are ecstatic to have in your deck. Most sets have 15-20 of these. Tend to mostly be Mythics or Rares, though sometimes an Uncommon gets there.
(Sire of Seven Deaths, High Society Hunter, Chandra, Flameshaper)
B - Premium removal spells and highly efficient creatures, often worth first picking. Still strong enough to pull you into their colors, but not quite as game or draft warping as A’s are. These are cards you feel good about having in your deck, and you would play several copies of most of them. Mostly Uncommons and higher, but there are usually 10-15 commons that get there too.
(Stab, Elvish Regrower, Dragon Trainer)
C - Filler. These are cards you neither feel good or bad about having in your deck. You play them if you’re in their colors, but they don’t tempt you to go into their color at all. Usually includes reasonably efficient creatures, good combat tricks, and removal spells. These appear at all rarities, but are most frequently Common. (Soul-Shackled Zombie, Icewind Elemental, Courageous Goblin)
D - Playable in an emergency. These are cards that you don’t feel so good about playing, but in a pinch, sometimes you just have to play them. (Incinerating Blast, Quakestrider Ceratops, Vampire Soucaller)
F - Unplayable. These are cards that you should never play. There are very few of these in modern Limited formats, but they do appear at all rarities, with the most usually appearing at Rare and Common. These are cards whose effects are pretty much useless or overly narrow. (Inspiration from Beyond, Boltwave, Goblin Negotiation)
There are two categories of cards that I give two grades to: Build Arounds and Sideboard Cards.
Build Around: These are cards that need special synergy to be at their best - synergy that won’t just come naturally. For these cards, I give one grade indicating how I think the card will perform in a typical deck of that color, and another grade if you manage to get there on synergy. (Nine-Live Familiar, Rite of the Dragoncaller, Revenge of the Rats)
Sideboard Cards: These are generally cards that are Ds or Fs in your mainboard, but can perform much better out of the sideboard - at least as a C or higher. We see less of these today than we used to, since so many cards are modal.
(Crystal Barricade, Seeker’s Folly)
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I Can Feel it Coming Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com )
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creativecommons...

[@timeparadox999]

thinking "blue's not looking too good" and then mu yanling comes in with a steel chair

[@jackiespaceman]

It’s actually kind of funny how obvious they are trying to grow their Chinese player base by making the most ridiculously broken and attractive art card be Chinese

[@YourAdHere4]

@@troythewizard9940Blue was only bad in 2 sets last year (OTJ and BLB), in FDN, DSK, MH3, and MKM it was a solid-good color. had about the same track record as Black did

[@AngoDecay]

@@jackiespaceman i mean its good in limited but for constructed we already have a much stronger card in enduring curiosity

[@justmagicmostly]

Re: Midnight Mangler: "during turns other than yours" sounds like a weird way to say "as long as it's not your turn."

[@nbrisendine457]

I think Guidelight Optimizer is gonna be a bread and butter common for Dimir or Azorius. Ramping into your Vehicles and Artifacts is gonna be crucial for their archtypes

[@cax1175]

Some decent cards in the set overall. Vehicles are largely irrelevant to me, but I'll enjoy watching the streams Nizzahon uploads after the fact.

[@thebrowningfarm]

The 0/8 octopus is wreaking havoc in the picture but has no attack power?

[@andrewp6738]

performative violence

[@YourAdHere4]

maybe it’s putting the bridge back together lol

[@SpitefulAZ]

there are lots of cards with artwork that don't match the effects. 🤷‍♀️

[@ViashinoWizard]

Doran is standing just off screen

[@andyspendlove1019]

Kinda like how the Tarrasque’s art from the D&D set shows it trampling through buildings, but it doesn’t have trample.

[@captainshiner42]

I love how Spikeshell Harrier is basically the spiked blue shell from Mario Kart.

[@LocalRagamuffin]

20:48 - Didn't realize this was a Mario Kart Universes Beyond set lol.

[@christopherb501]

Really makes you wonder how many of these set pitches were _originally_ part of a licensed deal that fell thru

[@ashleypenhall7949]

In all technacality, Guildlight Optimizor will be required for almost every Affinity deck, its is essentially a Artifact land. and if you are running artifacts as main board then its literally just that but creature based so more susceptible to death.

[@chrismarlow9585]

Blue seems like it has a bunch of tools for slowing down the opponent loads. I'm very interested to see if it will be able to build decks that go for the super late-game with exhaust being the main way to win. The 4 mana 2/2 flier that reduces the power of attacking creatures seems crucial to that build.

[@harrison1735]

I'd think of Transit Mage as kind of like an Adventure card where it fills in two slots in your curve assuming you've built your deck properly.

[@RedScarGaming]

While I can certainly see your point on Caelorna, Coral Tyrant, I wonder if you will just be able to always stop your opponents biggest creature from attacking effectively and if that is enough to hand you the time you need. I will certainly look forward to seeing how this does in a draft.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Blocking one creature a turn and doing nothing else is very weak.

[@RedScarGaming]

@@NizzahonMagic I am sure you are right. I would like to test it and make that mistake at least one more time.

[@lordgreystaff6639]

Blue seems kinda weak and odd, and the set doesn’t look like my jam, but you never know, and at least it’s different. That’s a plus.

[@YourAdHere4]

blue’s interaction looks pretty sweet. The 2 mana counter is much better than usual

[@lordgreystaff6639]

@ also the bounce-draw a card looks really good, not sure about the rest.

[@YourAdHere4]

@ the 4 mana send to top will play well, they basically always do

[@quartersskates]

Caelorna seems fine if you have a late game deck, which blue usually does. It's going to brick literally any creature below 6 mana, and even more above that. It will usually require a removal spell if they want to attack through it which is pretty important, and quite literally "worth a card". Not only that, it comes down at 2 and scales up to deal with whatever their best creature on the ground is at the time. It doesn't deal with fliers and it doesn't crew stuff, neither do a lot of psuedo renoval cards. Howlers heavy looks very very good at common.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Blocking one creature a turn and doing no damage to it does not equal "bricking." It's a way weaker effect than you think.

[@chinyong8166]

Even if you are a late game blue deck, you only have a 20% chance of having this by turn 2, 22% chance at turn 3 and so forth. Let's say you draw this mid game which will be half of the time... You will be very sad you put it in your deck. You'll only be happy you add this card in 33% of the games you play, and even then you might not have won those games because all this card does is stall out 1 creature from attacking you. Plus the opponent will still benefit from attack triggers and whatever gets through... eg literally 2 1/1 tokens, will help them build speed. Weirdly I think this is more suitable for a flyers deck with average low cost aggro to help you win hp races, and even then still not a great card. In such a deck, this card would replace a land so...

[@troythewizard9940]

Supporting Nizza's channel? ✅ Plans to play Tron Legacy? ❌

[@andyspendlove1019]

Possession Engine is probably even better in a set with Exhaust since can use them up rather than your opponent

[@llongone2]

Scrounging Skyray has somewhat hilarious art.

[@fusfauxpas]

Liking the set overall, but blue looking like a splash at best

[@Pedun42]

Spell pierce might be decent in the main board if everyone wants to play vehicles; we'll see

[@MarioJPC]

I checked the cost and effects past cards like Nimble Thpterist, and it is something else... in the one of the Kaladesh previous sets there is an smaller creature that do the same for the same mana.

[@chinyong8166]

I think aether syphon would be great in a control deck or if the format turns out to be grindy. 2 mana to draw a card every turn are like tomes or even that bank robber vehicle that i can't remember the name of.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Reckoner Bankbuster is a very different animal than the Syphon, since it adds to the board. The only Tome that has been useful in recent memory is the one in DMU, and that was a very unusual set.

[@dyne313]

Wow, holy Power Creep Diviniation Batman.

[@guylortie5238]

Spikeshell Harrier is a nice callback to MarioKart

[@Tower_BRICK]

26:45 I believe Vnwxt is pronounced Vin-wixt and not Vin-uh-wix-it

[@Darkwyrm88]

I get that Transit Mage is a bad rate at 2/2 for 3, but "F" rating? It's still a body you can drop in an emergency and even if it's easy to remove, your opponent still (usually) needs to spend some resource to do so. I don't think it is F - unplayable.

[@NizzahonMagic]

Playing a vanilla three mana 2/2 is a play that decreases your chances of winning the game over a typical three mana play -- so yeah, it's an F. It doesn't have to say "You lose the game" on it to be unplayable, it just has to be worse than everything else you can do for that amount of mana.

[@Hundo_Mo]

This is an un-set, right?

[@YourSkyliner]

Man, what's up with the art on some of those cards. Transit mage looks like an elementary school art project.

[@chinyong8166]

Transit mage has one of the most amateurish artwork I've seen in a while. Looks AI generated... I mean what's even going on in the background... And the creature type is human wizard but he has horns and is playing a guitar... Even if i had a 0/1 token in play, I'd still sacrifice this guy over the token to get him off my board.

[@Kjos_jax]

It's pronounced de-version not die-version. Unless you're British :)

[@oxpolitik]

Set is looking deeply average in my opinion. I tend to not enjoy sets that are parasitic as much. The gameplay will be telling.

[@rinmathews9337]

I hope the 100 content creators enjoy drafting this set. I'm not sure who else will pay for it.

[@NizzahonMagic]

I get that the set isn't everyone's jam (it's not really mine, tbh, but flavor is pretty far down the list of what's important to me), but you're kidding yourself if you think no one is going to play it.

[@PsychoDiesel48]

Yeah. Unlike many, this set IS MY JAM!!!! I watched NASCAR with my dad for years when I was growing up. I love racing, giant robots, and racing anime such as Redline. The set mechanics look fun as hell.

[@rinmathews9337]

@@PsychoDiesel48 Good for you man! The benefit of releasing 6 sets a year is there's something for everyone. If you don't like the current set, wait 7 weeks and Tarkir spoilers will come.

[@sun72693]

That strategist is horrible. An 11 mana 5/5

[@Obscuredinsight]

I'll take an 11 mana 5/5 over a 3 drop creature that zaps half your life when it deals damage and comes back from the graveyard for free lol.

[@jackiespaceman]

Oh cool even wizards is cozying up to China

[@ab-mc2nq]

remember portal three kingdoms?

[@bsmith8166]

I hate this set. The flavor is so not at all what magic should be.

[@bsmith8166]

Trade the helm is the worst Magic art I've ever seen.