The preview season for Aetherdrift has finally come to an end. The set, which focuses on an interplanar race between Amonkhet, Avishkar, and Muraganda, brought back characters like Chandra Nalaar. The set reuses mechanics like Vehicles, but also experiments with some abilities that haven't been released in a Standard Edition in over 20 years, like Affinity.
For Timeless, Aetherdrift is a chaotic mix: many of the cards in the expansion don't match the power level of Magic Arena's eternal format, but the addition of Chrome Mox will change the entire Metagame, while other cards, like Repurposing Bay and Ketramose, the New Dawn, have utilities that could earn them a spot in ranked matches.
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The Best Aetherdrift Cards for Timeless
10 - Grim Bauble

Grim Bauble doesn't seem like a card players would run in Timeless today, and that says a lot about the set's usefulness in the format.
Its inclusion on this list is mainly due to two factors: First, it handles Guide of Souls, Ajani, Nacatl Pariah, and several other creatures while being an artifact that sits on the board and counts towards Affinity - and many players try to make Affinity work in Timeless. Second, it's another piece that can enable Delirium for some decks, and it's also reusable with Lurrus of the Dream-Den, which may prompt some players to try a copy of it in some lists.
9 - Radiant Lotus

Radiant Lotus makes an “Eggs” viable in Timeless along with a dozen artifacts that can be sacrificed to generate value and/or with relevant ETBs and spells like Brilliant Restoration to bring everything back after generating an absurd amount of mana with this artifact - the win condition would probably involve Aetherflux Reservoir.
The problem is that this type of combo is slow when compared to any other combo in the format, since we have to create a board before playing the Lotus (so Show and Tell does not help to cheat its mana value) and its cost, along with pertinent deckbuilding concessions that make it impossible to use many non-artifact cards, makes it too steep to play.
8 - Skyseer’s Chariot

Skyseer’s Chariot is another hate piece against activated abilities in Timeless, although it is not a definitive answer - which should reduce its space in the format quite a bit. Still, it is a 3/3 for two mana with evasion and a relevant ability, in addition to avoiding traditional removals if you don’t crew it.
7 - Galvanic Blast

Galvanic Blast shouldn’t have much impact in Timeless since we don’t have Great Furnace to feed red in Affinity, but I believe that the path for the archetype will now involve making a mix between artifacts and cards that interact with artifacts to extract value from Chrome Mox - and in this case, Galvanic Blast is a good payoff.
6 - Repurposing Bay

Repurposing Bay is the artifact equivalent of Birthing Pod. You can sequence card after card until you reach the desired mana value, but its appeal lies in the ability to use creatures like Thought Monitor or Frogmyr Enforcer to pull Sundering Titan and then use Sundering Titan to pull Portal to Phyrexia.
It's not the kind of strategy that will become a Tier 1, but it has long-term potential and will certainly show up in ranked matches.
5 - Brightglass Gearhulk

Ranger of Eos had a moderate presence in Historic for a while and occasionally appears in some decklists due to its ease of finding cards like Guide of Souls and Ocelot Pride, but it never did enough to justify its cost.
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Brightglass Gearhulk is a Ranger of Eos with improvements that include finding artifacts and enchantments as well, expanding the toolbox allowed by the card by inserting pieces like Pithing Needle, Portable Hole, Deafening Silence, among others relevant to deal with certain archetypes.
Its cost is too high for the format, but the inclusion of Chrome Mox could make the entire Timeless reevaluate mana costs in the Metagame, and in that case, four-drops like this Gearhulk could be worth trying out.
4 - Demonic Junker & Memory Guardian

Demonic Junker and Memory Guardian are on the list together because they have the same function: to have more Affinity cards that are artifacts to compose an archetype that is already in the colors. The Junker has more immediate impact on the board, but it is not a creature on its own, so Memory Guardian may end up favored in the lists due to its lower mana value.
3 - Ketramose, the New Dawn

Ketramose, the New Dawn may be too slow for Timeless, but the number of interactions with it in the format is almost endless: Psychic Frog helps to enable it as a creature early, it generates card advantage with Ephemerate, Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd, Swords to Plowshares, Solitude and a dozen other powerful cards that could gain space in the Metagame in the coming weeks, and Chrome Mox's Imprint also counts as an exiled card to turn Ketramose into a creature.
Potential staple, but we need to evaluate how it behaves in the post-Aetherdrift Metagame.
2 - Transit Mage

Transit Mage can greatly increase the consistency of Mono Blue Belcher because it searches for Goblin Charbelcher while being a creature for Flare of Denial, not to mention that its ability can find the second most powerful artifact in the format, The One Ring.
I believe that its place in Belcher is almost certain, and despite being in only one deck, it is one of the few two cards from Aetherdrift that we can say will certainly see play in Timeless.
1 - Chrome Mox

Chrome Mox will change Timeless forever, and will possibly be the card with the greatest risk of forcing an update to the Restricted list since the format first came out because everything gets faster with it - and the archetypes that will benefit from it first will be the combos.
Timeless has been suffering from a chronic problem with combos for a few months now. Its Metagame is, in a way, centered around a mix of Aggro (Energy), Tempo (Dimir Frog) and Combo (Belcher, Show & Tell, Jet Storm), with little room for attrition decks.
This might be the inherent nature of the format and a charm that sets it apart from other Magic Arena formats. On the other hand, a faster Metagame in which there are no efficient tools to deal with combos can lead to scenarios where games become completely non-interactive and where several sideboard cards start appearing in the maindeck to give fair decks a chance to execute their game plan - another trait that can be the charm of Timeless in the same way that it was, for years, of Vintage to the point where Gorilla Shaman was once a maindeck staple in the format.
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The fact is that Timeless will not be the same after Chrome Mox, and players will need to evaluate other ways to use one of Magic's most powerful artifacts in their lists efficiently, especially in non-combo archetypes.
Conclusion
That's all for today!
If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!
Thanks for reading!
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