Metagame: The Best Cards from Aetherdrift

With the previews of Tarkir: Dragonstorm knocking on our door, we are officially saying goodbye to the Aetherdrift season. The interplanar racing expansion and - hopefully - the last remnants of Magic's aesthetic crisis brought several cards to competitive formats, some that had a lot of potential but didn't see much play, while others, which few paid attention to during the previews, became staples in multiple formats.

In this article, we present a retrospective of Aetherdrift to evaluate which were the most important cards of the set for the main competitive formats of Magic, such as Verge Lands for Standard or Ketramose, the New Dawn for Modern.

Verge Lands

Like most dual-rare land cycles, the enemy-colored Verge Lands were Aetherdrift's biggest contribution to Standard.

As with Duskmourn, they became staples of two-color archetypes and enabled previously nonexistent decks, such as the Golgari Obliterator played by Javier Dominguez at Pro Tour Aetherdrift, where Wastewood Verge allowed Golgari Midrange to consistently access without giving up efficient green spells.

Still in Golgari colors, Zevin Faust's Self-Mill list was another that took advantage of Wastewood Verge, while recent results have shown Izzet Prowess with Riverpyre Verge as a potential new contender in the Metagame, and while three-color lists still rely heavily on the Pain Lands + Fast Lands combination, the rotation will remove a good portion of that cycle, making it likely that the next Standard season will initially be defined by Surveil Lands + Verges.

Stock Up

From Divination with benefits to a multi-format staple. Stock Up was the big sleeper of the set and found a home in practically every competitive Metagame.

In Standard, the card brought Azorius Control variants back to the map and made it a viable archetype like it hadn't been since the start of the season, and it also found a home in decks like Domain Overlords, where it technically sealed Matt Nass' Pro Tour victory by finding the Negate that would protect him from potential interactions.

Today, other archetypes are looking to leverage the card as an attrition tool. Several Esper Bounce lists, for example, have opted to run two copies of Stock Up in the maindeck, replacing other spells.

There's no doubt that Stock Up will remain a staple in Standard for the next few months until another expansion offers more efficient card selection, and given its potential to make its way into Legacy, there's a long way to go before that happens.

Ride’s End

Ride’s End was simultaneously the card that boosted Domain Overlords due to its interaction with Up the Beanstalk and one of the interactions that put Azorius Control back on the radar due to the advantage of exiling creatures, which has been essential in a format with cards like Heartfire Hero, Unstoppable Slasher and Mosswood Dreadknight.

Momentum Breaker & Grim Bauble

Despite similar effects like Tithing Blade, Momentum Breaker was an upgrade card for Bounce decks due to two other important lines of text: the first is forcing the opponent to discard a card if they have no creatures in play, and the first is allowing to sacrifice it to gain life.

Both of these made it a “complete package” in that it works against both go-wide and Control games, while exceeding expectations against Midrange.

Grim Bauble didn’t have the same relevance in the maindeck, but it became a common card in the Sideboards of Bounce lists to deal with smaller Aggro decks, being a Dead Weight we can replay with Fear of Isolation or This Town Ain’t Big Enough.

Spell Pierce

One of the most important interactions of all time, Spell Pierce was absent in Foundations, but it didn't take long for it to return to Standard and become one of the core interactions in the Sideboard against cheap spells in decks that try to use their mana very proactively, or in longer games where the opponents' mana is greedy and/or where victory may be a Sunfall away.

Spell Pierce is one of those cards that, like Duress, commonly works as a safety valve against problematic combos - it is one of the best interactions against Abuelo's Awakening today - and, therefore, should always be in Standard, even outside a core set.

Brightglass Gearhulk

Selesnya Cage is not popular in the current Standard Metagame due to its difficulty interacting with decks like Omniscience or Domain Overlords, but one of the most important additions of Aetherdrift was the cycle of two-color Gearhulks, and among them, the one that best demonstrated competitive results was Brightglass Gearhulk.

Combined with Nurturing Pixie and Pawpatch Formation, it is possible to set up Collector’s Cage just by casting a Gearhulk, and the possibility of reusing it with Nurturing Pixie or even Parting Gust opens up space for a comprehensive toolbox in the archetype, with cards like Basilisk Collar and Dusk Rose Reliquary, making it one of the most flexible cards in the format today and with a lot of potential for growth in the future.

Momentum Breaker & Grim Bauble

Momentum Breaker and Grim Bauble were a bit more important in Pioneer than in Standard because they added better pieces to the format's Bounce decks that run Yorion, Sky Nomad, and since Companion requires 80 cards, having more value in your cheap permanents is a great way to keep the early game stable until Narset, Parter of Veils finds the tools to take over the game.

Valor’s Flagship

Valor’s Flagship is a very specific one-of and has become a permanent card in Mardu Greasefang lists, which uses its Cycling ability with Greasefang, Okiba Boss to pressure the opponent’s life while generating value in longer games, where it is possible to discard the card with extra mana to create tokens on the board.

In addition, Valor’s Flagship when crewed is a 7/7 with Lifelink. The rise of Aggro decks in the format in various versions (Rakdos Prowess, Atarka Gruul, more recently Mono Red Lynx) makes the possibility of not losing in the next turn often more important than being able to win the next turn, so having this outlet that doesn't need an enabler to work has made the new vehicle a staple for Greasefang.

Ketramose, the New Dawn

Since it was revealed in the preview season, Ketramose, the New Dawn has been given the title of best card in Aetherdrift, and the main reason was the amount of interactions the new god had with several spells and abilities from the eternal formats, especially Modern, where an archetype running Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd and Overlord of the Balemurk was already standing out in competitive tournaments.

The release of Ketramose catapulted Orzhov Blink as one of the four best archetypes in Modern due to the god's interaction with the various blink effects and the ability to exile cards every turn with Relic of Progenitus to draw more cards, and put it in a position to be one of the natural predators of Grinding Breach, the current best deck in the format and the protagonist of most ban discussions today.

Marauding Mako

Marauding Mako had a clear home in Modern since day one of the expansion: Hollow One, and it delivered the expected results.

Among the various variants of this archetype that exist today, which was boosted by the unban of Faithless Looting, Mono Red Hollow One became the most efficient version due to the added consistency that Marauding Mako offered in pressuring the opponent from the first turn while constantly risking cheating on mana values ​​and putting Hollow One and Vengevine on the board for free, making it an excellent Aggro for Modern in 2025, a position that it should retain in the format throughout the year.

Stock Up

Stock Up took a while to establish itself in Modern, but it has been gaining more space every week: its first results were in Through the Breach lists, and some Underworld Breach lists started adopting the card after its first results in Legacy.

Today, we can find some variants of Amulet Titan testing Stock Up, but its main home remains Grinding Breach, where it should remain until possible interventions on March 31st.

Stock Up

The first results of Stock Up that put the card in the spotlight in other formats happened in Legacy. In the first week of Aetherdrift, Show and Tell lists appeared in the Top 8 of Challenges, with a complete set of the card in the list. After all, for archetypes that only need to find two pieces to win the game and/or prepare a specific setup, the new spell was almost as good as Dig Through Time, banned from Modern and Legacy for making access to combos too easy.

In the following weeks, Stock Up continued to expand in Legacy: versions of Mono Blue Painter appeared with a set of the card and became the most consistent version of the combo in the current Metagame, in another day, there were lists of Delver of Secrets with two copies in the maindeck, but this has not yet become a trend.

The fact is that Stock Up has power levels to change and impact Legacy and even Vintage, where it is possible that there will be a restriction of the card in the future due to the same ease of card selection that it offers to other formats, but in an environment full of powerful one-ofs.

Ketramose, the New Dawn

Orzhov & Taxes was one of the first archetypes to include Ketramose, the New Dawn in Legacy, where it could use cards like Flickerwisp and Skyclave Apparition to extract value from the god, while Aether Vial ensured that it would bypass Counterspells. The deck would also be able to include Lion Sash in the Stoneforge Mystic package to create more interaction.

However, it took a few weeks for Modern's Orzhov Blink to be ported to Legacy with an improved mana base, making the famous archetype potentially the most efficient version of Aether Vial lists today, replacing the traditional Death & Taxes versions with a version largely focused on the potential of its permanents' ETB effects.

Pactdoll Terror

Pactdoll Terror was the only Aetherdrift card to make a difference in Pauper. Its inclusion made Altar Tron decks to forgo other win conditions in favor of a card that synergistically interacts with the Ashnod’s Altar and Myr Retriever combo while also extracting value from Deadly Dispute and Fanatical Offering, making the archetype adopt an almost Mono-Black core, with a slight splash of for Crop Rotation and Weather the Storm.

It also established its own version of Mono-Black Midrange focused on the same interaction between artifacts and cards that put artifacts into play while drawing cards, which even led to the winning list of Paupergeddon 2025, a Golgari Gardens with three copies of Pactdoll Terror to drain the opponent's life total.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thanks for reading!