10 Aetherdrift Cards to Keep an Eye on Post-Rotation

Standard rotation is coming. Starting with the prerelease of Edge of Eternities, sets from Dominaria United to March of the Machines: Aftermath leave the format, and with them, a range of preexisting options and staples that have solidified in recent years: Temporary Lockdown, Cut Down, Atraxa, Grand Unifier, Monastery Swiftspear, Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, Pain Lands, and half of the Fast Lands are just a few examples.

With this blank space and the clear Metagame shifts it brings, it's natural that some previously irrelevant cards may gain more space in Standard, whether due to their individual power level, interaction with a specific mechanic, or simply because their deck becomes more viable without certain cards.

In this series of articles, we've listed cards from each set remaining in Standard that deserve a second look for the next season, and today we're covering cards from Aetherdrift.

Skyseer's Chariot

The Station ability is already quite costly, mostly due to the high number of creatures we need to tap to put counters on the permanent, but some spacecrafts from Edge of Eternities could make this cost worthwhile or even define an archetype for some reason.

If one of them eventually becomes a staple, Skyseer's Chariot becomes a great maindeck tool to hold off spacecrafts while also working against other permanents like Planeswalkers.

Repurposing Bay

On the other side of the spectrum, we've seen cards like Chainsaw or Boommobile see play in lists because they interact with mana value growth lines while also providing something extra on the board. Repurposing Bay provides additional functionality for Spacecrafts that have an ETB or LTB effect without being creatures, or to serve as fodder for Legion Extruder and Rust Harvester.

Mindspring Merfolk

Like any card that interacts with one of the common creature types in Lorwyn, Mindspring Merfolk has long-term potential if the return to one of Magic's most iconic planes brings enough kindred interactions to make them solid decks, as they were in the Time Spiral-Lorwyn era.

With the high popularity of Agatha's Soul Cauldron, I could imagine a Merfolk list also using Vivi Ornitier to make all creatures with +1/+1 counters generate mana. And if Mindspring is also exiled with the artifact, we can use each of them to draw more cards and increase the power of our creatures, creating a snowball effect.

Gas Guzzler

Gas Guzzler is a decent one-drop that initiates the Start Your Engines mechanic from the first turn. It has an aggressive body and, if it reaches max speed, becomes a constant source of card advantage when interacting with Zahur, Glory's Past and Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER.

Sacrifice lists already exist, but Black-Based Aggro options utilizing this mechanic with Cecil, Dark Knight, Dark Confidant, and other cheap creatures are also worth looking at. In this case, Guzzler is an excellent early-game threat for both lists and variants.

Intimidation Tactics

Intimidation Tactics saw some play last season and could find maindeck slots if we see plenty of creatures and artifacts in the same Metagame, which the mix of Edge of Eternities with the value creatures from the latest sets tends to promote.

It could also be a good option during the first few weeks when Yuna, Hope of Spira decks are expected to have more relevance, as it exiles any creature from the opponent's hand, preventing them from reanimating the Overlords with Yuna.

Draconautics Engineer & Afterburner Expert

The combination of Draconautics Engineer and Afterburner Expert hasn't had much competitive relevance this season due to widespread graveyard hate due to Abhorrent Oculus and Omniscience. While Oculus lists are expected to remain in Standard and there are still new Yuna, Hope of Spira lists that also partially rely on the graveyard, these two aggressive drops have potential since they interact so well with each other and benefit from Agatha's Soul Cauldron.

Additionally, both creatures are Goblins, one of the most prominent creature types in Lorwyn, and may receive support and more synergy with other creatures of the same type in January 2026.

Thunderous Velocipede

The recent Frenzied Baloth combined with the other high-power, low-cost creatures available in green rekindles the possibility of a Mono Green Aggro or even new versions of Gruul or Golgari Aggro in the new season. The +1/+1 counter theme seems very present in Edge of Eternities, making Thunderous Velocipede a potential enabler for the archetype and an easy-to-crew support piece with the various two-mana, three-power cards in Standard.

Gastal Thrillseeker

Gastal Thrillseeker has two new possibilities with the rotation: the first is for Lizards to become the new Mice, but with a plan more oriented toward direct damage with Burn spells—which is better for board interaction—and low-cost creatures. In this case, it's another powerful two-drop to complement Viashino Pyromancer and Gev, Scaled Scorch, which will be accompanied by Laughing Jasper Flint or Thought-Stalker Warlock.

The other possibility is for it to be another Start Your Engines enabler in Standard in a list that mixes it with Gas Guzzler and other aggressive creatures in a Rakdos list, where the ETB provides extra speed, while a 2/3 with Deathtouch and Haste is decent enough in most stages of a matchup.

Monument to Endurance

Scrapwork Mutt, Guardian of New Benalia, and Phyrexian Dragon Engine will be missed, but there are many tools that can enable Monument to Endurance in the new Standard, and as evidenced by the Greasefang, Okiba Boss lists in Pioneer that have started running the artifact, there are many ways to take advantage of it without necessarily making it the main focus of the list.

Between Winternight Stories in the Izzet Cauldron and high-quality creatures like Tersa Lightshatter, Fear of Missing Out, and Joshua, Phoenix's Dominant, we could see Monument to Endurance become an alternative win condition or even a value tool for something the deck it's in already does. The range of possibilities for a colorless card whose interactions span almost the entire Magic color pie is too broad to not consider it a potential format-defining card next season.

That's all for today!

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

Thanks for reading!