Magic: The Gathering‘s most recent release is a unique set called Aetherdrift, which is all about racing across multiple planes for the ultimate prize – the Aetherpark, an artifact capable of giving anyone a Planeswalker Spark. The set is Magic: The Gathering‘s approach to death races in a trading card game, successfully abiding by the tenets regarding aesthetics, themes, in-game mechanics, and more. While the concept of death race in a TCG may seem hard to translate in terms of the actual gameplay loop, MTG uses two new mechanics to convey Aetherdrift’s topics – Start your engines! and Exhaust.
Initially led by Wizards of the Coast’s own Mark Rosewater, Aetherdrift was then handed off for set design to Yoni Skolnik, Game Designer at WotC and Lead Designer on Aetherdrift. In an interview with Game Rant, Skolnik explained the challenges and gratifications of creating cards like Aetherdrift’s headliner card, The Aetherspark, as well as vehicles, a card archetype that hasn’t enjoyed a lot of success among fans over the years. Among them is a vehicle card that many longtime fans will likely recognize the original inspiration of – Hulldrifter, a spin on the iconic Mulldrifter card.
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How Aetherdrift’s Lead Designer Used Old Cards as Inspiration For Vehicles
It’s not rare for Magic: The Gathering cards to inspire future ones, be it in terms of mechanics, name, Creature types, and so on. In the case of Mulldrifter, this is a classic card that has been around since 2007’s Lorwyn set, the first of its block, and one of the most beloved planes in MTG to date. Mulldrifter is a 5 CMC 2/2 Blue Creature that allows its owner to draw two cards when it enters the battlefield, and it saw play thanks to its Evoke mechanic, which allowed players to pay 3 CMC instead, but sacrifice Mulldrifter when it entered.
As Skolnik stated, Mulldrifter was used as the main source of inspiration for a new Aetherdrift card in Magic: The Gathering – a vehicle. Given that vehicles haven’t enjoyed a lot of popularity since their introduction, Skolnik explained that it was a tough balancing act to find ways to make them more interesting and worth playing than just the Crew mechanic. As such, Aetherdrift’s Hulldrifter was created with Mulldrifter in mind to give it a powerful ETB (enter the battlefield) effect alongside a stronger body than its inspiration’s 2/2.
Unlike Mulldrifter, Hulldrifter doesn’t have access to Evoke, but it’s still a powerful vehicle given its draw effect combined with 3 power instead of two, which Skolnik said was meant to be a way for this card to “end games.” This makes sense considering that Hulldrifter doesn’t have the luxury of a 3 CMC alternative, and it always costs 3 mana of any color and 2 Blue, so making it a 3/2 that draws two and Crews for 3 is a good way to make it stand out. The drawing effect does make Hulldrifter a more interesting vehicle from the get-go, and it’s a good way to pay homage to the original Mulldrifter.
According to Skolnik, this process helps increase the potential of vehicles across the board, as they can be effectively used in a variety of decks rather than those focused on Crewing, and that’s why Skolnik believes Hulldrifter is a good example of the design process for this card type in Aetherdrift. Whether vehicles will find their place beyond their current niche in Standard remains to be seen, but Aetherdrift is a great attempt at making them the best they can be and test their limits. Considering that Magic: The Gathering‘s Aetherdrift set is the expansion with the highest number of vehicles ever, it makes sense to give some of them effects based on their color identity.
Magic: The Gathering
- Original Release Date
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August 5, 1993
- Designer
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Richard Garfield
- Player Count
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2+
- Age Recommendation
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13+