Bulk Aetherdrift Cards You Don't Want To Pass By: Multi-Color/Colorless - Bulk Up!

Aetherdrift's fast & furious release has zoomed by already, so it's understandable if some of the new cards have all blurred together. Whether you've been buying packs, or losing horribly in pre-release like I did... You probably have a lot of hidden gems stacked up in your bulk, and you just don't know it yet!

I'm Tyler 'Savesya' Bucks, and today I'm going to go over the multi-colored and colorless commons & uncommons from Aetherdrift that you should put in your decks! If you finish up this list and want more great budget finds, you can check out my article from last week where I covered the mono-colored bulk of the set right here!

Skyserpent Seeker

Kicking off our list with Skyserpent Seeker

, a two-mana flying Snake with deathtouch. On top of that, it also has an exhaust ability for four mana (which is a new ability I covered last week!) When you activate it, the Skyserpent gets a +1/+1 counter, and you get to ramp out the top two lands from your library.

I am becoming such a big fan of this kind of ramp, for two reasons: first, you can get nonbasics from your library, and second, you don't have to shuffle your deck! I know that four mana to use its exhaust ability seems like it's going be slow, but you do have a very good blocker to defend yourself while you wait for the right time. Also, remember that you can activate that ramp at instant speed, so you can get those lands when the time is right!

If you picked up the precon built around Omo, Queen of Vesuva

, Skyserpent Seeker

might be a good inclusion. Omo loves specialty lands, so having something that assists you with getting those onto the battlefield, all while guarding your life total, seems great! It also fits your mana curve very well, allowing you to cast the Skyserpent on turn two, your commander on turn three, and then activating that exhaust ability on four.

Voyage Home

Our next card is a whopping seven mana to cast, but with the help of the returning mechanic affinity, it could cost much less. Voyage Home

draws you three cards and gains you three life, and could cost as little as two mana in the right deck. Even if you don't fully reduce its mana cost, drawing that many cards for around four mana puts it on rate with staples like Harmonize

and Ambition's Cost

Obviously, this spell works best in artifact decks, especially when paired with anything that makes a lot of tokens. If your deck has a card like Academy Manufactor

in it, that's most likely a good signal that Voyage Home

will work well with your strategy. Even if your deck has a critical mass of mana rocks, you might also get a good reduction on this spell, all while drawing new cards to cast with all those signets!

A deck that is truly stocked up with artifacts is Urtet, Remnant of Memnarch

. Not only is your commander an artifact, but it also creates more artifacts anytime you cast a Myr creature. That just means that you could sneeze and reduce the cost of Voyage Home

greatly! Drawing three and gaining three for only two mana sounds pretty nice to me.

Veteran Beastrider

Since Aetherdrift is filled with Mounts and Vehicles, a card like Veteran Beastrider

feels necessary to support those strategies. This is a Human Knight for three mana that untaps each creature you control on your end step, plus it has the ability to pay four mana and give all your creatures +1/+1 until end of turn. It's nice having that little buff for your creatures, but that uptapping effect is really the star of the show.

Drumbellower

is a staple in a lot of decks for the ability to untap all your creatures, and even though Veteran Beastrider

doesn't untap creatures on each other player's turns, one untap might be enough. The freedom to attack freely and have your creatures sit back to block is incredibly strong in aggro decks. Not to mention if you're running Vehicles and Mounts, you'll need any help you can get to untap those Pilots!

Miriam, Herd Whisperer

is a commander that cares about both Vehicles and Mounts, so the Beastrider will fit right in! The protection that Miriam gives your board is great, pairing that with a creature that untaps your team just means that you'll be secure whether it's your opponent's turn or your own. Looking at your curve again, you're able to get both of these down as early as turn three, and then it's off to the races from there!

Broodheart Engine

is an artifact for two mana, that lets you surveil 1 on your upkeep. Now that doesn't seem like a big effect, but it has a second ability that allows you to recur a creature or Vehicle from your graveyard to the battlefield for four mana. What I love about this card is it feeds its own engine, all while sculpting your draws at the start of each turn.

Many decks need to run more ways to get things out of their bin, not just graveyard-centric decks. If you have a lot of creatures as the base of your deck, you most likely have a few that become the target of your opponent's removal. Even though the recursion ability is a little telegraphed, that could possibly be a deterrent for people to get rid of your threats, since they know you can just get it right back.

Going a little old school with this deck suggestion: I would throw Broodheart Engine

in a Glissa, the Traitor deck. She cares about artifacts as well as graveyards, and so does this new card! The Broodheart allowing you to surveil the right cards into your bin as the game goes on, means that you can recur a huge threat with its second ability, or allow Glissa to bring back something you threw away earlier in the game.

Amonkhet Raceway

Look out, because coming down the track is Amonkhet Raceway! (Wait... how can a raceway come down the track... Eh, moving on...) This is a land that comes in untapped, taps for colorless, and has Start your engines! Once you hit max speed, you can tap it to give target creature haste until end of turn. If you watched the latest installment of Game Knights, you know just how powerful this land can be.

The ability to give haste to only one creature might not seem game breaking, however if you're not in red, that effect can be rare to come by. In a mono-color or even two-color deck that consistently deploys big creatures, adding a colorless land to the deck shouldn't hurt its mana fixing too much. Also, in the right strategy, hitting max speed isn't too hard, so you could throw that haste out for one big explosive turn.

Imagine adding this land to a Ghalta, Primal Hunger deck. Mono-green usually likes to get a lot of bodies on the board, so while the game goes on, you can be building up your speed with combat damage. Once you have max speed, it's time to get your 12/12 commander on the field and give it haste! In some cases, you could be doing that far before anyone is ready to deal with this dino.

Ticket Tortoise

This final inclusion is more of a question I want to pose to you, the reader: How good is Ticket Tortoise? For two mana, you get a 3/1 artifact Turtle that creates you a Treasure token when it enters if an opponent controls more lands than you. We've seen a lot of creatures that do a similar effect, like Knight of the White Orchid. In that case, you get to ramp a land onto the battlefield, which is definitely better.

Even though just getting one Treasure isn't the greatest, it does get around one of the drawbacks of normal catch-up ramp. Say you wanted to blink a creature like Loyal Warhound; eventually you would be at parity with your opponents in terms of your land count. Ticket Tortoise, on the other hand, would still make you that Treasure (if you have fewer lands of course). So, what do you think, is this still good enough to include in the colors that have a hard time ramping?

Phelia, Exuberant Shepherd would pair nicely with Ticket Tortoise. This pup blinks something whenever it attacks, which means you would be triggering that Treasure creation over and over again. White is also the color of catch-up ramp, so there's a good chance that you will naturally have less lands than the rest of the table. So, tell me your thoughts, will you be including this in your decks?

The Wrap Up!

Well, there it is, some of the best multi-colored and colorless bulk cards from Aetherdrift. I'll be honest, I was taken off guard by this set, I really didn't think that this many new cards would resonate with me. That's just a testament to the beauty of Magic: even if you don't love the setting, or the themes, there's still something special hidden in each set.