Aetherdrift Cards Are Red Hot!
Red has a great cross-section of all the cool things going on in Aetherdrift: start your engines!, the one-shot exhaust abilities, Vehicle and artifact synergies, and even Shark Pirates! I'm going to take a look at all the mythics and rares from the set, along with the uncommons and commons that caught my attention, all with an eye towards Commander. Ready to ride? Let's go!
Mythics
Planeswalkers often have a hard time in Commander for several reasons. First, people often have concerns about planeswalkers getting out of hand if left alone, and when you multiply that by three opponents in a typical Commander pod, that's three players who can all take action against it before you get a chance to use it again. Second, planeswalkers are particularly vulnerable to attacking creatures, especially ones with evasion.
I think Chandra, Spark Hunter hits a sweet spot for planeswalkers in Commander: it's really not too threatening, and its ultimate ability, while scary in a duel situation, is much less so in a multiplayer format where everyone starts at 40 life, not to mention it takes work to achieve.
A Vehicle-heavy deck is going to have challenges defending itself against counterattacks, since it typically takes one of your potential blockers tapping to crew a Vehicle before you can attack with it. Chandra's ability that triggers at the beginning of combat alleviates some of that by effectively "crewing" the Vehicle without needing to tap a potential blocker, letting you get the benefit of attacking with a Vehicle without sacrificing defense. This in turn helps protect Chandra from attackers.
Chandra's +2 loyalty ability is a good way to dig a little deeper into your deck, with the cost of discarding an actual benefit in some decks that care about getting cards into the graveyard, and the cost of sacrificing an artifact often negligible when you can easily have extra artifact tokens lying around: Treasures, Food, Blood, etc. Chandra's +0 loyalty ability makes just such an artifact token, in this case specifically a little 3/2 Vehicle with crew 1 that can feed into Vehicle or artifact synergies.
If your Vehicle Commander deck plays a fair number of creatures, particularly fliers that can defend Chandra, give the card a try!
Like prior Amonkhet Gods that are powerful, indestructible creatures but need some game requirement before it can attack or block, Hazoret, Godseeker is a whopping 5/3 with indestructible and haste for just two mana! Hazoret can't attack or block unless you have max speed, but it also has the mechanic start your engines! to get the speed party started. Its activated ability is a nice way to ensure you can get a small creature in unblocked to ramp up your speed, and its size is big enough to crew just about any Vehicle or saddle any Mount.
Unlike the original Hazoret, I really like Hazoret, Godseeker for Commander, especially aggressive decks!
Rares
Boommobile seems like a decent card for decks that have a lot of activated abilities. Its enters trigger provides enough mana to sink into its exhaust ability to deal one damage to any target and then put a +1/+1 counter on it. Even though it kind of pays for itself with the restricted mana it gives when it enters, I probably wouldn't run this in a dedicated Vehicle deck since a 5/5 or 6/6 with no evasion isn't all that hot in Commander.
Goblins are often known for amusing names, and Burnout Bashtronaut is right in the mix. This seems like an aggressive duel deck creature, so outside of a deck built for max speed, I'm not sure it's going to see much play in Commander.
Three colored mana makes Count on Luck difficult to play outside of mono-red decks, and you've got to wait until your upkeep before you get the added value of access to an extra card each turn. Barely playable in really narrow, niche strategies such as "exile matters" or mono-red devotion.
There are a ton of Goblins that do a lot of cool things with artifacts -- Goblin Engineer, Goblin Welder, and Slobad, Iron Goblin for instance -- and I could see Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer fronting a Goblin kindred deck with strong artifact synergies. Or you could just lean heavy on the artifact synergies regardless of what creature types you put in the deck and run artifacts with affinity for artifacts like Mycosynth Golem to maximize Daretti's power and make commander damage a real consideration.
It's a bit of a head-scratcher why Draconautics Engineer is an Artificer since none of its abilities refer to artifacts?
Both of its exhaust abilities are decent for a game of Commander, so if you're playing red and have ways to either blink it or bring it back from the graveyard and make use of its exhaust abilities, it might earn a spot at your two mana slot.
All sorts of commanders that love attacking are going to absolutely love Full Throttle. I'm thinking Etali, Primal Storm, Drakuseth, Maw of Flames, Klauth, Unrivaled Ancient, and (shudder) Narset, Enlightened Master. Of course the big question the printing of this card asks is, "when are we going to see a card that gives us three additional combat phases?" I'm sure Mark Rosewater and Gavin Verhey can't wait to get asked that question in the coming months!
No one... thrills like Gastal, no one rolls like Gastal...
With a name like Gastal Thrillroller, this could be an honorary Goblin, but it's obviously a Vehicle call back to the old school card Ball Lightning, with a way to come back from the graveyard for one -- final -- attack. A 4/2 with trample and haste for three mana isn't really going to cut it in Commander outside of some really narrow applications where you want it as a discard outlet if you can get it to die or in the graveyard by some other means.
In a format that is overflowing with incredibly powerful Goblins, Howlsquad Heavy stands near the top of the list of cards you want in your Goblin kindred deck. It's a Goblin Warchief mixed with a bit of Goblin Rabblemaster, which would be awesome by itself, but it gets you racing with start your engines!, and once you get to max speed it can function as a Priest of Titania for Goblins -- wow! Just, wow! Goblin fans will want to snag a copy of this as soon as they can to juice up their Goblin decks.
Aetherdrift Commander has just one mono-red card in the two precon decks, and Territorial Aetherkite is here to support energy decks. As a 6/5 flier with haste for six mana, it's par for the course in Dragon kindred decks, but this is also a Cat so if you've got a Cat deck and access to red, having a large Cat with flying can be very, very useful even if you don't have energy synergies.
Uncommons & Commons
I love Vehicles that have built-in ways to become an artifact creature outside of crewing, so I'd definitely put Spire Mechcycle on a list of cards to strongly consider for Vehicle decks. Bonus points if you're playing something like Teleportation Circle or Displacer Kitten in your deck that can reset it and letting you use its exhaust ability again and again.
Push the Limit immediately goes into any Vehicle or Mount deck, and since it's a red card you have access to cards like Faithless Looting and Boosted Sloop to fill your graveyard with cards you want to bring back. I might consider playing Sundial of the Infinite alongside this card so you can put the sacrifice trigger on the stack and then just end the turn and get to keep all the cards you got back.
Outpace Oblivion has a bunch going on for just three mana. It has start your engines! if your deck cares about that, and when it enters you get to deal five damage to up to one target creature or planeswalker, which could help clear the way for an attacker to push through damage and ramp your speed up to two. You can sacrifice it to deal damage to each player that doesn't have max speed, which is relatively small potatoes in Commander, but if you're playing a deck built around Torbran, Thane of Red Fell or Ojer Axonil, Deepest Might that damage can add up!
I love the cycle of vanilla legends in Aetherdrift, like Tyrox, Saurid Tyrant, because some players might not be interested in finely crafting a deck where much of the 99 is perfectly tuned to synergize with all of the abilities of their commander. If you just want to play a pile of your favorite red cards that just do red card things, Tyrox is perfectly happy to lead your deck from the command zone!
Road Rage reminds me a bit of Skred both cards can't go directly to an opponent's life total, but as cheap and efficient creature removal that scales up as the game progresses, this can fill an important role in some red decks that don't otherwise have many cards that can just kill a creature dead regardless of its size.
I'm a big fan of flexible utility cards in Commander, and Skycrash fits the bill. There are a ton of powerful artifacts in the format that need an immediate answer and you'll be happy to have Skycrash when that happens, but if the battlefield is devoid of meaningful artifacts outside of a few Signets or Talismans, you'll be happy to cycle this away for a fresh card. Bonus points if you have a way to take advantage of drawing an extra card, too, like Gavi, Nest Warden.
If your deck likes Bitter Reunion it'll likely also like Kickoff Celebrations, though you'll want to have ways to push through damage so you can achieve max speed and can sacrifice it.
I feel that Commander combo lovers and cEDH connoisseurs will be all over Magmakin Artillerist as a win condition for their discard-and-draw engines. For just three mana it's got a lot going for it-- 1/4 is a decent size that can dodge a lot of common early game sweepers in red (Brotherhood's End), it's got two relevant creature types as an Elemental Pirate, and if you're not set up to combo out, you can always just cycle it away and get it back with something like Underworld Breach when you're ready to go off and win the game.
Overall, I'd probably give a grade of B- for the red cards of Aetherdrift for Commander play. A lot of the cards are very narrow and take some work to pay off, but where they work well they're going to be fun to play. Which red cards are you most excited about putting in your Commander decks? Are there any other uncommons or commons you'd have on this list to consider for Commander?
