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Start Your Engines With This Magic: The Gathering Aetherdrift Exclusive Reveal

Jason Fanelli Posted:
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Earlier this week, Wizards Of The Coast dropped the green flag on the preview season for Aetherdrift, Magic: The Gathering's first main expansion set of the year. The race-themed set will feature ten teams--ranging from a legion of bugs to a Mad Max-life faction of bandits and raiders--racing across the MTG multiverse in search of The Aetherspark, a trophy holding the ability to travel between worlds. 

One of those teams, the one representing Red and White, is the Cloudspire Racing Team, who in MTG lore is defending their championship after winning the first-ever Ghirapur Grand Prix the previous year. We have an exclusive reveal of an Uncommon card from the set that features one of the team's racers in action: Meet the Cloudspire Captain!

Cloudspire captain MTG Aetherdrift

  • Cloudspire Captain (Creature - Human Pilot)
    • Costs two generic and one white mana to cast
    • 2 power/3 toughness
    • Ability 1: Mounts and Vehicles you control get +1/+1.
    • Ability 2: This creature saddles Mounts and crews Vehicles as if its power were 2 greater.

If you're unfamiliar with the Crew or Saddle abilities, here's the simple version: If you control a Vehicle card with Crew X or a Mount card with Saddle X, you can tap other creatures on your board with a total power equal to X in order to "crew" or "mount" the corresponding card. The major difference between them is that Vehicles cannot attack unless their Crew count is met, while Mounts can attack normally without a Saddle, but Saddling makes the creature better in combat. 

Cloudspire Captain here not only gives all of your Mounts and Vehicles a slight boost in power and toughness, it can single-handedly take on a Crew 4 vehicle or Saddle 4 mount with no problems whatsoever. While there aren't many Mounts that have a Saddle cost more than 2, the Captain can Crew big Vehicles like Ribskiff in Standard or Aradara Express in Modern all by itself. 

There are plenty more previews for Aetherdrift coming between now and when the set launches on February 14, so check back here and our sister site MTG Salvation for more leading up the first Standard-legal set of 2025. 


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Jason Fanelli

Jason Fanelli is a tried-and-true Philadelphian, having lived in Delaware County for his entire life. He’s a veteran of the games industry, covering it for over a decade with bylines on The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, IGN, and more. He currently hosts the Cheesesteaks and Controllers podcast on iHeartRadio for Fox Sports Radio in Philadelphia.