New and Exciting Aetherdrift Cards Lost to MTG Arena’s Latest Alchemy Set

Last updated on March 4, 2025

Wish Good Luck | Illustration by Raymond Swanland

The latest Alchemy set has been fully spoiled, releasing on MTG Arena today in fact. We won't be covering the entire set proper, but instead want to focus on cards that could as well have been printed in paper! That's right, not every “digital only” card feels all that digital, and many of these are cards that would've been neat to open in paper. But before delving into the strange cards present in Alchemy: Aetherdrift, one must first ask the question…

Does Anyone Actually Care about Alchemy?

This is the elephant in the room question whenever Alchemy comes up! If you've ever checked X/YouTube comments for Alchemy spoilers, it never takes long before you encounter someone heckling the very format itself. Despite this, WotC continues to churn out mini set after mini set of Alchemy cards, and is likely making at least some profit from doing so as well. Their last official populations were as follows:

Alchemy isn't exactly a top format, but even ~13% play is a massive haul when you consider how negative online word of mouth usually is! This was from over a year ago though, so it's possible numbers could be down a bit. Many players often end up playing Alchemy only when forced to via competitive events, which usually comes in the form of Historic (which has Alchemy cards) rather than Alchemy proper.

Reminder: Alchemy Isn't Standard

One important thing to remember about Alchemy is that it uses a faster rotation model than current Standard. Alchemy players have already said goodbye to Dominaria United, The Brothers' War, Phyrexia: All Will Be One, and March of the Machine. So if you do end up trying any of these cards, the games should have a different character to them for several reasons.

Alchemy: Aetherdrift Cards That Could've Made Paper

As stated above, the focus for this article is Alchemy cards that could have easily been printed in person. And Deviant Skytech could 100% have been printed in paper, and likely wasn't due to archetype concerns rather than power level. Blue just wasn't supposed to have powerful speed payoffs like this, for the most part. There is absolutely nothing here that could not have appeared in paper Magic, so blue speedsters should be disappointed!

Bail Out is an interesting protection spell of sorts that is also scalable, and a pretty devastating response to a Day of Judgment. It's also another card that could have easily be printed in paper, as nothing about this says digital only at all! These kind of effects usually don't see too much Standard play, but Bail Out likely would've seen at least a little had it been printed in paper, and almost certainly would've been a Commander hit.

Here's a personal favorite of the set, and the biggest loss for a paper Magic player! Subgame cards like this are just fun, as you'll find yourself asking lots of questions whenever it's cast:

“Should you just choose the best creature? But what if your opponent expects you to? Is it possible for you to save your best thing by outwitting them? But what if they know this? But…”

The same goes for your opponent too, as it's not entirely obvious how they should choose either! Note that while this kind of card is definitely easier to execute digitally, there's nothing in the design that would be impossible in paper. You'd just need to write down the choice privately, then have the players exchange that. In fact, Speedbrood Stalker is suspiciously close to Negan, the Cold-Blooded, which is in fact a paper Magic card.

This design space could also encroach paper one day, though it's unfortunately possible to forget who the starting player was! As for the card itself, Unforgiving Overtake being a sorcery is kind of a bummer, as this is just Fell rate even when you get the discount. The 2 life damage is a nice bonus, but can't quite make this better than your average Go for the Throat. One thing you could always try is maxing out on “weren't the starting player” effects like this, and choosing to draw in general!

Goblin Crash Pilot can deal a lot of damage in a hurry with Vehicles, and particularly shines with something already disposable like Gastal Thrillroller. Vehicles have been rather disappointing in Standard so far, so it would have been nice to have more cards like this in the main set. And once again, nothing about this is digital only either!

The Moose isn't loose, as there's nothing loose about a 3/3 for with such strong upside! This is a shoe-in for Mounts.dek in Alchemy, and also has the raw rate to see play in all kinds of other creature decks.

Of course, this is approaching traditional Alchemy territory, where the card doesn't work in paper, but easily could have with one small tweak. You'd just need to change “seek” to the templating Skyserpent Seeker uses. It's a shame that's not the case, as Mounts.dek is another archetype that feels cool but ultimately underpowered relative to this strong Standard.

If you can keep the creatures flowing, this is absurdly large equipment that isn't too expensive to play/equip. Ideally you'll have lots of trample and lifelink to justify your time spent growing and moving this around. All it takes is a handful of guys to make this comically large, so expect good things from this one. This one could've worked in paper if intensity were swapped out for “beast counters” or some way to track the Amulet's size that was more localized. We've seen this change before with the comparison to paper's Minthara, Merciless Soul to Alchemy's Minthara, the Absolute.

This is yet another card that could've made the original Aetherdrift set, and would've given artifact decks a much desired boost. Manlands that turn on at the start of combat are unusual, but hardly too difficult for paper players to understand. The manland is also a minor draw to the card; it's mostly just artifact Wastes!

Sala, Deck Boss is cool exhaust support card that falls outside of the two dominant color pairs for the mechanic (GR/GU). Nothing about this card couldn't have been done in paper, but UR was too busy discarding to support something like this. Even if this was printed though, it'd likely just be eating Nowhere to Runs unfortunately! And as a commander it'd miss out on pivotal green exhaust support like Boom Scholar and Elvish Refueler.

Start your engines! hasn't really seen any Standard play, so it'll be up to Tsagan, Raider Warlord and other SYE! cards can get there in Alchemy. This is quite the payoff for maxing out on top of an already acceptable base rate, and also acts as a “lord” of sorts for first/double strike. The design isn't the most intuitive were it a paper card, but it still could have been printed here given the lack of digital-only touches.

The final card is a decent little value generator that shows off Chandra and Nissa's budding relationship. This is also yet another card that is mechanically appropriate for paper, but outside its color pair's identity in the set. Food + Treasure + a Vehicle is a weird little trio, but don't forget that all three are artifacts, making this very impressive with artifact matters cards. There's not much of that in RG proper though, so Wish Good Luck seems powerful but difficult to use.

Alchemy: Aetherdrift drops on Arena today with a 30-card expansion to the main set, draftable in its own Alchemy queues separate from Traditional/Premier drafts. There are plenty of digital-only mechanics smattered across the set, but it's just strange to see so many designs that could've worked in paper not grace the hands of Magic players. Oh well, guess it's time to boot up the old proxy printer!