Weaponcraft Enthusiast | Illustration by Mike Bierek
Aetherborn have never received the same typal support as elves, goblins, or vampires, but Avishkar's short-lived denizens have still produced a handful of excellent Magic cards.
There aren't many of them though, so we're not just ranking the best. We're ranking all of them, from Draft chaff to the very best Aetherborn in MTG!
What Are Aetherborn in MTG?
Yahenni, Undying Partisan | Illustration by Lius Lasahido
In Magic's lore, Aetherborn are a species native to the Avishkar plane (called Kaladesh in its first appearance) that arose accidentally from the plane's aether-refinement process. They're quite literally born from aether, volatile energy left over during refinement takes physical form and develops consciousness.
This “out of thin aether” origin shapes everything in Aetherborn culture. Their lives are extremely short by human standards, and Aetherborn tend to live it to the fullest: They throw themselves into whatever experiences they can find, whether that's parties, art, crime, politics, or something considerably more dangerous. All in all, they’re one of the most original races in Magic, although sadly WotC have very seldomly reused them outside the original Kaladesh block.
From the point of view of MTG mechanics, Aetherborn is simply a creature subtype. There's no inherent Aetherborn ability, and the creatures don't have anything resembling the mechanical identity of elves or slivers.
Most Aetherborn are black, though cards like Contraband Kingpin and Gonti, Canny Acquisitor branch into other colors. Their individual designs often touch themes associated with black and Avishkar: artifacts, sacrificing permanents, +1/+1 counters, lifelink, deathtouch, and stealing other players' cards. But they're a collection of loosely related designs rather than a mechanically cohesive tribe.
#19. Prakhata Club Security
Prakhata Club Security is a 4-mana 3/4. That's it. Either Prakhata Club doesn't take security very seriously, or they just can't pay for anything better than barrel-bottom Draft chaff.
#18. Alley Strangler
Alley Strangler at least comes with menace, putting it just above lousy Limited filler. Unplayable anywhere else (unless winning isn’t among your deck's objectives); perhaps that's why Prakhata Club doesn't bother with better security.
#17. Ironclad Revolutionary
Ironclad Revolutionary costs 6 mana for a 4/4, although sacrificing an artifact when it enters turns it into a 6/6 and drains each opponent for 2 life. There may be some artifact-sacrifice decks that can use the synergy, but 6 mana is far too much for the payoff.
#16. Night Market Aeronaut
Night Market Aeronaut features one of Aether Revolt‘s signature mechanics, revolt, and a flying 3/3 can be a respectable threat in Draft or Sealed.
#15. Consuming Aetherborn
Consuming Aetherborn, from March of the Machine, is one of the very few Aetherborn printed outside of Kaladesh block. And like other entries thus far, it's Draft chaff at best, and unplayable in Commander unless you're going for flavor.
#14. Ambitious Aetherborn
Ambitious Aetherborn is a 5-mana 4/3 with fabricate 1, so you have a bit of flexibility here: You either get a 5/4, or an extra 1/1 token.
#13. Lawless Broker
Lawless Broker is a 3/2 that puts a +1/+1 counter on another creature when it dies. Sacrifice decks can trigger it whenever they like, but one counter isn't much reward for spending 3 mana and an entire card.
#12. Vengeful Rebel
Sacrifice decks (or any deck with Treasure tokens…) can enable revolt easily, which makes Vengeful Rebel a 3-mana 3/2 that can take out a small-ish creature when it enters.
#11. Aetherborn Marauder
Now we're getting somewhere!
Aetherborn Marauder is a 2/2 flier with lifelink that can move any number of +1/+1 counters from your other permanents onto itself when it enters, so with the right board it can be a pretty scary, evasive threat. It was playable in Standard back in its day, and it can put in some work with commanders like Olivia, Opulent Outlaw who love evasive outlaws and have ways to generate +1/+1 counters.
#10. Defiant Salvager
Defiant Salvager is a passable sacrifice outlet (that can become pretty big if it lives long enough). Unfortunately, you can only activate the ability as a sorcery. That removes many of the reactive tricks that make free sacrifice outlets so valuable.
#9. Syndicate Trafficker
Syndicate Trafficker is an efficient 3/1 for 2 mana that can get indestructible on demand until end of turn. Treasure, Clue, and Blood tokens make the cost easy to cover, although you also need to pay the .
#8. Contraband Kingpin
Two mana for a 1/4 with lifelink makes Contraband Kingpin a solid defensive creature. And in artifact-heavy decks, scrying 1 each time you put an artifact into play lets you filter through your deck pretty quickly.
Contraband Kingpin definitely isn’t spectacular by modern Commander standards, but it's efficient, useful, and substantially more accomplished than most Aetherborn.
#7. Midnight Entourage
Midnight Entourage is the one thing Aetherborn have going on as their typal payoff. On top of being a proper lord, Midnight Entourage draws you a card (and makes you lose 1 life) whenever an Aetherborn dies.
That's actually a useful package in an Aetherborn deck. Giving +1/+1 to your tribe is a pretty meaningful buff, while the death trigger helps rebuild after combat, sacrifice effects, and board wipes.
The main drawback is, well… there aren't that many Aetherborn that are good enough to make a dedicated Aetherborn deck (or even enough of them to actually make a deck without adding shapeshifters into the mix!).
#6. Weaponcraft Enthusiast
Aristocrats decks want disposable creatures, artifact decks want artifacts, token decks want multiple bodies, and sacrifice engines want all three… and Weaponcraft Enthusiast conveniently provides a creature plus two artifact creatures in one card, which makes it much more useful than its collection-bin stats imply.
That efficiency has even earned Weaponcraft Enthusiast some fringe cEDH play with Tayam, Luminous Enigma or Yawgmoth, Thran Physician in the command zone.
#5. Gifted Aetherborn
Gifted Aetherborn represents a pretty big jump in card quality. It’s both a fairly simple design, and pretty pushed for the lower-power 60-card formats: It saw top-tier competitive play while it was legal in Standard, and it remains to this day a very competitive black creature in Pioneer.
The combination of good stats, lifelink, and deathtouch makes Gifted Aetherborn unpleasant both to block and to attack into. Small creatures bounce off the 3 toughness, large creatures die to your 2-drop, and every point of damage pads your life total.
And while overall still a tad too low-power for Commander in general, it can pack a punch with the right commander. As a vampire, Gifted Aetherborn sometimes makes the cut in cEDH in Edgar Markov decks. And thanks to lifelink it often sees play in casual Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose decks.
4. Gonti, Night Minister
Gonti, Night Minister takes Gonti's trademark theft theme and makes it everybody's problem. Whenever a creature (even those your opponents control!) deals combat damage to one of your opponents, that creature's controller gets to exile the top card of the damaged player's library and cast it later. And they get a Treasure for their trouble!
Gonti doesn't just reward you for punching your foes in the face; it encourages the rest of the table to attack each other as well. Creatures pointed elsewhere suddenly come with bonus cards attached, creating a very political incentive to leave Gonti's controller alone.
And notice that you can cast the “borrowed” cards for as long as they remain in exile, even if Gonti leaves play. Killing Gonti doesn't give the card back!
There's a downside to handing everybody extra resources, of course. Sometimes your opponents will steal something horrifying and proceed to use Gonti's generosity against you… but as a theft/politics commander, Gonti, Night Minister can produce tons of value. And chaos!
#3. Gonti, Canny Acquisitor
Gonti, Canny Acquisitor is one of the rare aetherborn that isn’t mono-black, which kinda makes it the strongest aetherborn commander even if it has no direct aetherborn synergies.
For 5 mana you get a 5/5 that makes spells you cast but don't own cost 1 less. And you “borrow” one of your foe's cards whenever your creatures deal combat damage to a player. That can generate a lot of card advantage. Gonti's ability checks each player separately, so hitting multiple opponents in the same combat can steal several cards (you still get just one card per opponent, even if you hit them with several creatures).
This Gonti is overall one of the most popular Sultai commanders (), and if we were ranking aetherborn commanders Gonti would be the slam-dunk #1… but there are actually a couple of other aetherborn that see even more play overall.
#2. Gonti, Lord of Luxury
Gonti, Lord of Luxury is the original Gonti card, and it’s still one of the cleanest theft creatures Wizards has designed. It's no match for Gonti, Canny Acquisitor in the command zone, but it sees a lot more play in the 99.
When Gonti enters, you look at the top four cards of an opponent's library and exile one face down to cast later. Don’t forget the power of bluffing here: You can add a soft, evil chuckle to signal that you know something that your opponent doesn't, for extra annoyance.
A 2/3 with deathtouch also remains a useful blocker after Gonti has finished stealing something, making opponents reluctant to send large creatures your way.
#1. Yahenni, Undying Partisan
Yahenni, Undying Partisan has haste and gets a +1/+1 counter whenever a creature an opponent controls dies. That already allows Yahenni to grow quickly in multiplayer games where creatures are constantly disappearing.
But what makes Yahenni the best aetherborn is its activated ability: Sacrifice another creature, and you give Yahenni, Undying Partisan indestructible until end of turn. No mana. No tapping. No sorcery-speed restriction… a sac outlet whenever you need one.
Free sacrifice outlets are immensely useful because you get to trigger death abilities on demand, protect creatures from exile or theft effects, enable combos, and respond profitably to removal.
And as a small bonus, Yahenni is also a vampire, so it works wonders with commanders like Edgar Markov or Clavileño, First of the Blessed.
Best Aetherborn Payoffs
Besides Midnight Entourage… basically none. Sadly!
That's the main obstacle facing anyone trying to build aetherborn typal. WotC has never developed the creature type, so there isn't an aetherborn equivalent of the dozens of lords, cost reducers, token makers, and tutors available to more established creature types. In fact, some of the best aetherborn cards get typal synergy from being vampires rather than aetherborn!
Midnight Entourage is the notable exception. It buffs other aetherborn and draws cards when your aetherborn die, making it the one obvious payoff for filling a deck with other creatures of its kind.
Are There Any Aetherborn Commanders?
Yes, indeed! There are four legendary aetherborn that can currently sit in your command zone:
Unlike some other obscure creature types, aetherborn actually do pretty well here. All four are playable commanders, with Gonti, Canny Acquisitor in particular being a very popular Sultai commander. Gonti doesn't actually care whether your creatures are aetherborn, but its blue-black-green color identity gives you access to every aetherborn as of late 2026, while green and blue also provide much deeper support than a mono-black deck would have.
How Long Do Aetherborn Live?
Not very long, by human standards.
According to Wizards' official Planeswalker's Guide to Kaladesh, an aetherborn's natural life span ranges from a few months to a few years. Their bodies are constantly progressing through the reclaim stage of the Aether Cycle, gradually returning the energy that created them to the aethersphere.
That short life span is the foundation of aetherborn culture. Knowing they have very little time, many aetherborn pursue new experiences, pleasure, entertainment, and excitement as aggressively as possible. Why waste your limited time on boring stuff?
Is Yahenni Still Alive?
No. Yahenni, Undying Partisan is dead according to Magic's lore.
During the events surrounding the Aether Revolt, Yahenni was already approaching the natural end of their extremely short aetherborn lifespan. Yahenni discovered that they could extend their existence by taking life energy from others, but ultimately they chose not to preserve themself that way.
In the official story “Renewal”, Yahenni gathers their friends for a final celebration, accepts that their time has come, and eventually dissipates back into the aether. The story closes Yahenni's arc very explicitly, rather than leaving their fate ambiguous (as is very often the case with too many MTG characters to mention…).
Despite the name Yahenni, Undying Partisan, “undying” unfortunately wasn't a lifetime guarantee.
Is Gonti Still Alive?
Yes, and Gonti has managed considerably better than the average aetherborn.
An artificial heart created for Gonti continuously draws fresh aether from the atmosphere and uses it to renew their body. The Brothers' War story goes so far as to describe the practical result rather directly: Gonti has become immortal. So, barring somebody killing Gonti by means that their artificial heart can't repair, the usual aetherborn lifespan isn't much of a concern anymore.
Gonti is currently Ghirapur's Night Minister and an important political figure on the plane now called Avishkar. They’re also represented on the newest aetherborn card to date, Aetherdrift’s Gonti, Night Minister.
Wrap Up
Gonti, Night Minister | Illustration by Scott M. Fischer
Aetherborn may not have enough cards (let alone enough good cards…) to support anything resembling a fully developed typal strategy, but they do have a couple of heavy-hitters among their top tier.
In particular, Yahenni, Undying Partisan remains an excellent free sacrifice outlet years after its debut, and Gonti, Canny Acquisitor is a very popular Sultai commander. If Wizards ever gives the aetherborn a few more solid representatives and payoffs, there might eventually be enough material here for a proper typal deck.
Which of these aetherborn do you run, and in which decks and formats? What kind of aetherborn do you want to see the next time we visit Avishkar? Let me know in the comments below or over on the Draftsim Discord. And don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, The Daily Upkeep.
I hope you've enjoyed this deep dive into Magic's aetherborn creatures, and good luck out there!
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