Aetherdrift is right around the corner, and I know I'm excited to get my hands on the new cards. I know the wildcard grind on Arena can be hard, though, so I want to focus on some commons and uncommons that I think will work well in Standard and give you an opportunity to enjoy some of that new set feeling without breaking your wildcard bank.
Nesting Bot
Start your engines! It is a mechanic that requires you to establish it early, so any deck that wants it will want lands or one-drops with the ability. Nesting Bot gives you that while also having a death trigger that nets you a fresh creature. It's very similar to Crawling Chorus or Infestation Sage, which are both perfectly good turn one plays, but it can also be hit by Gleeful Demolition. This uncommon checks a ton of boxes for a very low price.
Tune Up
Refurbish is a perfectly playable card when it's being supported with discard outlets and huge artifact bombs like Portal to Phyrexia or Cityscape Leveler. Tune Up gives you that exact same baseline with the added benefit of any vehicle becoming a creature permanently if it's brought back with this card. While older formats will let you bring back Parhelion II with this, Standard will be getting Valor's Flagship that puts itself into the graveyard while being a powerhouse alongside this card.
Bounce Off
Unsummon is a perfectly playable effect right now and is likely only being sidelined because we have This Town Ain't Big Enough in Standard at the moment. Bounce Off is a strict upgrade over Unsummon as it lets you target your own creature or your opponent's and now it can hit vehicles as well. This Town probably isn't getting replaced with this any time soon, but this could be a worthwhile option at common if you need to buy a turn or reset vehicular enter triggers.
Roadside Blowout
Repulse is a reasonable card in any control deck. Being able to bounce a permanent without going down on cards is a useful tool, so much so that even Into the Roil saw some play when it was legal a few years ago. Roadside Blowout can be just that for three mana, or it can target aggressive one drops for only one mana. In matchups against Gruul or Azorius, being able to bounce a Heartfire Hero, Monastery Swiftspear, or Optimistic Scavenger after they've targeted it with a combat trick or aura could represent, appropriately, a huge blowout in both tempo and cards.
This might just be sideboard tech, or come and go based on meta shifts, but I think this card will be a factor in Standard for a long time to come. Keep an eye on this card.
Grim Bauble
Bobbleheads are cool. While I think that's enough analysis to justify this card, we can also talk about how well it lines up in the current Esper Pixie shell. Disfigure or Stab are fine removal options that currently don't see play because Cut Down refuses to leave the format, and Grim Bauble gives us that at sorcery speed, but it also leaves material on the field. With a Nurturing Pixie and three mana, this can even trigger twice in a turn to pick off a four-toughness creature fairly easily. Grim Bauble basically asks the question, “What if Hopeless Nightmare was a removal spell?” and I think the answer is, “It'd be good.”
Kickoff Celebrations
This fall, Brothers' War is going to be rotating out of Standard and taking Bitter Reunion with it. Bitter Reunion is the unsung hero of countless reanimator piles and its loss would certainly be missed if it weren't for Kickoff Celebrations. While the haste does require you to have max speed, which is far from a given if the deck isn't being otherwise aggressive, the option being there is nice. Primarily, though, this card lets you fill your graveyard without losing card advantage while putting an enchantment online you can use for recursion or bargain.
Dredger’s Insight
Cards like Seed of Hope and Cache Grab are valuable tools in Insidious Roots or Squirming Emergence, but they themselves aren't permanents. This is important for descent and because green recursion nowadays like Elvish Regrower or Coati Scavenger can only regrow permanents. The passive ability of gaining life is a nice bonus, but I'm primarily running this as a way to fill my graveyard and make sure I hit my land drops.
Broodheart Engine
Golgari reanimation is a viable tier-2 strategy in Standard at the moment, and being able to reanimate monsters like Atraxa, Grand Unifier or Valgavoth, Terror Eater on turn four is the name of the game for those decks. Broodheart Engine does both necessary functions of filling your graveyard AND being able to reanimate on turn four. Given the current card pool in Standard, I don't think targeting vehicles will be important unless you're running Valor's Flagship or, maybe, Thundering Broodwagon.
Voyage Home
Affinity for artifacts is a wild line of text that gets people my age sweating as they remember how fast it allowed games in the original Mirrodin block to spiral out of control with Myr Enforcers and Frogmites. The original affinity card that has probably aged the best, though, is Thoughtcast, and Voyage Home is giving me huge Thoughtcast vibes. Granted, comparing the two isn't fair as Thoughtcast existed alongside Chrome Mox and artifact lands, but the effect is powerful enough to give me pause. Our current Standard doesn't have a strong artifact deck, but we're making artifact tokens at rates rarely seen before and Aetherdrift is bringing in tons of new artifacts for us to play with. Being able to draw three cards and gain three life for two mana in those decks could provide the card advantage those decks need to really go to the next level.
Don’t sleep on this card.
Conclusion
I believe Aetherdrift will shake up Standard meaningfully, and I'm hoping even Arena players on a budget will be able to get in on the action. If there are any commons or uncommons you think will see play that I didn't call out above, please sound off in the comments below!
Thanks for reading, and happy brewing!
