Aetherdrift is upon us, and everyone is ready for a refresh to the current Standard format. It's not particularly bad, but it could use a bit of a shake up. Foundations beefed up some of the archetypes that were already good, and it did so to the point that it is impossible to play a few matches in the format without seeing some type of Dimir. There are so many good different artchetypes of it currently that it is difficult to decide against playing it. Aetherdrift is bringing us a ton of vehicles, and it appears that this card type will force it's way into relevancy in the format. These new vehicles are announcing themselves with a little bit of flavor, however. There is a new mechanic that is coming to MTG that is called Start Your Engines. Initially, this mechanic didn't stand out to me too much. I had to take a bit of a deep dive into how it worked, and how to get to what is called "Max Speed" before I realized that we can do some broken stuff with this. Before I did my research, I went from thinking that it would be a draft-only mechanic, to thinking this might be the most powerful mechanic in the entire set. Let's take a look at how exactly Start Your Engines works, and then we will look over some examples of cards in Standard that should allow it to be ridiculous in all of the best ways.
How Does Start Your Engines Work?
This is an interesting one, and it fits in perfectly with the flavor of the set. We will have the Start Your Engines mechanic on a few of the cards, and it's ability instantly starts when the permanent enters the battlefield. If it is the FIRST Start Your Engines card played, it will instantly give you a Speed of 1. This is something that automatically happens as the permanent enters, and it is not a trigger that can be stifled, or fizzled by removing the permanent giving the Speed. Now, what I initially thought for this mechanic was that you got more speed by playing cards that had the Start Your Engines ability, but that isn't how it works, and I'm glad it's not that way. So how do we gain speed? In order to increase our speed past 1, we will have a trigger of an increase in speed once per our turn when an opponent loses life. What is pretty fun about this is that we do not need the permanent to stay on the board in order for the speed to increase. This means that the mechanic is comparable to The Ring Temps You from LOTR.
For this new mechanic, we typically benefit from having what is called Max Speed. We are considered to have Max Speed once the Speed hits 4. Many of the cards have a payoff for this. What is nice to remember is that you could have a Max Speed of 4 and then slam a card with a Max Speed benefit, and then instantly get that payoff. There are a few cards that come to mind when we look at our new mechanic, and I will list a few of them below.
Good Cards With Start Your Engine
There are a few of the Raceway Lands in the set, but Muraganda Raceway is the only rare one. This immediately tells us that it should be the "best" one, and that it must have a pretty broken ability. I'm here to tell you that it definitely does have a pretty broken ability. If we have Max Speed, this card basically becomes Sol Ring, but as a land.
Gas Guzzler is an All-Star one drop and will fit into many sacrifice decks based on general abilities alone. The Max Speed ability from this card that allows us to turn creatures into an extra card is pretty noteworthy. This should definitely ramp up the sacrifice archetype and allow that to be more of a thing.
We can appreciate a little aristocrat action, and you are probably beginning to see a bit of a theme with the last two cards for a deck that can generate some serious value with some very cheap creatures. Zahur's Max Speed ability also pairs with Gas Guzzler in a way that effectively makes it "Pay one black mana, draw a card." We are replacing the creature that we are sacrificing, so we can effectively draw as many cards as we have mana to pay for.
Final Verdict: Draft Mechanic, or Constructed Mechanic?
After looking at all of the cards that have the Start Your Engines and Max Speed ability, I believe that the mechanic will be valuable in both limited and constructed. There are some cards that are clearly meant to have the Max Speed payoff be used for good value in a limited format, and others that are more designed for the power level of a constructed format. Some of the cards have a payoff that is as simple as lifelink, or menace, and those are clearly meant for draft. Others let us draw ridiculous amounts of cards, and those would be an example of that payoff being designed for constructed formats. I appreciate that this mechanic will be used in both settings, and I believe that it will turn into the ultimate flavor of this new set.
Something I believe to also be relevant is the synergy potential that this ability has with the vehicles in the set. A lot of the vehicles have the Start Your Engines ability, and we could certainly play a constructed deck without any vehicles and still benefit from the value of the ability itself, but it seems that we could amass a pretty high power level by playing them together. Something I look at outside of Standard is the Greasefang/Parhelion Deck that we see in Pioneer/Explorer. That deck is getting a ton of new toys, and it will be interesting to see if it takes advantage of the new mechanic in addition to the plethora of vehicles from the set. That deck stands out to me as one that could benefit from these synergies naturally without changing up things too much.We will be going over other mechanics, and cards from the new set. We will also have some new theory crafting to come! So stay tuned, and get ready for the marathon!
