Here’s five different ways to take first place.
Aetherdrift has some serious sauce, and brewing this preview season has been an absolute blast. New Gearhulks, new Vehicles, some incredible tools for niche archetypes, and even brand-new build-arounds. If you want to check out all 50+, take a look:ARTICLE SPOTLIGHT50+ MTG Decks for AetherdriftMagic: The Gathering, but with more zoomies.Yoman52/3/2025
Aetherdrift was a surprisingly tame set for being artifact-centric. Many Vehicles require multiple colored mana, and few are at the bar for Standard play. Max Speed prohibits many of the more powerful effects, and while it’s not hard to get to Max Speed if you’re trying, it’s not free either and takes at least three turns to get there. Honestly, the biggest shakeup of the format is the remaining cycle of Verges:
Boros of every flavor are massively improved by Sunbillow Verge and Llanowar Elves decks love Wastewood Verge. Several decks can play multiple Verges if you’re willing to stomach enough Surveil Lands (particularly Domain Ramp). There aren’t any established Izzet decks in Standard yet, but Riverpyre Verge is excellent as it allows you to tap for red (without needing an Island or Mountain in play) and cast your removal spells early.
Aetherdrift also has a solid amount of sell-mill, as well as some great payoffs:
These payoffs are mostly for the Insidious Roots decks, but there’s also a lot of potential in Delirium shells with Draconautics Engineer or even the Golgari Up the Beanstalk decks. In fact, lots of niche decks received some really neat tools:
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There’s a lot for everyone in Aetherdrift, but as fun as all the brewing has been, we have to admit all the major villains of Standard also got some upgrades:
Esper Enchantments (also known as Esper Pixie) was already the best deck in the format, and it got two excellent new removal spells. Mono-Red players received Hazoret, Godseeker and several other Start Your Engines! cards like Amonkhet Raceway, and of course, Black-based Midrange decks get a beefy new body with some excellent disruption attached in Oildeep Gearhulk.
Even with that cold dose of realism, all hope isn’t lost. Here are the five new decks I think could keep up with the veterans of Standard and maybe even shape it anew upon Aetherdrift’s release.
#5 Gruul Dinosaurs (Standard)
The problem with Dinosaurs before was that after Pugnacious Hammerskull, the quality and size of the Dinosaurs at three mana dropped off a cliff. This card could have been a vanilla 5/4, and it would be an upgrade, but with the extra “+1/+1 to all Dinosaurs” text, this card superpowers your best curves and quickly drops Ghalta, Primal Hunger to two mana.
What year is it?! Yeah, Surrak and Ghalta came along in Magic Foundations and are still some of the strongest possible curves for Llanowar Elves decks. Surrak isn’t a Dinosaur, but he might as well be, and Ghalta sure loves haste.
The biggest upside to playing on-theme like this is that all of your Dinosaurs survive the small-ball black removal spells, and your opponent is simply going to die if they can’t remove a massive threat within a turn or two. Llanowar Elves and Ixalli’s Lorekeeper can die every game, but if Pugnacious Hammerskull connects twice, your opponent is probably dead.
#4 Four-Color Legends Monument (Standard)
The gang is all back together. We’re here to generate a ton of triggers and hopefully combo off with a pair of Honest Rutsteins at the end, but without Slogurk, the Overslime, what’s our big payoff?
Monument to Endurance
Aetherdrift, Rare
This deck has a lot of power, and I was able to test it out in the Aetherdrift Early Access. It can kill out of nowhere, and the mana is shockingly good thanks to Plaza of Heroes and the three-mana artifacts such as Relic of Legends, but the one concern is that you do need to generally stick one of the engine creatures to really get going. If someone can find the missing “looter” (a creature that draws and discards a card upon dealing combat damage to a player) for this deck, it’s wouldn’t be quite so vulnerable to Nowhere to Run and Cut Down, it’ll be a real menace.
#3 Izzet (Discard) Pirates (Standard)
Clamorous Ironclad is one of the most efficient cyclers in Standard and can be a threat in its own right, but Brass’s Tunnel-Grinder is the true sauce. Very few cards in Standard let you cycle your entire hand like this, and nothing else does it this cheaply. These cards are also artifacts, which tie neatly into the next card:
Staunch Crewmate
The Lost Caverns of Ixalan, Uncommon
Staunch Crewmate is another pirate synergy piece that can find all of your payoffs and all of your enablers. It’s also one of your few ways to actually get card advantage in this deck when all of your cycling is card-neutral.
This deck has plenty of potential because you get aggressive and lethal curves but an incredible amount of direct damage if the board becomes stalled out. It also helps that if any of your synergy pieces are on board, Esper Enchantments doesn’t really want to cast a bunch of Hopeless Nightmare into you.
#2 Selesnya Cage (Standard)
Yoman, this isn’t new. This is the same silly Selesnya deck that randomly wins on turn three on the MTG Arena ladder. Wrong. It’s even better than before now:
Brightglass Gearhulk
Aetherdrift, Mythic
This deck was already on the fringes of the top tiers in Standard, but adding Brightglass Gearhulk truly takes the deck to another level. It’s now much harder to run the deck out of gas or run it over, and a Gearhulk-wearing Sheltered by Ghosts or Basilisk Collar is going to ruin a Gruul Aggro player’s day.
#1 Sultai Turbo Roots (Standard)
Market Price: $36.10
Market Price: $43.71
Scavenging Ooze is basically another copy of Molt Tender, but Loot, the Pathfinder gives you another excellent target for Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and a way to break open smaller games. You also can simply hard-cast Loot in a surprising number of games thanks to Insidious Roots and Molt Tender. A bunch of Black Lotus, Ancestral Recall, or Lightning Bolt activations finishes a game off really fast, just make sure you only use each ability once per Plant token.
Overall, this deck went from very fringe to monstrously consistent. Molt Tender allows the deck to play eight one-mana generating creatures to really take advantage of Tyvar, Jubilant Brawler and Overlord of the Balemurk in its five-mana mode. The speed of this deck went up several notches and the combo potential is now very high without playing a bunch of conditional cards. I think this has the potential to be a very real player in the new format, and I can’t wait to play it a ton.