The first new Magic: The Gathering set for 2025 has been announced, and it’s off to the races with Aetherdrift. The first standard legal set of 2025 showcases 10 racing teams from across the multiverse as they all compete in the most high-stakes competition that Magic has seen. Here’s everything we know so far.
The first new Magic: The Gathering set for 2025 has been announced, and it’s off to the races with Aetherdrift. This new set is the first standard legal set of 2025, showcasing 10 racing teams from across the multiverse as they all compete in the most high-stakes competition that Magic has seen.
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Aetherdrift focuses on an edition of a multiday multi-planar combat stage race called the Ghirapur Grand Prix. Put on by the planet Avishkar, the Grand Prix is meant to be a statement to the multiverse of the new Avishakri government’s ability to coordinate multiplanar logistics.
As we jump into the lore of Aetherdrift, it’s important to note that the set reflects the second edition of the Ghirapur Grand Prix. Instead of focusing on the prim and properness of an inaugural race, the team has created a more boundary-pushing place to test new technologies, which allows the set to reflect that.
This allows the set to reflect Omen Paths, how to transport Aether, and, of course, how to broadcast live information through Omen Paths. Ultimately showcasing how to have one single plane maintain large-scale efforts across multiple planes from one central location. But the most important thing about all of this is that it’s a race!
What is the Grand Prix?
As shared by Miguel Lopez, the Magic: The Gathering’s Worldbuilding lead, Aetherdrift focuses on an edition of a multiday multi-planar combat stage race called the Ghirapur Grand Prix. Put on by the planet Avishkar, the Grand Prix is meant to be a statement to the multiverse of the new Avishakri government’s ability to coordinate multiplanar logistics.
As we jump into the lore of Aetherdrift, it’s important to note that the set reflects the second edition of the Ghirapur Grand Prix. Instead of focusing on the prim and properness of an inaugural race, the team has created a more boundary-pushing place to test new technologies, which allows the set to reflect that. This allows the set to reflect Omen Paths, how to transport Aether, and, of course,e how to broadcast live information through Omen Paths. Ultimately showcasing how to have one single plane maintain large-scale efforts across multiple planes from one central location.
Competitors are playing for the Aetherspark. A planeswalker spark, the Aetherspark is the grand prize of the Grand Prix in Aetherdrift. In Aetherdrift, because of the Omen Paths, the ability for one person to be a planeswalker isn’t the game changer it once was. That said, it’s still a prize worth competing for. Omen Paths can close just as much as they open, and the independence that the Aetherspark offers is important.
What are the new and returning mechanics?
Like any race, the pace has to be fast. With mechanics that reward quick plays and graveyard cheats, Aetherdrift is set keep pushing players to deal damage any chance they an to keep their speed at max and get advantages throughout their matches.
- Speed: Every good race needs an even better host. A Legendary Creature, Vnwxl is the Grand Prix’s verbose host. When you play a card with the host, you’ll have “Start your engines!” If you have no speed at the time it is played, your speed goes to 1, and then once per turn on your turn, you gain speed by causing your opponent to lose life (in any way), with a Max Speed of 4. Once you hit Max Speed, you’ll benefit from the cards you play. For example, if you play Vnqxt, Verbose Host, you will draw two cards instead of the usual one.
- Exhaust: The Exhaust mechanic is a one-shot mechanic that does something powerful to get ahead.
- Loot, The Pathfinder example card: With the Loot card, he can once per game activate Black Lotus, cast Ancestral Recall and cast Lighting Bolt. There are ways to cheat the once-per-game element of exhaust abilities. If Loot is sent to the graveyard and you play a new Loot, you can cast the new Loot’s exhaust abilities. Similarly, if Loot is returned to your hand and is then called to the battlefield again, you can cast it again.
- Saddle: A returning mechanic from Outlaws of Thunder Junction, it works similarly to vehicles and crew. The way you crew a vehicle, you tap a creature, and it crews to the vehicle it’s using. Mounts are creatures who can always attack,k but if you Saddle and attack with them, you get something better on the attack.
Who Are the Aetherdrift’s 10 Teams?
Guidelight Voyagers (White/Blue): They’re an accidental team turned competitors. They stumbled into the first Grand Prix and were invited to the second Grand Prix. While they accept, they aren’t competing to win. Instead, they’re competing to pass through stable Omen Paths at a high enough rate that they might trigger an anomaly similar to the one that tor them from their homeland and stranded them in Avishkar. If they’re the first, it increases their odds of success, and if they can win the entire thing, the Aetherspark may be precisely what they need.
Speed Demons (Blue/Black): Duskmourn’s Winter leads the Speed Demons. The Speed Demon itself is a vehicle and a lesser creature from Valgavoth’s plane. If Duskmourn’s Winter can win the Grand Prix, he can win his freedom. Called the cursed rider, the Speed Demons embody the aesthetic of Duskmourn, and they’re the advancing edge of Valgavoth’s expansion, all with their vehicle, The Last Ride.
The Champions of Amonkhet (White/Black): Amonkhet, one of the hosts, they’re given a team automatically in the race. They are led by Zahur and Basri, one undead and one alive. They’re working together to bring together Naktamun.
Goblin Rocketeers (Red/Green): The equivalent of test pilots and astronauts, the Goblin Rocketeers have applied their love of speed to engineer success from chaos. They worship a deity called the BOOSTGOD, a heroic deity that promises an escape from the Goblin plane. This team punched through the velocity limit and found themselves on an Omen Path to Avishkar. Now, they want to win the Aetherspark to return home and prove that you can move through the velocity limit.
Alacrian Quickbeasts (Green/White): Alacria is a vast city from a plane connected to Avishkar through a stable Omen Path. The city comprises 12 districts with a mascot attached to each called the city’s soul. The soul is the district embodied in a Great Beast unique to that district, and each one has a human counterpart. The competitor and Beast combo Alacria has sent to Avishkar are Caradora and Lagorin.
The Endriders (Black/Red): With Mad Max vibes, the Endriders are from Gastal. They’ve followed an Omen PAth to Avishkar, and while they don’t find gas, they do find plenty of their precious resource: drinking water. Gripped by water wars caused by the severity of the plane, if Captain Far Fortune can win the Aetherspark, she can bring water to her home plane and stop the wars.
Chordatan Keelhaulers (Blue/Red): Led by Captain Howler, the Chordatan Keelhaulers are anthropomorphic shark men brand new to the Grand Prix. Kari Zev is their sponsor.
The Speedbrood (Black/Green): Humaoid insects trying to become speed itself. They are each a part of an aether-fueled brood vehicle named Thunderous Velocipede.
Cloudspire Racing Team (Red/White): Made up of racing professionals, the Cloudspire Racing Team is from Kylum, a plane where Triumph is channeled as magic and Victory is a god. They were the last grand Prix’s winners, and they’re co-captained by Kolodin and Chandra, who is on the hunt to re-spark her girlfriend Nissa.
Aether Rangers (Green/Blue): Avishkar’s flagship team, they’re quick and fueled by aether, hovering just above the ground, which allows them to handle the terrain. Their co-captains are Sita Varma (aka Spitfire) and Pia Nalaar-with Chandra, noticeably missing.
The Art of Aetherdrift
Full-Art Driver’s Sea Basic Lands: To highlight the different planes the racers are moving through in the Grand Prix, the Aetherdrift set features full-art Basic Lands from the Driver’s perspective. We see their hands on their respective wheels and the plan around them, with each racing team having distinct flavors and characters. This also allowed artists to create full art lands and incorporate and highlight the different tech and aesthetics from the planes participating. (Found in play boosters collector boosters Box Topper packs in first-place foil treatment)
First-Place Foils: While the different art treatments in Aetherdift include borderless, this set includes something unique: First-Place Foils. These are gold metallic to highlight the racing theme. The regular foils are usually rainbow, but the gold accents the art while the primary art retains its usual coloring.
Full-Art Panorama Basic Lands: Racetrack perspectives that show players the track that they’re racing through, (Exclusive to Box Toppers)
Borderless Reved-Up Treatments – Artifact-Vehicle: This art treatment is meant to be treated as a way to celebrate the driver and their vehicle. Senior Art Director Sarah Wassell explained that the art was constructed to be the posters that fans would have hanging up in their garages while they work on their own. Their aim was for bold colors and energy to give them a unique flavor.
Borderless Driver Cards – Legendary Creature-Driver: Meant to be closer to a character select screen of a video game character, the borderless art cards for the Captains of the 10 Grand Prix teams showcase their power, vibe, and why you would want them to be your driver. The team tried their best to tap into hotrod and car culture, caring only about speed and not worrying about danger.
What are the Aetherdirft Commander Decks?
Eternal Might (White/Blue/Black): Led by Temmet, Naktamun’s Will, Eternal Might is a zombie Commander Deck about creating zombies and accruing small advantages. When given enough time, your zombies will rise up and overpower your opponent. The deck also features Hashaton, Scarab’sFist as its second Commander. For Hashaton, you are looking to cheat by entering the battlefield abilities by discarding a creature card, paying three mana, getting a token copy of it, and then getting the battlefield abilities of that card that you discarded.
Living Energy (Green/Blue/Red): Led by Saheeli, Radiant Creator, this is an artifact and energy Commander Deck. Saheeli is one of the multiverse’s greatest artificers. She casts artifacts and accumulates energy to spend for fun and profit. Pia Nalaar, Chief Mechanic, is the alternate Commander for this deck. Similar to Saheeli, she is using energy, but she is using it to create a vehicle to overwhelm your opponents.
