The Best Commanders in Aetherdrift + Lists!

The newest Magic: The Gathering set, Aetherdrift, will bring us 29 new commanders, besides the commanders included in other products, like precon decks. Apart from creative mechanics and dynamic designs, this set will also bring back classic strategies, like Vehicles, and introduce the innovative Speed mechanic. If you'd like to see more about this set, click here to check out our full guide written by Antônio Faillace, our resident judge.

In this article, we'll explore the most interesting commanders in this set and see which are the best ways to build them and optimize their performance. As usual, we'll only cover the commanders this set includes, as commanders in Commander precons are designed to see play in Commander, so they obviously are more straightforward.

Please note that these are the best commanders in Aetherdrift, unranked!

Captain Howler, Sea Scourge interacts with discard. More specifically, when you discard cards, it buffs a creature and, if that creature deals combat damage to a player, it draws a card for you. Discarding and drawing cards is common for Izzet commanders, but Captain Howler is a bit different.

To build a deck around it, you need to add efficient ways to discard cards and make sure your buffed creatures deal combat damage to players. A few ways to do this is with sorceries and instants like Faithless Looting, Thrill of Possibility, and Frantic Search, as they discard and draw cards at the same time. Cards like Big Score and Unexpected Windfall will give you extra mana when you discard another card because of the Treasures they create, so you'll be able to move even faster.

Evasive creatures, like Invisible Stalker, Stormwing Entity, and Ledger Shredder will activate your commander's effect consistently. To buff your creatures and deal even more damage with them, Temur Battle Rage and Unleash Fury are perfect, as they double the amount of damage they deal in one way or another.

This is the first commander in this article that works with Speed, a mechanic that increases as the match goes on if you deal damage to your opponent on your turn. Its peak is Max Speed: if you get to Max Speed, you'll be able to use extra effects on certain cards.

If you're playing red, getting to Max Speed will be really simple, as you'll only need pingers like Thermo-Alchemist and enchantments like Raid Bombardment to deal damage constantly. Far Fortune, End Boss itself will help you do that, as it deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever you attack.

When you get to Max Speed, this commander will buff all the damage you deal to your opponents and permanents they control by 1, whether through an effect or combat. This way, your priority with this commander will be anything that deals damage easily. Besides pingers, cards like Impact Tremors and Terror of the Peaks are great at dealing damage again and again, and cards like Torbran, Thane of Red Fell will make you deal even more damage with everything you play.

In general, the best way to play this commander will be a quite honest, fun Burn deck. Far Fortune, End Boss is simple and won't be able to reach its full potential early (which would be broken) because of how slow Speed is, ironically.

Mimeoplasm, Revered One is a new version of an extremely iconic commander. It has you exile creatures on your graveyard so you can play it on your battlefield with lots of +1/+1 counters. Its ability, which lets you turn it into any creature you exiled with it, means you can make its deck a sort of toolbox. For this build, you need to put relevant creatures in your graveyard fast, either by discarding, milling, or sacrificing them. If you do this right, you'll have a full graveyard and will be able to pick the right targets to exile to get the most out of this commander. It will become a different threat in each match.

Effects like Buried Alive, Entomb, and Fact or Fiction will accelerate this process and make sure you have powerful cards to exile when you put Mimeoplasm in play. We'll also use creatures with important abilities, like Consecrated Sphinx and Sheoldred, Whispering One, which both give you value when you turn Mimeoplasm into them.

The fact it turns into something else as you play means you'll need a great variety of creatures for different moments of the game. Efficient removals, the ability to turn into creatures with Hexproof at instant speed, and Reanimate effects will make this strategy more resilient and make sure this deck works even under pressure.

Kolodin, Triumph Caster is an aggressive commander that will probably be best in a build that focuses on Mounts and Vehicles, as it gives them both Haste and lets you put these permanents in play ready to attack. It also turns Vehicles into creatures and automatically Saddle Mounts.

Your priority will be to play Mounts and Vehicles constantly so you can take advantage of your commander's effect. Smuggler's Copter, Cultivator's Caravan, and Heart of Kiran are all low-cost Vehicles that impact the game immediately. Meanwhile, Parhelion II and Skysovereign, Consul Flagship will impact the mid to late game a bit more.

As for Mounts, efficient options like Brightfield Glider and Guardian Sunmare make sure you have board presence and synergy with Kolodin.

As we said before, Speed is a very slow mechanic. However, Samut, the Driving Force probably has the best card design with it in this entire set because it doesn't force you to focus on Max Speed. Instead, you'll extract value whenever you build up Speed with different buffs and other effects. It combines aggression and acceleration, as it buffs your creatures and discounts the cost of noncreature spells whenever you get more Speed.

Aggressive creatures like Adeline, Resplendent Cathar, or creatures that have some power-based ability, like Esper Sentinel, should go really well with Samut's buffs.

As this commander discounts the cost of noncreature spells, we can easily use cards like Forth Eorlingas! and March of the Multitudes to create a huge number of tokens and buff them with Samut. Modular, or cards that deal with multiple threats, like Austere Command and Farewell, will also be easy to cast as the game goes on with this commander in play. And cards that cost something reasonable, like Harmonize, will become extremely accessible from very early on.

This is the "fun" commander in this set. It goes in play really early on, does a lot of tricks, and has an effect that can end the match or create a few of the most hilarious game states possible. It uses the very new Exhaust mechanic, which always shows up as an activated ability with the same restriction: you can only activate each Exhaust ability once with the permanent in question. In Redshift, Rocketeer Chief's case, Exhaust will let you pay a significant cost to put in play any number of permanents in your hand.

Your first priority is to boost Redshift's power so you can create even more mana with it. Equipment cards like Blackblade Reforged and Sword of the Animist, auras like Rancor, and +1/+1 counter effects like Halana and Alena, Partners are efficient options. Your second priority is to build your hand throughout the game so you have multiple permanents in hand when you finally play Redshift's Exhaust ability. As it doesn't restrict you to any type of permanent, you can use it to put in play lands, creatures, enchantments, artifacts, and even planeswalkers.

This may originate both combos that are perfect for the late game, and fun combos that let you mess around with the board. After all, Commander matches are supposed to be fun for everyone!

This Amonkhet Frog God is quite strong, but has the same classic restriction as the other Gods from this plane: it can only attack and block after you meet a certain condition. In this case, you can only attack or block with it when it has an even number of counters. However, if it has an odd number of counters, it will draw you two cards at the beginning of your first main phase. As such, the best strategy for Sab-Sunen is to control its counters really well so you can swap between attacking and drawing cards as efficiently as you can, and this way take advantage of this unique condition.

If you want to build a deck with this card, focus on swapping between Sab-Sunen's two states as efficiently as possible. It needs to be able to attack when you need to, and consistently draw cards at the same time. You'll have to add support to move counters around and get as much as you can from its ability.

Daretti, Rocketeer Engineer focuses on high-cost artifacts and recursion. It grows according to the highest mana value among artifacts you control, and brings back cards from the graveyard when it enters or when it attacks. In a way, it works exactly like the -2 ability on its planeswalker counterpart, Daretti, Scrap Savant.

A build with this card should put heavy artifacts in the graveyard efficiently and sacrifice Ichor Wellspring again and again, as this will activate effects whenever they leave play.

The idea is to have strong targets to Reanimate, like Portal to Phyrexia, Sundering Titan, and Darksteel Forge, as well as artifacts that create value when you sacrifice them, like Ichor Wellspring and Solemn Simulacrum. Tools like Goblin Engineer, Trash for Treasure, and Faithless Looting will fill your graveyard and progress your game plan. As Daretti's effect also activates when it attacks, Lightning Greaves and Swiftfoot Boots will activate its effect twice when it enters, and also protect it from removals.

Ketramose, the New Dawn will have you exile permanents and cards from your graveyard and turn this into card draw. Just like any great Amonkhet god, this commander has a prerequisite to attack or block. In this case, seven cards need to be in the exile.

This deck needs to exile cards to enable Ketramose as fast as possible, and the best way to do that is with effects like Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, and Farewell. They all deal with threats and progress your game plan. To draw cards with your commander by interacting with the graveyard, cards like Scavenger Grounds, Dauthi Voidwalker, and Bojuka Bog will be really efficient. Keep in mind this effect triggers when one or more cards are exiled, so many times you'll be better off exiling cards bit by bit instead of exiling multiple cards at once just a few times.

Finally, its Menace and Lifelink can be quite interesting with cards like Blackblade Reforged and other equipment cards that give you bonuses when they connect damage, like the Sword cycle - particularly Sword of Feast and Famine.

Aetherdrift will bring fascinating designs to Commander. These commanders and the other cards in this set can all be part of your 99 cards, and they certainly have a lot to add to this format and MTG in general.

Unfortunately, the Speed mechanic is a bit clunky, and there aren't many ways to interact with it if you're not at Max Speed.

What did you think of these commanders? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!