One of the coolest Magic: The Gathering cards from the new set Aetherdrift has just been spoiled, and we can’t wait to throw it into a deck. This car-haunting demon is a card-drawing machine, and works fantastically alongside Sheoldred, one of the best creatures Wizards of the Coast has printed in the last five years.
The Speed Demon is a flying, trampling 5/5. Until you read its ability, it looks a bit like a Doom Whisperer with slightly worse stats, but that ‘Start Your Engines!’ effect tips the balance firmly in the new card’s favor. Each turn, The Speed Demon has you drawing cards equal to your speed. But you can’t afford to play slow – you also lose that much life. Remember folks: speed kills.
That is, unless you play Sheoldred the Apocalypse, everyone’s favorite four-drop. Then speed doesn’t kill, it just gives you even more value. If you can get to max speed with both creatures out on board you’ll gain three extra cards and three extra life at the end of every turn.
This looks like one of the coolest cards in the MTG set, and likely to be just as good in Standard as Commander – at least until Sheoldred rotates out. However, it must be said the designers have committed an unforgivable sin giving it flying instead of haste. What a flavor whiff!
I think you’ll need some deckbuilding finesse to get the most value out of The Speed Demon. Ideally, you may want to play it alongside other cards that have Start your engines ability, so you can get your speed high enough and draw multiple cards at once. Unfortunately, not much has been revealed in monoblack that really suits. Perhaps you could play it alongside the edict effect Momentum Breaker?
I’ll tell you what I’m going to do though. I’ll be making a very silly deck running The Speed Demon alongside Vnwxt, Verbose Host to create the ultimate draw engine – with no max hand size too! The dream is to curve Vnwxt into Marauding Blight-Priest, into Sheoldred, into The Speed Demon. It’s not going to stack up against the best MTG Arena decks, but I’m looking forward to decking myself trying to live the dream.
There are two versions of The Speed Demon available – technically four, since both have gold foil variants as well. There’s the regular art, which is undeniably sick, and there’s the Rat Fink-esque ‘Rude Rider’ version, which I imagine is going to be a lot more divisive.
MTG Aetherdrift comes out on February 14. You can find out more about it, and everything else the year has in store for Magic fans in our MTG release schedule guide.
Source: Wargamer
