The first newMagic: The Gatheringset for 2025,Aetherdrift, releases on February 14th, and the cards that have been revealed for the set paint an interesting overall picture. The new set takes place on three ofMagic’sPlanes, with new and old characters racing against each other to win a powerful, life-changing artifact.
As a result ofAetherdrift’sWacky Races story across multiple planes, the set feels like a thematic mess—mixing up planes with their distinct themes and notable characters and shoving them onto cars, motorbikes, and ships. Unlike previousMagicsets that have focused too heavily on themes and not enough on characters and settings,Aetherdriftmakes sense thanks to its high-stakes prize and the development of the inter-planar travel systemin theMagicmultiverse.
MTG’s Aetherdrift Set Is All Over The Place
Traveling Between Planes Is No Longer A Big Deal
The Phyrexian invasion across the multiverse that took place during thePhyrexia: All Will Be OneandMarch Of The Machinesets changed interplanar travel in theMagicuniverse forever. Originally unique to Kaldheim’s World Tree,Omenpaths let anyone travel from one plane to the next, but the Phyrexian Invasion Tree created them across the Multiverse. These new Omenpaths were a key part of Kellan’s adventures betweenWilds of EldraineandOutlaws of Thunder Junction.
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The Phyrexian Invasion also caused The Desparkening, where many of the multiverse’s Planeswalkers like Nissa Revane and Vraska lost their sparks. Thesedesparked Planeswalkers now rely on the Omenpaths to travelto different planes. It was only a matter of time until these Omenpaths were used by powerful figures for their benefit. Niv-Mizzet and Ral Zarek from Ravnica were quick to use them for interplanar communication, and now the Avishkari have standardized the Omenpath system.
Loot, the Fomori child rescued by Jace and Vraska inOTJ, can see the endpoint of every Omenpath and new planes coming to life in real-time, which is why he appears in so much ofAetherdrift’sflavor-text.
Now the Avishkar Assembly is using its knowledge of where the stable Omenpaths reside to hold the second inaugural Ghirapur Grand Prix across multiple planes. These planes are the focus of theAetherdriftset, which features characters fromthe newly-named Avishkar, the lesser-explored Muraganda, and the ancient-Egypt-inspired plane of Amonkhet.Magic: The Gatheringhas focused on a different plane for each set for the last two years, and now with the Omenpaths,it looks like more sets will continue to expand across the Multiverse.
Aetherdrift Isn’t The First Messy MTG Set
Aetherdrift’swild mixing of planes, characters, themes, and references shouldn’t come as a shock toMagicplayers who have followed the game’s story for the last year or two. Some of2024’s expansion sets were just as messy asAetherdrift’sand made less sense.Magicin 2024 started withMurders At Karlov Manor, which was a murder-mystery-inspired expansion set on the fan-favorite plane of Ravnica. It quickly became one ofMagic’sleast popular sets, as it wasn’t a proper Ravnica-focused expansion.
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MKMwas a mashup of Ravnican characters who were suddenly Detectives, to the point that it felt like the expansion could have taken place on a completely different plane. That feeling was even stronger in the following set,Outlaws of Thunder Junction.This time, characters from across the Multiverse were now on the new plane of Thunder Junction, for one reason or another, and they were all wearing Cowboy Hats and Boots. These twosets focused too much on the specific theme, and with the setting and characters not having enough focus, they felt like a joke.
Magic: The Gathering Justifies Aetherdrift’s Silliness
The Ghirapur Grand Prix Prize Mixes Everything Up
Magic: The Gathering’s leap into 2025 is similar to its 2024 start, with a heavily themed expansion set featuring a wide variety of popular characters. However,this is a theme where having a mix of characters makes sense. An inter-planar race should have competitors and background characters from the three planes the race happens on, and the prize for the Ghirapur Grand Prix also justifies the crossovers seen inAetherdrift.
The winning team gets their hands on The Aetherspark, anartifact containing an artificial Planeswalker’s spark that can grant anyone Planeswalking abilities. The prize should attract powerful or power-hungry beings from across theMagicMultiverse, especially some of thedesparked Planeswalkers who miss their powersor surviving Planeswalkers who dislike the Omenpaths. The Aetherspark card itself is a mix of card types—it’sthe game’s first Artifact Planeswalker Equipment, meaning it is an Artifact that comes in with Loyalty Counters that can be used for its three abilities, and it can also be equipped to a creature.
Now thatUniverses Beyond setsare taking up one of the four expansion slots in a year, the first beingMarvel’s Spider-Manat the end of 2025,Magic: The Gathering’sin-universe sets are becoming less plane-specific. Whether that’s good or bad is down to each player’s preference, butAetherdriftis doing it in a way that makes more sense than previous sets.
