I’m writing this piece after my first experience with Aetherdrift over the prerelease weekend and wow, what a rush that was! 

I’m a “Melvin” according to Wizards’ well-known player profiles - meaning I’m most excited by cards which use the Magic rules in clever or exciting ways - and it felt like so much of this set really touched that nerve for me. Usually that’s a joy I get from sets with top-down design, where R&D starts with a story and uses Magic mechanics to retell it. 

Recognizing the references in these cards imbues them with a lot of character. It also helps us appreciate the expressiveness of Magic’s rules and creativity of its designers. But Aetherdrift doesn’t strike me as one of those top-down sets at all. There’s a few clear inspirations from pop culture in the art and flavor: Speed Racer, Mad Max, Wacky Racers, Death Race 3000, Redline, even a bit of the Orks from Warhammer 40K. But those references aren’t dictating the design of the card effects - this time it’s the other way around.

SHOW THEM THE MEANING OF SPEED

Bottom-up design is a lot harder to define than the top-down kind. You can say confidently that Titan of Eternal Fire and Chained to the Rocks are referencing the myth of Prometheus, but without those cultural reference points it’s hard for outsiders to understand the ideas which inspire specific cards.

The best examples are sets which deliberately unbalance the normal ratios of card types, costs, or colors. Legions is 100% made up of creatures; Alara Reborn is 100% multicolored spells. Mirrodin and Darksteel are predominantly artifacts, while Strixhaven more than doubles the usual amount of instants and sorceries. Torment has twice as many slots for black spells as it gives to any other color. 

Giving the set design such an obvious starting point makes it easier to follow the logic that leads to the choices on each card. The Legions design team needed to make creature cards which could fill the role of instant interaction, so the set has a lot of powerful morph and cycling triggers. This is a different kind of creativity to the more celebrated top-down designs, but no less interesting or impressive if you ask me.

What’s especially cool about Aetherdrift is that its overarching identity doesn’t come from overloading on a particular type or color of spell, but on the general concept of “going fast”. It feels like the designers sat down around a whiteboard and brainstormed every possible interpretation of “speed” as applied to Magic gameplay, and then tried to make a set which included all of them at once!

You’ve got the obvious answers in vehicle and mount cards, but also mana acceleration, cheating out big spells, racing through your deck with cycling and milling, and sacrificing life or cards to gain tempo (also captured by the one-time boost of exhaust abilities). Tying everything together is the concept of “racing” as we commonly use it in Magic parlance: the idea that both life totals are steadily ticking down, and your best hope is to focus on making sure theirs goes down faster.

The fact that one of the only non-staple reprints in the set is Bloodghast - maybe the most pure “racing” card ever designed - cements this ethos beautifully.

I’M JUST GETTING STARTED

Maybe this is a niche Melvin opinion, but I think “Start your engines!” (a.k.a. speed) is one of the most impressive mechanics designed in recent memory. If you read my Limited guides (or anyone else's), think about how often a deck like red-white will be described as “just aggro” or otherwise lacking a strong identity beyond efficient damage-dealing.

The single-minded nature of aggro decks makes it extremely difficult to design mechanics which incentivize that gameplan in a balanced way. If the mechanic makes them better at killing you fast then it’s probably overpowered; if it doesn’t, then they won’t want to use it.

There’s also the issue that most set mechanics are implemented with some kind of setup/payoff dynamic, where your best outcomes revolve around mini-combos of specific cards. But most aggro decks are built with the opposite philosophy; as many cards as possible should be interchangeable, to make sure you’re never waiting around to draw the missing piece or getting shut down by one targeted removal spell.

 But the speed mechanic answers all these questions emphatically. It’s also intuitive, flavorful, interacts with cards from every era of Magic, and has a huge amount of potential design space. 

You can play a deck with only a single card which cares for your speed and it will function, because the designers ensured every speed card can also be your engine-starter. But you are also obviously rewarded for building a deck with many speed cards, or for pairing an expensive powerhouse like Samut, the Driving Force with openers like Burnout Bashtronaut or Amonkhet Raceway. 

How heavily you commit to playing an engine-starter on turn one or having guaranteed ways to reach max speed ASAP depends on what you’re planning to use that speed for. Some speed cards absolutely require you to get max speed online to get best use from them, while others couldn’t care less! I’m just thrilled to see a simple aggro mechanic with so much capacity for nuance in how it’s applied.

The only real knocks I could see against this design are the logistical burden of having another emblem-type player effect to track, and the way that the maximum speed of four occasionally limits how card effects can scale with it. But I actually like that there’s a hard cap and the focus is on hitting that instead of just making number go up forever. Ironically, this is not a mechanic that wants you to waste turns assembling an efficient engine that churns out triggers. You just want to hit it exactly enough times to get across the finish line.

A WELL-EARNED VICTORY LAP

I could probably go into as much detail fawning over how the other mechanics in Aetherdrift embody pre-existing ideas of speed in Magic strategy, like velocity or tempo. It’s fun to see those ideas more literally represented as “speedy” in the card art and flavor, and so far I think they have come together to create an actually very fun gameplay experience.

It’s another quiet achievement of the design team that they have created a Limited set themed around “racing” life without having it skew insanely aggressive like Streets of New Capenna or Murders at Karlov Manor! I think that it all comes down to having really put in the time to come up with more than one definition of “speed” in Magic, so that every color combination can be strategically diverse without feeling out of place.
As the release schedule increasingly seems to favor one-off theme-over-story sets like Thunder Junction, Duskmourn and Aetherdrift, I hope the depth of creativity and effort that’s apparent in these bottom-up design choices can also become a consistent standard.

The post How Aetherdrift Mechanics Redefine Speed appeared first on Card Kingdom Blog.

The Commander Bracket System is now in Beta. What is the system? Is it mandatory? Where can you read about it? Kristen has the lowdown.

Gavin Verhey announced today on the DailyMTG Stream that the Commander Bracket System was now in public beta. The stream had a great lowdown of the work that Gavin has been doing with the Commander Format Panel, and I advise you to check it out if you can.

If you’re wanting a quick rundown on the system, though, I’ll do my best to summarize the main takeaways here. Head over to the Wizards article for more information.

THE COMMANDER BRACKET SYSTEM

When the Commander Formant Panel formed, the initial idea of a tier-based system for cards was discussed. Though the idea wasn’t fully fleshed out at the time, it formed the basis for ongoing discussion and refinement.

The endpoint of that discussion is the Commander Bracket System, and the Game Changers list. The system has five brackets:

• Bracket 1: Exhibition
• Bracket 2: Core
• Bracket 3: Upgraded
• Bracket 4: Optimized
• Bracket 5: cEDH

These brackets are designed as a communication tool. They are not replacing pregame conversations, only augmenting them. They are not required in order to play a game of Commander. If your playgroup is doing a great job with communication, then more power to you! You might not need to use such a system.

The Bracket System gives clear indications and parameters for calibrating the Commander experience between players. It gives a foundation for pre-game discussions, and should be especially useful for those in untrusted playgroups like at the LGS or at larger Magic events.

The goal of the system is to help players avoid big mismatches in powerlevel, as best as possible. This system – nor any other – can account for bad actors. As Gavin said:

“If someone wants to lie to you and play mismatched, we can’t prevent that. However, a lot of people just want to earnestly play games with decks similar to theirs, and this aims to help in that regard. There are many ways to game the system. Be honest with yourself and others as you play with them.”

Commander Bracket System Article

So, what do the brackets mean?

THE COMMANDER BRACKETS EXPLAINED

You can look at the brackets as a way to help find a good game.

• Bracket 1: Exhibition – where winning isn’t the primary goal, as it's more about showing off something cool and unusual you've made
• Bracket 2: Core – where decks are at the level of the average current preconstructed deck 

Brackets 1 & 2 feature games with no cards from the Game Changer list. They also have guidance on when and where you should see Extra Turn spells, Two-card infinite combos, and “Mass Land Denial”, a new term that encompasses Mass Land Destruction and various Mana Denial effects.

• Bracket 3: Upgraded – which feature decks with carefully selected cards, with work having gone into figuring out the best card for each slot.

Bracket 3: Upgraded features up to three cards from the Game Changer list, and only sparse Extra Turn effects, with no mass land denial and no “early” two-card infinite combos. By early, we’re meaning before turn six or so.

There are two more additional brackets which feature no restriction on the Game Changer list.

• Bracket 4: Optimized – where you can expect to see explosive starts, strong tutors, cheap combos that end games, mass land destruction, or one player's deck be full of cards off the Game Changer List
• Bracket 5: cEDH – all bets are off, this is the highest power Magic, with the intention of playing to an established meta. Card choices are more about teching for the meta than playing pet cards.

One huge takeaway is that you shouldn't be only picking a bracket for your deck based on how many Game Changer cards are in them. If your deck doesn’t have Game Changers, but you know that it’s a high powered deck, then maybe you should be pitching it at an Upgraded or Optimized level. 

SO WHAT IS THE GAME CHANGERS LIST?

The Game Changers list currently features 40 cards. You can read the ethos behind this list in the article from Gavin. The Game Changers list is not set in stone, but features some of the most impactful cards in the format.

As opposed to the early ideas of what a list of problematic cards might look like, the game changers list is one easy to read list of cards rather than having separate lists or point values.

These aren’t by any means a new banlist – and you don’t have to follow the suggested quantity of cards for each bracket if you are confident you can succeed in matchmaking discussions. They are however a watchlist, and if any cards are banned in the future, they will almost certainly be cards on the Game Changers list. At the same time, if any cards come off the banned list, they might end up on the Game Changers list in the future.

The cards on the Game Changer list are off the table for Exhibition and Core games, and we advise people to use up to three cards from this list at the Upgraded Bracket tier.

The cards on the list are as follows:

Drannith Magistrate
Enlightened Tutor
Serra’s Sanctum
Smothering Tithe
Trouble in Pairs
Cyclonic Rift
Expropriate
Force of Will
Fierce Guardianship
Rhystic Study
Thassa’s Oracle
Urza, Lord High Artificer
Mystical Tutor
Jin-Gitaxias, Core Augur
Bolas’s Citadel
Demonic Tutor
Imperial Seal
Opposition Agent
Tergrid, God of Fright
Vampiric Tutor
Ad Nauseam
Jeska’s Will
Underworld Breach
Gaea’s Cradle
Survival of the Fittest
Vorinclex, Voice of Hunger
The One Ring
Trinisphere
Chrome Mox
Grim Monolith
Lion’s Eye Diamond
Mox Diamond
Mana Vault
Ancient Tomb
Glacial Chasm
The Tabernacle at Pendrell Vale
Kinnan, Bonder Prodigy
Yuriko, The Tiger’s Shadow
Winota, Joiner of Forces
Grand Arbiter Augustin IV

To reiterate, these cards are not in any way banned. But they are cards that the Commander Format Panel, and Wizards, have deemed to be highly impactful on how games are played out. Just like Mass Land Denial, Extra Turns and Tutors have a big impact on power level, these cards do too. 

WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR ME?

If you’re in an established playgroup adept at pregame chats, then not much. The Bracket System is a tool, first and foremost, and while no system can legislate away bad actors, it’s designed to help untrusted play at your LGS or events.

Try out the system, try it with your friends, and figure out what you like about it – and any feedback you might have. This is a Beta, so feedback is welcomed through the correct channels, with the best place being the Official Magic Discord.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Commander Bracket Beta will be tested at MagicCon Chicago, and feedback will be collected in the next couple of months in order to refine the system later this year. Another update is likely in April, Q2 2025, the earliest point at which unbans might happen.

Major deckbuilding sites like Moxfield and Archidekt will roll out tech to flag bracket cards, which is a really cool update.

For clarification and extra info, check the DailyMTG Stream or Gavin’s Article, which contains an FAQ.

If you have some burning questions about the bracket system, I’ll return to the feedback and do a mailbag column in the future.

The post What Is The New Commander Bracket Beta System? appeared first on Card Kingdom Blog.

Employees working for the agency now known as DOGE have been ordered to stop using Slack while government lawyers attempt to transition the agency to one that is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, 404 Media has learned.

“Good morning, everyone! As a reminder, please refrain from using Slack at the moment while our various general counsels figure out the best way to handle the records migration to our new EOP [Executive Office of the President] component,” a message seen by 404 Media reads. “Will update as soon as we have more information!”

Another message seen by 404 Media provides an update and asserts that the US Digital Service (which is now DOGE) will “split” from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). 

“I spoke to the DOGE team about Slack. Because of the USDS split from OMB, OMB is asking us to stop generating new slack messages starting now,” the message says. “We expect this to be a temporary pause, and we expect to continue having access to historical Slack material. We may have intermittent access as we go through this system transition so continue to use good data hygiene and backup any critical material. We will keep you updated.”

The messages indicate that, under Elon Musk’s leadership, DOGE is actively taking steps to make sure its communications and records are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act, a records transparency law commonly used by journalists and lawyers to hold government accountable. Instead, DOGE is asserting that rather than reporting up through the Office of Management and Budget as the United States Digital Service did for years, it is reporting through the Executive Office of the President and to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Under OMB, it was generally subject to FOIA. Under the White House Chief of Staff, records it creates are generally not subject to FOIA.

This would make DOGE a Presidential Records Act entity, meaning records it creates are not FOIAble until years after a president leaves office rather than a Federal Records Act entity, which would make its records FOIAble now. This is a very notable, but unsurprising move that federal records experts have been worried about since the issuance of Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the United States Digital Service—an agency of federal tech workers that was formed under the Obama administration—to the United States DOGE Service. That executive order specifically states that the renamed entity “shall be established in the Executive Office of the President,” and that the USDS administrator (Elon Musk) “shall report to the White House Chief of Staff.” The Dispatch, for example, wrote a very informative article about this could limit public scrutiny of DOGE and the “clever” executive order that did this.

Government experts 404 Media spoke to said the directive to not use Slack and the assertion that DOGE is now under the Executive Office of the President rather than OMB is not surprising but that it is very concerning, and that this assertion can be, will be, and is being legally challenged.

"Just changing the name alone under the Executive Order doesn't affect DOGE's recordkeeping status,” Jason R. Baron, professor at the University of Maryland and former director of litigation at the National Archives and Records Administration told 404 Media in a phone call. “The administration apparently has made a determination that DOGE will be a presidential component subject to the Presidential Records Act. However, that will surely be challenged in the courts in connection with FOIA lawsuits. Under FOIA, it will be for the courts to decide whether under existing DOGE is acting more like a federal oversight agency or as a presidential component that solely advises the President.”

The Presidential Records Act was created in part to make it so that the president does not need to publish records about their decisions, advice, and considerations while they are president. But Barron said that the way DOGE is currently acting—going into agencies across the federal government and gutting or threatening to gut them—is not a presidential advice function, it is a cross-agency function. He suggested that a court will have to consider this in any lawsuit about DOGE’s status.

“DOGE staff certainly do not appear to be solely advising and assisting the President,” Baron said. “They appear to have taken actions in the real world that affect Treasury Department and USAID operations involving electronic systems. Whether those activities are deemed illegal or not under other laws, they are certainly actions beyond what a group of people who are solely advising and the president would do.”

Lauren Harper, the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy, wrote a blog post explaining that DOGE’s move to EOP was almost definitely an attempt to hide records, but that journalists should challenge this. “Does Musk think that placing DOGE within the government will make it easier to hide its records? If so, let’s prove that troubling assumption wrong.”

Harper told 404 Media that beyond not being governed by FOIA, in the Presidential Records Act, “there is a carveout for personal records that doesn’t exist in the Federal Records Act.”

“This means that the president and their staff get to decide if records are personal, which means, they can do whatever they want with them without consulting anybody,” she said. 

Both Harper and Baron stressed that any distinction over DOGE’s status matters only to records they themselves are creating, and that many of DOGE’s actions will remain FOIAble via other agencies. For example when DOGE employees email people at the Treasury Department, those records should be able to be obtained directly via the Treasury Department even if they are not available from DOGE. 

Already, DOGE has been subject to several lawsuits about its status within the government and what transparency laws it must abide by. The Congressional Research Service, a segment of the Library of Congress that analyzes changes to government, meanwhile published a paper about DOGE’s “early implementation,” which raised the question about what types of records would be available to the public: “Certain transparency statutes might apply to USDS, depending on its membership and implementation,” the paper says. “These statutes include the Freedom of Information Act, where members of the public can request agency information, and the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which requires public reporting and meetings for advisory committees where at least one nonfederal member is providing advice to the federal government. Will USDS and the DOGE effort involve nonfederal persons in advisory roles? What level of public and congressional information access is anticipated?”

The tragic fatal air collision is part of a deeper pattern of deregulation that corporate media continues to ignore and corporate bought politicians continue to enable

On January 29th, America witnessed its first mid-air aviation disaster in 16 years. An Army Black Hawk helicopter and an American Airlines plane collided in the air near Washington, D.C.’s Reagan National Airport. There are at least 67 reported deaths, and no survivors. Families are mourning the lives lost in this horrific tragedy, and instead of offering accountability and leadership, Donald Trump immediately blamed diversity.

This is what happens when ideology replaces expertise. And if history is any guide, this may not be the last such tragedy as Republicans insist on devaluing human life at the altar of deregulation—an injustice corporate media rarely addresses. But we will.

Let’s Address This.

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The Republican Religion: Deregulation

For decades, Republicans have preached the gospel of deregulation, telling the American people that government oversight is the enemy. And every time they gut critical safety measures, disaster follows:

• GOP deregulated the mortgage industry → Housing market collapse
• GOP deregulated the banking industry → Banks failed
• GOP deregulated the railroad industry → Trains derailed
• GOP deregulated the food industry → Fatal food poisoning outbreaks
• GOP deregulated the aviation industry → Planes crash, and people die

To be fair, corporate Democrats joined the GOP in deregulating the banking industry in the 1990s, leading to the eventual collapse. However, after Obama enacted banking reforms during his term, Trump and MAGA Republicans again deregulated banks during Trump’s first term—leading to another near banking collapse in SVB.

And granted, we are awaiting the official report on this FAA disaster. But that’s what makes Trump’s condemnation of diversity as the absolute cause of this tragedy that much more bizarre—especially when all signs point to his own reckless decisions to deregulate the FAA even during his first term as contributing factors. For example, in 2017 Trump issued Executive Order 13,771, which mandated that for every new regulatory rule enacted, a federal agency (such as the FAA) would need to repeal two regulations.1

As a result, scholars at the American Bar Association analyzed the data a year later and found that the unfortunate impact of this Trump rule was that while the FAA is, “an agency whose every rule is meant to increase transportation safety,” that as a result of Trump's deregulatory orders, “The FAA may be avoiding any new rulemaking that would have to be justified under the new regulatory mandate.” I am horrified that the FAA feels restricted from making new rules to keep us safe, yet this is what Trump’s deregulation rules have enforced.

The FAA Was Sabotaged in Real Time

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) exists to keep air travel safe. It ensures planes are maintained, air traffic controllers are trained and staffed, and flight systems operate with maximum safety standards. And yet, in his first nine days in office, Trump deliberately dismantled key safety measures within the FAA. Here’s the timeline:

• January 20: FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker was forced to step down after Elon Musk pressured him to resign for fining SpaceX over regulatory violations.
• January 21: Trump enacted a hiring freeze on air traffic controllers, despite an ongoing shortage, putting all travelers in unnecessary and preventable danger.
• January 22: The FAA’s Aviation Safety Advisory Committee was disbanded—Trump claimed this would "make flying safer." (More about this below).
• January 28: Trump administration issues directive to arbitrarily force out FAA employees (wrongly reported by corporate media as a 'buyout'), gutting experienced professionals, with no plan for replacement or analysis on whether such roles can safely be eliminated.
• January 29: America suffers its first fatal mid-air collision in 16 years. Every person involved in this tragic collision dies.

Let’s be clear—this is not an accident. This is what happens when you remove trained professionals, cut safety oversight, and let billionaires dictate policy. The FAA is running on fumes because Trump and his enablers made it that way. And worse, rather than take any responsibility, Trump is blaming Black, brown, and disabled people, and doing what he does best—lie.

Trump’s Lies and Blame Game

Instead of addressing the direct role his policies played in this disaster, Trump did what he always does—blamed Black and brown people.

When asked how he knew "diversity" was to blame for the crash, Trump responded:
"Because I have common sense, OK? And unfortunately, a lot of people don’t."

This is not leadership. It’s racism. And it’s a deliberate attempt to mislead the public. As I’ve written before, actual common sense demonstrates that across industries diversity increases productivity, increases performance, increases profit, and increases safety and security. But Trump’s hypocritical and racist stance is how he operates in every aspect of his life. Consider that while he sends ICE after Latino Americans to arrest and deport them, he has never once sent ICE into white majority schools, even though we know there are at least half a million undocumented mostly white Canadian and European immigrants in the United States right now.2 While he lifts sanctions on extremist Israeli settlers who are instigating actual mass violence and terrorism against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank,3 he’s stripping visas from students who dared march peacefully within First Amendment protections for Palestinian liberation.4

And now, while he himself deregulates the FAA, he blames anything that goes wrong on Black and brown and disabled people. Never mind that the helicopter pilot, the airplane pilot, and the former FAA head were all able bodied white males. Never mind that air traffic staffing was reportedly “not normal” due to ongoing staffing shortages5 (even despite which Trump is trying to further shrink the size of the FAA). The racism and ableism is nauseating. Trump's executive order, issued just days before the crash, baselessly claimed that the FAA had been hiring people with "severe intellectual disabilities, psychiatric issues, and complete paralysis" due to DEI initiatives.6 There is no evidence of this. None. But it apparently does not matter—Trump knows his base will believe whatever he tells them, no matter how absurd.

Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg responded to Trump’s grotesque comments, stating:

Despicable. As families grieve, Trump should be leading, not lying. We put safety first, drove down close calls, grew Air Traffic Control, and had zero commercial airline crash fatalities out of millions of flights on our watch. President Trump now oversees the military and the FAA. One of his first acts was to fire and suspend some of the key personnel who helped keep our skies safe. Time for the President to show actual leadership and explain what he will do to prevent this from happening again.

I doubt Trump has the integrity to do any of those things. But speaking of DEIA and American Airlines, American Airlines ended its DEIA program in December after Stephen Miller’s legal group threatened lawsuits. The idea that DEIA had anything to do with this crash is a blatant lie designed to shift attention from the very real damage Trump has already done. Consider the absurdity that Trump himself issued Executive Orders to deregulate the airline industry, and then as standards fall, he blames the airlines for operating on lower standards.

The Cost of Deregulation Is Human Life

This is bigger than partisan politics. The families mourning tonight come from all walks of life, all political backgrounds—but they are all Americans, and most importantly, they are human beings first. We should be demanding answers, demanding accountability, and demanding the restoration of safety regulations that protect all of us when we travel.

Trump’s recklessness has already killed Americans. And if this is just a preview of what’s to come, then we must stand united to ensure his incompetence doesn’t claim even more lives. We cannot let these culture wars distract us from the truth—this is about class, about power, and about a government that is being weaponized against its own people.

We deserve better. Let’s demand it.

Before you go. I am doing everything in my power to stave off fascism under this new administration. I cannot do it alone. Subscribe below and join the movement.

1https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/publications/air_space_lawyer/Summer2018/asl_v031n02_summer18_obrienorr.pdf

2 https://www.migrationpolicy.org/data/unauthorized-immigrant-population/state/US

3 https://www.axios.com/2025/01/24/trump-lifts-sanctions-israeli-settlers-west-bank

4 https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-administration-cancel-student-visas-all-hamas-sympathizers-white-house-2025-01-29/

5 https://abc7chicago.com/post/deadly-dc-plane-crash-highlights-ongoing-air-traffic-control-staffing-shortages-challenges/15849959/

6 https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/01/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-ends-dei-madness-and-restores-excellence-and-safety-within-the-federal-aviation-administration/