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In late 2016, Kaladesh (KLD) was released to much fanfare. The new India-inspired world had a bright and sunny look at a world fueled by aether and artifice. Energy and Vehicles both made their debut here, leaving a major impact in their wake.
It was the first set in the Kaladesh block and while it did have a few hiccups, it was still an engaging release that was exciting for players. At the start of 2017, the second set in the block was released, continuing our journey through the world of Avishkar: Aether Revolt.
Let's look back at everything that came in the set and its lasting impact on the game.
AER Essential Info
Aether Revolt was released on January 20, 2017. It continued the story of Kaladesh with the revolutionaries and inventors fighting back against the tyrannical Consulate.
The set featured the codename "Stock" of "Lock, Stock, and Barrel." Barrel was cut when blocks went from three sets to two, it would instead be attributed to Amonkhet.
The design team consisted of the following members:
- Mark Gottlieb (Lead)
- Mark Rosewater
- Ken Nagle
- Gavin Verhey
- Adam Prosak
- Ari Levitch
The development team included:
- Ben Hayes (Lead)
- Sam Stoddard
- Ethan Fleischer
- Adam Prosak
- Yoni Skolnik
- Tim Aten
Products
Aether Revolt had fewer products than we'd associate with a typical release today.
Booster Boxes and Packs
The core products of the era were the Booster Packs and Booster Boxes. Aether Revolt came before alternate options like Set Boosters, Play Boosters, and Collector Boosters.
Each Booster Pack contained ten Commons, three Uncommons, one Rare or Mythic Rare, one Basic Land, and one token or ad card. Every so often, a Common would be replaced by a premium foil card of any rarity.
There were 36 Booster Packs per box, which was perfect for drafting with prizes for the players.
Bundles
The set also brought with it Bundles, which had been repurposed in Kaladesh from what were then known as "Fat Packs."
Each Bundle contained 10 Booster Packs, 80 Basic Lands, a spindown life counter, deck boxes, and a Player's Guide. This Guide included a full visual spoiler of the set as well as tips and tricks for playing the cards.
The Masterpiece Series: Kaladesh Inventions
Aether Revolt brought back the Kaladesh Inventions sub-set that came with Kaladesh. These cards were a continuation of the Masterpiece Series that began with Battle for Zendikar's Expedition Lands.
This small set of cards was made up of ultra-rare foils that would only appear once across multiple Booster Boxes. Each card featured a special full-art treatment that could be seen through the text box, as well as a stylish filigree frame.
Each of the cards you could find in this release reflect the efforts of the Consulate to quell the rebellion, carrying the story of Avishkar forward.
You'll run into famous Stax lock pieces like Chalice of the Void, Ensnaring Bridge, and Sphere of Resistance.
Other options might include oppressive Creatures like Arcbound Ravager, Sundering Titan, and Wurmcoil Engine.
All but two of the cards in these special printings, we'd seen before. The new cards included Paradox Engine and Planar Bridge - two powerful Artifacts that could lead to huge explosive plays.
Mechanics
Aether Revolt had four mechanics that defined play, two from Kaladesh and two created just for the set.
Returning Mechanics
The two returning mechanics from Kaladesh are Energy along with Vehicles and Crew. These mechanics play a critical role in the core identity of Avishkar, so it wasn't a surprise to see them reappear.
Revolt
The first new mechanic of Aether Revolt is part of the set's namesake: Revolt.
Revolt is a mechanic that cares about permanents leaving the battlefield under your control on a turn. You'd get an extra effect or ability on certain spells if the condition was met. It took on multiple forms across card types: Creatures like Solemn Recruit could gain counters; or it could function as a bonus gaining you three extra life when you cast Decommission to blow up someone's Sol Ring.
Improvise
The other new mechanic introduced in Aether Revolt was Improvise, one of many twists on Convoke we've seen over the years.
Convoke would allow you to use your Creatures to help pay for the cost of your spells by tapping them. Improvise does a similar thing for Artifacts, letting you tap them in order to make your spells cheaper. The only difference is that Artifacts can only cover colorless mana.
Kaladesh Remastered
To inject more Pioneer cards onto MTG Arena, Wizards released a special combined version of the Kaladesh block on the digital platform. Titled Kaladesh Remastered, it took the best of both sets and put them into one release. It came to Arena on November 12, 2020.
A handful of powerful cards were omitted right out of the gate, like Renegade Freighter, along with both Smuggler's Copter and Walking Ballista were excluded at the time as they were both banned in Pioneer. However, Smuggler's Copter would eventually come to Arena as a replacement for Baleful Mastery on The List.
Limited Archetypes and All-Stars
Here are the ten Draft archetypes that you could build around with Aether Revolt: Most of these are largely the same as in Kaladesh though some cards created some shifts.
- White-Blue
: Blink and Enters Effects - Blue-Black
: Artifact Control - Black-Red
: Artifact Aggro and Improvise - Red-Green
: Energy Beatdown - Green-White : Fabricate Go-tall/Go-wide and Revolt
- White-Black : Recursion and Vehicles
- Blue-Red : Energy & Artifacts
- Black-Green : Fabricate Midrange
- Red-White : Vehicle Aggro
- Green-Red : Energy Tempo/Ramp
Since the archetypes are largely the same as Kaladesh, we'll cover the changes instead of each archetype.
The Aether Creatures
At Common, there was a cycle of Aether Creatures, with one for each color. These were
- Aether Inspector
- Aether Swooper
- Aether Poisoner
- Aether Chaser
- Aether Herder
Each of these was a rock-solid pickup in just about any draft you saw them in, providing you with a way to rack up Energy counters, and an effective way to use them.
Of these, Aether Swooper, Aether Chaser, and Aether Poisoner were generally seen as the best. Each were fairly cheap and had some form of token generation baked in, giving you a solid means of generating an army. Of these, Aether Chaser was often cited as being the best, thanks to the power of its First Strike.
Both Aether Inspector and Aether Herder being more expensive made them much clunkier by comparison. Nevertheless, you'd still happily play them, just in smaller quantities compared to the other three.
Powerful Spot Removal
Aether Revolt was packed with powerful new removal spells like:
- Thopter Arrest
- Cruel Finality
- Daring Demolition
- Fatal Push
- Chandra's Revolution
- Hungry Flames
- Prey Upon
All these cards offered lots of ways to take down Creatures. This made it that much more dangerous to go all-in on one threat and encouraged taking your board a bit wider to guard against it.
Perhaps the most noteworthy of these removal spells was Shock. This was the card's first reprint since Magic 2014, putting it back into Standard and making for an efficient Limited threat at the same time. Not only was it great removal but could be used to deal direct damage and even close out games in a pinch. Since it was easily splashable, it became a popular pick in just about any draft where you could get your hands on it.
Revolt Enablers
Despite being a core theme of the set, Revolt only had marginal impacts on the game. However, in strategies where it was, you needed solid setup. This is where the various Revolt enablers would come into play.
Renegade Map was one of the best options for this, providing you with a card that you could sacrifice to find a Basic Land. In doing so, you'd trigger Revolt. Similarly, the various Implements for each color provided you with a simple way to sacrifice an Artifact in any color, much like the Puzzleknots in Kaladesh.
If you wanted to go all-in, Conviction offered one of the best ways to do it. On its own, the card isn't very good, offering a relatively meager stat boost. It gives you the opportunity to bounce it back to your hand, though. This gives you a constant way to trigger Revolt effects (and do so at just about any time).
These were most effective in decks with White, Black, and Green cards, as those were the only three colors to make use of Revolt. It wasn't impossible to pair them with Red or Blue cards, it just tended to be more work for less value.
Aerial Modification and Siege Modification
Both Aerial Modification and Siege Modification did something interesting: modified your Vehicles. This gave you some great new texture if you were in a Vehicles-heavy archetype, namely Red-White.
They were quite fragile thanks to the amount of Artifact hate in both Kaladesh and Aether Revolt. Both Flying and First Strike are extremely strong keywords, though, so if you could pull them off, they were powerful.
Dawnfeather Eagle
In most formats, Dawnfeather Eagle doesn't look like much to write home about. Five mana is a lot for a 3/3 Flying Creature, even if it boosts your board in the process.
What made it so good in this format was a combination of two factors. First, several archetypes cared about going wide with Fabricate and Thopter generators. This makes a board pump like the Eagle that much stronger. Even better, the format was also big on bouncing and Flickering your own Creatures - especially in White - meaning you could use the ability multiple times to bring the game to a close.
Efficient Construction
Efficient Construction provided you with a solid way of generating 1/1 Thopters. Since these tokens had Flying, putting this in the same deck as several Artifacts could make you a strong board with ease.
This is the sort of build-up that would make a card like Dawnfeather Eagle so good. Once you had the sky full of Thopters, you could play a board pump and deal massive damage.
Gifted Aetherborn
Gifted Aetherborn was an excellent threat in just about any deck running Black. If you could get your hands on a copy, it played a strong defensive game while also creating massive life swings if you could attack with it.
Scrapper Champion
If you wanted a big aggressive threat in Limited, Scrapper Champion had you covered.
Four mana is a lot for a 2/2, even with Double Strike, but the ability to get lots of +1/+1 counters made it well worth the effort. If you played it in any Energy-heavy deck, it would easily take over the game and decimate your opponents. Best of all, it was super splashable, which made for a great threat even if you didn't have tons of Energy to spare.
Ridgescale Tusker
All the things that make Dawnfeather Eagle good are exactly the same things that make Ridgescale Tusker amazing. You can use it to swarm your board with counters and then bounce or Flicker it to do it all over again.
It's miles better than the Eagle, however, as the buffs this card gives out are permanent, meaning you can stack it up over multiple turns. Couple this with a massive body and you have one of the best Uncommons of the block.
Maverick Thopterist
Maverick Thopterist was one of the best payoffs in the entire set.
Not only was it a top-level option to make use of Improvise, but it was even better if you could Bounce or Flicker it. The more you did this, the more Thopter tokens you'd generate, allowing you to swarm the board and overwhelm your opponents.
Even if you only got to use it at a base level, four power across three bodies is a great deal. Since you can likely cast it with Improvise for two or three mana, it's about as much of a slam dunk as you could hope for.
Hidden Stockpile
Without a doubt, Hidden Stockpile was easily the best Revolt payoff of Aether Revolt. If you bounced a permanent or something died, then you'd get a simple 1/1 token. If you had a way of repeatably bouncing something - like with Conviction - then you could slowly generate quite a large army.
What made it especially good was that you could make a Servo token with its first ability and use it to fuel the second ability. Even better, if you did it on your turn, you'd simply replace the Servo you just sacrificed. This made for a card that was quite excellent when it came to long, grindy games.
Untethered Express
If you could make Untethered Express work, it would easily run away with games. Every turn it would get exponentially bigger and the Crew cost was so low that just about any deck wanted to run it.
The only downside was that you needed a Creature to make good use of it. Sure, all you needed was any Creature, but if you somehow couldn't find one, it could end up being a bit unreliable. Since it is Colorless, it could go into any deck which made it a slam dunk of a first pick in many drafts.
Major Constructed Cards
Now that we've finished looking through some of the bigger Limited players, let's take a look some of the more important Constructed cards. These are both a combination of cards that made the biggest impact in Competitive play as well as Commander.
Felidar Guardian
First up is the powerful Felidar Guardian. This Creature card allows you to Flicker another permanent and put it directly into play.
Most Flicker effects typically impact a specific card type rather than any permanent, which made Felidar Guardian especially potent. Since it could Flicker anything, that included Planeswalkers, which formed a powerful two-card combo with Saheeli Rai.
This worked by Flickering Saheeli with the Felidar's ability, resetting Saheeli. You then use Saheeli's -2 ability to create a copy of Felidar Guardian with Haste. Once you get started, can Flicker Saheeli an infinite number of times.
In just few combo cycles, you can deal more than enough damage to defeat your opponent and win the game. Wizards R&D confirmed that this was a combo they'd missed when making the set. They were initially hesitant to ban one of the cards but eventually, they had to act. Felidar Guardian was banned as an emergency addendum just two days after the original Banned and Restricted update for April 2017. It was banned in Pioneer in November 2019.
The impact of this card led to Wizards reassessing how they designed Flicker effects and remains a part of B&R philosophy to this day. Wizards often says that if they do take action outside the typical pre-rotation window to ban a card, it needs to be something like a "Felidar Guardian situation."
Sram, Senior Edificer
Sram, Senior Edificer has really made a name for himself in a wide variety of formats.
He's a tremendous stand-out in Commander decks that lean heavily on Auras, Equipments, and Vehicles. If you're playing a modest amount of any of these cards in White, you're almost certainly playing a copy of Sram.
This popularity extends to Constructed formats as well. In Pioneer, you likely run into Aura-heavy decks. These lists use Sram to draw lots of cards alongside the value engine of Light-Paws, Emperor's Voice. This created a top-tier archetype during the period when Lurrus of the Dream-Den was legal, and still manages to provide a solid, if lesser, experience today.
Fatal Push
Virtually no card was more impactful for Constructed-level play than Fatal Push. One-mana removal spells were quite rare in this era and none had anywhere near the impact of this card.
Practically overnight, Fatal Push began to see play in not only Standard, but in Modern and Legacy as well. It's even had a healthy run in Pioneer since that format was first announced.
What makes it so good is just how efficient it is at killing lots of Creatures. As you go backwards into older formats, most of the Creatures that see play are cheap with low mana values. This includes the mighty Tarmogoyf, whose power fell like a stone in the wake of Fatal Push's printing.
More importantly, when it came to formats like Modern and Legacy, you also gained access to Fetch Lands. These provide you with an easy way to turn on Revolt, turning it from a spell that only kills small Creatures into one that can take out anything up to a mana value of four. That's easily going to be the top-end for most decks, making Fatal Push a standout among standouts in Aether Revolt.
It's also worth noting that Wizards opted to make Fatal Push one of the Friday Night Magic promos for the set. Many other promos of the era were seen as bad, which had been causing attendance to suffer as a result. This one was so high in-demand that it single-handedly brought many players back to local game stores in the hopes of acquiring a copy.
Indomitable Creativity
When Indomitable Creativity was initially previewed, it was seen as a bad Red Mythic Rare card. Most people simply saw it as a weird card for Commander and not much else.
As time went on, though, various token generators would become more commonplace and easier to set up. In doing so, you could effectively create a Control deck that would setup to cast a powerful Indomitable Creativity. This would then let you find a big threat and overwhelm your opponent, leading to Creativity decks becoming visible players in Modern and Pioneer.
As time has gone on, the card is once again seeing far less play. The decks using it often have sub-par win rates, but that doesn't stop players from trying to see if they can pull off an epic win using it.
Heroic Intervention
No card from Aether Revolt has had quite the impact on Commander as Heroic Intervention. If your deck has Green in it, this is practically an auto-include, as it protects your board from any sweeping threats that may try wiping it out.
Even if you're not a Commander player, Heroic Intervention also continues to be a minor sideboard player in older formats to this day. It's just that efficient at what it does and at such a low mana cost that it's worth playing in the right list.
Rogue Refiner
Rogue Refiner would be designed as the Green-Blue signpost Uncommon for Aether Revolt. Its effect is simple, drawing you a card and giving you a little energy. It seemed overall innocent.
It turned out the card was one of the better ways to generate energy in the powerful Temur Energy lists of the era. When combined with other energy producing cards and payoffs, it became a little too good. Couple this with a statline that was a bit strong for the time and you had a bit of a problem.
This would lead to Rogue Refiner ultimately getting banned alongside Attune with Aether to power the deck down a bit. Although modest by today's standards, it was precisely the right amount of glue to make a powerful deck at the time.
Winding Constrictor
If there's one thing many players love, it's getting extra value for things they're already doing. Winding Constrictor is great at this, giving you an extra counter whenever you put one or more on an Artifact or Creature you control.
This ability, coupled with a cheap and efficient rate as a 2/3, led to the card becoming a dominating force in the Standard of its time. Initially it saw play in Black-Green Delirium lists, but would eventually go on to appear in multiple decks.
This would come to a head during Ixalan block with powerful cards like Merfolk Branchwalker, Jadelight Ranger, and Hadana's Climb // Winged Temple of Orazca.
Even now, it remains a popular Commander card for any deck that can make use of it. That says a lot too given that it requires two colors to even be up for consideration.
Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester
When Kaladesh came out, it introduced Vehicles, including the powerful Smuggler's Copter. Shortly after the release of Aether Revolt, the Copter was banned, leaving a void in the Vehicles decks of the time. Thankfully, Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester were there to pick up the slack.
Heart of Kiran was easily the more impactful of the two. For just two mana, you could have a 4/4 Flying threat that never taps thanks to Vigilance. Since several cheap Creatures could easily cover the Crew cost, it was a no-brainer to get online. If you had access to a Planeswalker like Chandra, Torch of Defiance or Gideon, Ally of Zendikar, it only got better thanks to its alternate cost.
Aethersphere Harvester was a little more niche, seeing less play as a result. Despite the lower copies, it was an easily "Crewable" threat that could give itself Lifelink. This provided a great foil to the Aggro decks of the time and beyond.
Paradox Engine
Paradox Engine is the sort of card that breaks with a ham sandwich. Whenever you cast any spell, you untap all your non-Land cards. If you pair it with a bunch of mana rocks, you can inevitably create arbitrarily large amounts of mana. This can also let you activate abilities repeatedly or even draw through your deck with the right strategy.
The power level of this was off the charts in Commander especially. It was banned in July 2019 after two years of terrorizing the format.
It even shows up a shocking amount in Legacy, thanks to the number of powerful mana rocks available, most notably Grim Monolith. If you pair it with a card like Mystic Forge, you can churn through your deck until you're ready to destroy your opponent.
Walking Ballista
Speaking of decimating opponents, few cards are more efficient at this as Walking Ballista. Thanks to its 
casting cost, you can make it as big as you want and then remove counters to dish out plenty of damage.
This makes Walking Ballista a tremendous finisher for many decks. A deck like Hardened Scales or Basking Broodscale combo can easily make it gigantic to go in for a kill shot. Alternatively, it can just be a strong threat in big-mana decks like Tron, especially when you find it using a Karn, the Great Creator.
Thanks to the various combo applications, it paired perfectly with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. The power of this combo and the potential for Walking Ballista to break in the future would lead to it being banned in Pioneer in August 2021. Despite this, it continues to see play in other formats.
The Planesalker Decks
Aether Revolt continued the release of Planeswalker Decks that began with Kaladesh. With this set, the two decks highlighted Ajani Goldmane and Tezzeret.
Headliner: Ajani, Valiant Protector
Exclusive Cards: Ajani's Aid, Ajani's Comrade, Inspiring Roar, and Tranquil Expanse
Ajani is well known for aiding his comrades and acting as a mentor. This comes through in this precon's focus on distributing +1/+1 counters and leaning into the Revolt mechanic.
Headliner: Tezzeret, Master of Metal
Exclusive Cards: Tezzeret's Betrayal, Tezzeret's Simulacrum, Pendulum of Patterns, and Submerged Boneyard
Tezzeret is, as his title suggests, a master of metal and Artifacts. This deck takes full advantage of his skills and supercharges your Artifacts while making good use of Improvise.
Tournament Decks of the Era
First up is Mardu Vehicles, as piloted by the winner of Pro Tour Aether Revolt - Lucas Esper Berthoud. Lucas's list was one of six Vehicles lists in the top eight, making it easily the most dominant archetype of the event. Most lists leaned Mardu, but some added in a light splash of Blue for some sideboard countermagic.
Mardu Vehicles | AER Standard | Lucas Esper Berthoud, 1st Place Pro Tour Aether Revolt
- Creatures (22)
- 1 Thalia, Heretic Cathar
- 2 Pia Nalaar
- 3 Inventor's Apprentice
- 4 Scrapheap Scrounger
- 4 Thraben Inspector
- 4 Toolcraft Exemplar
- 4 Veteran Motorist
- Planeswalkers (3)
- 3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
- Instants (6)
- 2 Shock
- 4 Unlicensed Disintegration
- Artifacts (6)
- 2 Aethersphere Harvester
- 4 Heart of Kiran
This type of deck was very similar to the ones seen at Pro Tour Kaladesh. Since that event, though, Smuggler's Copter was banned from Standard, so some changes had to be made for this iteration.
The addition of both Heart of Kiran and Aethersphere Harvester gave it plenty of firepower to continue thriving as one of the best decks in the format. The deck also gained access to both Shock and Fatal Push, giving it just a little more versatility in the process.
Black-Green Delirium also made a strong showing at this time. The deck had been a mainstay since Eldritch Moon but was seemingly taken down a peg with the banning of Emrakul, the Promised End.
Thankfully, Aether Revolt brought tons of new toys for the deck to play with.
Black-Green Delirium | AER Standard | Jan Ksandr, 7th Place Pro Tour Aether Revolt
- Creatures (27)
- 2 Grim Flayer
- 3 Rishkar, Peema Renegade
- 3 Scrapheap Scrounger
- 3 Tireless Tracker
- 4 Mindwrack Demon
- 4 Verdurous Gearhulk
- 4 Walking Ballista
- 4 Winding Constrictor
- Planeswalkers (2)
- 2 Nissa, Voice of Zendikar
- Instants (5)
- 1 Fatal Push
- 4 Grasp of Darkness
- Sorceries (1)
- 1 Traverse the Ulvenwald
- Lands (23)
- 6 Forest
- 7 Swamp
- 2 Evolving Wilds
- 4 Blooming Marsh
- 4 Hissing Quagmire
Both Winding Constrictor and Rishkar, Peema Renegade provided great ways of distributing +1/+1 counters to your Creatures. Even better, if you paired them with Walking Ballista, you could do some serious damage, making for rather explosive finishes. And, of course, the addition of Fatal Push gave it a nice boost in the removal department.
This would be the start of Winding Constrictor's impact on Standard, which would continue to evolve over the rest of its time in the format.
Jeskai Copy Cat Control | AER Standard | Kazuaki Fujimura, 8-2 Pro Tour Aether Revolt
- Creatures (7)
- 3 Torrential Gearhulk
- 4 Felidar Guardian
- Planeswalkers (4)
- 4 Saheeli Rai
- Instants (19)
- 2 Negate
- 2 Shock
- 3 Disallow
- 4 Anticipate
- 4 Glimmer of Genius
- 4 Harnessed Lightning
- Sorceries (2)
- 2 Fumigate
- Enchantments (2)
- 2 Oath of Jace
- Lands (26)
- 4 Island
- 4 Plains
- 2 Wandering Fumarole
- 4 Aether Hub
- 4 Inspiring Vantage
- 4 Port Town
- 4 Spirebluff Canal
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Authority of the Consuls
- 2 Dispel
- 2 Fragmentize
- 2 Negate
- 2 Oath of Chandra
- 2 Radiant Flames
- 3 Gideon, Ally of Zendikar
Of course, what discussion of Aether Revolt decks would be complete without Copy Cat? This was the deck that single-handedly dominated Standard once players discovered the combo of Saheeli Rai with Felidar Guardian.
At the Pro Tour, the deck didn't completely dominate the field. However, over the weeks that followed the event, it became omnipresent in Standard. Players simply couldn't deal with it and several different iterations would develop to find the best build of the deck. This one, piloted by Kazuaki Fujimura, was the PT's best performing deck, putting up an 8-2 record in the Constructed rounds.
Conclusion
That wraps things up for this look back at not only Aether Revolt but the Kaladesh block as a whole. These sets were hugely impactful for Magic at the time, garnering a huge love it or hate it response from players.
The power level of these two sets, combined with both Mirrodin and Urza blocks, convinced R&D to go more all-in on Colored Artifacts. This has been the most lasting impact of the block overall.
Despite the flaws, players loved the world that came with the sets. It would go on to take center stage with Aetherdrift. No doubt we'll see this sunny world again in the future, though hopefully with a little less dictatorship.
Paige Smith
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