Aetherdrift Draft Week 3: Trends, Highlights, and Card Insights
Another week of Aetherdrift Draft has passed, and the meta continues to evolve. White is making a strong comeback, and multiple limited podcasts have been praising Rakdos as a powerful alternative to the increasingly contested Green archetypes.
This overview will bring you up to speed on the latest trends in the Magic Arena draft meta, helping you stay ahead of the curve and improve your win rate.
Player Interest Over Time
Premier Draft activity declined by 30.05% last week. The graph shows that the third week of drafts landed pretty much in the average of the last sets.
Traditional Draft saw a smaller decline of 12.20%.
Shifts in Color Preferences and Win Rates
Following last week’s trend, the number of multicolor decks and splashes has increased again. Last week we already discussed why the format lends itself to playing more colors, so be sure to check out the previous article for more insights.
One common explanation from experienced players and content creators is that Green’s depth allows it to remain viable even when 3-4 drafters at the table are competing for it. Picking up a few strong Green cards can still be worthwhile, but it often requires dipping into other colors to complete a viable deck.
One note on win rates: they’ve declined slightly, which is expected as more of the general Arena population catches on and 17Lands users lose their early advantage. The big jump for 3+ decks is probably a fluctuation in the data last week which made it look like they were doing better than they actually were.
In terms of color preferences, we actually see a small decline in Green’s popularity, however with roughly 25% it is still very much overplayed.
Black increased in play rate and when you follow other limited content creators you for sure have heard a lot of praises for the color. White has also been gaining momentum and managed to increase its win rate the second week in a row.
Looking at the colors win rates we see a pretty balanced format.
Archetype Performance
The two-color archetype breakdown mirrors the overall color trends — White is seeing more play, while Green’s dominance is slightly declining.
The biggest boost in popularity comes from Rakdos. Check out a deep dive into what makes the archetype tick here.
Be cautious when interpreting win rates — fewer games each week mean wider confidence intervals and less reliable data. Nonetheless, it is interesting to see that the top two performing archetypes this week are both White based.
Cards of the Week
To wrap up this week’s overview, here are some standout cards from the past week.
Secret Gold Cards
This category highlights cards that excel in specific archetypes but underperform in most other decks they can technically be played in. In that sense they can be considered gold cards and being aware of their restrictions can give you an edge during the draft.
Because these cards struggle outside of their ideal archetypes, their overall win rates may not fully reflect their true power. So these cards may seem bad when only looking at the card table on 17Lands.
Today the featured card in this category is The Last Ride. This vehicle only really performs well in Rakdos. The radar plot visualization below shows how much better or worse the card is when played in the indicated color pair. We see that in this case the card has a below average win rate in all archetypes except Rakdos, where it shines with a 59.4% win rate.
Trap Cards
Similar to secret gold cards — but in reverse — these are cards that underperform in certain archetypes despite looking appealing. Often they touch a pocket of synergy that is not relevant to what certain archetypes are trying to do.
In this weeks example we see Memory Guardian. While performing well in blue color pairs that want to play a lot of artifacts, it is unplayable in Simic.
If you draft this card, be aware that it may limit your flexibility more than expected.
ALSA Movers
As players adjust their evaluations, we can track which cards have risen or fallen in value compared to last week.
A card frequently discussed in limited podcasts this week is Marshals' Pathcruiser. An important detail about this card is that its exhaust ability isn’t essential for it to be a good pick. Simply fetching a land, enabling potential splashes, plus the option to crew it at some point makes the card a solid pick.
The second highest mover this week is Thunderhead Gunner. Not much can be said about this card, except that it's great. The body blocks well and is robust against removal, while the free looting allows you to cycle away all lands in the late game. Every red deck wants to play this and it is not unheard of to splash it in other archetypes.
| Name | Alsa Week 2 | Alsa Week 3 | Alsa Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marshals' Pathcruiser | 5.59 | 4.8 | -0.78 |
| Thunderhead Gunner | 5.05 | 4.53 | -0.52 |
| Aether Syphon | 4.57 | 4.18 | -0.39 |
| Migrating Ketradon | 3.78 | 3.42 | -0.36 |
| Scrap Compactor | 6.18 | 5.88 | -0.31 |
In terms of less popular cards, we again see a bunch of Boros cards. The ALSA changes here are not as substantial as the ones in the previous table, but the trend of Boros being avoided is getting very clear.
| Name | Alsa Week 2 | Alsa Week 3 | Alsa Diff |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kolodin, Triumph Caster | 3.55 | 3.89 | 0.34 |
| Muraganda Raceway | 4.84 | 5.17 | 0.34 |
| Cloudspire Captain | 3.94 | 4.26 | 0.32 |
| Alacrian Armory | 6.05 | 6.34 | 0.28 |
| Rover Blades | 5.41 | 5.68 | 0.27 |
Hopefully, you found this meta update insightful. Aetherdrift remains an evolving format with new strategies and meta shifts emerging each week. To make sure you stay on top of it all subscribe to our free newsletter to receive a short weekly update on the format.