Welcome all to the Daily Dose of War of the Spark where today I’ll be talking about the return of Vehicles! That’s right, it’s time to crew up, get in your vehicle and get ready to roll! I’ve always been a fan of Vehicles ever since the wonderful Heart of Kiran and Smuggler’s Copter ruled the Standard metagame. The Vehicles I’ll be talking about today aren’t quite as powerful as that, but they will still make an impact in formats like Limited. Vehicles are in a great design space where they are quite powerful, but players first have to find a balance with their existing creatures to be able to crew them.
The first Vehicle is one with a cheap crew cost and a lot of potential. Here is Mizzium Tank.
This is a great cheap vehicle that has the chance to get up to 5 or 6 power in one turn. We have seen similar cards like Piston-Fist Cyclops, but that creature can’t attack unless you cast only an instant or sorcery, whereas Mizzium Tank becomes a creature if you cast any noncreature spell. Both become 4/3 creatures that can attack, but Mizzium Tank can grow even larger if you are able to cast additional noncreature spells in the same turn. Any combat trick played on Mizzium Tank becomes that much more powerful as it will gain a bonus +1/+1 just for playing the noncreature spell. I think that this Vehicle will surprise some people and becomes a sneaky way of activating a Vehicle without needing another creature on the battlefield.
Next, is a Vehicle that if crewed, will probably mean game over for your opponent. Here is Parhelion II.
This is not like Mizzium Tank in that it will take you until the late game to make this vehicle have an impact. At 8 mana, there are many games you will draw this card and just never get it on to the battlefield. If you can though, it will start to take over the game. Once you scrape together that eight mana and have 4 power of creatures to crew it, you will be able to attack with 13 power in the air all at once. All these attackers will have vigilance as well, so you don’t have to worry about doing an alpha attack and being left without any blockers for the crack back. Will this Vehicle see some play in Standard? Probably not? In Limited though, it could be the bomb that wins you the game.
Finally, here is one of the cheapest casting cost Vehicles that they’ve ever made. Here is Silent Submersible.
I love this cheap Vehicle that you can get out on the battlefield on turn two. Its double blue mana cost could be a hindrance in it coming down on turn two each game. It has an easy crew cost of only 2, which means you can play Silent Submersible on turn two, then play another creature on turn three to crew it and attack in for a free card draw. Unlike a lot of other creatures with a similar ability, you can draw a card if you damage either a player or planeswalker. With 36 planeswalkers in the set, there will plenty of times you will want to get them off the battlefield. This ability will allow you to attack the planeswalkers while still drawing a card for damaging it.
As you can see, the Vehicles in this set, aren’t quite at the level that they were in Kaladesh, but we did get 3 solid Vehicles in War of the Spark that will see play. Thanks again for joining me on the Daily Dose of War of the Spark. Join me again tomorrow as I investigate more cards from War of the Spark.
