Welcome to preview week for Aether Revolt, the cards are coming at us left and right and leaving us with so many questions and so much excitement! In Kaladesh, we were lucky enough to get three new mechanics in Vehicles, Fabricate, and Energy. Vehicles and Energy have been extremely popular and successful with cards such as Aetherworks Marvel and Smuggler’s Copter coming to the forefront. Fabricate was a mechanic that was great in Limited, but never really saw Constructed play. Chances are this is going to change thanks to a new mechanic from Aether Revolt, but more on that later.
Revolt
The first new mechanic from Aether Revolt I’m going to be talking about is Revolt. Let’s look at an example of a new card from Aether Revolt that has the Revolt mechanic. Here is Greenwheel Liberator.
At first glance, I think immediately of the Morbid mechanic from Dark Ascension. Looking a little deeper into it, Revolt is much better. A key thing to notice is that it says, “left the battlefield this turn”. This includes permanents that get bounced or blinked as well. On top of an artifact or creature going to the graveyard there are many ways to trigger Revolt. Here are just some of the existing cards in Standard that will help you get Revolt when you need it.
As you can see, there is no shortage of ways that you can make sure you activate Revolt on whatever spell you play, whenever you need it. The key to cards that have the Revolt mechanic is if they have an ability without activating Revolt that makes the card still useful. The last thing that you want to have is a dead card in your hand as you wait to be able to trigger Revolt. There will be some extra thought needed onto whether to cast that spell immediately or wait for extra value when you trigger Revolt.
Improvise
Next, I’m going to be talking about the second new mechanic from Aether Revolt. Back in the Mirrodin Block they introduced us to Affinity. It was a mechanic that allowed you to reduce the cost of casting spells by the number of artifacts you had in play. This mechanic caused a lot of headaches as it was an amazingly powerful ability that helped you cast spells with high value for way below what they should be cast for normally. The newest mechanic from Aether Revolt hopes to have a revised take on Affinity in Improvise.
Improvise is an ability that says the following: “Artifacts can help you cast this spell. Each artifact you tap after you’re done activating mana abilities pays for 1.”
This is a very similar mechanic to Affinity except that it will cause your artifacts to tap if you want to use them to help reduce the cost of the spell you are casting. Let’s look at an example of one of those spells. Here is Whir of Invention.
Welcome to the Chord of Calling of artifacts! Instead of creatures being used for Convoke, you are using artifacts with Improvise. I can see this card being very powerful at being able to get important artifact pieces that you need during a game immediately. Being an instant, makes this card very powerful. The key to the power level of this card will be determined by two factors. One is the suite of artifacts that will be available to search for with Whir of Invention. If there aren’t enough artifacts that will have an immediate impact on a game, then its value goes down. Second is how many artifacts you will be playing to really take advantage of reducing the casting cost of the spell.
The great news is that there are plenty of artifacts roaming around Kaladesh and Aether Revolt that will help you get the artifacts you need to help you cast spells that have Improvise. Here are some of the existing cards in Standard that will help you out.
I’m excited to see what other new cards with these new Aether Revolt mechanics come out during preview week. Mmy mind is already racing with ideas on how they can be utilized.
Thanks for reading some more preview fun from Aether Revolt as this week is just getting started. Stay tuned tomorrow for more preview action as we see the return of a popular mechanic from Kaladesh!
