Aether Vial – Darksteel
Date Reviewed: December 19, 2024
Ratings:
Constructed: 4.75
Casual: 3
Limited: 1.75
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Darksteel was one hell of a set, wasn’t it? If you were to ask players what the most powerful sets in the game’s history were, I would imagine Darksteel would be in the top 10 on most lists, thanks to it providing a crazy number of colorless cards most decks could (ab)use and which had absurd amounts of self-contained synergy. Aether Vial (which was only reviewed once before on Pojo, in 2004, was not the most flagrant offender of the set, but it was plenty offensive in plenty of ways!
Aether Vial lets you cheat out creatures with enough time and care in deck building. There are two notable things here: the mana value must match the charge counters exactly, and the option to keep loading charge counters is an optional one. If you like that Aether Vial to sit at 2 or 3, you can do so…and most decks that play this would. Remember that most decks in Constructed settings will run a tight and streamlined curve, and a turn 1 Vial means you get enough time to sit it at the most devastating point on the deck’s mana curve you need it to be at.
All that said, Aether Vial is a card whose heyday has mostly passed. Don’t get me wrong…it’s still quite good at what it does, and it’s a card that can complicate things impressively in a pinch if you let it. It’s gotten better creatures to work with it (and Urza’s Saga as a means by which to tutor it), but decks have gotten better at providing answers, and Aether Vial is also not helped by it needing to come down as early as possible to have a chance to work its magic. All the same, this is a card that sees play 20 years after it initially showed up, and it’s a formidable threat for any deck that can abuse its talents.
Constructed: 4.75
Casual: 3
Limited: 1.75 (way too finicky for Limited, and decks are nowhere near tuned enough to make this ideal)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
There are so many stories about Aether Vial’s antics over the years that it’s hard to choose even one or two to highlight. One that comes to mind is a guy named Jamison Bryant winning a Vintage event with a deck full of Kird Apes and Tarmogoyfs, with Aether Vial forcing those pseudo-vanilla creatures past every overpowered counterspell in history. While he also played every artifact destruction card he could get his hands on, Aether Vial’s role in the deck was no less important: it guaranteed that any one creature he had in his hand would definitely come into play each turn. Removing that particular concern allowed him to focus on other parts of the game and be assured that he could pressure an opponent.
And indeed, Aether Vial has been giving counterspell players fits for decades at this point. If you look into it, that may not even be the craziest thing it can do. Putting a creature with a kindred anthem effect into play during combat is a hilarious comeback tactic, and using it to play Magus of the Moon during an opponent’s upkeep makes people cry. It can be a little slow by the standards of current eternal formats, but as far as power goes, it is one card that has – and still does – make much more impact than it seems like it should.
Constructed: 4.5
Casual: 3
Limited: 1.5
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
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