Brightglass Gearhulk – Aetherdrift
Date Reviewed: March 10, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed:
Casual:
Limited:
Multiplayer:
Commander [EDH]:
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Wizards of the Coast claims they have all sorts of design rules, which annoys me when they don’t follow them. Fortunately, we won’t have to dive into that right now, because Brightglass Gearhulk is a great example of one: paying a very specific mana cost to get a very powerful effect. Like the other new Gearhulks, it’s an absolute menace in combat – there are decks that can literally never attack past it or block profitably when it’s in play. But it also has a famous ability from an Invitational card, with additional bonuses which take it from an aggro-centric attack fueler to a potential combo or synergy enabler. We’re used to scouring the archives when a new creature searcher gets released, but we’ll be doing it for other types of cards this time – and I like that.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
Brightglass Gearhulk has the kind of effect that turns heads, sort of a jacked-up version of Ranger of Eos. While there are plenty of awful things you can tutor out (like with its forebear), this ups the ante by letting you fish out artifacts or enchantments on top of creatures, and there are plenty of fun artifacts worth finding in many formats. Add to it an efficient statline and solid keywords, and the only real impediment this card has is that it’s burdened by a color-heavy casting cost that can make it trickier to get the most out of it. Still, being in green does open up plenty of doors to correct for mana, and this can definitely push a game ahead in a hurry if you can get this out. But even without things to dig out, this is still a pretty efficient creature between first strike and trample, and that counts for something.
Constructed: 4
Casual: 5
Limited: 4.5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.25
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