Loot, the Pathfinder – Aetherdrift
Date Reviewed: February 10, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.63
Casual: 5.00
Limited: 5.00
Multiplayer: 3.75
Commander [EDH]: 4.37
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Of all the text on this card, the one that almost confuses me the most is that Loot is apparently a Noble. If they do some kind of Marvellous Land of Oz style reveal at the end of the Dragonstorm arc, I will have to laugh. But until then, I also have to laugh that he is getting into the spirit of Aetherdrift and the Grand Prix with his cute little goggles, not to mention how much he’s channeling Dom or Hobbs’ shockingly wide and shockingly effective skillsets. Seriously, one mana for any of those abilities is as ridiculous a price as you can get, even with the upfront cost to get him into play. The exhaust restriction sounds like a disadvantage, until you get reminded that it’s similar to the Theros block’s monstrosity keyword – and that could devastate people when used at the right times. And as if that wasn’t enough, you’d often expect him to be comparatively fragile in combat, but he’s actually an effective attacker and blocker too. It makes it very easy to believe that he’s the true heir to something and/or about to assemble an entourage of criminal/vigilante racers to take everyone down, and even easier to believe somebody is going to find a deck for him in multiple formats.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 5
Limited: 5
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.5
faster faster go go go
The racing-centric Aetherdrift is here, and everyone’s favorite beast of ambiguous origin is back to help push the plot in various directions. Notably, Loot, the Pathfinder shows off a couple of abilities packed into an interesting body, so let’s get to it.
Exhaust is one of the new set mechanics, allowing a permanent to use an exhaust ability once while it’s in play. Loot, the Pathfinder has three separate abilities, and each one can be used once…and, as it turns out, these abilities look familiar. Lightning Bolt, a sort of tweaked Dark Ritual, and Ancestral Recall…all on a warm body with haste, which can make for some fun. Double strike and vigilance play well, so Loot can keep applying pressure well and stack nicely with stat boosts. However yo crack it, the little…whatever it is will make for a solid way to push a board state farther.
The downsides are that this costs five mana; while not much of an issue in Commander, it is more of an issue in Constructed. This isn’t to say it’ll be useless in Standard; being able to draw out advantage in addition to pushing damage through makes this quite the versatile force of a card. Still, I do think it might take a bit to soar in Standard; costing three colored mana is always a tricky ask (especially on an explicitly three-colored card).
Constructed: 3.75 (I think this will do work, but I’m not sure exactly how good it’ll be)
Casual: 5
Limited: 5 (this’ll be nits in any Limited format, and it doesn’t demand a ton of support)
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (a pretty neat self-sufficient Commander, and a good set of abilities for Temur decks)
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