Gear yourself up for a thrilling ride with Magic: the Gathering’s first ever racing-themed set! Releasing on February 14, Aetherdrift sports a turbo focus on Vehicles and comes with an entire toolkit of new mechanics to go along with it. We are honored to present an exclusive preview card that features the new mechanic Max Speed – Pride of the Road!
Pride of the Road is an uncommon white creature card with 2/5 Power/Toughness stats. Not just that, it comes with Vigilance for a rather well-balanced cost of 1 white and 3 generic mana. It also boasts the brand new Speed mechanic. The first time you start your engines in a game, your speed will start at 1. From there, you increase your speed once on each of your turns when an opponent loses life. Once you reach 4 Speed, you’re now on Max Speed status.
At the beginning of your combat phase, if you have Max Speed, Pride of the Road will give target creature of vehicle Double Strike. Double Strike is one of the game’s more powerful abilities, letting a creature not only hit first in combat, but also deal a second round of damage. Effectively, Pride of the Road’s 2 Power will translate to 4 damage.
The ability to give any creature or vehicle Double Strike can give you a massive head start and in truth this makes Pride of the Road stand out among many other cards that harnesses the Speed mechanic.
Ways to Increase Speed Other Than Combat
Because you can only increase your speed by 1 each turn, attaining Max Speed is essentially a 4-turn process. Unfortunately Pride of the Road’s white color identity doesn’t help the situation since white does rely heavily on combat to make an opponent lose life. Luckily, triggering an increase in speed does not have to be through combat damage. If you’re able to use Pride of the Road with a secondary color, here are a few other ways an opponent can lose life:
Activated Abilities
There are various cards that “ping” an opponent for 1 damage by activating an ability. Brimstone Trebuchet and Deadeye Duelist are 2 examples out of many cards that can hit the opponent without the need to attack and connect. Often the requirement is merely to Tap, and because their abilities are reusable, they become trusted and reliable sources to keep up ticking your Speed.
Triggered Abilities
Causing an opponent to lose life can also come from triggered abilities in a multitude of forms. Some, such as Cauldron Familiar, cause an opponent to immediately lose life as they enter. Other triggers can also happen by creatures dying or leaving the battlefield. Spirit of Malevolence falls into this category, though we don’t recommend sacrificing your creatures just for the sake of boosting your Speed.
Yet another safe bet to ping your opponent is through Enchantments or Artifacts that trigger automatically during your turn. Subversion and Sinister Monolith are great examples, though they do have a rather high casting cost and you may have to wait a whole turn to see an increase in speed.
Which Format Can Pride of the Road Race In?
Assuming you’ve attained Max Speed, how strong is Pride of the Road? There’s something to be said about giving a creature Double Strike each combat. It leaves opponents eating dirt if they don’t have big enough creatures that can trade with yours.
The 4-turn clock to achieve Max Speed is a rather long pitstop, and this reduces its effectiveness in faster formats. It could do better in a slower game, such as those in Draft or Prerelease events where decks are not as finely tuned.
In Commander, there are other cards such as Duelist’s Heritage and Fireshrieker that can come online much faster and still see recurring value each turn. Unless your deck is built around the Speed mechanic and you have certifiable ways to achieve Max Speed quickly, Pride of the Road isn’t going to be very useful there.
Pride of the Road isn’t an all-round speedster, so only pick the races that you can win.
