Today we're going to look at one card in every color that I expect to be a major player in Aetherdrift Limited. I'll do my best to ignore Rares and Mythics, for the usual reasons, but these are my takes on the cards that matter most: the card that you're likely to see in almost every draft.

White - Canyon Vaulter

White, more than most colors, seems to want to crew and saddle things. This creature, having 3 power, not only does that job without help, it also gives the crewed vehicle one of the best abilities in the game - flying. A two-mana 3/1 is usually pretty playable on its own merit, but the upside here is huge. The only downside here is that there are thopters and pilots running (or flying) around, but the vaulter doesn't need to get into combat to be good, so as long as you have some decent vehicles, this card is always going to be good.

Blue - Nimble Thopterist

Blue has a lot of good commons and uncommons, as far as I can see. What sets the Thopterist apart is the fact that it exists as a glue card for multiple strategies. While other cards might excel more in on deck, this card is decent-to-good in all of them. Two bodies for a single card, at a reasonable rate, is a nice starting point. The fact that one of those bodies is an artifact helps out Azorious players and the fact that the Vedalken itself has three power means that it crews a lot of the important vehicles in the format. I don't think this is an exciting card, but it's very good in a ton of spots.

Black - Grim Bauble

It had to be, right? I'm nowhere near the first person to highlight this card, and for good reason. Disfigure is always a limited staple, and while this one only works at sorcery speed, it gains a ton of flexibility in its text box. It's an artifact, which matters for Dimir; it surveils, which matters for everyone but especially Golgari; and, of course, it kills a ton of relevant creatures. Even though you can't use it as a combat trick, you can still play it post-combat on your turn in a pinch, meaning that the floor of this card is still extremely high.

Red - Lightning Strike

Maybe this is a boring answer, but I think I would be succumbing to fancy play syndrome if I overlooked what is probably the best common in the entire set. It's not interesting, but it is extremely good. Assuming Red isn't horrible - and it doesn't seem like it is - you should probably pick this over most uncommons. Even if Red does turn out to be weak, this is eminently splashable, so you can't go too far wrong by picking this card over most non-rare cards.

Green - Autarch Mammoth

I'm wary of picking a six-drop as best card, but this is a hell of a six-drop. At a minimum, this is 8/8 spread across two bodies. One of the issues with expensive creatures is that the game can be too far gone by the time they come down. The fact that this provides two blockers goes a long way to dealing with that downside. If you ever get to saddle it and profitably attack, it seems hard to lose that game outside of a sweeper. The format doesn't seem fast enough to punish six-drops, either, and I don't see many non-rare cards I'd prefer to have at the top of my curve.

Colorless - Camera Launcher

I don't think this card is amazing, but I think it's pretty good. It doesn't bring two bodies up front, like some of the cards on this list, but it does do so for a fairly affordable cost and it gets bigger in the process. Blue decks (except Izzet, maybe) will be fairly happy with this, but probably don't have to pick it highly. To be honest, there aren't a ton of great non-rare colorless cards in the set, but I do think this one is solid.

I didn't want to do gold cards in this list, since they are very honed-in on specific strategies. However, almost all of them are good-to-excellent, so you should consider most of them as strong pulls into a color combination. I'm not totally convinced that there is enough fixing in the set to go splashing them on a whim, but a lot of gold cards do seem worthy of consideration, at least.