These reviews represent my initial reactions and thoughts about the cards from Aetherdrift for peasant cubes. These thoughts are all based on theory-crafting as I haven’t actually played with these cards. My main method of reviewing a card is to identify a comparable card and to highlight the relative strengths/weaknesses of those cards versus one another and to theorize about play patterns.
I group the cards into five categories: Strong/Staples, Interest, Similar, Unique/Synergy, No Interest.
- Strong/Staples are going to be strong cards that I expect to see in power-maxed peasant lists.
- Interest cards are ones that I think are interesting and are powerful enough to fit in most peasant cubes.
- Similar cards are cards that are slight improvements over cards that have been or are on the edge of playable.
- Unique/Synergy is a bit of a catch-all for cards that either provide a unique or rare effect in a color or cards that would be interesting if you explicitly support a particular theme or archetype.
- No Interest are cards that are either worse than a comparable card that sees little play, cards that have a very low power level, or cards that have a niche effect that is unlikely to be desirable.
Not every card will be reviewed to the same length.
Some mechanical thoughts:
Start Your Engines / Max Speed: A strange mechanic that is pseudo-parasitic in that most cards can support themselves, but the real value occurs when you can get “start”-ed as early as possible and later Speed cards can take advantage of you already being at Max Speed. Given that most cubes aren’t going to run tons of speed cards, I think you need to evaluate the cards on their own and, as a result, I think most of them fall short. I also strongly dislike adding yet another game piece, so I am predisposed to dislike Speed cards.
Exhaust: Very similar to Monstrous and Adapt, this functionally offers a delayed kicker for various creatures.
Vehicles: Vehicles perform similarly to equipment in that they functionally enhance creatures you’re already playing. Unlike equipment, however, vehicles risk themselves in combat. So a 3/2 vehicle not only can only enhance a 1/1 or a 2/1, but also isn’t likely to survive combat, giving you only 1 “use”. For this reason, I tend to prefer equipment as my enhancement of choice The exceptions are where vehicles have evasion, are massively above-rate (Renegade Freighter) or scale with the game Untethered Express. Vehicles can also provide a pseudo-haste as they can crewed by a newly-played creature. All of this is to say that I value them as enhancements, not creatures in their own rights unless they are able to crew themselves somehow.
Mounts: While mechanically similar, mounts are quite different from vehicles as they are already creatures and therefore don’t take up limited non-creature spots in deck construction. At the same time, they only ever trigger on attack, so are often forced into aggressive roles.
Cycling: One of my favorite mechanics, but one that has faded slightly as cards have gotten more efficient. Paying 
to effectively loot (discard/draw) is difficult to stomach outside of a control deck that is sitting on other interaction.