The History of Vehicles in Magic

In honor of Aetherdrift, the set with the highest percentage of Vehicles, I thought I would dedicate an article to looking back at the history of vehicles (both in representation and with the Vehicle subtype) in Magic and the evolution of their design. Mounts are creatively connected to Vehicles, as seen by their use in Aetherdrift, but for today's article, I'm focusing solely on inanimate forms of transport.

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The first vehicle (not with the subtype Vehicle but a vehicle in flavor) to show up in Magic appeared in Limited Edition (Alpha). It was the card Pirate Ship . The card wasn't specifically referencing the boat as much as it was the entirety of the vessel, including the people, presumably pirates, aboard it, so Richard Garfield made it a creature card. Its abilities were focused on a pirate ship's primary offensive tool: cannons. I doubt Richard even thought about the pirate ship as a separate entity. It was just a means to depict a group of pirates and the ship they rode. I will call this approach, where the card depicts the vehicle and its riders as a creature card, the Pirate Ship approach.

It didn't take long for Richard to explore the idea of a card representing an object that creatures can travel in and/or ride, as Flying Carpet appeared in the very next set: Arabian Nights. Richard understood that it was important to create a relationship between the vehicle and the creature who uses it, so in its original printing, there is text saying that if the creature dies, Flying Carpet is destroyed. If the rider was hit by a Lightning Bolt, so was the Carpet. This was to capture the flavor of the creature riding a flying carpet. Admittedly, this feels backward to me, as the carpet being destroyed should kill the rider, not vice versa. This effect would be removed from Flying Carpet in later releases. I should also note that the ability of the card restricts it to one use per turn, as only one creature could ride it at a time. I will call this approach, where the vehicle is a noncreature artifact that enhances a creature, the Flying Carpet approach.

The very next set, Antiquities, included the card Ornithopter . The word "ornithopter" comes from the French language and means an artificial flying machine. It usually implies a device ridden by a human. You can see that in the original art. While the human isn't shown, it's clearly designed to be used by a human.

Interestingly, the flavor text, written by the designers back when they also handled worldbuilding duties, calls it "Urza's first attempt at mechanical life," implying that it functions on its own. This is what I'll call the Ornithopter approach, where we take an object known in the real world as a vehicle (fictional or otherwise) but imply that, through magic, it is no longer an inanimate object.

Legends has another flying carpet, Al-abara's Carpet . This time, the designers aren't depicting a vehicle being ridden. Yes, the art depicts it being ridden, but the mechanic is more vague. Having a flying carpet would mean it would be harder for flying creatures to attack you. It's more of a tool you, the Planeswalker, use than something that interacts with your creatures. I'll call this approach, where the vehicle interacts with creatures without enhancing specific ones, the Al-abara's Carpet approach.

As this is the fourth vehicle and the fourth different approach on how to address it mechanically, it is clear that there wasn't any consistent thought about how vehicles should be represented. Each designer was free to take their own stab at it.

War Barge from The Dark takes the Flying Carpet approach. It interacts with creatures, granting them a flavorful ability, in this case islandwalk. Like Flying Carpet, the fates of the two creatures are intertwined, but this time, it goes the opposite direction. The destruction of the War Barge destroys the creatures aboard it. Flavorfully, that makes a bit more sense. If the ship sinks, the creatures on it drown. Also, War Barge doesn't have a once-per-turn restriction, so many creatures can board the barge. Due to another card in the set, Merfolk Assassin , which destroys creatures with islandwalk, the War Barge is often used on the opponent's creatures.

Ice Age is the first set with two vehicles, and they both use the Flying Carpet approach. That is, it's a noncreature artifact that can tap to grant a flavorful ability to target creature for the turn. The element that connects the creature and vehicle's fates is gone. They're just a reusable means to grant an ability to your creatures.

The next set, Homelands, doesn't follow any of this consistency. It has Black Carriage , which isn't an artifact creature but is clearly a vehicle because you can see someone driving it. Harkening back to Pirate Ship , it's just a black creature, which makes a lot of sense, as Homelands was, in many ways, an homage to Alpha.

Urza's Engine from Alliances takes a slightly different approach. It's an artifact creature, but it allows you to have creatures attack with it, making use of the banding ability. This helps imply the sense of riders, but in a way that's different from the Flying Carpet or the Ornithopter approach. I'll dub this approach, where the vehicle works with creatures, the Urza's Engine approach.

Chariot of the Sun in Mirage returns to the Flying Carpet approach. This seems to be the most popular approach, especially from the more experienced designers.

Telethopter from Tempest takes a different approach. Previously, if there was interaction, it came from the vehicle affecting the creature. Telethopter allows the creature to affect the vehicle. Telethopter is an artifact creature that is free to attack by itself, but by involving a creature by tapping it, you allow the Telethopter to gain flying. In addition to granting agency to the creature, this is also the first use of tapping a creature as a way of interacting with a vehicle. I'll call this approach, where your creatures fuel the vehicle, the Telethopter approach.

Predator, Flagship from Nemesis is the first legendary card that represents a vehicle. It's from the Weatherlight Saga and is the flying ship of the bad guys. Predator, Flagship combines the Flying Carpet and Al-abara's Carpet approaches. It has two abilities, one that enhances a creature and one that has a flavorful effect to capture the feel of what the Predator can do. This shows that the designers are aware of what's been done before and are experimenting with mechanical identity.

Keldon Battlewagon from Prophecy makes use of the Telethopter approach. It's technically an artifact creature, but you need other creatures to get the most out of it. Again, it uses tapping as it implies the creature is driving/aboard the vehicle.

Power Armor from Invasion uses the Flying Carpet approach, tying it to one of the set's main mechanics: domain, although the mechanic went unnamed.

The Weatherlight shows up on cards in back-to-back sets as the second and third legendary vehicles. Both cards use the Al-abara's Carpet approach in flavor-first designs. Skyship Weatherlight in Planeshift searches for creatures in a roundabout way but doesn't interact with them on the battlefield. Legacy Weapon doesn't even interact with creatures except for when it's exiling them. The designers wanted the cards to be useful to players due to their importance in the story.

Mirrodin has two vehicles, but they use different approaches. Goblin Dirigible takes the Ornithopter approach of just being a creature, while Neurok Hoversail takes a whole new approach as an Equipment card. Equipment premiered in Mirrodin, so this was the first opportunity to try this. The Hoversail is pretty small, so why not treat it like Equipment?

Unhinged also has two vehicles and treats them differently. Toy Boat is another use of the Ornithopter approach of just being a creature. Time Machine tries something a little new. It exiles a creature along with it to capture the feel that the creature is driving the Time Machine.

From here, we started making less vehicle cards, with new designs appearing about once a year. The success of Equipment prompted players to start asking us for a mechanical answer to vehicles, so we slowed down making them as we started to realize how to best execute on them mechanically. We just didn't know when that would be.

Soratami Cloud Chariot from Saviors of Kamigawa returns to the Flying Carpet approach, although with two activation abilities, neither of which require you to tap it or a creature. Gruul War Plow from Guildpact is part Ornithopter approach, part Flying Carpet approach, and part Al-abara's Carpet approach. It can turn into a creature and has a static ability that enhances your creatures. Warmonger's Chariot from Rise of the Eldrazi is a second attempt at making a vehicle an Equipment.

Vehicles really slowed down here, with most years not featuring new cards with vehicles. It's clear that we were setting ourselves up to make them someday, we just didn't know when that day would come.

Geistcatcher's Rig from Innistrad and Runaway Carriage from Shadows over Innistrad are just artifact creatures, à la Ornithopter . Chariot of Victory from Journey into Nyx is an Equipment.

Finally, we get to Kaladesh. Our first visit to the plane was a couple years earlier in Magic Origins. That set told the sparking stories of the five initial members of the Gatewatch, one of whom was Chandra. We always knew we wanted her from a steampunk-inspired world, so we made her one in Magic Origins. It quickly became clear as we were creating the plane that we wanted to visit it, so we spent extra time on the worldbuilding to set ourselves up for a return a couple of years later. One of the details of the plane was that it had flying ships. Our steampunk-inspired world with an emphasis on artifacts and invention, filled with flying ships, was the right set to finally make cards with the subtype Vehicle.

For those that want the lengthier version of the story on how Vehicles came to be, here's a link to the article that talks about it. In short, we looked back at all the things we'd done with vehicles and knew the importance of a one-to-one relationship between one or more creatures and a vehicle. The Flying Carpet model was the most popularly used approach, but it felt insubstantial. The approach I was most inspired by was the Telethopter approach. I liked the idea that it was the creature that enhanced the Vehicle, not the other way around. A car isn't active until a driver gets inside of it. When someone starts driving it, then the vehicle comes alive.

That led us to the idea that Vehicles could be noncreature artifacts that turned into artifact creatures through an interaction with creatures. Looking back again, tapping seemed the best resource. It made the creature feel like it was doing something and was a substantial enough cost that it allowed us to keep the Vehicles cheaper.

We originally called it board (using "board N"), and the number after the word meant how many different creatures you had to tap to turn it into a creature. During development, we found that version problematic as it overemphasized token creatures. The board mechanic had to be costed with tokens in mind. So if you didn't have token creatures, Vehicles were unplayable. The solution to this problem, interestingly, came from the design of another set.

Ixalan was looking for a fun thing to do with double-faced lands. We came up with a mechanic where you would play the front side of a card and transform it by tapping creatures, evoking the feeling of your creatures exploring the land. To differentiate it from the board mechanic, it cared about the power of the creatures being tapped. I really liked how it played.

During a check-in with Erik Lauer and Ian Duke, the co-development leads of Kaladesh, they explained the problem they were having with Vehicles. I offered up our mechanic from Ixalan since caring about power solved the token issue. They accepted, and the change was made to the Vehicles.

Vehicles were very popular out of the gate. A big reason for this was the strong flavor and the pent-up desire for a mechanical representation of the concept. Another big reason for the popularity was Vehicles's power level. They were a brand-new artifact subtype and were one of the exciting things about the set, and we ended up making them a little stronger than we should.

The next block, Amonkhet, didn't have a great need for Vehicles, so we didn't use them, but the block after that, Ixalan, had Pirates. All five cards in Ixalan were pirate ships.

During Ixalan, we decided to make Vehicles deciduous, like Equipment, which means we can use them in any set that needs them and in any number. We did give ourselves one restraint, though. After watching the Vehicles in the Kaladesh block get played in various formats, we did make the decision to stop doing Vehicles at common, though there wasn't a strong justification for that being the solution. They were already a bit complex for common, and keeping them out of common lowered their as-fan.

We then returned to Dominaria and Ravnica. We didn't print any new Vehicles in over a year. This was partly because there wasn't a need for them and partly because we were being a little shy due to their over-performance in tournament formats. War of the Spark was an expansion set on Ravnica without a focus on the guilds, so we thought it would be cool to do Ravnica-themed things we normally don't have space for, such as guild-themed Vehicles. To help balance the power level, we made our first non-colorless Vehicles. This was done as part of a larger movement toward artifacts that are one or more colors and because of the impact of Kaladesh's Vehicles on competitive formats.

Vehicles laid low for the next three years, with just a small handful appearing from Throne of Eldraine to Innistrad: Crimson Vow. Designers used them judiciously, but when they did, they often experimented with the subtype's capabilities. Enchanted Carriage from Throne of Eldraine introduced the idea that a Vehicle could create tokens when it entered to crew it. The Omenkeel from Kaldheim was part of a modal double-faced card, on the backside of Cosima, God of the Voyage . Dermotaxi from Modern Horizons 2 played around with using another mechanic, imprint, to represent a creature getting turned into the Vehicle.

Vehicles got kicked into high gear in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. The set was playing with tropes from Japanese pop culture, and Vehicles were a perfect fit for the mechs, robots, and high-tech inventions of the plane. The designers started to get a better handle on what made for a good Vehicle design. You can start seeing more secondary purposes built into the Vehicles. We started using a lot more enters effects on Vehicles to make them useful even if you don't have a way to crew them right away.

One of the Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty Commander decks introduced Shorikai, Genesis Engine , the first Vehicle that could be a commander.

The next set, Streets of New Capenna, also had a more modern vibe, so it got a handful of Vehicles. Several of them were one or more colors and had enters effects, with one, Capenna Express , that included an alternate way of animating it.

Universes Beyond also makes heavy usage of Vehicles. Many properties have flavorful vehicles or characters that are Vehicles, as was the case for Transformers. As such, we use the strong flavor of Vehicles in top-down Universes Beyond designs.

We used Vehicles quite a bit for the next few years, and they continue be a great resource for capturing key elements of various settings, whether that is a clown car , a runaway mine cart , or a UFO . During that time, our designers have continued to experiment. The best recipe seems to be flavorful, niche effects that are powerful in the right deck but generally not overpowered. There's been a lot more experimentation with secondary purposes, ensuring that Vehicles have utility even when there aren't creatures to crew them. A popular design is to make an artifact that has a normal function, like making mana, that can be used as a creature in the late game.

That brings us to Aetherdrift, where the years of experimentation have paid off, giving us a whole set to explore all the various mechanical tools available for Vehicle designs.

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I hope today's jaunt through the history of vehicles on Magic cards and the Vehicle subtype was a fun one. As always, I'm eager for any feedback, be it on today's article, on Vehicles in general, or on Aetherdrift. Feel free to email me or contact me through any of my social media accounts (X, Tumblr, Instagram, Bluesky, and TikTok).

Join me next week for "One Thousand Two Hundred and Counting," a look back at my last 100 Making Magic articles.

Until then, may you find the right Vehicle(s) for your deck.