Vehicle

Magic: The Gathering

Vehicle is an artifact type introduced in Kaladesh. It was also used in Aether Revolt and quickly returned in Ixalan block and Dominaria.

Vehicle is an artifact type introduced in Kaladesh. It was also used in Aether Revolt and quickly returned in Ixalan block and Dominaria. Afterwards, they became deciduous.

Description

Vehicle cards have a special bronze and grey blocked card frame and a power/toughness printed in a bronze-colored box. However, vehicles don't have power or toughness unless they become creatures.

Most artifacts with this subtype have the crew keyword, which allows them to temporarily become artifact creatures. Living Metal allows Vehicles to become artifact creatures without being crewed but are only creatures on their controller's turn. Creatures with the Pilot type have an ability that allows them to crew Vehicles with a higher crew cost or buff vehicles crewed by them.

If the effect of turning your Vehicle into an artifact creature doesn't specify its power and toughness, the printed power and toughness on the Vehicle are used. Other effects may turn a Vehicle into an artifact creature but specify its power and toughness. In that case, use the specified power and toughness. They'll override whatever's printed on the Vehicle. There's no connection between the Vehicle and the creatures that crew it once the crew ability is activated, though the game will track the creatures that activated the crew ability, like with Subterranean Schooner. Blowing up the Vehicle won't affect the crew and vice versa.

Vehicle is an artifact type, not a creature type. A Vehicle that's crewed won't have any creature type. However, because it retains its artifact type, it will be an Artifact Creature - Vehicle.

History

Vehicle was first previewed on the card Ovalchase Dragster at PAX West 2016.

While the Vehicles of Kaladesh looked like futuristic cars and flying aircraft carriers, they were reimagined for Ixalan as pirate ships. Kaldheim used Viking longboats for some, and mythological inspiration for others.

With their appearance in Ixalan, Vehicles became deciduous. They generally appear at Uncommon or higher rarities. While there were six Vehicles in Ixalan, from 2018 to the end of 2020 there were only six vehicles total. The Weatherlight of Dominaria features a normal power/toughness box instead of a bronze inverted-color one. This change was connected to the new Legendary card frame. War of the Spark featured the first colored Vehicles, representing war machines. Kaldheim and Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty returned with more Vehicles with their themes, with some new common Vehicles.

Dermotaxi in Modern Horizons 2 is the first Vehicle without Crew, as it has a unique form of determining its size. That said, the only real reason it is a Vehicle is to support the "taxi" pun, as it would be functional without the Vehicle structure. Honeymoon Hearse in Crimson Vow is a more faithful representation of the "uncrewable Vehicle", incidentally with the same cost (tapping two untapped creatures). Weatherlight Compleated is another uncrewable Vehicle for flavor reasons: the former Vehicle is corrupted into a semi-biological cyborg, and with enough carrion (i.e. death triggers) will move under its power.

Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty printed the most Vehicles in one set (13, two more than Kaladesh's 11), the first black and multicolored Vehicles, and also introduced the concept of Mechs into the Magic Multiverse (e.g. Surgehacker Mech). These are giant robots or machines controlled by people or kami. In Magic they have the Vehicle type, and they support a Vehicle-tribal strategy. While mech-like objects were seen prior in Invasion block (e.g. Void (Invasion), Urza's Rage (Invasion), Power Armor), these were mostly relegated to lore and had no mechanical aspects.

While Kaladesh had identifiable cars amongst their Vehicles, they had an "experimental design racecar" aesthetic; in contrast, Streets of New Capenna used its early 20th-century style to print conventional cars like limousines, jalopies, and buggies. Strangely, most of them use glowing purple magic rather than wheels, which would make them closer to minorly-futuristic hovercars. Design-wise, the set brought the first two variably-sized Vehicles, one of which referred to its power off the battlefield (via Scavenge).

For the Transformers product, the Legendary Vehicles were given a new unique keyword Living Metal, which makes them artifact creatures during their controller's turn. Due to having this instead of Crew, the designs lean towards smaller creatures at a rate, compared to the normal of Vehicles being large for their cost. Several three-color vehicles were also printed.

Despite the set's focus on war machines, vehicles were explicitly excluded from the design of The Brothers' War to maintain the set's retro feel.

Lita, Mechanical Engineer (Jumpstart 2022) created the first Vehicle tokens, which are distinctly named "Zeppelin".

In 2025, Aetherdrift had a heavy Vehicle theme. Some vehicles in the set have non-crew abilities that turn them into creatures as well.