The world of Avatar: The Last Airbender has arrived in Magic: The Gathering, bringing with it a wealth of new mechanics and strategies perfect for Commander play. This Universes Beyond collaboration introduces innovative mechanics like waterbending and transforming sagas that capture the essence of the beloved animated series. From powerful Avatars to legendary locations, these cards offer exciting new directions for deck construction and gameplay. Whether you're looking to build around the four elements or create synergies with the new mechanics, Avatar: The Last Airbender provides tools for both competitive and casual Commander environments. As usual, you can grab these fun singles at pre-release happening November 14th.
1. Enter the Avatar State
This incredible one-mana instant transforms any creature into a powerful Avatar with an impressive suite of abilities. Flying and First Strike provide combat superiority, while Lifelink offers sustain and Hexproof protects your investment. The versatility to transform any creature makes this perfect for aggressive strategies or protecting key utility creatures. In Commander, this can turn a utility creature into a serious threat or protect your commander from targeted removal while giving it evasion.
2. The Legend of Yangchen
The Legend of Yangchen offers a nice suite of effects on a Saga, multiple targeted removal and card advantage. Yes, you’ll need to gift one of your opponents some cards, but that actually be a benefit when there’s one player running away with the game. Once this Saga flips you’ll have access to repeated removal assuming you can keep meeting the two spells cast per turn requirement.
3. Honest Work
This blue enchantment provides one of the most comprehensive control effects available, completely neutralizing any creature threat. By stripping all abilities and reducing power/toughness to 1/1, it handles everything from indestructible creatures to complex combo pieces. The colorless mana ability provides a small consolation to opponents while ensuring the enchanted creature becomes completely harmless. Essential for control decks that need permanent answers to problematic creatures without giving opponents card advantage.
4. The Unagi of Kyoshi Island
This Legendary serpent combines Flash speed with powerful card advantage and protection. The Ward ability with waterbend creates a unique tax that can be paid with artifacts and creatures, making it harder to remove than traditional Ward. Drawing two cards whenever opponents draw their second card each turn provides consistent advantage in multiplayer games. Flash allows for surprise deployment and reactive play, making this perfect for control strategies or as a powerful commander option.
5. Foggy Swamp Visions
This Sorcery creates temporary armies from opponents' graveyards, providing immediate board presence and pressure. The waterbend cost reduction mechanism allows for explosive plays when you have Artifacts and Creatures to tap. Creating copies of Creatures from any graveyard gives access to powerful effects and bodies you might not have in your own deck. Your reanimated army won’t have Haste to get in and attack, but you can benefit from all of the static effects or activated abilities they have. The temporary nature creates urgency while avoiding permanent Graveyard hate, making this perfect for aggressive strategies or surprise alpha strikes.
6. Phoenix Fleet Airship
This mythic vehicle creates an exponentially growing fleet when you sacrifice Permanents each turn. The ability to copy itself rewards sacrifice-based strategies and creates overwhelming board presence over time. Once you control eight copies, they become creatures without needing to be crewed, creating a powerful late-game army. Perfect for aristocrats strategies, artifact decks, or any deck that naturally sacrifices permanents for value.
7. Fated Firepower
Offering another effect similar to Torbran, Thane of Red Fell or Mechanized Warfare, Fated Firepower offers the same type of damage scaling but with added flexibility. Flash timing enables surprise damage boosts during combat or in response to threats. The global damage enhancement affects all your sources, making every Spell and Creature more threatening. Excellent for burn strategies, combat-focused decks, or any aggressive strategy that wants to close games quickly.
8. The Earth King
This Legendary Human provides immediate board presence with a 4/4 bear token while enabling explosive ramp strategies. The attack trigger rewards going wide with large Creatures, potentially adding multiple Lands to the battlefield each turn. The power 4 or greater requirement encourages building around bigger threats while providing the mana to cast them. Perfect as a Commander for ramp strategies or as part of the 99 in decks that want both creatures and mana acceleration.
9. Tectonic Split
This powerful Enchantment trades Land quantity for quality, turning remaining Lands into powerful mana producers. The hexproof protection ensures your investment is safe from removal once deployed. Tripling mana production from each remaining Land enables explosive late-game plays and expensive spells. The high cost and sacrifice requirement make this a late-game bomb that can enable game-ending turns. Perfect for ramp decks, big mana strategies, or decks with expensive win conditions.
10. White Lotus Tile
This Artifact provides scaling mana production based on typal synergies and Creature density. The 'greatest number' clause rewards focused typal strategies or token generation. Coming into play tapped balances the potentially explosive mana generation with timing restrictions. The Colorless nature makes it playable in any deck, while the typal requirement encourages focused deckbuilding. Excellent for typal decks, creature-heavy strategies, or decks that can create multiple creatures with shared types (or those using Maskwood Nexus-like effects).
Avatar: The Last Airbender brings a fantastic blend of flavor and mechanical innovation to Magic: The Gathering. These ten cards represent some of the most exciting new options for Commander players, offering everything from powerful removal and protection to explosive ramp and unique win conditions. The element bending mechanics and transforming sagas create new strategic considerations, while maintaining the balanced gameplay that makes Commander such an enduring format.
Well there we have it, 10 cards you should pick up from Avatar: The Last Air Bender for your Commander decks. There are tonnes of other goodies, including a whole slew of potential new Commanders in this set we didn’t cover, so check out the full set and bring some new life to your Commander decks. Were there any cards you’re excited about that I missed? Let me know in the Chimera Gaming Discord, or reach me directly on Bluesky.
Did you know we usually have 20 pods firing for Commander night on Tuesdays? Tables fill up fast and I hope to see you there!
