Magic: The Gathering – Avatar: The Last Airbender Review, Part 2 of 4: Multicolor & Colorless Cards

Water. Earth. Fire. Air. Long ago, Magic never thought to draw on the intellectual properties of others. Then, everything changed when the shareholders attacked. Joking aside, this brand-new pair of sets takes us into the deeply spiritual & thematically rich world of Avatar, and introduces new mechanics tied to each of the core bending styles seen in the show. In this article we’ll take a look at the defining cards of each 2-color archetype, and the Colorless cards that can go into nearly any deck.

Avatar: The Last Airbender will release to Magic: the Gathering Online and Arena on November 18th, and to the tabletop on November 21st. Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal will release on the same date.

Last time we covered the mechanics, and this time as usual we won’t be looking at every card, but what we will be looking at we’ll be looking at primarily but not exclusively with an eye for Commander play. This includes both the main set, and Eternal, a straight-to-Legacy Jumpstart companion set.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Aang, Swift Savior // Aang and La, Ocean's Fury

Saffgor: This right here is an outstanding card for 60-card formats. If you compare it to Spell Queller, a card ubiquitous in its heyday, it looks pretty awesome, and that's without even seeing that the flipside has an endgame. Play UW tempo early on, build a board, and outgrind your midrange opponents with an ever-growing army. It's not especially thrilling for Commander, but I could still see the appeal as a flickerable pseudo-counterspell.

Loxi: Airbend is an extremely flexible mechanic when you have the ability to use it on creatures on either side of the table, and I absolutely agree that this version of Aang is a great example of that. It's also worth mentioning this is a brutal limited card and likely a first-pickable option in my perspective. In EDH I can't really see this being a commander of that many decks, but if you have a brew that cares about airbending and cares about counters this could be a reasonable fit.

BPhillipYork: This is an okay sort of utility commander or piece for some kind of Azorius including deck. You could certainly flash cast Aang as a response to targeted removal or simply to generate a lot of value out of a creature with an enters or leaves play or cast trigger, but transforming into a 5/5 with reach and trample that drops off +1/+1 counters just isn't all that exciting compared to a lot of more impactful commanders. I can't think of anything really crazy to do with this aside from possibly just recasting a huge costly Eldrazi, but I think there's better ways to do that self-same thing.

FromTheShire: The fact they can definitely recast it for 2 rather than having to kill your creature is a big downgrade from Spell Queller, but being able to target things in play does give you some extra utility. The tempo gain still probably makes it playable though.

Katara, Water Tribe's Hope

Saffgor: Mirror Entity, meet your daughter. This Katara seems like a fun way to go wide and absolutely dunk opponents with overwhelming token-y junk, and it synergizes especially with anything that can provide a wide board Vigilance. Probably decent in winconless stax, too.

Loxi: I have always been a vocal fan of Biomass Mutation as a great finisher for a lot of decks, and I think this is a great similarly focused card. I think being in U/W + waterbending's "artifact convoke" also makes this shine as an option for artifact decks that also run low to the ground creatures to cash in on using Treasures and random other gizmos to juice up a bunch of Thopters and Servos as a win condition.

BPhillipYork: This is, as is pointed already, Mirror Entity on a Legend which is actually fairly powerful given that having the ability in your Command Zone to instantly pump a bunch of tiny tokens into huge beaters is pretty dangerous. If you're going to do it out of the Command Zone it requires a huge amount of mana, 4 + the X/X you want, so if that's your idea of a good time, there it is. It is a waterbend ability though, so if you have the ability to say, give your tokens vigilance, you can pretty easily declare them as attackers then pump them by tapping which is pretty dangerous. Otherwise it's a useful duplicate of Mirror Entity, but Mirror Entity is already very searchable as a changeling.

Azula, Cunning Usurper

Saffgor: 'Target opponent', and they make the choice? The rate is alright, but this feels like a worse option than most 'steal stuff' Commanders printed as of late. If you want to flicker a 5 mana Commander in roughly these colors, just do Kefka.

Loxi: If she had a way to more easily exile additional cards when she was on the board I'd be pretty sold but I do think the opponent's choosing is what does this in for me. Don't get me wrong, this can still be brutal into some board states but it can be stone useless into others if someone just exiles like a dinky creature. The saving grace is the nontoken/nonland clauses to keep people from really throwing fodder, and firebending 2 is still some solid extra mana if your deck can utilize it.

BPhillipYork: This is a solid enters battlefield ability, obviously intended to let you cast the creatures with firebending 2, and it's worth noting that firebending text is a reminder text, so like extort it doesn't impact color identity. this means that Azula isn't a Grixis, but rather Dimir, commander. To really get a lot of leverage out of her you'd probably be flickering or sacrificing and reanimating her. However her ability to cast spells only functions while she's on the board, so she's probably a prime removal target.

Hama, the Bloodbender

Saffgor: What applies to the Azula above applies to Hama, though each would be in the same deck. Hama letting you kind-of freecast cards is a bit more exciting, especially with cost discounts, so I actually think this ends up the more interesting card, but likely not the better one.

BPhillipYork: This is fairly nasty, though you're at the mercy of what you mill. In my opinion things like this are kind of brutal due how many solid Commander tutors tutor to the top of the library, letting you target and pull a card your opponent just searched for. Critically the mill and exile trigger doesn't require the card you exile to be one of the milled cards.

Lo and Li, Royal Advisors

Saffgor: A more fun but significantly less good Persistent Petitioners Commander than Bruvac. Still, one round with Mesmeric Orb up is going to make your board big enough to kill the table, so your mileage may vary.

Loxi: Yeah I always like having combat win conditions as a backup for mill strategies so this enabling Petitioners decks to win through combat is a fun way to make sure you can close out games against people that can recycle their graveyard. It's also a mana sink for an infinite mana loop to basically win the game if mill is a valid win condition there, so I'm a pretty huge fan of this.

BPhillipYork: Pump your Advisors deck makes for a somewhat funny Persistent Petitioner commander, though probably not as good as extant Dimir commanders for the archetype. Most Advisors aren't really beaters though, so pumping them is kind of strange. Sure it will pump this creature, which is a neat thing, but it doesn't seem like that great of a payoff.

Ozai, the Phoenix King

Saffgor: If you prepare for him, Ozai is going to wreck shop. This Commander screams Aggravated Assault, at the top of his lungs, but he's obviously good at killing in 3 hits with Commander Damage. Everything you want, nothing you don't.

Loxi: Aside from being an absolutely gnarly body, stockpiling mana is really strong for decks that want to play at instant speed. Holding mana up for other player's turns and then just hoarding it before your turn starts lets you have some seriously explosive plays, and generating 4 mana off firebending is just going to get out of control fast. While I normally prefer cheaper commander options, I think 6 mana is a reasonable price for what he can do.

BPhillipYork: This is just a solid way to keep your mana round, also kind of neat how he starts flying once you are hanging onto a bunch of mana and will let you bank a bunch over successive turns. Best use for him in my opinion is just extra combats since he covers a lot or all of the cost of many of them.

FromTheShire: We've been seeing a sharp uptick in this ability in red recently with Ashling, Flame Dancer and Electro, Assaulting Battery, and I'm here for it. It's a fun ability to begin with, and then when you layer in the rituals it gets extra spicy. Kind of a shame this is going to be frequently used for infinite combat steps cause that feels kind of boring.

Zhao, Ruthless Admiral

Saffgor: Despite being Uncommon Zhao is still interesting, and you can get out of hand with this saying permanent, and not saying non-token.

Loxi: I really think this might be a decent support card if you're playing Ozai (or another firebending synergy deck) and want to cash in on banking a bunch of extra mana for pop-off turns with Treasures, but I do think there are better commander options in Rakdos for sacrificing. It's worth mentioning that getting firebending mana might make some sac outlets that cost a small amount of mana to use slightly more viable here though, which is a neat use case.

BPhillipYork: This sacrifice trigger doesn't seem that great to me, it's okay, but in Commander probably not enough to move the needle.

FromTheShire: I don't mind it as a Coat of Arms style effect that you drop out of nowhere on your go turn and kill everyone.

Zuko, Conflicted

Saffgor: Hear me out, this is a 2 mana dork that draws a card and then serves as a fantastic political piece. I rate Zuko higher than most, though not in the Command Zone, and he double-dips with Blim, Comedic Genius.

Loxi: I would also jam this in a sacrifice deck as a way to generate value and then kill him off before you need to sell him off to someone. Realistically I think you're trying to grab the card and mana then sac him if you're going that route, which isn't bad value at all.

BPhillipYork: This a fun commander, I like how he'll pop into someone else eventually, but you get at least 3 turns of him which is pretty solid for a 2 mana card. You get more if you have a way to kill him and bring him back, which seems like the obvious play to me, a deck built around sacrificing your commander and reanimating him when you can.

Fire Lord Ozai

Saffgor: Due to the way Ozai here is formatted, he's technically Rakdos in Commander, but truth be told this is uninspiring. If I had a nickel for every technically-Rakdos Commander previewed early that cares about sacrifice and powerful topdeck synergies, I'd have two nickels, because Hidetsugu, Devouring Chaos already exists.

Loxi: Here's my pitch for Ozai - I think he makes a really good theft commander. Take someone's creatures with Act of Treason effects, sacrifice them for a ton of mana, then cast other people's spells off the top. I'm not always huge on theft decks in general but I think this is a really fun way to play similar to Hofri Ghostforge but in Rakdos colors and a slightly different payoff.

BPhillipYork: This is a neat ability, but I think the 6 mana to exile opponents deck is an infinite mana dump win con which is pretty good. Adding the ability to grab good stuff and play it for free really means just running a bunch of mana through him is a good way to win the game and get some protection as you do it. And since the ability is at instant speed, once he hits the board if you have the mana that's game.

FromTheShire: On the one hand black has a ton of undercosted creatures with a downside like Rotting Regisaur that would be super fun to play with Ozai. On the other hand, he's a 4/4 that you have to get into combat with to do the thing and that's not ideal. Like he's not tiny but he is very killable in most board states. The build probably wants to be doing reanimation shenanigans anyways though so maybe it all works out.

Bitter Work

Saffgor: Phrasing is key here, as if you swing three ways with 4+ power guys, this is Tymna. The fact it can make its very own 4/4 should be noted, and on-curve, too. Don't sleep on this in Commander, one of the best value pieces Gruul's gotten in a while.

Loxi: This art kills me every time I see it. This is a great card draw spell for Gruul stompy even if you don't touch the earthbending effect, but adding that in is just gravy.

BPhillipYork: This is a really solid Gruul enchantment. Up there with cards like Shadow in the Warp or Cindervines. Kind of strange red green gets such good low cost enchantments, but there it is. Drawing 3 cards per turn, making your own 4/4 to generate card draw, very nice.

Bumi, Unleashed

Saffgor: Yeah yeah, this goes infinite with Ashaya, Soul of the World, but hear me out...what if we Transmogrify-ed an animated Land into Ashaya as the only creature in our Library? There are Polymorph Commanders everywhere, for those with eyes to see.

Loxi: Earthbend is very good; it's the best way they've designed land creatures since it doesn't risk blowing you back in tempo when they get killed. Even just in a land creature beatdown deck Bumi is a great inclusion to get more mileage out of your creatures and effectively giving you 9/8 of stats for 5 mana on top of his abilities.

BPhillipYork: This is the go to if you want to build a land creature deck I think, double strike will net you 2 more combat phases, he earthbends. I don't think that's actually a great game plan, but if you want it, there it is.

Toph, Greatest Earthbender

Saffgor: If you actually intend to play fairly with Earthbend, this is a great option, and rarely feels bad to cast.

Loxi: Yeah this set really has leaned into making Earthbending + land creature support a viable archetype and I'm absolutely here for it. Toph will be great both in the 99 and solid as a commander since she can scale with her cost, making her not feel absolutely atrocious to recast with Commander Tax.

BPhillipYork: I really like this templating where if your Commander Tax ramps up, you get more, sadly they don't use it much. Double striking land creatures doesn't seem that worthwhile to me, the whole idea of lots of land creatures in Commander just seems super vulnerable to eating a Wrath of God, but it's still an interesting deck archetype to experiment with, and if your plan is to generate them via earthbend, then they are protected against at least one wipe.

Toph, Hardheaded Teacher

Saffgor: Toph gets silly the moment you find a Mirror Gallery and any clone spell (e.g. Twinflame), and makes for a genuinely interesting aristocrats Commander with a Storm bent. Those words all sound great to say, but good god that art is hideous, and she lacks an alt art. Mixed feelings, there.

Loxi: I really like off-beat Gruul commander options and this Toph is cool for enabling a sort-of Lesson spellslinger type deck that animates your lands as a payoff. I'm not really sure if this has the juice to work on it's own, but there are quite a few land support cards in the set as well as 33 Lessons in her color identity that you can work with, as well as a splash of Hardened Scales effects to get more value from the counters.

BPhillipYork: The Lessons in this set are generally just stronger than the older Lessons, so this seems like a somewhat build by numbers commander, and in the future if another Lesson heavy set gets printed it's likely to turn into something really neat. You could do something sort of nasty, like using this Toph to keep earthbending a Strip Mine and destroying your opponents' lands.

Earth King's Lieutenant

Saffgor: This right here might make Allies playable in 60 card, being the platonic ideal of a Thalia's Lieutenant. Every typal deck wishes they had something like this.

Loxi: Since Allies have quite a bit of support outside of this set, a lot of the ones here that are solid will make great inclusions in existing Allies decks. It's going to be a lot of value from a two mana creature, so I'm a fan.

BPhillipYork: Basically an Ally lord, for Ally decks.

FromTheShire: Crucially this has trample so it actually does something with all those stats unlike a lot of versions of this effect we see.

Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance

Saffgor: Hei Bai is kind of The Ozolith, if you squint, but the issue is more about getting interesting counters on him, rather than passing them along.

Loxi: If you're playing a more aggressive aristocrats focused archetype, this isn't a horrible free sac outlet that can help push a bit more damage out.

BPhillipYork: Pumping this up as a commander in aristocrats decks is pretty solid, building around this as a commander you'd want one or two key targets to plan to dump your counters onto.

Sandbender Scavengers

Saffgor: Excellent piece for aristocrats in Standard, and I hope following the Vivi ban there's a place for cards of this caliber.

Loxi: You can get this out early and get it pretty massive, I hate to always preach for evasion on big creatures but if you can get some decent keywords on this in an aristocrats deck I don't think it's a bad option, especially in something like Trynn and Silvar that will have the evasion as well as synergy with being a Human.

BPhillipYork: Really solid with Treasures or generally aristocrats decks, and also capable of creating some strange loops by itself.

Dragonfly Swarm

Saffgor: This thing gets massive, has Ward, goes card-neutral...people know Izzet drakes topped several events back in the day, right? This seems nutty for 60-card, and not even that far off when it comes to Commander.

Loxi: The only thing holding this back in Commander is that it does get clipped by a lot of incremental damage removal/sweepers, but it's still going to have a ton of power and evasion. Solid option for a creature focused spellslinger/prowess deck.

BPhillipYork: Dragon Whelp has gotten so good.

Sokka, Bold Boomeranger

Saffgor: This is, I believe, the cheapest we've seen this effect, and if Tersa Lightshatter is anything to go by Sokka has a home somewhere. Feels way worse with the banning of Proft's Idetic Memory in Standard, though.

BPhillipYork: Another Ally that cares about Lesson cards makes for a somewhat interesting argument for a general Lesson deck, where you're just spamming spells and doing stuff.

Beifong's Bounty Hunters

Saffgor: Oh that's a kill-on-sight card. Good god. I shiver to think what this does in something like Korvold, and the fact it includes itself (being a 4/4 that turns into another 4/4) means it feels excellent in 60-card, likely. I can smell what The Rock is cooking.

Loxi: It really works best with an outlet for killing things off but this is gnarly in something like Meren of Clan Nel Toth to leech even more value off reanimation loops.

BPhillipYork: This feels very abusable, using things like Phyrexian Dreadnought or cards like Sneak Attack to get temporary effects, then sacrifice, creating giant lands, which you in turn sacrifice yet again. This is really seems like a Jund archetype, and it's a bit pricy at that.

Long Feng, Grand Secretariat

Saffgor: Combo piece, good with fetchlands, fairly cheap. Long Feng isn't flashy, but is effective, and we'll see him in Persist loops, potentially in the Command Zone.

BPhillipYork: This works super well with earthbend, but +1/+1 counters aren't generally that valuable. If you're running a full suite of fetches, or using cards like this Village Rites this is a solid way to double dip.

Iroh, Tea Master

Saffgor: I don't want to just say 'Goes in Zedruu', but...he doesn't do enough on his own. The design has great flavor but is more of a piece for the 99.

BPhillipYork: I really like this thing, with giving away weird permanents, getting benefits from doing so. Adds nicely to a Zedru the Greathearted deck.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Sun Warriors

Saffgor: Potentially massive Firebending, Warrior for Najeela, and a mana sink? Perhaps expensive but I like the fact it's a complete package.

Loxi: Firebending is one of those mechanics that certainly scales in power the more you build around actually utilizing it, and even though you ideally don't want to be sinking the mana you make into the creation of a 5-mana 1/1, it's nice that it's an option if you have nothing else to do. I think this is great in most decks that are trying to really go deep on firebending, but with the caveat that it has white mana so won't be able to go into the Ozai's and Azulas of the world.

BPhillipYork: Very much both sides of the trick card, but also potentially pretty funny. Obviously once you're at 5 creatures you can just keep making more Allies, but there's also the potential to just abuse things like Mana Echoes with this, generating infinite 1/1s and mana.

Fire Lord Azula

Saffgor: The break-out Commander of this set, from Bracket 2 to cEDH. Turns out doubling things is popular, and she makes the game go off the rails immediately. Not inventive, but understandably hyped.

Loxi: Here's my broken record speech about how every set has a bunch of crazy copying/doubling nonsense to push things into being playable. Yeah, she's really good and you don't need to do much besides just attack with her and have things to cast at instant speed. She's very good and will see a lot of play without question, but I personally am low on her design because it feels a bit boring and pushed. Not every commander needs to require a degree to figure out how to make work, but Azula literally works with anything you want to do that's instant speed casting.

BPhillipYork: This is really a Grixis nightmare that screams more combats, but also lots of combat tricks.

Mai and Zuko

Saffgor: Grixis Allies is such a weird space, given the type is so White-aligned. I think for that reason this ends up being interesting, but I worry the pool is a tad shallow for a 4-mana do-nothing.

Loxi: 5-C Allies will probably make some good use from the flash, but I'm not sure about the firebending side. Both Tazri options might see some good use cases for this though.

BPhillipYork: Giving Ally spells flash is okay, or artifacts, obviously you can then use the mana from firebending to cast them, which is neat, but not that impressive.

Toph, the First Metalbender

Saffgor: People couldn't stop talking about Toph following her reveal, but in my heart of hearts I saw her for what she was: A durdly, just-okay value piece. Yes you get to double dip on Landfall and recur spooky Artifacts, but at the pace of a snail. Overrated.

Loxi: I actually still really like this Toph as a way to be consistently earthbending since so many cards in this are one and done effects for it. The landfall stuff is handy since land creatures will often want you to have other land synergies as well, but the real value to me here is just the ability to keep your land army growing on top of whatever else you can animate from other sources, so I think she's the best pick from the set if you want to go wide rather than tall for land creatures.

BPhillipYork: This card is dangerous, there's many artifacts that are meant to be one shot and done, and this makes them come back. You can use this on something like Meteor Golem to have it just come back over and over, it's just, problematic. Turning things into lands allows so many abusive things.

Aang and Katara

Saffgor: Bant Prossh, basically. Cool to see with Food Chain in the zeitgeist but man this is uninspiring.

Loxi: I'm not sure I'd want them as a commander but it's a really good way to keep the tokens flowing for Tazri decks as well as for Katara the Fearless who we'll see below.

BPhillipYork: Creating a bunch more Allies is fun but this doesn't pump them or protect them, so it's really just a bunch of 1/1s for 6 mana, which is, fine?

Aang, at the Crossroads // Aang, Destined Savior

Saffgor: Combat trigger without Red, forced flip, eugh this guy reeks. This looks like it has some awful play patterns, not in that they're powerful but awkward to manage. The Enters effect is solid if you're looping, I guess?

Loxi: I like him for the same reason as I like the Toph I mentioned above, however I think not being able to run both in the same deck stinks and I like toph better for the earthbending role. He's fine but I'd wager him and Metalbending Toph fill a similar enough role that most people will lean towards her unless they really want Bant colors.

BPhillipYork: Esper manlands with vigilance doesn't seem all that useful. If you could flip this back and forth that would be something, but you can't.

Katara, the Fearless

Saffgor: Thing double, people clap. Can we stop?

Loxi: Yeah I don't really like the double/copy stuff either, but at face value I do think she'll at least be a slightly better Bant Ally deck than anything we have now and there are some pretty solid Ally ETB triggers available, especially throwing in all the Zendikar options. It's a bit uninteresting from a design perspective, but I like giving some juice to make some pretty uncommon creature types see more play since Allies were a bit relegated to the whole Tazri tutor-combo shenanigans.

BPhillipYork: There's a ton Allies now, so this potentially really abusable, though trigger doubling is pretty common in lots of ways now.

FromTheShire: Listen, yes we get a lot of doublers, but this is limited to Ally triggered abilities, and frankly they could use the help. Outside of doing Tazri combos they are not hitting the tables, and even with Katara it's not a great plan, so let people have their fun.

Fire Lord Zuko

Saffgor: This competes with Prosper, Tome-Bound and I think it maybe wins out? Obviously Prosper can bank his mana as Treasures, but adding white, being cheaper, and still making a silly amount of mana counts for something.

Loxi: Yeah because Prosper, a notoriously unethical commander, really needed a similarly unethical creature to compete with. Zuko does require a bit more finesse - you're limited to a slightly smaller casting window to make use of his firebending and you really need to actually go a little bit wide to make use of his counters. He also doesn't have a way to actually exile spells himself, so you'll have to do that in other ways. That being said, if you can meet the build around he gets pretty powerful, and I'd rather have that than a generic value commander.

BPhillipYork: Red has tons of ways to exile and then cast the card, this seems like a pretty fun commander to play around. You'd want a way to either generate more combats or else keep your mana, but the firebending can get really out of control.

Iroh, Grand Lotus

Saffgor: Lessons are mostly just-okay, but if you look at Iroh as Temur Lier, the Drowned that can protect combos during your own turn he looks mighty fine. Expensive, but for good reason, and a cool take on spellslinger that will only get better when Secrets of Strixhaven releases.

Loxi: Flashback is very good, and even if you aren't going super deep on Lessons, getting to cast them for 1 mana makes a lot of the mediocre ones actually end up being decent. Even just as an outlet for a spellslinger commander in Temur, he's a solid option.

BPhillipYork: Casting lessons for 1 colorless is strong. Full stop. Giving all your instants and sorceries flashback is also super strong. Temur isn't really the colors I'd prefer, but you can certainly build a viable deck around filling your yard and then casting everything there.

FromTheShire: Yeah this is super strong and will only get more so each time they revisit Lessons. Cheating mana costs is powerful, who knew?

Sokka and Suki

Saffgor: Well hello, Jeskai Hammer Time. Colossus Hammer is accessible and nasty, and frankly the Ally stuff here is incidental. People have been asking for a 'give Equipment Living Weapon' Commander forever, and here it is! Equipment enters, make an Ally, that token enters, attach Equipment. Sweet, smooth, and easy to use.

Loxi: Dodging equip costs and making tokens is great, I really like the idea of getting access to blue for equipment decks as well. I'm with Saff on this one - honestly one of the sleeper great commanders in the set.

BPhillipYork: I think using this with Toggo, Goblin Weaponsmith would be really funny. Then they can hold the rocks and presumably hit people with them.

Sokka, Tenacious Tactician

Saffgor: More fair Kykar, and probably better in Bracket 2, but worse everywhere else. Unexciting.

Loxi: Menace and prowess together really can make a wide board terrifying when you start to throw spells around. I don't know if he's as much of a 99 card in generic Ally decks, but I actually think he's a great commander option for them, although losing a few of the green Ally options stinks a bit.

BPhillipYork: Wow, this is like all the tricks in one piece. Cast spells, pump your commander and create creatures that get bigger when you cast non-creature spells. Very abusable with cost reduction, cast triggers, or any number of things. Normally it's Monks that have prowess, so I'm surprised in a set with so many seeming monks in it they went Allies, but here we are.

Hei Bai, Forest Guardian

Saffgor: More interesting than Go-Shintai, and asks of you to have fewer but higher quality Shrines. I like it, especially as far as it goes to introducing Scramble-curious players to the general gameplan.

Loxi: I like that this makes some creatures as well so you can go into the enchantress style pretty hard and not worry about having a totally dead board even if they can't block well. I do think I generally prefer Go-Shintai but I think both will ideally always be played together.

BPhillipYork: This is not as good a 5 color Shrine commander as existing ones, but it will let you make a lot of Spirit creatures. Making tons of creatures is one things that Shrines do, so I suppose if that's your jam that's a way to make a Shrine deck that isn't totally snowbally and oppressive.

Avatar Aang // Aang, Master of Elements

Saffgor: How I wish Moonmist didn't exist. This turned a fun puzzle to solve into a game of 'how fast can I tutor the funny card', at which point this becomes the set's designated Universes Beyond slop Commander.

Loxi: Sure, I think if you want to go hard on the set mechanic this is a fine way to do it. I think the WUBRG reduction is going to be potentially a more lackluster part of this kit funny enough, and a lot of this will just be a big value engine to draw a ton of cards with the front side. It's fine for people who want to utilize a lot of cards from the set together.

BPhillipYork: This seems like a fun deck, obviously basically like the story the deck also reminds me of Legend of Five Rings. Abusable with Fist of Suns, so it's really Jodah the Unifier with even more going on. It also seems like you can probably abuse this with the draw trigger to overwhelm your opponent with value.

Aang's Journey

Saffgor: Great for Shrine decks, obviously, but with a discount of {2} this is a free Sorcery. That matters in some decks, for Storm purposes.

Loxi: Lessons have a few different synergies in the set across a bunch of different colors, so having a pretty useful one accessible in all colors is good for limited purposes. I'm not really sure I'd reach for it outside of Shrines for constructed play unless you're really shy on other lesson options though.

BPhillipYork: A colorless, mana fixing 2 cost tutor is really a good thing in my opinion. It means even cheaper land bases have a decent way to get 2nd or 3rd colors going more easily, and is just a useful utilitarian thing. It doesn't ramp, and doesn't push the envelope too hard, but I'm glad it exists. It's also quite useful for Shrine decks.

Bender's Waterskin

Saffgor: Until the full set reveal day, this was my favorite card of Avatar. It's innocuous, but as someone whose passion comes down to taking the most game actions at the table possible, Waterskin is another arrow in my quiver alongside Victory Chimes. The decks that want this need it, and redundancy is king.

Loxi: It's great for decks that want to play at instant speed or have artifact shenanigans where they can leverage tapping this for other effects. Very much in the "Don't jam it everywhere, but great where you want it" category. Notably cool that it doesn't power creep Chimes entirely as well, as there are times where you can use that politically to get answers where this is mostly locked to your own mana pool - a small but notable difference between the two.

BPhillipYork: I like these types of artifacts, and there's quite a few of them now. Untapping all the time and doing stuff on other people's turns is a neat mechanic and I think it makes Commander games better because you're more likely to interact and not have this long inactivity while you wait for 3 people to go.

Planetarium of Wan Shi Tong

Saffgor: I don't know who Wan Shi Tong paid off to have literally all cards referencing him in the set be bangers, but that starts right here. This is an Artifact that, while not as universally applicable as a Bolas's Citadel, is worth tutoring and building ones' deck around.

Loxi: We talk a lot about cards that can sometimes be overpriced and not do something on entry, therefore be a big target. I think this card is very good and just at the end of the price tag where this feels absolutely worth it. I don't think you just rip it on curve with nothing to protect it unless you're ramping super hard, but when you have a setup to take advantage of this it's just going to let you rip a crazy amount of spells for free. I love this and I can see a ton of fun in Yenett, Cryptic Sovereign among many other options for this.

On top of that, Scry 2 for one mana every turn is also just Good.

BPhillipYork: This strongest use is probably with tutor to the top spells, turning around and making that thing free is really strong. Sure, it's 6 mana to get there, but it's colorless mana, which is cheap. Scrying every turn for 1 mana is super useful if the game stalls out and you are struggling for resources.

FromTheShire: God damn. Absolute kill on sight card.

White Lotus Tile

Saffgor: As we've seen with Three Tree City, this effect is only-okay, and only so in decks with a substantial bent towards one type. I think this is a card which will quickly lose its luster, and see usage in a scant few truly dedicated go-wide typal strategies.

Loxi: It can be a lot of mana but it entering tapped can make it a bit rough. I can see merit for this in something like a Goblin or Zombie deck that can use this in the midgame to push out finishers, but I wouldn't run it in most types that aren't running out low to the ground bodies reasonably fast.

BPhillipYork: Wow this will just be all over kindred decks, all the time, forever.

FromTheShire: I both agree that it will be in a bunch of typal decks, and that it likely shouldn't be. Generally if those decks can get wide enough for this to matter you don't need a bunch of extra mana, you need protection for the incoming board wipe. It's not terrible or anything, and people will have enough games where it does something kind of fun or splashy on one turn that they leave it in, but I don't think it's great.

Rare Land Cycle

Saffgor: Of these, the notable ones are Fire Nation Palace & Ba Sing Se, conveniently because each likely undercosts its unique ability. Palace is like a Red Castle Garenbrig, with low opportunity cost, and we'll see Ba Sing Se enable combos and Landfall as by far the priciest member of this cycle. Calling it now.

Loxi: I like Agna Qel'a as well as an option for mono-blue control decks, just because it can have a pretty low opportunity cost and give you something to do if you hold open mana for protection and don't need to use it. I don't think the other two are bad either but I probably wouldn't jam them out of Classic White Weenie or Aristocrats respectively, although the Realm of Koh probably is my least favorite here.

BPhillipYork: These are all solid thematic lands, I'm not sure I'd risk the enters tapped most of the time, and lack of the land types on them, but the firebending one is great for extra combat decks, the earthbend one lets you abuse fetch lands, and all of them have useful use cases.

Earthbend Lands

Saffgor: r/custommagic can rest, they printed Lands with keywords. Tunnel is the notable one here, as another riff on Rogue's Passage, especially relevant with the new combo Bumi in this set.

Loxi: Note that Tunnel does explicitly target two creatures and not up to two, so it's likely not going to see play just as a redundant Passage for Voltron decks. I like it, it's pretty solid for typal decks.

BPhillipYork: These are really too expensive and kind of lackluster, though starting to have non-man lands with creature abilities is a new, neat thing.

FromTheShire: Mostly I want to say go to hell Wizards for getting that song stuck in my head again.

Next Time: The Set’s White, Blue, and Black Cards

That wraps up our look at the non-Monocolor cards of Avatar! Join us next time as we begin reviewing the Monocolor cards, picking out our favorites, and talking about future build-arounds.

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