Magic: The Gathering – Avatar: The Last Airbender Review, Part 4 of 4: Red & Green 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 cards for White, Blue, & Black, as well as their impact on Multicolor decks in Commander.

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

Last time we covered the White, Blue, & Black cards, and 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.

Avatar Roku, Firebender

Saffgor: I'm going to take Roku here as a chance to sidebar into the fact that, within these sets, Red & Green have kind of swapped identities. Red is now truly the big mana color, and from Firebending and similar effects, casting and activating during combat, it's been granted an identity of its own that isn't just power, it's fun. Roku here helps with the 'big red' gameplan, making everyone hit one another extremely hard, and giving you some potential loops. Mostly though, he's a prelude to what else Red has going on here.

FromTheShire: This is quite powerful on its face, but pair it with one of the many full mana doesn't drain cards and you're really cooking. You certainly can build a fun deck with Roku as the commander either doing Firebreathing effects or combat tricks, I'm more inclined to use him as a roleplayer though.

BPhillipYork: This is potentially up to 24 mana per turn cycle. That's a lot. I don't know that I'd really like to build a deck around this guy specifically, since mono-red is a bear. If I was going to do that, I'd stack the deck with cards that let you hang onto mana, and create creatures, and goad things. Force your opponents to attack with little tokens and you'll get your 24 mana with ramp like that, that's a lot of resources. As far as just shoving this into a deck, if you ways to burn mana, like say Thrasios, Triton Hero, that's a really nice output for all that mana. It's nice this card has a way to dump the mana itself, but it's not a particularly useful mana dump. Firebreathing has never really been all that good.

Loxi: I think the not losing mana is the key part here. This effectively just banks a ton of mana even if you aren't playing a firebending-esque deck that needs to play at instant speed to effectively use this. 6 mana isn't too bad if you can get three back right away as well. This is solid and I think I'll be giving this a whirl in a higher cost red deck like Mono R Dragons.

Fated Firepower

Saffgor: This is good in decks with proliferate, but aside from that I'm not sure. The rate isn't especially competitive with similar effects, and those other effects are plentiful. The fact you can pay Firebending mana into it does help though.

FromTheShire: I don't mind it in punisher decks to amplify all of your ping effects. A lot of those effects are in the 4-5 mana range themselves so you're built to power them out, and this scales nicely to the late game so it is never a dead draw unless your board has been completely wiped. In that sense it's a little win more, but since most pinger sources are 1-2 damage the decks really need some kind of doubler or two if you actually want to keep pace with the table and win, not simply come in second.

BPhillipYork: Yeah this is super dangerous. If you mana to pump this out with 3 or 4 counters on it it makes simple pings or triggers really dangerous. The fact it has flash plays really nicely with all the firebending cards, it's an obvious dump for all that mana. Given red's facility with Treasures this just seems like a super strong card for all kinds of red trigger decks.

Loxi: I feel like I often reference cards that I think are good in burn decks like Torbran, Thane of Red Fell even though they aren't that popular in the format, but this can seriously stack up with other effects and make your simple spells just blow people up. Burn enjoyers rise up, it's time.

Chong and Lily, Nomads

Saffgor: The very first support for Bards as a type, and thematically they're tied to Sagas, neat! This is a pretty easy +5/+0ish to get, so if you want to go wide and sing loud, these two could work.

FromTheShire: I still don't know that we're at a point where you consistently want to add counters to Sagas outside of trying to power through them in a Tom Bombadil deck but in said deck the second mode can be extremely powerful. Probably want to pair it with haste unless you already have Tom out to trigger this and wipe someone out as soon as it hits the table.

BPhillipYork: Saga cards are neat, and this is a Bard-centric Saga card, which makes sense, but this effect is pretty meh unless it's a true Saga deck, in which case it's quite a useful way to ramp through your Sagas. Possibly quite dangerous even. Should go really well in Tom Bombadil decks since the various Bards will trigger separately, allowing each Saga to resolve each of it's chapters before leaving and hitting your yard, which is exactly what you want.

Crescent Island Temple

Saffgor: I just don't know about this one. The rate is godawful if this is your first Shrine, and even if this makes 2 tokens it feels bad.

FromTheShire: It's a great token for Standard, but it's a bad game plan for Standard. Entirely too slow and not a good rate. On the other hand, the tokens aren't BAD in Commander, but best case they're probably like 3/3's on any given turn, and that's not particularly impressive. If you're leaning into the token generation in your Shrine deck it probably makes the cut but otherwise I think not.

BPhillipYork: Red and White Shrines got token creature creation this cycle and their Shrine cycle doesn't really have enough support for that archetype yet, so hopefully there's either another Shrine cycle with token generation more centered, or a Shrine commander who cares about it. I basically just wouldn't run this, even in a Shrine deck.

Loxi: "If this was cheaper" is a bit of a classic conundrum, but I do think I'd jam this at a lower mana cost, the effect is ok to have but the efficiency feels a bit mediocre.

Firebender Ascension

Saffgor: It behooves me to mention Moira Brown, Guide Author, who receives two new Quest counter pieces in this set. She's been on the shortlist for me to cover in a full Focus, so maybe this is what gets me there! It goes without saying, a 2/2 for 2 that scales like this is good across multiple formats, ace stuff.

FromTheShire: It's nice to get another combat trigger doubler, even if this is probably too fair to get there in a lot of cases.

BPhillipYork: This is potentially really powerful for "when it attacks" decks, since once you get to 4, this will trigger seperately, copying each of your on attack abilities. Really kind of hilarious in the Samurai attacks alone decks, since this will trigger again. Something like Isshin, Two Heavens as One will copy this which will copy the ability again. Also so many counters getting put on this.

Fang, Roku's Companion

Saffgor: If this had Haste I'd be interested in it as a Commander. Monored Legends is already kind of an archetype, with Éomer, Marshal of Rohan, and Fang even likes dying. Likely a smash hit there, but otherwise unimpressive.

FromTheShire: Yeah it's not outright bad or anything but you do need to have a second legend in play in order to even benefit from his trigger which isn't great. Even if you get it, is +4/+0 that big of a deal? Probably not.

BPhillipYork: A 4/4 dragon for 5 mana that flies and pops back into play isn't something I would play, personally. It's not terrible, but just not really good enough.

Loxi: This set has enough legendaries that I'd wager this will definitely clean up some Jumpstart games though. If this was in normal Limited it would be a house.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast

Iroh, Dragon of the West

Saffgor: You'll be seeing a Focus on war criminal era Iroh, at some point. Monored modify is full of tools and without a Commander, but that problem has been solved. Awesome rate, instant effect, and scales the turn he comes down. You can tell when a Commander has been lovingly crafted to feel good, and Thundering Raiju is happy to have a new "dragon" to play with. Shouldn't be an Ally though, this is flashback Iroh.

FromTheShire: Another super fun and super dangerous card, I really dig the risk/reward big spike play style of firebending. Getting even 2 extra mana per turn gives you a great boost, and if you can actually manage to go wide this can yield heinous amounts of mana.

BPhillipYork: Potentially this is generating a huge amount of mana when you attack, especially with something like a go wide and tall with tokens and counters deck. Boros does that a lot, so if your commander gives you a mana dump it's a fun addition to a deck like that.

Loxi: I really enjoy cards like this that allow you to utilize the set mechanic without having to just include cards from the set, it's a really cool way to cash in on the power of firebending without having to just include the firebending cards that might not normally make the cut.

Fire Nation Turret

Saffgor: Oh, hello new Aetherflux Reservoir. If you can use the mana, this almost immediately goes neutral, and it being an outlet is awesome. This will have homes in all the decks Firebending does, which is a shockingly high number.

FromTheShire: I think you want this way more for handing out another instance of firebending, but if you actually manage to flamethrower someone with it it will be hilarious.

BPhillipYork: I think this is a fine card to pump out charges and blow someone up, but I think it's more interesting as a source of charge counters to put elsewhere. Charge counters are somewhat easy to move, but somewhat difficult to generate, so this is a way of making a lot of them. It's also an infinite red mana dump win condition, which is pretty nice.

Loxi: The charge counter thing is fun just as a random mana sink, but I do think some of the other firebending cards have more useful mana sinks built on to them than this one. That being said, I'm in agreement that the value here is really that it ends up being another source of mana acceleration by giving free firebending out. It's going to be a great way for red to have a very on theme way of "ramping" which has been something they've been struggling with, so I'm a big fan of the ways they've been allowing it to show up in other decks with cards like this and Iroh above.

Firebending Student

Saffgor: Less high on this than most, but it could indeed make Monored Prowess back into a thing in Standard...again. The legacy of Kiln Fiend is woven by greedy, slow bodies like this.

FromTheShire: The problem with mono red prowess is that Izzet is like.... right there, and it's doing more powerful things with Tiger-Seal, Duelist of the Mind, Marauding Mako, etc. This is certainly still playable, and could easily be at the core of a deck in the future, but for now it seems to be more of a 2 of in fringe builds.

BPhillipYork: This seems super dangerous in Standard but in Commander pretty lackluster.

Fire Nation Cadets

Saffgor: This is a Common, but it's worth nothing Red gets a conditional mana dork for 2. At Common. They want Firebending to be good, and Lessons to be playable. It would be shocking if they don't succeed.

FromTheShire: Boomerang Basics is seeing a bunch of play right now so it certainly wouldn't shock me to see this in a deck. More often than not I think you can't consistently trigger this in the first 2-3 turns, and in Standard right now that means you are probably losing hard.

Ran and Shaw

Saffgor: Oh hey there Cloudstone Curio combo piece. This is okay, and even used unfairly it's inefficient, but it opens the way for Lessons in Monored, for Commander.

FromTheShire: I kind of don't care about making the token, I'm playing this for the activated ability if I'm playing it at all. I do really like how thematic it is to give all of your Dragons firebreathing.

BPhillipYork: 2 4/4 flying Dragons for 5 mana that have firebending 2 and can pump Dragons is just, kind of meh. Fun for Dragon tribal, but other than that not enough oomph to be worth running.

Loxi: I've played various forms of Mono Red Dragons for a while, trying to push it to reasonable power tables and make it work. One of the issues with it is that you really never have the mana to spare on these pump effects, so even though they look good on paper, you often really need to focus on spending your mana to ramp, draw, play Dragons, and protect them - you never really can just dump into finishers like this unless you know it'll clean up a win. I think realistically there aren't enough lessons that I'd play in a Dragon deck to warrant this, but if you're in a multicolor deck maybe you could squeeze it.

Price of Freedom

Saffgor: Solid card, little to say here. This being around with Wan Shi Tong has me thinking about a brutal deck in Standard where you recycle this over and over. Will they run out of Basics, or die to the owl?

FromTheShire: Having access to land destruction when you need it is really great so I'm happy it's a tool in the arsenal, even if it is more likely to be a sideboard card.

BPhillipYork: This is awesome for a Lesson. Also something you can kind of abuse, forcing searches and lands dropping, and it is a cantrip. All around a solid card.

Loxi: At worst, this is a great inclusion in Izzet Spellslinger-y decks that want Lessons, since it'll cantrip you for two mana even if you don't get real value off the land destruction.

Overwhelming Victory

Saffgor: This will be killing people in Limit—it's from ATLA Eternal. Fool me twice, I guess. It's odd to see these cool bombs that won't get proper play in 40-card, but that's what cube is for.

FromTheShire: It would be extremely funny in a Zada, Hedron Grinder deck if your creatures were able to survive the damage. It's a pretty solid combat trick to push damage through as is.

BPhillipYork: This is a solid instant Lesson for a go-wide deck.

Momo's Heist

Saffgor: If this were an Instant I'd crook an eyebrow upward, but this is too slow.

FromTheShire: Thematic, and we do have lots of problematic artifacts in Commander. That said, there is better removal for them.

BPhillipYork: This is a kind of pushed "grab that thing until end of turn." I sort of expect more of this, though so far it's just artifacts, I wouldn't be that shocked to see the sacrifice start being attached to spells that also gain control of creatures.

Loxi: Vandalblast and cards like By Force existing have made it tricky to print cards like this that are one-off land bombs. Realistically, I often run Abrade and I don't think I'd want this over the flexibility that has.

Credit: Wizards of the Coast.

The Legend of Roku // Avatar Roku

Saffgor: If you can survive, this makes me think of some Red Midrange pile in Standard being real, although the second chapter is so laughably anemic. I get why, but dude, come on.

FromTheShire: I'm keeping my Saga-hater cap on for this one, doesn't feel like it does enough fast enough.

BPhillipYork: Solid enough Saga, exile draw and then the mana to pay for the spells, and then you get a 4/4 with firebending 4 that can spin up even more firebending dragons. That's a lot, sure 8 mana is a crazy amount, like Aladdin's Ring levels of mana, but that's obviously going to cause a fairly nasty progression where you just keep getting more and more dragons, and if not removed, Avatar Roku will cause the game to end in a bit. Sure it's pretty slow to get there, but if it's a stax deck or a durdle kind of game, then this fits nicely.

Lost in Memories

Saffgor: When is a Snapcaster not a Snapcaster? When it's...an Aura? This is deeply weird, but because there's technically a time after damage is dealt but before combat ends, you can spend Firebending mana on the relevant card. Maybe?

FromTheShire: It's definitely interesting, and certainly can be powerful. Being an Aura and having to deal combat damage are big drawbacks though, I don't think this gets run outside of niche decks.

BPhillipYork: Flashback is solid, though you need to pay for this, and then pay for flashing back the spell in the same turn sort of break even, which is going to be at least like 4 mana. It's a nice use, and probably intended for, firebending mana.

Loxi: I do think a lot of the merit here is that it's two mana, which isn't that much in terms of "recursion" spells. It's a bit finnicky but if your primary creatures in a deck have evasion, I can see this helping just to generate more value.

Zuko, Firebending Master

Saffgor: You'll probably play this in Grixis Azula, but on his own I'm unconvinced. Too fragile, and given how freely they dole out Firebending, this needs to hit 4+ to feel above the curve.

FromTheShire: In for supercharging your experience counters, that are being used by a more useful card. On its own it's not strong enough to build around for me.

BPhillipYork: This is one of the easier ways to ramp up experience counters, and useful for random experience decks, and this should progress to fairly crazy levels pretty quickly. It is a bit small, especially with only 2 toughness, pretty vulnerable to various kinds of removal.

Redirect Lightning

Saffgor: A card whose early reveal has inspired a high pricetag, and for good reason. In Commander, this is going to be the least conditional redirect of all time, and it's right up there with Swat. You want one, probably want the other.

FromTheShire: This is basically an auto-include in red decks, very limited ways to get the effect and it is very literally on the verge of being Game Changing. Outstanding protection spell you're going to be happy to pay for.

BPhillipYork: Yeah this is crazy strong, cEDH card.

Loxi: Redirect effects have become a staple and this is no different. I actually think I like this more than Deflecting Swat only because it still is stupidly efficient even if your commander gets whacked. Like Saff said though; if you want one, you probably want both.

Solstice Revelations

Saffgor: In a deck that can manipulate their topdeck, this is really interesting, but part of the issue with that is those strategies often aren't just Red. I worry this ends up as a 3 mana draw 1 too often to be truly good.

FromTheShire: Unless someone figures out something busted to pseudo-cascade into in Standard I can't see this getting much play.

BPhillipYork: This is strong, and works really well with various tutors also you can abuse it with suspend spells plus it's a great way to free cast those sorts of spells. All around really solid Lesson. Also perfectly fine to just include this in decks that run a lot of mountains.

Sozin's Comet

Saffgor: When this resolves, you better have a plan to kill the table. If you don't, you've likely goofed something up along the way. Sozin's Comet is flashy, scary, and can be entirely ineffectual if not built around. My kind of card.

FromTheShire: Very reasonable rate for a game ending card given all of the setup required for it. Can't wait to take one of these turns.

BPhillipYork: This is a hilarious card to me in decks that go very wide. Probably not really good, but just potentially making a huge amount of mana, or casting extra combat spells repeatedly.

Loxi: Adding onto FTS' comment, it's worth mentioning that this realistically just pays for itself assuming you're attacking with anything more than one creature. I agree you often want to use this to just set up for a pop-off turn, but if you're in the gutter and you need to catch up, this can be a reasonable way to just get yourself back in the game and swing in with a few dudes to cast a few more spells.

Storm of Memories

Saffgor: This seems bad, actually. If it were an Instant, huge ups, given Storm also tracks your opponents' spells, but as a Sorcery I'm not sold.

FromTheShire: Might be worth it for your go turn to make sure that if you whiff off the top of your deck you can cast a bunch of stuff from your graveyard to keep the combo going and lower your risk of fizzling.

BPhillipYork: Yeah storm spells are a problem wtf, this is no exception. Fill your yard and GG them. If you do use this you're almost certainly getting flashback, meaning you'll end up casting it twice, just wtf.

The Cave of Two Lovers

Saffgor: More extensive land tutoring in Red, by way of searching for Urza's Cave...and then Earthbending said Urza's Cave? I see you, Valakut and Vesuva Johnnies, and I agree—this rocks!

FromTheShire: It tells the story extremely well but I'm out on it.

BPhillipYork: Uh, okay, what, no.

Zhao, the Moon Slayer

Saffgor: 7 is a bit high for 60-card, and mass Land denial is frowned upon below B4, so Zhao here seems like he's out of luck. Would love to see him in a turbo variant, in cEDH, but yeah I'm not convinced.

FromTheShire: Personally I don't think this falls under mass land denial since he doesn't keep the lands tapped without the counter, so you need to pay 9 mana for the Blood Moon effect, but I know he does by the definition given. Frankly we could use some more cards to punish greedy mana bases in my opinion.

BPhillipYork: Hahahaha. Well it's Back to Basics in reverse, though it costs significantly more mana. But sure, I love mass land removal. Also potentially causes lots of weird layer stuff with other land changing types in play.

Loxi: Yeah I love cards that punish the sins of those who won't run basics, I think the part that none of us have mentioned is just how easy that 7 mana is to pay for with firebending, which is likely why it's so expensive. I wouldn't call it a mana "sink" but it's not going to cause you much trouble with how much mana you can generate in those decks, so I do think it has a home there.

The Last Agni Kai

Saffgor: Hello, cEDH playable fight spell? It's removal, a ritual, and even a combo piece by way of Firebending & Aggravated Assault. Just great stuff here, if you play high enough power that's reasonably accessible.

FromTheShire: Yeah this card is dope and I'm here for it. Even if played as a mostly fair fight spell in red it's pretty solid honestly.

BPhillipYork: This is a cool fight card, I really like it. Generate a bunch of mana of absolutely munching a small creature, it's almost a red ritual.

Loxi: This card is really good in Neyith of the Dire Hunt if you're into that, as well.

Animal Attendant

Saffgor: A slightly more specific Biophagus is still close enough, and decks that want the one want the other, likely. Unfortunately, my beloved Maester Seymour is an icky Human and therefore doesn't benefit.

BPhillipYork: For a mana dork this is pretty pushed. Yes, it's not absolutely bonkers tier Llanowar Elves, but the ability to +1/+1 counter on everything is really solid for starting counter chains, helping proliferate decks get going, etc..

The Legend of Kyoshi // Avatar Kyoshi

Saffgor: This is a Commander card through and through, but that's far from a bad thing. It's greedy in all the right ways, and supplies card draw, a big body, and then mana. Kind of a complete package, and although it's expensive this is exactly the kind of card you never want to sit across from in Bracket 2.

BPhillipYork: This card draw is just, super expensive and not flexible, the earthbend is like, a weird waste. Then you've got to wait a turn and you've got a mana generator, but you already had 6 mana to plop this thing out. I just don't see it. It's an okay enabler for manlands decks.

Loxi: In either of the Toph earthbending decks I think this is probably fine honestly, if it resolves into Kyoshi your lands will become a bit of a pain. I almost with she had hexproof as well since she'll just be a removal magnet that's pretty telegraphed.

Bison Whistle

Saffgor: Every Bison in Magic currently is Appa, and therefore Monowhite...so what this is really for has to be Changeling strategies. I honestly don't know what to make of this design, but as a weird form of Changeling scam (maybe you Artificial Evolution or something) it's at least got a decent rate. Deeply weird card.

BPhillipYork: Pretty solid for decks that really care about creatures, and want a way to surveil effectively.

Loxi: I don't think green creature decks are that starved for card draw, but it's not terrible in a lot of green graveyard decks as a way to either draw/mill a card every turn that you have a spare mana.

Badgermole Cub

Saffgor: Another money Mythic, and while folks are excited for the card I'm already tired of seeing this. Going 1 mana dork into this, animating a Land and tapping it for {2} is going to be an annoying pattern, and explosive start. Whether played fairly or otherwise this will have an impact on Commander at minimum.

BPhillipYork: Yeah wow. That's a lot of mana off dorks. Just wowser. This will go nuts in Simic decks.

FromTheShire: Yeah so remember back in the WUB article I talked about how we have Llanowar Elves in Standard right now and if you don't have 5 mana on turn 3 you're way behind? That's the minimum, and this guy is the reason. Absolutely heinous amounts of mana if you go Elf into double Cub since Cub also enables itself with the earthbend on top of it... if your deck doesn't have a plan to deal with starts like this on the ladder you are going to get run right the fuck over. Big Green is back in a big, potentially problematic, way.

Loxi: The issue with all of these green big mana producing cards is that we've hit a critical mass of having so many that you can make decks with just a downright silly amount of mana generation. While I think that in a vacuum for designing in rotating formats, it makes sense to need to keep making cards like this, it's definitely weird for eternal formats where now green decks can have like seven ways to come out and make a billion mana off the bat. It's a great card and I think it's a fun design, but I do think we're starting to see the effects of green having genuinely too much crazy mana production.

Avatar Destiny

Saffgor: Mill equal to power on death is a strong line of text, and this in something like Hogaak or similar will feel excellent. It's pricy mana-wise, but in the right decks this will dump 10-25% of your Library when it goes off.

BPhillipYork: I think this is essentially some kind of really weird loop card like the super old Pattern of Rebirth combo. Since the mill goes onto the stack, if you have a way to put the creature onto the top of your yard, you can then use it in response and then get it, so, you can build some elaborate combo out of it.

Loxi: It also getting a creature back to the battlefield is really big here, this has a lot of value for dedicated graveyard decks and I absolutely agree its worth trying in the 'gaak himself.

Diligent Zookeeper

Saffgor: This is an interesting aggro tool, and thankfully doesn't benefit Changelings. In terms of practical targets, this is likely at-best +4/+0 to a relevant Creature. That's...mediocre, doing little else at 4 mana. I soured on this as soon as I did any research, and I bet you will too.

BPhillipYork: Originally you'd look at this and go wow Changelings lol, but of course they are Humans, so sadly this seems like it wont do that much. Though there's tons of 3 creature types running around now, and if you can pack a deck with them then this is a significant boost, but I don't see that happening in Commander.

Loxi: Listen, I have absolutely no idea what creature pool wants this and what deck to put it in outside of Changelings as mentioned, but man that's a funny effect and I really hope to see someone just jam this thing.

Earthbender Ascension

Saffgor: This just does everything Green often wants, from counter synergies to landfall, and if you see this as a 3 mana 2/2 that ramps for a basic at minimum, you're not far off of playability from the get-go.

BPhillipYork: While this is certainly better than the really old quests, this is a pretty underwhelming effect unless maybe in some kind of lands matter deck.

FromTheShire: Paying an extra mana for your Rampant Growth to then hand out trample to individual creatures seems fine in ramp decks.

Earth Kingdom General

Saffgor: If you're adding an absolute ton of counters to a Creature at one time, this can gain a chunk of life, but if you're slow-growing or Proliferating it's not worth your time.

BPhillipYork: So the ability to gain life for counters is sort of okay. There's definitely creatures in white that get counters when you gain life, and this would play okay but not great with that due to the once per turn. At 4 mana though it's just a fairly weak effect.

Elemental Teachings

Saffgor: For 1 more mana versus Realms Uncharted...they go on the Battlefield. Good lord that's efficient. This is immediately suspect for playability up through cEDH Lumra, and will have cascading effects in all the lower Brackets. Land combos being accessible is exciting and a little spooky.

BPhillipYork: Solid enough especially for decks that can play lands from the graveyard.

FromTheShire: Yeah searching for 4 untyped lands is extremely powerful, and in the deck running this you definitely have ways to get the 2 that go to the graveyard back. Banger.

Loxi: Huge for graveyard decks honestly, and frankly so many land decks have ways to recur them from the graveyard anyway. I don't think I often would pick this in decks that don't have land synergies or combos explicitly compared to other ramp spells around the price point, but if you do it's going to be solid.

Elephant-Mandrill

Saffgor: Insane slam-dunk for Kibo, Uktabi Prince, but even beyond that this starts as a 6/5 in Commander and gets much, much bigger. In some kind of stax shell this could represent a nice clock, maybe Yasharn?

BPhillipYork: This is probably a thing in aggro but in Commander I can't see it really paying off. Occasionally it'll be huge, absolutely enormous, but other than dedicated artifact/monkey decks I wouldn't include it as a random beater.

Kyoshi Island Plaza

Saffgor: 5-color archetypes and Basic Lands don't mix, and this at 4 mana seems like one Shrine you'd leave at home.

BPhillipYork: Really solid ramp for Shrines decks. Though given they are often 5-color means you need to dedicate your land base to working with this and avoid the many good dual and tri-color lands.

Loxi: The fact that it scales with the amount of Shrines you have when it actually comes in makes this pretty solid to me, if you have another shrine in play it's just like Explosive Vegetation with more value later on.

Swampbenders

Saffgor: Golgari players are thriving, as having a second Urborg makes Cabal Coffers that much more efficient. Couple that with some land untap effects and you may have a real stew going, as far as a specific mana acceleration package.

BPhillipYork: Haha this card sort of already exists. And there's Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth. Run it with your Angry Mob and Crusading Knight.

FromTheShire: Urborg + Coffers is one of my favorite things to be doing in the entire game, so I am over the moon to get another way to enable Coffers. A more easily tutor-able one at that. Windmill slamming it in a bunch of decks.

Loxi: Broborg here is great, and aside from also enabling the mana combo, this is just a pretty big body most of the time. You'll probably be playing it on-rate-ish, but it'll scale up with the game to make it even harder to kill with damage based removal.

Shared Roots

Saffgor: Rampant Growth in Standard...wow, how far we've come.

BPhillipYork: Wow this is just.. I mean it's Rampant Growth but it's a Lesson. And now there's one more.

FromTheShire: The messed up thing is it's in Standard and seeing very little play from what I have seen, because the Elves, Cub, Gene Pollinator package is so strong. Maybe in the future.

Seismic Sense

Saffgor: I think you need 3+ lands to make this not have whiff risk, but as a 1 mana Lesson it will be seeing play.

BPhillipYork: Solid enough for a Lesson if you care about Lessons, but otherwise kind of lacking unless you're just planning to ramp a lot of lands. Then basically a tutor.

Origin of Metalbending

Saffgor: Naturalize can also be a protection spell now? This is a boring workhorse of a card that would be even more exciting if not for Collective Resistance.

BPhillipYork: Wow super nice, solid interact for green. This kind of breaks the color pie, a modal spell, instant speed, both modes are solid and useful. Really good.

Loxi: Flexible cards where both sides are things that often come up in a normal game are very good, to me this is like Abrade in green.

Master's Guidance

Saffgor: In 2025, Phyrexian Arena effects have largely needed to cost 2 to be playable. This is maybe too conditional.

BPhillipYork: This really isn't quite pushed enough to compete with other green, draw when you have a creature spells, unless you know you'll have the legendary creatures to get both abilities consistently.

Loxi: I actually think incremental card draw is very good, I've had a renaissance on playing cards like this myself. My issue a bit is that I think the first part is just a bit to finnicky for most decks to pull off, and although I think the draw effect is still good, I almost don't want to utilize just that if I play this. It somewhat competes with Garruk's Uprising for me, and I think that edges it out in pretty much all categories.

Uncle's Musings

Saffgor: In the decks that would even consider this, it's 4 mana to add back 3 permanents. Not a rate I'm paying.

BPhillipYork: It's okay, but there's really lots of better ways to get cards back to your hand.

Unlucky Cabbage Merchant

Saffgor: Absolute banger for Food decks in Gx, though at 3 colors you maybe lack the Basic density to see full use out of this.

BPhillipYork: Funny card, I'm not sure like, is this getting played, probably not. It seems somewhat abusable, if you generate a bunch of triggers at once and then search, you'll still get to grab the lands, so if you have a way to do that you could potentially dump out your lands.

Toph, Earthbending Master

Saffgor: Experience Toph is fine, though I doubt she sees many seats in the Command Zone. I prefer Toph, Greatest Earthbender for this archetype.

BPhillipYork: It's an okay source for experience counters, but I can't imagine playing Commander based on around earthbending.

Loxi: Yeah if anything I think she might be included alongside other Tophs in the 99 as a way to just get a bunch of extra land creatures.

The Earth King

Saffgor: Getting Lands on attack is much better than on damage, as you can use aggressive Landfall Creatures to pummel foes in ways Green just loves. Nothing flashy, but it's so Green.

BPhillipYork: That could be some really crazy ramp. Commander generally doesn't really do midrange, though I'm kind of desperate to make it work, and this would fit really well into that.

The Cabbage Merchant

Saffgor: People have been saying 'Oh this guy might be cEDH viable' and...maybe? If he comes down later than turn 2 your opponents have already played out their fast mana and he's too fair. If you're not sitting in seat 1 or 2, he's going to feel bad. I don't know, he does a lot but also not enough, especially when we're talking about the Command Zone and Green needing to tutor Artifact combos.

BPhillipYork: This is potentially crazy. I see this getting slotted into cEDH decks, though it has that weird, good in cEDH not that good in Bracket 2 or 3 thing going on (garbage in bracket 1).

FromTheShire: Agreed that this has the potential to be wildly strong, but seems more conditional than you think once you actually start playing with it. Certainly won't be shocking if it does make the cut.

Tectonic Split

Saffgor: A delightful new Reality Scramble target for a RG Background Commander. Turns your lands into Harold and Bob, First Numens, d'aww.

BPhillipYork: Okay, I dunno. I can't see paying 6 mana and losing half your lands to make your lands tap for 3, unless you're doing like a High Tide style combo, or know you can just replay the lands from your graveyard (and want to get the land triggers again).

FromTheShire: I mean you're definitely in a deck that can get the lands back if you're playing this. Triple mana seems worth the risk, as while this has hexproof it doesn't have indestructible so you could still get blown out by an enchantment board wipe.

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