The first look at Magic: The Gathering (MTG)’s Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover set has been revealed, with a host of cards now available to pore over. That includes cards featuring Avatar Aang, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Katara, and the rest of the gang, each of which will make for powerful Commanders on the battlefield.
Perhaps the most exciting card revealed is the double-faced full art Avatar Aang card in Raised Foil treatment. This will be the chase card of the set, with its sheer presence and shiny beauty likely to be very coveted by Avatar and MTG fans alike.
Beyond aesthetics, this card appears very powerful, with flying and firebending abilities, as well as card draw any time you use waterbending, earthbending, firebending, or airbending. If you manage to do all four in a single turn, you can also transform Avatar Aang into Aang, Master of Elements – a flying creature that reduces spell costs significantly, and lets you transform back for life gain, card draw, counters, and damage.
As long-time MTG players will note, those element-bending abilities are brand new to Magic, with these adapting the magical abilities seen in Avatar: The Last Airbender. Each has their own unique effect, with some adding mana of a colour inspired by that element, and others allowing you to increase the power and toughness of your creatures.
For those planning to build an Avatar Aang Commander Deck, the complication will lie in having a balanced crew that represents each of the elements (red, green, white, blue mana), while ensuring your mana base is strong.
Any of the main heroes could make for solid Commanders in their own right, though, with most wielding multiple mana colours and having unique, potentially game-changing abilities. Fire Lord Zuko, for example, is a red-white-black creature with firebending that adds red mana whenever he attacks, and the ability to place +1/+1 counters on each creature you control when you cast a spell from exile, or whenever a permanent you control enters from exile (which is wonderfully thematic).
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Katara is a white-blue creature with vigilance and she creates 1/1 Ally creatures on entry. She also has a waterbending ability that allows her to increase the base power and toughness of creatures you control.
Sokka is a red-blue creature that lets you discard cards and draw cards to replace them. He also gains +1/+1 counters whenever you cast an artifact or Lesson spell. (Lessons, in this case, are new Instant types with powerful abilities.)
Toph is a red-green-white creature that transforms nontoken artifacts you control into lands, in addition to their other types. She also has earthbending, which lets her transform lands into creatures with haste, and put counters on them. When these die or are exiled, you may return them to the battlefield tapped.
In addition to revealing these cards, alongside a host of other cool additions for the MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender set (head on over to the MTG website for a card gallery), Wizards of the Coast has also revealed its slate of products for new and returning players.
Notably, this set won’t include specific Commander Decks, but it will include a Commander’s Bundle, which will ‘unite the core elements of this set and add Commander staples to build the deck the world needs most.’ Anyone planning to create their own Commander Deck for this set should consider this new release.
Of course, there’s also the usual collectibles for MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender, including Play Boosters, Collector Boosters, Bundles, and Pre-Release packs. There’s also Jumpstart Boosters, a Scene Box, and a special Beginner Box for those looking to make this MTG set their very first foray into the TCG franchise.
You can learn more about the new MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender set over on the MTG website. You can also stay tuned to ScreenHub for future coverage of this long-anticipated arrival.
