The Ultimate Avatar: The Last Airbender Limited Set Review

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Avatar Key Art | Illustration by Fahmi Fauzi

Here we are, at the final set of 2025. Avatar is a cartoon series built around an Asian-inspired world in which people are able to control the natural elements of air, earth, fire, and water to their will. They do so by using techniques called “bending”, largely inspired by Chinese martial arts. The main character, Aang, is the last of the airbenders, destined to be the next Avatar, a chosen one who is capable of bending all four elements.

Avatar is not a property that I’m very familiar with, but it has a beautifully rich and vibrant world with interesting characters and a very loyal fanbase. It is widely beloved and is often talked about as one of the best animated series of all time. I may not have watched it myself, but its reputation very much precedes itself. Today, we’ll be going in depth with the set and reviewing every card in the context of Sealed deck and Booster Draft.

As always, I want to remind you that this is a review based on my initial impressions of the cards. It’s hard to figure out how these cards will play out without knowing things like the speed of the format or the relative power levels of the colors and archetypes. Many cards will under or over perform based on initial impressions as the format takes shape. My reviews are largely based on the card’s quality in a vacuum or assuming that the archetype they belong in is playable.

Rating System

10: The absolute best of the best. 10s will make a meaningful impact on any game, especially when playing from behind, and will be extremely tough to beat.

Examples: Ouroboroid or Elegy Acolyte.

8-9: Extremely good cards, usually game-winning bombs and the most efficient removal spells, though not quite good enough to be a 10/10. Could also be the mythic uncommon of the set (though these are harder to predict).

Examples: Nova Hellkite or Genemorph Imago.

5-7: Important role-players. These are typically going to be great uncommons that really drive you towards playing a particular color, such as build arounds and good removal, as well as very powerful commons.

Examples: Codecracker Hound or Rayblade Trooper.

2-4: The average Limited card. Most commons will end up in this range and most of your Limited decks will be made up mostly of these.

Examples: Cards like Selfcraft Mechan or Nebula Dragon.

1: These cards are weak and you hope to never play them in your main deck, though they aren’t completely useless if you need them in a pinch.

Examples: Luxknight Breacher or Insatiable Skittermaw.

0: Virtually unplayable in every scenario and you should never put these cards in your main deck. Typically cards that were designed with Constructed play in mind but are awful in Limited.

Examples: Cosmogoyf or The Eternity Elevator.

Set Mechanics

This set focuses on four brand new mechanics, each representing one of the natural elemental bending abilities from the series, plus a couple of minor, returning themes to help bring it all together.

Airbending

When you consider how airbending might be used, a flicker effect of some kind comes to mind, because we can use that to rescue permanents from danger or blow others out of the way. That’s exactly what this mechanic does.

When you “airbend” a permanent, it gets exiled. From there, its owner may choose to cast it again by paying 2 mana. This is the kind of effect that is going to be useful in a variety of ways. You can choose to do this on your own permanents and reuse their abilities, or sometimes target your opponent’s creatures to get them out of the way for combat, or you could even permanently exile opposing tokens. Whichever way you do it, airbending looks like a very powerful and fun addition to the set.

Earthbending

If you’re bending the earth around you, how would that look in Magic terms? It would probably look like turning lands into something more relevant, which again, is exactly what we get here. When you “earthbend N”, you turn a land into a 0/0 creature and put N +1/+1 counters on it (for example, earthbend 2 gives you a 2/2 land creature). This is very similar to effects we’ve seen in the past, like Battle for Zendikar’s awaken mechanic, this is just a lot more flexible.

Generally speaking, turning lands into creatures is a very powerful effect, one which is essentially the same as creating a token of the same size. You even get your land back after it dies or gets exiled, meaning you won’t be risking your resources in exchange for board presence. I have high hopes for this, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Firebending

So, what would firebending look like? Well, if I’m manipulating fire and perhaps throwing it at my opponents, I’d assume it’s some sort of burn mechanic? Well, you guessed it!

Creatures can have “firebending N”, which means that whenever they attack, you add N red mana to your mana pool. Mana normally empties from your pool as you progress through the steps of the turn, but this mana sticks around for the whole combat phase, giving you a few more opportunities to spend it. Honestly, this mechanic looks quite bad. It’s true that a lot of the firebending cards have ways to spend this mana, but not getting to keep it through to your main phase still makes it extremely limited in application. If I wanted to do firebending in this set, I would make sure I had plenty of things to spend that mana on or it’s just going to feel pointless.

Waterbending

Our final bending skill is much harder to figure out, so I’ll skip the preamble. Waterbending is a type of cost you can pay for an ability, but you can also pay it by tapping any creatures or artifacts you control. Essentially, it’s a cost that also has improvise and convoke. This is kind of cool, and it does act as a natural way of getting more big mana sinks into the set for firebending. It’s also a mechanic that helps to give you more ways of using tokens, encouraging you to go wide with those strategies. Naturally, there are also benefits in the set for tapping your creatures, making further use of this. I’m not sure how it’ll play out in practice, but this is probably the most interesting mechanic we have.

Double-Faced Sagas

Sagas are great at telling the stories of a series like this, so naturally they’re returning in this set. As a twist, some of them will be double-faced, with a final chapter that transforms them, just like what we saw in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty. As anyone who has played Neon Dynasty will tell you, these kinds of sagas are extremely powerful. They essentially function like creatures with great enters the battlefield triggers in exchange for taking a little while to become creatures. That’s a trade I’ll take all the time in Limited.

Lessons

Returning from Strixhaven, we have lesson cards, but with a twist. Lesson is a subtype of instants and sorceries that doesn’t mean anything by itself, but other cards will key off of lessons specifically. The first time we saw them, they were paired with the “learn” mechanic, which instructed you to put a lesson from your sideboard into your hand. This was extremely powerful, despite the lessons being weaker than your average spells by quite a lot. This time around, the lessons are just regular spells and you’ll be expecting to put them into your main deck. There are no learn cards in the set, so you’ll just be looking for other cards that reference them. What’s the point of that? Simple. It’s very flavorful, as much of Avatar is spent with the young cast learning various lessons as they progress.

Exhaust

Making a return from Aetherdrift, we have exhaust. An exhaust ability is simply an activated ability on a permanent card that you’re only allowed to use once. There’s nothing special about this returning here, but with firebending and waterbending being all about enabling big mana costs, this is here to keep some of the stronger abilities in check.

Allies

Finally, for the first time in about 10 years, allies are back! Allies were a fan-favorite archetype from the original Zendikar. Ally is simply a creature type and the original idea was that allies all had abilities that benefitted you for playing more allies. In this set, ally is simply a common creature type, signifying the many friends and comrades that Aang meets along his journey. While being an ally doesn’t mean anything intrinsically, there are a lot of cards in this set that care about allies and will benefit you for using them, so it’s definitely a type to look out for.

Draft Archetypes

Source: Wizards of the Coast

As with most Draft sets, this set has 10 draftable themes across all 10 color pairs:

Azorius (White/Blue): Fliers
Dimir (Blue/Black): Draw Two Cards
Rakdos (Black/Red): Fire Nation Aggro
Gruul (Red/Green): Earthbending / Creatures with Power 4 or Greater
Selesnya (Green/White): Allies
Orzhov (White/Black): Sacrifices
Golgari (Black/Green): +1/+1 Counters
Simic (Green/Blue): Lessons Ramp
Izzet (Blue/Red): Lessons Aggro
Boros (Red/White): Go-Wide Aggro

Without any further ado, let’s start looking at some cards.

White

Aang, the Last Airbender

Rating: 5/10

Of course, we have to start with the namesake of the set, and he’s even called “The Last Airbender” too. Aang, the Last Airbender is a pretty decent size for a 4-drop and sometimes picking up lifelink is very relevant too. What really sells me on this though is the ability to airbend any nonland permanent on entering. You can use this to flicker something of yours, or get rid of an opponent’s thing for the turn. Sure, they can recast it for cheap, but getting it out of the way so you can make a profitable attack is still very good.

Aang’s Iceberg

Rating: 7/10

Aang’s Iceberg is an incredible removal spell. It’s basically just a Banishing Light with flash, which is very powerful, giving you the ability to deal with absolutely anything. I don’t quite get why I would want to sacrifice it, but this does allow you to use it as a very expensive flicker spell for your own permanent. That’s not nothing, but you should still remove your opponent’s problematic permanent nearly all of the time.

Airbender Ascension

Rating: 4/10

These flicker hits keep coming! Airbender Ascension looks like a neat build around if you want to be airbending your own creatures to reuse their abilities. This is the most interesting part about the airbending mechanic, as I’m really not sure how often you’ll be using it on your own cards versus your opponents’. Assuming we can pack our deck full of great triggered abilities to pairt with cards like this, this is going to be a very fun card for a very fun mechanic.

Airbender’s Reversal

Rating: 5/10

Destroying an attacking creature for 2 mana is a reasonable rate, but something you wouldn’t want too much of in an aggressive deck. Airbender’s Reversal gives us a backup mode that we can use to protect our creatures or flicker them for value. I’d say that makes it quite a bit stronger than a simple Immolating Glare.

Airbending Lesson

Rating: 3/10

Three mana feels like quite a lot for this kind of effect, but Airbending Lesson excels for being an instant. Getting to airbend at instant speed allows you to save a creature from removal as well as getting to recast it and use its abilities again. Plus, drawing a card is a nice bonus to tack on. This is probably a decent card, though it might be a little limited in scope.

Appa, Loyal Sky Bison

Rating: 3/10

You see, it’s beautifully adorable characters like Appa, Loyal Sky Bison that make me think I’m missing out by not having watched this show. That being said, I don’t think the card is particularly good. Six mana is a lot and I just don’t think you’re getting enough value for that mana cost. A 4/4 flier is a bit too small and both choices are pretty niche effects that don’t do much to affect the board.

Appa, Steadfast Guardian

Rating: 8/10

Appa, Steadfast Guardian definitely looks like what I would want a mythic airbending card to look like. First, it has flash and can save any and all of your other creatures. Then, it pays you off for recasting your creatures next turn. Four mana for all of that is great, making Appa one of the better cards you’re going to find for this theoretical airbending flicker deck.

Avatar Enthusiasts

Rating: 2/10

Even when your deck is full of allies, Avatar Enthusiasts needs to pick up at least two +1/+1 counters before you’ll feel paid off for it. Three mana for just a 2/2 is too weak and 3 mana for a 3/3 is just average by modern standards. We’ve seen some similar effects in the past and these never quite land how you want them to.

Avatar’s Wrath

Rating: 8/10

I know that Avatar’s Wrath has begun to generate some hype online due to how it works in Commander. In Limited, it looks pretty spicy. I do think we would usually prefer to just cast Day of Judgment, but sometimes this will actually be better. The best board sweepers are ones where you get to play to the board first, and this one gives you a lot of agency to do that.

I think the best use of this will be when you have 6 mana; you can attack with the creature you keep and then use your remaining 2 mana to recast something that was airbent. Following that, your opponent probably won’t be able to refill their board at all and you might just win off of the back of that. I might just be looking at the best case scenario, because if you’re falling behind and trying to catch back up, all this does is buy you a turn or two, but it definitely has the potential to be extremely powerful.

Compassionate Healer

Rating: 3/10

We saw this same design very recently in Edge of Eternities in the form of Starfighter Pilot. In this set, you don’t have spacecrafts to station, but Compassionate Healer is still a fine 2-drop that gives you lasting benefits when you use it to pay for waterbending costs, so it’s probably a decent common.

Curious Farm Animals

Rating: 2/10

Curious Farm Animals are, of course, adorable, but that’s about it. Since you gain the life whenever they die, they could be a reasonable creature to sacrifice to some other effect, but without an abundance of good targets in the format for the second ability, this isn’t going to have much utility on its own.

Destined Confrontation

Rating: 4/10

It’s very rare to see an uncommon board wipe, but here we are. Destined Confrontation is quite hard to evaluate. If your opponent has a lot of creatures on the board, then this will devastate them, but that’s not going to be the case all that often. When your opponent has one extremely annoying creature out, this won’t be able to deal with it unless it has 5 or more power. This is also much more effective against decks with bigger creatures, which will restrict the options that your opponent has, and will be next to unplayable against a deck with mostly small creatures. This really is a hard one, but I think it should have its place in the format. The matchup disparity might make it more of a sideboard card, depending on what ends up good in the format.

Earth Kingdom Jailer

Rating: 7/10

Banisher Priest is one of those cards that we know from experience is always good in Limited. Earth Kingdom Jailer hits a lot of the same targets that we would want to exile anyway and is a 3/3 to boot. The only downside I can see is that it won’t be able to exile tokens or earthbent lands, but that’s not enough to prevent this from being a premium uncommon.

Earth Kingdom Protectors

Rating: 5/10

Earth Kingdom Protectors looks very similar to Selfless Savior, which was a very powerful card in its own right. This invalidates so many removal spells your opponent might have, not to mention messing up combat, and can even come down on turn 1 to start attacking for a bit of damage. The fact that this only works with allies is a big restriction, so you can’t just play this in any white deck, but if I’m drafting around allies, this card is going to be fantastic.

Enter the Avatar State

Rating: 2/10

Rating: 7/10

South Pole Voyager has a lot of potential to really pop off in this format. While it only works with allies, limiting its potential somewhat, there are a lot of cards that combo with it nicely. Invasion Reinforcements and Kyoshi Warriors both enable it and let you draw a card immediately, which is really nice. You of course have to make sure to build around this card with as many allies as you can find, and it does look well worth the effort to do that.

Southern Air Temple

Rating: 2/10

Let’s talk about shrines for a second. I really enjoy shrines and I even wrote a Commander deck guide for my build of them. The issue with this new wave of shrines is that unlike their previous counterparts, they don’t give you a continual source of advantage by triggering turn after turn. Instead, they give you a one-shot effect up front and then only trigger again if you play more shrines. On top of that, their abilities are quite bad if they’re the only shrine you have, but then look very strong if you have more.

Southern Air Temple fits this description to a tee. Four mana just to give a +1/+1 counter to all of your creatures is not worth the mana investment, but two counters, or even three starts to look very good. If you have no other shrines, you shouldn’t play this at all, but if you’re able to put some sort of shrine deck together then this starts to look like a better option.

Suki, Courageous Rescuer

Rating: 8/10

Suki, Courageous Rescuer looks like a very powerful card overall. +1/+0 to your team naturally gets stronger as you get more creatures onto the board. Their trigger is extremely flexible too, triggering not only when you trade off a creature in combat, but also if you flicker or airbend one. It doesn’t trigger outside of your turn, but that’s not too important; this card is clearly aggressively slanted anyway and it rewards you for attacking as often as possible.

Team Avatar

Rating: 6/10

Only seven years ago, Angelic Exaltation was an extremely powerful uncommon. Even with just a couple of creatures in play, it allows you to turn any creature, even a random 1/1, into a legitimate attacking threat. Team Avatar is not just a cheaper version of the exact same card, but you can even “channel” it as a removal spell if that suits you better. I’m sure this is the kind of card that a lot of people won’t immediately recognize as good, but I’m sure it’ll perform as the format goes on.

United Front

Rating: 9/10

We’ve seen quite a few mass token generators that create a bunch of 1/1s and they’ve always been fine. United Front goes above and beyond all of those by actually creating 2/2s while growing the other creatures you have in play. This has an exceptional rate of return and is incredibly flexible. Even casting this for X = 0, 1, or 2 has its uses since you get the +1/+1 counters on the rest of your team. I can’t imagine any white deck that isn’t going to be happy to have this, and it’s likely one of the better cards in the set.

Vengeful Villagers

Rating: 2/10

I’m normally a fan of the Master of Diversion design, but Vengeful Villagers doesn’t excite me at all. Four mana is a lot to have to pay for it and the upside of getting to sacrifice a creature to add a stun counter just isn’t valuable enough to make up for that.

Water Tribe Captain

Rating: 3/10

The threat of activation is a big deal with this card. When your activated ability costs 5 mana (and isn’t a waterbending cost for some reason), you’re not going to be able to activate it too often, but the threat of you having access to it does enough damage on its own. Even then, the ability is relatively minor, but enough to probably make Water Tribe Captain a reasonable curve filler.

Water Tribe Rallier

Rating: 6/10

Five mana sounds like quite a lot, even if you can tap your creatures to help pay for it, but this is a great way of allowing Water Tribe Rallier to stay relevant as the game goes longer. It’s already a solid 2-mana 2/2 for the early game, so getting to potentially draw extra cards later on is well worth the cost.

Yip Yip!

Rating: 1/10

A +2/+2 combat trick for one mana is… fine, but not great. It’s efficient, but lacks the punch that many other combat tricks have. Yip Yip! is definitely a playable card, but it’s not something I’m going to be excited to run in most decks.

Blue

Accumulate Wisdom

Rating: 5/10

Anticipate is already a very defensible card in a spell-heavy deck, since it cycles itself while triggering all of your other ‘spells matter’ cards. Accumulate Wisdom does this job very well for the lesson decks while also having the huge upside of turning itself into an Ancestral Recall later in the game. This card is an awesome enabler that I’ll be very happy to pick up once I know I’m drafting lessons.

Benevolent River Spirit

Rating: 5/10

If Benevolent River Spirit actually just cost 7 mana, it would be pretty weak, but waterbending allows you to get a very nice discount on that cost, which makes it look a lot more exciting. A 4/5 flier with ward and a scry 2 on entering is a pretty good deal if we can pay about 5 mana for it, and at any less than that we’re laughing.

Boomerang Basics

Rating: 3/10

I was very excited upon seeing Boomerang Basics, but then I saw it was a sorcery. Bounce spells can be extremely powerful when they’re instants, but sorcery speed versions have a lot less utility. You can’t use them in combat, you can’t save a creature from removal, and so on. I don’t think this is terrible, but this might just be reserved for lesson-based decks rather than any old blue deck.

Crashing Wave

Rating: 4/10

Crashing Wave is likely going to be one of the most polarizing cards in this set. On the one hand, it doesn’t meaningfully affect the board, which means it’s not likely to make your main deck very often. There are going to be plenty of situations where it doesn’t accomplish much at all. But on the other hand, when you get to resolve it, you’ll probably just win the game. I can’t imagine I’d ever want to run more than one copy of this, but I’d be willing to try out the first in an aggressive tempo-oriented deck.

Ember Island Production

Rating: 2/10

I normally like clone spells like this, but costing 5 mana is a bit too expensive for my liking. On top of that, being a spell that creates a token rather than a regular Clone really does hold it back. Tokens are much more vulnerable, especially with airbending in the format. We saw this downside play out with Relm’s Sketching in Final Fantasy and I think Ember Island Production is destined to be a lot weaker than that.

First-Time Flyer

Rating: 3/10

Two mana for a 2/3 flying creature is a very good rate, but First-Time Flyer does ask us to have played a lesson card in order to get that rate. This looks good, but if you’re drafting a lesson deck, do we actually want a creature like this? We likely want our creatures to have a higher impact, but it could definitely earn a slot in some decks.

Flexible Waterbender

Rating: 1/10

Flexible Waterbender is the very definition of mediocre. A 2/5 with vigilance just isn’t very good for 4 mana and getting to switch it to a 5/2 at will isn’t that big of a deal. This can still be blocked by a 2/3 or similar and all you’ll accomplish by switching it is trading for that blocker. Just don’t bother with this, you can do way better.

Forecasting Fortune Teller

Rating: 4/10

Forecasting Fortune Teller might not be a 1-drop like its predecessors Thraben Inspector and Novice Inspector, but it still looks great at 2 mana. The extra point of toughness should go a long way to making this a decent defensive card that replaces itself right away.

Geyser Leaper

Rating: 3/10

Looting cards is an ability that loses a certain amount of effectiveness when it appears on a 5-drop creature like Geyser Leaper. Still, when it appears on a 4/3 with flying, which is already a decently sized creature, it’s really just a nice bonus to get.

Giant Koi

Rating: 2/10

Giant Koi is the set’s islandcycler, but it doesn’t look all that good. It’s primarily a vanilla 6-drop, which we just don’t care about. Making it unblockable sounds really good, but we’ve had plenty of creatures like this in the past and most of them fell flat. This is a fair bit more efficient than previous variations, but 6-drops are just not a high priority for any deck.

Gran-Gran

Rating: 3/10

This card is absolutely adorable. Gran-Gran’s main use is going to be to loot cards and help to smooth out your draws. While it’ll probably be able to attack once or twice early on, the best way to keep this going into the late game is going to be waterbending. Those effects are still going to be few and far between, which will probably mean Gran-Gran will only be playable in the most dedicated decks.

Honest Work

Rating: 4/10

Honest Work is essentially the same as Witness Protection in many ways. It effectively deals with most big creatures for the low cost of just 1 mana. It does turn them into a mana dork, but I’m expecting you’ll mostly play this in the later parts of the game where an extra mana is unlikely to make much of a difference.

Iguana Parrot

Rating: 4/10

We’ve come a long way since the days when Jeskai Windscout was a premium blue common. Iguana Parrot is a great offensive option for any deck centred around noncreature spells, which blue/red is definitely looking to do, but also gets to do some blocking on the backswing when you need it to. It’s a great 3-drop and I expect it to find homes in any of blue’s aggressive archetypes.

Invasion Submersible

Rating: 6/10

Man-o’-War has always been a consistently good card throughout multiple Limited sets. Invasion Submersible is a new version that simply requires you to do some waterbending to turn it into a creature. This is a fair bit worse than just being a creature, but the effect is still highly desirable and this should be a premium blue card in the format as a result.

It’ll Quench Ya!

Rating: 4/10

Get it? It’s literally just Quench! We see this kind of card printed in a lot of modern sets with a tiny upside and honestly, simply being a lesson is more than enough of a bonus for this to a premium common for most blue decks.

Katara, Bending Prodigy

Rating: 5/10

Katara, Bending Prodigy starts out as a weak creature that does very little. However, as the game goes on longer, it becomes more and more valuable. If Katara picks up enough +1/+1 counters, they’ll become a massive threat on the board. The waterbending ability is a little on the expensive side, so you’ll want other ways of tapping it to enable her trigger earlier. Once you get to the late game though, getting to draw extra cards each turn will give you enough extra advantage to eventually win the game. Overall, Katara looks pretty strong, but it needs a bit of extra support to reach full potential.

Knowledge Seeker

Rating: 6/10

A 2-drop 2/1 creature that creates you a Clue token when it dies is already a fantastic card. Throw in the ability to pick up some +1/+1 counters so it can really brawl and Knowledge Seeker looks like one hell of a powerful card.

The Legend of Kuruk // Avatar Kuruk

Rating: 10/10

This card absolutely blew me away when I first read it and it might be the best card in the set, not just for Limited, but for constructed too. For just 4 mana, you start by getting two Preordains, then you get a creature that continually creates free tokens with every single spell you cast. The ability to take an extra turn feels closer to flavor text than actual rules text, but it’s still an unbelievable card without it. You can even airbend this and recast it to draw more cards. This is essentially my perfect card and I can’t wait to play it for myself.

Lost Days

Rating: 4/10

This type of card has appeared in most recent sets and always plays out pretty well. It also usually costs only 4 mana, but a 5-mana version that creates a Clue token sounds quite interesting, almost like it’s a blue Annihilate. I’m sure Lost Days will be a decent card in the format, even if it does cost a little extra.

Master Pakku

Rating: 2/10

Mill effects in Limited are very weak. Unless you completely mill out your opponent, the effects end up doing virtually nothing. In fact, since many of the lesson payoffs care about having lessons in the graveyard, you may end up helping your opponent instead. You could always use Master Pakku to self-mill and build up the number of lessons in your own graveyard, but that’s a lot of work to go through to enable an otherwise bad win condition. I think overall you can just do a lot better, though a 1/3 with prowess isn’t the worst blocker in the world.

The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan

Rating: 8/10

Creating a Clue token whenever you cast any noncreature spell is a huge payoff. It’s extremely close to simply drawing a card, kind of like an Archmage Emeritus but for 3 mana. The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan even lets you turn those Clues into 3/1 flying creatures, giving you a way to utilize them without needing to spend any mana. This is a very powerful card, though the reliance on noncreature spells probably limits it to just the lesson decks.

North Pole Patrol

Rating: 5/10

The ability to untap any permanent naturally includes lands, which makes this a mana dork at the bare minimum. On top of that, North Pole Patrol turns into a late game tap effect to keep opposing attackers at bay. Even if that ability is a bit expensive to activate, it’s still a good bonus on top of what’s already a decent card without it.

Octopus Form

Rating: 2/10

Blue is typically the color that cares the least about combat tricks, especially weak ones. The part about Octopus Form that matters the most though is of course the hexproof, letting you protect a creature from removal. It’s also a lesson, which is a big deal in the right decks. Most blue decks aren’t going to want this, but increasing your lesson count is definitely going to be valuable.

Otter-Penguin

Rating: 1/10

Otter-Penguin isn’t going to actually be a 3/3 most of the time. Instead, it will usually stay as a 2/1, which is pretty weak and probably not worth playing at all. Even when it is a 3/3, that’s hardly enough of a payoff to justify running it, even though it is very cute.

Rowdy Snowballers

Rating: 5/10

Frost Lynx was always a solid card. The tempo swing you get from locking down a big creature for two turns whilst adding to your board is extremely good. You can even use airbending to easily get extra uses out of Rowdy Snowballers. This looks like a premium common to me and it’s bound to be good in any blue deck.

Secret of Bloodbending

Rating: 0/10

While controlling your opponent for a turn sounds hilarious, the cost of Secret of Bloodbending is way too much for us to consider paying in your average game of Limited. Even if you find a way to get around the required quadruple blue, the effect might not even do that much. Your opponent could even use their own waterbending ability to tap their creatures so you can’t use them in combat (should you choose to not pay the additional cost). You shouldn’t play this at all, you will regret it.

Serpent of the Pass

Rating: 6/10

Tolarian Terror is one of my favorite Draft build-arounds in history and Serpent of the Pass is pretty much the same card but most of the time it has flash! Flash is an incredible ability on such a big creature. The very existence of this card in the format is going to have your opponents doubting whether they can ever attack into your open mana, even before they know this is in your deck or not.

Sokka’s Haiku

Rating: 4/10

This card is such a huge flavor win. In case you didn’t notice, it’s called Sokka’s Haiku and the rules text is actually a haiku! The card is also brilliant. Some of it’s irrelevant, but it is a 5-mana Dismiss, which is strong, even if a bit too expensive.

The Spirit Oasis

Rating: 1/10

When you pay 3 mana for a card draw spell, you typically get two cards out of it. The only way for The Spirit Oasis to draw you those two cards is if you also have another shrine. You then need a third shrine before you actually feel rewarded for playing this. As much as I like shrines, I’m very skeptical as to whether or not you can find enough of them to make this playable.

Spirit Water Revival

Rating: 6/10

The base rate on Spirit Water Revival is a simple Divination, which is a great start, even if it does require an extra blue mana. Then, if you draw it in the late game, it turns into a one-sided pseudo-Timetwister! That sounds absolutely absurd to me and the only thing holding it back is the immense cost you have to pay for that privilege.

Teo, Spirited Glider

Rating: 3/10

This ability of Teo, Spirited Glider essentially lets one of your creatures connive whenever you attack with a flier. That’s not terrible by any means, but also not something I’m willing to spend 4 mana to get access to. This looks remarkably average.

Tiger-Seal

Rating: 3/10

Tiger-Seal is an interesting card for sure. Classic cards like Delver of Secrets and Wild Nacatl have always inspired WotC to try printing more oversized 1-drops every now and again. This card looks exceptional for Constructed, but I don’t think we can reliably untap it often enough to be a premium card. I could see it working in a dedicated blue/black draw-two archetype, but most decks should pass on it.

Ty Lee, Chi Blocker

Rating: 6/10

I’ve already talked about how good Frost Lynx is as a card and Ty Lee, Chi Blocker looks quite a bit better than that. It feels more similar to Floodpits Drowner, a variant that was so good that it’s even been a staple in Standard ever since it was printed. If your opponent can’t deal with Ty Lee, their best creature will stay locked down indefinitely and you can use that tempo to push for a win, which is awesome.

The Unagi of Kyoshi Island

Rating: 7/10

“Are you aware that ‘Unagi’ is an eel?” – Chandler Bing

Massive flash creatures are incredible in Limited. You can flash them in during combat and block with them to essentially eat a creature for free. The Unagi of Kyoshi Island is very good at doing this because not only is it a 5/5, it’s also got a hefty ward cost that’s often going to feel like straight-up hexproof. I don’t think you’re likely to flash it in in response to a draw spell very often, but that ability is still nice to have. This card, along with Serpent of the Pass, is going to make attacking into open mana very precarious in this format.

Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

Rating: 10/10

Here, we have yet another huge creature with flash just waiting to screw up someone’s combat phase. Wan Shi Tong, Librarian looks absolutely absurd if you ever get it to cast it for 6 mana or more. You get to draw a couple of extra cards and also ambush something in the middle of combat. Better yet, you’re not priced in to waiting that long and you can run it out for cheaper if you really want to, especially if you get to eat an attacking 2/2. Having done that, it’s a huge flying creature that will then be the dominant threat on the board unless it’s dealt with. Wan Shi Tong just looks ridiculous. Blue really is getting some incredible cards at the higher rarities.

Waterbender Ascension

Rating: 6/10

An enchantment that draws you a card whenever you connect in combat usually costs you about 4 mana. So, the question is, is it worth it to put in some extra work in order to get one that only costs 2? Waterbender Ascension says we have to deal damage three times first and then the fourth time and beyond will draw us cards. It can also make our creatures unblockable for good measure. I think this card will actually be pretty good, but it needs to be in a deck that can properly support it, like white/blue or blue/red.

Waterbending Lesson

Rating: 3/10

Sift is definitely still a playable card in Limited, so throw in the ability to keep your discarded card for a little extra cost and I’d be pretty happy with it. I think Waterbending Lesson is best suited for the green lesson deck as opposed to the red one, but it’s a fine draw spell wherever you might need it.

Waterbending Scroll

Rating: 2/10

Waterbending Scroll is certainly an improvement on the Jayemdae Tome formula, but it’s been a while since this kind of card has been playable. If you have enough islands in your deck to regularly make this cost 2 or less to activate then I could see it being reasonable, but most 2-color decks are not going to be able to do that.

Watery Grasp

Rating: 2/10

At first, Watery Grasp looks like a good deal for just 1 mana, but when it doesn’t actually tap down the creature it enchants, it starts to look a lot less appealing. Though to be honest, I wouldn’t expect it to do that while being so cheap. Blue has much better removal than this, so hopefully we won’t have to resort to it, but at least it’s here just in case.

Yue, the Moon Spirit

Rating: 4/10

I don’t put much stock in Yue, the Moon Spirit’s ability to cast noncreature spells for ‘free’. Most of your spells already cost 5 mana or less anyway, so the only benefit you’re getting is the ability to tap your creatures and artifacts towards the cost. Still, a 3/3 with flying and vigilance is a decent creature in its own right, so we’ll be playing this for that reason.

Black

Azula Always Lies

Rating: 4/10

The key to Azula Always Lies is that you get to choose both modes. Skulduggery is a very powerful little card and this version even lets you keep the +1/+1 buff. The best use of this is to fire it off during combat, where you could even get a nifty two-for-one if your blocks line up nicely. Failing that, you shouldn’t have much trouble killing just the one creature with both modes at play.

Azula, On the Hunt

Rating: 6/10

Azula, On the Hunt is a real beating. Thanks to the extra mana from firebending, it essentially just draws you a card whenever it attacks. We’ve seen cards that do this in the past, such as Audacious Thief, but Azula is so much better as it’s actually big enough to get brawling a lot more often.

Beetle-Headed Merchants

Rating: 3/10

Getting to draw a card in exchange for sacrificing a creature is a very good ability, but 5 mana is a lot to have to pay for that privilege. Five-drops are some of the most replaceable creatures in your average deck, which makes me think that Beetle-Headed Merchants will probably not be quite as good as the ability might make it look.

Boiling Rock Rioter

Rating: 6/10

Black has very few allies, but white, green, and blue have plenty of them, and the idea behind Boiling Rock Rioter is to exile your opponent’s allies and rally them to your side. You don’t need other allies to make this happen, as this can tap itself and even do so while summoning sick to set you up for an attack on the next turn. At first, this looks like quite a niche effect, but I think you’ll get to cast at least one ally with this most of the time, and if that’s the case, the card’s well worth playing.

Buzzard-Wasp Colony

Rating: 5/10

Given that we have a sacrifice deck available in black/white, we’re going to need good sacrifice outlets. Buzzard-Wasp Colony only gives you one shot at a sacrifice, but it gives you a very nice reward for doing so. Drawing a card is always nice and you also have a big incentive to sacrifice an earthbent land, as you get to keep all of its +1/+1 counters and don’t lose the land.

Callous Inspector

Rating: 5/10

We’ve seen a lot of 1-drops that like being sacrificed over the years, but none of them let you essentially draw a card when they die. Callous Inspector looks like it’s going to be an incredible common, giving you everything that a black deck is going to want. It even has menace to guarantee a couple of extra hits that other 1-drops wouldn’t give you. This very much feels like the black equivalent to Thraben Inspector and I could see it being eerily similar in power level.

Canyon Crawler

Rating: 3/10

Deathtouch looks pointless on a 6/6 creature, but it generally means that your opponent can’t get a profitable double block on it, say with two 4/4s for example. Canyon Crawler will always trade for all of its blockers in combat assuming there are no first strike shenanigans going on, which is not a bad deal on a 6-drop. That alone wouldn’t be enough to make this playable, but it is the swampcycler in the set, which is enough to make it decent.

Cat-Gator

Rating: 4/10

In your average 2-color deck, you should have about three or four swamps by the time you reach seven mana, making this effectively a Flametongue Kavu with lifelink! That would be incredible… if it weren’t for the fact that it costs 7 mana. I think Cat-Gator is more similar to Nebula Dragon than anything else, which is a very reasonable card, though nothing too special. If you happen to be drafting mono-black though, this looks absolutely absurd.

Corrupt Court Official

Rating: 4/10

We’ve seen plenty of this kind of effect in previous sets and it’s always pretty good. Corrupt Court Official itself is even a reprint from Portal Three Kingdoms. Any black deck is happy with this, though it will really excel in the sacrifice deck where it even gets to synergize with airbending too.

Dai Li Indoctrination

Rating: 2/10

Restrictive Thoughtseize effects are really not that good in Limited, but Dai Li Indoctrination is at least a lesson that also doubles up as a 2/2 earthbent creature when you need it to be. On average, I don’t see this being better than other 2s you can play, but you can play it in a pinch.

Day of Black Sun

Rating: 3/10

Day of Black Sun looks like a board sweeper with quite a bit of potential, but it’s so expensive! If you spend 5 mana on it, it can still only kill 3-drops and below. It’s also not as though you can use combat to help this kill bigger creatures like you could with a Black Sun’s Zenith or something similar. I don’t like this much, but it does have some applications that stop it from being a flat zero.

Deadly Precision

Rating: 4/10

The Bone Splinters variant in every set is usually playable. The sacrifice deck in this set looks like it has a lot of support, so I’m quite high on this. The first Deadly Precision is going to be a welcome inclusion in most decks and that sacrifice deck is going to be happy with multiple copies too.

Epic Downfall

Rating: 6/10

Exiling a creature with mana value 3 or greater covers just about every dangerous creature you’re going to want to kill anyway. Epic Downfall is useless in the early game, but that’s a fair trade given how clean and efficient it is later on.

Fatal Fissure

Rating: 2/10

Fatal Fissure is essentially 2 mana for a 4/4 with flash, which sounds incredible! However, only getting access to this at a very specific time makes this far too weak in my opinion. This could find a home in the sacrifice decks, but this is going to a dead draw far too often to be something I’m excited for.

The Fire Nation Drill

Rating: 7/10

It’s a little bit restrictive with what you can target, but The Fire Nation Drill is essentially just a Nekrataal in vehicle form! That’s very good and even gives you a way to get around hexproof and indestructible. Not much else to say really, this is just a very good card.

Fire Nation Engineer

Rating: 5/10

You only need to have attacked in order for [/card]Fire Nation Engineer[/card] to trigger, which shouldn’t be that hard to do. If you can do so, picking up free +1/+1 counters each turn is a very good bonus to get. In fact, each counter you get makes attacking easier to do on the next turn and the next.

Fire Navy Trebuchet

Rating: 2/10

We last saw nearly this exact same card back in The Lord of the Rings with Mordor Trebuchet. That card wasn’t particularly good and Fire Navy Trebuchet doesn’t look any better from where I’m sitting. We do have the sacrifice deck that can make use of the token sacrificing itself, but that’s the only upside I can see.

Foggy Swamp Hunters

Rating: 1/10

Four-drops with less than trivial upsides and weak stats are never particularly good. Nothing here makes me think that Foggy Swamp Hunters will be the one to buck this trend.

Foggy Swamp Visions

Rating: 0/10

This card looks absolutely atrocious to me. Getting to create several tokens of creatures in graveyards sounds great at first, but you only get their entering triggers before they get sacrificed at the end of turn and they can’t even attack. Foggy Swamp Visions is way too niche of a card that I can’t imagine I will ever want to cast it.

Heartless Act

Rating: 7/10

No! What are you doing to Appa? This Heartless Act cannot go unpunished! Anyway, this is one of the best 2-mana removal spells in the game. It can deal with just about anything at instant speed and that’s all it needs to do. Excellent reprint, no notes.

Hog-Monkey

Rating: 1/10

Hog-Monkey is a textbook example of a mediocre curve-filling creature. It’s a 3/2 with a conditional evasive ability and can grow a bit if you pay a lot of mana later on. This is bad, but not completely useless if you really need more creatures.

Joo Dee, One of Many

Rating: 6/10

The ability to surveil each turn for just 1 mana is a great way to smooth out your draws in the late game and make sure you hit your better cards as early as possible. Making copies of Joo Dee, One of Many is presumably very thematic, but sacrificing a creature to make a 2/2 is not often going to be much of an upgrade. I do like that you can sacrifice artifacts for this though, as turning a Clue token into this 2/2 actually is better than getting a random card.

June, Bounty Hunter

Rating: 4/10

June, Bounty Hunter does look like it has a lot of things going for it, but the abilities are kind of clunky. You can only sacrifice creatures at sorcery speed, which removes a lot of the plays you normally have access to. You can make them unblockable, but it’s going to cost you a fair bit of mana to do it consistently. This is definitely a decent card, but there seem to be a few too many downsides for me to give it a higher grade.

Koh, the Face Stealer

Rating: 9/10

It’s a simple fact of Limited play that two-for-ones are an easy way to swing a game in your advantage. Koh, the Face Stealer is one of the easiest two-for-ones you can get, much like Noxious Gearhulk or Ravenous Chupacabra. This might be close to a 10/10, but I don’t put much stock in the ability to pick up the activated and triggered abilities of the creatures you exile. Sure, you’ll get something nice every now and again, but it’s not an ability I would rely on.

Lo and Li, Twin Tutors

Rating: 4/10

Lo and Li, Twin Tutors look extremely expensive for what they are, but with access to so many lesson removal spells, I’m guessing they’re actually going to be pretty good. I think the best analogy I have is a card like Totem-Guide Hartebeest or Heliod’s Pilgrim, which ended up being very strong in formats where they could search for good removal spells like Mire’s Grasp or Pacifism. Lo and Li are also able to search up a few nice bomb rares if you have them, so I’m guessing they’ll actually be good, despite being a 5-mana 2/2.

Mai, Scornful Striker

Rating: 6/10

Unlike previous versions of this kind of effect, Mai, Scornful Striker is actually a solid, aggressive creature even before you get to the ability. You would happily play a 2/2 with first strike for just 2 mana anyway. On top of that, Mai punishes your opponents for daring to kill them with any kind of removal spell. This is especially punishing for the lesson decks too, which will often need to deal with Mai first in order to play out their game plan.

Merchant of Many Hats

Rating: 3/10

Merhcant of Many Hats is a cool card that should work very well in the sacrifice decks in particular, but is also fine in most black decks. Sanitarium Skeleton was a great card back in the day and while costing twice as much to cast is definitely worse, this should still have a home in the set.

Northern Air Temple

Rating: 1/10

Northern Air Temple is the worst shrine we’ve seen so far. It’s great for being 1 mana, but the effect is not something we care about in Limited. I want to make shrines work at some point and I will play this if I had something like that going, but otherwise this is a total bust.

Obsessive Pursuit

Rating: 8/10

The best part about Obsessive Pursuit is the fact that it synergizes with every one of black’s archetypes. It cares about sacrifices for black/white, it provides you Clues to enable black/blue drawing, you can use firebending mana to sacrifice its Clues and get a better trigger in black/red, and it gives you +1/+1 counters for black/green. It’s also cheap and a great source of card advantage and board presence. It even gives you an out to gaining lifelink and getting back some of the life it cost you.

Ozai’s Cruelty

Rating: 1/10

Variants on Mind Rot have really not aged well. Ozai’s Cruelty is not really any different, even with the extra bit of damage and being a lesson. It’s wonderfully flavorful, and notably stronger in Sealed than in Draft, but I don’t think it’s very good otherwise.

Phoenix Fleet Airship

Rating: 6/10

This is a really hard card to evaluate, but let’s give it a go. Once you play Phoenix Fleet Airship, you can get up to eight airships with just three sacrifices, thanks to exponential growth. Then, you’ll probably have to do it again as just destroying one of them will turn all of the others off. This looks quite hard to enable, since you need to be sacrificing permanents over at least three turns and the airships themselves do very little to protect you while you’re doing that. This card does provide you with an inevitable win condition for a dedicated sacrifice deck and I think there’s a lot of potential for it to be broken.

Pirate Peddlers

Rating: 3/10

If the sacrifice decks are good, then Pirate Peddlers definitely has a home. It needs to pick up at least two counters before it’s a good enough size, so I’m not that excited by it, but it still has deathtouch, meaning it’ll be useful even when you can’t trigger it.

Raven Eagle

Rating: 6/10

Raven Eagle provides a lot of nice, little advantages over the course of a few turns. Nothing it does is particularly gamebreaking, between exiling cards from the graveyard, creating Clues, and draining a little bit of life. But, put all of those minor abilities together on one decently-sized creature and you have a very playable card all round.

The Rise of Sozin // Fire Lord Sozin

Rating: 10/10

The best board wipes are the ones that give you agency to rebuild your board afterwards, which The Rise of Sozin does by being a ridiculous creature when it transforms. You wipe the board with chapter one, then sadly chapter two does virtually nothing (I would recommend naming a ridiculous bomb rare in your opponent’s colors, just in case they have it, assuming you don’t know what they’re likely to have). But then, Fire Lord Sozin will dominate the game and let you reanimate all of the creatures you killed off with the first chapter, if left unchecked. This reminds me a lot of Invasion of Fiora, except a lot stronger.

Ruinous Waterbending

Rating: 1/10

Infest variants have gotten significantly worse in recent years. Ruinous Waterbending doesn’t look much better. The upside you get for paying the additional waterbending cost is laughably mediocre, keeping this relegated to the sideboard.

Sold Out

Rating: 4/10

Four mana to cleanly deal with any creature on the board is just good. You’ll always play Sold Out and be pretty happy about it. I don’t think the bonus Clue token is going to come up all that often, but I guess you can chump block something and then get a free card for your troubles, so that could be nice.

Swampsnare Trap

Rating: 5/10

Swampsnare Trap may only be playable at sorcery speed, but -5/-3 is a very effective debuff and this is more than efficient enough to be a premium common removal for the set.

Tundra Tank

Rating: 2/10

As we have found more and more in recent sets, vehicles that are basically just big stats and very little else are not as good as they might look. Tundra Tank is no exception to this and I don’t think this is worth playing in most decks.

Wolfbat

Rating: 4/10

A Wind Drake that you can rebuy later on for very little investment sounds pretty good to me. Wolfbat isn’t absurd by any means, but it’s definitely a playable card that most black decks should be happy to play.

Zuko’s Conviction

Rating: 4/10

Rating: 4/10

Jet’s Brainwashing is a nice split card. For 1 mana it prevents a creature from blocking and creates a Clue token, which is just good value for a cheap spell. For 4 mana, you get an Act of Treason that replaces itself with a Clue. Both modes sound quite good, so getting both on the same spell is particularly useful.

The Last Agni Kai

Rating: 4/10

The Last Agni Kai is a way to let you float potentially a lot of mana with just one spell and is also easily castable off of firebending abilities. The problem is that you never know how much mana you’re likely to get from it, so it’s not like you can rely on this to cast something big. It’s a red Pounce, which is perfectly fine on its own.

The Legend of Roku // Avatar Roku

Yuyan Archers

Rating: 3/10

There’s not really anything bad to say about Yuyan Archers. It’s a good size for a 2-drop, and helps you hit your third land drop if that’s what you need. It’s just a solid playable and a good 2-drop that you’ll want to pick up.

Zhao, the Moon Slayer

Rating: 3/10

Zhao, the Moon Slayer is literally just a 2/2 menace for 2 mana. None of the other abilities are even remotely relevant in Limited, so they’re not worth even considering. Without these abilities, Zhao is little more than an average common creature and that’s just fine.

Zuko, Exiled Prince

Rating: 5/10

Aang’s firebending rival Zuko starts out here as a pretty strong creature. Zuko, Exiled Prince has the biggest firebending number of all non-rare cards in this set. We’ve seen plenty of good abilities to spend all of that mana on, including Zuko’s own ability which essentially draws you a card. Not only that, but a 4/3 brawls pretty well, so getting it into combat shouldn’t be too hard. I like this quite a bit, especially as a great enabler for the firebending aggro deck.

Green

Allies at Last

Rating: 6/10

We’ve seen a lot of green removal spells recently that let two of your creatures team up to destroy another one and they’re always pretty good. Getting the extra damage from the second creature just guarantees that you’ll be able to kill something good. On top of that, Allies at Last even has the possibility to cost just 1 mana, making it one of green’s most efficient removal spells yet.

Avatar Destiny

Rating: 7/10

If you’ve read my reviews before, you’ll know my feelings on auras, but I can’t ignore how powerful this looks. If you can get Avatar Destiny enchanted to something, you will win a lot of games. When your creature dies, it will often replace itself with a creature and you always get this aura back to your hand. That is absurdly good, but it does come with some significant downsides. Firstly, your creature can still be bounced or exiled and you get two-for-oned. In addition, because you mill yourself for so many cards each time this loop repeats, you do actually run the risk of decking yourself out. Despite these flaws, the card will dominate the board in any game where these are not a factor, so it looks pretty good overall.

Badgermole

Rating: 3/10

Badgermole is a very simple card. It’s a 4/4 and a 2/2 for 5 mana. That’s definitely not bad, and green is the color that wants 5-drops the most, so I’m sure I’ll be playing plenty of these over the course of the format.

Badgermole Cub

Rating: 7/10

I have my eye on this for Constructed, as it goes so hard with Llanowar Elves. Badgermole Cub is far worse in Limited, but it’s still a 2/2 plus a 1/1 for just 2 mana that also accelerates you to a 4-drop on turn 3. That’s an incredible rate that would be foolish to pass up.

The Boulder, Ready to Rumble

Rating: 5/10

The 4-power theme looks like it’s a bit on the weak side in this set, which limits the power level of The Boulder, Ready to Rumble. Still, even with no help, it’s a 4/4 for 4 who gives you a free earthbend 1 whenever it attacks. I’ll take that for sure. If The Boulder ever starts giving you bigger earthbend triggers then that’s even better!

Bumi, King of Three Trials

Rating: 7/10

Bumi, King of Three Trials looks like such a sweet card! The blue/green lesson deck (or maybe even full blue/red/green) looks incredibly fun to me. You only need three lessons in your graveyard for Bumi to be a 7/7 plus a 3/3 that scries 3 on entering. Yes please! The only thing it’s realistically missing is some lifegain, but this is more than enough for me.

Cycle of Renewal

Rating: 4/10

Green has a lot of reason to accelerate its mana in this set, which should make this a premium common that you’ll want to find. Cycle of Renewal is also great at fixing your colors, making splashes that much easier to use. I like this a lot and it’s even a lesson too!

Diligent Zookeeper

Rating: 7/10

Why does this need a maximum on it? Seriously, why? If you can fully utilize Diligent Zookeeper and get some huge buffs out of it somehow then I say good for you. Go for it! For the record, changeling creatures are humans, so they don’t get buffed by this. Of course, that’s not relevant to Limited, but I felt like I had to say that.

Anyway. There are 46 non-human creatures in this set and many of them have multiple creature types, so this card may be able to give +2/+2, +3/+3, or even +4/+4 bonuses (if you want to play Curious Farm Animals). If you have the right setup in your deck, it seems this should come together fairly often, and these bonuses are more than good enough to play this card.

The Earth King

Rating: 7/10

The Earth King is a very simpl, but effective card. For 4 mana, you get a 2/2 and a 4/4. That’s just awesome. You also have the ability to get some free lands whenever you attack with a big creature, but that’s honestly not what we came for. We came for the excellent rate on return with the creature stats and I’m very happy with what we’ve got.

Earth Kingdom General

Rating: 4/10

We’ve seen plenty of cards in the past that give us a pair of 2/2s for 4 mana and they’re usually good. You also get some repeatable lifegain as a nice bonus. My main issue with Earth Kingdom General though is the fact that it doesn’t really benefit green’s archetypes except for black/green counters. I think that will end up limiting the card’s play for sure, as I’d rather take cards that synergize more with my deck’s theme.

Earth Rumble

Rating: 6/10

Fights can be pretty hit or miss these days. You don’t really have much guarantee that you will have a big enough creature to fight what you want. That being said, Earth Rumble fronts you a 2/2, so if you can kill a creature, it’s almost like a green Ravenous Chupacabra. You can also load the earthbend 2 onto a land creature you already have, making it big enough to kill a better creature. This might need a little bit of effort to make work, but it’s a lot of value if you can do that.

Earthbender Ascension

Rating: 8/10

Three mana for a 2/2 plus mana acceleration would already be exceptionally good. Not only does Earthbender Ascension do that, but it then gives you some free +1/+1 counters once you hit enough lands. This is just awesome value that I’d be happy to play in absolutely any green deck.

Earthbending Lesson

Rating: 3/10

Four mana for a 4/4 is a fine rate, though nothing too exciting. However, Earthbending Lesson hits a few good notes in this set. It’s a lesson, it distributes +1/+1 counters, and it guarantees you a 4-power creature, hitting three of green’s Draft archetypes in one go. This is such a simple design, but one that I think you’ll want more often than a regular vanilla creature.

Earthen Ally

Rating: 4/10

This is quite a weird card. On the one hand, Earthen Ally looks like it’s most at home in an allies deck (who’d figure, right?). Yet, allies in this format are going to be aggressive and don’t want to try making all five colors. The lesson decks should easily be able to access all five colors, at which point the earthbending ability looks quite nice, but that’s still far from trivial to enable. So, we have what will usually be a 1-mana 2/2 for an aggressive ally deck or a 5-color payoff for lessons, but rarely both at the same time? Sure, that’s fine, but not particularly inspiring.

Elemental Teachings

Rating: 0/10

This card is so horrendously bad it’s honestly impressive. Four mana is a good rate to accelerate two lands out, but 5 is way more than we’re willing to spend. Even if we did want that, this is completely useless unless your deck contains four differently-named lands, which many Limited decks don’t have. Even when you do, you’ll end up drawing some of them before you cast this and messing it up. Elemental Teachings is completely unplayable, don’t bother with it.

Flopsie, Bumi’s Buddy

Rating: 7/10

For a lot of decks, the easiest way to block incoming 4/4s is to double block them, forcing them to trade down for smaller creatures. Flopsie, Bumi’s Buddy takes that option off the table completely, making it so that your bigger creatures often have to be chump blocked or not at all. Not to mention it’s also a big creature and puts a lot of +1/+1 counters on the board, so it even leaves something behind if it gets dealt with right away.

Foggy Swamp Vinebender

Rating: 1/10

Foggy Swamp Vinebender looks remarkably mediocre. Four-drops are pretty replaceable and green in particular has a lot of better ones. You could run it if you’re in need of more 4-power creatures, but I’m guessing you won’t do that often.

Great Divide Guide

Rating: 6/10

We usually see this kind of ability on an enchantment, so to see it on an efficiently-sized creature is quite remarkable. Great Divide Guide looks like a really sweet enabler for the allies deck, potentially letting you accelerate into huge threats without even trying. It’s also a nice way to fix the five colors you’d need to activate Earthen Ally if you happen to have that too.

Haru, Hidden Talent

Rating: 7/10

In a dedicated allies deck, Haru, Hidden Talent goes really hard. We’ve seen a bunch of cards that give you two allies in just one card, which all let Haru trigger twice. Haru is very vulnerable by itself, but it triggers so often that it should have replaced itself in no time at all.

Invasion Tactics

Rating: 1/10

Invasion Tactics seems like it’s trying to be a Bident of Thassa and an Overrun all rolled into one card, except it’s too expensive and really bad at both of them. I don’t think I am likely to want this card, especially if I could just run a half decent 5-drop creature instead.

Kyoshi Island Plaza

Rating: 1/10

Our final shrine is Kyoshi Island Plaza, a card I’m very excited to run in my Commander deck, but just like all of the others, it’s just not good enough without drawing other shrines in the same game. I don’t see that coming together, so this is close to unplayable.

Leaves from the Vine

Rating: 2/10

Leaves from the Vine is kind of like a classic Richard Garfield design from the early days of Magic, like Illusory Mask or Takklemaggot, since it has a bunch of abilities without actually accomplishing anything. You can’t even run it out on turn 2 without giving up on the second chapter entirely. I don’t like this at all, I would prefer just about anything else that affected the board meaningfully.

The Legend of Kyoshi // Avatar Kyoshi

Rating: 8/10

Finally! A saga creature that isn’t absurdly broken! I mean, if you have a big creature in play when you play The Legend of Kyoshi, then it actually is broken and worthy of that 10/10 rating, but that isn’t going to happen all the time. Imagine drawing four cards with chapter one, then you get at least an earthbend 5 with chapter two, followed by transforming into Avatar Kyoshi, a huge 5/4 mana dork that makes your earthbent creatures indestructible. That’s unbelievable! The problem is that it all hinges on having a big creature in play to enable the first chapter, which seems likely, but certainly not trivial. Still, this card is going to be powerful even without that, so it’s not like you’re out of luck if it doesn’t work.

Origin of Metalbending

Rating: 3/10

Origin of Metalbending is pretty nice. The +1/+1 counter plus indestructible trick is usually fine, but this also happens to be Naturalize for good measure. I’d be very happy to main deck this, especially when this set has five absurdly powerful mythic sagas that you’re going to want to answer before they get out of hand.

Ostrich-Horse

Rating: 4/10

Ever since Eccentric Farmer, we’ve seen this design come back time and time again. This set doesn’t really have any benefit to milling yourself beyond putting lessons in the graveyard, so this will probably not be quite as good as previous variants were, but Ostrich-Horse can probably still find a home. Especially seeing as it’s a common 4-power creature for the red/green deck.

Pillar Launch

Rating: 1/10

Efficiency is the name of the game when it comes to combat tricks for Limited, but +2/+2 is often far too weak of an effect and untapping the creature won’t be relevant as often as you might think. I doubt I’ll play very many Pillar Launches, but that’s also because it’s not really my style.

Raucous Audience

Rating: 5/10

Two-drop mana dorks are nearly always good. They don’t need any upsides, but Raucous Audience has one for good measure. It’s actually very relevant too, because it’ll possibly allow you to play a 4-drop on turn 3 and then 6-drop on turn 4. This is great and is likely to be one of green’s best commons.

Rebellious Captives

Rating: 2/10

An exhaust cost of 6 is way too much for this to be an exciting 2-drop. Rebellious Captives is kind of similar to Sauroform Hybrid, but the relative power level of this format looks far too high for this to perform as well as that did.

Rockalanche

Rating: 4/10

I think Rockalanche has a lot more potential than the other basic land payoff cards we’ve seen. Thanks to all of green’s mana fixing, a deck that runs about 10 forests and smatterings of the other colors could be a thing, in which case this card starts to look quite strong. The fact that it has flashback also lets it stay relevant into the late game.

Rocky Rebuke

Rating: 5/10

Bite spells have become the gold standard of green removal and Rocky Rebuke is no exception. The fact that it’s an instant is just fantastic too. Master’s Rebuke was among the best green commons in Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty and I see no reason why this won’t be the same here.

Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion

Rating: 3/10

A 7/7 reach is honestly quite decent. It’s not good enough to run just on its own, but it does have forestcycling to help smooth out your draws when you need it to. Saber-Tooth Moose-Lion is also a top tier card name, so I’ll probably play it more often than I need to.

Seismic Sense

Rating: 1/10

Seismic Sense looks like a huge miss to me. You would think that the best home for it would be in a lesson deck. But if you do that, then your deck will have far fewer creatures for it to find. Even when you have a bunch of lands in play, you’ll still have a high chance to miss. I don’t think this is playable to be honest, but I could see some fringe corner cases for it.

Shared Roots

Rating: 6/10

It’s here! It’s finally here! Sorry, quick aside, I’m a huge ramp fan and I’ve been wanting a reprint of Rampant Growth for Standard for over a decade now! I am incredibly excited for this and I plan on making it happen in Standard! Shared Roots is also a great Limited card, fixing our mana and accelerating us into a 4-drop on turn 3 without the downside of being vulnerable to removal, like a mana dork would be.

Sparring Dummy

Rating: 6/10

I’m a big fan of Sparring Dummy. It reminds me a lot of Dryad Greenseeker from back in M19. It didn’t always do what you wanted but if it drew you even one extra land while blocking opposing creatures then you’d be happy. I imagine the same will be true of this card and it even gives you a nice life bonus for milling lessons.

Toph, the Blind Bandit

Rating: 6/10

Getting a 2/3 and a 2/2 for 4 mana would be a pretty good deal in its own right, but Toph, the Blind Bandit goes well beyond that, getting you all of that for the low price of 3 mana! Not only that, but Toph continues to grow the more you earthbend onto your lands. This is a great card on rate alone and it could be so much better in the right deck.

Rating: 10/10

I’m already sold on Bumi, Unleashed with it just being a 5/4 plus a 4/4 for as little as 5 mana. It’s a pair of 4-power creatures in one card for the red/green deck, so yeah, this is just awesome. Sure, Bumi can also give you some extra combat phases, which is a very nice bonus, but it’d be incredible even without that.

Cat-Owl

Rating: 3/10

Cat-Owl isn’t anything special. It’s got a good size and it can untap itself, so at the very least it basically has vigilance. That, plus it’s got a flexible casting cost, so it will be a nice card to fill out the curve of whatever deck might want it.

Cruel Administrator

Rating: 3/10

I don’t like this card very much. In theory, Cruel Administrator is supposed to be the signpost uncommon for firebending, yet it doesn’t really do anything with the mechanic. It’s also just expensive and doesn’t do anything relevant until you attack with it. Black/red aggro decks might not even want a 5-drop in the first place. It is technically playable, but I can’t see wanting this in a lot of decks.

Dai Li Agents

Rating: 5/10

The up-front ability of getting to earthbend twice is pretty cool. Just like the last card, the main ability is locked behind needing to attack, which does make this a bit worse. However, attacking with Dai Li Agents gives you a potentially massive life swing, depending on how many +1/+1 creatures you have on the board. You might even end up winning from just the trigger alone, making this a decent card for a dedicated black/green deck.

Dragonfly Swarm

Rating: 6/10

Looks like good ol’ Enigma Drake is back! Cards like this used to be a staple of card design for blue/red spell-based archetypes, but for some reason WotC just stopped making them. This new one may not be quite as strong as Crackling Drake, but it’s still very good regardless.

Earth Kingdom Soldier

Rating: 3/10

Earth Kingdom Soldier looks kind of like Weftblade Enhancer, a card I underestimated from Edge of Eternities. I like this effect when it’s on a 4-drop, but 5 and above feels a lot worse. Still, the flexibility of the mana cost goes a long way and I’m sure this will be fine if you can fit a 5-drop into your deck.

Earth King’s Lieutenant

Rating: 7/10

Assuming your deck has plenty of allies, Earth King’s Lieutenant represents a significant amount of power and toughness at most points during the game. Given that it only costs 2 mana for that, you can’t really go wrong.

Earth Rumble Wrestlers

Rating: 3/10

This ability seems like it will happen often enough that we can basically consider Earth Rumble Wrestlers as a 4/4 with trample and reach for 4 mana. I’d happily play that in most decks.

Earth Village Ruffians

Rating: 4/10

Earth Village Ruffians is a very simple design. Three mana for a 3/1 that dies into a 2/2 is a great deal. It’s also extremely flexible to cast thanks to the hybrid cost, so not only is this a good black/green card, but it can also slot nicely into other homes, like black/white sacrifices.

Fire Lord Azula

Rating: 2/10

Azula seems to have had a massive downgrade from her two-color version. Three non-green colors is already a tough ask, but Fire Lord Azula doesn’t even give us a particularly good reward for doing that. You can only copy instants or flash creatures with it, which is only good in very specific situations.

Fire Lord Zuko

Rating: 1/10

Same again, Fire Lord Zuko costs three different colors of mana that are not green, which is far from trivial to get access to. On top of that, it does next to nothing by itself, triggering only off of other effects that you might play. This is very much designed for Constructed and doesn’t work in Limited.

Foggy Swamp Spirit Keeper

Rating: 6/10

Normally, when a creature creates a token every time you do your archetype’s main thing, you’re able to use those tokens to block and protect your life total. Instead, Foggy Swamp Spirit Keeper flips the script and it’s the one that protects your life total. A 2/4 with lifelink is great for keeping your opponent at bay while the unblockable 1/1 tokens chip away at your opponent. It all looks like a good package to me.

Guru Pathik

Rating: 7/10

With a high enough count of lessons, this is pretty likely to hit something. Let’s say you have eight lessons left in your deck and you play this on turn 4, meaning you have 30 cards remaining in your deck. The chances of hitting at least one lesson in your top five is 81.5%. Ten lessons left in your deck brings that chance up to 90%. I like those odds, and you can even pick up one of the broken mythic sagas if you like. Heck, Guru Pathik might even be the missing piece needed to make a shrine deck come together!

Hama, the Bloodbender

Rating: 4/10

Hama, the Bloodbender has a ton of potential but is ultimately a little on the situational side. If you are able to play it, exile a removal spell from your opponent’s graveyard and then cast it, then Hama’s great. But a lot has to go right for that to happen. I’m not saying it will never happen, I just think we need to be realistic about how often it can. I would probably start this in a blue/black deck, but I wouldn’t hesitate to side it out against a deck with very few good hits.

Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance

Rating: 6/10

You do have to have plenty of fodder to sacrifice to Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance, but assuming you can do that, it’ll be attacking as a 7/7 the turn after you play it, which is incredible for a 4-drop. From what I can tell, black/white has a lot of weapons at its disposal, but very few premium sacrifice outlets, so this is bound to be a key player in that deck for sure.

Hermitic Herbalist

Rating: 4/10

Multicolored mana dorks are significantly worse than their mono-colored counterparts. For one thing, you need to have fixed your colors before casting this when that’s supposed to be the mana dork’s job in the first place. Still, Hermitic Herbalist is great at providing you with a lot of extra mana towards lessons in particular. I can see a green-based 3- or 4-color lesson deck being a good option in this format and if that’s the case, then this should be a decent card to enable that deck.

Iroh, Grand Lotus

Rating: 8/10

Iroh, Grand Lotus is another 3-color legend, but thanks to being based in green, it should be pretty easy to cast. Fortunately, it’s a huge payoff for a lesson deck, so we can use those lessons to fix the colors for it. Giving all of your lessons flashback for is an absurd ability that you should be able to leverage into a win. There are some caveats though, like how it only works on your turn so Sokka’s Haiku is less effective with it, and you’ll still have to pay the kicker cost on Firebending Lesson, but I wouldn’t worry too much about that, it’s still free card advantage to close out a game.

Iroh, Tea Master

Rating: 5/10

Most cards we’ve seen that Donate permanents are pretty bad, but Iroh, Tea Master looks kind of good. If you play this on turn 3, you can immediately donate the Food token and create a 2/2 ally token, which is a great start already. Your go-wide red/white aggro deck isn’t likely to have that many other permanents that they want to get rid of, but you could always create more tokens by throwing away random 1/1s or Path to Redemption if you play it, as it will still be enchanted to the opponent’s creature.

Jet, Freedom Fighter

Rating: 7/10

Now, this is a 5-drop you won’t want to be replacing. Jet, Freedom Fighter has a very good chance of simply killing any opposing creature when it enters, which is incredible. We know from experience that removing a creature while adding to the board is an extremely valuable ability and has resulted in some of the strongest Limited cards we’ve ever seen. Jet is reliant on you controlling other creatures to do this, but red and white are the perfect colors to enable that.

Katara, the Fearless

Rating: 4/10

Most of the allies in this set actually have triggered abilities, which should mean that Katara, the Fearless has some potential in the format. It does, but being three colors really holds it back. Green decks can fix colors more easily, but the ally deck is too proactive to want to do that. Casting Katara is going to be difficult, but if you do manage it without compromising the rest of your deck, doubling your triggers is a pretty solid reward.

Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope

Rating: 7/10

Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope is a perfect reminder of the fact that you can pay waterbending costs with mana as well as by tapping creatures and artifacts. Since this already costs 5 mana, you will have at least 5 mana to feed into this and make your entire board huge, Overrunning your opponent in one sweep.

The Lion-Turtle

Rating: 7/10

The Lion-Turtle is like someone took my wish list of what I want a Magic card to look like and wrote it all down on a single card! This does basically everything I want except draw me more cards. You will need a healthy number of lessons in your deck to allow it to attack and block at some point, but that shouldn’t be too hard to do in a blue/green deck. Blue/green lessons is shaping up to be my favorite deck in the format and this is a great payoff for it.

Long Feng, Grand Secretariat

Rating: 3/10

I’m not saying that Long Feng, Grand Secretariat’s ability is bad, but it’s incredibly uninspiring. The mana cost is quite color-intensive and the reward you get from it is just… meh. I don’t know how else to explain it, it’s just not something I’m going to go out of my way to pick up for my deck.

Messenger Hawk

Rating: 3/10

Creating a Clue token on entering is great, but a 1/2 flier for 3 mana is still quite a bit too small for this to be on the same level as other similar creatures of the past. Messenger Hawk looks more at home in the fliers deck than the draw-two deck, but it’s also a very cuttable 3-drop that you’re more likely to want when you need to fill out your mana curve.

Ozai, the Phoenix King

Rating: 9/10

Back in Ixalan, Charging Monstrosaur emerged as the set’s mythic uncommon. Ever since then, I always look at oversized creatures with trample and haste in a new light. Ozai, the Phoenix King is the latest iteration of this idea and it looks broken. The trick is to have a second firebending creature out so that when you attack with them both, you’ll float 6 mana and it’ll pick up flying and indestructible. Even if you can’t do that, Ozai still comes down at the top of your mana curve and makes it very difficult for your opponent to come back from the hit. It does cost double red and double black, which means you’re not going to be casting Ozai in any other deck, but I can’t imagine a better card for the top end of the Fire Nation decks.

Platypus-Bear

Rating: 3/10

Having a lesson in your graveyard is a pretty trivial condition to allow Platypus-Bear to attack, but at that point you’re not exactly getting a creature that’s massively above rate. This is just fine, and likely very cuttable from most lesson decks.

Pretending Poxbearers

Rating: 4/10

Creatures that create another creature when they die are a staple of Limited sacrifice decks. Pretending Poxbearers is a great example of this and I can’t imagine a more important common 2-drop to pick up when you’re drafting that deck.

Professor Zei, Anthropologist

Rating: 6/10

A rummager for 2 mana is pretty sweet to have access to. Despite the color commitment, I actually think Professor Zei, Anthropologist will be most at home in a blue/black deck to repeatedly trigger all of the draw-two abilities. Regardless, the ability to filter through the cards in your hand is highly desirable, so I think this will find a home in many different decks.

Sandbender Scavengers

Rating: 6/10

The biggest difficulty with any sacrifice deck is being able to keep up with a steady stream of sacrifice fodder to fuel your effects. Sandbender Scavengers helps with this problem really nicely, by replacing itself with a creature from your graveyard when it dies. If you can replace it with a Pretending Poxbearers or something similar, then you can essentially chain one ability into the next and keep sacrificing. It’s also a nice payoff that grows and grows to put pressure on your opponent, so it looks like a really nice rare to me.

Sokka, Bold Boomeranger

Rating: 5/10

You know, it’s a good job that the Vivi Cauldron deck I’ve heard so much about isn’t a top tier meta contender, because Sokka, Bold Boomeranger looks like it could give it a real boost… Anyway, this does look quite solid. You can trade a couple of excess lands for possibly better cards and then pick up +1/+1 counters just from casting good spells. The Trusty Boomerang works very well with them too, as it can keep getting recast for more triggers, so I’d say this is a decent weapon for the blue/red lessons deck.

Sokka, Lateral Strategist

Rating: 4/10

Sokka, Lateral Strategist is hardly trivial to trigger, but at least you get a free card when you do. Given that white/blue is centered around flying creatures, it is a fair bit easier to find another creature that you’re willing to attack with in this color combination, so this will be a welcome addition to that deck.

Sokka, Tenacious Tactician

Rating: 6/10

Sokka, Tenacious Tactician is like a superpowered Monastery Mentor. Mentor was a busted card in its own right and Sokka hits a lot of the same notes. Of course, it does cost 1 mana more and it’s three colors, so casting this is far from trivial, but Sokka will slot perfectly into a lesson-based deck assuming you can splash the white mana. I might be way off on this one, but I like to be optimistic and this is exactly the kind of card I like trying to play.

Suki, Kyoshi Warrior

Rating: 7/10

Adeline, Resplendent Cathar is one of white’s best ever 3-drops and Suki, Kyoshi Warrior is almost the exact same card but for 1 more mana. In Limited, we’ll absolutely take that. This is such a brutal ally payoff, getting bigger for all of your other allies while creating more ally tokens. Brilliant.

Sun Warriors

Rating: 6/10

Five mana might be a lot just to create one lousy 1/1 token, but that’s still an ability that you can sit back on and keep using if the game is going long. In the middle of the game, it definitely isn’t out of the question for you to use the firebending mana to give you a token for much cheaper than usual, especially if you have other firebenders in play.

Tolls of War

Rating: 6/10

This is the sort of build around card I like to see. Tolls of War gives you a Clue up front so that you have something to sacrifice and then pays you off with a creature token every turn that you’re able to sacrifice something. This reminds me of a slightly weaker version of Hidden Stockpile, one of my favorite sacrifice payoffs, but still more than strong enough to be a headache for your opponent.

Toph, Hardheaded Teacher

Rating: 8/10

Toph, Hardheaded Teacher does a lot of things that I like, but the colors are a bit weird here. This seems more at home as a splash in a lesson-based deck, but I’ll take that. You can trade in an excess land for a real spell and then get a free 2/2 every time you cast a lesson? Not to mention a 1/1 for every regular spell. Yes, sign me up please!

Toph, the First Metalbender

Rating: 5/10

With so few artifacts in this set to begin with, Toph, the First Metalbender’s first ability is little more than flavor text. But despite that, a creature that lets you earthbend 2 at the end of each of your turns is quite strong. Three colors is a downside, but like I’ve already discussed, green is the easiest color to enable splashing a 3-color rare.

Uncle Iroh

Rating: 4/10

I don’t care too much about making lessons simply cost 1 less. I like lessons, but in practice, this isn’t an ability we should rely on too heavily. What is important about Uncle Iroh though is the fact that this is one of the set’s cheapest 4-power creatures to enable red/green’s more synergistic cards. It’s one of only two cards that enables you to attack with a Tiger-Dillo on turn 3, so I think this Iroh will be surprisingly useful.

Vindictive Warden

Rating: 3/10

You could definitely do worse than a 3-drop with menace, but Vindictive Warden also has firebending and a half-decent way to spend some firebending mana too. This isn’t particularly exciting, but hybrid commons aren’t really supposed to be, so it’s just fine.

Wandering Musicians

Rating: 3/10

Granting +1/+0 to your attacking creatures is the perfect way to pay you off for going wide. It’s just kind of weird that Wandering Musicians is a 2/5, which doesn’t look like a traditionally good creature for an aggro deck. It does however mean that it’s harder for your opponent to defeat in combat, so that’s quite good.

White Lotus Reinforcements

Rating: 6/10

A typal ‘lord’ is a very easy design to make as the signpost uncommon for a typal strategy, but that doesn’t mean this is no less welcome. We’ve already seen from the rest of the set that allies are primarily a proactive aggro deck, so White Lotus Reinforcements will be very welcome in that deck.

Zhao, Ruthless Admiral

Rating: 3/10

Zhao, Ruthless Admiral is trying to do a few different things, but isn’t doing any of them especially well. It seems like it will fit best in a sacrifice deck, but that deck isn’t likely to want the +1/+0 bonus very much. I don’t know, I think this might just be bad and not worth playing at all.

Zuko, Conflicted

Rating: 4/10

Rating: 0/10

A 4-drop mana rock that not only enters tapped and isn’t even guaranteed to add much mana is really not something you should ever play. White Lotus Tile is likely a welcome addition to many Commander decks, but here it’s a big disappointment.

Lands

The Utility Lands

Rating: 3/10

None of these utility lands are particularly good. They all have the advantage that they will pretty much always enter untapped when you need them to, so there’s usually no downside to ever playing them if they’re one of your main colors. They just won’t really make much difference due to how minor their abilities all are.

The Common Dual Lands

Rating: 4/10

Common dual lands are always good to see. Just like in any other set, you shouldn’t take them over premium spells, but you can definitely take them over average commons, and they go up in value if you want to splash something. You should nearly always play them if you end up with them and they’re in your colors.

Jasmine Dragon Tea Shop

Jasmine Dragon Tea Ship

Rating: 0/10

Rating: 0/10

There are quite a few activated abilities in this set, but spending a whole card just to reduce their costs is not a winning strategy. Training Grounds is a card that enables combos and there are none that it can do here.

Visions of Beyond

Rating: 2/10

I do love mill strategies, with Visions of Beyond being one of the best payoffs for doing it. Sadly, we don’t have anywhere near enough mill cards to enable this. Though, it is still just a 1-mana cantrip spell, so it’s not completely useless. I would, for example, automatically play this in my deck if I had a Boar-q-pine to trigger.

Black

Black Sun’s Zenith

Rating: 6/10

Clean board wipes drift up into the 8-9/10 range, but Black Sun’s Zenith is far too expensive to function in quite the same way. It is definitely a strong card, but you’re often going to need to put a lot more mana into it in order to deal with everything, and even then, there might be a 7/7 that you just end up shrinking.

Bloodbender’s Rise (Bloodchief Ascension)

Rating: 4/10

I don’t know if I really like Bloodchief Ascension that much. Once it’s loaded up with three quest counters, it becomes ridiculous, and winning the game will be almost inevitable. The problem is that it gets a lot worse whenever you draw it later in the game. It’s also not even guaranteed that you’ll be able to consistently trigger it and rack up those counters. There’s a lot of potential here, but it’s clunky as anything.

Cruel Tutor

Rating: 0/10

I would give Demonic Tutor about a 1/10, with the caveat that searching a busted mythic might be a good plan. Cruel Tutor is orders of magnitude worse than that, so you definitely shouldn’t play it at all.

Fire Nation Tank Train (Noxious Gearhulk)

Rating: 9/10

Rating: 4/10

You’re very unlikely to be able to cast another spell in the same turn as this, so Volcanic Torrent is mostly going to be limited to dealing 2 damage to your opponent’s creatures. Given that it also casts another spell for free, this is probably quite good, just something that is limited in application.

Warstorm Surge

Rating: 0/10

It’s not that the effect of Warstorm Surge is bad, but casting a 6-mana enchantment that does nothing on its own is a play you often can’t afford to make. This is especially true given that it’ll come down at a time when you’ll already have played most of the creatures you’ve drawn so far. I doubt this is going to be worth it, it’s just a flat zero.

Green

Beastmaster Ascension

Rating: 7/10

In the right kind of deck, Beastmaster Ascension is utterly ridiculous. Attacking with seven creatures in total is a pretty tall ask, but at least it’s not restricted to only triggering once per turn or something. Attacking with three creatures in the same combat will trigger it three times and once you hit the seventh counter, you will get the +5/+5 bonus immediately, making it active for that same combat. You obviously need a deck to support this, but I’d say green/white allies in particular will love to play this.

Elemental Bond

Rating: 4/10

Elemental Bond is normally a great card, especially with an archetype based around big creatures. The problem is that our big creature archetype is often enabled by earthbending abilities, none of which will actually trigger this card. That’s not to say this doesn’t work at all, it will just draw you far fewer cards than it might do in other sets. Still, I think it’s worth a shot if you have enough hits for it.

The Banyan Tree (The Great Henge)

Rating: 9/10

I think most Magic players are aware of just how absurdly broken The Great Henge is. Assuming you can cast it, which is really not that hard to do, it will gain you 2 life every turn cycle no matter what else you do. Then, every creature you play gets bigger and draws you a card, drawing you into more creatures to play. It is so hard to beat the overwhelming advantage that this provides, so make sure to bring some artifact removal to sideboard in against it.

Heartbeat of Spring

Rating: 0/10

While doubling your mana isn’t too bad in theory, Heartbeat of Spring is a symmetrical effect, allowing your opponent to reap the benefits before you do. This is an old combo enabler for some Constructed decks and is not remotely playable in Limited.

The horizon lands, like Sunbaked Canyon, have proven their worth time and again. Not only does this function as a dual land if you are red/white, but this can be played in virtually any deck since it is so cheap to sacrifice for a new card. I’d probably play it in any deck that was either white or red.

Tarnished Citadel

Rating: 0/10

Three life is a big cost to pay just for access to any color you want. This set already has plenty of good mana fixing, so you shouldn’t ever have to resort to Tarnished Citadel.

Treetop Village

Rating: 7/10

Treetop Village was one of the game’s very first creature lands (only Mishra’s Factory and Stalking Stones came before it). To this day, it’s still one of the best rates on a creature land. It’s especially strong in this set as you can earthbend onto it and then use its own ability to make it a huge, trampling creature.

Volcano of Roku’s Island (Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle)

Rating: 0/10

Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle is one of my favorite lands and I’ve played it in multiple Constructed formats. However, there’s no way we can support it in Limited without being mono-red, so this isn’t going to happen.

And… Done!

Avatar Full Scene | Illustration by Brian Yuen

Like I said at the start, I’ve never seen Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I don’t get some of the references on show here (I’ll be back in my element next year when we do Marvel Super Heroes and Star Trek). However, this set looks awesome. Several interesting Draft themes, powerful cards that I’m excited to try, and lots of classically good Limited cards. Hopefully, this is WotC ending the year on a strong note!

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