On November 14, everything will change. That’s because you’ll be able to check out Magic: The Gathering® | Avatar: The Last Airbender™ Prerelease events at your local game store, which run from November 14–20! Prerelease events are your first chance to play with a new Magic set. You’ll play with new cards, make new friends, and experience the world of Avatar: The Last Airbender.
If this is your first Magic event, you’ll be welcomed into a community of players with open arms. And if you’re a veteran Prerelease player, you get to be a part of someone’s introduction to the wonderful world of Magic!
Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender
Prerelease Packs
When you register for a Prerelease event, you’ll receive one of five themed Prerelease Packs. Each Prerelease Pack contains the following:
- 5 Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender Play Boosters
- 1 Seeded Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender Character Booster
- Each Character Booster is themed around a different Avatar: The Last Airbender character and a Magic
- 2 Non-foil double-sided tokens themed to your Prerelease Pack’s color
- 1 Traditional foil year-stamped rare or mythic rare
- 1 Spindown die themed to your Prerelease Pack’s color
You’ll build a sealed deck out of the contents of your Prerelease Pack and any number of basic lands. Then, you’ll play against your fellow Prerelease attendees. If you’re curious how to build a deck, then read on! You’ll be shuffling up in no time.
Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender is available for preorder now from your local game store, Amazon, TCGplayer, and elsewhere Magic products are sold.
Choosing Your Colors and Mastering the Elements
Most sealed decks are only two colors, so you’ll want to select the two best colors from the cards you open. Here are some ways to identify the best colors for your sealed deck.
0004_MTGTLA_Main: Aang, the Last Airbender
0059_MTGTLA_Main: Katara, Bending Prodigy
0085_MTGTLA_Main: Azula, On the Hunt
0163_MTGTLA_Main: Zuko, Exiled Prince
0198_MTGTLA_Main: Toph, the Blind Bandit
Your Prerelease Pack will contain 5 Play Boosters and a Character Booster that contains cards of the associated color. While you don’t have to play the color that matches your Character Booster, the cards you open will likely push you toward that color. For example, your Zuko Character Booster will contain a lot of red cards. That’s a great reason to choose red as your first color.
0061a_MTGTLA_Main: The Legend of Kuruk
0098_MTGTLA_Main: The Fire Nation Drill
Next, look for threats that will help you win the game. These can be massive creatures that swing for double-digit damage, spells that will restock your hand with more cards, and/or artifacts that tip the balance of the game in your favor.
Threats are often rares and mythic rares, so keep an eye out for those when opening your Prerelease Pack. If you’re struggling to find your threats, imagine if your opponent were to cast one of the cards you opened. What would your reaction be? If an opponent casting that card would send you into a panic, scrambling for an answer, then it is likely a solid threat for your deck.
0008_MTGTLA_Main: Airbending Lesson
0058_MTGTLA_Main: It’ll Quench Ya!
0084_MTGTLA_Main: Azula Always Lies
0125_MTGTLA_Main: Bumi Bash
0187_MTGTLA_Main: Origin of Metalbending
The last thing you’ll want to look for is removal. Removal, in short, is any way to get rid of your opponent’s cards (especially their threats). Most removal spells are common and uncommon cards, meaning you’ll see them often in your games.
Below is a list of notable removal spells to look for in your sealed pool. You can also use this as a reference sheet in games. For example, if your opponent passes the turn with two black mana available, there’s a good chance they have a copy of Heartless Act at the ready.
| | | |
Select a mana symbol to see key removal spells.
Once you find your strongest threats and removal spells, you should have the two best colors to build a sealed deck. Now, it’s time to turn those colors into a complete deck by harnessing the power of the mana curve.
The Mana Curve in Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender
The mana curve is a powerful tool to employ when building a deck. In short, you want to balance the mana value of your spells to ensure you have effective spells to cast throughout the game. Most of your spells will cost three or less mana, but you should still have a healthy amount of high-cost spells that can close out the game. A typical mana curve for a Prerelease deck looks something like this:
- 1 Mana: 1–2 cards
- 2 Mana: 7–8 cards
- 3 Mana: 5–6 cards
- 4 Mana: 3–4 cards
- 5 Mana: 2–3 cards
- 6 Mana: 0–1 card
- and 17 lands!
This is just an example of a deck’s mana curve. If your deck is more aggressive, your average mana value will skew lower. But if your deck is focused on controlling the board and accruing value over time, you’ll have more time to play lands and cast expensive spells. That means your deck’s average mana value will be higher.
When assessing how aggressive or defensive your deck should be, think about your deck’s overall strategy. Look at the cards in your deck, then imagine the circumstances where you’d be able to go for the win.
Aggressive decks will overwhelm opponents in the early game with a horde of low-cost creatures. Control decks work to lock out opponents before closing out the game with an expensive haymaker. While most decks won’t be totally aggressive or totally controlling, figuring out what side of that axis your deck lands on will help you play to your strengths.
Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender Draft Archetypes
You’ve picked your colors, you’ve examined your deck’s strategy, and now it’s time to pick the last few cards for your deck. To decide what does and doesn’t make the cut, look at your deck’s draft archetype. A draft archetype is a broad theme for each two-color pair, uniting the cards in those colors with a shared strategy.
Certain cards work better in specific archetypes. For example, Lightning Strike is an effective removal spell for almost any red deck. But Fire Nation Cadets is a more archetype-specific card; it wants to be in a deck with lots of Lesson spells to enable its first ability.
In addition to these archetype-specific cards, each two-color pair has multiple signpost uncommons. These are multicolor uncommon cards that heavily play into their respective draft archetype. Not only do these indicate each color pair’s strategy, but they’re also powerhouses in their respective decks. Make sure to include them in your deck when you can.
Below is a list of each draft archetype and some of their key cards. Harness your archetype’s strategy and pave a path to victory!
White-Blue Flyers
0206_MTGTLA_Main: Air Nomad Legacy
Soar right over your opponent’s creatures and straight toward victory. Cheap creatures with flying like First-Time Flyer can chip away at your opponent’s life total. Once you’ve built up your battlefield of high-flying heroes, pump them up with Air Nomad Legacy to go for the win.
Blue-Black Draw Two
0222_MTGTLA_Main: Foggy Swamp Spirit Keeper
This control deck cares about drawing your second card each turn, and the easiest way to do that is with Clue tokens. For extra value, use your Clues to pay waterbend abilities like on Giant Koi, then sacrifice those tapped Clues to draw cards.
Black-Red Fire Nation Aggro
0213_MTGTLA_Main: Cruel Administrator
Fire Nation Aggro is—you guessed it—one of the most aggressive decks you can build. Cast creatures and create tokens with firebending, then use all that spare red mana on spells like Combustion Technique, Lightning Strike, and Fire Nation Attacks.
Red-Green Earth Rumble Ramp
0210_MTGTLA_Main: Bitter Work
Show your opponents that you’re the greatest Earthbender in the world by transforming your lands into powerful creatures. Remember that, when you earthbend, you can put counters on lands that are already creatures. This can enable cards that care about power 4 or greater, like The Boulder, Ready to Rumble.
Green-White Allies
0251_MTGTLA_Main: White Lotus Reinforcements
Avatar: The Last Airbender is all about Aang and his allies, and we’ve brought them into this set on Ally creatures! Several cards care about the number of Allies you control or Allies entering, so focus on going wide with cards like Kyoshi Warriors.
White-Black Sacrifice
0245_MTGTLA_Main: Tolls of War
If you’d rather use your creatures for more macabre abilities, then the white-black sacrifice archetype is for you. Cards that trigger when they die like Curious Farm Animals or Pretending Poxbearers make for powerful (if grisly) sacrifice fodder.
Blue-Red Combat Lessons
0215_MTGTLA_Main: Dragonfly Swarm
Show your opponents the strongest weapon of all: knowledge. The Lesson spells in this archetype play into an aggressive, combat-focused strategy. Several of these spells care about the number of Lessons in your graveyard, which turns the discard on Abandon Attachments into a sneaky bonus.
Black-Green +1/+1 Counters
0214_MTGTLA_Main: Dai Li Agents
Arm your creatures with +1/+1 counters through a variety of means. One of the easiest ways to add counters to your creatures is with the earthbend keyword action. Creatures like Badgermole will add counters to your board while providing additional bonuses, and Toph, the Blind Bandit is a key finisher for any counter-centric deck.
Red-White Go-Wide Aggro
0244_MTGTLA_Main: Sun Warriors
Combine the Ally tokens of white and aggressive spells of red for a devastating sealed deck. Create a swarm of tokens to take advantage of combat tricks like Fancy Footwork. Force your opponents to unfavorably block, then blow them away with a perfectly timed Enter the Avatar State.
Green-Blue Ramp and Lessons
0226_MTGTLA_Main: Hermitic Herbalist
Ramp and play your lands,
then win with Sokka’s Haiku.
That’s just good Magic.
There are multiple Lessons that let you search for additional lands, allowing you to accelerate toward massive payoffs. Cast Shared Roots, follow that up with Cycle of Renewal, then spend all of that mana on Giant Koi. There’s no better way to win a game than with a massive unblockable Fish.
Harness the Elements at Prerelease
You’re equipped with everything you need to bring balance to your local game store’s Prerelease events! Once you’ve registered for your Prerelease, you can check out all the other events featuring Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender. There’s plenty to explore at your local game store and beyond.
Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender Prerelease events will be held from November 14–20, and you can register to compete today! The set is available for preorder now from your local game store, Amazon, TCGplayer, and elsewhere Magic products are sold.
