First Look: Avatar The Last Airbender
- Mike Sigrist
- 5 days ago
- 5 min read
It came fast, but I believe we have access to the previews of the entire Airbender set.
At first glance, I'm excited to dive into a new Universes Beyond set, and I hope this one is more Final Fantasy than Spider-Man. It's a bad sign of things to come if this set were to flop like Spider-Man. However, I've already seen quite a few cards that have me excited.
Let's take a look.
That's right, Rampant Growth is back in Standard. Shared Roots is a functional reprint of Rampant Growth with the upside of being the Lesson card type. While there are no Learn cards in the set, there are plenty of cards that make Lessons matter.
Ignoring that for now, Rampant Growth is long overdue for a Standard return. There were a lot of cards that, at one point, WotC decided were "too strong" for Standard, such as Rampant Growth and Mana Leak, but Magic has seen an insane amount of power creep since then, and it's time we bring these iconic cards back.
Rampant Growth's existence allows for potential ramp strategies to exist, but it's difficult to build with because if your deck is too reliant on casting ramp on turn two, you'll suffer when you don't draw Shared Roots. While I'm excited to see Rampant Growth return, and I think it will see play, I'm not sure it will be as much of a staple as it has been in previous printings. Threats are stronger these days, so you don't have time to set up without ways to reset the board.
I'm excited to see how this plays out.
Hands down, Accumulate Wisdom is one of my favorite cards I've seen. I'm sad it's an uncommon, specifically because of how crazy it could be in Limited at common, much like its predecessor, Accumulated Knowledge. Accumulate Wisdom is a baseline Anticipate, which saw a small amount of Standard play. Accumulate Wisdom is an exciting tool because of its late-game upside of turning a two-mana draw into a three-card draw.
Looking at this card, the first thought is about the number of playable Lessons. There is a smattering of them in this set, and I'd guess there are enough that are playable, especially if we end up in a format after the bans where Quench is a playable card, as there is a Lesson version of that in the set, and the cards should play well together. Maybe we can also include this in a deck with Shared Roots.
Ideally, you can fill your graveyard quickly, chain a few copies of Accumulate Wisdom together, and the game will get easy from there. There's a lot of iterating that can be done to make this card reach its full potential.
I'm also excited to see how these cards could play alongside Learn cards in a format like Pauper. It might be time to dust off those Divide by Zeroes in your bulk box.
Great Divide Guide is a solid two-mana mana dork that taps for any color and turns all your lands into "Utopia" lands.
Most importantly, Great Divide Guide signals Allies as a supported archetype in The Last Airbender. While I'm skeptical Allies will be a competitive deck, this is a two-drop mana creature with great stats that doesn't need other Allies. If there are other Allies that are also cards that can stand on their own, then perhaps there can be a deck with a small package of Allies rather than going all-in on the archetype. There does appear to be an abundance of Allies to choose from, which adds an upside to this little Guide.
While I typically shy away from mana creatures that cost two mana, this one has the stats and upside to potentially see some Standard play, especially if we see more Allies and ways to sink mana that make for a reasonable game plan.
Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is Hydroid Krasis with a twist, which was one of the most impactful cards in Standard. Krasis did a few important things that Wan Shi Tong is unable to do. It had a cast trigger that enabled it to play well against counterspells, putting you up cards even if you lost that exchange. Krasis gained life, and while it was often only a few life, chaining one into another would often lead to spots where you could stabilize at a healthy life total. Lastly, Hydroid Krasis was not a Legend, which is only a small downside, but nonetheless still a limitation.
Wan Shi Tong may not do all of those things exactly, but it plays well against counters because it has flash, allowing you to sneak it into play whenever the opponent is tapped out. While Wan Shi Tong doesn't gain life, it has vigilance, allowing you to threaten your opponents' life total while defending your own.
One massive upside to Wan Shi Tong, in comparison to Hydroid Krasis, is how much better it is to play alongside counterspells. Krasis forced you to commit your mana at sorcery speed and made it difficult to leave up a card like Negate. Flash goes a long way here, and may be the reason this card sees play in Standard. Standard has been in a place where big splashy plays like this rarely see play, but Wan Shi Tong might be good enough to break that mold because it doesn't force you to commit to spending mana on your own turn, allowing you to play a more reactive game plan and refilling your hand when the coast is clear.
I've seen a little buzz with Mai, Scornful Striker. It's reminiscent of Eidolon of the Great Revel, an all-format all-star for burn decks. Mai fits into that category, but it's meaningfully worse.
Mai is a Legend, which prevents you from doubling up on the effect, and can be problematic if your plan is to overload your opponent and soft lock them out of the game.
Most importantly, Eidolon had other burn spells to supplement its effect. Black does not have access to that much burn, meaning if your opponent can stabilize, then you won't necessarily have the reach to close the game out. Red decks could always hope to draw a Boros Charm or Lightning Strike to finish the game off, but Mai won't have that support to help in close games.
Mai is a playable card, but it scales with how many non-creature spells your opponents plan to cast. If the format is dominated by creature decks, we won't see much of Mai. If people are trying to chain together cards like Accumulate Wisdom, then Mai seems more appealing.
This is a solid card that will see play, potentially even in Eternal formats.
There are a lot of cards to go over, so I will keep looking at cards that jump out at me until the set's release. I went over some of the simpler ones this week. Next week, I'll look into the wordier cards, of which there are quite a few.
The set looks like what I'd expect from Constructed's lens, but it looks grindy and exciting for Limited.
I'm hoping we get a lot of exciting tournaments to play, both online and offline, with this release, especially Arena Directs and Opens, so I can sink my teeth into the format. That was something that I missed with Spider-Man and that ruined the set's hype for many Arena players.
See you next week.