What is and isn't working for me in Avatar Draft.

Avatar Limited has been quite the joy to play, but oh boy has it felt tough to get an edge in. One draft I struggle to get even a couple of wins and another draft it feels like my deck is unbeatable.

I've learned a lot over the last week in how to approach the format, but, I still feel like I have a lot more to learn.

Let's talk a bit about what I'm finding success in, and what isn't working anymore or at all.

I really enjoyed drafting Red decks the first few days of the format, but, it's simply not working as well for me these days. Why is that? Well it's a common trope that draft is self-correcting and I think this may be the case. I'm no longer getting cards like Firebending and Lightning Strike as late as I'd like, and stocks on Fire Nation Cadets have come way down for me. I thought Fire Nation Cadets has potential to be one of the best commons, but with the support cards (lessons) not readily available, I rarely want to play any copies of the card let alone spend picks aggressively on them.

Red is down in my book.

Whatever I do, I really can't win with black cards if I make it a main color. The common creatures are just so bad and undersized in black I'd rather play as few of them as possible and hopefully none at all outside of Messenger Hawk which I basically only like in Blue decks anyways.

That said, Black has some of the best rares and best removal in the format so my strategy from here on out is only get into black for those rares, and only play the removal - as much as I can help it anyways.

White is a color I almost always avoid in Limited. Generally, it's balanced fairly poorly because it's kind of the worst at everything it does. It rarely has the best removal or the best creatures, and a lot of the time it's super focused on creatures only, and then the best rares tend to be too gimicky or sweepers you don't really want to play anyways. A card like Glider Kids looks like a 23rd playable at best in recent formats but its actually quite solid because of its sizing relative to the removal in the format, and because flying is as strong as it's been in a while.

White in this set is just good, and likely the best color. It's very consistent, and not too gimicky and that is its strength. Sometimes you draft a synergy deck and things fall apart because the support simply isn't there. This is partially a symptom of play boosters where you will not reliably see any given common in a draft because there's both less cards and commons per pack.

This deck here I started out Mono Black with the Cat-Gator and pivoted for a pick 6 Aang dropping all of my cards but a Messenger Hawk knowing I'd wheel both Air Nomad Legacy because of how the draft was shaping up. Surely enough I got there and while the curve looks rough in this deck it played out much better than I anticipated thanks to the strength of the aforementioned Glider Kids.

White isn't my favorite color to draft though. Despite it being the best, it's usually one of the more highly sought after colors.

Blue is my go-to color. I started out with red, but now, I'm embracing blue decks like the one you see above. My favorite late pick up also happens to be my daughter's favorite card, Otter-Penguin. Otter-Penguin doesn't like like much but they're often easy to pick up and can single handedly close out stalled games. As you can see in the above nearly mono blue deck, the penguin serves as a way to close out the game. While this deck may appear to be a bit aggressive because of their presence, it played out quite to the contrary. Every game dragged on and I had to play a control style game often leveraging all my card draw to just overwhelm the opponent before I put the penguin's hooks in them.

Waterbending Scroll was obviously quite absurd here with the ability to play so many islands. My sweeper saga only won me a single game of the 7 I managed to win while the Serpent's did a ton of heavy lifting in catching me back up.

My favorite archetype is Lessons of course, and this deck right here is my favorite version of it unless I have to pion up Iroh, the Grand Lotus.

A version that's low to the ground with card draw, interaction, and tempo plays that can leverage drawing extra cards for damage. A lot like a Phoenix deck with no Arclight Phoenix in it.

While I had the minimum amount of removal in the deck I'd like it was plenty enough to not play the Watery Grasps which may be servicable but I want my creatures attacking not forced to be used for Waterbend. Otter-Penguin is crucial to this archetype as a way to close the game once the board inevitably stalls out.

The Reason I like blue so much in this format though is simply because of it's ability to draw cards. The format's best cards are so much better than the average card that finding your good cards is just incredibly valuable, and Blue has the ability to both speed up or slow down the game making it my go to.

Green Decks have not been great for me, but I will say the biggest strength of Green is it's ability to play any rares that come your way in a format where there is both a lot of powerful rares, and a lot of filler cards.

An example from my Stream today where I opened The Legend of Yangchen and got passed Iroh, Grand Lotus and knew I was just going to play both of them immediately in a UG shell. I did happen to get a ton of rares but that's the benefit of taking a couple of Cycle of Renewal and a Couple of Shared Roots. Turtle Duck actually plays a huge roll in both prolonging the game and closing the game out, in these kinds of decks, and I'm always happen to play a copy or two.

Outside of this style of deck, I really have only found that I like Green paired with White in aggressive Allies decks, and generally only for some good uncommons and rares.

I will note that I have a heavily skewed vision of the format because I've had Iroh, The Grand Lotus an obscene amount of times. Something like one of out three drafts I'm getting the card and it may be biasing my pick orders a bit unknowingly because I'm drafting lessons decks aggressively.

As I said before I'm still really enjoying the format and still excited at the start of each draft whether I'm watching on Twitch or playing myself. I still have a lot to learn and while the format feels quite swingy to me right now, it's likely because I have to adjust a bit to what's working for me, and what's not. Still a lot of lessons to learn, and of course, draft.