Commander blueprint · Avatar: The Last Airbender

How to build Avatar Aang // Aang, Master of Elements

Aang transforms once you have waterbent, earthbent, firebent and airbent in the same turn, and he does the firebending himself every time he attacks. This build spends its slots on the other three and runs all thirteen cards in Commander that airbend, because air is the element you run short of.

Art by Fahmi Fauzi

He firebends by attacking, so the ninety nine are built for the other three

Firebending 2 is a trigger. Whenever Avatar Aang attacks, you add that stays until combat ends, and that trigger resolving is what counts as firebending. So every turn he attacks, one of the four is done and one card is drawn before you have spent anything. Three more fire cards cover the turns when that is not enough. Fire Nation Turret gives a creature +2/+0 and firebending 2 at the start of each of your combats, and on Aang that is a second firebend, a second card and two more red. Fire Nation Palace gives any creature firebending 4 for , for the turn Aang has to stay home and something else attacks instead. Sozin's Comet is the third, and it has its own section further down.

That leaves earth, water and air, and the card pool is lopsided between them. Thirty six other cards in Commander earthbend. Thirteen airbend. This list runs eleven earth cards, ten water cards and every one of the thirteen, because a turn with earth and water and no air is a turn Aang stays a 4/4.

Earth and air before combat, fire on the attack, and the red from the fire pays for the water

Avatar Aang checks the whole turn, including anything you bent before he arrived, so the order is yours to choose, and one order beats the rest. Do the earth and the air in your first main phase. Attack, and the firebending trigger makes the third. Then, still in the declare attackers step and before anyone blocks, spend the on a waterbend cost. Waterbend costs are generic mana, so red pays them, and every untapped artifact or creature you control can be tapped to pay of one, even a creature that arrived this turn.

Two water cards are built for that moment. Waterbender Ascension's waterbend makes a creature unblockable for the turn, which is and two taps, say a Talisman and Swiftfoot Boots. North Pole Patrol's waterbend taps a creature an opponent controls, so the flier that would have blocked Aang is tapped before blocks. Either way the fourth bend lands mid combat, Aang transforms while attacking, and he deals his combat damage as a 6/6. Your second main phase is the one where everything costs five less.

With the right four permanents out, the hand stops mattering. Toph, Earthbending Master earthbends whenever you attack, for as many counters as she has experience, and every land drop adds one. Appa, Loyal Sky Bison airbends another permanent you control whenever it attacks. Aang brings the fire, and Waterbender Ascension or North Pole Patrol turns that fire into water. One attack, four bends, and the flip costs nothing from your hand.

Thirteen airbend cards, and only three of them airbend more than once

To airbend a permanent is to exile it, and while it stays exiled its owner may cast it for instead of its mana cost. Three cards in the list do that over and over. Appa, Loyal Sky Bison does it every time it attacks. Monk Gyatso airbends any other creature of yours the moment it becomes the target of a spell or ability, and the equip abilities on Swiftfoot Boots and Glider Staff both target. Avatar Yangchen airbends on your second spell each turn, once The Legend of Yangchen reaches its third chapter and turns over.

The other ten airbend once each, which is why so many of them point at your own permanents. Exiling your own Talisman or Toph, the Blind Bandit and casting it again for is the air for the turn plus whatever that card does on entering. Pointed at an opponent, airbend is a two mana tax rather than removal, because they get the card back, unless it was a token, which is gone for good. Whirlwind Technique is the weakest of the thirteen at six mana, and it is here only because air runs out first.

On the back face, any two of the airbend creatures loop for nothing

Aang, Master of Elements takes off every spell, and its reminder text says that can come off generic mana. The an airbended card costs is generic. So once he has flipped, a card you airbend comes back for nothing, and that turns five creatures in this list into loop pieces. Aang, Swift Savior, Aang, the Last Airbender, Aang, Airbending Master, Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Appa, Loyal Sky Bison all airbend when they enter, and each of them can target any of the others. Cast one, airbend another, recast that one for free, and its entering trigger airbends the first. Glider Staff and Airbender Ascension join in with the three of the five that can target an artifact or an enchantment. That is sixteen pairs, and any one of them repeats as often as you like.

A lap is a spell cast and a creature entering. Toph, Hardheaded Teacher earthbends for every spell, Haru, Hidden Talent earthbends for every Ally that enters, and with Appa, Steadfast Guardian on the battlefield every card cast from exile makes a 1/1 white Ally. Aang, Swift Savior and Appa, Steadfast Guardian both have flash, so that pair can run in an opponent's end step and leave you an army that is able to attack when your turn starts.

That is the honest reason this is a bracket 3 deck and not a 2. Bracket 3 allows a combo that cannot win early, and this one cannot start until Aang has been through a full four-bend turn. Tell the table before the game. If yours treats any infinite as bracket 4, the budget rung cuts four airbend cards and leaves no pair.

It is also why the haste piece is Swiftfoot Boots and not Lightning Greaves. Greaves equips for , and Monk Gyatso airbends whatever an equip ability targets, so on the back face Greaves and Gyatso loop with any creature in the deck. Boots costs a lap, which keeps the pair a repeatable airbend rather than an endless one. The shroud on Greaves would also stop you equipping Glider Staff to Aang.

Flip at the next upkeep, or keep the discount until yours

The back face's last ability is optional, and it fires at the beginning of every upkeep, not only yours, so each round you choose when to take it. Take it at the first opponent's upkeep and the value lands at once: 4 damage to each opponent, four cards, 4 life, and four +1/+1 counters that stay on him through every later transform. He is an 8/8 on his front face after that, and the next turn's flip has him hit as a 10/10. Flip every round and his combat damage runs 6, then 10, then 14, which is 30 commander damage on the third flipped attack, not counting the 4s from the upkeeps.

Or hold it. Decline through the opponents' upkeeps and flip at your own, and you lose nothing but time. The flip still comes once a round, its four cards arrive before your draw step, and every instant you cast in between is discounted. Swords to Plowshares, Arcane Denial, Generous Gift and Swan Song cost nothing then, and Counterspell costs . The risk is a removal spell that takes Aang with the flip still unspent.

Hold through your own upkeep as well and the whole of your turn is discounted, at the price of one flip. That is the turn Craterhoof Behemoth costs before combat, and with the earthbent lands already hasty creatures, it is usually the last turn.

A repeated pip is the only cost the back face leaves

Each of the five symbols in comes off a matching colored pip when the spell has one, and off a generic mana when it does not. So any spell of mana value five or less with no color repeated costs nothing, and what survives on the rest is the second copy of a pip. Avatar's Wrath and Appa, Loyal Sky Bison cost . Katara, Water Tribe's Hope costs .

The black in that reduction is the only black on the card, and this list plays no black cards. Avatar Aang's own cost is red, green, white and blue, so the mana base is a four color one, and the simply takes a generic mana off. The list counts 25 white sources, 24 blue, 24 green and 22 red, and a single pip of any of the four arrives on time in about nine games out of ten. The strain is on doubles. Six cards want two blue, which shows up by turn three 69.4% of the time, and four want two white, at 77.7% by turn four. Those are the cards to save for the back face, where the second pip is the only one left to pay. The ten basics are there for Ba Sing Se and Fire Nation Palace, which both enter tapped unless you control one.

Katara, the Fearless turns every bend into two cards

Katara, the Fearless makes the triggered abilities of your Allies trigger twice, and Avatar Aang is an Ally. With her out, every bend draws two. Several of the earth cards are Allies too. Toph, Hardheaded Teacher earthbends whenever you cast a spell, so under Katara one spell is two earthbends and four cards, and Haru, Hidden Talent earthbends twice for each Ally that enters. Appa, Steadfast Guardian is an Ally as well, so under her every spell you cast from exile makes two 1/1 Ally tokens, and while Haru is out each of those tokens is two more earthbends.

Count your library on those turns, because the draw on Avatar Aang is not optional. Spirit Water Revival is the reset. Pay its optional waterbend and you shuffle your graveyard into your library, draw seven, and have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game.

Katara does not double the flip back. Both copies of the upkeep trigger go on the stack, the first one transforms Aang, and a permanent's own ability does nothing to it once it has transformed since that ability went on the stack. The same rule stops the second copy of a bend trigger from turning him straight back over on the turn he flips.

Avatar's Wrath clears the table and leaves you a board to recast for nothing

Avatar's Wrath is the one sweeper here. It spares one creature you choose, which is Aang, and airbends every other creature. Until your next turn your opponents cannot cast spells from anywhere but their hands, so their creatures sit in exile for a full round. Yours do not, because that clause only names your opponents. You can recast each of your creatures for , or for nothing on the back face, and each one enters again with its abilities. Earthbent lands come back on their own, tapped, because an earthbent land returns to the battlefield whenever it is exiled. Tokens on both sides are gone for good, since a token cannot be cast.

On the front face the Wrath is also an airbend, so it draws a card and can be the fourth bend of the turn.

Cast it after combat rather than before. The creatures you get back are the ones that just attacked, and each returns as a new creature, untapped, so the board that swung is also the board that blocks. The lock covers the command zone too, so an opponent whose commander was airbended cannot cast it again before your next turn, whether they left it in exile or sent it home.

Sozin's Comet is the red that pays for Katara, Water Tribe's Hope

Sozin's Comet gives every creature you control firebending 5 until end of turn. Attack with five, Aang among them, and the triggers add twenty seven red that lasts until combat ends. Each of those triggers is a firebend, and Aang draws for every one. Katara, Water Tribe's Hope spends the red. Her waterbend sets the base power and toughness of every creature you control to X/X until end of turn, so once blockers are declared, twenty seven red makes each attacker a 27/27 before counters. The earthbent lands make five attackers easy to find, since each one is a creature with haste the turn it is made.

Two things make the Comet a front face card. The back face has no firebending of its own and no draw trigger, so the same five attackers make twenty five red and draw nothing. Foretell keeps the turn cheap: pay on an earlier turn to exile it face down, and on the turn you attack it costs instead of .

The core list

Hover any name to see the card. The hover, the art and the price all belong to that card's cheapest paper printing, which is the one this page adds up.

Load into the deck builder Copy decklist

“Load into the deck builder” opens this list in your account, ready to edit or save. “Copy decklist” gives you plain text for Moxfield, Archidekt or Arena, with no account needed.

Buy this deck on TCGplayer Buy this deck on Card Kingdom

Both open all 100 cards in the store’s own deck tool, where you choose the printings. TCGplayer links are affiliate links, so we may earn a commission on purchases.

The budget rung gives up four airbend cards to lose the loops, and bracket 4 makes every loop a kill

Toph, Hardheaded Teacher, Katara, the Fearless, Monk Gyatso, Waterbender Ascension and North Pole Patrol are in all three lists, and so is the order of a flip turn. What changes is the mana, and what the back face is allowed to do.

The budget rung is eighteen swaps and costs $179 against the core list's $479. Teferi's Protection and Smothering Tithe leave, which takes the floor off entirely. Most of the money is the mana. Three fetch lands and four Triomes become the six tapped dual lands from the Avatar set, one for each pair of Aang's four colors, and Evolving Wilds. That costs speed you can measure: one blue by turn two drops from 90.1% to 86.3%, and seven lands always enter tapped where the core list had five. Toph, Earthbending Master becomes The Boulder, Ready to Rumble, which earthbends only when it attacks itself, for each creature you control with power 4 or more.

The four air cuts are the loop pieces: Aang, the Last Airbender, Aang, Airbending Master, Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Appa, Loyal Sky Bison. That leaves Aang, Swift Savior as the only creature that airbends on entering, and Glider Staff and Airbender Ascension can only airbend a creature, so no two of the three can exile each other in turn. Nine airbend cards remain, the back face is only a discount, and the list flips less often. Geyser Leaper, Waterbending Lesson, Badgermole and Uncle Iroh take the slots and shore up water, earth and fire, and Uncle Iroh is the second firebender for a turn Aang has to stay home.

Ten swaps and $1,032 make the bracket 4 version. Six of the ten are Game Changers, which puts eight in the list. Mana Vault, Chrome Mox and Ancient Tomb put Aang down a turn sooner, Enlightened Tutor and Worldly Tutor find whichever loop piece is missing, and Fierce Guardianship counters a noncreature spell for free while he is on the battlefield. The other four make the loop the plan rather than a side effect. Lightning Greaves replaces Swiftfoot Boots, so Monk Gyatso loops with any creature in the deck. Warleader's Call deals 1 damage to each opponent whenever a creature you control enters, so the first lap of any loop starts the kill and the rest finish it. Badgermole Cub adds an extra whenever you tap a creature for mana, and an earthbent land is a creature. Toph, Greatest Earthbender gives every land creature double strike.

Read the three together and the difference is what the back face gets to do. The budget list flips him for cards and a discount and stops there. The core list can loop once he has flipped, and says so at the table. The bracket 4 list is built to loop on the first turn he flips.

FAQ

How do you transform Avatar Aang?

Do all four kinds of bending in one turn: waterbend, earthbend, firebend and airbend. Avatar Aang checks the whole turn, so bending you did before he entered still counts, and his own firebending 2 handles the fire every time he attacks. He transforms into Aang, Master of Elements when the draw trigger from the fourth bend resolves. If that fourth bend is a waterbend paid during the declare attackers step, he is a 6/6 before blockers are chosen.

Can you play other Aang cards in an Avatar Aang deck?

Yes. The legend rule only looks at cards with the same name, and every Aang card has a different one. This list runs five of them beside the commander: Aang, Swift Savior, Aang, the Last Airbender, Aang, Airbending Master, Aang, at the Crossroads and Aang and Katara. The first three airbend when they enter, Aang, at the Crossroads earthbends at every one of your combats once it has transformed, and Aang and Katara makes a 1/1 Ally for each tapped artifact and creature you control when it enters or attacks.

Does Aang, Master of Elements make spells free?

Most of them. Each of the five symbols in comes off a matching colored pip or, failing that, a generic mana, so a spell of mana value five or less with no repeated color costs nothing. A repeated pip stays, which is why Counterspell still costs . It also takes the off recasting an airbended card, and that is where this deck's loops come from.

Is there an infinite combo in an Avatar Aang deck?

Yes, on the back face. A card that has been airbended is cast for , and Aang, Master of Elements takes that off, so two creatures that airbend each other on entering can keep doing it forever. Aang, Swift Savior and Appa, Steadfast Guardian are the cleanest pair, because both have flash and Appa makes a 1/1 Ally each time you cast a spell from exile. Monk Gyatso with Lightning Greaves is another. The budget rung takes every pair out, and the bracket 4 rung adds Warleader's Call so each lap deals damage.

How much does this Avatar Aang deck cost?

Adding up the cheapest paper copy of each card, the core list is $479, the budget rung $179 and the bracket 4 rung $1,032. Smothering Tithe, Toph, Earthbending Master and Teferi's Protection are over a quarter of the core list on their own. The budget rung drops all three and swaps the fetch lands and Triomes for the Avatar set's own dual lands, while keeping Katara, the Fearless, Toph, Hardheaded Teacher and every airbend card that cannot loop.

What bracket is this Avatar Aang deck?

Bracket 3. Teferi's Protection and Smothering Tithe are Game Changers, which rules out bracket 2, and the back face loops are the other reason. Bracket 3 allows a combo that cannot win early, and these need a turn where Aang has already bent all four elements. The budget rung has no Game Changers and no loop, and the bracket 4 rung runs eight Game Changers. Each of those numbers is a lower limit set by the cards in the list, not a measure of speed.

Why does this Avatar Aang deck play no black cards?

Because nothing in it needs black. The front face costs red, green, white and blue, and the only black on the card is the in the back face's cost reduction, which comes off a generic mana when a spell has no black pip. Leaving black out lets the mana base be four colors, so every Triome and shock land in the list makes two or three of the colors the deck uses.