Avatar Decks: Master the Four Elements In These Flavorful Decks

Avatar: The Last Airbender is one of the Universes Beyond sets that came with a ton of products. Something it didn’t come with was any Commander decks. For fans of the series, especially those new to the game, you might not be sure how to build a deck for your favorite bending elements or characters. We’ve got your back. These Avatar decks will show you how to build various decks, each represented by a different bender, before getting to the Avatar himself after you’ve mastered the four elements. There’s a bonus deck too, featuring the big bad of the original series. Without further ado, let’s get to the Avatar decks and start learning the elements. These decks aren’t going to be the most powerful thing you can do in Magic, but they are the closest you can feel to being a Bender yourself in the game of Magic.

Water: Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope

To kick things off we have the master of waterbending, Katara, Water Tribe's Hope. For the unfamilar, waterbending has you tapping creatures and artifacts to pay for a waterbend cost. As such, the deck utilizes plenty of cards that can create tokens quickly, such as Will of the Mardu and Call the Coppercoats. You want a ton of creatures, as Katara, Water Tribe's Hope can give all your creatures a massive stat boost with its waterbending cost.

This deck is about flavor, so of course you need Aang's Iceberg, it’s what kicks off the entire series when Katara and Sokka, Lateral Strategist discover it. You also have the waterbending Aang here with Aang, Swift Savior. Ol’ Gran-Gran is here too, along with Yue, the Moon Spirit and Tui and La, Moon and Ocean rounding out the named Water Tribe members.

This is a waterbending deck, so there are other cards aside your commander that waterbend. Geyser Leaper lets you draw and discard, Katara, Bending Prodigy provides pure card draw, Water Tribe Rallier lets you dig for more creature cards, and Waterbender Ascension can make a creature unblockable. A benefit of waterbending is you don’t have to tap creatures and can just pay mana for it if you don’t have creatures to tap (or don’t want to).

A sample decklist can be viewed below. There are a ton of cards from the show that utilize either Sokka, Katara, or both in the card arts or names here, even if they aren’t the most powerful.

Earth: Toph, the First Metalbender

While metalbending is a bit different from earthbending, for an earthbending commander, we’ll be using Toph, the First Metalbender. Every end step, you get to earthbend, putting two +1/+1 counters on a land. She also makes all nontoken artifacts lands that can be earthbent, making free artifacts like Zuran Orb, Tormod's Crypt, and Darksteel Relic that much better. As an added bonus, when they leave the battlefield they come back, letting you reuse utility effects on your artifacts that were earthbent.

There are a lot of other Toph cards that earthbend, including Toph, Earthbending Master, Toph, Greatest Earthbender, Toph, Hardheaded Teacher, and Toph, the Blind Bandit. It’s not just Toph, with others, including Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender, Bumi, Eclectic Earthbender, Bumi, Unleashed, Haru, Hidden Talent, and The Boulder, Ready to Rumble.

There are plenty of ways to earthbend in the deck besides your commander, many of which happen when a permanent enters. Earthshape is an exception, and can give blanket protection to various creatures. Bitter Work earthbends once, and Haru, Hidden Talent earthbends when any Ally enters (something most Avatar cards are). It’s not in the decklist since it’s quite pricey, but Badgermole Cub is one of the best earthbending cards.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Earthbending is quite powerful, and one of the best bendings in Magic.

Fire: Zuko, Firebending Master

The first antagonist of the Avatar series before changing sides, Zuko, Firebending Master is the firebending representation. Firebending is a very combat-focused ability, encouraging you to activate abilities with said mana or cast combat spells for exra damage. This makes cards like Aggravated Assault much stronger, and you also want cards that let you keep mana in your pool through phases like Ashling, Flame Dancer and Electro, Assaulting Battery so you don’t lose the mana made from firebending if you don’t have anything to use it on.

Of course, you can’t have Zuko without Uncle Iroh, so he’s here twice with Iroh, Dragon of the West and Iroh, Firebending Instructor. There are some other Zuko cards at different stages of his plot, including Zuko, Avatar Hunter and Zuko, Exiled Prince. Other Fire Nation cards include Fang, Roku's Companion, Longshot, Rebel Bowman, Ran and Shaw, and The Legend of Roku.

Now onto cards that firebend. Firebending Student can grow its stats quickly thanks to prowess to give more firebending potential. Fire Sages gives you an outlet to spend your mana on from firebending while having it itself. You have a great attacker in Rough Rhino Cavalry which boosts its own stats while giving itself trample to be a big threat in combat. With all this firebending, Firebender Ascension will get a ton of counters quickly, which then doubles all your firebending triggers.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Firebending is a lot more aggressive, so you’ll be casting a ton of spells and partaking in a lot of combat steps.

Air: Aang, Airbending Master

Now onto the protagonist, Aang, Airbending Master. He isn’t the Avatar yet, and instead is focused on just airbending. Airbending exiles a creature and lets you cast it for two mana later. So, it’s a Blink deck, meaning it exiles creatures to take advantage of enter the battlefield triggers on cards such as Spirited Companion and Soul Warden. You also have non-airbending blink cards including Ephemerate and Cloudshift to name a few.

Like the idea of Blink? Then you can check out our full overview on the entire Blink archetype here, with sample commanders, staples, and more.

Even though you’re in Mono White, you have a lot of helpers, including other Aang cards Aang, Air Nomad and Aang, the Last Airbender. We’re playing Aang, so you gotta have Appa, and there are a lot: Appa, Aang's Companion, Appa, Loyal Sky Bison, Appa, Steadfast Guardian, and Appa, the Vigilant. The other helpful critter Momo is present as well, with Momo, Friendly Flier, Momo, Playful Pet, and Momo, Rambunctious Rascal.

This is an airbending deck, so you need cards that airbend your permanents. Monk Gyatso can airbend anything that gets targetted, allowing for easy evasion. You can airbend all creatures but one with Avatar's Wrath, and prevent spells from being cast anywhere but hands for opponents to make it harder to recover any lost permanents. Airbender's Reversal can either be used as removal or as airbending, giving it a bit of utility.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. Most of the creature decks consist of Aang, Appa, or Momo, fittingly keeping the Air Bender squad together.

Master of the Four Elements: Avatar Aang

With all four bending forms accounted for, we now have the master of the four elements: Avatar Aang. This is the commander payoff for playing all four bending options, and the commander deck that almost exclusively runs Avatar cards. Aang isn’t the only Avatar, with The Legend of Kuruk, The Legend of Kyoshi, The Legend of Yangchen, and The Legend of Roku. All of these cards also help you to perform one of the bending mechanics to make it easier to transform Aang.

All of Team Avatar is here (usually multiple times). You have Fire Lord Zuko, Katara, the Fearless, Toph, Hardheaded Teacher, and Sokka, Tenacious Tactician. All of your creatures are Ally creatures, so you can take advantage of all the Ally-specific support effects these all come with.

Aang has to learn how to master all the elements, so the entire lesson cycle is present (Airbending Lesson, Firebending Lesson, Earthbending Lesson, and Waterbending Lesson). And once you master them, it’s time to ascend with Airbender Ascension, Firebender Ascension, Earthbender Ascension, and Waterbender Ascension. All of these hlep to trigger their repsective bending mechanic and give you a way to trigger Avatar Aang to get it transformed.

The deck is listed below. It’s about as Avatar as an Avatar deck can get. So if you want to play almost exclusively Avatar cards, it’s the deck for you.

Be The Villain: Fire Lord Ozai

Don’t want to play as the good guys? Then you have Fire Lord Ozai, the big bad of the Avatar series. This Avatar deck is about stealing your opponents’ creatures using cards like Act of Treason and Vengeful Possession then sacrifice them for mana with your commander’s attack trigger. This is kept outside of combat, and even has its own effect to dump that mana into and cast your opponents’ cards for free.

Ozai doesn’t come alone, with some other Fire Nation attackers coming to cause trouble. Azula, On the Hunt is here, along with another Ozai in Ozai, the Phoenix King. You have admiral Zhao which syngergizes with Ozai with Zhao, Ruthless Admiral. The early Fire Lord makes an appearance here too with The Rise of Sozin along with Zuko’s early appearance in the show Zuko, Exiled Prince.

To help make a lot of mana, the deck plays a lot of creatures that have high power and lower casting costs. Normally, these creatures have a downside, as seen on Rotting Regisaur, Phyrexian Soulgorger, and Ball Lightning. However, with Fire Lord Ozai, you sacrifice these creatures for mana before they ever have a chance for the downside to trigger. Your deck is mostly playing your opponents’ decks as opposed to your own. Your creatures are simply ammunition for Ozai.

A sample decklist can be viewed below. The creature lineup is filled with big creatures with small mana costs, along with the villains in the Fire Nation.

Other Avatar Deck Options

Perhaps you don’t want to focus on bending, or maybe you don’t like Ozai. Luckily, Avatar was a big set, giving you a ton of options for an Avatar deck. If you want to play another villain that isn’t Ozai, Fire Lord Azula is an option, focusing on playing spells during combat to double up on them. She’s built very well for the archetype too thanks to having firebending. Avatar has a ton of Lesson cards, so if you want a Lesson commander, Iroh, Grand Lotus is a great choice to lead a deck. Avatar also had multiple Shrine cards in the set, so Hei Bai, Forest Guardian makes for a great Shrine commander (and Magic has plenty of Shrine cards if you want to bring in non-Avatar cards).

If you’re interested in Fire Lord Azula in particular, good news! We have a whole article dedicated to that commander you can check out here.

Some more “minor” characters are a part of the set too if you want to have a commander that’s a character that isn’t as well-known as other commanders shown off here. Combustion Man can deal a lot of damage, especially with stat-boosting effects. Flopsie, Bumi's Buddy is a great Stompy commander that makes all your creatures much harder to block. You need a lot of Lessons, but Master Pakku is a great Mill commander. It’s a cEDH staple, but Wan Shi Tong, Librarian makes for a great commander as well.

In Conclusion

These Avatar decks aren’t ones that are focused on full optimization. You can build these in ways to be more competitive at the higher bracket levels, but these lists are all meant for the Bracket 3 level. They were all crafted with flavor in mind instead of optimization, and made for Avatar: The Last Airbender fans instead of those who want to win their Friday Night Magic event. Many card inclusions were put in solely because they are a flavor win, less so because they are a useful card for the deck.

Even though these were all focused on flavor as opposed to power, they are still very much competent decks. They can still win games and perform well against other Commander decks that are less thematic and more generally broad. So, get out there, master the elements, and go to your next deck as a master of the four elements as your own Avatar.

If you want to see what the best staples from the Avatar set are, we’ve got you covered with our article going over the best staples from the Avatar set right here. This includes non-commander creatures, which we didn’t discuss here if you want to see what other Avatar cards are worth making note of.