Avatar x MtG Review - The Best Elements
This has easily been my most anticipated Worlds Beyond wave since I started covering Magic the Gathering for Player2. Avatar: The Last Airbender, ATLA or the “good Avatar” as it’s known in my house (sorry blue cat Pocahontas) is one of the best modern cartoon series produced by a US studio, the story of Aang, Kitara and Sokka fighting back against the imperialist Fire Nation capturing the hearts and minds of audiences of all ages. The theme and setting alone seem a natural fit for Magic, while the element-based combat draws on real martial arts systems and artistry to become a shorthand for character ideology and personality traits. Almost seamless integration is how I would describe the many forms of bending making the jump to the MtG Mana system, which maps Earthbending to Green, Firebending to Red, Waterbending to Blue and Airbending to White, with Black mana standing in for nefarious activities like Bloodbending and also adding some extra flavour to cards and their interactions; a yin and yang that ties in sublimely with characters who show that rarely does absolute good or evil exist.
It’s difficult to be objective about this set in the face of the IP – what constitutes a “good Magic set”? Due to Universes Beyond and Secret Lair drops, there’s increased scrutiny in how successful the marriage of theme and mechanics is, each wave judged on how well it can balance these facets with different standards depending on how rusted on or competitive a player the individual is. “Not MY Magic” is an occasional sentiment, as if the ongoing lore for MtG hasn’t struggled across three decades to maintain any semblance of narrative logic and quality. Magic is for everyone, but not every set is for every player. It turns out that Avatar is a set I would happily sit in for much longer than the average MtG cycle – three months feels incredibly rushed, especially when juggling work and family to boot. Having been provided a number of items by Wizards of the Coast to enable our coverage of this set including a Bundle, Collector’s Bundle and a handful of Jumpstart Boosters, I also purchased a Beginner Box when visiting my local game store, such was my excitement at perhaps finally luring my wife in with the promise of an Aang and Zuko face-off in Magic form.
Out of the gate, the Jumpstarts are incredible – this is my first experience with the format, and it’s an exciting way for me to experience different deck construction and play philosophies in an easily digestible package. Each pack forms half a deck around a character or playstyle, like Earthbending or outright Attacking, and combining two gives a fully playable 40 card deck, skipping the draft of the Booster format and letting anyone play a game of Magic in an incredibly short amount of time. Of course, purchasing Jumpstart sets won’t quite work for making Booster, Standard or Commander decks and would likely end in sadness for anyone attempting such a feat. There are an incredible 46 different themed Jumpstart boosters for the Avatar set, with multiple versions of some boosters differentiated by included card rarity. My initial thought was that a complete set of Jumpstarts would be the perfect way to have a walled off “MtG in a box” but it would appear Wizards were already one step ahead of me with the Beginner Box.
The Beginner Box is a fantastically priced product that gives not only an iconic match-up in Aang and Zuko tutorial decks out of the gate, but the equivalent of eight Jumpstart boosters to play around with and push people onwards in their deck construction journey – or not! The beauty of the product is it really does feel like “MtG in a box” and could be a closed environment for ATLA fans happy to dabble in MtG and get a taste of its mechanics, even if they have no interest in diving further into the system. The included player boards, spin down d20’s and overall production is closer to that of a board game as opposed to a TCG product and could be an evergreen if the inexorable march of content wasn’t required. While I would have loved to see a few thematic +1/+1 dice accessories included, it’s hard to argue with the value proposition of the Beginner Box as it is compared to purchasing individual Jumpstart boosters and spindown dice. If any Avatar fan was looking for a single item to add to their collection from this collaboration, the Beginner Box would be my easy recommendation.
For those already aboard the Magic train, the Avatar Collector’s Bundle was a hot commodity prerelease and given the contents it’s not surprising – 9 Play Boosters, an exclusive design storage box featuring Appa and the gang, an Avatar themed click wheel, an assortment of exclusive cards and a Collector Booster is priced in-line with buying much of the content separately provided your local store is charging RRP. As someone not really into the speculative aspects of MtG, Collector Boosters are still exciting to open given the increased rarity levels and foils – this set has a HUGE range of character interpretations in various styles ranging from chibi anime to source authentic and even more realistic. The main draws here are without a doubt the included Collector Booster and Avatar-themed click wheel which accounts for the price jump over a regular Bundle box given each contains the same number of Play Boosters. I do personally prefer the Appa art on the Collector’s Bundle storage box, but the Aang v Ozai artwork on the regular Bundle is no slouch either. Much like the previous Spider-Man Universes Beyond wave, there are no pre-con Commander Decks to be found here. Anyone keen to put together an Avatar only Commander deck should benefit from any of these products, be it Beginner Box or Bundle, before the singles market settles down, but focusing on something like a Toph Earthbending deck could still be an expensive proposition.
If you were hoping there would be some more thematic flair to this set, fret no longer; Wizards have introduced some new Keyword mechanics around the forms of bending as well as reintegrating some subtypes, abilities, tokens and Enchantments. For Airbenders, the Airbend Keyword action allows players to exile a card and then pay 2 colourless Mana to cast it rather than its regular cost. Fired-up Firebenders get a floating Mana injection when Firebending, which will show a number next to the Keyword designating just how much Mana they have, with most Firebending cards providing a way to spend said Mana which is lost once combat ends. Earthbending turns Lands into 0/0 creatures, with the number next to the Keyword denoting how much those stats will pip up – did I mention these creatues also have Haste, so they’re good to go immediately? Earthbended Lands return to your Mana pool if they die or are Exiled, meaning it’s a fairly safe way to bolster creature numbers. Finally, Waterbending is an additional colourless cost to a Spell or Ability for Waterbenders that can be paid in regular Mana OR by tapping a controlled artifact or creature to pay one cost towards the total; so using a Waterbending 3 ability could be paid with straight Mana, tapping three artifacts/creatures or any combination of the two. All I can say is, there must be a fair crossover between MtG designers and ATLA fans because the love and effort put into this set shows.
There’s a fair argument to be made that a Universes Beyond set lives and dies based on how well loved the IP is – Final Fantasy didn’t become the best-selling Magic set in history for no reason. But I fear that its sprawling nature is part of its undoing, so vast is the range of characters and landscapes that it’s nigh impossible to please every FF fan in the span of a single set, regardless of how much content was put out for it. Lord of the Rings also proved that few Magic products could compete sales wise with the story and characters of Tolkien. Avatar by comparison feels relatively restrained, a smaller pool to draw from that digs a bit down into how such a world and story would function, a thematic sweet-spot that feels naturalistic when integrated into MtG’s existing systems and elevated with set-focused Bending mechanics. It’s wild to thing that for another company, this could have been a full-blown TCG line, while for Wizards of the Coast it’s their Q4 2025 release. Avatar: The Last Airbender may be a Universe Beyond, but it’s also a release beyond many others and is well worth checking out, almost mandatorily for ATLA fans everywhere.
