Hello and welcome back. Today I wanted to go over the new mechanics presented in Avatar: The Last Airbender, specifically the bending mechanics.
During the initial previews of this UB set, it was brought up by a creator the Avatar Aang // Aang, Master of Elements will probably never get any new cards to help it out with his specific bending needs. I didn’t hear, in my exposure to my small corner of the internet, anyone else mention this. It struck as so true, for the bending part specifically, that I began to think about the different bending mechanics themselves. What and where could we use bending cards otherwise and outside of a bending specific deck.
That’s today’s quest (Zuko isn’t coming along by the way).
FIREBENDING
Firebending is quite easily and for obvious reasons the most aggressive mechanic in how you obtain its payoff. So far, that means attacking with a creature that has Firebending and gaining Red mana from it in an amount specified by the number behind Firebending. That means if you attack with a creature with Firebending 2, you get 2 Red mana to use.
Luckily or unluckily, you get this mana until the end of combat, so essentially 4 out of the 5 steps (or 5 out of 6 if there is first strike or double strike involved) where it can be used and not dissipate into the AEther. For a refresher, the Combat Phase includes these steps:
-Beginning of Combat
-Declare Attackers Step (this is where we’d gain the Firebending mana)
-Declare Blockers Step
-Combat Damage Step*
--First Strike and Double Strike Damage Step
--Normal Damage Step
-End of Combat Step (this is where we lose our Firebending mana)
So, where would we be able to use Firebending mana and not waste it? Well, there is a lot you can do during combat and put mana into. First to my mind was something like Aggravated Assault to just keep swinging. Brutal Hordechief might like some mana, or War Cadence to keep your creatures alive.
There are also two creatures, Ashling Flame Dancer and Leyline Tyrant, that let you keep the mana around even after the end of combat if you want to stock up for a big play later. If you don’t, some of the Firebending creatures themselves, like Zuko Exile Prince and Fire Sages allow you to use some mana when you need to for some value.
WATERBENDING
Waterbending is an ability kind of like convoke and improvise. You can tap your creatures or artifacts to help pay for a waterbend custom but only for the colorless part.
This ability seems directly inverted from Firebending. While Firebending can pay for any Red or Generic cost as long as you can spend the mana during your combat phase, Waterbending helps by letting you pay a cost only affecting the colorless part but without the timing restriction.
This easily compares to the abilities I mentioned prior, so paying for these costs in a deck that already likes to tap its creatures or artifacts like Howling Mine or Unwinding Clock might want to have these cards around if the payoff is right. However, the cost on some of these cards may be too high for the effect. With that in mind, you can always just pay regular mana for these abilities as tapping something isn’t mandatory. It’s just a nice bonus you can use sometimes.
As far as the long term, the main use of Waterbending will probably be what I described above. Useful for tapping some stuff to get extra benefits like Kona Rescue Beastie or your food tokens perhaps in addition to the Waterbending card but the mechanic is, so far in my opinion, only that and won’t see much other value.
I’m going to say here that the spoilers for the set are still ongoing and I might be eating these words later if we get some kind of Waterbending lord effect or a really good card with the ability, though perhaps Yue, the Moon Spirit will be enough to carry the day.
EARTHBENDING
Now, Earthbending is going to be much easier to use. By that, I mean land matters decks really, really didn’t need the help. With Earthbending, you get to animate a land, so far by putting 2 +1/+1 counter on a land and making it a creature, and it gains a clause of basically if it dies or gets exiled, landfall. Weirdly it doesn’t gain a creature type along with the animation, but that makes flavor sense, which ironically making it a creature doesn’t. I feel that was done more to help the mechanic, but I’m losing the train here.
Point is, this will likely see play outside of the set in a bunch of Commander decks. Probably it will be the top mechanic to come out of the set. Now the lands do return tapped, but being able to more easily untap them with Augusta Dean of Order or Drumbellower gives this mechanic extra utility while they’re creatures.
That’s just the landfall, too. It also uses the much supported +1/+1 counter mechanic, which is almost as easily abuseable. Granted, if the lands leaves it loses all those counters, but it gives The Ozolith, Resourceful Defense and Reyhan, Last of the Abzan yet another place to store those counters and move them.
AIRBENDING
Whereas Earthbending might be best straightforward, in my opinion, mechanic from this set so far (again, set still being spoiled), Airbending might be the most flexible. Very similar to Livio Oathsworn Sentinel’s ability, Airbending allows you to exile a permanent semi-permanently. This is because the owner of the card can pay 2 generic mana to cast it again instead of its normal cost. The flavor here is great. Airbending moves something, but doesn’t permanently keep it at bay.
This ability is probably best used on your own stuff, especially since it does allow the targeting of nonland permanents. Now having to pay 2 mana to get that permanent back does mean you have to plan to not get it back for free, with the trade off that you can simply bank those permanents in preparation for something else, like a mass removal spell such as Farewell or Damn, making your recovery better than others.
You could also run cost-reducing abilities to help deal with the cost, like Pearl Medallion or Helm of Awakening if you want to only Airbend on your own stuff. Otherwise, you can weaponize Airbending with Aven Interrupter or Drannith Magistrate (if you don’t like friends).
The real flexibility here comes in two parts: what you exile to recast for those permanents’ effects, and casting another spell. First is the easy comparison to blink decks. This just slow rolls it. It’s not as effective as just blinking something like you normally would, but it does offer a larger time window to engage with the spell, including some unique interactions you might be able to take advantage of. This brings me to cards that have or essentially have Flurry. You can airbend something with a spell, and then cast the exiled spell. Two spells in a turn to trigger effects. Firja Judge of Valor, Cosmogrand Zenith, Aligned Heart and Taigam Master Opportunist come to mind immediately, but we have a decent smattering of these effects now that it might be worth considering these interactions when building a deck with Airbending in it.
Lastly, cards like Pai Nalaar Consul of Revival or Rocco Street Chef might want some cards cast from exile for extra benefit. While Earthbending will likely be the most popular mechanic of the four to come out of the Avatar set, Airbending I think is the most useful (so far).
BALANCE ACHIEVED
I really like the cards shown so far for the Avatar set, though I think some real juicy stuff has yet to be spoiled. After all, we don’t have THE Iroh card yet. Even if I don’t use UB cards myself, I can still enjoy characters I like from a series I really enjoyed and how they might fit into this game system we have for Magic.
Let me know if you think I’ve judged these bending abilities wrong or if we might get Melonlord on a card.
Until next time, look inside yourself and decide what do you want.
