The anticipation has been building for a while, and we finally have our first look at Magic: The Gathering’s Avatar: The Last Airbender set. Releasing November 21, 2025, this Universes Beyond set is coming out hot on the heels of Final Fantasy, and promises to shake up the Standard format with some incredible cards.
The burning question on everyone’s mind is what do the cards in the set do and what do all those different bending abilities do in the game? Let’s take a deep dive into these mechanics and see how they will interact with the game.
Airbending
Appa, Steadfast Guardian
There’s a ton going on with this white mythic legendary creature. Of course, Appa comes with flying, that just makes sense. And he comes with our first look at the airbending ability. Airbending a permanent means you exile it. For as long as that creature card is exiled, its controller can cast it again for two generic mana as opposed to its casting cost.
Appa works a bit like a slower Abdel Adrian, Gorion’s Ward or Roon of the Hidden Realm, especially since Appa also generates a 1/1 Ally creature token when you cast any spell from exile. This ability will generate tons of extra value with other mechanics like rebound, cascade, and foretell, since they all cast from exile.
Notably, Appa is also an Ally creature, which we’ll cover a bit more later, but brings with it a ton of synergy with this creature typing.
Waterbending
Aang’s Iceberg
The first of the two waterbending cards is Aang’s Iceberg, a terribly sad reference to one of the first times we meet Aang in the series. This enchantment will look awfully similar to other single target removal spells like Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light. Adding flash does help set the Iceberg apart, but so does its waterbend ability.
Waterbend will look familiar as its a mashup of both convoke and improvise. Waterbend will always come with a generic mana cost with which you can pay by tapping your artifacts and creatures to help pay for it. Tapping either a creature or artifact will contribute one generic mana at a time, so with Aang’s Iceberg, you’ll have to tap three other creatures and/or artifacts to be able to sacrifice it to scry 2.
Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope
The waterbender of the Gaang, Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope is another Ally creature and one that has a neat ability that can give your whole team a boost in power and toughness. When Katara comes into play you get to make a 1/1 Ally creature token, though that’s only the start.
With Waterbending X, you can dump as much mana as you like into Katara’s ability to change the power and toughness of all your creatures to match what you put into X. You can only do this on your turn however, but can easily out pace your opponent’s creatures, especially later in the game.
Earthbending
Toph, the First Metalbender
The first of two three colored cards we get to see, Toph, the First Metalbender is a fascinating legendary creature that does some weird things to your artifacts and lands. First up, Toph makes it so your nontoken artifacts are lands as well as their other types. However, they don’t gain the ability to tap for mana, they’re just lands.
Toph starts dishing out pain by animating your lands. Earthbending comes with a number designation with it, which lets you but +1/+1 counters on a land you control equal to that number. With earthbending 2, Toph puts two +1/+1 counters on any of your lands, while also giving it haste and turning it into a 0/0 creature.
If that land were to die or put into exile, you get to bring it back to the battlefield tapped, which is a pretty sweet deal.
Firebending
Fire Lord Zuko
The Avatar: The Last Airbender set pulls inspiration for its cards from across the original series, with Fire Lord Zuko coming in from the end of the series. Zuko is the second tri-colored creature from set, which seems pretty fitting for the character.
With firebending X, Zuko is the perfect example of this ability. When Zuko attacks, you add X mana to your mana pool, with X equal to Zuko’s power. That mana will stick around until the end of combat, which isn’t a long time, but enough to activate some abilities or cast some instant speed spells.
You can follow it up with a spell cast from exile to give your entire board a +1/+1 counter, slowly growing Zuko and increasing your mana output from that firebending ability.
The Other Mechanics
Ally
We’ve seen a few Allies already and the trend with them is that they seem to be all the Avatar’s allies he and the gang make during their travels. This is perhaps no better seen in the Avatar Enthusiasts and Momo, Friendly Flier cards.
Avatar Enthusanist will slowly grow over time as you play more and more Ally creatures, working well with Appa and Katara. At the same time, Momo, Friendly Flier reduces the casting cost of the first non-Lemur creature you play each turn by one generic mana so long as that creature has flying, making it a little easier to cast spells.
Lessons
If you’re unfamiliar with lessons don’t worry, they’re pretty easy to get a hang of. See, Lessons don’t do anything on their own, they’re just a spell subtype attached to sorceries and instances. When paired with the learn mechanic you can tutor for them, but for now, we’ve only seen cards with the subtype.
Lessons seem to be either stories, plot points, or opportunities for growth that various characters experience during their journeys. Earthbending Lesson, for example, shows Aang learning Earthbending along side Toph and lets you earthbend for four.
Perhaps one of the more powerful cards to be reveled is Redirect Lightining, a one mana red instant that lets you swap the target of a spell or ability with another single target. You’ll have to pay five life to use it, or an extra two generic mana, which ever seems best to you at the time.
Sokka’s Haiku is a delightful card that is an actual haiku on the text, which is an incredibly flavorful way to design a card.
Saga
Sagas take on a special role in the Avatar Universes Beyond set. Each one depicts an epic tale of either a terrifying villain or of the past exploits of previous Avatars. The one we see is The Rise of Sozin // Fire Lord Sozin. This brutal card wipes the board with its first chapter, exiles all copies of a card of your choice from your opponent’s deck, graveyard, and hand, and then transforms into a creature with the last chapter.
Flipped into Fire Lord Sozin, this 5/5 creature has menace and firebending 3, which you can put to immediate use with its ability. When Sozin deals combat damage you can pay X mana to take any number of creature cards with a total mana cost of X or less from your opponent’s graveyard and put them on the battlefield under your control.
Shrine
While we only see one so far, Shrines seem to make a return to the game with the Southern Air Temple. Shrines typically have tons of synergies with other Shrine cards, granting new abilities or bonus effects the more Shrines you have out.
The Southern Air Temple lets you put X +1/+1 counters on all your creatures, with X equalling the number of Shrines you control. Playing another Shrine means you get to add another +1/+1 counter to all your creatures, letting them slowly grow over the course of the game.
One Last Card
There’s one more card that doesn’t come with a neat mechanic and instead is a powerhouse all on its own. Fated Firepower features Uncle Iroh bringing the heat on this mythic enchantment. For three mana and X generic, Fated Firepower will enter with fire counters equal to the amount of mana you pump into X.
If a source you control would deal damage to an opponent or one of their permanents, it deals a bonus amount of damage equal to the number of fire counters on Fated Firepower instead.
Everything Cool With Avatar: The Last Airbender
You just know that this beloved Universes Beyond is going to some with some cool cards to collect, and the chase card seems to be the borderless raised foil Avatar Aang card. Featuring artwork from one of the series creator, Bryan Konietzko, this card will only be found in Collector Boosters and will no doubt have everyone trying to hunt down the Avatar.
Field Note cards, originally from Bloomburrow, make a return, giving some of the world’s unique creatures a sketchbook design with little notes about their biology.
With Avatar being so focused on the various elements of the game, the design team took extra care to make several special frames to match the cards. With different etchings in the text-box frame depending on the element shown, this treatment will help these cards stand out.
There’s also going to be new frames on your favorite cards, special foil treatments, and other unmentioned surprises to check out in the set.
What’s New With The Set
The Avatar: The Last Airbender set has all your regular Magic product, like Play and Collector Boosters, and Bundles, but also brings in some unique products.
The main product of note here is the Commander’s Bundle. Instead of a preconstructed Commander-legal deck, the Commander’s Bundle comes with:
- 9 Play Boosters
- 1 Collector Booster
- 5 Non-foil Promo Cards
- 3 of which are the same in all Commander’s Bundles
- 15 Traditional Foil Basic Lands
- 15 Non-foil Basic Lands
- 1 Click-Wheel
While different from most Commander-specific product, it does provide a unique opportunity to build your own Commander deck and experiment with some different cards rather than a hand-picked deck.
Scene Boxes are the other neat product releasing with Avatar: The Last Airbender. First seen in The Lord of the Rings: Tales of Middle-earth set, Scene Boxes are special collections that bring together six borderless foil cards that when lined up, depict a poignant scene from the series. There are three different Scenes Boxes to collect, and if the LotR Scenes Boxes are anything to note, they usually have some pretty good cards in them so they’re worth keeping an eye on.
What’s Next For Avatar?
Today we are getting just the first look at the set, but make sure to tune in on October 28 to see new cards, more unique approaches to the various bending mechanics, and more information on the set. Don’t forget to check in with your local game store for prerelease events coming November 14-20, with a tabletop release date of November 21.