Avatar: The Last Airbender - 10 Best Lessons for Commander

Avatar: The Last Airbender is definitely a children's cartoon, but it is full of valuable lessons that even adults can learn from.

In the latest Magic: The Gathering Avatar: The Last Airbender set, these lessons were represented with… Lessons, a type of instant/sorcery that first showed up in Strixhaven: School of Mages.

Like Shrines, some Lessons are more powerful if you play lots of them in your deck. For instance, Accumulate Wisdom and Combustion Technique.

Besides these interactions, this set includes legendary creatures that interact with these spells, like Iroh, Grand Lotus (click here if you'd like to see more about him!), Sokka, Bold Boomeranger, Aang, the Last Airbender, Toph, Hardheaded Teacher, and Ran and Shaw, among others.

In this article, we'll go over 10 Avatar: The Last Airbender Lessons for Commander, including both the ones that came out in the standard set (TLA) and the ones that came out in Jumpstart boosters (TLE).

10. Cycle of Renewal

Decks centered around Landfall got a lot from this set, including two new ramp spells that remind me of some classic ramp we use in Commander.

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Cycle of Renewal reminds me of Harrow, but it puts the lands in play tapped, while Harrow puts them in play untapped.

Another difference is the actual text: while we need to sacrifice a land to cast Harrow as an additional cost, in Cycle of Renewal that's just part of the effect.

9. Shared Roots

Moving on to another ramp, we have Rampant Growth 2.0!

Just like this iconic green spell, Shared Roots costs two mana, is a sorcery, and brings a basic land from your deck and puts it straight on your board.

This will be great if you want to play more ramp, and you can easily play it with the legendary cards in this set that interact with Lessons.

8. Boomerang Basics

Now, let's see a spell that sends a nonland permanent back into its controller's hand.

If Boomerang Basics was an instant instead of a sorcery, it would be perfect. For just one blue mana , you can use it to remove a permanent (bounce it, as we call it) from play. If that target was under your control, you'll also draw a card.

7. Origin of Metalbending

One of the most iconic moments of the show is when Toph masters metalbending for the first time.

Wizards of the Coast decided to represent this scene with a spell that lets you pick between two effects: destroy an artifact or enchantment or buff and protect a target creature. This spell doesn't give that creature Gaea's Gift's keywords, but that doesn't make it any less interesting.

6. Enter the Avatar State

This protection is precisely what mono-white likes: it's cheap, and you can use it as a combat trick or as an answer to some removal.

The Avatar State is when an Avatar powers up and hits their maximum potential. In this state, they can use bending techniques their other reincarnations mastered in their past lives.

So much power has a price: if the Avatar dies while in this state, the reincarnation cycle is interrupted.

So, from the perspective of a fan, it is quite perfect that Enter the Avatar State grants a target creature hexproof, but not indestructible.

5. Desperate Plea

Wizards of the Coast loves releasing support cards for strategies centered around sacrificing creatures and reanimating them.

If you like this strategy, check out our article on Reanimate cards for Commander!

This sorcery lets you use one of its two effects and forces you to sacrifice a creature as an additional cost.

With Desperate Plea, you can return a creature from your graveyard and put it on your board as well as destroy a threat on the enemy battlefield.

4. Overwhelming Victory

While black got reanimate support, red got support to attack. This card buffs your other creatures and will often remove another card in the process.

Overwhelming Victory is an instant that deals 5 damage to a target creature. Then, every creature under your control gains trample and +X/+0 until the end of the turn, where X is the excess damage you dealt in this process.

When I saw this card for the first time, I thought about how fun it would be to use it on the 1/1 tokens so many of us play so often. Considering we can use it with Fiery Emancipation, City on Fire, Solphim, Mayhem Dominus, and even Fated Firepower, it certainly caught my attention.

3. Waterbender's Restoration

Cards that protect any number of creatures on your board are always popular and powerful. A good example of that is Eerie Interlude.

Waterbender's Restoration has the same effect, but it's slightly different: as an additional cost to play it, you'll have to waterbend X, that is, you can pay that much mana or tap your artifacts and creatures.

Please note that using your creatures and artifacts in play while waterbending is always a much better option.

2. Secret of Bloodbending

If you don't play mono blue , there is a good chance you didn't catch one of the strongest Lessons in this set.

Just like the fearsome Emrakul, the Promised End, Secret of Bloodbending gives you control over a target opponent during their next turn as long as you pay its waterbending cost. If you can't do it, it still lets you control that player's combat phase.

Unlike other spells like this, like Emrakul itself, this sorcery doesn't give that target opponent an extra turn.

You might struggle to get four blue mana in decks with three or more colors, but that doesn't make this spell any less powerful. By the way, it is a great finisher with Iroh, Grand Lotus!

1. Redirect Lightning

There is a good reason why most cEDH players covet Deflecting Swat. Now, we have a new version of it.

We can cast Deflecting Swat for free if we control our commander, but Redirect Lightning forces us to pay two mana or 5 life as an additional cost (which, in casual Commander pods, is not a lot).

Both of them let us change the targets of a spell or ability.

This new instant isn't as strong as Deflecting Swat and shouldn't replace it in any decks, but it is quite powerful and cheaper if you want to use Deflecting Swat but can't afford it.

Avatar: The Last Airbender brought back Lessons and came with a few very cool options. Overall, these spells aren't so strong they're scary nor so weak we can't use them.

Besides these instants and sorceries, we also got creatures that interact with them, and that could be quite valuable in the next Strixhaven set, in 2026. We don't know much about it yet, but we are certainly hoping for more Lessons then.

What do you think? Tell us all about it in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!