Historic - Avatar: The Last Airbender Review

Avatar: the Last Airbender will bring the Gaang's universe to Magic Arena, as well as new mechanics and abilities to several formats, like Historic. If you'd like to know more about the actual mechanics in this set, click here.

In this article, we'll go through the most relevant cards in this set for Historic, a format that includes a wide variety of cards and that has been quite diverse in the last few months. It is one of the most fun formats in Magic Arena right now, though it isn't the most popular.

Best Cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender to Historic

Enter the Avatar State is a -cost instant that protects a creature by giving it hexproof, as well as flying, first strike, and lifelink. It is very versatile, as it can both save an important piece and set up attacks, all of that at instant speed. I believe that any aggro list that can use white cards could also use a few copies of this card.

Haywire Mite is very popular in Historic, but it is limited to , so it's not as generic as we'd like. Curious Farm Animals is another version of this type of ability for another wide variety of decks. Though Haywire exiles instead of simply destroying, several decks may benefit from Curious Farm Animals.

In a world where prowess is one of the most essential abilities around, Ty Lee, Chi Blocker definitely deserves a shoutout. Particularly as she is also a sort of removal.

Ty Lee enters play at instant speed and lets you remove a blocker from the way while she is on the battlefield. We can use this to set up some very cool strategies in aggro lists, like Prowess. She does cost more mana than we'd like, but testing her out in some scenarios could be worth a try.

Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is sort of a blue Hydroid Krasis, has flash, and could punish decks that tutor cards in any way quite severely.

Because it is also a beater with evasion and can go into play at any stage of the game and do something, I believe it deserves a shoutout. Maybe it could have a little more potential in a Historic where fetch lands are a reality.

Day of Black Sun is another removal for monoblack decks. It can destroy indestructible creatures, go over protection like ward and hexproof, and also stop effects that trigger when a creature dies.

Mai, Scornful Striker is basically a black Magebane Lizard. The fact that she is a Human, legendary card means she should be an excellent option in aggro lists centered around those card types. Furthermore, Mai has first strike and is a 2-drop, so she can go into many decks centered around creatures in general.

Firebender Ascension is quite interesting, as it lets us get a lot from effects that trigger when a creature attacks. This could be great in Boros Energy and similar, that is, archetypes that already play several creatures with combat abilities.

The Firebending token could let you play extra spells in certain turns or accelerate certain spells and has a lot of synergy with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker when you copy it. I believe this card will find space in some lists.

Now Historic finally has its own Blood Moon, and it's a 2/2 beater with menace. Zhao, the Moon Slayer is the perfect hate against decks that play a greedy mana base and a decent attacker as well. Initially, he'll delay the opponent by making their nonbasic lands come in tapped, but afterward we can use his second ability to turn him into a Blood Moon with legs.

We'll need to spend some extra time deckbuilding to use his second ability, but it's definitely doable. His main effect is already reason enough to use him.

Ramp is one of the most popular mechanics in Historic, and Badgermole Cub is a great mana dork. We'll basically use two mana to put in play a creature that will turn one of our lands into a creature and also let us use our creatures to ramp (a land with earthbend can create two mana with Badgermole in play, and the same goes for the other mana dorks). I'd be pretty surprised if this card didn't see any play.

Great Divide Guide is also quite interesting when the matter is the mana curve. He lets us play spells of any color from our deck and also has synergy with Ally creatures, which this set has plenty of. We could build an entire archetype around them, in fact.

Earth King’s Lieutenant is another Ally that will support a deck centered around this creature type. His ability is basically the same as Thalia's Lieutenant, but it centers around Allies instead. His mana cost demands a Selesnya base, but we can easily go around this restriction.

Aang, at the Crossroads is one of the most interesting multicolored creatures in this set. He lets you get another creature from the top five cards in your deck and put them in play. That already enables a few very interesting interactions, particularly with creatures that go into play and copy another, like Spark Double. We can essentially create a Cascade effect with him.

His second ability interacts really well with blink effects and lets you transform him. A few decks that lean on blink effects could easily transform Aang, but I'd like to see how he does in Neoform lists with Abhorrent Oculus in particular.

What do you think? Tell us your thoughts in our comment section below.

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!