Pauper Set Review - Avatar: The Last Airbender

The previews for Avatar: The Last Airbender have come to an end. The collection will be released on digital platforms in the coming weeks, when Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph, and the other iconic characters from the famous Nickelodeon franchise arrive at competitive and casual Magic: The Gathering tables.

With the end of the spoilers, we begin our set reviews for the main formats of the card game, and in this article, we address the new features for Pauper, where both the cards from the main set and the commons from the JumpStart boosters will be legal.

Curious Farm Animals is a… curious card.

Direct comparisons involve Haywire Mite, which is a staple in formats like Modern and Legacy due to the creature's interaction with Urza’s Saga, which can search for it in the deck and put it directly into play as a response against artifacts or enchantments with lifegain.

The new card doesn't have the same ease of access in Pauper, and costs one more mana to get the same result as Mite, but it may deserve slots in the Sideboard of white decks as a one-drop that punishes Red Aggro if it dies while also dealing with a Myr Enforcer or another troublesome card in the same slot.

Potentially the best card in the set for Pauper.

Sandbender’s Storm could be an option in Ephemerate decks, since we can use it as removal against larger creatures, or an effective win condition with the Bridges.

Watery Grasp seems to be the only blue card worth mentioning for Pauper in this set, and even then, it will have a lot of work to prove its potential. However, permanently dealing with a creature through Waterbending may have some uses in Faeries.

Callous Inspector can be a bit risky in very aggressive Metagame, but the combination of a body with Menace and the creation of an artifact token when it dies transforms it into a potential "draw 3" with Reckoner’s Bargain and similar cards, even if it requires a higher mana investment in the long run. Worth some testing.

Canyon Crawler is a Generous Ent in black with a slightly higher Cycling cost. It might be worth a few slots if you want to combine it with Exhume, or in black midrange lists that aim to go to the late game but don't want to run Generous Ent or a splash instead of another color.

Honorable mention. Dai Li Indoctrination trades the breadth of Pilfer for the same potential that other cards have to transform Bridges and Darksteel Citadel into indestructible creatures — but in this case, Earthbending 2 seems too easy to play around to deserve any slots in Affinity or similar decks.

If Allies has any chance of emerging in Pauper, Treetop Freedom Fighters guarantees two triggers of Ondu Cleric and Halimar Excavator for the cost of one card and three mana.

Origin of Metalbending is probably too slow for Pauper, but modal cards that offer something that decks usually unconditionally need with another effect that is quite popular in the Metagame shouldn't be ignored.

The times when trying to play a colorless Tron deck required a card like Zuko’s Exile are over, due to the ease of access to colored mana that the archetype now has with Prophetic Prism, but it deserves an honorable mention.

Barrels of Blasting Jelly, on the other hand, might deserve some testing due to its mix of mana fixing potential and the ability to deal with Cryptic Serpent or Tolarian Terror with the same card.

That's all for today!

If you have any questions, feel free to leave a comment!

Thank you for reading!