Commander Deck Tech: Ozai, the Phoenix King

The scariest villain in all of Avatar: The Last Airbender was, without a question, Fire Lord Ozai.

Throughout the 61 episodes of the animated series, we saw the consequences of the actions of this leader and the efforts Avatar Aang put in to not be captured by him, all at the same time.

In this article, we'll show you two Commander lists with Ozai, the Phoenix King. The main one is more fun and casual, with several activated abilities so you can use the mana firebend creates. The second one is stronger, with many "X" spells to end the game as fast as possible with powerful burn.

Before we go into them, let's meet our commander.

Ozai was the Fire Lord during the final years of the Hundred Year War, when the Fire Nation went through an industrial and technological boom.

Just like his father and grandfather, Ozai wanted to "conquer" the other nations and spared no effort when repressing those who opposed his advances.

In this list, we play the Rakdos Ozai, a 7/7 creature with trample, firebending 4, and haste. Unlike other creatures with firebending, Ozai lets us save the mana we'd usually lose and makes it red instead. This means we can use this mana on a future step or turn.

When we have 6 or more unspent mana, Ozai also flies and is indestructible.

This expensive, scary commander has a lot of keywords.

The strongest build for this commander is, without a question, the one centered around "X" spells. As he lets us keep the mana we'd normally lose for future phases and turns, we can easily get the support we need to hoard mana and end the game with a big Exsanguinate, for instance.

However, when I talked to other players and showed them these lists, they thoughtfully reminded me of a critical concept in Commander: not every deck needs to be powerful or optimized to be fun.

The main list we'll explore in this article is closer to a Bracket 2 list, as it centers around using the activated abilities on your permanents to do several things, like a toolbox list.

Let's see it:

Creating Mana

Because this commander is so expensive, we'll bet on cost reducers and mana rocks to cast him as fast as possible.

This list also plays creatures that let us keep mana in between phases, so, even when we can't put Ozai in play, we'll be able to do it.

In this strategy, we must hoard mana in between phases. After all, this list plays many firebenders:

Besides them, Sozin's Comet deserves a shoutout because it gives firebending 5 to each of our creatures until the end of our turn. This is a pretty good way to "boost" our mana!

As usual, this list also plays Doubling Cube, an artifact whose activated ability doubles each type of unrested mana under our control.

Activated Abilities

Most firebenders have an activated ability that lets us do something with the mana firebending creates. However, our list will use this extra mana for other effects as well.

Fire Lord Ozai, for instance, lets us sacrifice something when it attacks to get red mana equal to the power of the creature we sacrificed. For a total of 6 mana, this card also lets us exile the top card in each of the opponents's decks and play it for free until the end of the turn.

With the few support cards we mentioned before, like Sozin's Comet, Doubling Cube, or even the commander himself, we can activate this ability with just the mana we create during combat.

Another way to sacrifice cards in this list is Ayara, Widow of the Realm. When we transform her, she'll return to the board, with haste, an artifact or creature from the graveyard. At the beginning of the final phase, she'll exile that artifact or creature.

Abilities we can activate at any moment are perfect for this list, but our dear Orthion, Hero of Lavabrink has also found his place with Ozai. He'll create copies of our creatures, but at sorcery speed.

We can all agree Boast is a very fun ability that should come up more in new sets and fits firebending perfectly.

In this list, we play Arni Brokenbrow, who buffs himself until the end of the turn, and Varragoth, Bloodsky Sire, a demon that works as a tutor, as he puts the card we pick on the top of our deck.

Burn

Besides the activated abilities above, this list also uses a few "X" spells that are great with Ozai's ability and that we can use to remove creatures or burn opponents.

If you're struggling to end the game or are very behind and need a spell to get a small advantage, you can use Exsanguinate and Torment of Hailfire, which can also be win conditions.

One of the most iconic Vampires in Innistrad is also in this list.

Olivia Voldaren deals damage to another creature and becomes a Vampire. Next, you can use her second ability to gain control of a target Vampire for as long as you control Olivia.

Extra Combats

Obviously, we had to add at least a few of the many red extra combat

cards in MTG.

Please note that these cards are great with Ozai, the Phoenix King and other firebenders in this list precisely because of their firebending.

Our second list is a bit less friendly and more competitive. It plays more instants and sorceries, as well as staples like Demonic Tutor, Reanimate, Savage Beating, and Necropotence.

With this list, we don't have to solve for X. Instead, we'll use X to deal damage, draw cards, clear the board, and even buff our creatures.

Ozai, the Phoenix King is a scary creature. We have lots of ways to get the most out of his firebending as well as make him fly and indestructible for a long time, considering his ability also works in the opponents's turns.

We can't ignore this fearsome Fire Lord is a 7/7 who kills opponents with just a few attacks. Please note that he also comes in with haste, so he can attack on the same turn we cast him.

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

Thank you for reading, and see you next time!