Pioneer: 7 Decks with Avatar: The Last Airbender to try out!

Avatar is here! The cards from the Magic: The Gathering collaboration with Nickelodeon arrived on the MTGArena and Magic Online digital platforms, giving players the freedom to explore new mechanics and interactions.

As usual, we've prepared decklists for various Magic formats using cards from the latest set, and today we present seven Pioneer decks with Avatar to try out with the set's release!

Mono Red Punishers

Between the banning of Heartfire Hero which weakened the mouse package, and the release of Zhao, the Moon Slayer, it might be a good time to test new approaches to Mono Red Aggro — and in this list, we're betting on a "hatebear" theme to punish the opponent for their actions.

Razorkin Needlehead punishes cards like Treasure Cruise, Fable of the Mirror-Breaker, and Unholy Annex, while Cemetery Gatekeeper can exile a card from the graveyard and deal damage whenever an exiled type is cast, allowing for effective hate against instants and sorceries, and Eidolon of the Great Revel punishes low-cost, cheap-interaction spells—all eventually culminating in a Sunspine Lynx to finish the game.

Bant Allies

Most of Avatar's Allies are also Human, allowing us to merge both strategies in one place by combining Thalia's Lieutenant with Earth King's Lieutenant and Mockingbird to have several effects that put +1/+1 counters on our creatures.

Regarding interactions between allies, most of our cards have a relevant ETB effect that can be copied with Katara, the Fearless, which doubles the potential of Aang, Swift Savior and Ty Lee, Chi Blocker in removing blockers from the path to a lethal attack.

As a bonus, we have card advantage with South Pole Voyager and protection with Earth Kingdom Protectors, in addition to enabling more explosive turns with Collected Company.

Esper Human-Legends

Aang, Swift Savior is perhaps one of the most powerful Avatar cards for Pioneer and seems like a good reason to experiment with new Legends variants in Esper colors, where we complement it with the famous package of Cecil, Dark Knight, Zack Fair and Kytheon, Hero of Akros with Mox Amber to ramp our three-drops.

We also experimented with the "combo" of Mai, Scornful Striker and Thalia, Guardian of Thraben to punish the opponent for playing non-creature spells, which makes a considerable difference if we sequence them together with Adeline, Resplendent Cathar to establish a fast and efficient clock.

Boros Firebender Ascension

More geared towards casual play, Firebender Ascension is the easiest to enable from Avatar's new enchantment cycle and the one that generates the most value once you have enough counters: Voice of Victory now creates four tokens on attack, Hired Claw and Scorch Spitter inflict a Shock each time they attack, and Bomat Courier exiles two cards per attack, increasing the amount of card advantage when you sacrifice it.

We seek to merge these interactions with Fable of the Mirror-Breaker and Smuggler’s Copter for a Reanimator subtheme with Raise the Past, which will reuse all creatures in the list if they are destroyed and enable potential lethal damage in an attack with Arabella, Abandoned Doll.

Mono Red Firebender Goblins

In this version, we try to use Firebender Ascension with the attack triggers of Goblin Piledriver and Goblin Rabblemaster to pressure the opponent in a list dedicated to Goblins, where ideally we will have enough creatures for Legion Loyalist to turn them into bombs capable of winning the game in a single attack when their triggers are doubled with the enchantment's ability.

I believe this list is far from ideal, but it's a good first step to explore the possibilities with Goblin Piledriver in Pioneer and, who knows, force its inclusion on Magic Arena.

Badgermole Nykthos

Badgermole Cub has the same ability as Leyline of Abundance, which was banned from Pioneer years ago due to the enchantment's interaction with Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx.

Although it doesn't have the same green mana cost to add to devotion, there are few decks that run eight dorks and can take advantage of the new creature to generate more mana, since most archetypes with Llanowar Elves and Elvish Mystic today are more focused on interaction with Collected Company and therefore don't want to raise their mana curve too much.

So we use the card alongside the already structured Nykthos Ramp core to amplify the value generated by the mana dorks while, on its own, Badgermole Cub also guarantees another dork to generate , making it easier to cast Storm the Festival even without a Nykthos in play.

Dimir Midrange

In the competitive environment, Raven Eagle and Wan Shi Tong, Librarian are relevant improvements for Dimir Midrange that interact directly with the engines of Quantum Riddler and/or Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and make it easier to Ninjutsu Kaito, Bane of Nightmares.

As a bonus, The Unagi of Kyoshi Island seems like a card that deserves some testing as a one-of or in the sideboard: its ability triggers with so many things that see a lot of play in the format that it's impossible not to extract value from it, and its draws trigger both Sheoldred, the Apocalypse and Raven Eagle, creating more synergy in the list.

That's all for today!

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

Thank you for reading!