The 4 elements involved
With this collaboration between Magic and Avatar, the Last Airbender, the stated objective is to remain faithful to the original material (characters, narrative arcs, staging of elements) while offering playable mechanics in constructed formats. In particular, with the search for authenticity and the transposition of key moments of the series into the cards according to the speakers of the presentation.
The set covers all three Books in the series, allowing you to retrace the journey of Aang, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Zuko, until the final confrontation against the Fire Nation.
To stick to the Avatar universe, Wizards introduces four main keywords, each associated with an element:
- Fire Mastery : Generates red mana that can be used during combat.
- Airbending : Temporarily exiles a permanent to revive it later for two mana.
- Waterbending : allows you to pay certain costs by tapping artifacts or creatures instead of spending mana.
- Earthbending : transforms a land into a creature with +1/+1 counters; the land returns tapped if it is destroyed or exiled.
These mechanics embody the essence of mastery and influence tempo, resource management and field strategies. Other systems are returning or being highlighted, including double-sided Sagas (which become creatures), Lessons, Clue tokens, Reliquaries and the Exhaustion ability already back after its creation this year.
Careful artistic treatment
As is often the case with premium Magic expansions, Wizards of the Coast is banking on great visual diversity with talented artists. We thus have:
- Source cards retracing each episode of the series, with 61 cards numbered by Book and episode.
- Panoramic scenes which recreate the major clashes of the series in several maps.
- Borderless Battle Pose cards, including some Neon variants exclusive to collector booster packs.
- Field observation cards, resembling newspaper pages and cards with an elementary frame, playing on the symbolism of nations.
- Full illustration lands, notably a series dedicated to Appa.
An ultra-collector’s card is already attracting attention, that of the borderless premium Avatar Aang, illustrated by Bryan Konietzko, co-creator of the series. This version only exists in English and only in collector boosters.
In addition to the main expansion, Wizards will also offer a Secret Lair Avatar: The Last Airbender, including exclusive cards inspired in particular by the iconic cabbage seller (a running gag from the series).
All formats of this extension
The expansion will be available through the usual Magic card game products:
- Game Boosters
- Collector Boosters
- Jumpstart Boosters
- Bundle and Commander’s Bundle
- Stage boxes
- Learning Box
Prerelease packs include five game boosters, a Ranked Character booster, a dated Premium promo card, and a Spindown die. Wizards of the Coast also specifies that the TLA (Standard) and TLE (Eternal) codes will coexist on certain products. Additionally, unlike other Infinite Universe collaborations, Avatar is legal in Standard. The goal is to introduce Magic to a potentially wider audience, from the fanbase of the animated series.
The Magic: The Gathering expansion | Avatar: The Last Airbender will be available on November 21 with a week of previews from November 14 to 20.