General [TLA/TLE] [UB] Avatar: The Last Airbender

We won't get 30+ Aangs I hope. But I don't mind getting a few different versions of key characters, especially in UB sets. Just makes it more likely to find a fitting one for any given cube. If there was only one Toph, it would probably be too powerful and I couldn't cube my favorite character. Now we got four versions and one is an actual good fit for the CCC.
 
What is the difference between the two set symbols?
Who is the least legendary creature in all of Magic?
It’s Aang or Spider-Man yes?
There’s only one instance of her being a creature, but there are 21 cards for Chandra.

I’m not sure, but it looks as if Ashling and Squee are the creatures with the most unique cards, at 4 each (though Squee also has a Vanguard card).
 
Who even likes these "source material" cards? Even when they choose less ridiculous images, it just looks weird to have rules text with black outlines hovering in the weirdest spots.
It's a mixed bag. TV stills like Spongebob / Avatar all look pretty awful to me (and I love Avatar). Cruel Tutor looks especially bad with the closeup on Ozai's face. I really should've been Ozai walking up to Zuko while Zuko was on his knees during their Agni Kai.

As far as source material cards goes, all the Final Fantasy ones featuring Yoshitaka Amano's work are all bangers in my book. There's also some Spider-Man ones that I really like.

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A part of me considered adding lessons to my cube, but then I remembered how barren the learn options are.


This is the spoiled card I like the most so far, fun little tempo card that does fun things with blink spells and can set up surprise lethal.


I kind of like this card, I'd love to play more temporary black reanimation, but I really don't want to have a singleton waterbending card.


I'm very curious about how good this is in actual practice. Blue has gotten a fair amount of card-draw payoffs I like recently, and I think they're a bit less demanding on your deck construction, although I do like that this is a one-drop. I kind of wish it was designed a bit more like Sleep-Cursed Faerie that keyed off drawing extra cards instead of mana.
 
Actually, the Spongebob Ones were all peices of art commissioned to copy the style of the animated series. They were illustrated by artist Tyler Walpole, who will be at the Shoebox Cube event in March!
Ah, I didn't know that, thanks for pointing that out. I always just assumed they were stills. I was never a SpongeBob person, but based on what I've been exposed to just on memes alone makes it look like a still on first glance. The fidelity at least looks better than what I've seen on the Avatar stills.
 
One very interesting spoiler from this small leak.

Professor Zei, Anthropologist {U/R}{U/R}
Legendary Creature — Human Advisor Ally
{T}, Discard a card: Draw a card.
{1}, {T}, Sacrifice this creature: Return target instant or sorcery card from your graveyard to your hand. Activate only during your turn.
0/3


Reading this I was excpecting the second ability to add some weird lesson trinket text, but no, it's a perfect signpost for my izzet spell madness archetype.
 
I honestly like both of the three-mana Waterbending sorceries they've spoiled so far, and kinda hope we get a white one.



Also, I'd like to make an appreciative comment about how WotC didn't make the mistake of having each element be a single color. That's 100% what I would expect out of a fan-made Avatar set, and I'm glad WotC actually decided to design this as a real set.
 
Also, I'd like to make an appreciative comment about how WotC didn't make the mistake of having each element be a single color. That's 100% what I would expect out of a fan-made Avatar set, and I'm glad WotC actually decided to design this as a real set.
At least in terms of their mechanical representation they are so far extremely disproportionately weighted towards one color, with the exception of Firebreathing appearing in both red and black (kind of ironically since it's the only one with an explicit color association). Every airbending card on scryfall is white, and there's like 2-4 out of 20 cards for waterbending and earthbending that isn't blue or green respectively.
 


Big fan of what they're cooking here ... once you get past the keyword soup.

You could say it's a worse Spell Queller, but it's more a mix of Reflector Mage with some added play to it. I like it better as it actually synergies with WU blink, allowing you to either repeatedly gain value off blinking your own creatures, or repeatedly taxing theirs.

Waterbend will help this flip more often than it looks, especially if you support a go-wide theme in white, an artifacts theme in blue, or just have enough artifact tokens / equipment lying around to basically tap for free.

The backside is a little underwhelming, mostly in that it loses flying, but I see the back as mostly gravy anyway.

For those wondering, there is just barely room to fit waterbending reminder text in here, which IMO is necessary. You can also save a line if you're willing to shorten the airbend reminder text or rewrite the effect without calling it airbending.

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At least in terms of their mechanical representation they are so far extremely disproportionately weighted towards one color, with the exception of Firebreathing appearing in both red and black (kind of ironically since it's the only one with an explicit color association). Every airbending card on scryfall is white, and there's like 2-4 out of 20 cards for waterbending and earthbending that isn't blue or green respectively.

"Earthbending is primarily Green but shows up more broadly in Jund, and cards portraying the Earth Nation are in every color other than Blue" is still way better than "Earth Nation and Earthbending are Green", which is what I'd expect out of an Avatar fan set.

But yeah, I feel like the Airbending thing is going to be a bit of a problem because there's one human airbender in the series, and he's also the Special Boy What Gets To Do All The Elements.
 
"Earthbending is primarily Green but shows up more broadly in Jund, and cards portraying the Earth Nation are in every color other than Blue" is still way better than "Earth Nation and Earthbending are Green", which is what I'd expect out of an Avatar fan set.
as a friend of mine said, I'm really tempted to ask MaRo "if you were designing Avatar (set and also cartoon) from scratch, would you add a fifth Nation to match the five colors of Magic, or would you keep it like Ravnica's 10 color pairs and exactly 9 guilds?"
 
as a friend of mine said, I'm really tempted to ask MaRo "if you were designing Avatar (set and also cartoon) from scratch, would you add a fifth Nation to match the five colors of Magic, or would you keep it like Ravnica's 10 color pairs and exactly 9 guilds?"
I love the 9 guilds of Ravnica. It’s a little weird there isn’t a U/B one, though.

Dimir? What’s Dimir?
 
I love the 9 guilds of Ravnica. It’s a little weird there isn’t a U/B one, though.

Dimir? What’s Dimir?
WotC when UB finally pushes players away.
Dimir... {U}{B}... UB... Universes Beyond...

it all makes sense now

Lazav is now canonically behind the Furby Secret Lair. Didn't peg him as the type, but everybody has their secrets, not least House Dimir.

Ninja turtles... ninjutsu... hmm, this goes deeper than I thought...
 
Dimir has been known for a looooong time. They were only truly secret when the first block was written.
so yes but also no

there was an Arena loading screen tip after War of the Spark that was like "many Ravnicans think the Dimir were destroyed"

how do they keep getting away with it
 
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