One of the most anticipated sets of 2025 finally got an official First Look, and we got a lot more than many players may have expected. Avatar: The Last Airbender has introduced the core Avatar group for the set, and has finally shed some light on what all of the Bending means on Avatar Aang. What’s perhaps unexpected, however, is that the most powerful card amongst all of the core Avatar characters is Momo.
Momo, Friendly Flier
Momo has the potential to see both Constructed and Commander play. The card itself represents an overarching Limited archetype in the Avatar set: Flying matters. Momo can both reduce casting costs for future fliers and temporarily gets more powerful when Fliers enter play. As a one-drop, Momo is absolutely absurd.
There are a bunch of constructed decks that Momo slots into perfectly, and they increase in speed significantly for doing so. Pioneer Spirits, in particular, can unlock some truly absurd plays with a turn one Momo. This unlocks a turn two Spell Queller, or allows you to double-spell Rattlechains or Supreme Phantom on turn three.
Momo also plays exceptionally well with the Flying themes from Bloomburrow. For Standard legal frequent fliers, a turn two Aven Interruptor can be absolutely devastating to play against. Mockingbird also plays exceptionally well with Momo, allowing you to copy any creature in play for a discount. The card works wonders in Alchemy Bat decks, as well. I would prepare to see Momo across competitive MTG formats.
Sokka, Bold Boomeranger
While Sokka may be a fan-favorite Avatar character, Standard players may end up hating this card pretty quickly. Sokka slots perfectly into existing Vivi Cauldron and Oculus strategies. The card gets bigger when casting artifacts, and generates the discard and draw that power all of the archetype’s core pieces like Agatha’s Soul Cauldron and Proft’s Eidetic Memory. Sokka is even in the perfect colors for this strategy in Standard, and could see play in older formats thanks to being a cheap rummage outlet that doubles as a threat.
Kethis Combo in Modern, for example, may be interested in Sokka, Bold Boomeranger. Kethis can exile Sokka to his triggers, and Sokka helps you both find your combo pieces and powers your graveyard. He could even be interesting enough to see play in Dredge-style decks in eternal formats like Legacy. You can both discard your Dredge piece and replace your draw with a Dredge effect.
This is yet another card I would expect to see a lot of. Sokka, Bold Boomeranger fits into any deck interested in using the graveyard, and a lot of those decks seem to be viable. The last thing Vivi Cauldron needed was to become even more efficient, but Sokka does offer that to the deck.
Aang’s Iceberg
Aang’s Iceberg introduces us to the new mechanic, Waterbending. This basically offers abilities that can be paid by tapping creatures and artifacts in addition to paying mana, functioning similarly to a mix between Convoke and Improvise.
Aang’s Iceberg is rather interesting as a card. You can use this as both a slightly better Banishing Light, but it can also be a flicker option to repeat powerful enters triggers. Neither of these modes are particularly powerful, however, especially if you don’t have creatures and artifacts to help with the Flicker mode of the card. If you need catch-all removal, then thanks to Flash, Aang’s Iceberg can be decent but outside of that, this card is not the most powerful.
Redirect Lightning
Lessons are coming back for the first time since they first appeared in Strixhaven! For reference, Lessons can be fetched from your sideboard with Learn effects that appear on other spells, and considering that, Redirect Lightning seems very strong, indeed.
This is already powerful enough to be interesting for Commander players. Deflecting Swat sees lots of play and while this card will never be free to cast, one mana is a very good cost for this card. Five life doesn’t matter too much in that format, either.
This card can be a bit too specific for Standard, but the idea of using this as a Lesson allows you to play it in the sideboard, grabbing it when it will create value in a specific matchup. This card seems exceptionally powerful, all things considered.
The Rise of Sozin
Sagas that flip into creatures from Kamigawa: Neon Dynasty are returning, and it’s a great way to introduce Sozin, the past Firelord who started the entire war that Avatar: The Last Airbender takes place during.
As a card, The Rise of Sozin is not only flavorful, but it’s incredibly powerful. Destroying all creatures, alone, makes this an interesting card for Commander. The Surgical Extraction effect on the second mode makes this an interesting option against combo decks, but it might be too slow for it to work in practice.
Sozin, as a creature, is also very powerful, but it takes a long time to get him online. The payoff, in theory, is worth it, but your opponents will have a lot of time to try and deal with it. That said, when considering that this is a payoff to a boardwipe, Sozin turns into straight value, even if it does just end up eating a removal spell.
If you manage to attack with Sozin, you threaten to reanimate all of the creatures that you wiped with The Rise of Sozin’s first mode. That allows this card to double as both a board wipe and a win condition, meaning that it has tons of Commander potential, and some constructed potential, as well.
Toph, the First Metalbender
Toph begs players to try and break Magic. The idea of artifacts triggering landfall and tapping for mana has absolutely game-breaking implications. This alone will likely mean that Toph will see a lot of Commander demand, and could become a build-around in constructed formats if the interactions are strong enough.
Toph also introduces Earthbending, which seems like a particularly interesting mechanic amongst the bending techniques. This allows you to turn lands into creatures, but the biggest downside to this has been circumvented. Instead of those lands dying if hit by removal, they will come back to play tapped. This means Earthbending functions similarly to a repetitive token generator, but if you spread your Earthbending too thinly, it could take up too many lands. All in all, Toph, the First Metalbender will likely become an interesting Commander to try and break.
Appa, Steadfast Guardian
Appa is an incredibly iconic character in the show, and his card likely means that he will be appearing at many players’ tables. Introducing Airbending, Appa functions absurdly well in decks that want to Flicker things. You can also use Appa to re-cast cards like Solitude for a much cheaper cost. Thanks to Flash, you can even Airbend the Solitude in response to its Evoke trigger. Notably, Airbending has to cast cards for two mana, even if its mana value is less than that.
Appa offers a lot of individual value, but he also plays exceptionally well in decks that want to play cards from exile. Creating an army of tokens can easily take over the board and easily allow Appa to become a one-man army. This card doesn’t seem broken by any means, but it’s not hard to generate a ton of value with something like this.
Fire Lord Zuko
This card is a bit difficult to use optimally, but Fire Lord Zuko is quite powerful if you build around it properly. Buffing all of your creatures repetitively is no joke. Couple that with a growing mana source, and all Zuko asks you to do is exile cards that can be cast during combat. Zuko will both cast the spells and offer a strong payoff if you can do that.
That said, this requires some massive deckbuilding restrictions since Zuko is asking for both creatures to buff and cards to cast from exile. As such, the card will likely perform much better in Commander than in Standard, but with the right combination of tools, Fire Lord Zuko could prove to be a powerful payoff if all the other pieces are available.
Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope
Katara, Water Tribe’s Hope wants to go wide with a bunch of creatures and use her Waterbending payoff to swing for tons of damage. For five mana, this creature seems like a mediocre payoff for go wide decks, but this will likely be far too slow in the current Standard metagame. As a result, this will likely be far more useful in Convoke or Token-based Commander decks.
Fated Firepower
Fated Firepower is one of those MTG cards that offers exponential value instead of doing something on its own. As such, unless Fated Firepower ends up being a core piece of an efficient combo, this is already relegated to Commander. It is very difficult to produce value with a card like this consistently in a constructed setting where removal is so efficient, but in slower games of Commander, Fated Firepower can create some absolutely disgusting combos. Using this card with Black Magic Wizard shenanigans from Final Fantasy, for example, can end a game of Commander very quickly.
Hakoda, Selfless Commander
If you haven’t noticed, Allies are returning to MTG in Avatar: The Last Airbender. If you’re interested in building an Ally deck, perhaps helmed by the new Katara, the Fearless, Hakoda, Selfless Commander will be a necessary piece of that deck. Offering Ally Typal card advantage while doubling as an anti-board-wipe tool, Hakoda will do a lot of work in any deck that can consistently use his casting ability. This card should be relatively popular as players start building Ally Commander decks.
Sokka’s Haiku
This is an absolute gem in the flavor department, but as a card, Sokka’s Haiku is certainly relegated to Limited, with perhaps one exception. If a strong Lesson is introduced for control strategies, like Divide by Zero, for example, Sokka’s Haiku could pop up as a Lesson option for decks that can use it consistently. This card really excites me for other potential flavor wins in the set.
Earthbending Lesson
As a Lesson, Earthbending Lesson isn’t that bad. You’ll essentially get a 4/4 with Haste for four mana most of the time, which isn’t bad as an additional payoff to another card. This certainly seems like a card that every Limited green deck will want for Avatar, but even some constructed decks may consider it depending on what other Lessons are available.
Fire Nation Attacks
Fire Nation Attacks seems like a card that an Avatar crossover would not be complete without, but as a card, Fire Nation Attacks is just ok. Five mana is a lot for two understatted creatures, even at instant speed. They can make Flashing Back Fire Nation attacks a bit easier, but that’s still a ton of mana to spend on a card. This will likely be a card reserved for Limited.