We’re finally at the end of the MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender spoiler season, but that doesn’t mean that the reveals have slowed down quite yet. Many of the set’s competitive hopefuls were spoiled rather early on, but powerful Commander cards never really left the spotlight. On the last day of MTG Avatar spoilers, one of the most exciting cards from the set for Commander was revealed. Going infinite with Ko, the Face Stealer is extremely easy, so long as you have a way to assemble all the faces you need.
Ko, the Face Stealer
Koh offers a threat, removal, and an infinite combo outlet all on one body. This is extremely powerful in any setting, but the high mana value of the legendary creature may hold it back in constructed. Commander, however, is a completely different story.
On top of exiling the scariest creature in play, Koh can shut down any graveyard shenanigans your opponent may have, thanks to its triggered ability. This won’t stop death triggers from working, but it will prevent any reanimation shenanigans and allow Koh to gain any activated or triggered abilities that the card has.
To date, Koh is the only MTG creature that can gain the activated and triggered abilities of multiple creatures at the same time. You will need to switch between them, meaning that your infinite loops will be limited by how much life you have, but if you assemble the right combinations, you should still be able to gain insurmountable advantages.
Combining Skirge Familiar and Asmodeus, the Archfiend, for example, should easily be enough to win the game. You can discard cards in your hand to make black mana, and spend three of it to draw seven cards. You’ll be netting four cards or mana for two life, which should win the game easily in Commander. This combo can even be pulled off with Koh, the Face Stealer in the Command Zone.
There are 50 or more different near-infinite combos that Koh, the Face Stealer can pull off, making this an extremely scary creature to face down. Koh can pull off almost every combo Necrotic Ooze can, but with an extra life cost attached. Necrotic Ooze can only copy activated abilities as well, meaning Koh is capable of even more than we could imagine. Swapping to a card like Sheoldred, the Apocalypse, for example, with other draw-based activated abilities on the stack completely nullifies the lifegain downside that Koh has.
Toph, Hardheaded Teacher
Toph, Hardheaded Teacher is one of the most accessible Earthbending outlets we’ve seen yet. Capable of animating or growing a land every time you cast a spell, in a focused strategy, you can assemble a massive mana advantage with a little elbow grease. Combine Toph with a sacrifice outlet like Phyrexian Altar and something that allows your fallen Earthbended creatures to re-enter untapped, like Spelunking, can create a massive burst of mana by sacrificing your Earthbended lands. You can use this synergy to create a sudden burst of mana to cheat a big spell in ahead of time. You could alternatively try Toph in a spellslinging deck, abusing cards like Consider to trigger her over and over again.
With this in mind, the biggest monkey wrench in Toph’s effectiveness is her color identity. Cantrips are at their best in blue, while Gruul is severely limited in options in this department. This makes running Toph as a Commander tricky, and means that not every spellslinger Commander will be able to include her. Despite this, Toph, Hardheaded Teacher is worth going out of your way for if the deck has any synergies with her. At worst, Toph will be able to fetch your best used instant and sorcery on entry while creating a board presence, which is still plenty strong in the right deck.
Phoenix Fleet Airship
Phoenix Fleet Airship is one of the less flashy mythics in MTG Avatar, but in the right deck, it can still do a lot of damage. To make this card worth its weight, you need to be triggering Phoenix Fleet Airship on every single end step you can. Each time you do this, your job gets easier, as each token copy will have this trigger too. Ideally, this only means you need to trigger Phoenix Fleet Airship three times.
Three turns can be too long even in a game of Commander, but there are some ways to speed things up. Using token doublers like Parallel Lives will get the Airship going a turn quicker. Combine that with creating additional copies ahead of time, with cards like Clever Impersonator, you can even create eight Airships on the same turn you cast it.
Since you need to sacrifice permanents every turn and have a token theme attached for this card to be effective, Phoenix Fleet Airship is certainly pandering to a niche. That said, these decks are actually a lot more common than they may seem since artifact tokens are extremely popular in MTG. Decks with Treasure, Food, or Clue token themes all want to sacrifice permanents and care about token doubling, making Phoenix Fleet Airship a potent tool in those decks. Once this card gets rolling, board wipes are the only real way to stop it.
Tons of Commander Potential
All of these MTG Avatar cards are a bit too expensive for constructed, but they have the potential to create truly explosive plays when given more time and resources to shine. Koh, the Face Stealer, in particular, can go in almost any Commander deck that has an activated or triggered ability theme, which is almost anything under the sun.
This may be the end of MTG Avatar spoiler season, but the cards above only scratch the surface of what’s possible for the set. This crossover looks like an absolute all-timer, primed to take over multiple MTG formats.
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