Each of the four main Avatar: The Last Airbender MTG mechanics is incredibly flavorful and powerful. Building around Airbending, Earthbending, Firebending, or Waterbending in Commander seems like a real blast. Out of these four mechanics, however, there is a clear frontrunner as Earthbending enables no end of shenanigans.
Curiously, while this mechanic offers tons of utility in Commander and constructed formats, it’s not all good news. It turns out, if you Earthbend the wrong land, you might end up playing yourself. This is all thanks to a forgotten MTG removal spell from way back in 1999: Eradicate.
MTG Eradicate
On the surface, Eradicate is just okay. For four mana, you get to exile a nonblack creature and all other copies not on the board. In theory, if you use this right, you can completely remove an opponent’s win con, leaving them floundering. Thanks to this, the card sees a small amount of play in Premodern at the moment, but it’s by no means a staple.
Even within this specific niche of obliterating a wincon, Eradicate isn’t the best in class option. Legion’s End can situationally do the same thing, but for cheaper, and sees occasional Pioneer play as a result. The End also offers a similar ability, and is surprisingly popular in Standard at the moment.
As much as cards like Eradicate can have their uses in MTG, they’re only really good in constructed MTG. In Commander, the singleton rules seriously dampen the effectiveness of cards like Erradicate. Effectively, you’re paying four mana to exile just one creature, which really isn’t that spectacular. Thanks to MTG Avatar, however, you might just be tempted to put this card into your next Commander deck.
Basic Lands or Bust
Thanks to Earthbending, there’s now a lot of potential for Eradicate, and similar MTG cards, to hit lands. This was recently picked up on by CivilizedPsycho on Reddit, who remarked that Eradicate looks for cards, not creatures, outside of the battlefield. This means lands are very much on the table, provided you can target them in the first place.
In the ideal scenario, you can use Eradicate to exile most of your opponent’s lands from their deck. Worryingly, this isn’t even hard to do, especially if your opponent is playing an Avatar-themed deck. Simply wait for them to Earthbend a land, turning it into a creature, and hit it with Eradicate. This will then remove all copies of that land from their deck, which is devastating if you hit a basic.
Ideally, if you manage to use Eradicate on turn four, or even sooner, your opponent essentially can’t play Magic anymore. Not having one type of basic land in your deck anymore is a hell of a blow, after all. Potentially, against a mono colored opponent, you might be able to remove the majority of mana sources from their deck.
As if this synergy wasn’t strong enough already, Eradicate’s downside doesn’t even matter here. Since all lands are innately colorless, even when animated, you freely target any Earthbended land. Unfortunately, while this all sounds good so far, the reality of maximizing this synergy is a lot easier said than done.
Basic Deck Construction
No matter what format you’re playing, MTG players rarely only use basic lands in their decks. This is especially true in Commander, where the majority of decks are multicolored and have tons of fixing. Even monocolored decks are loaded with non-basic utility lands nowadays, making this synergy’s potential dubious at best.
Realistically, even if you manage to hit an Earthbended basic land with Eradicate, your opponent won’t be down for the count. That said, this combo is still equally heinous and hilarious, so it’s hard not to get excited about the possibility. Even with that in mind, however, the odds of it happening in Commander are minimal.
Thankfully, building an Eradicate-centric Commander deck and waiting for the right opportunity to arise isn’t the only option at the moment. Thanks to The End being Standard legal, there’s a non-zero chance you can pull this shenanigan off in that format. Admittedly, it’ll only really work against a Mono-Green deck with Earthbending, but technically, the dream is still alive.
Even outside of a Mono-Green deck, this synergy can still be devastating, but it’s not exactly advised. While you could effectively remove a color from your opponent’s deck, you’re unlikely to get obscene value. Still, for the sheer gall of the meme alone, we’re half tempted to dedicate a couple of sideboard slots to it.
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