Prerelease events for Magic’s Avatar: The Last Airbender set kick off today, meaning players can finally check out some of the wild new cards it has to offer. While the main set is where most of the action is, it’s important not to forget about Avatar Jumpstart. There are plenty of MTG bangers here, too, including The Blue Spirit, a card with potential in a wide range of Commander decks.
As a standalone card advantage engine, this card does a fine job. It also plays nicely in a lot of specific archetypes, too, proving itself surprisingly synergistic. In fact, the card seems specifically tailored to support next year’s TMNT set. While we won’t get to sample its new cards properly until March next year, The Blue Spirit is an ideal way to get the Ninja party started early.
The Blue Spirit MTG
The Blue Spirit is an MTG card that looks underwhelming at first, but plays a lot better than it reads. Take that first ability, for instance. Despite the one-creature Flash limitation per turn, you can still Flash in four creatures per turn cycle in Commander. Since you’ll rarely be casting more than that anyway, the card is essentially a more specific High Fae Trickster at a base level.
The Blue Spirit’s draw ability is also deceptively powerful. The Flash ability negates a lot of the downside enforced by the combat timing, but, more importantly, this also triggers during your opponent’s combats. Even if you just stick to one creature per turn, this can get you four cards a turn cycle.
These abilities are good enough on their own that you don’t really need specific synergies to make The Blue Spirit work. If you’re in blue, and you play a good amount of creatures, you can probably find a spot for this. That said, the card will definitely shine in some decks more than others. Draw-Go Control lists, which like to hold up interaction every turn, will naturally appreciate being able to hold up creatures as well. They’ll also enjoy the card advantage aspect a great deal. Additionally, creature-heavy Tempo lists, which risk running out of gas in the mid to late game, will be able to use this as a potent engine to avoid such a fate.
Mechanical Mastery
Of course, as with most MTG cards, The Blue Spirit gets a lot better if you really lean into what it offers. In the 99 of various popular Commander strategies, the card can offer a major boost.
Ninjutsu is, by far, the best example. Every creature you Ninjutsu in gets you another draw, making Ninja staples like Ninja of the Deep Hours even better. Since Ninjutsu also returns creatures to your hand, you could easily end up holding too many cards with this, in fact, which opens up the door to run more free interaction like Force of Negation and Commandeer.
In a nice flavor win, The Blue Spirit also plays really well with Avatar’s new Firebending mechanic. You can spend the red mana generated through it on a Flash creature each turn, which solves the issue of figuring out how to use it efficiently. The card will be particularly good in Fire Lord Azula Commander decks, since she offers both Firebending for mana and the ability to copy your Flash creatures, and therefore your card draw, on your turn.
Blink decks are another ideal home for The Blue Spirit. With cheap blink effects, like Ephemerate and Ghostly Flicker, you can have a ton of creatures enter during combat to draw more cards. Brago, King Eternal decks will also have an absolute field day with this card. Since Brago can blink your entire board during combat on your turn, you can reliably pick up a new grip of cards every cycle. That’s not counting any Flash shenanigans you get up to on opponents’ turns, either.
A Bit Of Foreshadowing
The Blue Spirit should make a great addition to a whole bunch of Commander decks immediately on release. It’s also a card that should gain a lot of value in the near future, however. Based on what we know about the TMNT set so far, The Blue Spirit will complement its new cards very nicely indeed.
The new Sneak mechanic is the big reason why. We’ve seen this on a couple of TMNT cards already, and it’s very much a fixed Ninjutsu. Wizards has hinted at a bit of a “permanents leaving play” theme with Super Shredder as well, so this could easily be a major focus of the set.
Nothing is certain at this stage, but I’d put money on The Blue Spirit gaining a ton of traction with the release of TMNT. If you’re planning to invest in that set yourself, this is an early pick up you won’t regret making. Even if it doesn’t work out come March, the card is so solid in general that you’ll certainly find a home for it somewhere.
Stick with us here at mtgrocks.com: the best site for Magic: The Gathering coverage. Be sure to check out our deckbuilder for your next big brew!