Yesterday marked the official full release date of Magic’s Avatar: The Last Airbender set. Now, in addition to enjoying the new cards on digital platforms, you can pick them up at your local store, too. For most sets, this moment marks the point where there are no more surprises left on offer. Not so in Avatar’s case, however. Over the past week, a couple of unannounced MTG Avatar promos have come to light. That these promos weren’t revealed by Wizards itself is interesting. What’s even more interesting is that it seems to be part of a new, ongoing trend with promos in recent sets.
The BoxLunch Iroh, Grand Lotus Promo
If you shop at American pop culture retailer BoxLunch, you may well have seen this promo around. Last week, the store put out an Instagram post advertising an Iroh, Grand Lotus promo card, and the conditions necessary to obtain one. Basically, if you spent $50 or more on Magic or Avatar products in-store during yesterday’s set launch, you’d take home this promo. Interestingly, Wizards never mentioned this promo at all in the run-up to the event. Instead, BoxLunch was left to handle all the promotion itself.
In terms of the card itself, Iroh, Grand Lotus is a mixed bag. Value-wise, there’s not a ton of excitement here, as the card is currently sitting at around $0.60 for a base copy. Now that the set is fully out there, chances are it’ll drop lower than that, too. Being a rare in a set packed with so many chase cards will do that to you. On the other hand, this card actually seems to have a good bit of gameplay utility to it. While it didn’t quite make our list, it definitely seems like one of the strongest new Commanders in the set. Three-color legends tend to be popular Commander options, and this one offers a lot of potent text for Spellslinger decks.
On top of that, it could have a place in the upcoming Standard. Some players have been tinkering with a ‘Lesson Storm’ deck in the early days of the format, and Iroh is the centerpiece card in it. If such a deck pops off, then the card stands to gain a ton of value. It’s a big ‘if,’ but it’s very much a possibility in a world where 5-Color Allies seems to be a viable archetype.
The Unannounced Aang, The Last Airbender MTG Promo
The second of today’s unannounced MTG Avatar promos is significantly more mysterious. A couple of days ago, some eagle-eyed players on Reddit noticed that a new treatment for Aang, the Last Airbender had been added to Magic’s official card database, Gatherer. Like the Iroh promo above, this one received no fanfare from Wizards at all. Unlike the Iroh promo, its distribution method hasn’t been announced anywhere else, either.
This leaves a wide range of possibilities open. This new Aang could be given out at a specific store, in a similar vein to the BoxLunch promotion. Alternatively, it could be a promo given out at an upcoming MTG event. We saw Katara, the Fearless handed out at San Diego ComicCon back in July. Similarly, Sokka, Bold Boomeranger was distributed at MagicCon Atlanta in late September. As another of the show’s main characters, it’d make sense for Aang to get the same treatment as these two.
However Wizards chooses to hand it out, this promo is, unfortunately, pretty unexciting. The original card is an uncommon in the main set, worth just $0.06 right now. It’s clearly a card geared for Limited more so than constructed, and as such, it’s just too overcosted for consideration in most decks. One place it might see play is in Commander, as extra redundancy for infinite Airbending combos. Outside of that, however, players are just going to rely on Aang, Swift Savior and Appa, Steadfast Guardian for their superior power and utility.
An Intriguing Trend
On their own, these new promos are a fun post-release surprise. When considered in the wider context of recent Magic as a whole, however, they indicate a fascinating new trend. Looking back at Spider-Man, we actually saw something similar happen with a promo in that set. The Peter Parker//Amazing Spider-Man Borderless promo, with art from Randy Gallegos, was also unveiled without a clear distribution source.
Eventually, the mystery was solved when players picked up the promo at Disney stores in September. The fact that neither Wizards nor Disney ever announced this, however, was highly unusual. It added a lot of intrigue to the promo and generated a lot of discussion around it in the lead-up to its release. On the other hand, it likely prevented a lot of players from grabbing the promo, as they didn’t know about it in advance.
Because of these downsides, it’s hard to say whether this new trend is an intentional marketing strategy or just a series of communications blunders on the part of Wizards and its partners. The fact that the BoxLunch promo was announced in advance, but the Disney one wasn’t, certainly supports the latter theory. In any case, we definitely seem to be moving into an era where Wizards is more willing to partner with retailers for specific promos. Going forward, it’ll pay to look further afield if you want to stay on top of every new promo card.
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