Avatar: the Last Airbender officially releases later this week, on November 21st. The set introduced four really interesting “bending” mechanics, each of which represent the elemental powers of characters in the Avatar franchise. While they are all quite interesting, I think Earthbending takes the cake as the most intriguing of these new mechanics. It’s also the mechanic that is the best for pulling off insane combos.
Earthbending’s primary effect is land animation. And while smashing it with your creature land is sweet, it’s what happens to that creature land when it dies or gets exiled that makes this mechanic rife for abuse with combos. When that animated land dies or gets exiled, you return it to the battlefield tapped. On the face of it, this prevents you from getting blown out when your land gets destroyed. But it also means that Earthbent lands are excellent sacrifice fodder that can create some powerful combos.
BEIFONG’S BOUNTY HUNTERS + BLOODGHAST + SACRIFICE OUTLET
Let’s start out with an Earthbending combo that is Standard-legal! When a nonland creature dies you Earthbend X, where X is that creature’s power. This means, if you sacrifice Bloodghast, you get Earthbend 2. Now, you can sacrifice that land to a free sacrifice outlet like Umbral Collar Zealot. This causes the land to leave the battlefield and return tapped, which returns Bloodghast to the battlefield because of Landfall, and then you can sacrifice it again and start the whole thing over.
This ultimately nets you infinite sacrifices, infinite landfall triggers, infinite creatures entering the battlefield, and if you’re using the Zealot, you can also mill your entire library if you have a way to take advantage of that. This opens the door to many avenues of winning the game – but in Standard, Vengeful Bloodwitch or Iridescent Vinelasher are the easiest way to win with this combo.
This isn’t the only way to go off with Beifong’s Bounty Hunters. It might just be the best combo enabler in the entire set, and the larger your cardpool, the more potent the potential combos.
BUMI, UNLEASHED + ASHAYA, SOUL OF THE WILD
Bumi comes with an Earthbend “enters” trigger, and if he ever hits your opponent, you untap all of your lands and get an additional combat phase, but only land creatures can attack during that combat phase. Normally, that last clause would mean that Bumi himself can’t take part in that extra combat step, because he’s not a land.
However, if you combine him with Ashaya – who makes all of your nontoken creatures into Forests – Bumi gets untapped and he can take part in that extra combat phase. And that means that as long as you can keep hitting your opponent with Bumi, you get infinite combats.
Furthermore, because Bumi is himself a land, he can just Earthbend onto himself when he enters if Ashaya is on the battlefield. This does mean he’ll only be a 4/4, but it also means that he’ll keep returning to the battlefield any time your opponent tries to take him down.
TOPH, THE FIRST METALBENDER + MINDSLAVER
Because she turns your nontoken artifacts into lands and also has an Earthbend effect, Toph opens up even more avenues to combo off with the mechanic. There are a whole lot of artifacts she can combo off with, but I think Mindslaver is the spiciest.
If you pay 4 generic mana and sacrifice Mindslaver, you control target player’s next turn. That’s one of the most powerful effects in all of Magic. It’s arguably even better than you taking an extra turn, because once you are in the driver’s seat during your opponent’s turn, you can force them to make all kinds of terrible decisions. Like pointing their removal spells at their own creatures or attacking with everything when it results in all of their creatures dying.
Even Mindslavering once is often gamebreaking, but if you’ve Earthbent Mindslaver, you can do it every single turn. This is because its own sacrifice ability will result in it returning to the battlefield thanks to Earthbend. Then, you can just animate it again on your next turn and do it all over again.
HARU, HIDDEN TALENT + RETREAT TO EMERIA + CAPENNA FETCHES
Whenever an Ally enters the battlefield with Haru in play, you get to Earthbend 1. And, if you have Retreat to Emeria in play, you get to create a 1/1 Ally creature token any time a land enters the battlefield under your control. So, if you’re able to Earthbend one of your lands and then find a way to get rid of it, you create an infinite loop, since that land will just return to the battlefield and trigger Retreat to Emeria all over again. This results in infinite landfall triggers, which of course also results in infinite Ally tokens.
While you can do this with free land or creature sacrifice outlets, like Zuran Orb, the New Capenna fetch lands give you an even simpler way to do it. Cabaretti Courtyard and the other cards in this cycle immediately sacrifice themselves when they enter and let you search up a basic land. If you make sure to put Haru’s Earthbend and Emeria’s landfall trigger on top of the stack, you can make the Courtyard into a 1/1 before it gets sacrificed. Then, once it does get sacrificed, it returns to the battlefield.
Because this cycle of lands also gains you life, you also end up gaining infinite life with this combo! One important thing to note – this combo does not work with most other fetchlands, because they have to tap for their ability to fetch a land, while this cycle does not.
END STEP
Earthbend is great at enabling combos. So great that I’m sure there are many more combos out there that I’ve overlooked. What’s your favorite Earthbend combo? Let me know over on X or Bluesky.
Jacob has been playing Magic for the better part of 24 years, and he especially loves playing Magic’s Limited formats. He also holds a PhD in history from the University of Oklahoma. In 2015, he started his YouTube channel, “Nizzahon Magic,” where he combines his interests with many videos covering Magic’s competitive history. When he’s not playing Magic or making Magic content, he can be found teaching college-level history courses or caring for a menagerie of pets with his wife.