Elementary School: How to Use Every Bending Mechanic

Besides just the fanservice element, one cool thing about Universes Beyond is how drastically different source material leads to some highly diverse Magic sets. Avatar: The Last Airbender will feature its fair share of legendary characters and beloved moments drawn from the TV show. But Avatar also has a power system that’s just as iconic and memorable as its main characters.

The different schools of elemental bending aren’t just different-colored ki blasts. Their infinite practical applications inform the cultures and lifestyles of the tribes who wield them, and the struggle to unite those different peoples informs Aang’s journey as the Avatar.

There’s no way you could translate A:TLA into Magic cards without finding the right mechanic to represent this signature power system. In the end, the design team were able to clear this requirement in an unexpected way: creating four different mechanics instead of one!

A BINDING DECISION

Four brand-new set mechanics is a fairly heavy burden for any set, and definitely a new precedent for Universes Beyond. But it seems like the right call to me. The majority of human characters in A:TLA have some kind of bending capability, and you wouldn’t want to have a single mechanic showing up on every creature card in every color.

I wouldn’t recommend this solution for a set based on X-Men or most battle anime, where every character has their own individual powers with unique rules. But Avatar’s benders hit that sweet spot where the strengths and weaknesses of their elements are easy to separate and understand.

The fact that these powersets also correspond to the in-universe political factions as well as the Magic color pie makes this a perfect chance to make bending mechanics the star of the set. 

But enough talking about the design on its own merits – how are we as players going to make the most of this unique set design and incorporate the four elements into our deckbuilding?

AIRBENDING

Airbending seemed like the most challenging element to design for. There’s not as many examples of it in the Avatar TV show compared to the other three, and it’s arguably the least suited for direct combat (which Magic is naturally going to focus on).

Yet what we got is an absolute delight – something both pacifistic and subtle, which adds a ton of unique utility and feels right both for the manipulative nature of air AND white’s identity across Magic in general.

The wording used for Airbending is almost identical to a mechanic I’ve used for years when designing custom card sets with friends, and one I’ve hoped/predicted Wizards would use in the pages of this blog before. After all, what feels more “white mana” than an effect that’s obstructive and defensive, but not permanently lethal? 

Temporary exile effects have always been the most creative and flexible tool in a color that can sometimes feel boring and limited, and Airbending cards have just as many applications as a Flickerwisp – if not more. I was already excited seeing this kind of wording pop up more consistently in recent sets, on cards like Aven Interrupter and Lightstall Inquisitor. But keywording it allows for a much lighter textbox and opens the door to really explore more of its many different uses.

That flexibility does have a slight deckbuilding downside, in that most payoffs are rather less flexible and will only shine when you’re airbending certain targets. Ketramose is a great example: the temporary nature of airbending should make it more efficient than other enablers, but you have to bend cards from the graveyard or battlefield. 

It also matters WHOSE cards you’re airbending! Maybe it seems counterintuitive to exile your own cards when you need to pay to bring them back, but synergy pieces like Appa, Steadfast Guardian and Kellan, the Kid can make it worth your while. Red-white decks especially could have a lot of potential triggers and payoffs for “whenever you cast a spell from exile” or “spells you cast from anywhere other than your hand”.

The latter wording has shown up in Modern Horizons as well as other Universes Beyond sets like Spider-Man, Doctor Who and Warhammer 40,000. It seems like a theme which will continue getting stronger in the future, and I think we’re already at a good point to start building around it.

That said, I do expect airbending opponent’s cards to be more common, especially for aggressive white decks which can potentially end the game before the opponent gets a chance to pull their cards back down from the clouds. But even a slower deck can build to make that temporary exile permanent. 

The most obvious way is to play UW and counterspell the re-cast – even “soft counters” like Mana Tithe or It’ll Quench Ya! can be potent late-game when the opposing spells are taxed and telegraphed in advance. If you really want to make sure, then Drannith Magistrate is the gold standard – blocking any attempt to re-cast an airbending target for as long as it’s on the battlefield.

WATERBENDING

Showing off how truly unique each tribe’s bending is from the others, waterbending is actually an alternate form of cost rather than a specific effect. It’s essentially an alternate form of convoke which can tap artifacts OR creatures, and which can be used to pay for any kind of cost instead of only casting costs of spells!

All the waterbending costs use generic mana, which means that you can easily fill in any gaps with lands, and overall gives this mechanic the kind of easy fluidity you’d expect from the element. I do also like the aesthetic of tapping and untapping your creatures to reflect the ebb and flow of tides, and the fact this is the most cooperative form of bending: it’s another really great bit of top-down design!

When it comes to building and strategizing around waterbenders, regular readers will know I’ve already done my research on creature-tapping mechanics. My full-lenth article on these synergies is a good starting point for a waterbending deck, and I’d also check out my guides for related themes like Go Wide or Vehicles to see how much advice can carry over.

For the TL;DR crew: being able to use token-producers as mana acceleration is a huge efficiency advantage, and can easily go infinite if you have triggers to make more creatures or untap them with each use.

It may seem like there’s a pretty big gap between Geyser Leaper and going infinite with The Locust God. But keep in mind, that gap can be filled with any combination of token creation, untapping, mana production, and cost reduction. Once you start adding mechanics like inspired and survival, you can build a deck where you get to improvise a new value engine or infinite combo every game!

Waterbending effects which can be used at instant speed have an extra-great fit in traditionally defensive blue decks, since you can use them to profitably tap creatures on an opponent’s end step after leaving them back to block. Even the generic mana costs and ability to tap artifacts is perfect for how often mono-blue decks end up focusing on artifact synergies or big mana packages like Tron.

In general I’d say this is the bending mechanic which most easily and conveniently fits into existing blue decks, not just those designed primarily around it, and I’m sure we’ll see individual waterbending cards pop up in a lot of unexpected places.

EARTHBENDING

It has been a long, long while since Battle for Zendikar and the Awaken mechanic made land-animating a spotlight mechanic. But fans of creature-lands are finally back in business, thanks to Toph, Bumi, and their fellow earthbenders!

This is definitely an area where there was design space to explore, and I’m glad to say that Wizards chose a wording which adds a lot of extra nuance and potential to an otherwise basic premise. 

For one, earthbending puts +1/+1 counters on the land instead of setting it to a specific power and toughness. This opens up a ton of synergies based on counters – but it also means that earthbending effects can stack with eachother and buff up the same land if you want, instead of overwriting each other!

Secondly, the earthbend trigger gives the land haste, which is mostly just a “quality of life” bonus to save you being sad if you accidentally target the Forest you just played instead of the 12 others you had in play. 

Third, there’s the unique “when it dies or is exiled” rider, which feels like a massive boost to the viability and feel of this mechanic. As a bigtime Armageddon fan, I can tell you from experience that most players really hate having their lands destroyed. This means that people tend to use creature-lands very conservatively if there’s any chance they could get blown up or traded for in combat. 

Animating a bunch of stones to just sit around and block isn’t really a good brand fit for most earthbenders in Avatar though, so I love that the design team gave us both insurance and incentive to get aggressive with these bonus bodies!

Thanks in part to those rules wrinkles, there’s a number of angles we can potentially look into for building an earthbending deck. I’m sure most people don’t need to be told how good cards like Doubling Season and Hardened Scales are with +1/+1 counters, but it never hurts to start simple.

What might be less obvious is how a deck with a lot of land animation effects can abuse boardwipes like Hour of Revelation or Cataclysmic Gearhulk. Being able to sweep away a full board and immediately swing into the empty space might be my #1 favorite feeling in Magic.

There is also a small but valuable pool of cards which straightforwardly buff a land-creature strategy. It’s almost never a primary set mechanic, but Wizards does seem to love putting out exactly one UG legendary or rare at a time that either animates lands or rewards us for doing so. Jyoti, Tatyova, Jolrael, Blossoming Tortoise, Sylvan Advocate, and a few other cards from Battle for Zendikar block are worth your time if you’re really trying to make earthbending the identity of your deck.

As for the lands themselves, don’t forget to include more traditional creature-lands (the cards which can turn into creatures on their own for a cost). You can activate their animation abilities even if they’re already a creature, allowing their default stats and abilities to stack with any +1/+1 counters on them like a combat trick! 

I’d also look into any lands with powerful ETB or sacrifice abilities which can be re-used with the “return to the battlefield” clause from earthbending, and landfall triggers for the same reason. Even lands with activated abilities can benefit from being turned into creatures, as it often makes it easier to enhance them with cards like Training Grounds – or untap them to generate huge amounts of mana.

FIREBENDING

Perhaps it’s appropriate the mechanic chosen for firebending is the least flexible of the four, but it makes up for that straightforwardness with power. Generating red mana only on attack, and only for the duration of the combat phase, immediately narrows down what our deck will be trying to do and what else it needs to do that.

Most important is having something useful to put that mana towards during combat, and ideally something more sustainable than dumping a whole hand of burn spells. 

Wizards have wisely designed a lot of firebending cards to have this kind of mid-combat mana sink built in, but that doesn’t mean we can’t scour the card pool of whatever format we’re looking at to try and upgrade our options. At least when talking mono-red commander, our best payoffs will probably include Hellkite Charger and Aggravated Assault. 

Not only can these go infinite if we have enough firebenders against few enough blockers, these cards set us up to invest further in the broadly excellent theme of resource generation through combat. This is another kind of mechanic which red has been steadily accruing cards for over time, and I’ve written on this blog about the potential of “war economy” decks in Commander and beyond. 

Of course, tinkering around setting up elaborate synergy engines is not what most of us think of when it comes to red decks. It’s also not the only way to use firebending creatures: you can easily play a tempo game and use the bonus mana to power through blockers with removal and combat tricks while still deploying extra punchers with your lands.

I think most people are like me, and would prefer to see an Avatar-themed deck use these bending mechanics to their fullest instead of as an afterthought. But with a little creativity we can still do this with an aggressive approach! Just choose instants with X costs or kicker clauses so you have the ability to scale your firepower with the amount of firebending you have available.

TIME FOR A WEEK-LONG BENDER

It’s been very hard to contain my selfish excitement long enough to write this article. I’m really only a casual fan of the actual cartoon Avatar, but the set design and these specific bending rules are like a love letter to me and anyone else who loves digging into weird and under-supported synergies.

Earthbending and Airbending in particular have the chance to open up what have been pretty borderline, niche deckbuilding options into future meta choices – all while somehow strengthening the sense of connection between original show and its Universes Beyond cardboard incarnation.