We’re right around the corner from the worldwide release of Magic: The Gathering X Avatar: The Last Airbender.  The Universes Beyond set has been generating a lot of buzz online because it genuinely looks like a good set along with being made with one of the most recognizable IPs in the world.  Maybe you plan to gather resources with firebending. Perhaps you want to trigger crazy control with waterbending. An army of land can be yours with earthbending or maybe you want to protect yourself with airbending. The options are near limitless.

I’m always amazed when a new set comes out for Universes Beyond with the great attention to detail and care that is taken to honor the original source material.  Avatar: The Last Airbender will feature a bonus sheet that uses art directly from the tv show. That’s unusual but it doesn’t detract from how insanely talented the artists are that brought the rest of the set to life. I’d like to highlight some of my favorite art pieces from the upcoming Avatar set.

Joo-Dee, One of Many

Joo-Dee was a cultural ambassador in the Earth Kingdom.  She was brainwashed by the Dai-Li and as the card name suggests, was one of many women using the same name.  She appears to Team Avatar as a helpful guide to the city of Ba Sing Se where of course, there was no war.  

Over time, Joo-Dee becomes a creepy and unnatural caricature of who the Dai Li wanted her to be.  Aang and friends notice this and become less and less trusting of her and actively work to ditch her any time they can.  Lena Richards, the artist of Joo-Dee, One of Many captures that perfectly with this black creature card showing Joo-Dee and her many copies.  Flavorfully, the card even invites players to create new copies of Joo-Dee and sacrifice others. Joo-Dee, One of Many is my favorite art in the set so I’m very hopeful to get my hands on both this card and the art card even if I don’t have a deck to play it in.

Battle Pose Cards

Three characters were made into a text-less full art creature card that Wizards is calling “Battle Pose.”  Katara, the Fearless and Toph, the First Metalbender also appear in this unique art style from Flavio Giron.

Fire Lord Zuko is a RWB Legendary Creature based on Zuko’s story arc ending.  At the end of the tv show, Zuko, the avatar hunter turned ally becomes one of Aang’s biggest supporters and friends.  The card to represent this reads:

Firebending X , where X is Fire Lord Zuko's power. (Whenever this creature attacks, add X  R . This mana lasts until end of combat.)

Whenever you cast a spell from exile and whenever a permanent you control enters from exile, put a +1/+1 counter on each creature you control.

Fire Lord Zuko perfectly captures the newfound power and resources Zuko has in his new position.  I think Zuko is potentially one of the best suited cards in Avatar: The Last Airbender to be a Commander in Magic’s most popular format. While Zuko may be my favorite Battle Pose card, they all look fantastic. These text-less Battle Pose cards are only available in collector boosters and the commander bundle. 

Wan Shi Tong

Wan Shi Tong, is a spirit that takes on the form of an owl to procure and guard his own personal library.  He gathers information and watches humanity with interest.  Andrea Piparo created an art style for Wan Shi Tong, Librarian along with two other cards that really taps into the less modern feel that many of the cards in this set have.  It’s truly amazing to see Wan Shi Tong in all his splendor standing in his library both wise and fierce. The other cards in this art style are Tiger-Seal and Diligent Zookeeper. They also look amazing but my hope is to pull Wan Shi Tong.

Avatar: The Last Airbender will be here soon and this is but a small taste of the art that will make this set memorable for a long time to come.