Best Avatar: The Last Airbender Cards (White & Blue)

Avatar: The Last Airbender Makes Strange Choices

Avatar: The Last Airbender (the Magic: The Gathering set) is a powerhouse, a game changer, and a strangely designed set. Lots of little choices made I find extremely odd. The four bending styles are all represented through unique abilities, but they seem incredibly unbalanced. Airbending is brutal, disruptive, and multifaceted. While firebending is often terrible, and waterbending feels very under considered. Of the four, only earthbending really captures my imagination. Since these cards are not out yet—at time of writing—I’ve not had a chance to play Avatar: The Last Airbender in standard, and maybe there are some interactions that make it all click, but it’s so, so odd.

What’s even odder, though, is Lessons. I love that Lessons are back, and that there are so many of them (and some are really good) but the whole gimmick of Lessons is lots of cards having learn. The give and take of sideboard slots is fascinating to consider as a deck builder. And I know a lot of sets like to “setup” future sets by introducing mechanics that only become absurd once more pieces are around, but I also don’t see Lorwyn Eclipsed being heavy on learn either. I will still be evaluating the Lesson cards with the understanding that they will eventually be sideboard options, but it’s still so, so, so odd.  

But Avatar: The Last Airbender is still an extremely powerful set with these setbacks. Compared to my review of Marvel’s Spider-Man, I have a lot more cards to put in these lists. The multicolored section will especially go hard. But we must work our way up to that. We need to look at the few good white cards, and the absurd list of amazing blue cards, in alphabetical order.

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Airbender Ascension

I love that ascension cards are back, and I love that this one is so good. It’s cheap soft removal (since it doesn’t kill the creature) and encourages a low-to-the-ground style of play. This set has plenty of cheap cards with strong “enters play” abilities, and at least one good “leaves play” ability, so this can easily go wild once you “earn” the last part of this card. 

Airbending Lesson

I like everything about this card. Soft removal that draws you a card at instant speed. It’s not really great in the main deck, but see my above statement about how I’m looking at Lesson cards.

Earth Kingdom Protectors

I wish this card worked with any creature, not just an Ally, but there are enough good Ally cards in this set to make it worthwhile. Also, Earth Kingdom Protectors is both a soldier and a human, which offers even more possibilities.

Glider Staff

I hate equipment cards most of the time, but they are marginally more in my good graces when they have some kind of “enters” ability. It’s also sometimes really useful to give something flying. So useful even something this mana inefficient is useable.

Momo, Playful Pet

One mana! An Ally with flying and vigilance and additional abilities for one mana? Yes, you can airbend Momo for value, but honestly, it’s not needed. Eventually, your opponent will need to block because of sheer chip damage. Or you can sacrifice Momo for some ability. Or Airbending Ascension does it. This Avatar: The Last Airbender card is power crept.

Forecasting Fortune Teller

Even without considering any Ally interactions that this helps enable, it’s a good blocker that gives you an artifact token. Some decks really need something like this for the lower end of their curve.  

Gran-Gran

Not as good an Avatar: The Last Airbender card as Momo, sure, but I see the vision. This is one of the only cards that plays into waterbending that makes sense to me. You can attack with Gran-Gran on early turns, but she quickly works best as a solid engine piece in some kind of dedicated spell-slinger strategy. 

Octopus Form

There are a lot of cards like this—and they are so annoying to play around—but this one can be pulled out of the sideboard, meaning it doesn’t even take up space in the main deck. If someone “learns” this Avatar: The Last Airbender card, next turn you’re getting walloped by something.

Secret of Bloodbending

If you can pull off the waterbending cost, then by all means go for it. But that’s not why this card is on this list. It’s a four-mana Lesson that will let you win the game if you’re setup right. Make them attack into bigger blockers. Make them tap all their creatures so you can get them on the next turn. There are so many ways to ruin your opponent’s plans with this card.

The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan

Clue tokens are obviously slow—but this card can make multiple a turn and then turns one into a flying attack. Having such an easy way to up your artifact and token count has plenty of other uses, too.  

Wan Shi Tong, Librarian

This might be my favorite card in Avatar: The Last Airbender. It’s good at almost every point in the game (even not paying the extra cost is viable sometimes) but obviously scales into a monster very quickly as you get more lands. That last ability is by far the most exciting to me, as I cannot wait to see someone realize, slowly, how much advantage they’ve accidentally given you.

Yue, the Moon Spirit

I basically cannot ignore a card that lets you put stuff into play for free. It’s simply too dangerous. Waterbending five is rough, but The Mechanist and other artifact token generators can help you reach that ability quicker. I could see a deck running one or two somewhere as an additional way to overpower an opponent.

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And that’s our first list done. As you can see, Avatar: The Last Airbender will blow open the meta. Every deck is going to have multiple cards from this set, and some monstrous interaction is almost assuredly sitting somewhere ready to birth an archetype. This Wednesday (11/5/25), we’ll be looking over how the red and black cards are only going to add to a radically changed standard. So, keep an eye out—and keep brewing.

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