Magic: The Gathering’s upcoming collaboration with Avatar: The Last Airbender has drawn a lot of excitement recently. For a while, not much was known about this Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond set, but at MagicCon Las Vegas 2025, one card was revealed, and its abilities have left fans with more questions than answers.
The crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender was confirmed at the beginning of the year, so there has been plenty of time for theorizing about what the set could entail. After the reveal of this new card, though, Magic: The Gathering fans are left wondering about an unexplained new mechanic, what it could mean for other unrevealed Avatar: The Last Airbender cards, and how this could enhance deck-building opportunities.
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MTG’s Avatar Aang Card Introduces a New Mechanic to the Game
What Is Currently Known About Avatar Aang
So far, the only card revealed as part of Magic: The Gathering’s crossover with Avatar: The Last Airbender is the Avatar Aang card. As the Avatar is the master of the elements of water, earth, fire, and air, Avatar Aang fittingly costs mana of the colors blue, green, red, and white. What’s interesting about this card, though, is the introduction of elemental bending to the TCG as a new mechanic. How this will work is currently unknown, but this card has abilities which are triggered when bending is used.
If waterbending, earthbending, firebending, and airbending are all used within a single turn, Avatar Aang is transformed. Players can flip the double-faced card over to reveal Aang, Master of Elements. This side of the card does not have any abilities relating to the new bending mechanic, but is very valuable for players to reduce the cost of any spell by one mana of each color. The inclusion of black among the rest of the expected colors has led to some speculation that this represents the Spirit World, tying in with the series.
There Could Be More Aang Cards
Another noteworthy aspect of the Avatar Aang card is its focus on each of the four elements, something which Aang does not achieve until the end of the original series. It’s possible that, when the full set is released, there will be multiple versions of Aang that reflect each stage of his journey. It is already confirmed that the set will include Source Material cards which represent notable moments from many episodes in the show. This dedication to accurately portraying Avatar: The Last Airbender could mean that each stage of Aang’s progress to master the elements will receive its own card.
One of Avatar Aang’s abilities is firebending. As fire is the last element that Aang mastered, it’s possible that there could be at least three other Aang cards which focus on the elements he had learned earlier in the show. This would also likely be reflected by the mana cost of the card, which would be reflective of only the elements available to him at the point in Aang’s journey that the card reflects. If this approach is taken, cards depicting Aang from an earlier point in the show may cost less mana.
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Aang, Master of Elements May Hold the Key to the Bending Mechanic
It’s possible that the Aang, Master of Elements could reveal what bending could mean. One theory is that each triggered ability from transforming the card relates to a different bending style. The Fire Nation is the most destructive throughout the series, so firebending could line up with the ability of dealing damage to opponents. If Avatar Aang’s “firebending 2” ability is activated per turn against opponents, the card would be too much of a threat to keep on the battlefield.
If Aang, Master of Elements’ abilities do represent each type of bending, this could coincide with the order Aang achieved mastery over each of the elements – that being air, water, earth, then fire. The first outlined ability of gaining life could relate to airbending, followed by drawing cards, which could be the use of waterbending. Earthbending could aptly grant cards more power and toughness with counters, and as has been considered, firebending is all about damage.
Another possibility is that the abilities of Aang, Master of Elements represents the abilities of bending in their most powerful form. For instance, if the card’s ability to draw four cards is linked with waterbending, then a standard waterbending ability may instead be to scry cards. If this is the case, this could possibly mean that standard airbending grants the player a small amount of life, earthbending could modify power and toughness for a turn, and firebending could either deal a small amount of damage to an opponent or chosen creature. This would make sense as to why the Aang, Master of Elements transformation ability would make the distinction between the bending keywords and its abilities, showing Aang’s mastery over the elements by using stronger iterations.
The only issue with this theory is which ability relates to which type of bending. Airbending seems to be associated with white mana in Magic: The Gathering, which is often a popular color for Lifegain decks. However, for a mechanic based on Avatar: The Last Airbender, healing is a waterbending ability, so it could make more sense for these abilities to be linked in the game too. This would mean that drawing or scrying cards would be an airbending ability, which similarly fits the show as it is the most passive of the techniques, separate from combat.
The reveal of the Avatar Aang and Aang, Master of Elements Magic: The Gathering cards has given fans a lot to consider, though there is still much to learn about the Avatar: The Last Airbender set. There is a stream set to premiere on August 12, 2025, revealing more information about other cards which are to be included, specifically the rest of Team Avatar. The Magic: The Gathering and Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover set will officially release on November 21, 2025.
- Original Release Date
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August 5, 1993
- Designer
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Richard Garfield
- Player Count
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2+
- Age Recommendation
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13+