The set as a whole

Magic has always been about mastering the elements of the game, but with Magic: The Gathering | Avatar The Last Airbender's release in November, that is going to take on a whole new meaning.

Today we're going to take a look at the headline mechanics from the upcoming Universes Beyond set and think about where they might best sit - but first, let's take a look at how four fits into five in the biggest design tension within the set.

Firebending slots neatly into red. Waterbending’s a perfect fit for blue. Earthbending is, unsurprisingly, green to its core. Airbending? To me, the Baguazhang-inspired style feels most at home in blue as well, with its focus on smooth, sweeping actions - gasses act like liquids in many ways. Sadly, overloading one colour with two major factions would either lead to there being far more blue cards in the set than it could support or a terrible under exploration of the Air Nomad and Water Tribe factions of the ATLA world. As the less-obvious fit then, Aang's own people get shifted to their second-place colour, white.

And this leaves black. It's still relatively early days for spoilers from the set, and we can see that the colour is mostly filled with Fire or Earth Nation-aligned cards, but the lack of a fifth bending style for black is notable.

Maybe we'll get a blue/black waterbending Hama card to represent her bloodbending. Maybe spiritbending will make an appearance in a weird colour for spiritbending. Maybe none of that will happen. We've already got Fire Lord Zuko in the Mardu identity, along with a Bant Katara and a Naya Toph, so maybe we'll see more three-colour legends with big, glowing neon signs that say "Build a commander deck around me". As it stands, however, there is a gaping hole in the set's mechanical identity that jars with magic's 5-colour paradigm.

Airbending: “You can’t catch what you can’t touch.”

Mechanic: Airbend target nonland permanent. (Exile it. While it’s exiled, its owner may cast it for {2} rather than its mana cost.)

Airbending represents freedom and evasion, and its mechanic leans into both.
You’re not destroying, stealing, or bouncing. You’re displacing. It’s temporary, non-violent, and deeply annoying to play against.

Take Appa, Steadfast Guardian. Flash, flying, and the ability to airbend any number of your own nonland permanents? That’s not just flavour, that’s a flicker engine waiting to happen. With cost reducers or synergy pieces like Preston the Vanisher or Teleportation Circle, Appa turns every re-entry into value. And because the mechanic lets you target your permanents too, you can blink your board while pretending you’re playing defence.

This is white flicker design at its most elegant - protective, recursive, and capable of absolutely heinous combo turns.
Airbending decks are going to feel like Roon of the Hidden Realm met Cloudshift and decided to start a philosophy club.

Five years ago, I'd be all over this.

Firebending — Attack First, Think Never

Mechanic: Firebending N (Whenever this creature attacks, add {R}. This mana lasts until end of combat.)

Red finally gets a version of ritual mana that’s aggressive without being broken.
Each Firebender swings with literal firepower, generating temporary mana that can fuel combat tricks, burn spells, or post-combat plays.

That small tweak - “until end of combat” instead of “main phase only” - is where the creativity of the deckbuilder will have to come in to take maximum advantage. It makes Firebending an amazing mechanic for Isshin, Two Heavens as One. Doubling attack triggers means doubling mana generation, and Isshin decks already thrive on combat-phase shenanigans.

There’s a joyful recklessness to Firebending that feels right for red. It’s not ramp - it’s a blast of mana that you have to use there and then if you want to take advantage of it. Blink and it's gone - just like the show.

Waterbending: Flow State Achieved

Mechanic: Waterbend {X}: tap creatures or artifacts to help pay for this ability. (Each one pays for {1}.)

If Firebending is about aggression, Waterbending is about resourcefulness. It’s Magic’s equivalent of “go with the flow” — an improvise-by-way-of-convoke system that turns spare artifacts and creatures into mana.

Katara, Bending Prodigy embodies that flexibility: a three-mana 2/3 that can draw a card for {6} — or much less, once you’re surrounded by things to tap. On paper, it looks slow, but anyone who’s ever played Kydele, Chosen of Kruphix or Unctus, Grand Metatect knows that “tap to pay” mechanics scale fast.
If Waterbend cards are even slightly pushed, you’ll see them slotting into mid-power Commander decks that can’t access Thrasios but still want a scalable mana sink.

Design-wise, it’s a lovely parallel to water’s adaptability: not the strongest force on its own, but relentless when it keeps moving. Don't let me catch you putting Dramatic Reversal into your casual decks to get more juicy waterbending goodness.

Earthbending — The Ground Fights Back

Mechanic: Earthbend N. (To earthbend N, target land you control becomes a 0/0 creature with haste that’s still a land. Put N +1/+1 counters on it. When it dies or is exiled, return it to the battlefield tapped.)

Where Waterbending flows, Earthbending endures.
It’s a deceptively simple mechanic that turns excess lands into muscle — perfect for Limited, where land-flood is real and fights are frequent.

Earth Rumble demonstrates it beautifully: animate a land, smash something, and if the land “dies,” it just naps for a bit before returning.
This is exactly the kind of mechanic that makes sealed decks feel clever. In Commander, it’s probably too fragile, but in Standard or Draft it’s pure value — trading dormant resources for action without ever really losing them.

Earthbending doesn’t want to combo. It wants to grind you down until nothing stands but stone.

I'm no landfall player, but this feels like the hardest of the four mechanics to push to really power up. The best bit about the mechanic is that it accounts for both weaknesses of land-animation strategies - both the decreased survivability of lands that become creatures, and the feeslbad "gotcha" of your land suddenly having to deal with summoning sickness if it gets animated the turn that it enters the battlefield are smoothed away within the rules of the mechanic itself - although I don't look forwards to having to dig out the rules text on cards without the reminder text.

Harmony Over Power

The brilliance of the Avatar mechanics is that they don’t just capture the show’s flavour, they re-express the colour pie.

Airbending turns white’s defensive flicker tools into an active philosophy of evasion.

Firebending channels red’s passion into tangible, temporary energy.

Waterbending merges blue’s intellect with cooperation and rhythm.

Earthbending embodies green’s patience and perseverance.

Together, they make Magic’s five colours feel like four nations trying to coexist.
It’s thematic, it’s elegant, and it’s the first Universes Beyond set that genuinely feels like it belongs inside Magic’s world rather than sitting awkwardly on top of it.

Because sometimes, bending the rules is exactly what makes the game flow.