by Johnny Cycles, November 10th, 2025

Hello! I’m Johnny Cycles and here are the cards from Avatar: The Last Airbender I’m most excited about for Commander. And the decks that they’ll go in to.

A quick note about my card selection. It’s tempting to make a Top 10 Commander card list, but given the sheer number of Commander decks out there, this seems futile. For instance, I don’t have an Ally Tribal deck nor a Shrine deck, but both of these decks get a lot of fun and powerful new pieces from Avatar that would be in a Top 10 list for players with those decks.

So instead, I’m highlighting the cards that I’m most excited about for the decks I play.

I’m also not including any Jumpstart cards in this list. While there are often plenty of fun cards from Commander from these sets, the purist in me enjoys looking for my Commander cards in the main set. Anyone else think there should be a Commander sub format that only uses main sets for its card pool?

Rather Watch?

U/W Flash

Appa, Steadfast Guardian is a strictly better Glorious Protector, giving us a way to protect all of our nonland permanents from sweepers, rather than just non-Angel creatures. Getting to recast those permanents for 2 colorless at our leisure means we get all of those sweet ETB triggers again when we want them, not to mention resetting our Planeswalkers.

I’ve made two videos with Wan Shi Tong, Librarian in them already. The card is super good and I expect it to see play in all the formats its legal in. For us, it gives us another flash creature that will draw us cards by itself, not to mention the one we get with our commander out.

Golgari Elves

Tyvar the Bellicose helms a Golgari Elves deck looking to grow our creatures by tapping them for mana. Badgermole Cub is a perfect addition to this deck.

G/W Lifegain

United Front is a generically good token producer that synergizes extremely well with our deck.

Earth Kingdom General does exactly what we want to do, giving us another lifegain trigger on our end step when we put counters on a creature with Lathiel. Unfortunately, we won’t get another Lathiel trigger from this since we’ll already be in our end step. Thankfully we have a lot of ways to put counters on our creatures during our main phases to trigger this uncommon.

Abandoned Air Temple is an auto-include in our deck.

Badgermole gives us another budget way to give our creatures with counters trample, ensuring we can punch through damage on an otherwise stalled board.

Mono Black Burn

Mai, Scornful Striker gives us a way to punish our opponent for playing noncreature spells.

Obsessive Pursuit gives us a way to gain life that, with many of our cards, will drain our opponent.

Day of Black Sun is a great early game sweeper to answer an aggressive start from our opponent. I see this card going in most X/B decks to be honest.

Ozai’s Cruelty is a great addition to a deck full of hateful cards. Not only does it deal damage to our opponent, it also attacks their hand.

A quick note about this deck. Yes, I’m aware that many consider this deck and Sheoldred, the Apocalypse super annoying and unfun. That’s fine. Rule 0 is in place for just this reason. Like with any deck you’re playing, it’s important to let your table know its power level and, in the case of some taxing decks, that it can be super annoying.

Of course, what annoys one person won’t annoy another. I hate 2-card combos that win you the game and don’t want to play against them. Does that mean I’ll never play against an opponent who has a deck with those? No, but I want to know what I’m getting into so that I can decline politely to play, if I don’t feel like dying to something like that out of nowhere.

Chandra Tribal

Chandra Tribal is a deck I made but haven’t written about. Its primary strategy is to burn our opponent out and, for this reason, we want ways to increase the damage of our many Chandras.

Fated Firepower is perfect for the deck.

Omnath Landfall

Both my nonbudget and budget decks get some new options.

Earthbender Ascension takes some investment, but since we can easily make 4 land drops, often in a single turn, the card is mostly upside. It can pump our commander to massive proportions and the trample it gives the creature ensures we get damage through chump blockers.

Elemental Teachings is a lot at 5 mana, but the upside is we get four of our best lands. Yes, two go to the graveyard, but we are super well equipped at getting lands from the yard into play.

Cycle of Renewal is a great budget way to make three land drops in a turn. Being an instant also means we can trigger Omnath twice on our opponent’s turn.

Mono Red Dragon Tribal

One of my all-time favorite decks, Mono Red Dragon Tribal gets one new addition in Ran and Shaw. It’s activated ability can be game ending on the right board.

An Army of Clues

An Army of Clues with Tamiyo, Inquisitive Student gets a powerful addition in The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan. We’re most interested in the Clue generation it gives us, but the second ability shouldn’t be overlooked either.

Rakdos Aristocrats

Rakdos Aristocrats with Ob Nixilis, Captive Kingpin can play Foggy Swamp Visions as both graveyard hate and a source of fodder for sacrifice. And since we’re hardly ever interested in attacking with our creatures, paying the waterbend cost should be easy and low risk.

Mono Red with Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded

My Mono Red deck with Purphoros, Bronze-Blooded wants to cheat big fatties into play for . Solstice Revelations is a great addition to the deck. If we ever have enough Mountains to cast the revealed card without paying its mana cost, then sweet! But since we only have to pay with our commander’s static ability, we don’t really care if we do. Having flashback is just gravy!

Mono White Card Draw

My Mono White Card Draw deck gets a couple more ways to break the color pie in South Pole Voyager and Airbending Lesson.

Dimir Triple Key Words

And a deck that’s still in construction – Dimir Triple Key Words – gets two possible additions. Sokka’s Haiku is a decent enough card. Iguana Parrot not so much, but it has three key words! Meanwhile, if you have any suggestions for a Dimir Commander with at least three key words, let me know. For now, I’m considering Hidetsugu and Kairi. It’s got three creature types and draws us three cards, but otherwise doesn’t fit the theme of triple key words.

Rakdos Triple Key Words

Ozai, the Phoenix King is a potential commander for a Rakdos Triple Key Word deck that I’m still working on.

Any X/G Deck

And finally, we get another ramp spell that can find a home in any X/G deck. Shared Roots is less Farseek and more Rampant Growth, but having options for 2-mana ramp spells, particularly for budget decks, is great.

Conclusion

What do you think? What are you most excited about for your Commander decks? If you’re interested in seeing the full decklists and write-ups of any of the decks mentioned above, just click on their names! I’m Johnny Cycles. Thanks for watching! I’ll catch y’all on the next one.