Hello and welcome to Weekly Commander!

Today we are going to be looking at Aang, at the Crossroads!

Aang is a five mana 3/3 with flying, when he enters look at the top five cards of your library and you may put a creature card with mana value four or less from among them onto the battlefield, putting the res on the bottom of your library in a random order and when another creature you control leaves the battlefield, transform Aang at the beginning of the next upkeep.

He transforms into Aang, Destined Savior, who is a 4/4 with flying, gives land creatures you control have vigilance, and at the beginning of combat on your turn, earthbend 2.

Continuing our look at some of the new cards from the Avatar set, we are looking at one of the several Aang’s from the set. This particular Aang combines a couple of strategies, one is cheating cheap creatures into play and the other is concerned with land creatures since he gives them vigilance and can make more of them.

Since this Aang also transforms when a creature we control leaves the battlefield and he himself has an enters trigger, we can add a bit of a blink package as well to get even more value from his ability as well as transform him pretty quickly.

More Lands

So one of the important things to help us set things up is to have as many land drops as we can manage.

Azusa, Lost but Seeking is one of the more effective creatures that gives us extra land drops because she give us two additional land drops each turn, which can be huge. One thing to notice is that the creatures that give us additional land drops are mana value four or less, which is important for Aang to tutor into play from his enters ability.

This is very much the case with Oracle of Mul Daya, which let’s us have an additional land drop each turn and let’s us play lands from the top of our library, all at the cost of having us play with the top card of our library revealed.

Of the creatures that give us additional land drops, Loot, Exuberant Explorer actually has some extra duty since not only does he let us play an additional land on our turns, but for six mana we can look at the top six cards of or library, reveal a creature card with mana value less than or equal to the number of lands we control and put in onto the battlefield, putting the rest of the cards on the bottom of our library in a random order.

If we don’t want to focus on just other creatures letting us play additional lands, there are cards like Explore, which let’s us play an additional land on our turn while also drawing us a card or Growth Spiral which let’s us draw a card and then put a land from our hand onto the battlefield.

Journey of Discovery is a pretty interesting card, since it let’s us either look through our library for two basic lands and put them into our hand, let’s us play two additional lands this turn, or both if we happen to Entwine the spell, which we have a decent chance of doing pretty early since we are doing a lot of ramping.

Creatures with Utility

So not only are we looking to get creatures out that let us play more lands, but cheap creatures that have a generally solid utility attached as well.

Spellseeker is great for us to include since when it enters we can search for an instant or sorcery with mana value two or less from out library and put it into our hand, which can be anything ranging from a blink spell to a protection spell.

Witch Enchanter provides a double utility because along with it having the ability that when they enter they destroy an artifact or enchantment an opponent controls, they also double as a the land Witch-Blessed Meadow, which taps for white and can enter untapped if we pay 3 life.

An important thing to note, if a double faced land was earthbended and then dies or is exiled, when it would return to the battlefield it would return as the front side, meaning that if we earthbended Witch-Blessed Meadow and it were to die in combat, it would come back to play as Witch Enchanter.

This works really well with other double faced lands that are creatures on their front side like Glasspool Mimic which enters as a copy of a creature we control, Tangled Florahedron to have access to a mana dork, and Kazandu Mammoth which has a Landfall ability to get +2/+2 until end of turn.

Other utility creatures to consider can be something like Denry Kiln, Editor in Chief which enters with +1/+1, first strike, or vigilance counter on it and whenever a nontoken creature we control enters, we put the same number and kind of counters on that creature.

Cloud of Faeries is also a pretty solid cheap utility creature that when it enters it untaps up to two lands, which we can use on for our lands that have become creatures to tap for mana and then attack, saving a bit of mana to gain a bit of additional utility.

Once we do have Aang out we can gain additional uses of hit enters ability from creatures that enter as a copy of our creature, even though they will die to the Legend Rule we still get their enters ability trigger and it just so happens that there are several of them that are mana value four or less.

Copycrook enters as a copy of any creature on the battlefield except it also gains the ability to connive when it attacks, Undercover Operative enters as any creature on the battlefield but it gains a shield counter if we copy a creature we control, and Spark Double enters as a copy of a creature or Planeswalker we control with a +1/+1 counter if it was a creature and an additional loyalty counter if it was a Planeswalker and has the added benefit of not counting as legendary, meaning we get to keep it in play as well as the original Aang.

Blink and Support

The next thing we need to consider are the cards that help us get more value from Aang.

We need to look at the blink package first, Cloudshift being one of the better options because for one mana we can blink a creature we control at instant speed. Essence Flux is also really solid for us, although we can’t gain the most benefit from it since Aang isn’t a Spirit so he won’t get a +1/+1 counter.

Eerie Interlude is a great include because it allows us to exile any number of creatures we control and returns them to the battlefield at the beginning of the next end step, and since it can be cast at instant speed, we have a way to protect our creatures in case of a board wipe. This is also helpful because if we have any lands that are creatures, then when they are exiled, they just come right back as lands, which loses us a bit of a board, but keeps our lands safe.

Our deck can turbo out lands pretty quickly, but for the most part we are playing at a much steadier pace, which means a some what midrange or control package is necessary for us to keep ourselves in the game, so something like Into the Flood Maw to either bounce a creature an opponent controls or if we gift a tapped Fish token to an opponent, we can bounce a nonland permanent they control instead.

Snap bounces a creature to its owner’s hand and untaps up to two lands, Sink Into Stupor can return a spell or nonland permanent an opponent controls to their hand that also doubles as the land Soporific Springs, and Veil of Summer can draw us a card if an opponent played a black or blue spell this turn and us and permanents we control gain hexproof from blue and black until end of turn can be very cheap and efficient ways of keeping our things safe.

As far as Game Changers are concerned, there are only a couple that really forward our strategy rather than just the standard value pieces. The one that comes to mind for me, especially for a lands strategy, is Crop Rotation, and this is because we can use it to get specific lands from our library into play.

Worldly Tutor can also be pretty solid for us if we want a specific creature to be at the top of our library for Aang to cheat out onto the battlefield, Fierce Guardianship to counter a noncreature spell for free if we control our Commander, and Force of Will to have a free counter spell if we pay 1 life and exile a blue card from our hand.

When Lands Attack

The last thing we need is a suite of lands that Aang can earthbend, as well as can become creatures on their own accord or can get an even better benefit when they become creatures.

The restless cycle of lands are the main choice for this sort of deck because while all the Restless lands can become creatures for some mana cost, which gives them the benefit from the additional counters that Aang gives them, they also all have attack triggers that aren’t dependent on using their own ability to activate them.

Restless Prairie for example gives other creatures we control +1/+1 until end of turn when it attacks, Restless Anchorage makes a Map token when it attacks, and Restless Vinestalk turns a creature we control into a 3/3 when it attacks.

There are also the classic sort of creature lands like Celestial Colonnade, which can become a 4/4 Elemental creature with flying and vigilance, which when combined with the two +1/+1 counters and haste that Aang gives can leave a pretty good bit of damage to our opponents.

Crawling Barrens is also a great creature land because we can continuously put two +1/+1 counters on it on top of the counters that it would get from the earthbend ability. Speaking of other interesting utility lands, Secret Tunnel is a land that already has the ability of not being able to be blocked, and for four mana can make it so that two creatures of our choice that share a creature type can’t be blocked either.

As far as definite win conditions, our game plan does better in terms of going for the long game, especially since we can make use of board wipes with our creature lands that have been animated through earthbend so a Wrath of God after combat can help us clear the board and get all of our lands back into play.

If want to be a bit cheeky, then we can include something like Inkmoth Nexus, a land that can animate itself to gain flying and infect, which when it becomes animated via earthbending, then that means instead of Inkmoth Nexus dealing two poison damage, it deals three instead.

This means we can also include a bit of a poison package with something like Prologue to Phyresis in order to draw a card and give each opponent a poison counter, and then make use of something like Experimental Augury which let’s us look at the top three cards of our library to put one in our hand and the rest at the bottom of our library in any order and then proliferate.

We can use the proliferate strategy to give more counters to our creature lands if we want an aggro win or if we are leaning more towards the poison strategy then we can proliferate the poison counters as well to accelerate our win condition.

In Conclusion

Aang is a pretty solid Commander that gives us options to make use of blink strategies to cheat a bunch of cheap creatures into play and then make use of a lands strategy to have a solid bunch of creatures that can come back as lands in the worst case scenario.

What this deck has in solid game plans, it does struggle for a win condition, and this is if you don’t decide to go for a poison strategy. A lands aggro deck can be pretty solid, especially if we pack the deck with some additional land payoffs, but it can struggle to win if we can’t get our land creatures in play at a decent rate.

Aang still does provide some neat game play options, and you can play with either side in mind if you want to keep the deck a bit more focused and not try to play in every type of strategy. He works wonders as a blink Commander that can get cheap stuff into play, and can potentially even lean in a sort of hard control/hate bears strategy if you feel like it.

Thank you all for reading, see you next week for the next Weekly Commander!

Peace,

From, J.M. Casual

Socials

Bluesky: @jmcasualnerd.bsky.social

Ko-Fi: ko-fi.com/jmcasual

YouTube: youtube.com/@jmcasualguy

Twitch: twitch.tv/jmcasual