Fire Lord Azula is an exciting new Grixis legend from the upcoming Avatar release. Fire Lord Azula is a powerful creature that allows you to double up on any spell cast while she is attacking. Fire Lord Azula fuels her own plan by providing you extra mana when she attacks with her firebending ability. This Commander seems like it could be a lot of fun to build around seeing as Grixis is known for having lots of spell slinging Commanders such as Kess, Dissident Mage and Anhelo, the Painter. Let's take over the entire Fire Nation with Fire Lord Azula and settle this sibling rivalry for good!

Fire Lord Azula | Commander | Nigel Kurtz

• Commander (1)
• 1 Fire Lord Azula

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Archmage Emeritus
• 1 Brazen Borrower
• 1 Electrostatic Field
• 1 Faerie Mastermind
• 1 Guttersnipe
• 1 High Fae Trickster
• 1 Mysterious Stranger
• 1 Orcish Bowmasters
• 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 1 Sphinx of Forgotten Lore
• 1 Storm-Kiln Artist
• 1 Thunderclap Drake
• 1 Valley Floodcaller
• 1 Vivi Ornitier
• 1 Wizards of Thay

• Sorceries (6)
• 1 Acidic Soil
• 1 Cut // Ribbons
• 1 Exsanguinate
• 1 Rite of Flame
• 1 Ruinous Rampage
• 1 Strike It Rich

• Instants (34)
• 1 Ancient Excavation
• 1 Arcane Infusion
• 1 Balduvian Rage
• 1 Big Score
• 1 Bitter Triumph
• 1 Blood for the Blood God!
• 1 Borne Upon a Wind
• 1 Cathartic Pyre
• 1 Chemister's Insight
• 1 Comet Storm
• 1 Commune with Lava
• 1 Curtains' Call
• 1 Dark Ritual
• 1 Delayed Blast Fireball
• 1 Dig Through Time
• 1 Fire Covenant
• 1 Flick a Coin
• 1 Frantic Search
• 1 Impulse
• 1 Kolaghan's Command
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 Maestros Charm
• 1 Price of Progress
• 1 Prismari Command
• 1 Quicken
• 1 Rakdos Charm
• 1 Reiterate
• 1 Rush of Inspiration
• 1 Silundi Vision
• 1 Sink into Stupor
• 1 Snap
• 1 Unexpected Windfall
• 1 Unstable Experiment
• 1 Waterlogged Teachings

• Artifacts (10)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Lightning Greaves
• 1 Lotus Petal
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Swiftfoot Boots
• 1 Talisman of Creativity
• 1 Talisman of Dominance
• 1 Talisman of Indulgence
• 1 Twinning Staff
• 1 Vedalken Orrery

• Enchantments (2)
• 1 Leyline of Anticipation
• 1 Omen of the Sea

• Lands (32)
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Crumbling Necropolis
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Drowned Catacomb
• 1 Emergence Zone
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 8 Island
• 1 Lindblum, Industrial Regency // Mage Siege
• 6 Mountain
• 1 Seething Landscape
• 1 Smoldering Marsh
• 1 Sulfur Falls
• 1 Sunken Hollow
• 7 Swamp

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The goal of this deck is to land Fire Lord Azula on turn three consistently. If you can attack with Azula on turn four you should be able to execute some pretty sweet combat tricks. Haste was a keyword that I figured might be playable in this deck, however, you will want to have access to your entire scope of mana when you attack with Azula. This deck is packed full of lots of card draw spells, removal, cards that care about casting spells, and of course fiery finishers. Let's go over each one of these categories to give more insight on what this deck can do.

Drawing Cards

Drawing cards is an essential part of every Commander deck. Spell Slinger decks, such as this one, tend to lean heavy into lots of instants and sorceries that refill your hand. Fire Lord Azula will double each one of these spells that you cast during combat allowing you to draw even more cards than you normally would. Frantic Search, Unexpected Windfall, and Big Score are some of the best "free" card draw spells you can play. These spells all draw you cards while also untapping multiple lands or creating valuable treasure tokens. With Azula doubling these spells, they essentially pay for themselves, not to mention Azula will help you cast these with the mana she provides when she attacks. Frantic Search will untap six whole lands for only a three-mana investment!

Omen of the Sea is a standout for the deck since it isn't an instant spell. Azula will double any type of spell that we cast during combat, including spells with flash! Omen of the Sea is a nice cantrip that will allow you to look at a whole bunch of cards when you have two of them. Flick a Coin is another one that creates treasures and draws cards. This spell is not as powerful as the ones mentioned above, but it's still drawing us cards on the cheap. Balduvian Rage can make Azula really big during combat to make sure she survives combat while also drawing cards. Commune with Lava will gain you a huge advantage by giving you access to a huge burst of cards at once. Faerie Mastermind is a card draw engine that we can cast during combat to gain an additional copy! These cards are all incredibly good at giving you plenty of cards to keep casting during combat, but what about removing pesky blockers to make sure Azula sticks around.

Removal

If you have never watched Avatar you might not know that Azula is one of the main villains of the show. These pieces of removal that you can double up on will leave your opponents with zero questions about who the villain at the table is.

Curtains' Call is a six-mana removal spell that destroys two target creatures. In a normal game of Commander it will only ever cost three as long as all your opponents are still alive. So now with only three mana you can remove four target creatures! Fire Covenant is not only incredibly flavorful since it has fire in the name, but it can wipe your opponents entire board. You only need to pay half the life needed to destroy all creatures since Azula will copy the spell with whatever you paid into the X and you can reselect targets. Snap will untap four lands when copied, Brazen Borrower can be doubled for the removal spell or the creature spell, and Prismari Command can be incredibly flexible. These removal pieces can get incredibly out of hand when copied.

Spellslinging with Flash

This deck is playing the normal suite of Spellslinger cards. Guttersnipe, Electrostatic Field, and the brand-new Vivi Ornitier are great for this deck. But what sets this deck apart from all the other spellslinger Commanders? Let's talk about flash.

Valley Floodcaller, High Fae Trickster, and Vedalken Orrey are some of the best flash enablers you can play. Fire Lord Azula will copy any spell you play while she is attacking. If all your spells can be cast while Azula is attacking, every single spell will be doubled. Mysterious Stranger and Sphinx of Forgotten Lore have flash attached to them and will allow you to cast more spells during combat. Cut // Ribbons is a nice piece of removal and a huge life drain effect, but if we give it flash it becomes much more potent. The ever so popular Orcish Bowmasters just so happen to have flash as well. Flash effects make this deck absolutely insane, but how do you close out the game once and for all?

Finishers

Winning the game in a huge burst of fire was the way I chose to make this deck. Delayed Blast Fireball, Rakdos Charm, and Maestros Charm are pieces of removal that also double as a way to knock out opponents. Blood for the Blood God! is an amazing way to close out the game dealing a whopping 16 damage to each opponent. Twinning Staff isn't necessarily a "win condition" but being able to resolve a third copy of some of these finishers is guaranteed to knock out multiple of your opponents as well. Comet Storm and Price of Progress are two other great ways to deal lots of damage. Exsanguinate and Acidic Soil have similar effects, but are held back at sorcery speed. All you need is one of those flash enablers I talked about above and these are easily doubled by Azula. Fire Lord Azula will have no problem burning our opponents to death with all of these symmetrical burn spells.

Fire Lord Azula is a powerful new Commander that aims to burn down the table as quickly as possible. I think this legend will be an exciting new venture for players looking for a Grixis spellslinging experience. I can see this legend being extremely explosive and possibly pushing the boundaries of casual and potentially seeing some fringe cEDH play, but time will tell.

See you on the battlefield!

-Nigel