Avatar: the Last Airbender will be the final Universe Beyond set to be released this year. There are so many cards that have just been spoiled by Wizards in the last few days, one of them was Fire Lord Zuko. This brand new Mardu legend is focused around casting spells out of exile and pumping your team for doing so. Rakdos has really been diving deep into casting spells from exile and I think it is a great design space adding the +1 Counter synergy from White makes this a very unique Commander. Let's dive straight into how to lead the Fire Nation to victory with our new Fire Lord!

Exiling for Cards

The goal of this deck is extremely simple, cast as many spells from exile as possible to grow our board. The first part of the plan is to get cards in exile that we can cast. The list that I have brewed up is playing 35 cards that open us up to this strategy. Since our Commander will grow our creatures, it makes sense that a lot of the cards we play will be our engines for exiling cards.

Laelia, the Blade Reforged, Breeches, Eager Pillager, and Boros Strike-Captain want to be turned sideways in order to reward us with some cards in exile. Breeches also has some utility of making us treasure if we would rather have that. Professional Face-Breaker is a no-brainer for this deck as well since we can use treasures for mana or turn them into more cards in exile.

Party Thrasher is a great value creature that will help us cast all of the spells we exile off our library. Boomer Scrapper is going to give us Junk tokens which are great at getting us cards in exile. Tavern Brawler is one of my all time favorite Commander cards and it works really well with Zuko, especially his firebending ability. The Infamous Cruelclaw, Commander Liara Portyr, and Rev, Tithe Taker have some really strong exile focused abilities on attack and damage triggers. We want to send our creatures into combat once they build up enough +1 counters so we will take all of the damage and attack triggers we can. Let's move onto some cards that will benefit us even more for casting spells from exile.

The Benefits of Exile

Professional Face-Breaker might be the strongest creature in our deck. The reason for this is that we have so many ways to create treasure tokens in this deck. Prosper, Tome-Bound is going to give us a treasure each time we cast a spell from exile. The value this one card alone will give us is crazy. We might even be able to pull off some storm-like turns with cards like Prosper. Rev, Tithe Taker exiles cards from our opponent's deck for us to play and gives us a treasure token and of course Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer will do the same.

Decadent Dragon has an adventure spell to do a mini Rev trigger and then becomes a decent statted flyer that provides a treasure token on attack. This is an example of a creature that will be great in the late game when we are putting lots of +1 Counters on all of our creatures thanks to Zuko.

There are more benefits than making treasure tokens to play spells out of exile. Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival is one of the most powerful cards for this brew. Each time we cast a spell from exile we make a flying 1/1 Thopter which we can immediately turn into a 2/2 with our Commander in play if we stack our own triggers correctly. Wild-Magic Sorcerer is going to give us some fun cascade triggers off the first spell we cast from exile each turn. This will essentially give all of our creatures two +1 Counters by only casting a single spell!

Delayed Blast Fireball and the brand new Ultimate Magic: Meteor will give us an extra benefit if we can cast them from exile. Passionate Archeologist, Flaming Tyrannosaurous, Kami of Celebration, and Nalfeshnee will give us lots of extra value for casting our spells from exile. All of these cards combined with the numerous ways we have to put cards into exile will help push us further ahead than our opponents.

+1 Counters for the Win

We also can play a handful of creatures that care about +1 Counters. We don't necessarily need to lean into that synergy too much other than just swinging with massive creatures, but these seem too good not to include. Runaway Steam-Kin will allow us to cast even more spells each turn by getting counters to make some extra Red mana. 75% of the cards in this deck are Red so having a way to make just Red mana isn't bad.

Constable of the Realm is a consistent piece of removal each time a +1 Counter is placed on it. Abzan Falconer will give all our creatures with counters flying. Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin and Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon will create small token armies based on the number of counters on them. Uncivil Unrest, Thundering Raiju, and Damning Verdict are our huge game enders for our +1 Counter synergies.

Firebending

Fire Lord Zuko has the brand new keyword Firebending. This brand new keyword creates red mana equal to the value of Firebending, in this case the value is equal to Zuko's power. Since Zuko places +1 Counters on all our creatures, he also can make us more mana inside of combat with Firebending. We only have a small window to use the mana so it's tricky to find lots of cards to include that benefit from it.

Great Train Heist and Ogre Battlecaster seem to be some of the best cards for this. Great Train Heist is an instant speed extra combat spell and Ogre Battlecaster allows us to reuse some low cost exile spells from our graveyard. We also are playing a number of Red instant spells that we could also use the Firebending mana on such as: Commune with Lava, March of Reckless Joy, Opera Love Song, and You Find Some Prisoners. As time goes on, we might see more cards to include to boost the firebending potential of Zuko, but for now these are the only cards that I decided to include.

Here's the final list!

Fire Lord Zuko | Commander | Nigel Kurtz

• Creatures (37)
• 1 Abzan Falconer
• 1 Anim Pakal, Thousandth Moon
• 1 Birgi, God of Storytelling // Harnfel, Horn of Bounty
• 1 Bonehoard Dracosaur
• 1 Boomer Scrapper
• 1 Boros Strike-Captain
• 1 Breeches, Eager Pillager
• 1 Bruse Tarl, Roving Rancher
• 1 Commander Liara Portyr
• 1 Constable of the Realm
• 1 Decadent Dragon // Expensive Taste
• 1 Dragonhawk, Fate's Tempest
• 1 Emperor of Bones
• 1 Flaming Tyrannosaurus
• 1 Florian, Voldaren Scion
• 1 Grenzo, Havoc Raiser
• 1 Inti, Seneschal of the Sun
• 1 Kami of Celebration
• 1 Krenko, Tin Street Kingpin
• 1 Laelia, the Blade Reforged
• 1 Loyal Apprentice
• 1 Nalfeshnee
• 1 Ogre Battlecaster
• 1 Oona's Blackguard
• 1 Ornithopter of Paradise
• 1 Party Thrasher
• 1 Pia Nalaar, Consul of Revival
• 1 Plargg and Nassari
• 1 Professional Face-Breaker
• 1 Prosper, Tome-Bound
• 1 Ragavan, Nimble Pilferer
• 1 Rev, Tithe Extractor
• 1 Robber of the Rich
• 1 Runaway Steam-Kin
• 1 The Infamous Cruelclaw
• 1 Thundering Raiju
• 1 Wild-Magic Sorcerer

• Instants (10)
• 1 Commune with Lava
• 1 Delayed Blast Fireball
• 1 Great Train Heist
• 1 Lightning Bolt
• 1 March of Reckless Joy
• 1 Opera Love Song
• 1 Path to Exile
• 1 Seize Opportunity
• 1 Swords to Plowshares
• 1 You Find Some Prisoners

• Sorceries (7)
• 1 Damning Verdict
• 1 Ecstatic Beauty
• 1 Glimpse the Impossible
• 1 Jeska's Will
• 1 Light Up the Stage
• 1 Ultimate Magic: Meteor
• 1 Wrenn's Resolve

• Enchantments (3)
• 1 Passionate Archaeologist
• 1 Tavern Brawler
• 1 Uncivil Unrest

• Artifacts (7)
• 1 Arcane Signet
• 1 Boros Signet
• 1 Rakdos Signet
• 1 Sol Ring
• 1 Talisman of Conviction
• 1 Talisman of Hierarchy
• 1 Talisman of Indulgence

• Lands (35)
• 10 Mountain
• 6 Plains
• 6 Swamp
• 1 Battlefield Forge
• 1 Blood Crypt
• 1 Clifftop Retreat
• 1 Command Tower
• 1 Dragonskull Summit
• 1 Exotic Orchard
• 1 Graven Cairns
• 1 Nomad Outpost
• 1 Path of Ancestry
• 1 Rugged Prairie
• 1 Sacred Foundry
• 1 Spinerock Knoll
• 1 Sulfurous Springs

Buy This Deck Export text

Fire Lord Zuko is a very powerful Commander. I believe he will see lots of play in the Command Zone with the love of +1 Counter synergies and playing into the impulse draw strategy. I can't wait to see more legends from the Avatar: the Last Airbender set coming later this year!

See you on the battlefield!

-Nigel