Today, Wizards of the Coast shared a short video that reveals some of the cards and mechanics coming to Magic: The Gathering in November 2025, which is when the final set of the year, dedicated to Avatar: The Last Airbender, is scheduled to be released. The Magic: The Gathering x Avatar crossover was a safe bet for this year, even before its announcement, as there was a Secret Lair drop dedicated to SpongeBob SquarePants (whose rights are owned by Nickelodeon, like ATLA), the new Avatar movie coming out next year, and the 20th anniversary of the franchise. Now that the set is coming in just three months, WotC is showcasing some cards, and one of them is about to break the game.
The first card revealed for the crossover was Avatar Aang and its flip-side, Aang, Master of Elements. This immediately saw a lot of hype in the Commander community, as it can lead to some incredibly powerful Magic: The Gathering combos with older cards, such as Fist of Suns. Now, another card is set to spark a lot of discussions due to its incredible power, and that is the newly revealed Redirect Lightning from the "Avatar State" video.
Magic: The Gathering's First Avatar: The Last Airbender Card Leaves a Huge Question Unanswered
A Magic: The Gathering Card from the Avatar: The Last Airbender set was revealed, but it has left fans wondering about a new mechanic.
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Redirect Lightning is a 1 CMC (1 Red mana) instant that allows the user to change the target of a spell or ability with another, under the condition that it's a single target. There is a secondary cost to pay to play this card, and that's to either spend 2 generic mana or pay 5 life - both of which can be pretty hefty, depending on the state of the game when Redirect Lightning is played, the format, and other factors. However, a redirect spell or ability card that only costs one Red mana in MTG is incredibly busted, and it's about to become expensive to buy and meta-defining in various formats.
Redirect Lightning could easily find a home in the $800 Izzet Cauldron deck in MTG's Standard format, as it can single-handedly take a game from the brink of defeat to victory.
The reason that this card could break the game is that it allows players to pack a lot of value in it for just one mana, even if it ends up costing an additional 5 life to cast. For example:
- Casting Redirect Lightning on a removal not only prevents a permanent from being destroyed, but it can make the opponent suffer the removal's effects, instead
- Using Redirect Lightning on a counterspell and changing the target to Redirect Lightning will basically render the counterspell useless due to how the stack works
- Changing the target of an ability can break combos and win conditions, such as Izzet Cauldron's Cauldron proc on Vivi or MTG's Dawnsire dealing damage to a target that is not Anti-Venom to proc counters
How Redirect Lightning Can Break Multiple MTG Formats
In appropriate Avatar: The Last Airbender fashion, Redirect Lightning is bending the rules, and also a lot of formats. Modern saw a lot of play for one MTG Duskmourn card, called Untimely Malfunction, which has a similar effect to Redirect Lightning among its options, but it costs one more mana. Having a 1-mana version that affects both spells and abilities can be incredible, and it could find a new home in Legacy.
A 1-mana redirect in Standard can give even more power to Red decks like MTG's mono Red or Izzet Prowess. In Commander, players could easily add Redirect Lightning to their decks to have yet another cheap redirection spell like Deflecting Swat, and with a larger life pool, paying the 5 life cost to cast this is rather affordable. More importantly, it's more on the nose to pass the turn with three or more mana when it comes to counters, but being able to pull a redirection effect with just one Red mana can also break the balance of each game's curve.
Magic: The Gathering
- Original Release Date
- August 5, 1993
- Publisher
- Wizards of the Coast
- Designer
- Richard Garfield
- Player Count
- 2+
- Age Recommendation
- 13+