I didn’t plan on becoming the villain, but when I cracked open a pack of Magic: The Gathering cards and saw the Fire Lord himself staring back at me, I knew I didn’t have any other choice.
Released in November 2025, the Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover set doesn’t come with any preconstructed Commander decks, but there are plenty of great legendary creatures within its 400-plus cards that are fun to build a 100-card deck around. For players who love artifacts, there’s Toph, the First Metalbender, who turns all artifacts into lands. For fans of tribal synergy, there’s Katara, the Fearless, who doubles any triggered abilities for ally-type creatures. Fire Lord Azula is, frankly, a beast when it comes to combat tricks. But if you’re looking for maximum firepower, there can only be one option: Ozai, the Phoenix King.
Ozai costs six to cast (two red, two black, and two colorless) and boasts 7/7 power and toughness. He also has trample, firebending 4, and haste. So once you have enough mana, he’ll come out fast and hit hard.
However, it’s the Phoenix King’s other abilities that make him truly formidable. As long as Ozai is in play, all your unspent mana becomes red and never goes away, meaning you can build up a huge reservoir of mana to unleash massive, powerful spells later in the game. And as an added bonus, if you have at least six unspent mana, Ozai gains flying and indestructible. So not only is he way more difficult to kill, but he’s also harder to block. (Remember, you only need 21 Commander damage to knock out an opponent, aka, three unblocked swings with Ozai.)
To give Ozai the support he needs, I filled the deck with mana rocks (like Sol Ring and Gilded Lotus) and other firebenders so he can come out early in the game with plenty of fuel. (Plus a backup Commander in Electro, Assaulting Battery to keep my mana pool full.) And since it’s a red-black “Rakdos” deck, there’s also lots of removal and burn spells to keep my opponents in check. I even threw in a few ways to get extra combat steps to really crank up the heat.
However, the real goal of this Commander deck is to build up at least 20 unspent mana and then empty it all into a spell with X in the cost. Exsanguinate drains my opponents’ life and refills mine. Goblin Negotiations takes out a creature and makes a bunch of goblin tokens. Pedal to the Metal buffs Ozai and gives him first strike until end of turn. My personal favorite, however, is Morlun, Devourer of Spiders, who damages an opponent, gains me life, and becomes a huge creature all at once.
Ideally, before any of this happens, I’ve also already played Lord of Pain or Vial Smasher the Fierce so I can do even more damage when I cast that expensive spell.
Unfortunately, playing this deck has a drawback: I’m always the problem at the table and everyone hates playing against it. Inevitably, as soon Ozai comes out and hits someone for seven Commander damage, my opponents all work together to figure out a way to remove him and beat me down before I can build up enough mana to do any real damage. Basically, if I can’t win with this deck as soon as my Commander comes out, I’m usually done for. Best case scenario, I manage to play the Lord of Pain and make everyone else miserable for the rest of the game while I struggle to survive.
I’m still fine-tuning the deck (I think I need more instants and fewer creatures), but I’ll share the link anyway. Check out my Ozai, the Phoenix King decklist and let me know in the comments how to make it even better. Or don’t, because I’ve probably done enough damage with this thing already.
