Mono-White Combo Deck Emerges Thanks to New Jumpstart Commander

Last updated on November 8, 2025

Ephemerate | Illustrated by Bastien L. Deharme

First Giott in Final Fantasy, now Gyatso in Avatar: The Last Airbender. The Rizzler must be proud.

Avatar looks to be one of the most combo-centric sets in a long time, for multiple formats, and a lot of that has to do with the new mechanics–specifically firebending and airbending. Among the airbenders is Monk Gyatso, which just powered up the long-standing combo card Nomads en-Kor.

The boomers amongst you might recognize Nomads from the infamous “Cephalid Breakfast” decks in Legacy, which look to assemble the 1-drop white creature with Cephalid Illusionist to mill your entire library for an easy Thassa's Oracle win. It's a bit janky, but has had varied competitive success, and thanks to Monk Gyatso, you can bring that jankiness to your very own mono-white Commander deck.

Two-Card Tag-Team

So you have Monk Gyatso and Nomads en-Kor in play… now what? The trick with Nomads combos is that you can activate the ability indefinitely, and it's very hard to interact with. Since the ability costs literal to activate, and isn't restricted to sorcery speed only, you can put as many activations on the stack whenever you like, and in response to anything else. Pair that with something that cares about being targeted, and you've got an easy combo enabler. Think triggering Nadu, Winged Wisdom as much as you please.

Ok, so you can activate Nomads ad infinitum, and Monk Gyatso lets you airbend anything that gets targeted (minus Gyatso himself). In other words, good luck interacting with anything besides the commander, since Nomads can just “blink out” anything else that gets targeted. Board wipe coming your way? Airbend the team away and tuck Monk Gyatso back in the command zone.

But that alone isn't infinite; you still have to pay to recast anything that's been airbent. To make this a truly infinite combo, you can add in a couple other pieces.

Cost Reduction

Reduce the cost of your spells by at least , and you can recast your airbent cards for free. We've covered this sort of interaction recently with a similar Appa, Steadfast Guardian + Aang, Airbending Master combo, but it works here too.

Assemble effects like Pearl Medallion, Oketra's Monument, or a single Semblance Anvil imprinted with a creature, and the cost of recasting your creatures becomes . You could go for Urza's Incubator instead if you have a specific creature type in mind.

With enough cost reduction in play alongside Nomads and Gyatso, you can airbend any creature you control and immediately recast it. Sub in whatever ETB creature you like for various infinites. Dawnbringer Cleric to gain infinite life, Spirited Companion for infinite card draw, etc.

@Shutendouji666 on X/Twitter added some interesting suggestions in response to an initial combo post by @spuki__. Creatures with built-in cost reduction work without all the other set-up pieces. Daybreak Chimera would be free to cast with the other combo pieces in play, as would Razor Golem with two plains in play. Workhorse produces infinite mana by removing three counters for 3 colorless mana, then airbending it to reset its counters.

Paying “Full Price”

You could also forego all the cost reduction pieces and just bite the bullet on paying for airbending. This shuts down most infinites, but also lets you spike some ridiculously powerful cards for cheap. @Big_Kev_Man mentions Emrakul, the Promised End. Recasting Emrakul for 2 mana over and over seems like game over, your job would just be getting it into play the first time.

You could also “cheat” on other cost reduction mechanics like warp and evoke. Cast something like Exalted Sunborn or Solitude for its cheaper alternate cost, airbend it while it's still on the battlefield, and have it sitting in exile for just later on. Starfield Shepherd works exceptionally well because you can use it to tutor Nomads en-Kor from the library. Reveillark and Vesperlark can also retrieve Nomads from the graveyard while playing into the overall synergies.

There's a lot of potential to this combo: It protects itself fairly well, one of the combo pieces can go in the command zone, and it lets some lesser-played cards shine in Commander for a bit. It seems best-suited for lower brackets, and the combo potential's probably fine since an actual win requires three or more pieces, but maybe there's something a bit more competitive here, too.