The 54 Best Avatars in Magic Ranked

Last updated on April 16, 2026

Soul of Theros | Illustration by Zack Stella

Hello planeswalkers! It was inevitable that one of the most beloved animated series of all time, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and MTG would cross paths at some point. With the Avatar: The Last Airbender set in Standard, it's a good time to look at the avatar creature type.

What is an avatar, anyway? It’s a malleable creature type that can constitute many different ideas in MTG. What can avatars do for your Constructed and Commander decks? They fit into many different strategies and provide huge payoffs. Will I keep answering my own questions? Just one more, let’s get into it!

What Are Avatars in MTG?

Enter the Avatar State | Illustration by Shiren

The avatar creature type represents manifestations of larger powers. They are often projections or aspects of planes, magic, or virtues. There are over 150 avatar creatures that span every color and all the color combinations, including 5-color creatures and so are open to 5-color combos.

The avatar creature type has been in MTG for a long time and has been retconned on many older cards. These cards go back to sets like Fallen Empires and Homelands as “Summon Avatar” and “Summon Legend”. In the Classic Sixth Edition set “summon” was dropped and we officially got the creature type of avatar with a card like Ethereal Champion.

As MTG has developed, avatars have gotten significantly more powerful. There are many good avatars for Historic and Standard formats. You’ll see some classic avatars, but the relatively new ones really pack a punch.

#54. Living Lore

Living Lore is all about the interesting interactions. You can discard massive instant or sorcery spells to make this huge and possibly cheat out your biggest spell. These interaction possibilities are tantalizing in the middle game and can lead to overwhelming wins. The biggest downsides are instant-speed graveyard hate, and the need to sacrifice this big creature to unlock its full potential.

#53. Transdimensional Bovine

I call Transdimensional Bovine the bovine of paradise, and if you rate Palladium Mry highly, this green upgrade that gives you great colored ramp is strong, wierd, but strong.

#52. Soul of Shandalar

Burning Sun's Avatar almost made the list for its decent damage trigger. Well, Soul of Shandalar does the same thing every turn, and so it needs to be on this list. If you can’t get your red cards through defenses, this avatar is a wonderful way to add removal and direct damage every turn if you can afford the activated abilities.

#51. Soul of Theros

Soul of Theros is a perfect threat for any deck that wants to go wide and needs a pump effect. The activated abilities are expensive, but enabling big swings while this card is on and off the battlefield wins games.

#50. Kitsune, Dragon's Daughter

Kitsune, Dragon's Daughter is a unique and repeatable creature exchanging card. It costs more than Shifting Grift or Switcheroo but is a really fun effect with chaos themes and a high ceiling.

#49. Rat King, Pale Piper

Rat King, Pale Piper has few restrictions on creating rats. An opponent that mistakenly Cyclonic Rifts your board will leave you with that many rats, but if you proactively crack Evolving Wilds, warp a card, or sacrifice a nontoken creature, you get rats!

Plus, you have lots of opportunity to draw cards for very little work.

#48. World Queller

World Queller is a nice kind of all-around removal for white decks. This card allows you to force players to sacrifice permanents of a chosen type. To break this symmetrical effect, choose card types you aren’t using. You can take out creature decks if you have enough tokens, or get rid of annoying enchantments, artifacts, or planeswalkers.

#47. Transcendent Master

Transcendent Master is a great level up creature to use all of your mana efficiently. For 1 mana, it’s easy to sneak in one, two, or many level counters each turn. You get a big lifelink creature after six level ups, and then a possible game-finisher after 12.

#46. West Wind Avatar

West Wind Avatar is huge and there's something demoralizing for aggro decks to go against large creatures that gain life. Slip in that disappear trigger to easily draw a card and this is much more than a strong Limited card.

#45. Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender

Avatar Kyoshi, Earthbender is a land creature engine. Each combat, you can turn a land into an 8/8 creature. On top of that, you can use these lands as mana before combat because you can untap them before making them a creature. The mana value is high, but green has some of the best ramp, so the upside is quite intriguing.

#44. “Avatar of…” Avatars

The “Avatar of…” some sort of emotion or theme provide strong creatures for the color they fit into. Avatar of Woe is by far the best example. This is a versatile avatar to get you through the late game. The 10 creatures in all graveyards that cheapen the cost of this card can easily be satisfied by sacrificing creatures and using removal. At that point, you have a great creature that pivots to equally great removal if needed.

Other “Avatar of” cards worth knowing are Avatar of Slaughter, Avatar of the Resolute, and Avatar of Fury. Whether it's being ultra-aggressive in red or ramping and pumping in green, these avatars provide a ton of value.

#43. Avatar Roku, Firebender

Avatar Roku, Firebender is a boon for non-aggro red decks. When players attack, you get a ton of mana for combat tricks and instants. This can totally alter the combat phase. You can play your creatures and still have the mana for your instants.

Also of note, the saga The Legend of Roku and the transformed side Avatar Roku provide some great red ramp that can lead to even more ramp with some dragon tokens.

#42. Soul of Innistrad

Soul of Innistrad is one of the best plane avatars. Returning three creatures to your hand for 5 mana has so much value for aristocrat and aggressive decks. You can be aggressive and sacrifice creatures to your heart’s content as long as you have Soul of Innistrad.

#41. Aang

We can’t highlight avatars and the Avatar: The Last Airbender set without highlighting the Last Airbender himself. Aang appears in many different versions, mostly in white, but also in multicolored cards. The Aang avatar cards often deal with several element-bending mechanics, especially airbend.

The best versions of Aang are the monocolored Aang, Airbending Master and the 4-colored transforming Avatar Aang. The former is a great bounce card, and the latter has a ton of potential if you build a deck around all of the element-bending mechanics. And Aang has one great reprint in Aang, Ascendant Airbender, as a reskin of Serra Ascendant.

#40. “-less One” Avatars

Many of these “-less One” cards can fit well into popular typal decks. Each color has one, and they all have popular creature types in addition to avatar, such as goblin and elf. Their power/toughness is equal to the number of that other creature type you control.

The “-less One” avatars are: Reckless One, Soulless One, Heedless One, Doubtless One, and Nameless One. Reckless One’s haste fits well with large goblin armies, Soulless One’s counts zombies in your graveyard which fits the vibe, and Doubtless One can provide huge lifegain potential.

#39. Evra, Halcyon Witness

Evra, Halcyon Witness has an interesting play style that enables several strategies as a wincon. You can switch your life totals and this card’s power/toughness for 4 mana. Swinging with some massive power, or even just switching the power and life twice, fuels great interactions by losing or gaining huge sums of life for cards like Vilis, Broker of Blood and Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose. At instant speed, this activated ability and lifegain puts some real pressure on opponents.

#38. Torgaar, Famine Incarnate

I don’t know what could be scarier than “Famine Incarnate.” Torgaar, Famine Incarnate is a sacrifice deck darling. The aim is to get some small creatures out early, and halve an opponent’s life in one move. Pair it with a card that makes your opponents lose double life like Bloodletter of Aclazotz and you have a true game-winning threat.

#37. All-Seeing Arbiter

All this all-seeing card needs is momentum to provide huge benefits. All-Seeing Arbiter draws a card as soon as it enters, and sucks power from opponent’s creatures. The more you draw and discard, the more you can attack and repeat this process.

#36. Herald of Leshrac

Herald of Leshrac makes this list because its cumulative upkeep actually benefits you, stealing lands from opponents. You get extra mana, your opponents lose mana, and you get a pump from controlling their mana. The huge downsides are the Herald’s high cost, and that you can’t keep those stolen lands forever since they get returned when it dies.

#35. North Wind Avatar

North Wind Avatar is the top of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vertical cycle that starts at the common rarity with East Wind Avatar, and includes West Wind Avatar and South Wind Avatar. This one would rank better if wish cards worked in Commander.

I see it as a Diabolic Tutor plus to put it on a 5/5 flier. What I can't unsee is the idea of Dragon Ball as a future Universes Beyond collaboration.

#34. Death’s Shadow + Shadow of Mortality

Death's Shadow and Shadow of Mortality require a little building around to get a massive creature on the board for cheap. The aim is to lose some life early and turn the game around in the second half. So bring on those aggressive decks and taxing cards like Infernal Grasp.

#33. Scion of Darkness

Scion of Darkness provides the huge upside that its MV demands. This card is a fantastic creature for fans of black and awesome art. The MV may be a burden at times, but at least this card has cycling. If you can’t get the great aura of this card, at least you can draw.

#32. Aeon Chronicler

Aeon Chronicler is an avatar as big as your hand. This card can become a huge body at an enticing cost of 5 mana. But if you suspend the card for multiple turns, it provides excellent card draw. Suspend usually offsets costs with time, but Aeon Chronicler turns a little more mana and time into draw advantage.

#31. Hybrid Dual-Colored Avatars

This cycle of avatars provides some big bodies and good effects, with the very easy to attain five hybrid symbols. These avatars fit in a wide range of decks and slot into your curve while providing high upside.

A few to highlight are: Divinity of Pride for its easy to obtain pump in lifegain decks, Dominus of Fealty for its creature stealing and all the synergies that come with that, Overbeing of Myth for consistent card draw, and Nobilis of War for rounding out aggressive Boros () decks.

#30. South Wind Avatar

South Wind Avatar is the sanguine half of a Sanguine Bond combo that needs Exquisite Blood and literally any of your creatures to die to start the chain reaction. It'd be solid without the life loss trigger, and it's really a powerful piece in aristocrat decks too.

#29. Absolute Virtue

Absolute Virtue is another expensive avatar that can provide huge upside. Giving yourself protection from opponents is so much crazier than just giving yourself hexproof. Your opponents can’t even deal combat damage to you! So cheat this card onto the field and enjoy the protection.

#28. Hallowed Spiritkeeper

Hallowed Spiritkeeper is a good avatar card for creature-centric Eternal decks. This card is screaming to be paired with mass pump spells. Get your cheap aggressive white creatures, and attack often.

#27. Rat King, Verminister

Rat King, Verminister has really powerful effects and early. There are so many permanents and it is natural for them to leave the battlefield, just by playing the game. So that should earn you a rat per turn, what's killer is needing just three rats for a free reanimation of one card in Commander, but up to four cards in other formats.

#26. Child of Alara

Child of Alara is our 5-color rattlesnake avatar. The 5-color mana cost is tough, but Constructed decks provide a ton of mana ramp and color fixing. Playing this card on or around the curve allows you to attack with a creature that may force your opponent to make tough decisions.

#25. Niv-Mizzet Reborn

Niv-Mizzet Reborn has the kind of ETB effect that can be nuts in the right build. This card brings cards of different dual color combinations into your hand. So, you’ll need to find ways to get the five different mana and stack your deck with many color combinations. Faeburrow Elder and Growth Spiral are prime examples of what you hope to get from this card’s trigger.

#24. Sepulchral Primordial

Sepulchral Primordial is a wonderful, albeit expensive graveyard card. The MV is quite high and doesn’t come close to the value of a Zombify, but the beauty of this card is that it’s an ETB effect and not a casting trigger. So, you get a cascading effect with some reanimation of your own.

#23. Phage the Untouchable

Phage the Untouchable forces its owner to have lots of black mana and to hard cast it. However, the upsides are tantalizing for some cheap and quick wins. If you can cast this card, you can either remove opponents' creatures or just win when it attacks.

#22. Verdant Sun's Avatar

Verdant Sun's Avatar allows you to take advantage of your creatures' toughness by gaining life. This isn’t your ground and pound dinosaur, but it works well with cards like Angel of Destiny and lifegain strategies.

#21. Arahbo, Roar of the World

Getting effects from the command zone provides so much value before you even can play your Commander. Arahbo, Roar of the World pumps one of your cats each combat from the command zone. Once on the battlefield, for every 3 mana you can spare for combat, you can pump even more creatures. Arahbo, the First Fang is another great card to include in cat decks.

#20. Magmablood Archaic

Magmablood Archaic can be huge, but is fully worth playing as a 3/3 for . Follow this up with some multicolor charms and you won't need a million tokens, but rather a handful of creatures to win because of the sheer amount of power boost your board gets.

#19. Wildgrowth Archaic

It's absurd that Wildgrowth Archaic can cost as little as , and any time you're paying more, you're getting that stat on rate. What I think of as the Grumgully, the Generous effect is quite good with the small drawback of not triggering for creature tokens. Am I happy to have another reason to love Burning-Tree Emissary? Absolutely.

#18. Serra Avatar

Serra Avatar is made for white control decks. For 7 mana, you get a creature that potentially has double-digit power and toughness based on your life total. If you can survive the early game and ramp up to the cost of this card, then you could have a killer threat on the board. It goes without saying that this card has even more potential in Commander.

#17. Progenitus

Progenitus has one of the hardest, if not the hardest mana requirements in MTG. If you can reach two mana of each color, then you have the bomb card you’ve been looking for. This card has protection from everything, and re-enters your library if it’s sent to your graveyard. Besides the cost, there's lots to love.

#16. Soul of Windgrace

Drawing lands in the later game can be an absolute backbreaker. Soul of Windgrace turns those unwanted lands into actual value. The cost is reasonable, and the upside of curbing mana flooding with actual value makes this card incredibly useful.

#15. Scion of the Ur-Dragon

Scion of the Ur-Dragon is a 5-colored card that can become a copy of one of your other powerful dragons. If you can navigate the color-intensive cost, you can search for your bomb dragons like Scion of Draco and have a copy of it for much cheaper. This isn’t as prominent of a dragon commander as The Ur-Dragon, but it carries some good value in the right decks.

#14. Stalking Vengeance

Red is aggressive and it's extremely effective when attacking creatures turn into bombs when they die. Stalking Vengeance’s high cost means it doesn’t work in every aggressive deck, but, with the right deckbuilding, it can make red decks ultra deadly in the late game.

#13. Sauron, the Dark Lord

One of the biggest villains of all time, Sauron, the Dark Lord is a Grixis avatar Commander with cascading text. You amass some orcs, the ring tempts you, and you can discard your hand to draw additional cards. Not only is this a great outcome, but each step of the text is valuable for Commander or other Constructed formats. If you can’t get enough of this infamous avatar, check out Sauron, the Necromancer, Sauron, the Lidless Eye, and Sauron, Lord of the Rings.

#12. Soul of New Phyrexia

Soul of New Phyrexia can make your permanents hard to remove. This card gives indestructible to your permanents with its activated ability, and the protection is extended to be used once from the graveyard. Your opponents better have some exile spells, or you’ll be spreading the glory of Phyrexia across the Multiverse.

#11. Wakening Sun's Avatar

Wakening Sun's Avatar is an expensive card, but the upsides are great for a dinosaur tribal deck. This white dinosaur avatar can work as a one-sided board wipe (assuming your opponent doesn’t have many dinosaurs). That level of asymmetrical destruction turns games in your favor fast.

#10. Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar

Multani, Yavimaya's Avatar embodies the theme of nature. It can grow as big as the lands you control, can be regrown, and reach and trample are quite forest-themed. This is a wonderful green card, especially in landfall decks that can recycle and reuse lands.

#9. Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER / Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel

Sephiroth, Fabled SOLDIER is an aristocrat engine darling. This card provides a sacrifice mechanic as well as a siphon trigger, which often requires two different cards in this kind of build. If you can sacrifice four creatures in a single turn, you can transform this card into Sephiroth, One-Winged Angel and permanently get the life siphon trigger.

#8. Gandalf the White

Gandalf the White is a strong legendary-matters or artifact engine. Considering those are two very popular builds, this version of Gandalf provides huge upside.It gives your legendary or artifact cards flash and doubles the entering and leaving triggers of these cards. If you can’t get enough of the lovable avatar wizard, check out Gandalf, Friend of the Shire, Gandalf the Grey, Gandalf, White Rider, Gandalf, Westward Voyager, and Gandalf of the Secret Fire.

#7. Body of Knowledge

Body of Knowledge plays extremely well in decks based on drawing cards (as blue often is). You can get a massive creature, maximize your hand size, and draw a card if it’s damaged. All of these lead to advantages and a very good avatar.

#6. Duskmourn Overlords

All the Overlords from Duskmourn: House of Horror are excellent avatars. They each have impending to offset their high costs, and great ETB and attack triggers. The Overlords fit in many strategies. Overlord of the Hauntwoods is by far the best with the huge ramp upside, but Overlord of the Boilerbilges, Overlord of the Balemurk, Overlord of the Floodpits, and Overlord of the Mistmoors all have killer value in their own rights.

#5. The Ur-Dragon

Some of these with high and/or color intensive casting costs have ridiculous amounts of power. If you can navigate the mana and high cost, The Ur-Dragon is an all-color Commander that quickly snowballs the game in your favor if it gets momentum. With The Ur-Dragon on the battlefield, your dragons turn into a huge card draw and a way to cheat cards onto the battlefield.

#4. Gishath, Sun's Avatar

Many of the multicolored avatar creatures make for great specific-strategy Commanders. Gishath, Sun's Avatar is the Naya () dinosaur commander to cheat dinosaurs onto the battlefield from your library. You’ll need some ramp from dinosaur support like Knight of the Stampede, as well as great dinosaur cards to cheat into play like Regisaur Alpha and Zacama, Primal Calamity.

#3. The Dawning Archaic

The Dawning Archaic is so much card advantage on a beatstick it's not even funny. Use some looting, rummaging, or a wheel to dump instants and sorceries into your graveyard, or I dunno, cast spells? In a spell slinging deck you can easily get this colorless legend down earlier than turn 5, then expand your hand and cheat on mana with all those big instants and sorceries you put in the graveyard.

It's hard to stop and not hard to see how strong this is.

#2. Wandering Archaic / Explore the Vastlands

Wandering Archaic is a dual-sided card, but the main value comes from the front side. This provides nice value by taxing your opponents’ instants and sorceries unless they want you to copy them. Copying an opponent’s spells may be enough of a deterrent or advantage to win you some matches. The backside, Explore the Vastlands, may give your opponents a chance to get the cards they need, and that’s a gamble that doesn’t compare to the upside of the front-facing avatar.

#1. Muldrotha, the Gravetide

Muldrotha, the Gravetide is a premier graveyard deck card, especially as a Sultai commander (). Playing a card from your graveyard maximizes Muldrotha's efficiency, and bringing multiple cards from the graveyard each turn is just incredible. Muldrotha, the Gravetide plays well with discarding and reanimating, especially alongside cards like Spore Frog and Secrets of the Dead.

Best Avatar Payoffs

All these avatars can be quite different, but we can find a few through lines that help make these avatars or your decks even better.

We’ll start with some obvious enablers for most of these avatars, which is mana ramp and mana fixing. So many of these huge avatars are quite expensive and often multiple colors. Use great mana ramp like Birds of Paradise, Arcane Signet, and Burnished Hart to get them out early and easily.

One of the best things you can do to boost these avatars is play them alongside ability amplifiers since many of these avatars have activated and triggered abilities. If you have any typal synergy at all, check for an ability doubler with that type, as they are printed for allies, birds, elementals, and more. To greatly benefit from avatar abilities, use cards like Panharmonicon, Lithoform Engine, Isshin, Two Heavens as One, The Peregrine Dynamo, Roaming Throne, and Annie Joins Up.

Many avatars have extremely specific abilities that make them cards you build around and support with the entirety of your deck:

• Gishath, Sun's Avatar wants cards like Zacama, Primal Calamity, Garruk's Uprising, and Otepec Huntmaster.
• Gandalf the White needs cards like Ratadrabik of Urborg, Samwise the Stouthearted, and Delighted Halfling.
• Sauron, the Dark Lord demands cards like Call of the Ring, Witch-king of Angmar, and Saruman's Trickery.
• Avatar Roku, Firebender asks for cards like Electro, Assaulting Battery, Zuko, Exiled Prince, and Vedalken Orrery.

For good measure, here are some commanders that play well with avatars: Morophon, the Boundless, Animar, Soul of Elements, and Glarb, Calamity's Augur.

Wrap Up

Absolute Virtue | Illustration by Toni Infante

Thank you for taking your precious time to read this article and hopefully gaining some insight into the avatar creature type. This interesting creature type offers some of the biggest and wildest representations of the magic in MTG. If this article were an avatar, it would be the avatar of good reading!

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Avatar state, yip, yip!

— Ember Island Player (depicting Aang)