Last updated on November 1, 2025
Academy Manufactor | Illustration by Campbell White
You might’ve noticed something missing among all the cool cards and new/returning mechanics being previewed for Avatar: The Last Airbender. It appears as though “investigate” is no more, at least not as a universal keyword mechanic. There’s a lot of Clue generation in the set, including a boat that makes a Clue when it dies… for some reason. However, none of these cards use the term investigate, which we’ve come to associate with Clue-making ever since it was introduced in Shadows over Innistrad.
The residents of Ravnica must be in shambles, given how much they invested into detective hats back in Murders at Karlov Manor.
Let’s Investigate Further
Clue | Illustration by John Avon
Just to be clear, the “investigate” keyword action isn’t being deleted from the game, or errata’d, or anything like that. It just won’t be used anymore on designs where the flavor of investigation doesn’t make much sense. Take Cunning Maneuver from Avatar: It’s a combat trick depicting Aang dodging some firebending attack. What would Aang be investigating here? It’d feel a little silly to have that be part of the effect, though you might argue making a Clue already doesn’t make much sense for the card.
Similarly, Fire Nation Warship leaves behind a Clue when it dies (and also has reach for some reason? Help me out Avatar fans). Investigating just doesn’t fit the context of the card, so it makes sense to drop the terminology here.
Investigate was originally introduced as a flavor-forward token-making mechanic tied to the mystery of Shadows over Innistrad, and it returned as a big part of Murders at Karlov Manor, while appearing in plenty of other spaces as well. Clue tokens are what WotC calls a “deciduous mechanic”, one that can be used in any set when it fits a card design, but doesn’t show up in literally every set like an actual “evergreen” mechanic.
We’ve seen Clues expand beyond just tokens, too, with cards like Candy Trail, Scene of the Crime, and Parcel Myr having the clue subtype. Clue generation is still heavily flavored around searching, investigation, and discovery (see Azul, On the Hunt from Avatar), but it looks like the designers want to use it more broadly without forcing the investigative flavor on every card that makes a Clue.
Is This Actually a Nerf?
Thraben Inspector | Illustration by Matt Stewart
Investigate isn’t getting any weaker, and it’s functionally the same when you spell out “create a Clue token”, but there is a downside to making this change, namely that future Clue-making cards won’t interact with anything that specifically checks for investigating.
Take Erdwal Illuminator, for example. This card makes a Clue the first time you investigate each turn, but in order for this to work, the card it’s interacting with needs to literally say “investigate”. You’ll make a second Clue off of Thraben Inspector, but you would not make a second Clue when Forecasting Fortune Teller enters. Similarly, future designs won’t interact with Val, Marooned Surveyor, an Alchemy card that checks for the investigate keyword specifically.
That said, there are so few cards that specifically call out investigating in this way that it ultimately won’t matter all that much. Sure, the Clue cards from TLA don’t work with Erdwal Illuminator, but who’s really playing that card, and how pivotal is it in the decks that play it anyway? It’s not like Val can’t still combo off with Trelasarra, Moon Dancer because of this change.
So ultimately, this is a nerf in the sense that future Clue-based designs might not interact with a few already-existing investigate payoffs, but it’s really not all that impactful of a change right now. There may come a time when we return to another detective-heavy set that uses the investigate keyword again, and it’ll be annoying that these unkeyworded cards don’t work with any new investigate payoffs they print, but it’s really not that big of a deal. Plus, this change lets them use Clue tokens a bit more freely, and Clues are awesome for just about every format, Limited and Commander included. So, sorry to the Erdwal Illuminator truthers out there, but you’ll have to take the fall on this one.
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