Avatar’s Most Popular EDH Card is a Deflecting Swat Clone

Last updated on November 12, 2025

Deflecting Swat | Illustration by Greg Staples

New staple alert! I repeat: New staple alert! This is not a drill. Especially not The Fire Nation Drill.

Redirect Lightning is currently the frontrunner Commander card from Avatar: The Last Airbender, and it's a bit of a no-brainer. It's easy to dismiss as a poor man's Deflecting Swat (which it is), but being in tier two doesn't make something unplayable. Are you leaving Counterspells on the sidelines because Mana Drain exists? I think not.

Redirect Lightning

Redirect Lightning was previewed early on in the Avatar spoiler cycle, and it got cEDH brains whirring immediately. Deflecting Swat has been such a powerhouse staple going on five years now that cheap new redirect effects tend to stick out a bit more. However, they're normally not this cheap.

Recent attempts at redirection include Return the Favor and Untimely Malfunction, but these miss the mark at 2 mana, even with their added benefits. The key to making a redirect spell viable is making it cost exactly 1 mana (or 0 in the case of Swat). One mana is just easier to hold up than 2.

Chances are, Redirect Lightning falls somewhere between the undisputed Deflecting Swat and the next best version, Bolt Bend, a criminally underrated card that works well in any deck with large creatures, or even just a 4+ power commander. Neither of these alternatives are coming close to touching Deflecting Swat's free-cast mode, but Lightning probably gets the nod over Bolt Bend since it doesn't have a power restriction to cast for cheap, and the Avatar card's even cheaper to cast if you have to pay full price. Regardless of how they shake out, we've come a long way since the days of holding up Wild Ricochet.

If I May Redirect Your Attention

Bolt Bend | Illustration by Svetlin Velinov

Okay, back to Redirect Lightning for a minute. It's not smart to down-right ignore that this Lava Axes your face if you cast it for , but it's safe to assume you'll usually be getting this for the discounted rate. If you're confused why you'd ever chunk yourself for an eighth of your starting life total for an effect like this, just consider some of the following scenarios where a cheap redirect might come in hand.

• An opponent casts Time Warp targeting themselves, except just kidding! Now you're taking an extra turn. Might as well make it Time Stretch while you're at it.
• An opponent targets an important permanent you have in play with removal. Redirecting it not only saves your card, but often removes an opposing threat instead.
• An opponent casts a counterspell, assuming your silly red can't do anything about it. Silly blue mage; cast Redirect Lightning and have the counterspell target this card instead. Note that you can't make a counterspell counter itself, but you can redirect its target to something else higher on the stack. Bonus points if you somehow make them counter another one of their own spells.
• Someone finally painstakingly pulled off a Door to Nothingness combo. Sure would suck if you had a way to make them target themselves with the activation.

You get the point. Any time targeting is involved, these redirects come in handy. The key is being able to represent them with as little mana as possible.

EDHREC Darling

Deflecting Swat | Illustration by Izzy

According to EDHREC, Redirect Lightning has already made its way into just under 14,000 decklists. That's pretty crazy for a card that hasn't even released yet, but it demonstrates just how familiar people are with the power of these effects now. The next most-represented card from TLA is Bender's Waterskin with half as many inclusions, and that's a colorless card that can go in so many more decks.

Obviously, Redirect Lightning is slotting into all the best commanders from Avatar, which all happen to include red. It's a popular choice for Toph, the First Metalbender, Fire Lord Azula, and Fire Lord Zuko, the 3-color trio currently dominating Avatar‘s commander offerings.

If you break away from Avatar, its biggest homes right now are Kratos, God of War, Kuja, Genome Sorcerer, and Jaws, Relentless Predator. Also, holy Universes Beyond! It seems there's a correlation between the play rate on new cards and the latest commanders that have been released, since all of these are fairly new (though Magda, Brazen Outlaw slots in at #4).

Redirect Lightning is the real deal, for competitive Commander and casual tables alike. It's no Deflecting Swat, but it's probably good that we don't get more effects like this at that power level. It's a nice upgrade over Bolt Bend though, which probably should've been played more than it was anyway. Just don't pay the 5 life after a Form of the Dragon. Or better yet, stop casting Form of the Dragon.