A 20-Year-Old Magic: The Gathering Card is Wrecking Avatar Earthbending Decks
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
A 20-year-old Magic: The Gathering card named Eradicate is becoming the ultimate counter to the new Avatar crossover set's powerful Earthbending mechanic, wiping entire monocolored land bases from play.
Magic: The Gathering players diving into the new Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover set have quickly found out that Earthbending is a dominant force. While Firebending shines in aggressive red builds, Earthbending takes a little time to ramp up before it completely takes over the board. The mechanic turns lands into creatures with haste and counters, and because they return to the battlefield as lands when they die, players get a virtually immortal resource that scales aggressively over the course of a match.
However, the community has already discovered a brutal counter hiding in two decades of card history. As detailed by Corey Plante over at Polygon, the sorcery card Eradicate from the 2005 Betrayers of Kamigawa set can single handedly dismantle a monocolored Earthbending deck. Because Earthbending targets lands like Forests, casting Eradicate to exile that creature triggers a cleanup that strips the opponent's graveyard, hand, and library of every card sharing that exact name. For a basic green deck relying on simple Forests, that means losing every single remaining mana source in the library in one fell swoop.
Of course, meta evolution is moving fast. Astute Commander players running multicolor leaders like Toph, the First Metalbender naturally dilute their deck with varied lands, softening the blow of a mono targeted wipe. For those looking to pull off similar disruption in broader match contexts, resourceful players are pairing alternative removal cards like Splinter with permanents like Liquimetal Coating or Mycosynth Lattice to turn opponent lands into artifacts first. It is a brilliant reminder of why deep card pool formats remain endlessly fascinating when new crossovers shake up the table.
Tags: Magic The Gathering, Avatar The Last Airbender, Card Games, Tabletop, Gaming News
Original article: Polygon