Avatar: The Final and Most Perfect Draft Promotion of 2025

Note: This article was translated from Chinese by AI and may contain errors. Read the original Chinese version.

The Guildmages’ Forum Is Hosting Another Event Again?

I know this no longer surprises anyone XD. After all, in 2025 we collaborated with 睿卡潮玩 (Ruika) multiple times to let more players experience the joys of the draft format. But allow me to announce once more: it’s time to read an article and play a real in-person draft again~

Avatar: The Last Airbender (hereafter TLA) is the last set of 2025, and it drew a lot of attention at preview time for its mechanical design; the four classical elements of water, earth, fire, and air in the story are also very close to the spirit of Magic: The Gathering. The art on some cards and the quotes excerpted on them have moved the MTG community, with many people starting to watch the Avatar anime, and I personally find it really good too. As our site partner cephille said, Universes Beyond (UB) has brought very good interaction this time; whether you’re a Magic fan or an Avatar fan, this collaboration lets you feel what’s great about the other work.

Back to TLA itself: when it comes to Magic drafts, everyone of course looks forward to what they might crack out of the packs, and that sense of surprise is a joy players can never avoid XD. If you like cracking packs, you will definitely want to crack TLA packs! I don’t even want to explain further, because Badgermole Cub is super strong! Wan Shi Tong, Librarian is obviously great too! Players in every format should be glad to see them join, so let’s crack some packs with passion.

If You Still Don’t Know What Draft Is

Since this article is promotion-oriented, please allow us to briefly introduce “draft” once more.

Getting straight to the point: Magic drafts are insanely fun. You can crack packs, pick from them, snag a good card nobody else took (usually because it’s not in the color pair they’re playing this time, so they reluctantly pass it to you), build a deck, battle, take home souvenirs provided by the store, play casually and trash-talk with a few friends; or play seriously, so seriously that you can even keep going at the Pro Tour.

The Event Begins

On Sunday, November 30, 2025, thanks again to Game Square for generously providing the venue. Before the tournament started, our fellow Guildmages’ Forum members, as usual, all went to the counter to grab some singles XD sorry, I grabbed the most .

With this opportunity, I’d like to share with readers a card-buying channel I use often: besides Ruten auctions, did you know Taiwan also has a very powerful, real-time MTG purchasing platform? That’s Game Square’s online store.

Not sponsored; we simply love using it ourselves and want to recommend it to more readers every time.

I usually don’t have much time to visit card shops, so thankfully there’s Game Square. Besides the benefit of free shipping on orders over NT$2000, each reward point can offset NT$1 later (see the store website for the detailed formula; it’s basically 3% back).

This is a screenshot of my reward point calculation. Note it’s the reward points, not the total amount. Hmm, looks like I bought too much…

That wraps up the recommendation segment. Now let’s officially get into the event highlights of Avatar: The Final and Most Perfect Draft Experience of 2025.

As usual, a group photo first! As usual, everyone is a little shy and needs some Magic booster packs as lubricant.

You can almost smell the printing ink of the cards! I made an effort to finish the Avatar anime before the draft, so I was especially looking forward to it.

Besides the boosters, what matters even more is of course 睿卡潮玩 (Ruika), who we’ve collaborated with for half a year. Supporting each other, we absolutely have to keep the shelves stocked and full.

cephille carefully picking singles.

Invited player Szgu is also picking singles. At this point nobody knew he was about to pull off something big… I genuinely think it was super cool, and I suggest you read to the end.

During the drafting, I unexpectedly noticed GY_Player’s phone case was full of MTG love, so I immediately made him get in the shot. Also thanks to cephille for buying everyone drinks.

Hm? Why is 凱克, sitting across the table, scrolling on his phone? And why does the page look so familiar? It must be some pretty good website go take that 4.0-rated powerful single already .

After drafting comes battling! That’s what makes a complete draft… wait a moment, why does Jru’s battlefield have only lands? Has the man who loves destroying lands become a friend of lands?

It turns out the set’s Earthbend mechanic can turn lands into creatures that can join combat. Jru is thinking hard about the game.

cephille, sitting across, is also playing cautiously.

Countdown to Szgu’s flashy explosive turn.

All-out war! See the content below for the day’s battle report; it’s time for me to go sit down too.

Summary

A slight pity of this session is that none of the eight players opened those two super powerful animals, boo hoo, but it didn’t affect our enjoyment of the draft at all (okay, just a tiny bit, a very tiny bit), and everyone still had a great time that afternoon.

The most astonishing performance was by invited player Szgu, who discovered the combo of Sokka, Tenacious Tactician and Trusty Boomerang; Trusty Boomerang’s repeated return to hand paired perfectly with Prowess, and he successfully launched a huge and super cool assault at the end of the game that opened the eyes of all the onlookers. Making a low-rated single shine is also surely one of the great charms of the draft format.

That’s the event record section of Avatar: The Final and Most Perfect Draft Promotion of 2025. If you’re curious about the picking process that day, you’re welcome to read on for the players’ thoughts.

The MVP combo of the day is here!

Players’ Thoughts

GY_Player’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

Fire Nation Cadets at P1P9. For my first eight picks I was basically forcing red, because red in this set is really strong, and I wanted to cut red off from everyone else.

After my first pack went around the table and came back, I noticed Fire Nation Cadets had wheeled, and I took it as a signal that red was open. But I didn’t notice that the third red single in that pack, Boar-q-pine, had been taken, so it wasn’t that nobody was taking red; they just didn’t take Fire Nation Cadets.

This misreading of the signal left me with very little red material in the next two packs, but luckily Dragonfly Swarm at P2P2 and Lost Days at P3P1 gave me a lifeline to switch colors. I consider those two picks very important as well.

What were the key turns today like?

The turn where cephille’s Hama, the Bloodbender stole my Firebending Lesson left too deep an impression; I never expected to run into a State Base Action (SBA) interaction in Limited. I highly recommend interested players read the article Jru wrote, What Are State-Based Actions (SBA)!

How would you recommend drafting?

I really love drafting this set! For the past few days, every night before bed I draft a deck on MTGA, finish playing it the next day when I find time, then draft a new one in the evening, repeating the cycle and liking it more and more. All ten two-color archetypes in this set have their own themes and charm, and if you look carefully, most commons and uncommons can serve multiple draft themes, which greatly increases flexibility in deck building during the draft, so you don’t waste earlier picks when switching colors.

And in-person drafts are even more fun~ You can chat, discuss, and play with friends, and discover each other’s blind spots or misunderstandings on the spot, correct them early, and improve together!
Go find friends and play a draft today!

GY_Player’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

GY_Player’s deck for the day.

cephille’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

It should be The Fire Nation Drill: I opened one in my second pack, and then another alt-art copy was passed to me in the third pack. It boosted my deck’s removal strength, so I didn’t have to raise the pick order of removal later and could focus on grabbing the curve creatures I still lacked. Combined with Appa, Loyal Sky Bison’s repeated Airbend, it’s disgusting.

What were the key turns today like?

In game two against GY_Player, I used Hama, the Bloodbender to exile the only Lesson card in his graveyard, Firebending Lesson, then used Waterbend to kill his First-Time Flyer, but later I realized I had miscalculated: on the stack the Flyer was 1/2, but when it resolved the Lesson went back into his graveyard, so the Flyer became a 2/3 and didn’t die to 2 damage. I probably haven’t faced creatures like Tarmogoyf in too long, which is why I made this mistake, but I still won the game thanks to it, so sorry about that, buddy XD

Do you like drafting? Any memorable draft memories?

I love it! MTG booster packs cost more than twice what a single pack costs in most other games, and what makes them expensive is that MTG packs can be used for drafts or Limited play. My friends and I have always thought that with the current product design that includes Collector Boosters, people who really want to crack packs would get far more joy from cracking Collector Boosters than regular ones. Think about it: if you open a booster just for one particular R/MR card or special card, the odds are low, and basically at least 12 to 13 cards in that pack have nothing to do with you, which is quite wasteful. If those boosters could be used with friends for a draft, spending a pleasant afternoon/evening together, how great would that be.

I hope more and more players get to experience the fun of drafting, making the whole community more willing to play and organize drafts. You may occasionally feel tired of playing Constructed, but you’ll definitely never get tired of drafting!

cephille’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

cephille’s deck for the day.

faintmama’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

Day of Black Sun, first pick of the third pack. Two sets in a row I’ve picked up a black-based sweeper unfortunately I only drew it once during play this time .

What were the key turns today like?

In the last turn of a long struggle with 亦麒, I successfully used Lost Days to snuff out the opponent’s last chance of a comeback.

Do you like drafting? Any memorable draft memories?

Yes, especially since I’ve picked up a black-based sweeper the past two times. Sweepers in Limited are just too strong.

How would you recommend drafting?

Draft is a very free format: you can play casually with a few friends, or play seriously with a competitive spirit. From picking to playing there is fun throughout, and Magic’s Limited mechanics generally hide clever design, so players can always find something striking in them. A wonderful game you can play whenever you like, played with the right people, helps cultivate the best sense of offense and defense.

faintmama’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

faintmama’s deck for the day.

Jru’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

Removal cards. In this draft, the green signals were good, and all kinds of good green curve creatures were still visible in the middle of the packs, but removal was very tight, so from the second pack on I greatly increased the priority of removal, and even drafting that way I only just reached 8 removal spells. On the other hand, I passed so many creatures along that in the end, apart from the 3-mana curve being a bit thin, I had so many good creatures at the other costs that I had a headache deciding what to cut. Afterward, when discussing builds with other players, I found another person who also went red-green-based but had not a single removal spell; I estimate the packs this time really did have a thin supply of removal, and if you hadn’t raised removal picks, your deck’s ability to interact would probably have been terrible.

What were the key turns today like?

In the first match I was behind all the way and got pressed to death, and in the second I was ahead all the way and pushed to a win, so there really weren’t any special key situations, but both winners had something in common: after establishing a strong enough clock in the early-to-mid game, they threw out removal in succession so the opponent couldn’t block effectively, and the player who was behind also had no removal, so they were punched through instantly.

Do you like drafting? Any memorable draft memories?

From the description above it’s not hard to see that I value removal in Limited. Although removal is indeed important to begin with, the weight I place on removal is probably on the particularly high side. This style of mine in Limited was probably established starting from the Hour of Devastation set, and it was also the period of my highest Limited win rate; across the dozen or so Friday drafts in that whole set, I went undefeated in best-of-3 throughout. Of course, that was just a local store’s weekly event level, so it’s not that valuable, but the biggest change at the time was that I began to consciously prioritize removal picks, while demanding less of creatures, as long as they were basically usable for offense and defense.

How would you recommend drafting?

Among this year’s sets, this Avatar Limited format has relatively high demands on theme synergy.

The Lesson theme focuses heavily on a few key cards, and has a very high ceiling once it comes together, but if you don’t pick up a complete set, you’ll wonder whether you’ve been playing a pile of Grizzly Bears and Skywinder Drake; Allies are the creature type this set is least short of, but if you choose to play a true Ally theme, then besides the key tribal payoff cards, the choice of the overall creature curve also has quite a few requirements; not to mention the sacrifice theme, an old regular in Limited that demands a lot from engines and fodder.

So when drafting this set, I recommend planning which direction you want your game plan to go within the first 5 picks of the first pack; if you want to enter a specific theme, you should start aggressively grabbing the theme cards. That said, there are still builds that don’t need much synergy, like my red-green this time, where I just put in creatures and removal in proportion and was done. After all, Earthbend, even without any synergy, produces a creature with offense and defense out of thin air, which guarantees combat strength; for beginners who lack the confidence to build a deck with complete synergy in a draft, this is a relatively easy pick pattern to get started with.

Jru’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

Jru’s deck for the day.

Szgu’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

The most important pick today was Sokka, Tenacious Tactician, which I took in the middle of the second pack.

At first I took a lot of white spells and planned to draft mono-white. Until Sokka, Tenacious Tactician appeared; since I’d picked up Trusty Boomerang at the end of the first pack, I wanted to build a deck themed around Sokka, Tenacious Tactician.

What were the key turns today like?

On the last turn of game one, using the combo of Sokka, Tenacious Tactician and Trusty Boomerang, I equipped Trusty Boomerang to the Ally tokens I’d made in earlier turns, continuously tapping the opponent’s creatures while accumulating Prowess triggers, and successfully won that game.

Please share your feelings about taking part in the draft

A very fun set. Compared with previous drafts, the cards in this set synergize especially strongly, which makes for a great draft experience.

Szgu’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

Szgu’s deck for the day.

Lucia’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

I think the most critical pick was the gold card I saw in the first pack. I was very lucky today and opened Aang, at the Crossroads in the first pack. The card itself is very powerful: on entering it lets you put a creature with mana value 4 or less onto the battlefield for free, and after it transforms it can Earthbend like crazy. It’s excellent all around, I was super happy ☺️

What were the key turns today like?

What left the deepest impression was a key turn in one game in the second round. I slammed down Aang, at the Crossroads with five mana, and when it looked at the top five cards, I happened to see Aang, the Last Airbender. Since on entering it can Airbend another Aang, next turn I paid two to bring it back to the battlefield, triggering the ETB again. The whole interaction was super nasty (but also super fun, hehe), one of the most fun moments of the day, hahaha.

Please share your feelings about taking part in the draft

Really super happy! In Limited you can push yourself to try colors you normally wouldn’t touch, and this TLA set’s flavor and interactivity are both outstanding; it’s one of the most fun sets I’ve played this year 😍. I can’t get enough, I want to draft more!

Lucia’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

Lucia’s deck for the day.

凱克’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

1. Haru, Hidden Talent
2. Toph, the First Metalbender
3. Abandoned Air Temple

Although my first pick was Toph, the First Metalbender and I originally planned to go the Earthbend route, Haru, Hidden Talent, passed to me later, turned my direction toward the Ally route, and I started picking Ally material afterward; the final Abandoned Air Temple happened to make these three fit together.

What were the key turns today like?

Although I put a bit of pressure on the opponent for a few turns, I had little removal and protection and needed turns to build a board; with key creatures being removed one after another and unable to develop, I couldn’t carry out the original plan and route, leaving me unable to block or attack.

Please share your feelings about taking part in the draft

In the matches I faced and in the choices when picking, every card in this set offers people of different routes something to pick. Take Uncle Iroh, which I picked: its abilities are Firebending + Lesson cost reduction, and its body is a 4/2, usable in Ally themes, 4+ power themes, Lesson themes, and Firebending, and so on; after picking it you can still adjust to different routes depending on the packs passed afterward, and you won’t be stuck in a specific ability or theme after taking it. I think that’s pretty nice, and overall nobody feels their picks are incomplete because of it. It’s well suited for draft beginners to join at this time, with no frustration of not being able to assemble a deck that works.

凱克’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

凱克’s deck for the day.

亦麒’s Thoughts:

What do you think was the most important pick today, and why? Please name the card.

I was very happy with today’s picks to meet the protagonist of this set, Avatar Aang, in the first pack. As this set was about to release, I saw a lot of discussion about Avatar, and so developed an interest in many characters of this work. So during the picking process at the event, I tried to build around the characters’ abilities.

What were the key turns today like?

Looking back on the matches in this event, there is one key turn I remember especially well.
I should have first cast the spell that lets me see the opponent’s hand, instead of slamming down a flying creature to try to attack/defend; that decision let the opponent ramp next turn into an excellent-bodied creature I couldn’t deal with. If I had discarded it first, the ending might have been different.

Please share your feelings about taking part in the draft

I’m very happy to have been able to take part in Ruika’s event; the interaction with the other players throughout was great. There was discussion about the Avatar work, adjustment directions for deck building and picking, and post-game reviews after the matches. Seeing everyone’s love for MTG and enthusiastic sharing is truly a happy thing.

亦麒’s draft picks, from left to right, top to bottom.

亦麒’s deck for the day.