Brewing an MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender Waterbending Standard Deck

We’ve reached the end of the road, folks. Over the last week, I’ve challenged myself to build Standard legal decks using the four different elemental mechanics from Magic: The Gathering | Avatar: The Last Airbender.

Now, we turn to the final element, Water. And I think it is a perfect element to end the series on.

What Is Waterbending?

Waterbending is all about flow, flexibility, and turning your board state into raw resources. The mechanic keyword Waterbend allows you to pay for a generic mana cost by tapping your untapped creatures, your untapped artifacts, or any combination of the two. 

Unlike Convoke (creatures only) or Improvise (artifacts only), Waterbending lets you use everything. That Map token sitting around? It’s mana. That summoning-sick creature you just played? It’s mana.

This mechanic fundamentally changes the action economy of Standard, letting you tap out for a board presence on your turn and still hold up interaction, provided you have enough bodies to do the bending.

But why use Waterbending just to cast spells a little cheaper when we can use it to go infinite?

Building the Core Using the Deeproot Loop

For our Standard deck, we are looking at a specific interaction that turns a new Waterbending enabler into a game-ending engine. The card in question is North Pole Patrol.

On the surface, it’s a decent 2/3 Soldier Ally for three mana. It has an activated ability to Waterbend (3) tap target creature an opponent controls. 

That’s fine for Limited. But it’s the other line of text we care about, (T): Untap another target permanent you control.

Experienced players know that the text untap another target permanent is one of the most dangerous phrases in Magic history.

In Standard, we pair this with Forensic Researcher from The Lost Caverns of Ixalan.

Here is the loop:

1. Tap North Pole Patrol to untap Forensic Researcher.
2. Tap Forensic Researcher to untap North Pole Patrol.
3. Repeat until you get bored.

By itself, this just spins your wheels. But when we add Deeproot Pilgrimage to the board, we win the game.

Deeproot Pilgrimage creates a 1/1 hexproof Merfolk token whenever a nontoken Merfolk you control becomes tapped. Since Forensic Researcher is a Merfolk, every iteration of the loop creates a token.

The Support System

While the combo wins the game, the rest of the deck leverages the Waterbending mechanic to survive until we assemble our pieces.

Because Waterbending allows us to tap any artifact or creature for generic mana, we want cards that bring multiple bodies to the party.

• Spyglass Siren: This is arguably the best one-drop for this deck. It enters, creates a Map token, and gives you two permanents for one mana. In a Waterbending deck, this is essentially a mana ritual that lets you power out expensive spells way ahead of curve.  

The Mechanist, Aerial Artisan: This legend creates a Clue token whenever you cast a noncreature spell. Normally, Clues are slow value. Here, they are mana rocks. You can tap the Clues to pay for Waterbend costs on your interaction spells, saving your lands for colored mana.

The Payoff

Once we have our board of tokens, infinite or otherwise, we need to use them. Enter Spirit Water Revival. This is a Sorcery that costs three mana plus a Waterbend {6} additional cost.  

In a normal deck, tapping six creatures is a steep cost. In this deck, it’s trivial. For just three mana, you draw two cards.

But if you pay the Waterbend cost, you shuffle your graveyard into your library, draw seven cards, and have no maximum hand size for the rest of the game. It’s an absurd reload that ensures you never run out of gas.

Plus, if things get hairy, we can drop The Unagi of Kyoshi Island, a massive 5/5 Flash threat with “Ward Waterbend (4),” making it a nightmare for opponents to remove without tapping down their own blockers.

Continued Reading:

• Brewing an MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender Earthbending Standard Deck
• Brewing an MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender Airbending Standard Deck
• Brewing an MTG Avatar: The Last Airbender Firebending Standard Deck

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