Wizards of the Coast has officially revealed the first look at cards from the upcoming Magic: The Gathering – Avatar: The Last Airbender expansion. Along with new cards showing off many fan-favorite ATLA characters like Toph, Sokka, Katara, and Zuko, the First Look livestream showed off the expansion’s new Bending mechanics: unique abilities attributed to the airbending, earthbending, firebending, and waterbending powers synonymous with the Avatar series.
Each element’s bending ability gives the same basic benefit to the player using it, though the size of the benefit depends on the card being cast. Here, though, is a brief explainer on each of the four core element’s bending abilities, and examples of cards that will utilize bending abilities in their overall strategies.
Airbending
Airbending allows you to exile–the Magic term for „remove from the game“–a certain number of permanents on your side of the battlefield. You can return those permanents later in the game by paying two generic mana rather than the card’s actual mana cost.