The word ‘avatar’ has been tossed around in Magic cards ever since the Alpha set was released. Ever since then, it has been one here and one there, but it has never been explained what an ‘avatar’ really is.  In this article, Beebles and Tynion will not only tell you what an avatar is, but will create a handful of avatars, and hopefully they won’t kill each other before the article is finished.

Avatar, according to Dictionary.com:

av•a•tar n.
1. The incarnation of a Hindu deity, especially Vishnu, in human or animal form.
2. An embodiment, as of a quality or concept; an archetype: the very avatar of cunning.
3. A temporary manifestation or aspect of a continuing entity: occultism in its present avatar.

Your guess is as good as mine, but I am guessing that Magic uses definition number two, or the embodiment of something. For example, Serra Avatar would be the physical embodiment of Serra.

Avatars are more than just the physical manifestation of another character, though. Personal Incarnation, Herald of Leshrac, and Serra Avatar are examples of this physical embodiment, where avatars like Stalking Vengeance and Scion of the Wild represent an ideal or a force. In this vein, you have the Avatars from Prophecy, each representative of an intangible human ideal.

But while this is all good, we can’t go on and on about the ways that Avatars integrate into Magic… or can we?

What Beebles and I had discussed doing in this article is creating an Avatar for each block that Wizards has created over the years. Being the older guy of the two of us, I was selected to do the older blocks, with a cut off of the Masques Block. Meanwhile, Beebles would do an Avatar from Invasion up to the current block.

The idea here is that each Block of cards had a specific flavor, a specific theme. This kind of theme, this idea, this flavor can be represented by, well, an avatar. An avatar for each block which would embody the flavor, and hopefully use some of the mechanics of the block, while showing our interpretations of what the Block was truly about.

To start off, I thought about doing an avatar for the sets that don’t belong to Blocks, but in the end, I don’t really believe they deserve avatars, at least not for this article, simply because I was too lazy, and more importantly, because it would draw the article out even more so than my normal articles.

With out further ado, I present my Avatars!

This is silly. It's a great mono green creature control until you realize that every land now produces 2 mana. This can end up being way too ridiculous if played in the right deck, but probably won't do too much the turn after you play it. Give it 4 turns and you might have something. In the graveyard, it helps make your lands snow, but there aren't really any cards that take advantage of that in the new Coldsnap set. I was hoping to see something that would interact with those cards, but I think Tynion's got a stigma against them or something.

Nope, no stigma, and no goats either, unless you count Mountain Goats. My intent here was to do what Ice Age failed to do, and that was capitalize on the Snow-Covered, now termed Snow Lands. Even in the time of the Ice Age block, no one ever played Snow-Covered Lands. They only played the normal basic lands, because they were scared of the cards that interacted with Snow stuff. We only used non-Snow cards. This creature does what I always wished we could have done, make sure that both my opponent and myself were playing with Snow Lands, and so now I can utilize cards that took advantage of Snow permanents from the old Ice Age Block. A few examples might be Drift of the Dead, Thermokarst, Arcum’s Sleigh, and Viscerid Drone.

Once I got beyond that fixation, I thought about what it would be to have an Ice Age come on, and I realized that it is not the creatures, or items that define this block, it is that Ice Age, its the snow and the cold that define the block, and so I wanted to embody that persona into the form of the world’s biggest walking blizzard.

What in the world??? This gives me a headache just thinking about it. *Curls up in the fetal position and hides in a corner*

I always loved Phasing. Going back to the thing I was saying about the Ice Age Block, the players were scared of the mechanic, and the mechanic is what defined the entire Block. Teferi was trying to save his home by making it skip out of town, and time. So how many people played Phasing cards? Not too many. Rainbow Effreet and Taniwha are the only cards I can think of off the top of my head, so guess what… now you are all playing with Phasing. Just be sure to punch the first person to play a Sands of Time or Stasis.

*Peeks out from his hiding place* Well, this is a little more tame. I like the whole Buyback mechanic, but this could be pretty amazing in the right kind of deck... Who wouldn't like to do infinite damage with their Lightning Helixes every time they cast them? I do, I do! The most awesome thing about this card is that any lifegain card for under 2 mana (ie Healing Salve) makes you infinite life. Woot! And someone said that that card was bad.
 

Yea well, I did not intended this guy to be broken, as a matter of fact, I didn’t even mean to have it read converted mana. I must have gotten carried away. It should have read "X equals the spells mana cost." By the way, don’t forget that it costs two life!

What I do find as an amazing thing is the generational difference in Magic players. While you are busy thinking of Lightning Helix and Healing Salve, I am busy thinking of dark Ritual, Demonic Tutor, Drain Life, and my deck. Heck, a single Dark Ritual nets me a bunch of mana before killing myself, Tutor out a Drain Life, (the buyback on the Drain Life is only 2 Muahaha!) and then Tutor for my entire deck… well if my opponent had enough life to give me I could get my entire deck, but I can just pretend. Lighting Helix... newbie! Tame is it? Ha!

Well, this is probably fair enough, although I think it should probably be WU instead of just straight white. The possibilities here are endless, as some of the most powerful cards in the game are artifacts and enchantments. It does have a hefty mana cost, and dies to Char, so I'm not sure if it could actually be played. Oath of Druids decks would love this card!

My friend, if White can not prevent one stinking damage, then it should pack up and move out right now. I modeled this card off of the White Epic, Enduring Ideal. I admit that Blue probably should have been involved somewhere, but it just didn’t seem to be right to me for this creature. I can just imagine it taking on a spirit-like appearance and scurrying around doing menial tasks and searching for little nick-nacks all the while.

Again, a card that probably ought to be two colors. This Stasis-ish ability, along with the extra card make it a heavy Blue card. It has an interesting effect in that you're losing a lot of resources, but you're gaining more cards in hand. The thing about this card is that you'll probably want to play it, and then at the opportune moment, sacrifice it and win against your opponent.

You mean to tell me that Black doesn’t draw cards? I beg to differ! Black gives you more drawing power than Blue does, but at a steep price, which usually includes your soul. Here, I will add a stinking point of Blue for you, because they did paint Winter Orb Blue in this Block, in Rising Waters. So it is now BBU4. The idea here is that when I looked over the entire block as a whole, I felt as if the black market had a grip over the entire block and it was oppressing the people. I wanted to capture that feeling by doing what the thugs would do. I will give you all that you need, but when its time to pay, you better have the money, or else! So I will give you all the cards you could possibly ask for, however, I will come a knocking in two turns, and you better pay up!

Well, those are my avatars, hopefully you enjoyed them *and like them better than Beebles’*. From here out are the avatars of blocks most of you may relate to, done in Technicolor, by Beebles.

Can I get a woot woot for my man Tynion? Yeah, woot woot!

*Ahem* Well, that's done. In all their Technicolor glory, here are my additions to the Block Avatar List!

While I never really was a follower of the storylines of the blocks, I am guessing that this avatar represents a Being watching, as his people are overrun by an alien race. This creature seems to embody someone giving a helping hand, and when it gets too far out of reach, they reset the battlefield and balance of power.

I like this card, however, being the old tournament guy that I am, this creature would be played in every control deck under the sun. He is a free Wrath of God every fourth turn.

And with a teeny tiny 1/1 body, there is no way that some aggro player can't pull their own Mogg Fanatic, Frostling (rambles off a list of pingers) when X=whatever and zap him. Control won't want this card, because to make full use of the card, you'll want to pay the X. I do like, however, that he can get you any land for free.

And you complained that I should be using extra colors with my cards, the fact that he can get a land and put it into play should make him Green. Sheesh. He said Control won’t want him… Righhhhhhht.

Wow, could you imagine… Innocent Blood, I’ll sacrifice my Drudge Skeleton, you sacrifice a creature and something else? Not too shabby. Thank God he does not have trample, or this guy would be a pure brute.

The discard effect is interesting because it represents the madness of Chainer, along with the fact that in order for this beasty to survive, you've gotta dump a creature, land, artifact or enchantment. (That is, of course, if you don't have any already in the grave.) With Golgari, this guy can be a major powerhouse, but hey, who said this guy would ever see print?

Yea, like Goblins and Zombies in this block needed more help! Maybe someone would be nice enough to give the poor soldiers of this era a helping hand, although activating Mobilization, and getting a 3/1 First Strike, Protection from All Colors token soldier for W2 probably is not a bad investment.

Well, I particularly am fond of the Aven. Birds unite!

Actually, this + Mobilization would be an amazing combo. I like it!

Birds unite… the most overcosted tribe with no abilities unite!

What’s more confusing than keeping up with your opponent’s life total? Keeping up with your opponent’s life total and the number of counters bouncing all over the place. Sheesh! You thought my Phasing Avatar would be confusing, imagine how many counters you will need with this guy. Then imagine when your clutz brother comes walking into the room and plops down at the table. Your 236 counters slide across the table becoming a boisterous mess with your opponent’s 192 counters, and then little Jimmy gets beat up… again.

Haha, at least my card doesn't have phasing! I'm having flashbacks already... *Shudders* This guy is meant to be fun, and it certainly does that well. No doubt you're going to be needing a lot of dice/beads/coins/puppy dogs to keep track of what comes into play with what counters.

Puppy Dogs?  ~Streetz~

It’s not that hard, basically you are making two piles of cards. One pile phases out, the other phases in. What is so hard? You have 7,538 counters sitting on the table, waiting for someone to open the door and let a gust of air be the literal death of someone.

This guy starts off sounding like Celestral Dawn, then eases off before it becomes a pain in the neck. I can definitely see some pretty fierce combos of Creature A bringing back Creature B, and then back to A, and both have a sick come into play effect. Oh, say Avalanche Riders and Mulitani’s Advocate. I come in and destroy a land, then fetch my little buddy, who draws me a card, who then gets me back and I destroy a land again! I love stupid combos!
 

Sick combo was definitely the goal of this card. Who doesn't like a 5/5 for 5, along with "I don't die if you can keep cards in your hand"?! Plus, this can do some pretty crazy stuff with comes into play effects, like Tynion mentioned.

I can remember back in the day, when we had the Medallions, people were literally stealing each other’s binders just to get a hold of the Medallions. This guy is a walking Medallion! He also is a walking Demonic Tutor and Glorious Anthem. Beebles, are you sure you don’t want to enter this guy into Magic Idol?

I don't think so. Remember that this beasty costs WUBRG. Not at all an easy cost, but Ravnica's new duals do make things slightly easier. If nothing else, this has got some nice flavor.

We hope you enjoyed Tynion's walk down memory lane, and my pathetic attempts to make fun cards. We'll be sure to look at Time Spiral really hard to make a good avatar for it too! Well, that's it for now everyone... but is it?

Go to the forums, sign up, and tell us: Which avatar did you like best? Vote a winner! (One of us wins bragging rights.)

Tynion mouths from behind Beebles Vote for me! thumbs up

Again, we hope you enjoyed our article, and we hope that you enjoy the madness that is Avatar week here at Magic Deck Vortex!

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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If I worked at R&D
The Beginner’s Guide to Rogue
Druid Week Primer
Opting In: Ravnica
MDV Idol: Finale!
Avatar Week Primer
Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
Raiding Ravnica: Guildmages and You!
Lands-More than Mana: Part One