Throughout the history of Magic: the Gathering, Avatars have been few in number. We had Personal Incarnation to start, followed by Ebon Praetor and Hand of Justice several sets later. After waiting for another few sets, we get Ethereal Champion in Mirage and Serra Avatar in Urza’s Saga. Let’s face it, the creature type Avatar will never be as plantiful as Clerics, Elves, Goblins or Wizards. Perhaps this will make my task of making a tribal Avatar deck more challenging and fruitful.  Perhaps I'll make a few tribal Avatar decks.

Anyway, it wasn’t until Prophesy that we started seeing Avatars popping up in a greater numbers. In Prophesy we were given a cycle of Avatars: Avatar of Hope, of Will, of Woe, of Fury and of Might. Let’s take a closer look at these five Avatars:

Avatar of Hope is one of the best defensive creatures in the game as it has flying and it can block any number of creatures. Also, given its alternate casting cost, it can be played just in the nick of time to save you from a massive army. Note that this is the only Prophecy avatar to be reprinted in a CORE set.

Avatar of Will is strangely reminiscent of the powerful Mahamoti Djinn. The strange thing is its alternate casting cost dependant on your opponent having no cards in hand. That isn’t very blue. However, if combined with the powerful discard abilities of black cards, you could see this Avatar earlier in the game than your opponent would expect… and even earlier than the Mahamoti Djinn ever saw play.

 

Avatar of Woe. Let’s see… fear, flying, terminate on a stick and an alternate casting cost… sounds good to me. Once you’re done killing off your opponent’s creatures, swinging with this lady will win you the game quickly. It’s interesting that Avatar of Hope got reprinted over Avatar of Woe… Woe is a far superior card.

Avatar of Fury is the Shivan Dragon of avatars. With flying and Firebreathing, this avatar made for a finisher in some red decks over the course of time. Unfortunately, it isn’t as popular as the other Prophesy Avatars as its alternate cost doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Nor where their cards back then that gave your opponent more lands.

Avatar of Might, once on the table, will make your opponent wish he or she hadn’t cast so many early game creatures. An 8/8 body with trample for 8 mana or two mana in the case of its alternate casting cost is a force to be reckoned with. Unlike Force of Nature, he doesn’t have an upkeep cost too!

 

After Prophecy, many Avatars have come and gone from the silly (Avatar of Me) to the deadly Avatars from the Onslaught block. There are four of these Avatars that are worthy of casting in the deck I’ll be featuring soon:

Avatar of Discord is a 5/3 flyer for the cost of two cards and is the only Avatar thus far that can be cast with Hybrid mana. Let's not forget it only costs three mana too!  Avatar of Discard is great for reanimator decks that want cards in your hand to be put into your graveyard to be Zombified or otherwise raised from the dead!

Excruciator’s damage may not be prevented. Are you sick of seeing Fog or Holy Day around your table? Here's a very large answer to those particular problems.  It also helps that he's a hefty 7/7.

Scion of Darkness is probably the best black Avatar ever created next to Avatar of Woe. Hitting your opponent and taking one of their creatures from the graveyard to your side of the table definitely says, “OUCH!”

Stalking Vengeance is mechanically perfect for the concept it is trying to achieve.  Not only does he work well with cards that let you sacrifice your own creatures with power enhancing effects, but he also punishes anyone that decides to play Wrath of God!

Even when alone, each of these Avatars is a force to be reckoned with. What happens when you combine these guys with some of their smaller cousins? And what about combining them with the power of Belbe's Portal?

Let’s See:

Some tricks to remember about this deck:

• When you cast Avatar of Discord, make sure you dump his larger friends into the graveyard.  That way they can be reanimated as quickly as possible. Otherwise, later in the game when you don’t have the cards to discard to keep Avatar of Discord in play, that’s OK. Make sure you have Stalking Vengeance in play when this happens.
• If you have both Avatar of Woe and Stalking Vengeance out together, don't be afraid to destroy one of your own Avatars to kill off your opponents.
• Watch for opportunities to use the Prophecy Avatars’ cheaper casting costs. Dropping a Fury when an opponent has 7 lands, or a Might when someone has 4 or more creatures can really help you out and give your opponents fits. And always remember to keep an eye on the combined graveyards for a chance to drop the Avatar of Woe. Be sure to listen for your opponent crying, "Woe is me!"

Ultimately, Belbe's Portal is card that keeps this deck fast and aggressive. To get your your Portal into play quickly I've included a playset of both Dark Ritual and Darksteel Ingot.  Worst case scenario, if you don't get a Portal, just use Journeyer's Kite to put your basic lands into play so you can just hard cast the Avatars.

Avatars of Permission.

If an aggressive deck isn’t for you, perhaps you are looking for some more control. Or, perhaps you are just unhinged. The following deck uses classic control elements and a few friendly Avatars to show off the best of you… or is it ME?

This decks combined some permission with some Avatars while still keeping an Avatar Tribal theme. Wrath of God, Counterspell, and Force of (your) Will are all excellent ways of preventing your opponents from doing their thing. Hand of Justice will smite down opponent’s creatures with the token help of Raise the Alarm and Decree of Justice. Avatars of Will and of ME will eventually provide the victory for you… me…

NOTE: Don't play Avatar of Me if your under 15 yrs old...it’s not worth the time.

I’ve included some card drawing spells like Fact or Fiction and Accumulated Knowledge for obvious reasons. I even included a duet of Eternal Dragon to help out your mana curve. Overall, this deck should be quite fun to play (for you or me) and I would encourage you to give it a try in your casual group.

Hymns of Will and Woe.

Earlier I mentioned Avatar of Will and how pairing it up with black would be a good thing to do. The following deck is another control deck that takes advantage of the cheaper casting costs of both Avatar of Will and Avatar of Woe to put them into play early quite frequently.

This particular deck uses discard spells to empty your opponent's hand quickly and then drop an Avatar of Will to quickly end the game. Included in its arsenal of discard spells are Duress, Hymn to Tourach, Recoil and Warped Devotion. Warped Devotion works well with Recoil, Capsize and Man-o’-War to not only return cards to hands, but to make them discard at the same time too. I’ve even included Megrim as an alternate win condition.

Also included are control staples Counterspell and Undermine to stop threats from existing before they have a chance to resolve.

With all of this bouncing, discarding and more discarding, it should be relatively easy to fill the graveyards with enough creatures to cast your Avatar of Woe for only two black mana. Once she’s in play, she’ll either be another way to kill off your opponent board position, or to just attack with Avatar of Will and win you the game.

Burning Stalker.

The previous two decks incorporated a control strategy to help your Avatars prevail and win you’re the game. This following Avatar tribal themed deck doesn’t need control to win it the game:

This deck has a lot of neat tricks to it. Erratic Explosion allows you to deal damage equal to the most expensive card in your deck (assuming you’re lucky) to target creature or player. Fling allows another way to deal damage with the avatars. Dark Ritual and Seething Song allow quick acceleration, and the Blazing Shoal gives you a nasty way to deal more damage on your attack phase. Finally, and perhaps the most fun, Kaboom naming multiple targets (like opponents) lets the high casting cost of your creatures and some spells to deal some serious damage.

An Oath to Fling.

Finally, I leave you with perhaps the most powerful avatar deck that I've ever had the privilege to play both against, and later with. The deck has changed over the years, but the core concept has always stayed true. Use Oath of Druids to bring out Serra Avatar, then either use Worthy Cause to double your life total or Fling to throw one very large avatar at your opponents head.

Well, that’s all for today. Thanks for taking the time to read my article and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it. Please let me know your thoughts in the forum!

~omegaprime9774

You can discuss this article in the MDV forums here.

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Delusions of Mediocrity: Getting Stuffy in Here.
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