For those unfamiliar, Zuko is probably the most dynamic character in all of Avatar: The Last Airbender. I watched the entire show as part of lessons that I was working on with a student at the time. They had to summarize the episodes in writing and also answer specific questions provided. Zuko began the series as a villain before eventually swapping to Avatar Aang’s side by the final chapter. And this whole transformative journey is best seen in that of the card, Zuko, Conflicted, below.
I highly recommend watching the video attached below this paragraph to learn more about Zuko. I’d like to personally thank Reminder Text for sharing more of their story on Zuko and also for their guest appearance of the voice actor for Zuko, Dante Basco. In summary, Zuko, Conflicted, I think, is the best embodiment of Zuko’s character throughout the Avatar series. Each of Zuko’s abilities cost two life and are mandatory to perform. Furthermore, I think it is thematic and on-flavour that there are four different abilities, each probably partially referenced on the four books of Avatar in the show (chapters). The fact that Zuko is also causing you to lose life also reflects the pain that Zuko undergoes as he changes throughout the series as his character develops.
Now I am not using Fire Lord Zuko because I personally think that Zuko, Conflicted is a better reflection of the journey that Zuko goes through whereas Fire Lord Zuko feels as if he is the ultimate form of Zuko at the end of the show (literally) where he has reached his apex and has transformed into the best version he could be at that moment. However, I think Zuko, Conflicted better showcases his journey throughout the series with all his interactions and conflicts with the world and the Avatar gang.
As Zuko suggests and as a part of his identity, we are looking to “firebend” our way to victory. So, before we even delve into the deck much further, I’ll breakdown firebending since it is a rather new keyword and mechanic that is currently solely exclusive to Avatar. Firebending lets a creature make red mana when it attacks, but that red mana only lasts until the end of combat. As such, this mana can only really be spent on instants or creature abilities for the most part.
To help us with firebending, we are recruiting fellow firebending creatures (I would say ally, but that may confuse you with the ally creature type). Firebending is still rather limited since it only appears on a handful of creatures due to its recent release with Avatar. However, cards like Firebending Student and Iroh above are excellent to help us generate that extra mana to work with.
Usually with floating red mana, the most easy way to use it is to burn out our opponents. However, that’s not very effective in multiplayer, and in Commander, we need to continuously develop our own advantages. That being said, using that same free mana, we can actually loot our cards with little to no downside. Now that being said, how are generating value while discarding cards? With our colour combination in Rakdos, we can put some “funny” friends into the graveyard to be resurrected later.
There is one archetype of creature that doesn’t mind being in the graveyard and can easily return with a bit of nuance. And that of course is that of the phoenix tribe. Phoenixes are an incredible payoff for discard since the ones that we run above can return through the use of red mana. Phoenix Chick and Nemesis Phoenix return during the attack step, meaning we can use the firebending mana we make to cast them. Lightning Phoenix sadly can’t use our firebending mana, but it can easily return considering the amount of aggressive damage we are outputting.
In terms of other value targets, the creatures above are just cheap ways to fill our board or recur value for very low costs. We are a go-wide deck that’s looking to swing out and smack our opponent down.
In order to push our game plan through, which is most effective in the early turns, cards like the above enable our creatures to get their damage on board as soon as possible.
Generally speaking, we are not above discarding cards or looting our hands since our graveyard synergies are typically more powerful than our opponents, presuming they aren’t building with graveyard synergy in mind. Our creatures comeback anyways, so we can just chuck cards at our opponents.
While we are constantly throwing our cards around, we must find ways to also refill beyond simply looting. Vance’s Blasting Cannons and The Legend of Roku both provide impulse draw to keep us on the attacking side. Both of which have additional upsides when they transform to provide us even more threats. Bedlam Reveler and the like are great ways to fix our hand or, in many cases, just give us actual card draw.
As another way to use firebending, as Zuko was taught by Iroh, was to transform and use your opponent’s strength against them. In this case, we are redirecting lightning quite literally and sending the bolts back at their cards or face. We can also use this to copy certain spells, giving us advantages that we aren’t typically achieving in our colours such as ramp.
We don’t typically have any defenses considering we are almost always on the offensive if possible. However, we have some ways to dissuade being swung at, mainly by threatening with changing our aggression after or through the cards above. Fire Nation Occupation rewards us for interacting with our opponents during their turn, giving us bodies that generate firebending. Cunning Rhetoric acts as a way to potentially give us some more hand as we can steal our opponent’s cards if they do attack us.
Of course, we can’t forget about Firebender Ascension, giving us an initial creature that firebends followed by potentially duplicating our creatures’ attacking triggered abilities (yes, this does duplicate the mana provided by firebending).
As we reach later points of the game, the big baddies from the show appear to help us close out the last remaining points of damage. Sozin does a bunch of different utility effects including a primary wrath and eventually lets us create a creature that can reanimate cards from any graveyard. Ozai is the ultimate firebender (sorry, Zuko) and is literally a flying phoenix god that is essentially indestructible if we have a large amount of floating mana. He also lets us keep our red mana for following turns, presuming he doesn’t get removed.
Given the colour combination and our need for aggression, we can also play the Mishra melding pair which is just a bucket load of effects. The Phyrexian Dragon Engine is particularly very useful as another means of looting and potential draw and comes with its upside of Unearth, letting us reuse it. If we do get to meld into the legendary creature, we get another load of fun effects to play around with.
The favourite pick of this deck is Pyromancer’s Goggles, a five mana artifact that is a very crappy ramp piece if you think of it as such. But it’s most important for it’s ability to transform the red mana it makes into a way to copy any spell that we cast. I think this card allows for a lot of flexibility and interesting ways to play our cards. It also resonates with how even a single small flame from Zuko can generally transform into an all-consuming fire with enough practice.