MTG’s Avatar Set Exposes a Major Design Clash — How Do Four Elements Fit Five Colors?
Avatar: The Last Airbender is getting a Magic: The Gathering Universes Beyond set on Nov. 21, and Wizards of the Coast’s card previews show the four elements of the show being split across four Magic colors while the game’s **fifth color, black, is being used mainly for antagonists**.
- How the set maps bending to colors and Aang’s card identity.
- Which villains are appearing as black cards and how those cards interact with red mana.
- Reasons this mapping is a design challenge, with comparisons to past Universes Beyond releases and Magic’s original sets.
How the set maps elements to Magic colors
Wizards revealed that bending mechanics in the Avatar set generally pair element to Magic color as follows: white for air, blue for water, red for fire, and green for earth. In addition, the previewed Avatar Aang card has a four-color identity of red/green/white/blue, reflecting his ability to master all four elements.
Black’s role in the set
Several previewed cards use black as their color identity. For example, Fire Lord Ozai and a saga titled The Rise of Sozin are printed as black cards, yet both include abilities that produce red mana. Likewise, Fire Lord Zuko appears as a three-color card: red/white/black, representing his firebending and later alliance with the Avatar.
Why mapping four elements to five colors is a design challenge
Magic’s color pie has five distinct colors, while Avatar’s setting is built around four elemental nations. Consequently, designers must assign or reinterpret roles for colors that don’t map cleanly to the show’s elements. Previously, Wizards has released other Universes Beyond sets such as Marvel’s Spider-Man and Final Fantasy, and it also produced crossover products like Adventures in the Forgotten Realms. In that D&D crossover, chromatic dragons were printed across Magic’s colors, which highlighted existing mismatches — for instance, blue dragons traditionally breathe lightning, while white dragons are associated with cold — even though those physical attributes don’t always match Magic’s historical color associations.
Context from Wizards’ other recent sets
Wizards’ recent original set Edge of Eternities uses five planets to represent the five colors, each with its own factional identity. Therefore, Magic’s design practice typically ties worldbuilding and mechanics to the five-color system. As a result, adapting a four-element world requires decisions about where to place characters and mechanics that don’t have a clear fifth-color equivalent.
What players can expect
The Avatar: The Last Airbender set will release on Nov. 21 and includes multicolored cards that aim to reflect characters’ elemental ties. However, previews show that some villains and story sagas are printed as black cards while also interacting with red mana. Thus, collectors and players should expect a mix of color identities that follow the set’s attempt to represent the show’s themes within Magic’s five-color framework.
