Avatar Scene Boxes: Card List & Review

Scene boxes are returning with Avatar: The Last Airbender set! These are a really cool collector’s item, and a popular product, so it’s cool to see it return once more.

If you’re looking for the cards, contents and other infromation about ATLA Scene boxes, you’ve come to the right place. Before we dive into specifics, let’s first explore what those boxes actually are, and what you can expect in them.

What is Avatar: The Last Airbender Scene Box?

There are two different Avatar Scene boxes. (The Black Sun Invasion and Tea Time at the Jasmine Dragon.) Each one contains the following items:

• 6 Scene cards
• 6 Art cards
• a display easel
• 3 Avatar: The Last Airbender Play boosters

The scene cards are borderless-art cards that aren’t a part of the main set, and can only be found here. You can play these in eternal formats, with the main one being Commander. They can be aligned to depict an iconic scene from the show — hence the name.

Next up, you’ve got your Art cards. These depict the same scene, but without any text on the cards. These aren’t actual Magic cards, and you can’t play with them. Instead they are meant for display-purposes only, and they do look pretty cool.

This way, you can use the actual cards in your deck, while still showing of the scene on your shelf. The added display easel can help you with that, altough it’s made from cardboard and therefore doesn’t add meaningful value to the boxes.

What certainly brings value to the Boxes are the 3 Play boosters, each with 13 Magic cards, all set in the world of the Avatar. You can simply crack these for fun, but if you have six of them (perhaps with both Scene Boxes) you could play a 2-player MTG draft. It’s a fun and casual game mode, worth checking out.

The Black Sun Invasion

On the Day of Black Sun, Aang launches an attack on the Fire Nation’s capital. As ATLA fans know, he isn’t alone — his friends and allies are there to help him. This epic battle is featured on this Scene box.

The cards weren’t previewed just yet. (We’ll updated the article once they are revealed.) However, based on the packaging art, we know who will be featured:

• Appa
• Katara
• Fire Nation’s Turret
• Foggy Swamp Tribe
• Sokka
• Toph

Let’s take a closer look at these six cards and discuss how they might fare in Commander.

Appa, the Vigilant

Appa is a massive creature that will provide a massive buff to your creatures. However, seven mana is a hefty cost. After all, for one mana more you’ve got Craterhoof Behemoth (or Moonshaker Cavalry), which usually provides a larger boost.

In order to use Appa to its full potential, you want to follow it with a bunch of Allies. If you can manage that, then it becomes a pretty neat finisher.

Katara’s Reversal

Now this is a card that has potential to be broken in the right scenario. You either want to counter multiple spells (or abilities) with it or untap useful artifacts (perhaps some that make a bunch of mana). When you can do both, the card will fill unbelievably strong.

You could counter spells while actually gaining mana. How insane is that?

Fire Nation Turret

The first effect can be pretty useful, if you can manage to spend mana in your combat step. If not you can also put a few charge counters on Turret. Fifty counters is a lot, but it’s a cool challenge, and fifty damage is enough to take a player out of the game.

You’ll be able to get those counters fast, if you attack with a bunch of creatures after you’ve cast Sozin’s Comet. (That’s a five mana sorcery with flashback for three mana, that gives all of your creatures firebending 5.) Quite a flavor win.

Swampbenders

Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth — bot only for you — on a stick! And a pretty large stick at that. Usually this will be a massive creature for six mana. Perhaps not the strongest card from Avatar Scene boxes, but still a useful one.

Sokka’s Charge

More support for Allies is always welcome. While this enchantment only offers a couple of keywords, they’re both excellent. You can attack for a bunch of damage, without worrying about the crackback thanks to lifelink.

Earthshape

That’s a wild protection spell, reminiscent of Teferi’s Protection. Sure, it’s not quite as powerful, but it’s still a really potent card. In some scenarios it might even be better. (Say you attack with your creatures, but your opponent tries to destroy them afterwards. With Earthshape, you’ll still keep them in play.)

You can modify its usefulness if you’re already playing creature lands, but this looks like a great card for many white decks.

The Black Sun Invasion: Full Scene

Tea Time at the Jasmine Dragon

The second scene is much more relaxed and cosier. Once a failed business, the tea shop now thrives with Iroh managing it. As it looks, even Appa found time for some tea.

The featured characters in this scene include:

• Mai and Zuko
• Aang and Katara
• Toph
• Sokka and Suki
• Momo
• Iroh

Mai and Zuko

A Grixis Ally commander? Well, that’s a first.

The card is unique, as it gives you a way to use that firebending mana on artifacts or Ally creatures. It essentially gives you two options. You can either go for a flavorful deck, with a heavier focus on Allies; or you could simply ignore that part, and just go for a flash-style artifact deck. The choice is yours.

Aang and Katara

At first sight, Aang and Katara might look like yet another token commander. However, there’s more to the card than meets the eye.

First, the tokens are Ally tokens, which can give you a bunch of triggers for cards like Ondu Clerics. Furthermore, you want to control a lot of tapped artifacts and/or creatures, which is a pretty unusual requirement. The waterbending mechanic can help you with that.

All in all, it seems like you can use this couple to lead some very unique and powerful Bant Commander decks.

Toph, Greatest Earthbender

A commander that actually benefits from the increased Commander tax! That’s pretty neat.

Furthermore, the line about land creatures getting double strike is amazing. Not only is this a perfect flavor fit for Toph, it also presents a really cool deckbuilding challenge. Even if you’ve built a deck centered around lands before, the plan probably wasn’t to attack with them.

Finally, the card features an amazing title — Greatest Earthbender. An awesome touch, as most fans of ATLA show can confirm.

Sokka and Suki

We’ve seen a lot of Equipment Commanders in recent years, but Sokka and Suki also work with Ally synergies, providing a new twist to a familiar theme.

Get ready for these two to come in wielding the Colossus Hammer. This would’ve been a pretty nice option to use in a fight against the Fire Nation.

Momo’s Heist

Momo’s Heist will shine in a Obeka, Brute Chronologist deck or paired with a Sundial of the Infinite. However, even without the end-the-turn shenanigans the card can be useful in the right scenario.

For example, it can cleanly deal with The One Ring and there aren’t many effects that can do so. (Why didn’t Frodo and the Fellowship just take Momo with them? Are they stupid?)

Uncle’s Musings

You’ll probably want to play this card in a deck that contains at least three colors. In such a deck, you can typically get three permanent cards from your graveyard. This makes this card somewhat reminiscent of Harmonize.

The Time at the Jasmin Dragon: Full Scene

Are Avatar Scene Boxes Worth Buying?

It’s hard to predict the Scene boxes’ value before the secondary market does its thing and shows how much each specfic card is worth. Nevertheless, we can make some predictions based on the MSRP (manufacturer suggested retail price).

That’s $42 for the Scene box, while a Play boosters costs around $7. Given that you get three of them ($21) in the box, that makes for half of the value. The rest is tied to the six Scene cards. Thus, you’re kinda paying $3.5 per card.

Is that worth it? If you like the alternate arts and the depicted scene, than yes — Avatar Scene boxes seem like a perfectly fine buy. Furthermore, if you can find use for these cards in your decks (and there are plenty useful ones), that’s another reason to get these.

On the other hand, if you’re not particularly excited about the included six cards, then the product probably isn’t for you.

If you want just Play boosters, you’re better off buying a Play booster box or perhaps a Commander’s Bundle. (Find more about this new product here.)

Furthermore, if you expect to find some chase rares or mythics here, that usually isn’t the case. Typically, there are strong playable cards, but not neccessarily the biggest money hits. Nevertheless, you probably aren’t expecting $50 cards in a product that costs around forty bucks.

TL; DR: The Avatar Scene boxes are worth it if you like the included cards, and the the scene they create. If not, there are better options for you.

Conclusion

Which is the better of the two boxes? Well, whichever you prefer — it depends on which cards you need more. In a vacuum, the cards from The Time at the Jasmin Dragon seem stronger, and will likely see more play.

So, how do you like the Avatar Scene boxes? Do you wish Wizards have made another one? Let us know which one in the comments below.

If you want more information about the new releases, check our article about upcoming MTG sets.

Until next time, enjoy collecting the new cards, and good luck with cracking your boosters. Yip yip!