Commander blueprint · Avatar: The Last Airbender

How to build Ozai, the Phoenix King

With Ozai on the battlefield, mana you leave unspent turns red and stays in your pool. So this build taps out every turn, keeps six floating to give him flying and indestructible, and spends the rest on extra combats his own firebending pays for.

Art by Kekai Kotaki

Six unspent mana is his armour, so spend down to six and stop

The condition is checked all the time, not once. With six red in the pool Ozai flies and cannot be destroyed, and the moment a payment leaves five he loses both. So on an opponent's turn the rule for every instant is to spend only what sits above six. Comet Storm and Commune with Lava take their X from that surplus, Walking Ballista grows by a counter for each , and Mind's Eye draws you a card for whenever an opponent draws one. Bolt Bend costs in this deck, because it is three cheaper while you control a creature with power 4 or greater, and it moves a removal spell onto another target.

The turn he arrives is the exposed one. He costs six, so off six lands he enters with an empty pool, and the four red from his hasty attack still leave him two short. Cast him with eight mana available instead and the two left over plus the attack trigger make six before blockers are chosen, so he flies through that first combat and stays protected into the next turn.

Indestructible stops destruction and damage and nothing else. Exile, bounce, an edict or a -X/-X effect still takes him, which is what Swiftfoot Boots and Bolt Bend are there for. If one resolves anyway, the pool lasts only until the end of that step, because the replacement effect leaves with him. Spend it before the step ends. Comet Storm is an instant, and its X can be all of it.

Flying only matters at the moment blockers are declared. After that the pool can go into Dragon Mantle, which gives the creature it enchants : +1/+0, and losing flying then changes nothing about who blocked him. Fourteen red on top of his 7 power is 21 commander damage from a single hit, and trample carries it past a chump blocker. Indestructible goes as the pool drops below six, so keep pumping past that point only when the blocker cannot deal him 7 and has no deathtouch.

Firebending 4 pays for Relentless Assault, so the second combat is free

Firebending's four red lasts until the end of combat by its own rules. At that point Ozai's replacement takes over and the mana stays, so it is still in your pool in the main phase after combat, and Relentless Assault costs exactly four. It untaps everything that attacked and adds another combat and another main phase, Ozai attacks again, and four more red arrive. Seize the Day costs four from your hand and three to flash back, so it is two more combats, each paid for by the attack before it. Three hits of 7 on the same player is 21 commander damage, which kills from any life total.

Savage Beating is cast during combat on your turn, once the firebending trigger has resolved. Entwined it costs seven, four of them from the attack itself, and gives your creatures double strike for the turn as well as untapping them for one more combat. That is 14 in each of two combats, 28 to one player. World at War adds a combat after your second main phase and rebounds, so you cast it free in your next upkeep and do it again. Karlach, Fury of Avernus untaps your attackers after the first combat of every turn and adds a second combat straight after it, with no main phase between, so the red from both attacks reaches the main phase together. Combat Celebrant exerts as it attacks to give you the same second combat, every other turn.

Three cards make each attack worth more than four. Sozin's Comet gives every creature you control firebending 5 for the turn, so Ozai adds nine each time. Fire Nation Palace is a land that, for and a tap, gives a creature a second firebending 4 for the turn, so he adds eight. Fire Nation Turret gives a creature +2/+0 and firebending 2 whenever a combat on your turn begins, extra combats included, and those bonuses stack. Aim it at Ozai and his second attack of the turn comes as an 11/7 that adds eight.

Fire Nation Turret banks red mana that exile cannot take away

Fire Nation Turret has a second ability, : put a charge counter on it, which you can use at instant speed as often as you can pay. Remove fifty counters and it deals 50 damage to any target, more than a player's starting 40. That makes it the safe place for the pool. Mana empties when Ozai leaves the battlefield and counters on an artifact do not, so whatever sits above six on other players' turns can go onto the Turret before an exile spell arrives rather than after it.

Fifty is a lot of red, and on its own the Turret is a long game's kill. Doubling Cube is what shortens it. For and a tap it doubles each type of unspent mana you have, so a pool of 20 becomes 34, and on the next turn those 34 become 62 before you tap a land. Use it late in your own turn, after every land is tapped, so it doubles as much as possible, and the Turret can take most of the result straight away.

The counters are only as safe as the artifact holding them, so the risk moves rather than disappears. Artifact removal takes the whole store at once, where an exile spell on Ozai takes only the pool. Load the Turret in the last end step before your own turn, when the counters have the least time to sit exposed, and keep the mana in the pool instead once an opponent has shown artifact removal.

Neheb counts every point lost this turn, once for each main phase

Neheb, the Eternal adds for each 1 life your opponents have lost this turn, at the start of each of your postcombat main phases. Every extra combat brings another of those main phases, and the count is the whole turn's, not the last combat's. Ozai connects for 7 and the main phase after adds seven. Relentless Assault, another 7, and the next main phase adds fourteen. A third hit adds twenty-one more. Without Ozai almost all of that would drain away. With him it stays, and by the last main phase of a three-combat turn Neheb has added 42 red and firebending 12, less the eight that paid for the two extra combats.

That is the turn for Exsanguinate or Torment of Hailfire. Their X is generic, so the pool pays all of it, but each also costs , which the pool cannot pay. Leave two black sources untapped until that last main phase, and an X of 40 on Exsanguinate costs each opponent 40 life.

The pool pays every red cost, so the basics lean to Swamps

Once Ozai has had a turn on the battlefield, every red cost in the list can come out of the pool, because the pool holds nothing but red. Black is different. A has to be paid with black made in the same step, and the pool never makes any. So twelve of the 21 basics are Swamps and nine are Mountains, the list counts 33 black sources to 31 red, and the black engines all count Swamps. Cabal Coffers adds a black for each Swamp you control, and fourteen lands here are Swamps: the twelve basics, Blood Crypt and Smoldering Marsh. Magus of the Coffers does the same from a creature, and Crypt Ghast adds an extra black whenever you tap one.

Red still matters before he lands, since Ozai costs and both pairs come from lands and rocks. Two black sources by turn three come up 86.9% of the time, a little short of the usual 90% mark, and that is the number to watch if you change the lands. On opponents' turns, leave one black source untapped while you hold Terminate, Infernal Grasp or Heartless Act. Each needs a single , and the pool pays the rest.

A ritual is ramp here, and Apex of Power can make its ten black

A ritual is usually a storm card, because its mana is gone at the end of the phase. With Ozai out nothing is gone, so a ritual is ramp that lasts until you spend it. Mana Geyser adds a red for each tapped land your opponents control, and lands they tapped on their own turns are still tapped on yours. Jeska's Will adds a red for each card in one opponent's hand and, because you control a commander, also exiles your top three cards to play that turn.

Apex of Power costs ten, all of which the pool can pay. It exiles your top seven cards to cast that turn and, cast from your hand, adds ten mana of any one colour. Name black. It is the one colour the pool cannot make, so it pays the of an Exsanguinate in your hand, a black spell among the seven, or Phyrexian Arena. Whatever is left over turns red at the end of the phase and joins the pool, so the card has refunded its own cost and left seven cards behind.

Fire Lord Ozai spends six of the pool on an opponent's top card

Two legendary creatures carry the name Ozai, and the legend rule compares full names, so Fire Lord Ozai can sit beside the commander. He is a four-mana black card with red mana in his rules text, which puts him in Rakdos colours. His ability exiles the top card of each opponent's library and lets you play one of them that turn without paying its mana cost. Nothing in that cost taps him, so every six above the armour is another free card from someone else's deck. When he attacks you may also sacrifice another creature for red equal to its power, and the Phoenix King keeps that red after combat as well. It counts toward the six the moment it arrives, so sacrificing a spare 2/2 as the two attack together can be what gives the Phoenix King flying before blockers are chosen.

Zuko, Exiled Prince does the same with your own library for : exile the top card and play it that turn. Three lands turn the pool into cards too. Bonders' Enclave draws for and a tap while you control a creature with power 4 or greater, and Ozai has 7. War Room draws for , a tap and 2 life, two because Ozai's identity has two colours. Endless Atlas draws for once you control three lands with the same name. In most decks those are things to do with the mana left at the end of a long turn. Here the mana for them has been sitting in the pool all along.

Damnation and Decree of Pain leave Ozai standing on six

With six in the pool, a sweeper that destroys or deals damage leaves Ozai where he is. Damnation destroys every other creature. Decree of Pain does the same for eight mana, all but its from the pool, and draws a card for each creature it destroys. Blasphemous Act deals 13 damage to each creature and costs one less for each creature on the battlefield. The first chapter of The Rise of Sozin destroys all creatures as the Saga enters. Earthquake deals X to each creature without flying and to each player, and Ozai flies while the pool holds six, so pay its X out of the surplus and he still has flying when it resolves.

The deaths feed two cards. Black Market gets a charge counter whenever any creature dies, and pays out one per counter as each of your turns reaches its first main phase. After a sweep that is black mana every turn, the one colour the pool never supplies, and the count only rises: a sweep that kills five creatures is five black at the start of every turn after it, plus one for each creature that dies later. The Saga's third chapter returns it transformed as Fire Lord Sozin, a 5/5 with menace and firebending 3. Whenever he deals combat damage to a player you may pay X to take creature cards with total mana value X or less from that player's graveyard, and the first chapter has just filled it.

Leyline Tyrant keeps the pool alive when Ozai is exiled

Leyline Tyrant says you don't lose unspent red mana as steps and phases end. In most decks that is a narrow card. Here the pool is all red, so the Tyrant is a spare copy of Ozai's replacement for exactly the mana he leaves behind. If he is exiled or bounced the pool stays, and casting him again from the command zone costs eight of it. A pool of 14 brings him back with six left, flying and indestructible again at once.

When the Tyrant dies you may pay any amount of , and it deals that much damage to any target. With Ozai indestructible on six, your own Damnation kills the Tyrant and leaves him, and everything above those six can go at one player.

Two Game Changers set the floor, and Aggravated Assault waits for bracket 4

Jeska's Will and Demonic Tutor are Game Changers, which keeps this list out of bracket 2 and puts it at 3. The other thing that matters for the bracket is that every extra combat in it ends. Relentless Assault gives one, Seize the Day two, World at War two across two turns, Savage Beating one and Karlach one each turn. However large the pool gets, the turn stops.

Aggravated Assault does not stop. For at sorcery speed it untaps your creatures and adds a combat and a main phase, as often as you can pay. Ozai alone refunds four of the five, so each loop costs one, and a pool of 20 already buys sixteen extra combats. With Fire Nation Palace, Fire Nation Turret, Sozin's Comet or Neheb out, each loop brings back at least five and the combats never end. Hellkite Charger loops the same way, since its for another combat is covered once Fire Nation Palace makes Ozai's attack worth eight. Every one of those partners is already in the core list, so Aggravated Assault and Hellkite Charger go on the bracket 4 rung and nowhere else.

The core list

Ninety-nine cards behind Ozai, built for bracket 3, with every row priced at its cheapest paper printing on the date shown. Hover a name to see the card.

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Bracket 2 keeps the free second combat, and bracket 4 lets the combats repeat

The budget rung costs $113.06 against the core list's $378.86. It drops both Game Changers and the dearest cards around them, and it keeps every piece of the combat plan that firebending pays for: Relentless Assault, Seize the Day, Combat Celebrant, Sozin's Comet, Fire Nation Palace and Fire Nation Turret all stay. So the free second combat survives. What shrinks is the size of the turn. Karlach becomes Port Razer, which untaps your creatures and adds a combat whenever it deals combat damage to a player, though it cannot attack the same player twice in a turn. World at War becomes Moraug, Fury of Akoum, which adds a combat when a land enters during your main phase and gives each creature +1/+0 for every time it has attacked that turn, so Ozai's third attack comes as a 10/7. Savage Beating becomes Fury of the Horde, which costs seven or two red cards from your hand.

The mana grows more slowly too. Doubling Cube becomes Brass's Bounty, a Treasure for each land you control, which holds the mana as artifacts instead of in the pool. Crypt Ghast becomes Nirkana Revenant, the same extra black from each Swamp on a six-mana creature, and Cabal Coffers becomes Canyon Slough, one more Swamp for the Magus to count. Torment of Hailfire becomes Fireball. Damnation becomes Crux of Fate, which Ozai survives only on six because he is not a Dragon, while Leyline Tyrant, which is one, walks away from it. Jeska's Will becomes Irencrag Feat, seven red for four that the pool keeps even though you can cast only one more spell that turn. Demonic Tutor becomes Painful Truths, which draws two here because the pool pays red and a land pays black, Black Market Connections becomes Sign in Blood, and Blood Crypt and Luxury Suite become Exotic Orchard and Bloodfell Caves.

The bracket 4 rung adds the loops the core list leaves out. Aggravated Assault and Hellkite Charger join the four partners already in the deck, Underworld Breach lets you cast Relentless Assault and Seize the Day again from the graveyard for their cost plus three other cards exiled, and Vampiric Tutor joins Demonic Tutor to find whichever half is missing. Ancient Tomb and Mana Vault put Ozai down a turn or two sooner. Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth makes every land a Swamp, so Cabal Coffers, Magus of the Coffers and Crypt Ghast count all of them. Deflecting Swat costs nothing once Ozai is out. With six Game Changers the rung sits on a floor of 4 and costs $798.65. Its eight cuts are the two lands that enter tapped, Worn Powerstone, Read the Bones, Big Score, Mana Geyser, Combat Celebrant, and Earthquake, which hurts you as much as anyone at a table that races.

FAQ

Does Ozai's mana carry over to the next turn?

Yes, for as long as he is on the battlefield. Unspent mana turns red instead of draining at the end of each step and phase, so it carries through your turn, every opponent's turn and into your next one. It stops when he leaves. Whatever is in the pool then lasts until the end of that step, unless Leyline Tyrant is out to keep it.

Can Ozai's red mana pay for black spells?

Only for their generic part. The pool is all red, so it pays and generic costs, the X of Exsanguinate included, but each needs black made in the same step by a land, a rock or Black Market. That is why this build runs twelve Swamps to nine Mountains.

Does firebending mana stay after combat with Ozai, the Phoenix King?

Yes. Firebending mana lasts until the end of combat by its own rules, and at that point Ozai's replacement keeps it as red mana in your pool. That is how the four from his attack pay for Relentless Assault in the main phase after.

What bracket is this Ozai deck?

Bracket 3. Jeska's Will and Demonic Tutor are Game Changers, which rules out bracket 2, and each extra combat in the list happens once and is done. The budget rung drops both for a list with no floor at all, and the bracket 4 rung adds four more Game Changers and the Aggravated Assault loop.

When does Ozai, the Phoenix King have flying and indestructible?

Whenever you have six or more unspent mana, and it is checked all the time. A payment that leaves you on five takes both away at once. Flying only matters when blockers are declared, so pumping him after blocks costs nothing on that side, though he does lose indestructible.

Is there an infinite combo with Ozai, the Phoenix King?

Yes. Aggravated Assault costs five per extra combat and Ozai refunds four, so it needs one card that brings back a fifth. Fire Nation Palace, Fire Nation Turret, Sozin's Comet and Neheb, the Eternal each do. Hellkite Charger beside Fire Nation Palace loops the same way. The core list runs all four partners, so this build keeps Aggravated Assault and Hellkite Charger for the bracket 4 rung.

How much does it cost to build Ozai, the Phoenix King?

$378.86 for the core list, buying the lowest-priced paper copy of each card, $113.06 for the budget rung and $798.65 for the bracket 4 rung. Demonic Tutor, Jeska's Will, Torment of Hailfire and Doubling Cube are the four most expensive cards in the core list, and the budget rung replaces all four.

What is the difference between Ozai, the Phoenix King and Fire Lord Ozai?

They are two legendary creatures with different names, so both can be on the battlefield at once. The Phoenix King is the six-mana black and red commander that keeps unspent mana. Fire Lord Ozai, from Avatar: The Last Airbender Eternal, costs four, turns a sacrificed creature into red mana when he attacks, and spends to play one of your opponents' top cards for free. This build runs him in the 99.