The Rise of Sozin – Avatar
Date Reviewed: October 28, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 3.67
Casual: 4.00
Limited: 3.92
Multiplayer: 4.00
Commander [EDH]: 4.08
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Talk about adding injury to injury. The first two chapters of The Rise of Sozin mimic format-defining cards of years gone by, and although six mana is a high cost for either of them on its own, a properly constructed deck can use the saga to quickly turn a game around after it’s started to stabilize. I suspect the creature side will often go all the way after that – Sozin’s actually not as unsolvable or snowball-prone as some creatures we’ve seen recently, but his extra mana gives you a lot of options in instant-speed removal or abilities to get him through, not to mention the tempo and morale swing of stealing from opponents’ graveyards.
It’s interesting that the firebending keyword is tied so strongly to red mana specifically. On the one hand, Wizards of the Coast doesn’t do mechanics like that as much as they did in past years, but on the other, it’s hard to get past the fact that red’s symbol is just a fireball.
Constructed: 3.5
Casual: 4
Limited: 4 (Chapter 1 and 3 are the keys here)
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
My impression is that Sozin is probably one of the main antagonists of the series, and this is certainly quite the antagonistic card we have. Part board wipe, part Cranial Extraction, part threat…there’s a lot going on, and I do think it’s a promising card in its own right, so let’s get to it.
The Rise of Sozin starts simply: a board wipe. Six mana is a bit high for this effect, but black historically gets its board wipes at a slightly less efficient price point and it also comes with more text, so it’s forgivable. A board wipe is a board wipe, and it even does more after that. The second chapter lets you wipe a card out of an opponent’s deck (and, yes, you can hit basic lands if you know what you’re looking for), and while it might seem like weird anti-synergy with the creature behind it all, it can let you get rid of answers that might be lying in wait (and give you information about what answers are there).
Stage three gets you to Fire Lord Sozin, and he’s quite a menacing creature. If he connects (and menace helps that), you can start conscripting creatures out of an opponent’s graveyard, and you even start with five mana. Firebending gives you red mana for the rest of combat after a creature with it attacks, and Fire Lord Sozin generates five on his own. One hit can be enough to break a game open, and while he lacks haste, that’s probably a wise way to balance this card.
The main downside is, again, this is a bit slow. Six mana and two additional turns to get to Sozin, along with needing a haste enabler or another turn on top of it. Still, considering it’s stapled to a board wipe, that could be enough to buy the time you need to get him going, and he’s very scary once he does hit the board. I’d definitely be way of him.
Constructed: 3.75 (the six mana might be an issue in this Standard, but it could pan out better if things slow back down)
Casual: 4 (just be warned, people hate having their creatures stolen)
Limited: 4.75
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4.25 (keep in mind that he still just has mono-black identity, much like how extort didn’t give a creature Orzhov color identity)
Thijs
Sagas continue to be an important part of Magic, also in Universes Beyond. We saw some interesting new saga creatures in Final Fantasy and we had the beautiful comic book-like alt art cards in Spider-Man.
This saga talks about Sozin, who apparently is a powerful antagonist in the Avatar Universe. Please forgive me readers, I know hardly anything about this particular IP.
It starts out as a board wipe. Okay, sure, why not. 6 mana, destroy creatures. Not bad.
The second chapter is another removal, this time you may remove up to four cards with the same name from someone’s graveyard, library and hand. Quite functional, still not half bad.
The third chapter transforms the card into Sozin himself. This is where it gets interesting. He’s a 5/5 with menace and firebending 3. That means: he gives you three red mana every time he attacks. You can then use that same mana – upon dealing combat damage – to pay X and return all creatures with that mana value or less from other graveyards to your battlefield!
This is a powerhouse in the making, I’ll tell you. There’ll definitely be tons of players who will make perfect use of this and who will start reviving creatures quite quickly. At a cost of 6 mana it’s quite expensive and the wait for Sozin is quite long, at three turns, but once he gets there, he’s quite something.
Constructed: 3,7
Casual: 4
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 4
Commander [EDH]: 4
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