Verdant Sun’s Avatar – Ixalan
Date Reviewed: October 23, 2025
Ratings:
Constructed: 1.37
Casual: 5.00
Limited: 3.00
Multiplayer: 3.25
Commander [EDH]: 3.75
Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scale. 1 is bad. 3 is average. 5 is great.
Reviews Below:
Ixalan was the first Magic set where dinosaurs were a major theme. As such, it went out of its way to include eye-catching dinosaurs, whether based on power level, novelty, or just uniqueness. Verdant Sun’s Avatar has an ability that is strong, in the abstract – if it cost less, you could use it to lock some burn decks out of the game entirely. At seven mana, though, it is more likely to be the centerpiece of a theme deck in casual or Commander settings. Part of the issue is that if you’re ramping it into play, you’ll need to somehow make sure you still have enough to play more creatures with high toughness. There are, of course, other ways around this: we were talking about Patriarch’s Bidding recently, so it’s worth pointing out that putting a Verdant Sun’s Avatar into play along with a bunch of other creatures will cause it to “see” all the other creatures and gain you a whole bunch of life.
Like many lifegain cards, it takes on a different dimension if you have something you want to do with all those extra life points. Aetherflux Reservoir came out not long before it; perhaps the designers were trying to send a message!
Constructed: 1.5
Casual: 5
Limited: 3
Multiplayer: 3.5
Commander [EDH]: 3.5
Waking Sun’s Avatar is the creature for you if you want a lot of life for just playing the game, sort of. On its own, it’s nothing special, a 5/5 that gains you 5 life for seven mana, which is not exactly a great deal. If it lives, though, it can gain you a lot of life in a hurry just by playing things out, and being in Dinosaur (a tribe with support for those high-mana creatures) often is more a boon. This does see a healthy amount of play as a way to create chaos in EDH, as it can snowball a life total out of reach with a bit of support, but it alone needs a lot of help to get there.
Constructed: 1.25 (no combat abilities and an unimpressive effect at its mana value)
Casual: 5
Limited: 3 (not going to be the bomb you want in Dinosaurs, but it can help support the rest of the deck)
Multiplayer: 3
Commander [EDH]: 4
Thijs
Coming Soon
Constructed:
Casual:
Limited:
Multiplayer:
Commander [EDH]:
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