Hei Bai, Spirit of BalanceHei Bai, Spirit of Balance | Art by Tyler Smith

Avatar: The Last Airbender is just around the corner, and the Magic: The Gathering community seems pretty excited about it. One reader gave me a suggestion to check out Hei Bai, Spirit of BalanceHei Bai, Spirit of Balance, a very cool Panda that cares about sacrifice and +1/+1 counters - something that sounds right up my alley.

Unfortunately, that's all I can say about the card, because I don't know anything about Avatar lore. So because I can't judge this set by flavor, I think I had better build a deck with this card, and judge the set after that.

Somehow Not the First Bear Spirit

Hei Bai, Spirit of BalanceHei Bai, Spirit of Balance, immediately stood out to me as potentially very strong for Pauper, because it's a sacrifice outlet with a decent payoff, combined with a +1/+1 counters theme. Those are well established archetypes, especially in Orzhov colors, so we've got a lot to work with.

On top of that, I've already played several decks where the goal is to move counters from one creature to another like Hei Bai does, and I've got a lot of faith in this strategy. I think we can make it work for sure.

Excellent Students

First, we need to define exactly what our game plan is. Hei Bai wants to do two things: sacrifice creatures, and move its own counters to other creatures. This is reminiscent of Star PupilStar Pupil, a creature that also moves all of its counters when it dies.

Now, the great thing about Star PupilStar Pupil is that there's quite a few functional copies of it, from Enduring BondwardenEnduring Bondwarden to Parish-Blade TraineeParish-Blade Trainee to the new Dockworker DroneDockworker Drone. If you've got a board full of these fellas, you can easily develop a web of counters that progressively grows. It's resilient against removal, and it's easy to sustain with a little bit of recursion.

The deck I built around this strategy with Arcbound ShikariArcbound Shikari is still one of my favorite Pauper decks. Even though we're not focusing on artifact creatures here, I think we can still do something similar.

So where does Hei Bai fit into this? Well, the panda is a Star PupilStar Pupil itself, but its primary function is being an effective sacrifice outlet. Though we could rely on external factors, it's best if we have control over when our Pupils die, so that we can move those counters at the right times.

We'll use Hei Bai to rearrange our board every combat, and then we'll revive whatever creature we sacrificed and end every turn a bit stronger than the last.

That's our basic engine, and I know from experience that it works. That said, every engine needs a bit of oil.

Oiling Up

The first lubricant is blink spells. While many of our Star PupilStar Pupils have to die to transfer their counters, our commander only has to leave the battlefield. Thanks to that wording, we can just flicker our commander to quickly shift a ton of counters around, and retrigger the ETB that sacrifices a creatures.

CloudshiftCloudshift, Flicker of FateFlicker of Fate, or EphemerateEphemerate will all give us great value for just a couple of mana. Using these cards, we really open a lot of opportunities to play around with our counters, making surprise moves that can really catch our opponents off guard.

The cool thing about this deck is that even if only Hei Bai has ten counters, our opponents have to treat our board like every creature is that big. We're basically a frilled lizard, puffing up to scare our enemies.

Although we can't use blink spells on the rest of our creatures, we can use Not Dead After AllNot Dead After All to bring them back after a sacrifice. These cards have always been my secret means of blinking creatures in Pauper, and they're very effective. Plus, Undying MaliceUndying Malice, Undying EvilUndying Evil, and Feign DeathFeign Death all bring the creature back with an extra +1/+1 counter, adding to our board power.

Back From the Dead

All of that combined with revival spells will make a smooth machine. UnearthUnearth, RecommissionRecommission, Jolted AwakeJolted Awake, and Return TriumphantReturn Triumphant are the best of the bunch, returning our small little students straight to the battlefield. Then Sam's Desperate RescueSam's Desperate Rescue, Corpse ChurnCorpse Churn, DisentombDisentomb, and Echoing ReturnEchoing Return are also great, and sometimes even cheaper in the end.

There's more than enough of those spells to keep our board alive for a whole game, and make it a nightmare for our opponents. No matter what, we'll just keep bouncing back.

The Payoffs

Finally, what are we really gonna do with all these +1/+1 counters? At any point, we're gonna have one or two creatures with an absolute load of counters on them, so we've gotta do something with all that.

I thought we could throw them all on ShinewendShinewend and FestercreepFestercreep, little utility creatures that can do some special things with the counters, maybe wiping out a ton of tokens or removing problematic enchantments. That's cute, but not really game ending.

For the most part, we're just gonna try and keep things simple. We'll toss a Gift of OrzhovaGift of Orzhova and an Angelic GiftAngelic Gift in there, plus a Rogue's PassageRogue's Passage in the mana base. If we've got a lot of power, we should simply hit hard with it.

Other than that, there's not much to this deck. We've got a minor Treasure theme going on with Deadly DisputeDeadly Dispute, creating artifacts we can sacrifice to our commander. Then we've got some on-theme removal in the form of Settle Beyond RealitySettle Beyond Reality and Light of HopeLight of Hope, as well as some actually good removal, like Feed the SwarmFeed the Swarm and Tragic SlipTragic Slip.

A bit of card draw is necessary as well, but instead of Sign in BloodSign in Blood like usual, we'll play Altar's ReapAltar's Reap and Reckoner's BargainReckoner's Bargain, to ensure we can sacrifice creatures whenever we want to.

Hei Bai, Spirit of Balance Pauper Commander Deck List

And that's what a Hei Bai, Spirit of BalanceHei Bai, Spirit of Balance Pauper deck oughta look like. We've made something that's more effective than I expected it to be: It's resilient to removal, the mana curve is low, and it packs a punch - everything you want a Pauper deck to do.

Maybe I'm liking the Avatar set a bit more now, but I'm still holding out hope that someday Wizards will cover an IP I actually care about.

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