Fire Nation Cadets
Creature — Human Soldier
This creature has firebending 2 as long as there's a Lesson card in your graveyard. (Whenever this creature attacks, add 
. This mana lasts until end of combat.)
: This creature gets +1/+0 until end of turn.
- CMC
- 1
- Mana cost
- Color identity
- R
- Rarity
- common
- Set
- Avatar: The Last Airbender
- Price
- $0.10
- EDHREC rank
- #12546
Fire Nation Cadets puts a repeatable damage trigger on the board — every time a source you control deals noncombat damage to a player, the Cadets deal 1 to that player as well, stacking fast in the right shell. The cost is real: it's a 1/3 for three mana that does nothing on its own, and it lives or dies by how much noncombat damage your deck is already throwing around. In Ozai, the Phoenix King lists specifically, it's a low-floor card that turns into a must-answer threat by turn four.
Best Commanders
Commanders with the highest synergy
Ozai, the Phoenix King
Ozai, the Phoenix King's entire game plan layers noncombat damage sources — burn spells, triggered pings, activated abilities — and Fire Nation Cadets converts every one of those sources into an additional point of damage per player hit, accelerating the race to lethal without any extra spell investment.
Format Analysis
Where it lives, where it can’t
| Format | Verdict |
|---|---|
| commander | legal |
| legacy | legal |
| modern | legal |
| pioneer | legal |
| standard | legal |
| vintage | legal |
| pauper | legal |
| oathbreaker | legal |
In Commander, Fire Nation Cadets earns its slot only in dedicated noncombat-damage decks; in a generic red shell it's a 1/3 that drains your hand and does nothing. Ozai, the Phoenix King is the clearest home — that deck is explicitly engineered to chain noncombat damage events, which means Cadets can trigger four or more times in a single turn cycle across all opponents. Outside of Commander, the card is legal in every major format but has no competitive presence — the effect is too slow and too conditional for 60-card formats where games end before the stacking triggers matter. Pauper is where budget-minded players might experiment, but even there a 3-mana 1/3 with a conditional trigger struggles to compete with faster redundancy. Treat it as a Commander-only card with one specific address.
Key Combos
Combo lines featuring this card
Price Context
Current price
$0.10 bulk tier
At $0.10, Fire Nation Cadets sits firmly in bulk territory — you're not paying for the card, you're paying for the sleeve. Bulk rares with narrow applications rarely climb unless their specific commander spikes in popularity, so don't expect movement unless Ozai, the Phoenix King decks surge hard on EDHREC.
Explore
Sources
Mentioned
Updated . Data from Scryfall, EDHREC, and Commander Spellbook.