She said “Yes.”

My nerves have been shot for the last few weeks, and aside from preparing for the biggest tournament I’ve ever had the pleasure to compete in, I’ve been secretly preparing to pop The Question, as well. No pressure.

All’s well that ends well, or so they say, so I’m happy to report that the first (and very much more important) leg of my trip to Barcelona was a resounding success, and regardless of how the rest of the weekend went, I was going to be looking back on this trip as the best vacation I’ve ever been on.

Even if that particular life event was not a part of the trip, it would have qualified as amazing. Barcelona is a beautiful city, and I enjoyed ever minute we spent there. There’s a feeling of timelessness that exists in old Europe that simply can’t be replicated by anything in the USA, where we consider things “antique” at 100 years. There’s really no history here other than recent history, and compared to a place like Catalonia – which has been a city for nearly tenfold the span of time that America has been a country – there’s just so much more to experience.

Consider this wall for example:

Humble as it may seem, the lower wall of this monastery (from the ground to about 30 feet up) is part of the original protective outer wall built by the Romans when they controlled the city during the height of the Roman Empire. This wall was made by human hands almost two thousand years ago. While the US has artifacts created during that same era, there is nothing of this scale and magnitude – because civilization as we know it simply wasn’t present in this country at that time. With the exception of the Mayan and Incan ruins in South America, you really need to leave the Western Hemisphere to be able to see things of that age at that scale.

Even after being there for a week, I feel like I barely scratched the surface of the things I wanted to see and do. It’s a city I could spend a lifetime exploring, and I think I would consider it a life well spent. There haven’t been many places I’ve been to and thought “yeah, I’d live here.” Barcelona is definitely one of them.

The high point of the week for me was a relatively brief tour around the city called the “Barcelona Highlights Tour.” It was aptly named, as it managed to hit a number of important historical sites, and gave a good general impression of the city without spending an exhaustive amount of time at any particular location. While it was the best bang for your buck in terms of sights:time ratio, it unfortunately spent just a little too little time at each stop for us to truly appreciate some of the magnificence of particular locations.

For example, while exploring parts of the Gothic Quarter, we spent about 20 minutes at the Gothic Cathedral. This was a fantastic site, and the cathedral was massive. Twenty minutes was enough for a quick tour around the interior and a few snapshots, but we could easily have spent an hour examining the fine details of the altars and stained glass, and felt like we still missed things. A few shots from the cathedral:

The other major highlight of the tour for me was the fortress (Castle) at the peak of Mount Montjuic. Overlooking the city of Barcelona, this citadel was a major tactical location during the expansive history of the region, as well as being one of the endpoints for the trail that established the recognized span of the meter.

To climb the last few hundred feet, and attain the summit of the mountain, we rode a cable car that sat six. The view from the gondola was incredible. Despite my best efforts to capture a panoramic shot of the city, I couldn’t get the entire view. This photo does capture a good impression of the height we were looking from, and hopefully you get some sense of the size of the city. The city spanned around 230°, well over the full half-circle of vision.

Once we reached the castle, we walked around the outer wall to reach the entrance – a genuine draw bridge, complete with a once-moat that now served as a very elaborate garden.

From the yard outside the castle keep, you could look down to the lower yards, where they had an archery range set up with period longbows to try your hand with ancient weapons. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t figure out how to get down to the range, and our limited time schedule made it difficult to really explore the castle to the extent that my inner 10-year-old wanted to. I mean, I’m in the city to play a game called Magic: the Gathering – I could have spent the week in the castle alone!

Our tour ended with a stop at Plaça de Catalunya, which was conveniently where both our hotel, as well as the event site, was located. It was one of the more picturesque locations within the city, featuring a few fountains and the Palace de Montjuic, which is featured in the background here:

The white building on the right-hand side is the event site. Not a bad place to sling some cardboard, I must say. The photo was taken from a building that was once a bull fighting arena, now converted into a shopping mall. While the interior is generic mall fare, the façade is still reminiscent of the coliseum the building once was, and it made a great addition to the landscape.

Thursday, Friday and Saturday evening were special at the Placa, as the Fuente mágica de Montjuic – Or Magic Fountain of Montjuic – was on display. Set directly in front of the palace, the fountain changed shape and color in time to music blasted into the courtyard.

It was here that I asked Jen to be my wife, and was overjoyed when she accepted.

Not a bad way to spend the first half of a week! Oh wait, there’s still this Pro Tour to play in!

When I qualified to compete at PTAVR, I knew that I’d be at a disadvantage when compared to some of the more prolific groups, in terms of time to invest in testing as well as the ability to determine the shape of the metagame ahead of time. While I was confident in my abilities to craft some sort of reasonable deck, as well as my ability to play whatever deck I ended up playing, I was afraid that my lack of experience with mining brand new formats would be a big problem. I wasn’t far off in those fears.

The person I worked most closely with in preparation for the event was Colin Chilbert (Di, formerly Diablos, on mtgTheSource.com). Colin is a Syracuse native who’s transplanted to Texas, and we’ve been playing Magic together for nearly a decade. After qualifying through his top 4 finish at GP Indy, and my own PTQ win, it seemed natural for us to work together, especially since we’ve worked on many Legacy decks together and had a good feel for our respective strong points and weaknesses. To assist us with our endeavors, we relied mainly on Syracuse and Texas locals who were not qualified, but had either experience in the block from MtGO or were capable of testing many many games with us to earn that experience.

The problem was, without having a vested interest in the tournament itself (ie, being qualified), you are relying on players who don’t actually care. That’s not to say they aren’t helpful – every single person I tested even a single game with was very helpful – but the level of innovation or even data mining that is put in by a non-Q’d tester pales in comparison to one who is trying to prep to play. This isn’t something that was obvious from the get-go, or even something I think I could have done much about prior to the event, but I think it had a hand in my image of the metagame prior to Friday.

To put it bluntly, I think Colin and I missed the mark. While the deck we ended up bringing to the constructed portion of the event was fine, I think it was tuned to a metagame that simply wasn’t present at the tournament. Our preparations largely focused on small aggro decks like RW humans and GW, and we knew we had a glaring weakness to creatures with a toughness greater than 3, but we misevaluated the strength of Wolfir Silverheart and underestimated the amount we’d see the Big Naya deck. The list I played:

4 Terminus 4 Think Twice 4 Geistflame 4 Pillar of Flame 4 Brimstone Volley 3 Entreat the Angels 3 Bonfire of the Damned 3 Desperate Ravings 2 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 3 Vessel of Endless Rest 2 Desolate Lighthouse 4 Sulfur Falls 4 Clifftop Retreat 4 Evolving Wilds 1 Shimmering Grotto 5 Mountain 4 Plains 2 Island 2 Rebuke 3 Lone Revenant 2 Dungeon Geists 2 Witchbane Orb 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 1 Ancient Grudge 1 Ray of Revelation 1 Blasphemous Act 2 Undead Alchemist

Colin’s list was a card or two off in the sideboard, but the maindecks were identical.

I ended up hating my list. I felt like the games all boiled down to a single point where I’d wipe the board two or three times, then I would either draw a miracle off the top in their attack step and win, or I wouldn’t and I’d lose. This was the same, over and over and over, and I was drawing a blank more often than a miracle, and I hated it. Perhaps it simply wasn’t the deck for me, but I felt like I should have been attacking WAY more in this format, and wished I had picked anything else. Colin had a different impression, perhaps because he didn’t lose as many matches with the deck as I did (although only by one match), but I think there were a few things we could have done differently:

- We possibly should have been playing Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, although this was the cause of some debate with others playing the RWU shell. The toss up is a two turn clock vs. vulnerability to Zealous Conscripts. The point was moot, because we never even considered her for a slot in the deck.
- Our testing with RW led us to overload on the one-drop removal spell slot. Geistflame was terrible all weekend, and we probably should have been running 0-1 rather than the full set. In fact, our removal suite was pretty miserable based on the fact that we expected many little guys rather than one or two fat guys, and I wish we could have switched the Geistflames for Rebukes.
- Dissipate was much better in the format than I expected, largely due to the increased size of the threat base. When your threats move from one and two mana creatures up to four and five mana, Dissipate looks better and better. All the other control decks had it, we didn’t, and it put us in a deep hole in the control mirror.
- Our sideboard was awful. When you whiff on the metagame like we did, this is to be expected. About half the slots were dead and the others were fantastic, so it was fine I suppose, but I was not happy with the overall board.
- The “Man Plan” was fine, but really needed to be more robust to be successful. I think Fettergeist was a good addition that many were using, but the fact that it couldn’t protect itself meant that a two-for-one with removal spells wasn’t much of an issue since the opponent was often stuck with extras in hand. I would rather have played Geist of Saint Traft as a supplement to the Revenants, had we chosen a second guy.

Colin and I both played Reanimator once, and despite the un-losable matchup with the Self-Mill Splinterfright decks, we didn’t have the same kind of matchup with Reanimator. In theory, the Vessels and Alchemists give you improved game against them, but in reality they have inevitability because you run so few removal spells that interact with their guys.

I can’t get over how good Rebuke was, and how bad the rest of the spot removal was. Major kudos to Al French for dropping that piece of technology on me – we should have played the full set.

Initially, we were wishing for Condemn. Really, we wanted an unconditional removal spell that dealt with attacking creatures of any size, but came in a reasonable mana cost package. I started with Banishing Stroke, but the six mana “hardcast” on it made it too expensive to run out if you had to dig to get to it on the opponent’s turn. Al recommended Smite the Monstrous, but it didn’t kill Fettergeist or Restoration Angel, so it was quickly cast aside. Al suggested Rebuke as the replacement. This did everything we wanted at a reasonable cost, and nuked all the Ghoultrees and Splinterfrights from orbit. Of course, in reality this meant it nuked the Wolfir Silverhearts from orbit – but it did so admirably.

The first five rounds of the Pro Tour were a lesson. I learned three incontrovertible facts:

1) I was not the best or worst player at this tournament.
2) That didn’t matter, because the format was totally different than I had expected.
3) The Pro Tour is awesome.

The first was nice, because although I knew I was not the best player there (duh), there’s a kind of mystique surrounding the Pro Tour that makes it seem as if the best of the best of the best are the only ones there. It’s true, but there’s also a hall full of “other guys” who are basically on the same level as you or worse. Since my day started off so poorly, I was playing with a lot of regular Joe’s for most of the event. This brought the air of mystery down to reality, and I felt like I was not out of my league for the majority of the tournament.

The second was disheartening, because I chose the control deck over other options that in hindsight would have been much more successful in that field. I knew going in that I was taking a risk by playing control, but somehow I convinced myself that it was our best deck, despite knowing in the back of my mind that I’d be better with attacking than with largely ignoring combat. I wish I had either put the time into creating a five color control deck like I threatened to, or in playing green cards like I knew I should have been.

The third was as I expected, except times 1000. I’ve played in Grands Prix before, and I’ve been to enough big events (some which dwarf the attendance of this event) that the allure of them has waned, but there’s nothing that can replicate the Pro Tour. It was 100% worth the trip to Barcelona to be able to say I experienced it first hand.

I’m not planning on giving a real recap of the matches. It’s block, which is irrelevant after next weekend. My deck wasn’t great, so you aren’t learning much there. I didn’t cash, so there’s no results to fall back on. But I did experience a few notable things I’d like to share.

In round two, I won my first match. Winning a match on the Pro Tour was pretty sweet. My opponent had some mana troubles and I wrathed his board about six times in our deciding game, but that’s what my deck was supposed to do. When things came together and the deck fired on all cylinders, it felt unstoppable. This was rare. Nonetheless, winning on the Pro Tour feels great.

Rounds 2, 3, and 4 I faced Naya, and realized how bad the matchup was, despite going 1-2. As that deck was around ¼ of the metagame, I realized I was in trouble.

Round 5 I played a very nice gentleman with a UW Miracle deck that had 4 of all the cards we liked in the mirror, and none of the garbage we wanted to side out. 4 Entreat, 4 Tamiyo, Dissipates, etc. He won in two games. His name was Alex Hayne, and he wouldn’t lose another match for the rest of the weekend. This was the first of 14 straight wins that took him to PT Champion. You’re welcome, Alex.

Going into the first draft, I needed a 3-0 result to make day two.

My first pack was miserable, with an unplayable rare and a choice between Borderland Ranger and Gloomwidow as the pick. I had done about half a dozen drafts and a couple sealed events, but most had been light on green if I’d played it at all. I said screw it and first picked Alchemist’s Apprentice – the only blue card in the pack.

My deck ended up insane.

In my third match, I won the first game by “drawing” three from Angel of Glory’s Rise (including two Alchemist’s Apprentices), drawing three more when I blinked it with Cloudshift, and drawing four more when I used Nephalia Smuggler to blink it again. In the second game, I won while blocking with Mist Raven, blinking it with Smuggler to return his other attacker, and milling for four with Stern Mentor each turn.

Needless to say, I was ELATED at the prospect of making day 2 of my first Pro Tour. While my record left me very little wiggle room for Saturday, needing to go X-1 to have a shot at top 25 and an invite to Seattle, I tried to temper my expectations and allow the accomplishment of sweeping a PT draft to make the cut to sink in. Quite pleased with myself, I tried to get some rest for an early day two start.

The second draft didn’t fare quite as well. I recognized that red was open quite early, but refused to take the miserable black cards (I should have) during pack two, and waffled between blue and white for too long, ending up a few short on playables. This is something that I was wary of, as I’d seen it happen too many times in practice drafts. I was sitting to the left of Dave Sharfman, and knew he was in blue, but couldn’t resist the allure of Mist Raven and Stern Mentor, and jumped in. While the deck ended up ok, I think had I just taken the black bombs (including two Demonic Risings), my deck would have been much better. I was at least correct in being red, a decision rewarded with triple Thunderous Wrath in pack three. I figured worst case I could Lava Axe my opponent to death.

Round one game one left me feeling bitter as I stared at double Heirs of Stromkirk, double Thunderous Wrath in hand with a single Mountain in play. With 9 Mountains as live draws, as well as the third Wrath or the Mist Raven, I watched my opponent take me from 20 to 0 with a single Goldnight Redeemer.

In the third game of that match, I had a decision at four mana on whether to cast an Heirs of Stromkirk or a Stern Mentor. While at the time, I thought the board was sufficiently clogged to allow Mentor to take over the game, it was only two turns before my opponent played Howlgeist and punched through. Again, had I drawn either of the Pillar of Flames in the deck or another removal spell to buy time, I’d have won the race, but it’s possible that I would have won regardless had I played the Heir instead.

This judgement call cost me the match, and now my back was against the wall. I won the next match, and sat down to face Sharfman for the final limited match. His deck was a very strong UW fliers, which had the reasonable backup plan of Tamiyo. In the first game, I kept 2 lands on the play and never drew another before it was too late. I discussed this decision with Dave and he agreed with the keep, as drawing a land in the first three turns generally puts you in fine position, especially against a flooded opponent. In our second game he proved he’d have kept, as he missed his third land drop and discarded twice before conceding. In out third game we both flooded out, but he played more spells than I did, and had a flier to kill me before I found an answer. I went to 1-2 in the draft and fell out of contention for a top 25 Q.

Disheartened, I went back into constructed and pulled out a 2-3 result before the end of my first Pro Tour. I tried to find solace in the fact that I was playing on day two, while many players whom I consider better than me were either doing side drafts or sightseeing. It helped.

My first experience was, overall, a great one. I’m no Josh Cho – making top 8 of the first Pro Tour I attend, but I don’t think my results (which ended at 7-9) were particularly abysmal either. I’m proud that I made day two, I’m very proud I 3-0’d a draft, and I think that I represented myself and those who helped me prepare very well. I’m excited to try and qualify again to improve on the performance, and hopefully if I do manage to do so, I’ll be able to arrange for a larger testing team to help uncover those things I would otherwise miss.

Sunday was not supposed to be spent at the event site. However, I couldn’t allow myself to miss the final match of the tournament – how often are you present for the finals of the PT? I walked into the players’ lounge just before Gau and Alex presented their decks for game one and sat with Dave Caplan and the rest of Team ManaDeprived. I’ve known Dave for what seems like forever – since he and Lam Phan started trekking down from the frozen north and stealing our dual land prizes. He was unbelievably excited for Alex, as were the rest of the Canadians. I met Alex at a GP last year after participating in one of ManaDeprived’s podcasts discussing Legacy. The Canadian contingent is a group of very nice guys, and they couldn’t have been more proud for one of their own to have made it this far. It seemed almost as if it was them against the world, as the rest of the room knew Gau through his competition on the big stage during the last few years – while it seemed like Alex was just a random with a gimmicky deck. Despite the fact that he had dispatched Finkel in the quarters, there wasn’t a lot of respect for the kid with 16 miracles in his deck. When Alex drew six straight blanks in game four to allow Gau the window to take the game, the roar from the crowd was deafening. The tension in the room was palpable as they started game five. Team Canada was on the edge of their seats as they looked at Alex’s opener, and when they saw the Feeling of Dread force Gaudenis to pass on turn 2 with no plays, they became visibly excited.

It was only a few turns later, when Alex revealed an Entreat the Angels, that Dave jumped to his feat screaming “There’s no outs! There’s no outs! LET’S GO!!!!” and the entire first three rows of the room bolted out the door. Caught in the wave and in the excitement, I followed them to the rail, where they sat in nervous anticipation until Gau extended the hand. They exploded with enthusiasm and joy, and began to hug and clap and sing. It was pretty incredible to witness such a great amount of pride and excitement first hand, and I’m beyond happy for them all. It was a very joyous way to cap off a hell of a weekend, and I’m honored to have been able to share in their excitement.

As I said, the events of the past week are monumental for me, in terms of life within and outside the game. It was a hallmark week, and it changed my perspective on a great many things. I hope to return to the big show sooner rather than later, and give another shot at the whole thing – but even if I don’t, it’s great to be able to look back on this event and know that at least once, I made it.

Before I close, I’d like to give a very specific thank you to Jeff Watkins, Aaron Garitillo, and to the rest of the team at Cloud City Comics and Toys. Their store has opened their doors and shown time and time again that a small store can make a big impact to the players in their area. They went out of their way to help me arrange for all the cards I’d need to be successful at the PT, and helped cover some of the expenses of the trip. They didn’t have to do this, they chose to because they know that fostering the community and helping each other achieve our goals is the best thing we can do for each other. These guys are the kind of store owners that this game needs infinitely more of – the guys that are there for us because they’re exactly like us. It’s easy to see the people who spend money in your store as cash-cows that are simply entry fees plus square footage – but to see them as friends first and customers last is what separates the store from the great store. Their positive impact on the local scene is even more amazing when you consider that they’ve only been in the Magic game for about a year.

Thanks for all your help guys, it meant the world to me.

http://www.facebook.com/CloudCityComics

Thanks also to Jon, Holden, Adam, JJ, Al, Mike, Kevin, and Bret for all the jamming.

Adam
@AdamNightmare

PS – The one nice thing about the PT being over is that I finally get to think about Legacy again! Hooray!

I’ll also forsake the tournament preparation, the testing, the good times with my friends, and the trollfest the good times entailed. The flipside, the tensions that come with failure and adversity, also have no place here.

Most importantly, this is not an article about block, or draft, or what-have-you.

Just Legacy.

Part One: In Which Tamiyo is a Card

On Thursday, the 10th, our group was settling into archetypes for Barcelona.
“Any cards in the format you’re worried about?” Calcano asked, wondering about my block deck.
“Well, just plain getting burned out is worrisome.” I said.
“What about Tamiyo?”
“What about it? I said. “That card isn’t maindeckable. It’s almost a brick against Boros. You need your threats to be proactive in this field.”
“It seems powerful, and I expect it to see play.”
“I disagree. That card will see a little play in Standard control mirrors, and that’s it.”

If you read the above italic text, you’d note I made a sweeping generalization, with the typical foolish confidence that said generalizations entail.

Now, slow learner that I am, I’m going to make another one. The thing about sweeping generalizations is, they’re always proven wrong. In this case, almost instantly:

Kevin Long got second (albeit in an eighteen person tournament) with the following list:

Tamiyo Control, by Kevin Long

4 Force of Will 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 3 Predict 4 Brainstorm 4 Trinket Mage 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Thunderous Wrath 2 Fire Ice 4 Counterspell 2 Snapcaster Mage 2 Spell Snare 1 Pithing Needle 1 Sensei S Divining Top 1 Meekstone 2 Engineered Explosives 2 Academy Ruins 1 Misty Rainforest 1 Flooded Strand 1 Snow-covered Island 3 Volcanic Island 2 Tropical Island 4 Polluted Delta 3 Scalding Tarn 5 Island 3 Mountain Sideboard 1 Tormod S Crypt 1 Pithing Needle 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Relic of Progenitus 1 Snapcaster Mage 2 Spell Pierce 2 Vendilion Clique 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Red Elemental Blast 2 Firespout

Tamiyo in Legacy?! I’ve seen most of the other paneswalkers see niche play, but there was a whole lot more diversity to what was deemed playable beforeore Jace, the Mind Sculptor was printed. I remember Jace Beleren, Garruk Wildspeaker, and Ajani Vengeant all seeing competitive Legacy play. Heck, it’s been a while since I’ve even seen either Tezzeret in the field of Lilianas, Elspeths, and Jaces. If Tamiyo is going to take off, it has some tough competition.

In this deck, Tamiyo makes sense. It’s not better than the third Jace, and it might not be better than the fourth, but Kevin sure thought it was. Since the entire rest of the deck is made up of efficient counters, removal, and filtering, we can afford to spend one slot on a powerful, clunky win condition. Worst case scenario, we can shuffle it away with Brainstorm or pitch it to Force of Will. Best case, we cantrip into it at the perfect time to hard lock down an opponent’s threat, eventually riding its ultimate for the win. And it is a win in this deck, especially in combination with a Lightning Bolt, Force of Will, Brainstorm, or Predict.

Tamiyo has other synergies here beyond its ultimate. Imagine a game in which a Tarmogoyf is locked down by a Meekstone. The goyf player drops a second Tarmogoyf and a Delver of Secrets, hoping to force through damage, which is answered with a Tamiyo, tapping down the second Tarmogoyf. Now, even if his Delver does flip and he decides to attack the Tamiyo (to keep it from ulting), the powerful planeswalker can still draw a pile of cards.

One thing that bothers me about Kevin’s list is that it’s a sixty seven card deck. I’m guessing that the Trinket Mage package put him over the top. If you have a sixty card deck, and you need a few more cards for your toolbox, it’s not always correct to cut role players like Brainstorm and Force of Will to fit the extra tutor targets in. In some cases, it’s correct to go over, which in turn might require more lands to maintain the correct land to spell ratio. In this case, running more cards means we’ll draw the situational bullets less often, as well as have fewer miracles in our opener.

That said, it isn’t the approach I would take, and I think the list can be trimmed down without much effort. The sideboard probably needs some form of Submerge or Hibernation, as Knight of the Reliquary can get out of Thunderous Wrath range fairly quickly. Here is a good place to start:

Tamiyo Control

4 Force of Will 3 Jace, the Mind Sculptor 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 2 Predict 4 Brainstorm 2 Trinket Mage 2 Vendilion Clique 4 Lightning Bolt 4 Thunderous Wrath 4 Counterspell 2 Snapcaster Mage 2 Spell Snare 2 Sensei S Divining Top 1 Meekstone 1 Engineered Explosives 1 Academy Ruins 4 Misty Rainforest 1 Flooded Strand 4 Volcanic Island 1 Tropical Island 4 Scalding Tarn 6 Island 2 Mountain Sideboard 1 Tormod S Crypt 1 Pithing Needle 1 Relic of Progenitus 3 Submerge 2 Spell Pierce 1 Vedalken Shackles 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Red Elemental Blast 2 Firespout

Since Vendilion Clique has a higher power level than Trinket Mage, cutting two Mages and trimming the tutor package was a natural decision. The evasion works better with all the burn spells, too, letting us pick up a few games where we wouldn’t quite get there otherwise. Also, a deck with Miracles is going to have a few more dead cards in hand than a deck without, and Clique is a way to cycle Thunderous Wrath away.

With fewer Mages, we have Sensei’s Divining Top less reliably, but we can add another Top to balance the loss. The maindeck Pithing Needle, while good enough, has to go because it can be unreliable when drawn naturally.

A benefit to moving the Cliques into the maindeck is a few more slots in the board, which we can slam Submerge into. Since two of the three tier one decks are based on tapping green creatures sideways, I don’t think many fair U/x decks can, or should, forgo this powerful instant.

Vedalken Shackles, while thought of as a maindeck card, should do more work in the board than the third Snapcaster Mage it’s replacing. Sower of Temptation is another option.

Note that blind naming Island with Predict is usually correct until you’ve fetched a few out.

Part Two: In Which Nic Becomes More Fit

Saturday, May 12th
Somehow, sometime, I twisted my leg in Barcelona. Perhaps it was from a teammate’s well-aimed (and deserved) suitcase that was fired into my legs with all the velocity of point-blank ballistics fire. Maybe I stepped on it wrong. Regardless, I’d spent all Friday limping around on it, getting to the event site and so on. Not the worst, by any stretch. After all, I once hobbled through four days of GenCon on a fractured foot. Now that I was out of contention, however, I resolved to take care of myself.

When I got back to the apartment, I surrounded myself with my goodies, propped up my leg, and checked Twitter. I’d received one tweet inviting me to a hundred plus person event an hour outside of Barcelona. While free drafts weren’t worth walking on a bum leg for, a large legacy event was. I looked to my leg, then to my bottle of wine and cream-filled pie. I cracked the window, felt the refreshing Spanish air roll in, and closed Twitter.

Had I gone to that tournament, I would’ve played this deck:

Explorer Kut, by Jonathan Genovese

1 Wooded Foothills 2 Bayou 4 Badlands 1 Swamp 3 Mountain 4 Forest 3 Valakut, the Molten Pinnacle 3 Stomping Ground 4 Taiga 3 Pernicious Deed 1 Kodama S Reach 1 Cultivate 4 Sakura-tribe Elder 4 Veteran Explorer 2 Sensei S Divining Top 4 Green Sun S Zenith 2 Thoughtseize 4 Cabal Therapy 3 Primeval Titan 3 Scapeshift 4 Burning Wish Sideboard 1 Shattering Spree 1 Whipflare 1 Innocent Blood 1 Maelstrom Pulse 1 Cultivate 1 Scapeshift 1 Rude Awakening 1 Pyroclasm 1 Firespout 2 Red Elemental Blast 1 Perish 1 Thoughtseize 2 Duress

Genovese top eighted a hundred and eleven person tournament with the above list, which is larger than some Legacy Opens.

This deck is well constructed. It borrows the Nic Fit acceleration+disruption package in Veteran Explorer and Cabal Therapy, as well as a few other cards like Sensei’s Divining Top and Pernicious Deed.

After that, the similarities end. Rather than pressuring the opponent with Thrun, the Last Troll, running more spot removal, and topping out the curve with Grave Titan, this deck just plays more ramp spells and hopes to kill with Primeval Titan or Scapeshift.

Most of you should remember the old Valakut deck from Standard, and will know it’s best to get to at least four Mountains before having Primeval Titan fetch out a pair of Valakuts. The second set of Mountains will trigger both Valakuts, dealing twelve. The Scapeshift win is (marginally) trickier, if only because it can be screwed up if you miscount, while Titan can always attack next turn. If you have seven lands, Scapeshift can tutor up six Mountains and a Valakut for eighteen damage, which should be lethal in the fetchland-based Legacy format. If you have eight lands, six Mountains and two Valakuts nets thirty-six damage, which might be necessary to beat an active Batterskull or Umezawa’s Jitte.

I like how, unlike normal Nic Fit, this deck has more resilience to discard. The opponent can make us discard the Titan, or the Scapeshift, or the Green Sun’s Zenith, but we have good odds to topdeck another, and when we do we just win.

Like Nic Fit, this deck will be a dog to most of the other unfair decks, as it has a turn four win while most combo decks in the format can go off by turn three. Belcher, Reanimator and Dredge should all be unwinnable, though the later two could be helped by a Scavenging Ooze in the maindeck. While this is an engine deck, I think the Ooze still has a home. Gaining life, turning off Snapcasters, and randomly winning otherwise unwinnable matchups make this Titan-level creature a must for any Green Sun’s Zenith deck. Finding room in the sideboard for three to five graveyard hate cards might be necessary for some metagames.

The deck looks better against many of Nic Fit’s bad matchups, and I could see this deck actually winning a match against High Tide. Being able to present a reasonable clock after shredding the opponent’s hand is huge! I can’t tell the number of matches I’ve had almost go to time because Nic Fit is so grindy, and the decisions so intricate. This list makes winning a lot less complicated. Even Cabal Therapy becomes easier to use, as there are a few, specific cards that are good at stopping Scapeshift, instead of a pile of cards that might interact with your convoluted plan to win over the next ten or so turns.

As for the sideboard, most of the slots are well spent. Post board, the Red Elemental Blasts and discard should make the deck less vulnerable to Jace strategies. Rude awakening is a sweet alternate win condition in case Valakut gets Wastelanded+Surgical Extractioned, or if the opponent has a Leyline of Sanctity in play.

I don’t like the split between Pyroclasm and Whipflare. Since Genovese is running near-identical sweepers, we can assume it’s so that he can board a few of them in against aggro decks and still have a Burning Wish target, all while diversifying his wish targets for game one. If that’s the case, Pyroclasm and Firespout are always going to be better than Whipflare, and I’d hate to be in a situation where I can’t kill my opponent’s Tidehollow Sculler because I drew the wrong sweeper. Choose one, Clasm or Firespout, and double up on it.

Other options I’d consider for the sideboard: Boiling Seas; a pair of Boseiju, Who Shelters All; Hull Breach; Virtue’s Ruin, Flame Slash, Deathmark, and of course graveyard hate.

Ignorant American

Sunday the 13th, on the last day in Barcelona, me, James, and Gleicher were walking back to the apartment. Along the way, I convinced them to stop at a little bakery, in which the following exchange occurred.

“It seems like all of that could have gone much simpler,” James said, “seeing as how you told her you didn’t know her language!”
“Is that what I said?” I said, “Sorry, I don’t know Spanish.”

Caleb Durward
@CalebDMTG

I wanted to write about the design of the mechanics in Avacyn Restored as soon as I saw the spoiler, but I waited. Writing this article after the set is spoiled or after one day at the prerelease is less fair and less productive than waiting a little while and doing it now. I now have the benefit of some perspective, discussion, and contemplation of the new set and its mechanics, and a Pro Tour has taken place that shines a ton of light on how cards will be used in the coming years.

As with any review, be it a movie review, a book review, or a Magic design review, people can, will, and should disagree with some or all of what I think. My hope is that those who love or hate the new mechanics might read some descriptions that resonate with them, and feel like they understand the “why” of their preferences a little better. When a new set or product comes out, these players will be better equipped to figure out in advance whether that set is for them.

For each mechanic I’ll discuss some of the Pros and Cons that I spot, and then discuss my overall impression of the mechanic. I suppose the question I’m trying to address is “given the vast amount of design space (there’s always multiple designs to accomplish any goal), are these mechanics poor, average, good, great, etc.?”

I bring to the discussion my perspective as a tournament player. Pros and Cons sections will be relatively more objective, while the overall impression section will slant towards tournament play. For a non-Magic example of how this plays out, I would say many Yu-Gi-Oh cards/sets are poorly designed, despite their popularity and the joy others get from using them. If my criticism was invalidated by sales figures or someone else’s enjoyment, box office totals would be the only movie review you needed, and Twilight would be the best book on the market in recent years.

Let’s get to it.

Miracle

“Do you believe in miracles?!? YES!!!!” – Al Michaels

Pros:

The experience of a great game of Magic, and to an even greater extent, the memory of a great game of Magic, centers around the epic moments in the game. “Topdecking,” i.e. the experience of drawing a high impact card that changes the game in a dramatic way, is one of the most important sources of these epic moments. Diminish the frequency or impact of Topdecking, and you diminish some of Magic’s potential for greatness. Symmetrically, if you increase the frequency or impact of Topdecking, you increase Magic’s potential for greatness.

Miracle is somewhat flavorful in that it has an epic-moment-sounding name. It doesn’t feel top-down, that is to say it doesn’t feel like this mechanic emerged from a desire to make Miracle cards. Rather, it feels like the mechanic was designed and they later hunted down an appropriate name (how it feels is more important that what actually happened, by the way, if you care more about the product than the design process).

Miracle also lets designers print cards with powerful effects at cheap costs, without an in-your-face drawback. This is a very important “pro” of the mechanic. You can’t reprint Time Walk (because of the Reserve List – just kidding), but you can print a card that says “take an extra turn” and costs (some of the time) 1U. The “some of the time” qualifier let’s players hope for and actually cast the card at that cost, while not letting them reliably do so, which we know is too good.

I also like how the design doesn’t let the caster control when the card will be in its “undercosted” form. This is another subtle drawback, which is the best kind of drawback. With cards like Terminus and Bonfire of the Damned, timing means a lot. Many players aren’t great at timing effects like this, for them Miracle’s drawback of “can’t control the timing” is less impactful. A drawback being less severe for a novice player is in many ways a good thing.

Cons:

As a form of “super-Topdecking,” the cons of the Miracle mechanic flow from the fact that Topdecking comes with its own set of drawbacks as part of the game engine. Topdecking often leaves one or more players (typically one) feeling like they didn’t control the outcome of the game. There is a precarious balance among the following four things:

-players controlling the outcome of the game
-random events determining the outcome of the game
-players believing they controlled the outcome of the game
-players believing random events determined the outcome of the game

No one could precisely nail down the perfect balance, but we could all agree that you can’t hammer too hard in any one direction. The cost of the Miracle cards is subtle when you look at the card, as described above, since you tend to focus on how sweet it will be to Miracle the damn thing right when you need it. But in the gameplay, the randomness of when these things get Miracled can be very in-your-face.
Great games are remembered for their epic moments, but so are lousy games. Great and lousy have no objective measure, so an epic moment that feels bad (“my opponent Miracled their Bonfire of the Damned and killed my whole team for 4 mana without doing any work to set it up or losing any of their stuff”) gets experienced and remembered primarily in and about that moment.

Another potentially problematic element of the design is a “does too little/does too much” modality without much control over which one comes up which game. Many 7-mana spells can rot in your hand (doing do too little) too often to be a fun card to use, so that mode we’re used to. What effect does counterbalancing that with an occasional undercosted casting have? It creates pretty big swings in the play of the games. You want swings, but thinking again about the delicate balance of the four points above, too much is too much.

After Pro Tour Avacyn Restored, my friend Steven complained on his Facebook page about losing to Miracle cards in the Pro Tour, and both him and his opponent agreeing that the mechanic was stupid in tournament play (paraphrase). Zac Hill (a member of R&D you probably know of already) gave two off-the-cuff summaries of what people are complaining of, one pretty obviously silly and the other a more serious argument: 1) “BEFORE MIRAKLE NOBUDDY TOPDECQUED TO WINSAS!!!111” and 2) “’This thing you do at a constant rate for a constant cost once per turn is very high variance’.”

I don’t intend to attack Zac’s public positions on design every article I write, but I have to say I think Zac is dead wrong here. Regarding the first point, even though it is an attempt at humor, it does suggest the argument that since Topdecking exists and is a good thing, super-Topdecking is therefore also a good thing. Given the tensions that exist, this argument provides weak support at best for the designs Zac and his coworkers produced. Just as I urged in my last article, when trying to figure out if you’ve gone too far, reference to less extreme measures in the past isn’t tremendously comforting.

Zac’s second point is that Miracle “super-Topdecking” occurs “at a constant rate for a constant cost once per turn” and is thus not very-high-variance (Zac makes this point by stating its opposite as an absurdity). This seems important, let’s break it down.

Premise: Miracle casting occurs at a constant rate for a constant cost once per turn.

Premise: Things that occur at a constant rate for a constant cost once per turn are not very-high-variance.

Conclusion: Miracle is not very-high-variance.

I don’t think either premise really holds water. Fundamentally, the rate at which the Miracle cards are expected to emerge changes every time you draw a card from the deck and don’t replace it. That’s not really at the heart of the problem though. “Rate” and “cost” are pretty murky. I tell you what Zac, I’ll give you the first premise as a concession to the fact that maybe there’s a way to define these terms such that it makes sense. Let’s agree the first premise might be true.

Moving on to premise two, we have a big problem. I think Zac is using a flawed and mixed-up hybrid of two aspects of probability theory. I’ll describe them as 1) more trials means lower variance (flipping 20 coins yields lower variance in terms of percentage of Heads vs. Tails than flipping only 1 coin), and 2) if you increase the payoff or impact of each trial, you get higher variance (wagering $20 each on 10 coin tosses yields greater variance in dollars won or lost than wagering $1 on 10 coin tosses). Like much of probability theory, neither principle is tremendously intuitive. People tend to think flipping 20 coins is more “random” than flipping a single coin (which it is in certain other ways, like number of possible outcomes) and therefore suspect that the expected variance in number of Heads vs. Tails will be greater in the 20 flips scenario.

Zac seems to be using an invalid principle to the effect of “since variance is sensitive to the number of trials and the rate of each outcome, if we keep the number of trials and the rate of each outcome constant, variance will remain constant, even if we change the payoffs/impacts of the outcomes.” The reality is, even at the same rate as normal “Topdecking” and with the added restriction of once per turn, payoffs matter. Letting people topdeck Shock is different than letting them topdeck Lightning Bolt. Letting them topdeck Time Walk is different than letting them topdeck Time Warp, and so on, despite the symmetry of frequencies. An extreme example makes a clear illustration: shuffling one copy of a sorcery that has Miracle 0 and says “You win the game.” into each players deck would impact variance in game outcome (except in corner cases such as each player was already at 50% to win). This is true even if Zac’s first premise about Miracle cards’ rate and cost remaining constant is true.

Perhaps even more importantly, it sure feels like variance is increasing, and to many (like Steven and his PT opponent) it feels like it is increasing beyond their tolerance for it.

Aside from variance, the fact that the rules didn’t support Miracle so they had to change the rules (you now can draw a card in a special, separate way, that makes it clear you just drew it) is a pretty big strike against Miracle as well. You need a great mechanic to justify departures from the rules of this magnitude. If I throw Terminus and Temporal Mastery into my Cube, I’m asking a lot of the players who don’t wish to give away any information about whether or not they have these cards in their deck. Most people won’t care, but then they’ll likely feel bad or get into an argument when they do eventually draw the Terminus.

Overall Impression:

I don’t think Miracle is terrible from a design perspective, but I do think it has serious flaws. As a competitive tournament player, it goes beyond my tolerance for impact on the game that is out of my control. For most players I suspect this is not the case, but as is typical of these “tournament players are only a fraction of the market” debates, I am left wondering if there isn’t sufficient design space in Magic to locate the mechanics that are appealing to both me and many others that aren’t entirely like me. Miracle does some cool things, but at a cost. Without impacting how we physically draw cards (i.e. on MODO) it is a design miss, but a relatively small one. In the physical game where the costs are even greater, Miracle is a pretty poorly designed mechanic, and I wouldn’t have supported it if I were on the team.

Soulbond

“Play the best song in the world, or I’ll eat your soul.” –Shiny Demon

Pros:

The flavor here is much stronger than Miracle. When you pair two creatures, it feels like you’ve paired two creatures. I like how it mostly encourages you to pair things early and often, and by allowing future pairings if one of the creatures dies (or otherwise becomes unpaired), you don’t feel like you’re too “locked in” when you choose to pair. At the same time, “mostly correct to pair things up” leaves quite a bit of room for exceptions when you want to keep things unpaired until later in the game.

A pair is only as strong as its weakest link, but if you kill the creature with the better soulbond text, you won’t face that ability as often later. All this makes for interesting gameplay.

Cons:

I drove 3 other people to the Avacyn Restored prerelease I attended. On the ride up, we discussed Soulbond. Each of us had read some amount of prerelease information and seen spoiled cards, yet we couldn’t agree on what Soulbond did exactly, how it worked. When we got to the store, we asked the people there. They couldn’t agree, so we looked it up on the internet. I don’t think any of us had it exactly right. That’s a lot of complexity when you consider the range of experience we had as a group.

As the prerelease got under way, people started to figure out how it worked exactly, some faster than others. Soulbond is about as complex as a keyword that goes on common cards can be, and some feel it crossed that line.

Flavor-wise, making the ability to re-bond to the next creature that comes along detracts from the flavor of, you know, bonding souls. If my girlfriend leaves the apartment and I bond with whoever walks by, I feel like that weakens the case for being soulmates. In many games they feel more like allies of circumstance than soulmates.

Overall Impression:

I like Soulbond quite a bit now that I’ve cleared the hurdle of understanding it. I suspect others mostly experience the same hurdle followed by enjoyment. Do I wish the hurdle was lower? Yes. But overall the payoff is enough to keep my grade of the mechanic high. Soulbond feels flavorful, fun, deep at times, and not all that much like any existing mechanic.

“Loners”

Pros:

Flavorful in that the strengths and weaknesses of the card are apparent as soon as you figure out it is a “loner” card, and vise-versa. Riding the back of one cool thing or a “Voltron” type creature you assemble is fun. Gameplay can be interesting as you try to figure out which creature(s) to play given that some don’t play well with others. Subtlety about which cards are “loner” cards leads to discovery as cards that work well together and were designed to work well together don’t necessarily jump off the page and scream out “these two cards go together!”

The tension with Soulbond is cool, and I suspect it was an important driver for putting the mechanic in this set.

Cons:

A con in the flavor department is a lack of cohesiveness. This is the other side of the “discovery” coin. Some players will never find those combos, and instead might just be “non-boing” the “loners” with regular creatures. The example WotC used in one article for the mechanic is a creature that makes you sacrifice other creatures. It works best alone since then you sacrifice nothing, but that’s not the first thing many players will see. The training wheels are off, and building a sealed deck might be a real challenge if your cards don’t work together.

Another strike against “loners” is that not casting stuff feels worse than casting stuff. If I have a “loner” out I might cast nothing on my turn and feel frustrated. If I have creatures already out I might have to hold onto my “loner” and be sad I didn’t get to use it. Not the end of the world, but you have a mechanic encouraging frustrating decisions.

Overall Impression:

I’m pretty lukewarm on this one. It doesn’t feel cohesive and when you do spot the interactions the payoff tends to be a slightly undercosted dude that you then have to ride to victory or die trying. Not that fun, kind of flavorful, can be interesting in a Soulbond context, pretty forgettable.

Thanks for reading,
-Matt Sperling
mtg_law_etc on Twitter.

*Alan Canode’s deck is incorrectly labeled.

Instead this top sixteen is a flood of GR base aggro decks, some going the extra mile for a splash color, but most of them remain firmly in GR building upon previous success. At this point Delver, RG Aggro and WRR should be the top of the hit-list for anyone with a major Standard tournament coming up. Esper Control and Pod decks would also be great to test against, but I can’t stress enough just how skewed some metagames are and how much rarer playing competent Esper Control players are. The percentage of solid blue players that are slamming Tamiyo, Lingering Souls and Day of Judgment versus the ones playing Delver of Secrets and Mana Leak just doesn’t seem remotely close from all the information I’ve seen.

With yet another RG Aggro win in the books I would not be surprised in the least if RG Aggro was the most played deck at GP: Minneapolis considering where RG Aggro is positioned at the moment. RG Aggro was one of the few decks with real game against Delver both pre and post-board before Avacyn Restored and RG only got better. Zealous Conscripts means that WRR has serious troubles even after it stabilized since you only have to knock off half of Ramps life before it becomes seriously risky to play a Titan. If a WRR player needs to play a Titan to stabilize, they risk getting blown out even if they can fetch double Glimmerpost. If they aren’t playing a WRR variant that lacks the option of Glimmerpost… Well then I hope you packed your Batterskull. There’s only so many times you can wipe the board before you have to commit a game-ending threat, so barring a specialized threat you need to be above nine life or lean on Huntmaster or Thrun backed by Bonfire doing the work for you.

Mason Lange – 1st SCG Madison

4 Birds of Paradise 4 Llanowar Elves 1 Wolfir Silverheart 3 Wolfir Avenger 4 Strangleroot Geist 4 Huntmaster of the Fells 2 Hellrider 1 Daybreak Ranger 1 Acidic Slime 2 Garruk Relentless 1 Pillar of Flame 1 Incinerate 3 Sword of War and Peace 4 Green Sun S Zenith 3 Galvanic Blast 4 Copperline Gorge 4 Rootbound Crag 9 Forest 3 Mountain 2 Kessig Wolf Run Sideboard 2 Zealous Conscripts 2 Batterskull 1 Sword of War and Peace 2 Act of Aggression 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 3 Arc Trail 3 Naturalize

Notably Wolfir Avenger has assumed it’s role as the go-to three drop for GR, but I suspect Wolfir Silverheart will soon be a widespread adaptation as a finisher after this weekend. Being able to power up a Sworded creature or pumping up a creature with trample is quite the finisher. The fact that RG decks in the mirror have no answer to him is another point in favor of Silverheart. Outside of trading in combat, there’s no maindeck answer to the Silverheart (barring double burn) and being tutorable via Green Sun’s Zenith makes it a great option. Sure it may not be anywhere near as good in Standard as it was in block due to cards like Vapor Snag and Doom Blade existing, but in this match it doesn’t matter and you only need one or two in your 75 for it to have a real impact on the game.

Pillar of Flame also seems like it’ll be a primary addition to the deck now that every top eight seems to include at least a couple of GR Aggro decks. While the instant speed can definitely make a difference, I think dealing with Geist in a efficient manner will be the primary goal soon enough. We may also see a split in the Sword count if the percentage of green decks keeps going up as the Sword of War and Peace protection bonuses are nullified and can’t be relied on to consistently hit. Plus Sword of Feast and Famine can actually disrupt and drain a green player’s resources while SOWAP doesn’t even have a massive effect in the mid-game where odds are the RG player has already dumped most of his hand. Or worse; waited for the tap out hit from a Sword to slam a Hellrider or equally painful threat onto the table.

One card that Lange eschewed that I expect to see a lot more of is Bonfire of the Damned. While I’m not a huge fan of having to cast Bonfire of the Damned with this type of mana-base, it should be expected that some RG players will play a few extra land for the opportunity to play the sweeper. Barcelona showed what damage this card could do in a format full of creature mirrors and while Standard isn’t at that level, landing a Bonfire in the mirror or against any creature heavy strategy is backbreaking.

Harrison Fang wins the award of most interesting deck in the top sixteen, with a very different take on Birthing Pod. While it had the classic RG components Fang went the extra step of integrating a real blue presence with the addition of Aether Adept, Deadeye Navigator, Frost Titan and others.

4 Birthing Pod 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 1 Solemn Simulacrum 1 Wurmcoil Engine 2 Acidic Slime 1 Aether Adept 4 Birds of Paradise 2 Borderland Ranger 1 Deadeye Navigator 2 Deceiver Exarch 1 Frost Titan 3 Huntmaster of the Fells 2 Llanowar Elves 2 Phantasmal Image 4 Strangleroot Geist 1 Viridian Emissary 1 Vorapede 1 Zealous Conscripts 1 Green Sun S Zenith 3 Ponder 8 Forest 4 Island 1 Mountain 4 Copperline Gorge 4 Hinterland Harbor 1 Rootbound Crag Sideboard 2 Sword of War and Peace 1 Daybreak Ranger 1 Dungeon Geists 1 Hollowhenge Scavenger 1 Kessig Cagebreakers 1 Tree of Redemption 1 Zealous Conscripts 2 Ancient Grudge 2 Naturalize 1 Thrun, the Last Troll 2 Bonfire of the Damned

Not only does the blue addition allow Pod some really nice singletons to tutor up, but it gives it access to Ponder. While Bant Pod may not have been a successful variant of the deck, Ponder was one of the best cards in enabling the mana and giving players more opportunities to dig for Birthing Pod. Meanwhile Deadeye Navigator may be one of the best creatures ever printed for a Pod deck in terms of value and ability to completely reverse a game. Not only does it allow for an alternate win condition with Acidic Slime where you just eat all the non-creatures on the board, but any value creature plus mana is usually going to put you way ahead on the board. Think of the Navigator as a more vulnerable Venser that can be Podded up and can actually block if need be.

Of course the downside to the heavier blue component is that the mana goes from OK to obnoxious at best, with only 8 blue sources and six red sources. Obviously some of the mana issues can be mitigated through the use of Birds of Paradise, land-searchers and Birthing Pod, but having a hand of Copperline Gorge and Hinterland Harbor is still going to be annoying. The red sources strike me as even rougher since post-board you actively want cards like Zealous Conscripts and Ancient Grudge and there will be times where you just can’t cast them.

Two Bonfire of the Damned strikes me as optimistic both in set-up and usage, the deck only has 22 lands and unlike RG aggro isn’t as well equipped to kill immediately on an empty board. I just have a hard time seeing any XX spell without 24 lands minimum and it feels out of place when you already went blue for additional creature control. As I said in the RG write-up, Bonfire can be a huge swing card, but once you play Pod and the additional creatures I see less of a need for it here. If anything I’d be more afraid of opponent’s playing it against me rather than vice-versa.

Still I appreciate what Fang was going for and I’ll probably test a Pod variation with the blue splash over the white for completeness. Of course if you want to play Birthing Pod, you have other options worth looking at, one other Pod deck that caught my eye was the 15th place copy piloted by Jay Bullington.

2 Lightning Mauler 2 Hound of Griselbrand 3 Zealous Conscripts 2 Wolfir Silverheart 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Huntmaster of the Fells 1 Pyreheart Wolf 4 Strangleroot Geist 4 Avacyn S Pilgrim 3 Blade Splicer 1 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite 4 Birthing Pod 1 Wurmcoil Engine 1 Primeval Titan 1 Acidic Slime 1 Solemn Simulacrum 4 Birds of Paradise 1 Mountain 5 Forest 1 Plains 1 Kessig Wolf Run 1 Inkmoth Nexus 4 Copperline Gorge 4 Razorverge Thicket 3 Sunpetal Grove 3 Rootbound Crag 1 Ghost Quarter Sideboard 1 Pillar of Flame 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Tree of Redemption 3 Garruk Relentless 2 Apostle S Blessing 1 Dismember 2 Whipflare 1 Sylvok Replica 2 Ancient Grudge

This is one of the most aggressive variants I’ve seen of Pod in quite a while. Not only does it drop off Huntmaster of the Fells, leaving only a singleton, most of the typical fours in the deck are gone. Instead focus is given to the fives for multiples of Zealous Conscripts and Wolfir Silverhearts for finishers. What stood out to me the most though was the usage of Lightning Mauler which is a very interesting choice for this type of deck. Creatures should constantly be entering and leaving play so it isn’t difficult to reestablish a soulbond on your heavy hitters and Pod decks have creatures that could be truly scary with haste. In fact I’m a bit disappointed not to see Hero of Bladehold or Silverblade Paladin in the deck as excellent compliments to the Mauler.

Hound of Griselbrand is one of the other cards that stands out and while I see some of the benefits from having a larger Undying creature, I have to admit seeing it outside of Limited is weird. The Hound doesn’t dominate combat, can’t deal anywhere near the damage of a Hero of Bladehold, Hellrider or similar threat and lacks the sheer utility of a Metamorph. At a glance it doesn’t seem nearly as strong as other four-drops the deck is capable of running and especially when a card like Phyrexian Metamorph is missing. I’d also like to see some additional Thalia, Guardian of Thraben in the maindeck, but I understand the space constraints and the more green oriented the metagame gets the less imposing she becomes.

Of course green decks aren’t the only options in this metagame, you could always bet on Delver to show up and spoil the party.

4 Delver of Secrets 4 Snapcaster Mage 4 Geist of Saint Traft 3 Restoration Angel 4 Ponder 4 Mana Leak 4 Vapor Snag 2 Gut Shot 3 Mental Misstep 2 Divine Deflection 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 2 Sword of War and Peace 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 4 Glacial Fortress 4 Seachrome Coast 3 Moorland Haunt 2 Plains 9 Island Sideboard 1 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 1 Divine Deflection 1 Mental Misstep 2 Celestial Purge 2 Dungeon Geists 2 Revoke Existence 3 Timely Reinforcements 3 Phantasmal Image

This is my current build of the deck and by no means a finalized product at this point. I feel that both Mental Misstep and many of the AVR cards are being underutilized in Delver due to the strength of the existing shell. People want to make small tweaks to the existing variants instead of trying out a bunch of the new cards in a fresh shell where they can play off one another. Divine Deflection in particular has made me very happy in testing by giving me a cheap way to counter burn, Pyroclasm effects and dominate combat against aggressive decks. In fact the threat of it may be better than the card itself, as many players aren’t used to playing against such an effect and give it a bit too much respect in certain scenarios. As a singleton it was excellent and adding a second one was an easy choice for me. Of course in multiples, especially early in the game, it can be lackluster so I’m unsure if the 3rd one is truly warranted.

Restoration Angel is a great example of a card that’s strong and nice value, but needs a bit of time to find the perfect fit in this metagame. Ken Bearl with his UW Blink deck was a great example of taking advantage of a strategy that previously lacked the weapons to function. While this deck doesn’t have anything as impressive as a Stonehorn Dignitary soft-lock, saving Geist of Saint Traft in combat and getting buybacks on Snapcaster Mage is a nice option to have. The body is really the selling point though as an end-step or mid-combat play that can brawl effectively or be played and can’t be dealt with via burn spell immediately, allowing a Sword hook-up to occur. She fights for slots against Dungeon Geists which is really close at the moment, but this is the type of card I’d like a pair of if only to represent a different type of threat.

Ultimately I like this version of Delver because all the extra instant speed effects gives you more options and the opponent even more angles to play around. If I hold open four mana I could potentially have a host of different effects that has very drastic effects on the game and much like classic Faeries sometimes the opponent will have to take a guess and hope. Even if you don’t like having all of these cards in the same build, I would recommend at least trying Divine Deflection and Tamiyo as both of them produce effects that weren’t available to Delver up until this point.

Next week I’ll take a look at Block and what we can take from Pro Tour Barcelona before Grand Prix Anahiem.

Josh Silvestri
Email me at: joshDOTsilvestriATgmailDOTcom

Block is usual a good indication for where Standard will be going and what cards are going to be big players in the next 9 months or more. Take Zendikar block where Lotus Cobra and Jace, the Mind Sculptor both enter the fray in a big way. Scars block was dominated by Tempered Steel and Hero of Bladehold. Whilst Tempered Steel was already seeing play in Standard Hero of Bladehold was a neglected $5 mythic. It went on to be the cornerstone of GW Township and later, UW Humans.

Therefore this week I want to take a look at the big players from the Pro Tour, be they whole decks or individual cards, and think about how they might influence Standard.

Miracles

We really should start with the winning deck. I know a lot of people harbour a deep-seated hatred for Miracles and I can totally get your perspective. One of my friends went round all day yesterday saying “hallelujah” at the top of his voice. However, let’s set that aside and consider this deck from a purely theoretically point of view.

4 Evolving Wilds 13 Island 10 Plains 4 Devastation Tide 1 Dissipate 4 Entreat the Angels 4 Feeling of Dread 4 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 4 Temporal Mastery 4 Terminus 4 Think Twice 4 Thought Scour Sideboard 1 Angel S Mercy 4 Cathedral Sanctifier 3 Dissipate 3 Geist of Saint Traft 2 Midnight Haunting 2 Snapcaster Mage

There’s the list. I giggled with glee when I saw this in the Top 8 decklists. A truly creatureless deck apparently hasn’t won a Pro Tour since 2003. I’m sure by this morning shops all over the world have sold out of Miracles. Odd, really. People used to go to Church for those.

What does this deck gain in Standard?

Well, I actually spent a good portion of my Sunday thinking about this. The biggest problem was what to remove from the deck before you start adding in cards. To keep the same Miracally (is that a word?) feel to the deck you can’t really cut any of those. Feeling of Dread looks like a “this is the best available in Block” card and yet it does an essential job, that of keeping you alive, and is not easily substituted for. Sure, I want to put some Ponders in but not at the cost of dying to early aggression.

If I hadn’t seen the deck in action I would almost instantly cut the Dreads but they were so key and not just in preventing pain from attacks. They were also well used to tap mana dudes in the upkeep to cause mana denial and to move blockers out of the way so the Angelic hordes could do battle. I guess this is one of those decks that reminds us of the valuable lesson that if you netdeck with no experience of the deck don’t just change cards you don’t think are useful, they probably have a very important purpose.

The other easily underestimated cards in this list is the instant speed card draw. Sure, I could cut the Thought Scour for Ponder but with Thought Scour (or Think Twice) I can Miracle in my opponent’s turn. Ideally in a “Declare Attackers into Entreat the Angels” situation. This will be easier to achieve with Ponder in the deck but not if you cut the instant speed draw effects.

Oh, and yes Delver of Secrets will probably flip on Turn 1 but this is not a Delver list. Delver is in Block so, please take note of the fact that they did not run four copies of it in this list and think about what that means.

I would very much like to hear how Mana Deprived would update this list for Standard as they have the most experience with this list. However, here’s how I have been thinking of evolving Miracles.

Just Standard Miracles

4 Evolving Wilds 4 Glacial Fortress 10 Island 9 Plains 3 Devastation Tide 4 Entreat the Angels 4 Feeling of Dread 4 Ponder 3 Tamiyo, the Moon Sage 4 Temporal Mastery 4 Terminus 4 Think Twice 3 Thought Scour Sideboard 3 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Mana Leak 2 Midnight Haunting 4 Timely Reinforcements 2 Snapcaster Mage

I’m really itching to try this out in Standard. I’ve updated the sideboard here as I don’t think Angel’s Mercy quite makes the cut in Standard.

The biggest problem I see for Miracles in Standard is the ever present Titans. My goodness those cards are getting old. I really hope Wizards have learnt from this mistake. Every time I think we have something new to do I remember Titans still exists. Boring! Anyway, I’ve digressed. My point is that I don’t think this deck will appreciate Inkmoth Nexus beatdown. I added Mana Leaks to the sideboard to at least contain the Titanic forces. Having Ponder to set up Miracles in the opponent’s turn will help but I would genuinely be surprised if this has a good matchup against Ramp. If they start running Cavern of Souls instead of Glimmerpost we could be in for a world of hurt.

The other problem that springs to mind for this list is Delver decks. Tempo backed up with counter spells could well be disastrous for this deck. It has no early plays and the wise Delver player will only put out one or two threats so getting value from Terminus will be tedious. Angel tokens can block Delver but on Turn 3 you can only make one, which will be Vapor Snagged or the spell will simply be Mana Leaked leaving you basically dead.

Speaking of counterspells I really won’t rate this deck against a true control list but Cavern of Souls has all but killed off UB control for now so I guess this may not be a concern.

Before I get all doom and gloom I do rate this list against any and all creature lists. R/G, Naya, Humans, Zombies etc. It slows them downs and then plays better spells. The Top 16 of the SCG Standard Open this weekend was dominated by aggro lists so Miracles may be well places to take them down.

Hexproof

This was a deck I wasn’t surprised to see but was still sad to see. While some hate Mircles my personal peeve is with Hexproof. During spoiler season I even proposed a deck based around using Hexproof while also giving voice to my dislike of the mechanic.

Anyway, the second place deck, piloted by Gaudenis Vidugiris and designed by Sam Black does indeed put Hexproof to good use. It uses Invisible Stalker and Geist of Saint Traft as safe places to store +1/+1 counters and then hit home for the win. Interestingly, one of the other pump effects in the deck comes from Wolfir Silverheart who, incidentally, plays well with Strangleroot Geist.

The mana in this deck is super awkward! Multiple double Green cards and a good helping of Blue and White symbols. I can see why Abundant Growth was run. Luckily in Standard we get Birds of Paradise which should definitely help out.

The inclusion of Cavern of Souls in this list is dubious outside of block. With multiple different creature types, especially once Bird is added, I can foresee many forced mulliganing decisions and I hate mulliganing.

Once out of Block you get access to Swords again and whilst I respect Spectral Flight I would just rather have a shiny piece of metal my creatures can pick up to become instant threats. Red-based decks are still prolific in Standard with Naya and R/G both putting in strong performances this weekend. With UW Delver still an ever-present threat Sword of War and Peace is the place to be. Especially once you go up to 7-8 mana dudes and can power it out on turn two.

Undetectable Standard

4 Evolving Wilds 9 Forest 4 Hinterland Harbor 3 Island 1 Plains 3 Razorverge Thicket 3 Avacyn S Pilgrim 4 Birds of Paradise 3 Dungeon Geists 4 Geist of Saint Traft 4 Increasing Savagery 4 Invisible Stalker 4 Strangleroot Geist 3 Sword of War and Peace 3 Vapor Snag 4 Wolfir Silverheart Sideboard 2 Celestial Purge 4 Mana Leak 3 Naturalize 2 Oblivion Ring 1 Sword of Feast and Famine 2 Thrun, the Last Troll 1 Vapor Snag

I have entirely changed up the sideboard here. Again Mana Leak is a nod to Ramp but at least this list might be able to win first, unlike Miracles. Thrun is also incredibly annoying for Ramp lists and any Control decks waiting to take advantage of the missing Caverns.

Most of the rest of the sideboard is general catch-alls for what you might come across. Naturalize for Swords, Celestial Purge for Liliana of the Veil etc.

I thought for some time as to whether I wanted to keep an unsummon effect in this list. For now I have gone with Vapor Snag but with actual testing this may disappear entirely. In favour of what I could not say: more mana dudes? main deck Mana Leaks? It’ll be interesting to find out.

Angel of Restoration and Zealous Conscripts

There is a lot of stuff coming out of this Pro Tour but, so that I’m not here all day, I want to just look at one more; the pair of cards Restoration Angel and Zealous Conscripts.

Did you see the semi-finals? If you did then you have gained a healthy respect for this pair of cards. Admittedly the really sick stuff happens at a hefty 9 mana but if you enter the long game then this is going to close it out for you.

You can however, reduce the cost of this synergy by using Birthing Pod to tutor one part in.

Luckily for my tired brain this is something that has already started to make an appearance in Standard. Brian Kibler has been talking about this combination of cards for a couple of weeks now and this weekend this little list came 5th at the SCG Open:

Naya Aggro by Daniel Cecchetti

1 Acidic Slime 3 Avacyn S Pilgrim 4 Birds of Paradise 2 Birthing Pod 4 Blade Splicer 1 Daybreak Ranger 1 Fiend Hunter 1 Garruk Relentless 1 Green Sun S Zenith 4 Huntmaster of the Fells 1 Inferno Titan 1 Llanowar Elves 2 Oblivion Ring 1 Phyrexian Metamorph 2 Restoration Angel 4 Strangleroot Geist 2 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 1 Zealous Conscripts 4 Copperline Gorge 6 Forest 3 Gavony Township 1 Mountain 1 Plains 4 Razorverge Thicket 2 Rootbound Crag 3 Sunpetal Grove Sideboard 3 Daybreak Ranger 2 Hero of Bladehold 1 Zealous Conscripts 1 Ancient Grudge 2 Celestial Purge 1 Combust 2 Incinerate 1 Naturalize 1 Ray of Revelation 1 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben

I love it. But that’s because I have a huge weak spot for Birthing Pod. If you are hoping for some recommended changes then I’m going to control myself and say the only switch I would make would be to cut the lonely Garruk for a third Restoration Angel.

Restoration Angel really is an amazingly awesome card. I’m glad it saw so much play at the Pro Tour as it combines so well with many different effects in many different situations. Now that it has been properly brought to everyone’s attention I really hope to see some innovative decks appearing in Standard based around this beautiful card. Like Hero of Bladehold it is possible she will only really shine after rotation but I can’t wait to see her at work.

I’m going to leave it here today. I hope you enjoyed the Pro Tour as much as I did. What has it got you think about? Did you already spend all your savings on Miracles? What do you think will come out of Block to most influence Standard? Get chatting below or tweet @onionpixie. I’m always happy to chat. See you soon.

Unlike Miracle, which I’m afraid I think is more gimmick than good, Soulbond is an excellent mechanic that offers fun, gameplay, interesting decisions, and the potential for powerful and exciting cards. It appears on twenty cards, with a very strange looking distribution. White and Red get three cards each. Yet Green gets eight cards, Blue six, and Black none at all. It doesn’t appear on any mythics, but does have three rares, six uncommons and eleven commons. The rarity distribution is reasonable, though I’m not sure why no mythic. Someone should do an analysis of new mechanics appearing at mythic. I might guess they usually get one, but without researching it I’m not going to make any claims about that. Even if they always do, not making one is not necessarily a bad thing.

The biggest problem with the distribution is that Black got zero cards again. I can understand having one new mechanic that is left out of a color. In certain sets, you can get away with very hard color-lines on a lot of mechanics (Ravnica comes to mind). What doesn’t make sense to me, is having a (non-core) set where one color gets zero new mechanics while the other four colors each get two new mechanics. That’s like saying to 20% of your players: “nothing for you in this set., move along.” Indeed, it seems overall that there are very few exciting Black cards in Avacyn restored, a blowout the likes of which we’ve not seen since Judgement. At least in that case, Torment was overloaded to make up for it. I didn’t feel White (or any color) was shorted in Innistrad or Dark Ascension, so why does Black get such a poor showing in AVR?

As a creature mechanic, I totally understand Green getting the lion’s share from the other colors, though nearly 3:1 is a bit much. What’s up with Blue? Blue gets 2:1 over Red and White? It certainly seems odd. I might not have felt it was so messed up if I wasn’t thinking so much about it due to the Black situation. You can certainly get away with, and should in many cases, have an uneven distribution of a mechanic across the colors. You can sometimes leave it out of a color entirely, or (as in Ravnica, Rise, Scars Block and others) split up multiple new mechanics across colors. The thing I wouldn’t do is make a set with exactly two new mechanics and leave one color out on both of them. That’s just mean.

Now, I’m sure you’re ready to call me on “last man standing” or whatever you want to call the “mechanic” focused on only having one creature in play. Yes, Black does get a lot of cards for that, but half of them are rather unappealing to the majority of players because they are drawbacks. Many players won’t even recognize it as a “real” mechanic because it doesn’t have a keyword. Oh, and another thing: this “mechanic” specifically doesn’t play at all with Soulbond. They can’t both work at the same time, so not only does Black not get the Soulbond, it has anti-synergy with it!

I’m afraid almost all players who love Black the most, as their favorite color, will feel cheated by AVR. I think that’s a design mistake, and so far the flavor justification has failed to convince me otherwise.

But I’ve digressed. Soulbond is the main topic today. I love what it does, and I love how it plays. The wording… could use some work. That’s surprising, considering the caliber of card-wording professionals in R&D. I’m usually impressed by their ability to squeeze down the wording on a complicated mechanic or effect down to the simplest, most elegant form. In Soulbond they’ve made one little mistake, and it came up again and again for me at the prerelease. In three of my four matches, plus just trying to work it out with a friend beforehand there was trouble and confusion with how the mechanic works.

Here’s the reminder text:
“You may pair this creature with another unpaired creature when either enters the battlefield. They remain paired for as long as you control both of them.”

The place where the wording falls short is “another unpaired.” On a technical level, this does carry the message of how the mechanic works, but for the vast majority of players it does not do a good job of explaining a critical feature of the mechanic. You cannot repair a creature with soulbond when a new creature enters the battlefield if the soulbond creature is already paired up. That’s what the “another” is doing. It says you can’t pair unless both the new creature and this guy are unpaired. Think of it like marriage. You can’t remarry until the first spouse dies. I would have gone with “you may pair this creature with an unpaired creature when either of them enters the battlefield if this creature is unpaired.” It’s slightly less elegant, but should help with the trouble area. Maybe not? Maybe they tested that and it didn’t help? I don’t know, but I do know that I spent plenty of time explaining it last weekend. I also had to explain that my Zealous Conscripts borrowing one of their guys broke the bond, and that Cloudshift broke the bond, even though you retain control over both creatures. Those are more understandable based on the wording, but it still came up more than once.

Now, using the mechanic once you understand it, that is awesome. You can pull a lot of crazy tricks with cards like Cloudshift, and you get to rebond if one creature dies, and you get to make all sorts of cool combo creatures – and every game is different because of it. Even now, just a couple of weeks later, perhaps most players understand it perfectly, and imperfect wording won’t hurt it in the long run.

Let’s look at the cards individually:

Keyword mechanics are excellent on Soulbonders, and Vigilance is a White keyword, so this sort of card is an obvious inclusion.

Same story here, Lifelink is a typical White keyword, and you don’t want a ton of it going around, so this card is uncommon. I wonder if you count Soulbonders as two of a keyword, since they are often giving it out to a second creature, of if you can average that a little with the times it will not be bonded?

Double strike is a very exciting keyword which usually only appears on rare cards anyway, and the ability to grant it to some other creature that might have power much higher than the usual Double strike limit of 2 certainly makes for an exciting card. Players responded to this one right away and I love it too.

I readily admit that I did not expect hexproof to turn out as badly as it has. A lot of players don’t like it, and it’s clear that it’s a little more dangerous than anticipated. Like Double strike, you have to be careful where you put it. I’m not a fan of it on a Soulbond creature because part of the mechanic’s risk is that they can kill the weakest of the pair and swing the game back in their favor. (Because when you Soulbond the game often swings heavily in your favor.) There’s so little removal in this limited format that having hexproof is both less advantageous and less troublesome that it could have been. Of course, the lack of removal is an issue in itself.

This card made me think of the way I want this mechanic to return in the future. Mark, are you reading? You know how you love to try and craft Johnny combo sets? You tried with Fifth Dawn, Scars of Mirrodin, and I’m sure lots of other sets as well. Scars didn’t turn out very combotastic, because the aggro metalcraft and aggro infect decks were far stronger than the charge counter combo decks. Next time how about making artifacts that have a Soulbond-like mechanic? Combining them in pairs to power-up their abilities, as Galvanic Alchemist suggests, might finally make your goal of a combo limited environment into a reality.

This is efficient as a way to counteract all the Angels flying around. Non-White decks need to be able to get to the air, and this card is very good at doing that. I expected Flying Soulbond, but at a higher CMC and lower efficiency. Being so cheap, this card itself has been a little obnoxious – ending games before they’ve begun. I feel that way about a great many cards in AVR, and my limited limited experience so far has shown the set to be a little too much like Zendikar limited. Fast and unanswerable, where you are dead before you know it. I want to give it more time before making the final call, but I’m worried.

It’s difficult to put milling strategies into limited environments and get them at juuuuust the right level. A card like this, that can, in just the right circumstances (*cough* Galvanic Alchemist), do all the milling by itself is a great design. It doesn’t require a huge commitment to milling, either from the draft or from the card slots in the set.

Now we are starting to create a limited environment that feels a little silly. Curiosity is a fine mechanic and is no surprise on a Soulbond creature, but combined with Wingcrafter or one of the other Soulbonders it gets out of hand very fast. The low-removal environment compounds this state of affairs.

This design is another combo-engine type, one that looks for a different class of ability from Galvanic Alchemist. The elegance of having its combo-creating ability also be an ability that can reset its pairing really takes it over the top (in terms of design).

First strike is another obvious ability to have, and with Double strike in White, putting First strike on a Red card gives a better balance to set and reduces the similarity between the two cards. (Though they’re still both 3-mana 2/2s.)

Haste, yet another obvious keyword to use with Soulbond. It plays a little awkwardly, however. If you want this creature to have haste you need to “waste” the pairing with a 1-drop that can already attack, or you lose out this turn and give your 3-drop haste next turn. Either way it feels like you screwed up because both creatures don’t really get the ability. It’s unexpectedly awkward, but not terribly so, and still a fine card.

Firebreathing is often maligned as a weak mechanic, but it is actually very good. It got a bad rap after being printed on so many weak cards, like the card Firebreathing, for example.

I like how the three red Soulbonders play so well together. Firebreathing and First strike are a brutal combination. In the late game, Haste and Firebreathing can be game-ending out of nowhere. Haste and First strike aren’t too shabby, and in a tempo situation can get through as well as First strike and Firebreathing. Even with only three Soulbond creatures, all of which have low CMCs, they have created high potential for good games. The Red designs here are a model for fitting a lot into a tight space.

Sure, whatever, flavor me to death with protection from zombies on Soulbond. This card is here to show the humans getting ahead of the monsters, but it’s very low on the interest curve.

This is not actually a Soulbond creature, though it shows off something you can do with the mechanic. It’s a 5/5 creature for just four mana, but it’s not really there unless you have the set mechanic going. Hmm… what does that remind you of? Rusted Relic! I wonder if that’s intentional. Most likely it just happens that 4-mana 5/5 is the fair yet exciting looking shape for a creature you need to jump through a hoop to get, so the two cards naturally gravitated toward the same numbers.

Reach, one of Green’s basic keywords. Usually one spider is enough to hold off fliers, so getting a second creature to stick it’s hands up is less of a big deal than it is with most Soulbond abilities. A fine card.

I have been really pleased with the appearance of Deathtouch in recent sets / years. It’s been used very effectively to nudge limited environments where they needed it, and a lot of the cards it has appeared on are more interesting than they may seem at first read. This card is no exception, although this is the second set in a row in which it is a little too easy to assemble the Basilisk Collar + Cunning Sparkmage combo.

Trample, check. _____breaker Wurm is my go-to naming convention for 6/4 green commons. I’m sure there’s a cover band joke in there somewhere too.

These two worry me a little. I can’t say I would avoid them, they are just the kind of thing you have to do, but I’m glad there are only three stat boosters in the set (instead of having some in ever color). What bothers me about these two, the common and uncommon, is that they appear frequently in limited and make the board very hard to understand. Players are used to remembering what keywords the opponent’s creatures have, but figuring out the sizes of a team of 5 creatures that includes one of each of these is a nightmare. Combine this with the glut of flicker effects in the set and you’ll find you never feel anything other than awful when you attack into or try to block these creatures.

This card I love. Why an about-face from the Trusted Forcemage and Druid’s Familiar? Well, it’s rare, so it won’t show up nearly as much in limited. When it does, it’s rare, so you pay attention. More than that, it’s a big change in P/T – so big that the whole game is going to revolve around it and you won’t be forgetting the opponent’s creature’s stats or getting confused. Also so big that it’s more a matter of chump blocking to stay alive rather than getting blown out by a Cloudshift (though that may still happen, it’s more likely that you’ll just be dead). It’s natural to do a vertical cycle of these, and I can’t say I wouldn’t do it either, but so far my play experiences with the common and uncommon have been a little miserable. I kept reminding my opponents that they shouldn’t attack into my two 4/4s with their 3/3s, or I would get blown out because my opponent wasn’t so courteous to remind me of his pairing situation. Sure, you can say I’m a bad player for forgetting – go ahead, just don’t come crying to me when you make the same mistake.

I want to end on a high note by saying that even if I’m not thrilled with one or two cards, Soulbond is very cool and very fun. The flavor of teaming up is outstanding, and perfect in a set about the humans teaming up to turn the tide against the monsters that were (b)eating them (even teaming up with the werewolves themselves). We are sure to enjoy it now and see it again in the future.

-Greg
@gregorymarques

Innistrad raised a pretty high bar for this Limited block and, unfortunately, Avacyn Restored hasn’t really lived up to the expectation. Still, it seems I like the format more than most people – it’s not great, but I don’t think it’s horrible. Today I’ll go over some of the points that I think are important for you to understand this draft format, and then an overview on the colors. I’ll try to focus on what is better or worse than it seems, since if I think the card is exactly as good as it appears to be, then, well, it probably won’t be hard to figure out!

- There are no archetypes

This is kind of an exaggeration – obviously there are archetypes – but this is so different than previous draft formats that I think the exaggeration is warranted to get the point across. For most of the past decade, there were very specific archetypes and color combinations that you wanted or didn’t want to be in – in Innistrad, for example, you could be Spider Spawning, Burning Vengeance, GW aggro, BR aggro, but you did not want to be GW control, UB aggro or WR anything, because the cards just weren’t there. In Avacyn Restored, you can be almost any color combination, and you can be control or aggro in any of them. That’s very interesting, because previous picks don’t restrain you as much when it comes to choosing a second color or a strategy, as pretty much anything is fair game.

- There are no playables

When you you start playing this format, the first thing that jumps at you is how horrendous most of the cards are. It’s not that they’re “bad” – they’re actually unplayable. As a general rule, you will get your 20-24 good cards – the playables in this set are not any worse than the playables in other sets – but that’s it, and everything else in your sideboard will be completely unplayable. The main effect this has in the format is that you can’t reliably bounce between colors, or you will end up without 23 cards, and if you do, you will have to play more lands because there are very few fillers. This doesn’t mean you need to commit wholeheartedly to your first pick, but you should make an effort not to have four colors in your first four picks – just picking the best card in a color for pack one, for example, is a good strategy. Switching colors in pack two is really risky, as you might find yourself with 18 playables and then you can’t do anything about it. I foresee many decks with 19 lands in this format…

- Soulbond is better than you think it is

In the dark, if you haven’t played a lot with the set, I’d say you underestimate every single soulbond card, other than the Protection from Zombies one, which could not possibly be underestimated since he is the worst (or maybe I just underestimate him as well?). Those guys are all solid creatures on their own, and they make your other guys much better – they’re like equipments with legs, and they’ll rarely get killed mid combat since there are not a lot of instant removal spells. They also add a lot of complexity and interesting board states, and for that I like the mechanic very much.

- Miracles are very annoying to play with and against

Most cards with Miracle are very broken, but that is not why I dislike them – mechanically speaking, they’re just very hard to play. I’ve been playing Magic for like 15 years, and I’ve always drawn cards the exact same way. Now, all of a sudden, I have to start doing something radically different, and not only that, I have to watch to make sure you’re doing it too, because if you put the card in your hand, I want to be able to tell. If our testing was the Pro Tour, I would have missed over half my Miracle triggers! Sure, now I got more used to them, but it’s still very annoying and I would not be surprised if I lost a match at the PT because I drew my Miracle card and was unable to cast it. I also expect a lot of confusion over whether the person actually “put the card in their hand” – it’s very easy to say “you did group it together” or “I did not, it was always clear this was the card”, and who’s to say who is right?

As far as playing with it goes, it’s actually very hard to conceal when you draw a miracle card. Theoretically speaking, you should always be thinking about it, but this is much easier said than done – in Constructed, you can do it (“If I draw Bonfire of the Damned, I’ll play it” does not take a very long time to think before you draw your card), but in Limited you will have many Miracle cards and the board state will change very rapidly, so you’ll have to reevaluate every turn. What if I have both the four +1/+1 counters card and Thunderous Wrath in my deck? I can’t possibly wonder “Do I want to play the spell? what will I target with my four counters this turn? What if it’s the 5 damage, what do I want to target then?” for every single turn of the game, at some point you will be caught unaware. If you decide to play the card, then no harm done, but if you don’t you’ve given it away. All of those combine with the fact that I hate them for what they actually do (TOO MUCH variance) to create the mechanic I dislike the most in recent memory. It’s actually much worse than Double Faced cards, because I could understand the appeal of those – they were annoying to draft and sleeve, but they had an upside, they were cool and flavorful. Miracles have a much bigger downside and a much smaller upside, so I really don’t see the point of them.

As far as actual strategy, two things – first, be aware that you do not have to Miracle. Some of the cards are very situational, and it’s better to just wait – don’t go around playing the +6/+6 trample lure card to kill their 1/1 just because you happened to draw it, don’t dome them for 5 with Thunderous Wrath on turn three just because you can. Sometimes, sure, do it, but know that it’s an optional. Second, if you have Miracles and your deck and instant card drawing (Alchemist’s Apprentice, Mad Prophet, Fleeting Distraction), it’s sometimes better to wait and draw on their turn, so that you can Miracle something out of it.

- Some games are super slow, but some games are super fast, and I think you want to be fast

When I first saw the spoiler, I thought we were back to Rise of the Eldrazi, with all those Angels and whatnot. The truth is, sometimes we are, but that is not how I would define the format – many games are actually quite fast, especially when Green is involved. In my first draft, I would have picked the 5/5 Behemoth that Overruns very early, for example, but nowadays I will happily pick the common +1/+1 Soulbond guy over it, because I don’t actually expect to reach 8 mana in most games. Rise was not only glacially slow but also had a ton of acceleration, and this format is both faster and without acceleration, so do not make the mistake of picking Archangels left and right (as I’m writing this, Shuhei just is just passing an Archangel for a 2/1 Vigillance for 1W). I like aggressive decks much more than control decks in this format, and that leads to me taking two drops at a premium; every color has them, but not a whole lot, and I’ll pick both Wandering Wolf and Timberland Guide over Nettle Swine if I don’t have many two drops already, for example, even though they are not particularly good cards.

Let’s move onto the colors:

Green

In my opinion, green is the best color in Avacyn Restored. Some people think it’s Blue, and that could definitely be right, but right now I like Green more. That is due to a multitude of reasons, but it’s mainly Soulbond – Druid’s Familiar is probably the best uncommon in the set, and the Soulbond common guy that gives +1/+1 is one of the top 3 commons (along with Mist Raven and the 2/4 Flier with Lifelink), and people don’t value him as highly as they should, at least not now. You get good creatures in every spot of the curve, including the highly valued two drop, and all your pump effects make combat a nightmare for your opponent – not necessarily once you’re in combat, since they’re mostly sorcery speed, but it’s hard to know what to keep back against a green deck because they could give their guys +1/+1, +2/+2 or +4/+4 out of nowhere. If you’re Green, you generally want to be aggressive, but you don’t have to – 7/7s for 6 are bigger than what most control decks are trying to do anyway, for example. Triumph of Ferocity is also a big sleeper – the fact that you draw in a tie means it’ll break most even games, as it’s very hard to trump a two power guy even on turn three for most decks, and once you play a 4/3 most decks can’t actually trump you. Plus, the picture is awesome!

Black

Black is by far the worst color in the set, and it’s rare that I dislike a color in a draft format as much as I dislike it here. It has one premium common, Death Wind, and everything else is very mediocre. To add insult to injury, the only landwalker in the format is a Swampwalker (and he is very maindackable), and some of the cards are randomly good against your creature types. Driver of the Dead looks like he would be fine, but he is not very good – there is nothing interesting to return with him, the stats are bad and if it’s important they just won’t kill it. The one card that was surprisingly good was Butcher Ghoul, which is much better than Young Wolf ever was, but the only reason for that is Black’s bad cards – if it had good cards rather than ones that make you sacrifice your own permanents, then Ghoul would be bad as well. Homicidal Seclusion is much better than it looks at first, but it is not for every deck – if you get it early, draft accordingly.

Blue

Blue is the second best color (or the best, depending on who you’re talking to), and that is mainly due to the strength of its commons – it has the best common, Mist Raven, as well as Gryff Vanguard and the underrated Wingcrafter, as well as one of the few ways to break Soulbond mid-combat (Peel from Reality). Amass the Components is a little overrated at first – it’s not as good as Compulsive Research was in Ravnica because the format is potentially a lot faster.

White

White has a premium common, Seraph of Dawn, and a bunch of two drops. I feel that Nearheath Pilgrim is somewhat of an underrated Uncommon, being much better than he looks at first and incredibly hard to race – every two casting cost creature in the set is playable, and he is an actively good one. The Seraph, though obviously good, is not as good as it initially appears, because you will face some decks that are very slow (in which case the card is not that good), and some of the fast decks can either ignore it, because they’re Green and have bigger bodies, or play stuff like Thunderbolt and Fervent Cathars (i.e. it’s not a Nighthawk). The one drop that gains life is actually playable, since it blocks most of the aggressive stuff (and so is the Red one, for that matter), and so is the Swampwalker, but Devout Chaplain and Holy Justiciar are both really bad.

Red

I think this is the worst of the “middle” colors, but it’s still decent. Pillar of Flame is a fine card but not overwhelmingly good, and the guys are all solid and pretty interchangeable depending on what you already have. Heirs of Stromkirk is somewhat of a sleeper common here, as I think he’s much better than people give him credit for (better than the other four casting cost common Vampire for sure). Thunderbolt is also very maindeckable, as most Red decks will like the ability to go for the dome anyway, and killing a flier with it is huge because they generally don’t expect their big fliers to die. The one gimmick deck you can draft in the set involves Thatcher Revolt and Vigilante Justice, none of which is particularly playable outside of context but could be good. Still, I think I’d only play that if I had more synergy – either a bunch of the guys that pump Humans, a couple Bone Splinters, etc. Goldnight Commander plus Revolt is also obviously unbeatable.

Well, this is about it – I hope you’ve enjoyed it, and see you next week!

PV