Play Moar AVR Cards

After watching the last two StarCityGames.com Open Series, I am very disappointed in the lack of absorption of the new Avacyn Restored expansion into the standard metagame. Okay, Cavern of Souls is seeing tons of play, but aside from my least favourite land ever printed, AVR has been largely untouched. 


Stepping down from the amount of Caverns being played, we see Wolfir Avenger and Zealous Conscripts being played in Naya style aggro lists and a few Silverblade Paladins in RW Humans, along with Caverns, obviously. 


Then there are the Delver decks, most of which don't play any Avacyn Restored cards. This isn't quite as big of a deal as other decks not trying cards because Delver requires very specific cards to make the list. With that in mind, I am playing one Favorable Winds in place of a Mana Leak. I believe that Tamiyo may also have a place in the deck as well as one or possibly two Temporal Mastery.


Wolf Run Ramp retains its title of most autopilot deck in format by jamming four Caverns and now not having to worry about trying to bait a counter. Play Caverns, name Giant, cram a Primeval Titan down your throat. I dislike ramp decks. At least Valakut had room for misplays, they've basically been erased in WRR. 

Aside: I like Magic when it's a test of skill and severely dislike decks like Wolf Run Ramp, Jund, and Valakut. Unfortunately to say, Jund is the most skill intensive of those three decks. Losing to a deck that is as easy to play as Wolf Run Ramp is something that always bugs me mostly because I play as tight as possible and just watching them make a ton of technical mistakes and still wrecking me is infuriating. If you ever see me at a standard event, I will probably be playing the most difficult deck to play in the format at the time. I can take loses very well when we're locked in a battle of wits and cunning, but when I lose because you jammed a fatty that can hardly be interacted with I get a little salty. /Aside

 New set releases are four of my favourite times in the year. As Magic players we are blessed by having four extra holidays a year, but it seems as though only a few players take advantage of their new toys and play with them. I understand that a lot of them are chaff and should be relegated to the Island of Misfit Toys, but there are quite the number of playables beneath the layer of "I'll play it in Limited, *shrug*".


We live in an age of netdecking and hive mind, where there are few deck builders anymore. Most competitive players wait for a named player to play with some new cards or a new deck before picking them up. This needs to stop. This is one of the best reasons to play this game, you can make your deck how you want it. 


I'm not saying that netdeckers are bad players or something like that, but they're not as good as they could be. By just picking up a deck with out scrutiny on its contents you are weakening yourself in how well you can play it. If all you do is netdeck and loose playtesting with only the obviously super strong cards in a new set, you will never be as good as Zvi, Chapin, GerryT, or Luis Scott-Vargas. By just netdecking you are more like Edgar Flores, yeah you might have a good run like he did with Caw-Blade for a awhile, but once you lose a piece of that you won't know what to do (did you notice that once Jace and Stoneforge got banned he dropped off the face of SCG before he got banned?).

This what I've been playing at FNM these last two weeks since Restored became legal. I wanted to play Pillar of Flame since I saw it on the spoiler and I also knew that giving it flashback would be amazing, so now that I was in blue and red I needed to build the rest of the deck. 


Pillar of Flame is too slow for a Delver based deck in my opinion as it weakens their Snapcasters, but in a very sorcery speed deck it is perfect removal for almost everything. If you're playing U/R Delver stick to Galvanic Blast or Shock and if you really want to play Pillar, I suggest it in the sideboard. 


Gisela, Blade of Goldnight is my favourite angel in this set. She is an amazing control finisher, especially since no one is playing Dismember right now. Gisela is a two turn kill and helps you stay alive. If you're on Blue/White, splash red for this chick. She kills as fast as the Sun Titan chain usually does unhampered, but she is much harder to block and will kill whatever is blocking her. If you're playing Frites you should also play her, Gisela loves getting reanimated on turn 4. 


I'm sure you don't need to be told how good Miracle Whip is, that is Bonfire of the Damned. Its the best Whipflare ever and it has Miracle (I'm determined to make this nickname stick!). If you're playing red, play at least one of these. Please.


Tamiyo is getting some attention, and it is well deserved. I may be publically flayed for this, but I believe Tamiyo is the closest to the second coming of Jace, the Mind Sculptor we're going to have for a long time. Tamiyo's +1 is the middle ground between Jace's +2 and -1 abilities. it doesn't really make them spend another turn recasting a threat but it can punish greedy mana bases and set them back a turn that way. It, of course, also protects her and you while ticking up. The -2 is obviously the least used ability on her, but if you have her combined with Lingering Souls tokens you can draw a ton of cards. 

You have no maximum hand size. Whenever a card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may return it to your hand.

That is an ultimate ability. Just like the Wallet Sculptor's ultimate won the game without technically winning the game, so does this. Is it possible to lose after using it? Yes, but it won't happen. If they attack you block, get your guys back and recast them. Infinite Mana Leaks? Yeah, they won't resolve a single spell unless its off Cavern of Souls. So now you can move onto actually winning the game. Well, how does milling two and drawing a card for every blue mana you can produce sound? Personally, I just Pillar of Flame people out of the game. 

So my next favourite card for type 2? Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded. 

Okay well first off, Tibalt is the very first two mana planeswalker in four years. This makes him very hard to compare to other planeswalkers and evaluate correctly. I do believe however that his closest comparison is Jace Beleren (man, this Jace guy seems good all the time). Jace started out as one of the most unpopular of the original walkers, and I think that like good ol' Beleren, Tibalt will eventually see a strong amount of play. 

+1: Draw a card, then discard a card at random.

Sure, no one actively enjoys discarding at random, but when you build a deck that doesn't mind doing it, the amount of value you can get from this is astronomical. If I were playing either Mono-Red or a BWR Reanimator deck, I'd be playing at least three of this guy. In  Mono-Red you get to play cards like Chandra's Phoenix and Grim Lavamancer, both LOVE this guy. And with a Faithless Looting/Flashback fueled reanimator deck, how can you possibly say no to Tibalt?


"But guys, what if you only have good cards in your hand?"
Then don't activate him! If you only have good cards in your hand, Tibalt is still doing his job. When the average quality of the card on the top of your library is higher than that in your hand, then you use him. If you discard a good card, that sucks but you're still at the same place you were before you activated him and you're at least gaining 1 virtual point of life. 


This ability does not protect him in any way other than a point of loyalty, but you're usually the aggro deck when you have Tibalt in your deck. 

-4: Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded deals damage equal to the number of cards in target player's hand to that player.

This ability is alright, and is going to be the primary ability you're going after in Mono-Red. In a Reanimation-style deck this ability can be very strong as well if Gisela is one of your Rites targets, especially if you're playing a version of the deck with Reforge the Soul (I would be).

-6: Gain control of all creatures until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste until end of turn.

Insurrection is sweet, especially at a cost of RR and some time, but this ability is by far going to be the least used. Granted people don't play around this ability because they'd rather play around his -4. Whereas his first ability doesn't mesh well with his negative abilities, both his negative abilities work very well together. 
Your opponents know that they can't play their big guys once you have Tibalt at 6+ loyalty without first dealing with him or they will just lose, so Tibalt creates some nice tension when he is in play. 

There are plenty of other cards that you should be playing from AVR, but I will discuss more at a later date. Until then, get out there and get brewing!