Gold
[card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/card]:
Interesting card. You pay Titan wages for a 5/5, but you get a potentially lethal attacker depending on what auras you are running. Right now in Standard we don’t have anything particularly heinous, but she should be strong in 100 card formats and perhaps some older formats.
[card]Gisela, Blade of Goldnight[/card]:
For seven mana we would much prefer Elesh Norn. Gisela is flat out embarrassing against removal/bounce. Yes, she hits hard, and if you are playing her before your team attacks, that’s fine, but at seven mana she simply isn’t worth it. I reserve the right to change this opinion if I can regularly play her turn four.
[card]Sigarda, Host of Herons[/card]:
This is the Powerpuff Girl destined for Standard relevance. Hexproof and evasion work very well together, as does sheer size.[card]Cavern of Souls[/card] makes her splashable in U/W. In truth Sigarda is a very hard card to interact with and shall play a similar role as to the one played by [card]Baneslayer Angel[/card]. Baneslayer was invalidated by [card]Mana Leak[/card], a problem that Sigarda (and every creature) can now avoid. Excellent card, possibly the best White cards in the set. Best Green card too.
Artifacts
[card]Angel’s Tomb[/card]:
I had this in my deck at the prerelease. it was good in one game, and highly underwhelming for the rest of the day. It just seems so awkward to not play a blocker on turn three, and if you wait on it, you run out of creatures to use it with. It feels like it needed a second way to activate.
[card]Angelic Armaments[/card]:
We’ve been spoiled by Swords. You have to invest seven mana to get +2/+2 and flying. Perhaps nice in Limited, but this isn’t good enough for constructed. Too bad, Green would love to wreck people who play this.
[card]Bladed Bracers[/card]:
Cheap, but one additional power doesn’t cut it. Again, fine in Limited.
[card]Conjurer’s Closet[/card]:
I liked this more when it was Venser. Actually, Venser is still around.
[card]Gallows at Willow Hill[/card]:
Anyone remember [card]Hand of Justice[/card]? This requires your opponent to have a creature worth killing, that isn’t killing you before this comes online. Also, you need your creatures to live. This can work in Limited, but, well, you know.
[card]Haunted Guardian[/card]:
Meh.
[card]Moonsilver Spear[/card]:
The most threatening piece of equipment in the set. You gain a huge advantage from every attack, but… eight mana is too much. Clearly WotC felt equipment had become overpowered and decided to tone it down a bit. That’s fine, I’m sure the pendulum will swing back eventually.
[card]Narstad Scrapper[/card]:
If I absolutely need a five drop, fine.
[card]Otherworld Atlas[/card]:
I pay four mana for a [card]Howling Mine[/card]? Not good. I pay four mana for two Howling Mines, but I have to wait an additional turn? Maybe. This can get out of hand pretty fast… Correction, this could get out of hand, eventually. Also, this might make you very popular in an EDH game.
[card]Scroll of Avacyn[/card]:
I played two of these at the prerelease. It was love at first sight. Playing a miracle on an opponent’s turn is lovely. Equally lovely is gaining five life for free. Red magi, weep, for the Angels are going to eat your lunch.
[card]Scroll of Griselbrand[/card]:
Like the [card]Scroll of Avacyn[/card], this gives you card parity with a benefit if you control a demon. That’s a heck of a deal. I consider both scrolls eminently useful cards if you can consistently have the required creature type in play.
[card]Tormentor’s Trident[/card]:
Another piece of equipment I’ll enjoy in limited. Three power for five mana is a fine deal.
[card]Vanguard’s Shield[/card]:
Three toughness for five mana is not a fine deal. Additional power is simply naturally more useful than additional toughness.
[card]Vessel of Endless Rest[/card]:
Paying two mana for rainbow acceleration? Tournament quality. Paying three mana? We didn’t even play this when it was indestructible and had no additional costs.
This is a fairly weak collection of artifacts, but that seems to be by design. Let’s see if the lands have the same problem (they don’t).
Lands
[card]Alchemist’s Refuge[/card]:
U/G can join B/R and B/G in having a new land that is kind of stinky compared to the alternatives. Flash is nice, but paying three mana and including a colorless land in your deck is too high a price. Three mana was as cheap as the ability could be cost and still require Blue and Green.
[card]Cavern of Souls[/card]:
Where do I begin? This is the most powerful land printed since… [card]Tolarian Academy[/card]? [card]Strip Mine[/card]? Apparently it was designed as an answer to [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card]. Here is Zac Hill’s article on card:
http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/ld/191
That article inspired a response from Matt Sperling:
http://www.channelfireball.com/articles/rule-of-law-mana-leak-cavern-of-souls-and-scary-monsters/
I have some thoughts on both articles. Regarding what in Zac’s article, he’s right that this is both about [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] and [card]Mana Leak[/card]. If [card]Mana Leak[/card] hadn’t been in 12th Edition we wouldn’t be discussing Cavern right now. Cavern also functions as a rainbow land for creatures of a named type. This means Giants (Titans), Zombies, Humans, Angels, and the rest are all much better than they were. It also means that when you cast a creature with an ETB effect, you know it will resolve (although in older formats Blue still has [card]Stifle[/card] and the ability to end the turn before the spell resolves).
Blue has been different from the other colors since the inception of Magic. As my eight year old cousin said: “All the colors can play Magic, but only Blue plays countermagic.”
Blue has been the color of control. Permission. Winning. Blue has been the best color by design. It had the most powerful parts of the color wheel. Blue draws cards. Blue counters spells. Blue steals permanents.
Originally this was justified by the fact that Blue was dependant on other colors to deal with permanents, but the fact is throughout the history of Magic Blue/x control and Blue/x combo have been the dominant archetypes. There have been times when the best decks didn’t rely on Blue, Necro and Jund being the best examples. If the baseline is: sometimes the best decks aren’t Blue, then it is obvious how dominant Blue is. Sometimes the best deck isn’t Green. 😛
Matt responded to Zac’s article with multiple points. The first is that [card]Mana Leak[/card] isn’t as powerful as Zac suggests, and that this would be obvious if [card]Delver of Secrets[/card] and [card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] weren’t around. To a degree Matt is right, but [card]Mana Leak[/card] is a bit like [card]Dismember[/card]. Its very existence warps the format such that decks are designed to be less vulnerable to it. That doesn’t make it too good, but it does mean it is one of the more powerful and relevant cards in the format. The fact that Team Mythic went with a three color tap out build for their Spirits deck, and only ran two maindeck doesn’t change that fact.
We can debate how powerful [card]Mana Leak[/card] is, but this is clearly the nuclear option. Compare this to [card]Boseiju, Who Shelters All[/card]. It comes into play untapped, so if you are using this to resolve a Titan, it works immediately even against [card]Ghost Quarter[/card]. Second, it taps for colored mana. Third, it has no additional costs, such as two life. In other words, this is about a lot more than [card]Mana Leak[/card]. This is about [card]Force of Will[/card] vs. [card]Goblin Lackey[/card]. This is about the debt that Blue owes to every other color:
Countermagic: So I suppose it’s a little late for an apology, huh?
Creatures: You suppose correctly.
…
Countermagic: Look. I know I f***ed you over. I f***ed you over bad. I wish to God I hadn’t, but I did. You have every right to want to get even.
Creatures: No, no, no, no, no. No, to get even, even-Steven… I would have to kill you… go up to Nikki’s room, kill her… then wait for your husband, the good Dr. Blue, to come home and kill him. That would be even, Countermagic. That’d be about square.
[card]Snapcaster Mage[/card] was a former student of Zac’s. Considering the student and the carnage he had caused, Zac forswore his oath and created a hate card of death. Kill Blue, coming to a format near you soon.
[card]Desolate Lighthouse[/card]:
In almost any other set this would be the land drawing all the attention. It has tremendous synergy with miracles (discard the overcosted miracle in your hand, draw the undercosted miracle on your opponent’s turn). Adding this ability to your deck, at the cost of one colorless land, is a very good deal.
[card]Seraph Sanctuary[/card]:
No additional mana? Colorless land. If this were the power level for all lifegain, Red would be happy. This is a lousy card, which is to be expected from a colorless common land.
[card]Slayers’ Stronghold[/card]:
Counting this, you pay three mana. +2/+0 haste is a nice return. I am highly skeptical there is a home for this in Standard right now, and our mana fixing is poor enough that colorless lands are pretty tough to put in an aggro deck. Still, this hits hard, repeatedly. A good land that might not have a home right now.
Well, we know what the best card in the “other” category is:
5. [card]Bruna, Light of Alabaster[/card]
4. [card]Slayers’ Stronghold[/card]
3. [card]Desolate Lighthouse[/card]
2. [card]Sigarda, Host of Herons[/card]
1. [card]Cavern of Souls[/card]
I’m only confident in the first 3. Alright, I’m going to take a bit of a break, and then finish up with some updated thoughts and final top 10 from Avacyn Restored.
Seth Burn is a former Pro Tour player and a long-time Magic columnist who has written for both TCGPlayer.com and Star City Games. He is also known for his undeniable love for the NFL.