M:TG - Avacyn Restored.

[Novasry]

So Avacyn Restored has been spoiled in it's entirety now, what are everyones thoughts on this new set?

http://www.wizards.com/magic/tcg/art...restored%2Fcig

I would quite like to build a tribal angels deck, with some human support. Though I may skew it more towards dicking with soulbound.

[Andon]

My Kaalia Commander deck just squees at the idea of dropping Grislebrand, Avacyn, or Gisela on turn 2 or 3.

[StainlessSteel47]

I didn't like Innistrad and I didn't like Dark Ascension, but this set has some really heavy hitters with the new Miracle costs. Definitely going to be adding some of those cards into my casual decks.

[AlmightyFalker]

Hate miracle, thought I would be more interested in this set, but heard the word Ravnica and stopped caring at all

[StainlessSteel47]

I love Miracle, good mechanic to work with in casual.

[GKnight]

Im loving the new set have gotten some cards that I was like wtf with but over all pretty sweet set like soulbound havnt played with miracle yet like the idea got the deamon deck and got to say love it after my few tweaks

[StainlessSteel47]

I <3 vexing devil.

[GKnight]

The only thing so far that me *facepalm* was Treacherous Pit-Dweller... ok yeah a 4/3 is sweet for 2 black add undying and holy crap then I read his other rule...Enters from Graveyard target opponent gains control... wtf why is this rare a lightning bolt and you looking at giving him to someone as a 5/4... not worth a damn was so pissed when I pulled him from my second pack then I pulled a Killing wave and life was better

[Andon]

He's a 2-mana 4/3. There's GOT to be a downside to it. Plus, all you need is Grafdigger's Cage and you're fine. And that's only one mana. First turn cage, second turn a 2-mana 4/3 that your opponent WON'T get.

[PlasmaTalon]

I love AVR. Tibalt is absolutely insane IMO, Miracle is somewhat entertaining (draw step; "How much life?""Four.""Tap red, win.") and Soulbond is already my deck for Block. Works nicely actualy, as the early game is devoted to dealing with R/W Humans with a million effects or challenging their creature quality, and the late game is something not good for R/W.

[Andon]

Tibalt is bad. The only ability that gains him any loyalty causes random discard - Top on my least favorite mechanics. Plus, it doesn't even fit into the "Red looting" section that they've established, with the discard first. His second ability.... Meh. It's hard to get to work, although granted there are some cards in-set that work wonderfully with it. Reforge the Soul off of a miracle trigger would be hilariously fantastic. And his last ability? Four turns, minimum, to get there? Without any sort of poking at him? If they have enough creatures to make it truly worthwhile, then odds are they've made it impossible to activate this ability. Not to mention the fact that you may have a card in hand that you just can't afford to lose - Thus losing any activations of him you may have until you can cast it.

Now, if you take the ridiculously obscure card Library of Leng, then you can completely negate the downside of the random discard. The way it would work is that the card is chosen at random. Before anyone else sees it, you take a look at it, and then decide if you want it on top of your library or if it's fine to toss it in the graveyard. You can keep the card you need while still filtering through those you don't.

[Enigmacookie]

My first impression of Tibalt, not having played with or against him, was that he was fairly good. Not JtMS level (god forbid) but a fairly solid PW - so I'm leaning more towards agreeing with Plasmatalon. I could go on arguing why he's good, but turns out several people agree, so I'll just do some quoting and linking instead. Saves me the time:

OK, so let's talk about Timetwister. Timetwister is one of the Power 9, and while maybe not in the top 10 cards ever printed in raw power, it was up there. You might notice a red card that reads very similar called Wheel of Fortune. I'm going to talk about Wheel, because it's used slightly differently than Timetwister, and I'm going to explain why the same concepts help Tibalt.
First, what do they do? Well, 2R: Draw 7 is clearly very good. But, it has a drawback. First, you have to discard your hand before you get the goods, and second, your opponent does the same thing. Why is discarding your hands and drawing new ones advantageous for one player? Heck, you're spending mana to do it! Well, that's true, but hopefully you realized you had Wheel in your deck while you were building it, and all of the cards in the deck cost very little mana. That way, you can dump your hand, or most of it, by turn 3 or 4, and ideally faster than your opponent. If your opening hand was 3 Mountains, a Goblin Guide, a pair of Lightning Bolts, and a Wheel of Fortune, you can see where it's quite a powerhouse.
Well, duh, draw-7s are good. Why is Tibalt like a draw-7? Simple; he belongs in a deck that knows what his abilities do. As another poster suggested, one way to do that is to make graveyard interactions. But, like Wheel, another way is to just make your deck full of cheap cards. A good Red Deck Wins style deck only wants to draw 3-4 lands; and more than that is useless. In addition, after a certain point, creatures are useless, you only want to draw burn spells. Tibalt looks at your turn 4 hand of Mountain, Mountain, irrelevant creature, and says "Here, have a 75% chance at a new card." It isn't perfect, but doing it every turn for 2 mana is really good. But wait, there's more! As you continually improve your hand, you're building up to an ability that could dish out a lot of damage, either his -4 OR his -6.
People will hate on discarding at random, but if your deck has cards that are just dead after a certain point, spinning the wheel is helpful. And if there are a few turns he sits there NOT drawing cards, because your hand is good, then your hand is good and you didn't need the help. It doesn't have to just be a RDW; your R/U counter/burn deck also wants limited lands, your hand is land, land, Think Twice, Mana Leak. Your opponent is playing around the Leak anyways, discarding the TT isn't a big deal, and you don't need lands. That's a few turns of spinning that wheel and profiting.

source

Also: Flores' say: http://fivewithflores.com/2012/04/un...fiend-blooded/

[Andon]

As mentioned right at the beginning - My biggest issue is random discard. I despise random discard.

[AlmightyFalker]

Now, if you take the ridiculously obscure card Library of Leng, then you can completely negate the downside of the random discard. The way it would work is that the card is chosen at random. Before anyone else sees it, you take a look at it, and then decide if you want it on top of your library or if it's fine to toss it in the graveyard. You can keep the card you need while still filtering through those you don't.

I am a heavy edh player, LL is not obscure. It is a great card, poor man's top(well it use to be), and the only way to make Tibalt usable. Have seen people try to use him, none successful, so far has only been good to soak an attack

[PyroSikTh]

I only got back into Magic a couple of weeks ago, and I only have interest in Zombies and other related/useful cards, but I have my eyes on Maalfeld Twins and Dread Slaver who both look like they'd be handy additions to my Relentless Dead deck.

I noticed the Event Decks are being released at the end of the month, and one of them (Death's Encroach) focusses on Zombies too, but other than Gravecrawler and Cemetery Reaper, I either already have, or don't have much interest in most of the cards so can't really justify spending £20 on it.

[GKnight]

Picked up my first mithic rare from this set Sigardo, Host of Herons.... i love this card here is why cost 5 (2 colorless 2 white 1 green) very easy to do by turn 3 or sooner in my green/white deck and is 5/5 flying,hexproof but wait there is more spells and abilities my opponents use can't make me sacrifice a permanent... holy crap she is sweet anyone get anything good yet (from a pack you ebay cheats....)

[Novasry]

Well, I just ordered a Booster Box, so I will let you guys know what I get and what decks I build. Hoping to do a Miracle deck.

[PyroSikTh]

Picked up my first mithic rare from this set Sigardo, Host of Herons.... i love this card here is why cost 5 (2 colorless 2 white 1 green) very easy to do by turn 3 or sooner in my green/white deck and is 5/5 flying,hexproof but wait there is more spells and abilities my opponents use can't make me sacrifice a permanent... holy crap she is sweet anyone get anything good yet (from a pack you ebay cheats....)

I ordered 8 Booster Packs on a whim and got Sigardo too. I also got that Dread Slaver I wanted which was cool.

[Novasry]

So I didn't get the things I need to build my miracle deck. However, I did get Gisela, Blade of Goldnight, Bonfire of the Damned, Griselbrand, Temporal Mastery and a host of other decent rares and stuff.

Have so far built myself a W/R Angels deck, a U/G Tempo Deck and a Mono-Black removal/control deck.

[PyroSikTh]

I want Griselbrand I'd make a Demon/Devil deck just for him.

LadyM has decided to buy the Angelic Might intro deck as a basis for an Angel-themed deck, to which she will add Sigardo, so that's exciting...and I'm still ironing out my Zombie Deck. I keep flittering between Mono-Black and Black/Blue.