Avacyn Restored EDH Set Review Portal

As is the custom here at The Command Zone, I've set up this post as a convenient page of links to all six parts of my AVR set review. The links below are broken up by color.

• Part 1: White
• Part 2: Blue
• Part 3: Black
• Part 4: Red 
• Part 5: Green
• Part 6: Multicolor/Artifact/Land

Please leave a comment if I missed a card, if you think I assessed a card wrongly, or if you just have some cool uses for a card in the set.

Enjoy!

Avacyn Restored EDH Set Review; Part Six: The Rest

Heading up the final section of our EDH Set Review is a trio of Multicolored cards, followed by a handful of Artifacts and Nonbasic Lands. This section is full of awesome and win.

Angels

Well, by now, you already know where this is going. Already, all three of these beautiful Legendary Angels are generating a metric ton of buzz and hype in the EDH scene.

Bruna is on overwhelmingly powerful creature, balanced nicely by the fact that's she's very specific about what she wants to do. Obviously, she is drawing all sorts of comparisons to Zur, Uril, and Sovereigns of Lost Alara. She's not the kind of card you just throw into every UW deck you've got, but if you build around her, she's insanely powerful.

She can clearly stand on her own, or be a finisher in some other General's Aura-themed deck (like a Zur deck, for example).

Gisela is the only card in the set to drop more jaws and cause more squeeling nerdgasms than Avacyn or Griselbrand themselves. Gisela seems poised to be the breakout star of the set, with the fourms and blogs going nuts over her incredibly sexy set of abilitys, not to mention she sports one of the best illustrations in the set, possibly even the whole block. Jason Chan really outdid himself her, and so did WotC's R&D department.

Gisela's high CMC makes her very unlikely to make any sort of waves in Standard or any other competative tournament format, so the demand for her should come almost entirely from the EDH crowd. Hopefully this will keep her affordable, because I expect we'll be seeing her all over decklists for a long while now.

This is easily my favorite card in the set, no question.

Sigarda is the odd lady out, in this trio. Not that she's not good in EDH - she most certainly will see plenty of action in our format - but she's also the most aggressively costed, at 5 mana. This means she has a bit more potential to have some crossover success. She's definitely a constructed-worthy card, in a vacuum, but it really depends on if there's enough other good stuff in her colors to build an archetype around her.

Fortunately, she is, in my opinion, the least exciting member of the trio. Not to say I dislike her - not at all! She just hoses things I happen to like quite a bit - cards like Barter in Blood (whose presence in the set may well contribute to Sigarda seeing a bit of tourney action).

She's very good, just has less of a "holy shit!" impact when you first see her.




Artifacts

This lacks impact. Will probably not have enough presence on the board to matter much. Seems good in a Tempered Steel deck, but I don't think that's a particularly viable archetype in EDH.

Well, this is certainly interesting. EDH is a format where creatures with ETBF effects are played extremely often. This combos with any of them nicely. Titans. Mulldrifter. Shriekmaw. Eternal Witness. Nucklavee. Woodfall Primus. Sharuum the Hegemon. Karmic Guide. The list is endless.
This isn't going to break the format in half (it's already broken!), but it will see play, guaranteed.

Well, this will be fun in mono-White Soldiers! Until someone gets annoyed and just Wraths all your Humans away. The problem with cards requiring you to tap multiple creatures is that they pretty much force you to overextend into a Wrath of God.

Then again, White already has pretty good removal options. It's probably worth noting that there are a LOT of Blue Wizards that are also Humans... this might not wind up being too relevant, but it's nice to have a potential removal card for colors that don't get a lot of good options.

 Terrible. Just posted it cause it's cool art.

Ooh, ooh! I know! Put this on Geist of Saint Traft!

Yeah, that's pretty much what every single person ever thought when they first saw this a few weeks back. It's super obvious, to the point that it's already going to be lame by the time anyone every actually does it in real life.

Problem is, I still haven't come up with any other use for it. Believe me, I'm trying.

I've had pretty good success with Temple Bell so far. It doesn't even matter that it's not in a Group Hug deck. Sometimes I'm just so desperate for a card-draw solution that I run the Bell anyway. This is likely going to just be a stricly worse Temple Bell. It costs one more mana, AND you have to put a charge counter on it before you can use it.

But, I can't wait to play with this anyway. I can imagine being able to set it up nicely enough that I don't care that my opponents are drawing cards too. Obviously if I have Consecrated Sphinx in play, I'm still coming out way ahead.




Well this is certainly an usual and interesting take on the three-mana, any-color mana rock. It's an unusual melding of disparate utility effects. The kinda, sorta issue here is that you really want to be droping mana rocks as early as possible, and at that point, Graveyards are likely to be empty that early in the game.

However, mana rocks are usualy kinda dead draws late game, so this little bit of extra utilty keeps it from being a completely useless draw at the late game stage. It's a nice gesture but I don't see this replacing Darksteel Ingot or Coalition Relic in most decks, but for metagames where GY hate is desperately needed, this will be a godsend to players.









Lands

Holy cow, this is amazing! Pretty much an auto-include into every deck with the right color identity. There's almost no strategy out there that can benefit from being able to play everything at Instant speed.

Bomb land! Basically it's a Command Tower meets Boseiju. Set this to your General's creature type, and you never have to worry about Hinder or Spell Crumple again. The only downside here is that this is gonna be highly sought after for nearly every format in existance, so it's never going to be cheap to acquire.

Obviously, it's best in a Tribal-flavored deck, but really this can be played in almost any deck.

Another great land. This one is just a little bit less awesome than the other two in it's cycle. Still it's going to be pretty good in almost any deck it fits into. Unearth and Flashback are just two of many mechanics that will be happy to see this land.

Obviously, you're only playing this in heavily Angel-themed decks, with enough Tribal support to matter. Not great, but narrowly useful when it does fit in.

 Wow. Another exceptionally strong ability for a cheap activation cost. I've already been biting the bullet and playing Hall of the Bandit Lord in a number of decks. Clearly, Hall can go into any and all decks that want it, but this will be VASTLY better than Hall in those decks lucky enough to have the proper color requirements. Without question, this land is extremely strong.















That wraps up our Avacyn Restored EDH Set Review. The final verdict: Awesome! The set is chock full of playable cards in every color, and nothing, save the two flagship Legends seem to be over the top, power-level-wise. It's not quite Ravnica: City of Guilds levels of awesomeness, but it's the closest they've come in a long while. I'm very pleased to say that WotC appears to have knocked this out of the park.

Enjoy!

Avacyn Restored EDH Set Review, Part Five: Green

Ah, Green. The ultimate Timmy color. I don't have much to say this time. Green has always been solid in EDH, and it's not likely to change over night. So let's just dive in and see what Green goodies AVR has to offer.

I can't imagine running this in anything, when Increasing Savagery exists. Not even the Miracle possibility is enough to warrant running this in Animar or Ghave, arguabley the two decks that can best take advantage of this.

 Awful.

This could be pretty powerful. It gets bigger, and as it does so, it becomes increasingly hard to block any of your creatures. Then again, this is going to be a big target for spot removal, so it might not live long enough to give you value. I think it should do well enough in Ghave or other token decks.

Holy win condition! Resolving this should kill at least one opponent every time. Very much an EDH-only card. Should see tons of play in this format, where Avenger of Zendikar is one of the most ubiquitous Green cards in print.

Yup. It's a Hidden Predators for half-price, if you're playing Tribal. Combine with Changelings (try Mutavault, in particular), for greater chance of success. Outside of decks with heavy tribal themes, this ain't going to do much, but there are plenty of decks that can support this.

There's a cycle of these guys in Green that just give vanilla +X/+X bonuses. None but the Rare one stand any chance of being worthwhile, and even that one is iffy. This just doesn't do enough in EDH to be relevant most of the time.

Obvious choice for token decks. Gives you incentive to just start running your hordes of tokens into the redzone, blockers be damned. When used properly, will generate obscene amounts of mana. When not used properly will be utterly dead on the board.

Cool flavor, love the name! I like Wing Snare and Plummet already. This is strictly better than Wing Snare. Should be playable in the right metagame. If the only Sword of Stuff and Junk you ever see is Feast and Famine, this won't get you very far.

Meh. Good limited card, maybe.

 Not even Undying makes this appealing for EDH.

Possible inclusing in creature-saturated Animar decks. Mimeoplasm has better options. Usually, I'd rather just Harmonize or something.

 Bad ass art, cool effect. Only problem is, it competes with Krosan  Grip and Beast Within. This is unlikely to stack up against those two, but if you're already running those two and still in need of a third option, this could be worth considering.

Here's a fun scenario for you. I have Scroll Rack and Stranglehold on the board. I tap out for a Weird Harvest for x= 8 to 10, getting a huge handful of creatures. Next turn, I use Scroll Rack to stack the top of my library with 7 or more hand-picked creatures, then cast this. Okay, that's so convoluted it'd likely never happen, as one of your opponents is bound to disrupt your plans even if he has no clue what you're up to. Still, seems like a fun, epic play if you did pull it off.

Done right, this card should win the game for you on the spot. But it is a ten mana Mythic, so that's pretty much the only outcome that would make it worth casting. Seems like it could get a fair amount of play in EDH. You have to set it up, though, or it's gonna let you down.

Exceptionally versatile and powerful, this is a choice removal spell for Green. Most of the time, I'd just rather have Beast Within, but there's no way this isn't going to see some play in EDH. Even at six mana, it still has the potential to be a much easier to cast Violent Ultimatum. Just wish it could hit creatures too.

Meh. I could almost see actually paying six for this once in a while, and not being too unhappy about it. Especially targeting a creature with Deathtouch.

Animar decks will absolutely love this. Maybe some Mimeoplasm decks, too. There are probably more than a few ways to get infinite mana from this, if that's your thing. Most of the time, though, the spending restriction on her will just make her terrible.

YES! This is a dude I can really get behind. Obviously this is going to be in a lot of decks, starting with Animar. The nontoken clause makes it unappealing for Ghave and other token decks, but they have other toys for drawing cards. This is a worthy draw engine for all those nontoken decks out there. Suck it, Primordial Sage!

 In EDH, this is likely to be your first creature cast, and thus will target itself, making it a Grizzly Bear. Which is utterly unplayable. However, I could see this in Animar decks, where it's a cute techy choice, but still unlikely to be very good.

 Too slow and conditional. Most green decks that need or want card draw from large creatures will run Greater Good and/or Momentous Fall. Not to mention Soul of the Harvest or a host of other, better choices.

Tired of your opponents not running headlong into your Acidic Slime or Vampire Nighthawk? Force the issue.

This will require a little bit of fiddling to make it work, but once it gets going it could be a great form of removal for some decks.

This is terrible even by today's standards. Pelakka Wurm is better than this in almost every single way, despite being one mana more, and even that get's virtually no play in EDH.

This is a hilarous card, but it's definitely more of a build-around-me card for 60-card formats. In EDH, instants and sorcery cards that target your guys are almost always removal spells cast by opponents.

This is one badass uncommon, but a 3/3 just rarely gets the job done in EDH. He's just gonna be a chump blocker most of the time. Sure he could be a roleplayer in some Voltron decks with lots of equipment that just need cheap, efficient guys to attach to, but that's about it.

Best when paired with cheap evasion guys like Blighted Agent or Invisible Stalker, or large tramplers like Deus of Calamity or Simic Sky Swallower. He's a bit janky, but I could easily justify running him in Rafiq, Edric or Stonebrow (had I not decommissioned Stonebrow already...). He packs a lot of punch for 5 mana, even if he is a vanilla beatstick most of the time.

Bad Chameleon Colossus is bad. Still, I'd play it in a dedicated Treefolk deck like Doran. Needs more Trample!



















Well, we're getting near the end, here, and Green stuff looks pretty good, mostly. Two really swingy Mythics, and a handful of playable rares and uncommons. Not the most exciting color in the set, but plenty to like nonetheless.

Next up, everything else! Lands, Artifacts, and of course the Powerpuff Girls.

Enjoy.

Avacyn Restored EDH Set Review, Part Four: Red

Red is usually thought of as the "worst" color in EDH. While it's true that Red mostly has a hard time with late-game reach and is much better at dealing 20 to a single opponent than dealing 40 to three or four opponents, that's not necessarily an insurmountale disadvantage.

Avacyn Restored brings us one of the most exciting Red cards to come along in a while - Reforge the Soul. An almost-reprint of Wheel of Fortune, Red mages should be happy to have yet another "draw seven" in their arsenal, and this time without the awkward Suspend mechanic.

On the down side of things, Vampires didn't get much love, just a couple of mediocre commons and uncommons. We did get a two-headed devil dog, though, so that's pretty cool.

Overcosted chaff, but likely to be someone's Secret Tech pick one day. Rhys or Ghave decks might cringe at seeing this, but there are far more efficient and effective ways to hose those decks. If it cost four, and could be a Sunforger toolbox peice, it'd be okay, but alas it is not.

I really think this could have been a 5/5 and been printable (and certainly more playable). Neat art, but terrible card. Shame, since the last two dragons in this block were both pretty awesome.

 Usually these one-shot "ritual" effects are pretty terrible if not outright unplayable in EDH. But there are decks that can do a lot with some big-mana for a turn. I could see playing this in my Rith token deck if I had a couple more X spells in the deck. Paying 1R for 8 to 10 red mana is not a terrible deal. Mostly, though, this is not an EDH-worthy card.

Lavalanche can be pretty devestating in a big-mana deck, sit stands to reason this could be as well. However, paying full price for it is wholly unappealing. It's pretty much the Miracle cost that makes this even remotely worth considering.

This could just straight-up kill a player dead on the spot in a token deck. I see this being useful in all sorts of Jund or Naya builds as a potential one-shot kill card.

Also, pretty good tech in Riku. You can copy the spell without having to tap more guys, and effectively deal 6 x the number of creatures you control to one or two targets. Not bad for 5 mana.

Yeah, Red decks can run out of gas easily. I'd rather have Wheel of Fortune and the like, but this could do in a pinch. It also enables some Madness, Hellbent or Flashback tricks. Pretty narrow, but mildly playable in the right decks.

I can see this in a lot of Riku or Intet decks, as well as Grixis Good Stuff builds that have a high Instant & Sorcery count. Copying shit is fun and popular in EDH, which the popularity of cards like Twicast, Kiki-Jiki, Rite of Replication or Wild Richochet can attest. That it's an Aura which carries with it that card-disadvantage baggage, it's still worth the risk at an amazingly cheap cost of 1R to cast, and R to activate.

Meh. If the second ability were worded like Spikeshot Elder's it'd be pretty good, but as it stands, this is likely to be a bit too janky to see any real play. I might try to shoehorn it into my Garza Vamp tribal deck, because it is a two-mana Vampire, but it's probably never going to be all that great.

Very underpowered for EDH. Nice in Limited, but that's about it.

Sorta interesting, but can't compete with Falkenrath Noble for a really good Vampire with a death trigger.

 This guy is super efficient for what he is. Basically a 4/4 for four mana, with Undying as a nice added-value bonus. This will be great in any Red Equipment-based Voltron deck. Imagine this guy carrying a Sword of War and Peacer or a Sunforger. Sweet. Plus, it's a two-headed hound. How awesome is that!

Meh. If human tribal becomes a real EDH deck archetype, will it contain Red? I don't see it happening.

Hmm, interesting. A very nice Haste enabler, but I don't know if this can compete with Anger and urabrask. If I were running Boros Guildmage in anything, this would likely replace her, but I'm not. Still, it's cheap and likely to give you some value before it gets caught in a Wrath effect. I definitely see this working in a deck that is really pushing the aggro envelope as hard as possible.

Poop.

As bad as this may seem on the surface, Red really can use this effect. I'd be happy to play this in a number of decks. Probably none with Blue in them, but for Red/Black or Red/Green, could be alright. Pairs great with Squee, by the way.

I usually hate creatures that are just big and dumb and have zero evasion, but a potential 20/20 for five is pretty compelling, especially in the color that already has Warstorm Surge and Fling.

Amazing. I will happily play Wheel of Fortune for five, even without the potential for Miracle-ing it out for two. Very, very good card. Should see plenty of play.

Seems good in any deck that is planning on copying it or casting it for free. Mostly this just looks annoying and obnoxious to play against, and isn't likely to benefit it's caster quite enough to warrant casting it. Time will tell, but I foresee this being avoided by most EDH players.
















This would have been a lock for my Stonebrow trample deck if I still had it together. Likely to get limited play in specific decks. Seems fun with Gisela,  or any large-ish Double Strike guy. Also, Malignus.

Virtually unplayable, but I still can't help but think about pairing this with Boros Swiftblade or something similar. Probably not worth it, though.

Not good enough. Sure, for one R it's great, but for six it's abyssmal.

I kinda hate this guy. Well, the card itself sucks. The character is awesome. Devil guy with a pimp coat. Yeah, I can dig that. Still, it's that word "random" in the first ability that absolutely kills any potential use I might have for Tibalt.

This guy looks like a fun, janky EDH bomb in the classic sense. Back before we had Praetors and Titans and Sphinxes that were just flat out amazing, EDH players were playing the shit out of cards like this guy. I love seeing cards like this because it's clearly gonna see play in EDH, but it's very, very unlikely to take off in any other format out there, meaning this will never be more than a bargain bin rare.

I'm not looking forward to seeing Riku copy this guy, though. Or Tooth and Nail for this plus Kiki-Jiki.

Oh, and this is pretty much the best possible target for Infinite Reflection (in this set, at least).

I'm looking forward to opening tons of copies of this guy. Because I'm gonna trade every friggin one of them to tournament players and RDW die-hards.

They're really trying to push Humans in Red. Seems cool. We'll see if players take the bate or not, but I see this card as more of a 60-card format card, not EDH.

Most of the time, I'd rather play Conquering Manticor. For one more mana we get a 5/5 Flyer instead of a 3/3 Haste body. But, this lady can steal Planeswalkers and the like, which the Manticore can't do. More importantly, this is yet another "Threaten" that interacts nicely with this set's new "Flicker" technology to allow you to permanently steal things, not just until End of Turn.














Well, that wraps up our look at Red. There are a handful of situationally cool cards, but the stand outs are Reforge the Soul and Tyrant of Discord. Red didn't fare as badly as Black, though, so that's something to be thankful for. Definitely digging the fact that the more expensive rares and mythics are pretty much Constructed-only cards, while the ones that look to become EDH staples are more budget friendly. I'll be happily trading away Tibalts and Vexing Devils for fistfulls of EDH dollar-binder rares.

Up next, obviously, is Green. Enjoy!