Avacyn Restored Card Discussion [SIMMERING POT OF FECAL MATTER]

[RJM]

I'll give Skrillex Diablo a little bit of credit, though: he certainly has interesting flavor. He feels like red's take on a mind mage: sort of a cross between a master politician and an internet troll. His +1 is the careless acquisition of knowledge, his -4 punishes people who think they know better than him, and his ultimate rallies the rabble to fight for his cause while he slips away, laughing.

Haha. You made me laugh at this one.

The abilities all contradict the card though in Legacy. The opponent has time to empty his hand and play stuff for the first minus ability, and they will obviously attack the Walker before he can do anything with his ult. Its going to be cool in Standard for sure.

Pretty sure this sucks in Standard too.

They definitely pussed out and could have gone ahead and let him +1 to just do a normal loot for 1. He literally does nothing but play russian roulette with your hand for 2+ turns to get you crappy effects no one plays in competitive magic anyway. And they're the kind of effects that get even worse when telegraphed from a million miles away.

Red is just bad at planeswalking.

[Jeff Kruchkow]

Honestly, the new red PW would be half decent if his second 2 abilities at all lined up with his first one. After all, if I loam back 3 lands, its a pretty good chance that his +1 ability is just a straight up draw a card. Unfortunately, you aren't really ramping him up toward anything. At best all he does is stop the opponent from throwing out too many dudes if hes close to ult, which is mediocre even when compared to baby jace

[Aggro_zombies]

Honestly, the new red PW would be half decent if his second 2 abilities at all lined up with his first one. After all, if I loam back 3 lands, its a pretty good chance that his +1 ability is just a straight up draw a card. Unfortunately, you aren't really ramping him up toward anything. At best all he does is stop the opponent from throwing out too many dudes if hes close to ult, which is mediocre even when compared to baby jace

Actually, wouldn't they throw out more dudes and attack him? Skrillex Diablo doesn't exactly defend himself.

[ivanpei]

I dunno, the red walker seems decent. He's like 2 sorcery speed burn spells in a card. Not great but might have some narrow uses. I can imagine playing it in some sort of UR Delver deck that focuses on mana denial and quick dudes plus burn. Skrillex forces opponents to dump their hand aggressively into daze, stifle and wasteland. I'm not sure he's great but he has potential. Dragon stompy could also use him as a fast finisher. Stick a moon effect/trinity and use Skrillex to shoot the shit out of them.

[Vacrix]

I was a little surprised by that actually. Almost every walker has been able to defend himself in some way. Why wouldn't red have some kind of Bolt effect at the very least? His abilities just don't work together at all...

What's next?

I'm guessing that we'll see another playable powercreep creature, maybe in white. We haven't had one since Steppe Lynx if I recall correctly.

[Lemnear]

Our next walker.

Has this guy any other implication than enabling miracle and madness spells?


4 Wooded Foothils
4 Taiga
2. Forest
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongel
4 Fiery Temper
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Reckless Wurm
4 Tibalt, the fiend-blooded
4. Thunderous Wrath
4. Revenge of the Hunted
4. Faithful Looting
4. Lightning Bolt

[conboy31]

Ouch, count me in as another one who missed the "at random" part of his first ability. There goes almost all temptation to give him a spin.

I did the exact same thing, even reading it twice...

Because of the random clause I think he's DOA for legacy. Too bad, would have liked trying to fit him in various archetypes and shells.

[Rizso]

Its the first 2 mana planeswalker. I dont think 2 mana walker should be so good at defending themself. Its it does looks very strong with with Life from the Loam or with flashback cards. Volt Charge makes its pretty crazy for standard. Red in standard are already using lot of counters on noble, berserkers and shrine. The mana cost makes its quite hard to evaluate it. If able to use the graveyard or discard to an advantech. Sadly its discard at random. The 2 minus abilties are quite powerful when the walker can come out early.

[Sloshthedark]

feels there should be draw 2 cards, discard a card at random ... its pretty under powered even for RR

[Vacrix]

Thats probably because they were afraid of printing a walker that was too powerful for 2cc.

[TheInfamousBearAssassin]

So how you can have a disconnect between the idea that tempo matters and the idea that taking an extra turn is the best tempo there is is beyond me.

I don't want to wade through every post made in the last day or so, so I'll just settle this as it's at the core of the argument. Everyone seems to acknowledge that seven mana is a lot, and that you need heavy manipulation to reliably and effectively exploit the miracle cost, so the real point of contention seems to be this; the belief that, as SpikeyMikey here says, "taking an extra turn is the best tempo there is."

The flaw with this statement is that it's not remotely true.

For instance, I'm playing Blade Control. I have a Batterskull in hand and a Stoneforge Mystic that just bit the dust. I'm facing down a board with a Knight of the Reliquary and some other dorks, maybe a Mom, maybe a Thalia or piece of equipment. Very common board state in Legacy.

I could drop a Jace here, set up Temporal Mastery and let Jace get killed. I untap, cast Temporal Mastery, and maybe make the next land drop and am able to cast the Batterskull (maybe I was even able to cast Lingering Souls the turn I cast TM, but they're going to sit back anyway because I have to play defense right now.)

Alternately, I could just cast Wrath of God and wipe out their entire current game plan. This is a much larger swing than that that TM provided.

To go even further, a deck like AngelStax can completely lock you out of the game. This is certainly a lot better than merely taking another turn. There's also Counterbalance-Top for that matter.

And even then we're not really touching on the real problem, since the somewhat antiquated ideas of tempo vs card advantage don't really accurately reflect what's going on; what people are really jockeying for in a game of Magic is better described as freedom of action. The player who has the most freedom to take different, relevant actions over the course of the game will generally win. Time Walk itself, barring a Spell Snare, will never really hurt your range of options and may help it significantly. The problem is that Temporal Mastery will often hurt your range of options by being dead in hand, and when you have an unfavorable board position it does little to help get you out of it. Blocking doesn't cause creatures to tap, after all, and merely seeing another card for free isn't itself helping you deal with a lethal board. It's an effect that might push you over the top in tight situations, but is unlikely to dig you out of a hole, which is not a great thing to say about a card that's often just chaff in hand.

[conboy31]

Being able to dig one card deeper every turn plus a natural discard outlet might work out for standard, but I still can't quite picture how it translates to legacy.

[Koby]

Red is just bad at planeswalking.

It's pretty good at burning plains however.

I dunno, the red walker seems decent. He's like 2 sorcery speed burn spells in a card. Not great but might have some narrow uses. I can imagine playing it in some sort of UR Delver deck that focuses on mana denial and quick dudes plus burn. Skrillex forces opponents to dump their hand aggressively into daze, stifle and wasteland. I'm not sure he's great but he has potential. Dragon stompy could also use him as a fast finisher. Stick a moon effect/trinity and use Skrillex to shoot the shit out of them.

Koth does this much faster - +1 (4 dmg) +1 (4 dmg) -5 (ping until dead) while synergizing with Sol-lands and Moons.

[Whippoorwill]

I think the more interesting thing to come from Skrillex being spoiled is this part of the article:

(Part talking about the Sudden Impact ability)

To put it in perspective, Flame Rift is a Legacy staple and deals 4 damage to each player. Getting 4 out of a Tibalt is a pretty good deal, especially when you enjoy the side-benefit of forcing control decks to empty their grips. Of course, Flame Rift is only playable in a certain kind of deck, which is where the "more narrow but more powerful" aspect of Tibalt kicks in. And it's very easy to envision scenarios where you hit much harder than that—particularly if you're helping them out with... hold on a sec, I'm getting a call.

-useless banter-

That card hasn't been spoiled yet?

-useless banter-

...err, so you're absolutely not using any mechanism whatsoever to help your opponents fill up their hands. Nope. Not one. No idea what you're talking about. Where'd you get that silly idea?

It really sounds like we may be getting a Wheel variant based on the above since that's the main way to fill an opponent's hand in red and hitting for 7 is obviously better than Flame Rift's 4. My guess would be:

Miracle Wheel 4RR
Sorcery
Miracle 2R
Wheel of Fortune text

I'd assume Rare since we already have a Mythic Red Miracle.
I think the hypothetical Miracle cost above seems the most balanced since its the actual cost of Wheel. I could potentially see 1R but R seems too overpowered since you can theoretically cast it on turn 2 (1 with SSG) and potentially wreck your opponent if they Wheel into no lands.

[Vacrix]

Thats not out of the ball park in terms of what's balanced... the question is will the print it? When the Suspend Mechanic first appeared the printed Ancestral Visions and Wheel of Fate. Whose to say they won't print Time Walk and Wheel of Fortune? Then again.. wouldn't they print something else? Thats already been done...


EDIT:
I wonder if they will print a Land with Miracle 0. Taps for colorless or something. That or a legendary land that taps for a color.

[Aggro_zombies]

Has this guy any other implication than enabling miracle and madness spells?


4 Wooded Foothils
4 Taiga
2. Forest
4 Bloodstained Mire
2 Mountain
4 Copperline Gorge

4 Basking Rootwalla
4 Wild Mongel
4 Fiery Temper
4 Arrogant Wurm
4 Reckless Wurm
4 Tibalt, the fiend-blooded
4. Thunderous Wrath
4. Revenge of the Hunted
4. Faithful Looting
4. Lightning Bolt

He doesn't enable miracles. Miracles happen on your draw step or your opponent's turn, since they can only be cast for their miracle costs when they're the first card you've drawn for the turn.

[Vacrix]

If they print a Martyr creature type with Miracle I'm going to laugh my ass off.

[dontbiteitholmes]

That new Planeswalker is absolutely horrid. First off to the people who say they like the art... Why?
Tibalt puts the EMO in demon and his name makes him sound like the prep school wedgie magnet.
How about a PW that is actually playable? His -4 ability could be -2 and I would still probably never want to use it. The only possible deck I could ever see him going in would be something in Standard trying to abuse Burning Vengeance.

Discarding a rando card is complete garbage. Couldn't it at least have said "Draw a card then either discard a card at random or pay 3 life and discard a card of your choice" Barring that could his minus abilities at least not be pure unadulterated ass?

The first 2cmc PW should have been Green something like GG: 1 loyalty +1: You may play an extra land this turn. -1: Search your library for a Forest and put that card into your hand. -5: Exile ~this PW~ and put an */* green Legend token with Trample into play where * = the number of Lands you control.

[Vacrix]

That new Planeswalker is absolutely horrid. First off to the people who say they like the art... Why?

Because it looks like he just set fire to a bunch of Magic cards in his right hand. Ironically, this card is probably among them.

[dontbiteitholmes]

Because it looks like he just set fire to a bunch of Magic cards in his right hand. Ironically, this card is probably among them.

He also looks like Satan about the star in his high school's production of Pirates of the Caribbean.

I could legitimately see this card wheeling in draft.