BC's Avacyn Restored Vintage set review in 250 words or less

[BC]

White:

Angel of Jubilation: Cool ability; mana cost makes it unplayable.

Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Can never have too many big flying monsters with cool abilities, but won’t see play.

Silverblade Paladin: …will punch you in the face.

Terminus: Most efficient Wrath ever printed… kinda.


Blue:

Alchemist’s Apprentice: Sneaky good.

Devastation Tide: Rebuild that you can only use at Miracle speed, and also works on creatures.  Meh.

Lone Revenant: Awesome ability if it cost less.

Misthollow Griffin: No.

Second Guess: Also no.  Maybe for U.

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage:  Any blue Planeswalker is worth a look, but not good enough.

Tandem Lookout: Pretty solid card draw dork.  Will see some play.

Temporal Mastery:  Unrestricted Miracle-speed Time Walk.  What’s the worst that could happen?  Will see lots of play in various decks.  I applaud WotC for having the balls to print this.


Black: (btw, no Black Miracle is bullshit)

Griselbrand: One of the coolest abilities a giant flying monster has ever had.


Red:

Dangerous Wager: Will see some play somewhere, probably not in Vintage.

Pillar of Flame: Nice removal spell for Red, but can’t kill a Golem.

Reforge the Soul: Love it.  Arguably better than Temporal Mastery.  Control Slaver?

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded: Just because it’s a 2cc Planeswalker doesn’t mean it’s playable.


Green:

No thanks.


Gold:

Bunch of big flying Angels.  None Vintage playable.


Artifact:

Nope.


Land:

Cavern of Souls: Goblins and Wizards are very excited.  Golems are paying attention.

Desolate Lighthouse: Ok, but expensive, ability.

[brokenbacon]

This is fantastic. Great work.

[Bill Copes]

I'm looking forward to not buying a damn thing from this set.  I am tempted to get the Caverns for wizardy decks, but city of brass is probably still better.

[BaronSengir]

I'm looking forward to not buying a damn thing from this set.  I am tempted to get the Caverns for wizardy decks, but city of brass is probably still better.

Get out of my head man. 

[AmbivalentDuck]

Tandem Lookout: Pretty solid card draw dork.  Will see some play.

More than solid.  I'm willing to wager that 7x Edric + Infi counters becomes a "deck to beat."

Cavern of Souls: Goblins and Wizards are very excited.  Golems are paying attention.

Goblins aren't viable at present.  They're slower than brown for aggro, less resilient and consistent on combo than Doomsday, and Earwig Squad is no longer game-breaking even if it's uncounterable.  It seems that Wizards and Humans are the tribes to watch.

[boggyb]

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Black: (btw, no Black Miracle is bullshit)

Seconded and thirded, man-- how did they not print at least one iconic black card effect on a miracle? One of the tutors, maybe. . .? Not even a dark banishing for B? No? Nothing?

Also, no artifact accelerant for 0? Lotus petal. . . or maybe a double-petal? Or a rainbow mox? Such a wasted opportunity.

[Saya]

Workshops got nothing from AVR.

[Wagner]

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Black: (btw, no Black Miracle is bullshit)

Seconded and thirded, man-- how did they not print at least one iconic black card effect on a miracle? One of the tutors, maybe. . .? Not even a dark banishing for B? No? Nothing?

Also, no artifact accelerant for 0? Lotus petal. . . or maybe a double-petal? Or a rainbow mox? Such a wasted opportunity.

1. Black getting Miracles is highly out of flavor, black makes pacts with the devil, it does not get to have miracles.
2. None of the miracles are permanents for now, so a colorless artifact would not fit with the design.

[boggyb]

None of them are permanents, so adding a permanent miracle wouldn't fit with the design? That's tautological-- if they added a permanent miracle, it would definitionally be in the design. And besides, there are plenty of holy artifacts in literature to draw flavor from -- some holy grail or blessed jewel or something would've done just fine.

[Wagner]

None of them are permanents, so adding a permanent miracle wouldn't fit with the design? That's tautological-- if they added a permanent miracle, it would definitionally be in the design. And besides, there are plenty of holy artifacts in literature to draw flavor from -- some holy grail or blessed jewel or something would've done just fine.

Sure, they COULD do it, but they didn't, and doing only 1 of them for artifacts would be odd. If they bring them back later and do permanents in colors, you can bet your ass there will be a colorless one.

[BC]

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Black: (btw, no Black Miracle is bullshit)

Seconded and thirded, man-- how did they not print at least one iconic black card effect on a miracle? One of the tutors, maybe. . .? Not even a dark banishing for B? No? Nothing?

Also, no artifact accelerant for 0? Lotus petal. . . or maybe a double-petal? Or a rainbow mox? Such a wasted opportunity.

1. Black getting Miracles is highly out of flavor, black makes pacts with the devil, it does not get to have miracles.
2. None of the miracles are permanents for now, so a colorless artifact would not fit with the design.

I agree with you somewhat, although if flavor is what they cared about there's no reason any color but White and maybe Green should get Miracles.  Shit, Red got THREE Miracles, and Red is just about as evil as Black.

How about this: 

Black Miracle

Target opponent discards two cards at random.
Miracle: 

I agree with you about the artifact Miracle, though.  That wouldn't make any damn sense.

[bluemage55]

I agree with you somewhat, although if flavor is what they cared about there's no reason any color but White and maybe Green should get Miracles.

Miracle ≠ holy.  A miracle is merely divine intervention, and there's no shortage of dark divine entities in Magic.

Shit, Red got THREE Miracles, and Red is just about as evil as Black.

Black ≠ evil

[GrandpaBelcher]

I agree with you somewhat, although if flavor is what they cared about there's no reason any color but White and maybe Green should get Miracles.

Miracle ≠ holy.  A miracle is merely divine intervention, and there's no shortage of dark divine entities in Magic.

Shit, Red got THREE Miracles, and Red is just about as evil as Black.

Black ≠ evil

Come to think of it, miracles would be most out of flavor for blue. What stock would blue put into supernatural intervention? It demands scientific proof.

[The Atog Lord]

Perhaps Miracles indicate the Divine doing something for you, without your doing something for them. My feeling is that Black deities may be willing to help you, but will want something in return.

[serracollector]

I think some cards were left out that are considerably interesting:

Devout Chaplain - there are lots of humans out, and with caverns I could def see human decks.  this keeps MUD and Tinkerbots and TV kills at bay.  Interesting card indeed.

Favorable Winds - something like this has needed to be made for a long time.  And with the likes of Delver, Cliques, Spellstutter Sprites, Trygons, Sower of Temptation etc etc this could warrant a spot or two in someone's decks.  Go Go Fat fairies!

Ghostly Flicker - not 100% sure on this one but I can see it having interesting actions with Tolarian Academy's, Artifacts that make +2 mana, and creatures like Clique and Snapcaster mages/ETB creatures with good abilities.

Mass Appeal - once again, based on a Human deck, but even drawing 3-4 off this is very efficient draw.  Also works with multivaults, and changelings well. 

Battle Hymn - this is a very powerful Ritual Effect.  In a kobold/0 CC creatures deck this can generate alot of mana very quickly.  I think this will definitely see play in vintage.  Making mana is always abused some how. Heck you can even snap it back, and get an extra mana for the snapcaster.  Def interesting card.

Vexing Devil - 4 damage for 1 mana.  Funny with Unearth or Oath of Ghouls.  Not saying it's amazing, but worth mentioning as it will see play/testing.

Somberwald Sage - not sure where it may fit at in the current meta, but anything that reads "tap: add 3 mana of any one color" and only costs 3, has a use.

Conjuerer's Closet - might not be affective at 5 mana, but once again an interesting affect with ETB creatures.  Maybe MUD could use it with Simulcram , Trikes, Pentavus, and such. 

otherwise I agree with what you have posted/said.  I think the set is still very interesting tho.  Actually quite a few vintage playable cards depending on your style of play or what you play. 

[Saya]

how about Thunderous Wrath?

[zimagic]

Devout Chaplain - there are lots of humans out, and with caverns I could def see human decks.  this keeps MUD and Tinkerbots and TV kills at bay.  Interesting card indeed.

It's overcosted and taps to activate. What artifact/enchantment in Vintage are you going to tap 3 humans (Chaplin & 2 more) to exile 1 turn after getting him into play? A bear with this ability would be borderline, at  , his ability should have been "Tap 3 humans" not ": Tap 2 humans"

Black ≠ evil

Not on Avacyn. From here:

The solution ended up being the discovery that black is king of paying life and sacrifice costs. By making an Angel with a strong anti-black feel, which was very easy in a set where white is the symbol of good and black is the symbol of evil, text could be added and feel as a white-hates-black card.

[Snip]

In Avacyn Restored, black is the poster boy for evil (this, by the way, is just an Innistrad block thing—next block we'll get back to white not being just good and black not being just evil again), so it doesn't get soulbond.

[BC]

I do like Vexing Devil a lot, but not for Vintage.  I think it will be pretty awesome in Legacy Burn.  Other than that, the rest of those cards are fairly bad.  Just my opinion.

[Darkenslight]

I do like Vexing Devil a lot, but not for Vintage.  I think it will be pretty awesome in Legacy Burn.  Other than that, the rest of those cards are fairly bad.  Just my opinion.

See, if Vexing Devil was  with Trample and its current stuff, even that'd be somewhat playable in Vintage.