[Premium Article] SMIP: Avacyn Restored Eternal Set Review & Vintage Checklist

[Smmenen]

I have a confession: At first, I wasn't really jazzed about this set.   Then I began designing.  Then I began testing.   Then I began tuning.   Then things got broken. 

In this article are a TON of decklists. 

Griselbrand Oath?  Check.  Wait til you see what I've done.   Deck is broken.

Temporal Mastery decks?   FOUR: 3 Broken Legacy decks, and a Vintage deck.

Reforge the Soul decks?  Check.

Cavern decks?   More than you can shake a stick at.

I've also categorized all of the relevant Vintage creatures by race and class for you to begin building your own.   Although I've put forward what I think are the most promising, based upon the classification lists. 

I've also identified cards as playable that might surprise you...

And, for the collectors and Vintage completest, I've updated the Vintage checklist of playables. 

Please excuse the extensive Legacy discussion, if that ain't your thing.    Temporal Mastery just  busted up that format...

Linky here: http://www.eternal-central.com/?p=2676

[MaximumCDawg]

Goodbye, three bux, it's been nice knowing ya...

The best thing about this article (other than a bunch of fun decklists to try) is the little cheat sheet on Vintage creature types.  Nifty, and illustrative.

The worst thing about this article is confirming that one really should pick up some Temporal Masteries before they barf up to Jace-level cost due to Legacy play.  And unload them before they get banned.  This dumb set has two playsets of vintage playable cards that cost 20 to 40 bucks a pop - friggin secondary market.

A few comments:

(1) Tandem Lookout does not need to be second creature you cast to use its ability.  You can cast it first, then cast a second creature, and the soulbound pairing ability will trigger.  It does, however, need another creature to operate- that might be what you were trying to say.

(2) I feel like, when you're thinking about Outwit, you're looking at the raw number of spells in a given deck that target players instead of the number of times those kind of spells get cast.  For example, in a blue mirror, the players are very likely to be fighting over Ancestral Recall very early on, and Outwit is relevant there.  Now, that said, we have Flusterstorm, so I feel like this card was printed one year too late to be interesting.

(3) Page 28 - "Shattered Perception of Winds of Change" probably intended to read "Shattered Perception or Winds of Change" unless I'm really missing something.

(4) Thunderous Wrath - I am very interested in how this effects the math in a dedicated burn deck, and whether it speeds them up to the point where they are Vintage viable.  Consider: T1 Mtn, bolt (3); T2 Mtn, Wrath, Bolt (10); t3, Bolt, Bolt, Fireblast (game).  Is this senario unlikely anymore, with the high density of 1-cost bolts available?  I grant you that burn autoloses to too much in the format to be every really tier 1 (shops, chalice, leyline of sanct) but it seems like Wrath makes it just as fast as some other decks.

[Smmenen]

Goodbye, three bux, it's been nice knowing ya...

The best thing about this article (other than a bunch of fun decklists to try) is the little cheat sheet on Vintage creature types.  Nifty, and illustrative.

I'm glad that was of use...

I think it helps to see how the creatures fall by race and class.

The worst thing about this article is confirming that one really should pick up some Temporal Masteries before they barf up to Jace-level cost due to Legacy play.  And unload them before they get banned.  This dumb set has two playsets of vintage playable cards that cost 20 to 40 bucks a pop - friggin secondary market.

LOL.  Agreed.

A few comments:

(1) Tandem Lookout does not need to be second creature you cast to use its ability.  You can cast it first, then cast a second creature, and the soulbound pairing ability will trigger.  It does, however, need another creature to operate- that might be what you were trying to say.

Yes, that is what I meant.

(2) I feel like, when you're thinking about Outwit, you're looking at the raw number of spells in a given deck that target players instead of the number of times those kind of spells get cast.  For example, in a blue mirror, the players are very likely to be fighting over Ancestral Recall very early on, and Outwit is relevant there.  Now, that said, we have Flusterstorm, so I feel like this card was printed one year too late to be interesting.

(3) Page 28 - "Shattered Perception of Winds of Change" probably intended to read "Shattered Perception or Winds of Change" unless I'm really missing something.

Yes, that's what I meant.  "of" should be "or."

(4) Thunderous Wrath - I am very interested in how this effects the math in a dedicated burn deck, and whether it speeds them up to the point where they are Vintage viable.  Consider: T1 Mtn, bolt (3); T2 Mtn, Wrath, Bolt (10); t3, Bolt, Bolt, Fireblast (game).  Is this senario unlikely anymore, with the high density of 1-cost bolts available?  I grant you that burn autoloses to too much in the format to be every really tier 1 (shops, chalice, leyline of sanct) but it seems like Wrath makes it just as fast as some other decks.

I'm a skeptic, although it could see play in Legacy. 

It occurs to me that I may have left some ambiguity -- despite my lengthy description -- of my Griselbrand Oath deck.   

If it isn't clear:

1) You only ever Oath once. 

2) There is a case that that deck should have another Griselbrand.

When you Oath, you basically want at least 20 cards left in your deck so you can activate Griselbrand twice.

3) There is a case, if you don't add another Griselbrand, that you may want a Tendrils -- in case you Oath low, and just have to Memory Journey Will and don't have enough cards to attack multiple turns..

Hope that clarifies that.   My Griselbrand Oath deck is one of the very few non-Gush decks I'd actually play in a tournament in the near future.  It's totally broken. 

[MaximumCDawg]

Yeah, about that.  I have looked at the Runescarred Demon decks, and I feel like I'm just not "getting it."  In the case of Demon, you're dedicating 10 - 12 slots in your deck to essentially being able to run 4 Seal of Demonic Tutor.  I have a hard time seeing how this really takes advantage of Oath in a world where you can just Oath up Emrakul with Dragon's Breath and be done with it.  How is using Demon Oath, for example, better than just running Grim Tutor, Imperial Seal, etc and running a more typical blue deck?  Is a 5/5 body truly that relevant?  Part of my problem might be I havn't faced one of these decks locally, so I might not really follow how effective it is.

Your comments on Gristlebrand, by contrast, make more intuitive sense to me as an Oath target because there are only three potential life-for-draw cards in Vintage (Necropotence, Necrologia, and Yagmoth's Bargain), and all of them cost more than 2 mana.  So, I can kind of see wanting to dedicate 10-12 slots to being able to cast "1G: Pay X life and draw X cards[.]" 

[boggyb]

Because when you tutor up RSD you usually just win. He's a 6/6, not a 5/5, and you normally tutor up time walk, cast it, and then in the following turn oath up another RSD to regrow the time walk somehow, ad infinitum, swinging for 18 in the first 3 turns which is usually sufficient. The Golden Gun variant is weaker, the argument goes, because it has to run dragon breath, a terrible card in its own right, in addition to the oath targets; and moreover if you don't flip dragon breath, you're kind of limited in options whereas RSD can get you a situationally-relevant card when you need it. Also RSD is relatively castable, unlike BSC and Emrakul.

[Smmenen]

It's interesting how much confusion Griselbrand seems to generate.

Even skilled players on my team have been suggesting that I run just one Griselbrand -- yet, as I point out to them, that dramatically increases the chances that you'll see Griselbrand in the bottom 14 cards of your library.   

You want to see a Griselbrand in the top 40 cards of your library, but not your opening hand.   You don't want it in the bottom 14 or really the bottom 20 because you want to immediately draw 7 and then possibly 7 more cards

I think that makes 2 the right number.   One teammate suggested Blessing, but the problem with that is that you still might hit Griselbrand in the bottom 20.   Then it's just a bad Jin-Gitaxias, where you have to pass the turn.   It may be that you have to suck it up and run 3 Griselbrand, understanding that you only ever get one in play (and therefore only ever Oath once in general).  One way to mitigate the few cards in library concern is to add Tendrils, like I suggested...

[Smmenen]

Oh yeah, and on an unrelated matter, I wanted to add a few words to the already extensive analysis and lists I provided for Cavern of Souls.   

I organized every playable non-artifact creature by race and class to try to see where you might find areas of overlap and synergy for a potential Cavern deck, and that's why I posted in this article a Humans, Wizards and Goblins.  I did not attempt to draft an Elves deck, although I'm sure if its possible, Matt Elias will puzzle that one out...

One other word though, and I intended to make this in the article, but simply forgot: Cavern naming Golem would be an interesting support for a Workshop build.  The question is simple: is it worth waiting a turn to play a Lodestone Golem (or a Karn) if you know it will be uncounterable?  I suppose we will discover the answer to that question.   

More intriguingly, although I haven't teased out all of the possible strands, is the possibility of using Caverns to support multi-color Shops.   Unfortunately, most of the colored creatures aren't the same class, tribe or race, but Gobliln Welder is both an artificer and a goblin.      Uncounterable Goblin Welder isn't the worst thing in the world.  And you can tap it for colorless to play artifacts...

[bactgudz]

It's interesting how much confusion Griselbrand seems to generate.

Even skilled players on my team have been suggesting that I run just one Griselbrand -- yet, as I point out to them, that dramatically increases the chances that you'll see Griselbrand in the bottom 14 cards of your library.   

You want to see a Griselbrand in the top 40 cards of your library, but not your opening hand.   You don't want it in the bottom 14 or really the bottom 20 because you want to immediately draw 7 and then possibly 7 more cards

I think that makes 2 the right number.   One teammate suggested Blessing, but the problem with that is that you still might hit Griselbrand in the bottom 20.   Then it's just a bad Jin-Gitaxias, where you have to pass the turn.   It may be that you have to suck it up and run 3 Griselbrand, understanding that you only ever get one in play (and therefore only ever Oath once in general).  One way to mitigate the few cards in library concern is to add Tendrils, like I suggested...

Your argument against blessing is faulty.  In a 1 Grisel/1 Blessing deck, the probability you hit Grisel in the bottom 20 before blessing is less than hitting both Grisels in the bottom 20 of a 2 Grisel/0 blessing deck.  If the event you are trying to avoid is [oath up Grisel with < N cards remaining], 1 Grisel and X Blessing will always give you a lower probability of this event than increasing the number of Grisels for any N.  The only resiliency multiple Grisels give you is not being stuck with your only oath target(s) in hand.

[Smmenen]

It's interesting how much confusion Griselbrand seems to generate.

Even skilled players on my team have been suggesting that I run just one Griselbrand -- yet, as I point out to them, that dramatically increases the chances that you'll see Griselbrand in the bottom 14 cards of your library.   

You want to see a Griselbrand in the top 40 cards of your library, but not your opening hand.   You don't want it in the bottom 14 or really the bottom 20 because you want to immediately draw 7 and then possibly 7 more cards

I think that makes 2 the right number.   One teammate suggested Blessing, but the problem with that is that you still might hit Griselbrand in the bottom 20.   Then it's just a bad Jin-Gitaxias, where you have to pass the turn.   It may be that you have to suck it up and run 3 Griselbrand, understanding that you only ever get one in play (and therefore only ever Oath once in general).  One way to mitigate the few cards in library concern is to add Tendrils, like I suggested...

Your argument against blessing is faulty.  In a 1 Grisel/1 Blessing deck, the probability you hit Grisel in the bottom 20 before blessing is less than hitting both Grisels in the bottom 20 of a 2 Grisel/0 blessing deck.  If the event you are trying to avoid is [oath up Grisel with < N cards remaining], 1 Grisel and X Blessing will always give you a lower probability of this event than increasing the number of Grisels for any N.  The only resiliency multiple Grisels give you is not being stuck with your only oath target(s) in hand.

Which is, frankly, one of my other concerns. 

So you're saying that if I were to run 3 Griselbrand, I would have better odds of achieving my goal of Oathing Griselbrand up with at least 20 cards in my library if I were to simply run 1 Griselbrand and 2 Blessing?  That makes sense.

So maybe the right mixture is 2 Griselbrand + 1 Blessing?   That would give you better odds of Oathing up Griselbrand with at least 20 cards in your library? 

[bactgudz]

To put it in perspective:

With N Grisels it is exactly N times as likely that [you oath into Grisel with < 20 cards in your library]  than if you run 1 Grisel and N-1 Blessings [assuming no nonsense like them exiling your gy in response to a blessing trigger].

This is because, in either case for the event of interest to occur, all N cards have to be in the bottom 20, so only the ordering of those N cards in your deck is relevant.  With N Griselbrand's, he will always be first, with 1, there is only a 1/N chance he is first.  As you can see, 20 or 14 doesn't matter as a relative benchmark when comparing these two constructions.

If you run 2 Griselbrands, there is a 2/N chance he is first, etc... so the optimal number is 1 grisel+ N-1 blessings unless you are concerned about having him stuck in your hand.

[bactgudz]

2 grisel + 1 blessing is worse than 1 grisel 2 blessing if you are just concerned about the bottom 20/14/whatever

[Smmenen]

2 grisel + 1 blessing is worse than 1 grisel 2 blessing if you are just concerned about the bottom 20/14/whatever

Yeah, except that I have to account for the possibility that I'll draw a Griselbrand in an opening hand I otherwise wish to keep.   

[bactgudz]

2 grisel + 1 blessing is worse than 1 grisel 2 blessing if you are just concerned about the bottom 20/14/whatever

Yeah, except that I have to account for the possibility that I'll draw a Griselbrand in an opening hand I otherwise wish to keep.  

Agreed, the only thing to note is that it is much easier to manipulate the cards in your hand and at the top of your library than those in the bottom 20.

Here are the probabilities with no library manipulation:
1   2   0.011104617   0.003545685   0.116666667   0.15                   0.116666667
2   1   0.022209234   0.00709137   0.011864407   0.020338983   0.229943503
3   0   0.033313852   0.010637054   0.001022794   0.002454705   0.304675628
2   0   0.107344633   0.051412429   0.011864407   0.020338983   0.229943503
1   1   0.053672316   0.025706215   0.116666667   0.15              0.116666667
1   0   0.333333333   0.233333333   0.116666667   0.15             0.116666667


The columns are:
[#grisel]   [#blessing]    [prob oath to <20]   [prob oath to < 14]   [prob all grisel's in opener]   [prob all grisel's in opener+first 2 draws] [prob at least 1 grisel in opener]