The spring release season has sprung into high gear, and as always I’m here to guide you through to the best of my meager abilities. This spring’s Magic release is Avacyn Restored: a standalone large set that continues the story of Innistrad and Dark Ascension but with a somewhat lighter tone. The Archangel Avacyn has been released from her moon-silver prison and along with her human allies is once again pushing back against the things that go “bump” in the night. After two sets of seeing the humans on the ropes, and two other blocks with less than happy endings, we’re fighting back and winning against the forces of evil. Good times.
To help sell this theme, several new mechanics have been introduced, most notably Soulbond (Banding 2.0) and Miracle. Soulbond is a spiritual successor to banding. If you are unfamiliar with banding…good. It along with Bands with Other is one of the clunkiest mechanics in Magic. For those interested, this is the official rules text of Banding: Banding (Any creatures with banding, and up to one without, can attack in a band. Bands are blocked as a group. If any creatures with banding you control are blocking or being blocked by a creature, you divide that creature’s combat damage, not its controller, among any of the creatures it’s being blocked by or is blocking.) See? It’s simple, really. Yeah…nuts to that. The idea behind banding is nifty; creatures work together to attack you opponent. It is great in theory, and this time around R&D managed to take that idea and make it work with Soulbond.
Soulbond lets players “pair” two creatures up to give them both some sort of bonus. It’s a little complex the first time someone sees it, but it quickly becomes intuitive and easy to use. And very easy to use to great effect. My pre-release deck was Red/Blue Soulbond and it was a blast to play with…when I wasn’t having mana issues.
- Wingcrafter x 1
- Somberwald Vigilante x 1
- Lightning Mauler x 1
- Kruin Striker x 1
- Haunted Guardian x 1
- Latch Seeker x 1
- Scrapskin Drake x 1
- Riot Ringleader x 2
- Hanweir Lancer x 1
- Fervent Cathar x 1
- Kessig Malcontents x 1
- Elgaud Shieldmate x 1
- Havengul Vampire x 1
- Heirs of Stromkirk x 1
- Deadeye Navigator x 1
- Pillar of Flame x 1
- Bladed Bracers x 1
- Thunderbolt x 1
- Tormentor’s Trident x 1
- Mass Appeal x 1
- Crippling Chill x 1
- Devastation Tide x 1
- Burn at the Stake x 1
- Island x 7
- Mountain x 9
You’ll notice if you go through my deck on gatherer.wizards.com that I have one other extremely interesting card in there. It’s called “Devastation Tide.” The first thing you’ll likely notice is its funky card frame. Shortly followed by this nifty little word: “Miracle.” This is the second thematic mechanic of the set. The mechanic represents the last minute save of Innistrad at the hands of Miss. Avacyn. While I’m absolutely in love with Soulbond, I am still on the fence about Miracle. What it allows you to do is play the card instantly and at a cheaper cost if it’s the first card you draw on a turn. Now, I may be a little biased since during the pre-release I was the on receiving end of Miracles and was not once able to cast mine for its reduced cost, but while I think they are nifty and flavorful cards I think they fail in one important respect.
It seems like Miracles fail the “net fun” test. This is one of the tests used and touted by Magic’s R&D and Mark Rosewater, lead designer of Magic. The card has to raise the Net Fun of the players. It can’t make one player miserable and one player extremely happy. These would be things like heavy counter decks, or white aura lock down decks packed full with Pacifisms and Arrests. One side has all of the fun while the other is left to languish. And that was my experience with Miracles at the prerelease; I was blown out by them more often than I ever got any effectiveness out of mine. This could just be an artifact of Sealed tournaments, and the problem will resolve itself in constructed and draft environments. I hope it does. I have big hopes for the Miracle mechanic. I can’t wait to add like a billion Miracle cards to my EDH/Commander decks, but if they continue to feel unfair and one-sided I may have to rethink them. I’ll keep an eye on Miracle-based blowouts throughout this release season to see how they measure up in the long run.
Mechanics aside, the pre-release was a great event. Not only did we hit our hard cap of 108 players but everyone seemed to enjoy the set and have a lot of fun with it. This was compounded by the addition of the special Helvaults. We received two of these super-secret promotions, so our store was able to give out tons of other free goodies in addition to our usual spectacular prize support. Our little silver boxes held a number of wonders, including silver spindown lifecounters, oversized cards of the Avacyn Restored’s legendary creatures, and a unique angel/demon double-sided token card. Everyone enjoyed getting a chance to pop open the Helvaults’ seals and share the sweet plunder nested inside. Overall it was one of our most successful prereleases yet. I can only hope the Midnight Draft and the Release Party go as well. Until then.
