Okay so for Kaalia decks she just basically goes along with every mass destruction spell out there. Combo's with Nevinyrral's Disk extremely well. Tap, blow everything up on the board, and attack right on threw. Someone's played a land or two? Blow it up! No muss, no fuss. Would certainly make for an interesting general herself with an artifact/sorcery/blow up the world focus.
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Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
I tried to do a quick search through the thread, but alas, nothing turned up.
I was curious if anyone knows why Avacyn refers to herself in the ability (Avacyn, Angel of Hope and other permanents you control are indestructible.) whereas a card like Urabrask the Hidden does not refer to himself (Creatures you control have haste.)
The functional difference being that one is all permenants and one is creatures... other than that I can only assume that it was not something decided on for a specific reason. Just one of those things.
MaRo on his tumbler said it was purposeful. R&D is taking the stance to add functionally irrelevant things like that to cards (when deemed appropriate) just so that there is no confusion, so that for example, players aren't second-guessing whether or not Avacyn herself is a "permanent" or included in "permanents", despite how inherently obvious it might be to seasoned players.
This is how I feel about it: First off, I'm sad that an Angel that looks like that is mono-white. But I can understand it. But then I'm sad that the card is relatively bland, given that Avacyn is the creation of a relatively unique character. I think she's the biggest white creature printed to date, but nothing about Avacyn's character as I know it implies to me that the unique thing about her should be that she's freaking huge. And finally, I think it's kind of ridiculous that she falls prey to Fiend Hunter, Avacynian Priest, Bonds of Faith, etc.
Not sure I get why folks think she is boring. She's pretty unique in fact when you consider what else is available in mono W. I think she just needs pro black and she would be perfect flavour wise and a perfect mythic, notwithstanding her constructed playability, which (currently) is non-existent.
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There are 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't.
I will be picking up one foil... To sell in a year.
Indestructible is a very niche and unreliable ability, but it is something that on occasion is very good. On that occasion this will be a very pricy card to the Angel collectors hoggging, the general lack of availability from it being mythic, and it bring the face of the set adds a few bucks.
I intend to make between thirty and forty on this one. Before the price plummets right after.
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Lycanthropy Awareness Day.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Not sure I get why folks think she is boring. She's pretty unique in fact when you consider what else is available in mono W. I think she just needs pro black and she would be perfect flavour wise and a perfect mythic, notwithstanding her constructed playability, which (currently) is non-existent.
When I think "Angelic Guardian of an entire plane of existence, created by the sense of guilt and obligation of a hedonistic Vampire that can move between universes...who has also been trapped in a prison for quite a while with hordes of demons," I don't think "Mono White creature bigger than the Dragons on the plane (bigger than any other Mono White creature ever made in fact), with an ability tantamount to a souped-up Aegis Angel." Perhaps I'm being a bit too negative, but the card is unimpressive when compared to my expectations.
Why do people keep saying "big" like her power and toughness are representative of her size? She's the physical embodiment of a plane-wide spell powered by the collective faith of the vast majority of its populace. Do you want her to be a 4/4 like St. Traft's random guardian angel?
Tragic Slip is hurt that you did not consider its feelings.
I don't count Tragic Slip because having a Slip in your hand is not enough alone to deal with Avacyn, it requires other conditions to do more than stub her toe.
Why do people keep saying "big" like her power and toughness are representative of her size? She's the physical embodiment of a plane-wide spell powered by the collective faith of the vast majority of its populace. Do you want her to be a 4/4 like St. Traft's random guardian angel?
Why are Ludevic's Abomination and Withengar Unbound bigger than her, then? Are they more important/more powerful than Avacyn? Why can't the collective faith of the people as embodied in Avacyn take down a Skaab Goliath?
For quite a few creatures in the game, size is indicated through power and toughness. In this way, the average player who pays attention to flavor is trained to view power and toughness as indicative of size. Therefore, the answer to your question is yes, I would have no qualms with her being a 4/4.
Everyone who says they're disappointed, I'm curious. What were you expecting? Seems to me you had unreasonably high hopes for this bomb.
I'm willing to concede that I may have had unrealistic expectations, but these expectations stemmed from Avacyn's origins and fate in the storyline, along with Avacyn's artwork. If Avacyn had looked more like Reya Dawnbringer in her art and hadn't been created by a Vampire, I would expect the card to look as it does, except perhaps with a lower power and toughness. I couldn't tell you what I was expecting other than "Not a card that could have been printed as a generic mono white Angel that had no backstory." Again, it may just be me and my unrealistic expectations, but I feel like you could slap Deathless Angel's card name on Avacyn and it would make complete sense.
Everyone who says they're disappointed, I'm curious. What were you expecting? Seems to me you had unreasonably high hopes for this bomb.
I was expecting something more playable (6CMC range like certain other key angels, not 8 which is typically out of reach for white), something more relevant (there are so many ways around indestructible in the format it's not even funny), and something with better flavor and less "vanilla" mechanics (two Serra Angels duct-taped together does not an epic angel make). What exactly about that is unreasonable?
Everyone who says they're disappointed, I'm curious. What were you expecting? Seems to me you had unreasonably high hopes for this bomb.
I was actually expecting that she would have some ability related to the Helvault. (As she has access to it in the storyline)
(But maybe the incantation spell is a different card within the set. O_O )
Other than that, I find her current form is flavorful in it's own way.
- She's a protector of the human populace of Innistrad, hence the wholescale Indestructibility.
- She doesn't have protection from Black because she can be killed.
- She's the largest Angel by default because of her status.
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Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
I don't see her P/T indicative of her size because its largely irrelevant due to her indestructibility (e.g. she could be 8/1 and it wouldn't really matter combat wise). What I do think is cool is that a) she can smite much physically larger foes than herself and b) she can take a lot -/- counters before dying indicating a strong resilience to black effects. To me anyway the 8/8 makes sense.
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There are 10 types of people in this world, those that understand binary and those that don't.
Well, I don't really see your problem at all. Unique ability? Check. Yes, you can spread indestructable love via elspeth, though that's not all permenants. But speed wise, it takes time to build up elspeth, even after you play her. This is probably the most efficient mass indestructibility engine we're ever likely to see, since it's way easier to trick creatures into play than anything else. And she's a protector of the world, mass indestructible fits her just fine.
All in all what I'm hearing from you all is "She's not going to make my standard decks awesome" or an undercurrent of "Sorin made her, Y U NO MULTICOLOUR?!"
Here's why I call your expectations unreasonable. She was never going to elicit the kind of response emrakul got, no way they could push that envelope. And she was never going to be aggressively playable in a format that we were forewarned would be slow. So what was the biggest problem? They spoiled her first. We're all looking at this card and thinking of the standard metagame. She's clearly not built for that. They needed to show us most of the set before showing her to us so we could place her in her proper context.
Darksteel Forge makes a field (of artifacts, granted but still a field) indestructible, and two recent angels have had a similar-ish effect (Aegis and Deathless, respectively). The strength, I guess you could call it, of Avacyn's effect is unique, but it's been done before, to a lesser degree.
Lol, where the hell did you get Standard from my post? I don't give two flying ---- ----s about Standard, or Modern or anything like that :p. Yeah, I like multicolor creatures. I play EDH, so not being limited to mono-color or a non-related general (:symwb: legends = bleh right now) is nice.
1) RE: Emrakul, Pushing Envelope: I actually wasn't playing during WWK or RoE, so...cool story bro, no idea what you're talking about :p. And like I said, I never wanted her to be an angelic titan or anything, 'cause then she would probably cost way too much for me to ever get a copy.
2) RE: Aggressive, Playable, etc: Once again, I don't play Standard etc so half of that last paragraph doesn't seem to really apply.
3) RE: Metagame, Standard etc: That's the cool thing about EDH, is that pretty much the entirety of Magic is the proper context. New sets just add new goodies, instead of the weirdo money grabbing rotation everyone seems to be fond of. /shrug
But anyway, I was just posting my view on why I'm disappointed on Avacyn. I'm a little sad she isn't multicolor, and besides that, she's just a fairly plain creature. Flying and vigilance do not a unique card make. Darksteel Forge for your field is cool, but we've seen the general effect before, on angels no less, so she isn't terribly unique to me.
/shrug...but whatever helps you sleep at night, bro.
You say we've seen her ability before, on an angel, well enlighten me. Because I don't know which angel makes all your permanents indestrictuble. I like learning new things.
As many posters have highlighted before, Deathless Angel makes creatures indestructible. This is the general effect Sanity's_Eclipse was talking about.
You seem to like her okay but to this point: she built the helvault, and could use it to seal things in it.. but we already have the helvault, and its ability to seal stuff away. Why would Avacyn need to have an ability related to it?
Savor the Flavor says that legend says that the Helvault and Avacyn first appeared on the exact same day. Unless Avacyn builds objects extremely fast and was created with enough initial cognition to build stuff, I don't think she built the Helvault. (In the meantime, I hope Monday's article will reveal the Helvault's full origins--I am tired of speculating about where it comes from and who created/excavated it.)
Where from my post did you get that I was accusing you directly of caring about standard? Just because I addressed your comments last, doesn't mean everything below that section was aimed at you. The phrase "All in all" was meant to indicate to you that I was summing up a lot of information that I've seen in many forum posts. But since you eventually posted something relevant to the discussion, let's further it along.
Yes, you don't like that she's monocoloured. But I never once believed she would be multicoloured, and I never saw any reasonable explaination as to why people assumed she would be. What exactly was it that caused this? And comparing her to Darksteel Forge is a bit like comparing her to Terra Eternal. They all do only one part of her entire ability. You say we've seen her ability before, on an angel, well enlighten me. Because I don't know which angel makes all your permanents indestrictuble. I like learning new things.
You say we've seen her ability before, on an angel, well enlighten me. Because I don't know which angel makes all your permanents indestrictuble. I like learning new things.
The point is not that her exact text has appeared before, but that her mechanic is not "new". Avacyn is an Aegis Angel gone wild. It is true that she plays differently than anything else in the same vein - technically, the ability is unique - but the wailing of the discontented is not based on that. Our issue is that the ability is too close to other things we've seen before, whereas we were expecting something flashier. Compare the Praetor or Titan cycle: each of those have a novel ability or combination of abilities that makes them clearly stand out from anything else.
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"I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity."
~ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
The point is not that her exact text has appeared before, but that her mechanic is not "new". Avacyn is an Aegis Angel gone wild. It is true that she plays differently than anything else in the same vein - technically, the ability is unique - but the wailing of the discontented is not based on that. Our issue is that the ability is too close to other things we've seen before, whereas we were expecting something flashier. Compare the Praetor or Titan cycle: each of those have a novel ability or combination of abilities that makes them clearly stand out from anything else.
Technically, we've seen stuff similar to Elesh Norn's abilities on Crovax, Ascendant Hero. Norn just turned "nonwhite" into "creatures your opponents control".
I like Avacyn. Will she see alot of play? maybe not. But she lived up to what I've loved about the whole block Flavor! Shes a protector and she fills that role very well. I have an EHD deck that she will be perfect for.
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“There are no weak Jews. I am descended from those who wrestle angels and kill giants. We were chosen by God. You were chosen by a pathetic little man who can't seem to grow a full mustache"
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
I don't quite get this point of view. What we know about Avacyn is that she was created to protect humanity, that she was an angel. The card we got fits this theme just fine. There's really no way to compare the artwork with you I guess, that's far too subjective. I like it okay but you and others don't seem as interested.
All in all what I'm hearing from you all is "She's not going to make my standard decks awesome" or an undercurrent of "Sorin made her, Y U NO MULTICOLOUR?!"
Here's why I call your expectations unreasonable. She was never going to elicit the kind of response emrakul got, no way they could push that envelope. And she was never going to be aggressively playable in a format that we were forewarned would be slow. So what was the biggest problem? They spoiled her first. We're all looking at this card and thinking of the standard metagame. She's clearly not built for that. They needed to show us most of the set before showing her to us so we could place her in her proper context.
This is my point of view. We know more than that Avacyn is an angel, created to protect humanity. Hell--"The Guardian Angel" is so hacknyed at this point that I'm surprised that you're satisfied with a card that shows only that part of Avacyn, given that she's supposed to be important and not just a trope. We know that Avacyn is an angel created by one of the monsters that she is sworn to protect humanity from--in fact, one of the most powerful of those monsters on the plane created her. Not only this, but she has been missing for quite a while because she's been imprisoned with the very monsters she has been protecting humanity from. And finally, Avacyn's art is depicting someone who looks like they just walked out of a HIM concert. I'll admit that the last part is subjective (since you seem to at the least imply that the artwork depicts someone you would consider to be wholly pure at first glance); however, my point is that her origin story, her previous whereabouts, and her attire imply to me that she's not a normal angel, so my assumption was to expect something a little bit darker out of Avacyn. Are you telling me that all of this aforementioned set up should lead up to a creature that could literally have it's card name interchangeable with half of the creatures in the game with the creature type Angel? You can make fun of the opinion all you want, but "Sorin made her" makes the fact that she's just not that special into a valid complaint. She's special, but not "This couldn't possibly be called Deathless Angel instead" special, and that's where she fails with me.
I wasn't expecting anything cuckoo-bonkers powerful like Emrakul--I just wanted something I considered unique or interesting. Still, if we're going to talk about that, my opinion is that she doesn't push any Envelope other than "The Size of Mono-White Creatures," which frankly seems like a strange thing to push on Avacyn, because nothing about her story as I know it implies that she's supposed to be huge.
I can understand that our opinions differ, and there's nothing wrong with that. For all of my complaints, it's not as if I feel like this card commits some sort of sin against me or anything. I'm just kind of disappointed.
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Sever the Bloodline, as well.
Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.
Individualities may form communities, but it is institutions alone that can create a nation.
Nothing succeeds like the appearance of success.
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.
Tragic Slip is hurt that you did not consider its feelings.
Standard: W/R Aggro
MaRo on his tumbler said it was purposeful. R&D is taking the stance to add functionally irrelevant things like that to cards (when deemed appropriate) just so that there is no confusion, so that for example, players aren't second-guessing whether or not Avacyn herself is a "permanent" or included in "permanents", despite how inherently obvious it might be to seasoned players.
Tiamat, Chromatic Dragon RWUBG
Planeswalker - Tiamat
[+1] Sit on Nicol Bolas
[+0] Wait for him to beg for mercy, rule the multiverse.
[-7] Not necessary, she is the ultimate.
Indestructible is a very niche and unreliable ability, but it is something that on occasion is very good. On that occasion this will be a very pricy card to the Angel collectors hoggging, the general lack of availability from it being mythic, and it bring the face of the set adds a few bucks.
I intend to make between thirty and forty on this one. Before the price plummets right after.
Hoping for a cure, or at least an outbreak.
Level 1 Judge (yay)
When I think "Angelic Guardian of an entire plane of existence, created by the sense of guilt and obligation of a hedonistic Vampire that can move between universes...who has also been trapped in a prison for quite a while with hordes of demons," I don't think "Mono White creature bigger than the Dragons on the plane (bigger than any other Mono White creature ever made in fact), with an ability tantamount to a souped-up Aegis Angel." Perhaps I'm being a bit too negative, but the card is unimpressive when compared to my expectations.
Standard: W/R Aggro
I don't count Tragic Slip because having a Slip in your hand is not enough alone to deal with Avacyn, it requires other conditions to do more than stub her toe.
Why are Ludevic's Abomination and Withengar Unbound bigger than her, then? Are they more important/more powerful than Avacyn? Why can't the collective faith of the people as embodied in Avacyn take down a Skaab Goliath?
For quite a few creatures in the game, size is indicated through power and toughness. In this way, the average player who pays attention to flavor is trained to view power and toughness as indicative of size. Therefore, the answer to your question is yes, I would have no qualms with her being a 4/4.
I'm willing to concede that I may have had unrealistic expectations, but these expectations stemmed from Avacyn's origins and fate in the storyline, along with Avacyn's artwork. If Avacyn had looked more like Reya Dawnbringer in her art and hadn't been created by a Vampire, I would expect the card to look as it does, except perhaps with a lower power and toughness. I couldn't tell you what I was expecting other than "Not a card that could have been printed as a generic mono white Angel that had no backstory." Again, it may just be me and my unrealistic expectations, but I feel like you could slap Deathless Angel's card name on Avacyn and it would make complete sense.
I was expecting something more playable (6CMC range like certain other key angels, not 8 which is typically out of reach for white), something more relevant (there are so many ways around indestructible in the format it's not even funny), and something with better flavor and less "vanilla" mechanics (two Serra Angels duct-taped together does not an epic angel make). What exactly about that is unreasonable?
I was actually expecting that she would have some ability related to the Helvault. (As she has access to it in the storyline)
(But maybe the incantation spell is a different card within the set. O_O )
Other than that, I find her current form is flavorful in it's own way.
- She's a protector of the human populace of Innistrad, hence the wholescale Indestructibility.
- She doesn't have protection from Black because she can be killed.
- She's the largest Angel by default because of her status.
Serra Stan - Angel Enthusiast - Garruk and Tyvar thirsty follower - Flavor and Art Enthusiast
I refer you to my post in the Poll thread on Avacyn, here: http://forums.mtgsalvation.com/showpost.php?p=8178012&postcount=92
--- Meren of Clan Nel Toth --- Jhoira of the Ghitu --- Prime Speaker Zegana ---
--- Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief --- Ghoulcaller Gisa --- Akroma, Angel of Fury --- Titania, Protector of Argoth ---
Avacyn, Angel of Hope does 8 damage to Sorin, Lord of Innistrad, destroying him.
Wouldn't that be ironic.
GGG [Primer] Omnath, Big Green Beatstick Machine GGG
Tiamat, Chromatic Dragon RWUBG
Planeswalker - Tiamat
[+1] Sit on Nicol Bolas
[+0] Wait for him to beg for mercy, rule the multiverse.
[-7] Not necessary, she is the ultimate.
Darksteel Forge makes a field (of artifacts, granted but still a field) indestructible, and two recent angels have had a similar-ish effect (Aegis and Deathless, respectively). The strength, I guess you could call it, of Avacyn's effect is unique, but it's been done before, to a lesser degree.
Lol, where the hell did you get Standard from my post? I don't give two flying ---- ----s about Standard, or Modern or anything like that :p. Yeah, I like multicolor creatures. I play EDH, so not being limited to mono-color or a non-related general (:symwb: legends = bleh right now) is nice.
1) RE: Emrakul, Pushing Envelope: I actually wasn't playing during WWK or RoE, so...cool story bro, no idea what you're talking about :p. And like I said, I never wanted her to be an angelic titan or anything, 'cause then she would probably cost way too much for me to ever get a copy.
2) RE: Aggressive, Playable, etc: Once again, I don't play Standard etc so half of that last paragraph doesn't seem to really apply.
3) RE: Metagame, Standard etc: That's the cool thing about EDH, is that pretty much the entirety of Magic is the proper context. New sets just add new goodies, instead of the weirdo money grabbing rotation everyone seems to be fond of. /shrug
But anyway, I was just posting my view on why I'm disappointed on Avacyn. I'm a little sad she isn't multicolor, and besides that, she's just a fairly plain creature. Flying and vigilance do not a unique card make. Darksteel Forge for your field is cool, but we've seen the general effect before, on angels no less, so she isn't terribly unique to me.
/shrug...but whatever helps you sleep at night, bro.
--- Meren of Clan Nel Toth --- Jhoira of the Ghitu --- Prime Speaker Zegana ---
--- Drana, Kalastria Bloodchief --- Ghoulcaller Gisa --- Akroma, Angel of Fury --- Titania, Protector of Argoth ---
Swing with kaalia, drop her down, prevent Kaalia from dieing, and then Obliterate, and laugh maniacally as everyones field evaporates besides yours..
Seems way to fun, flavorful and effective NOT to throw in there.
As many posters have highlighted before, Deathless Angel makes creatures indestructible. This is the general effect Sanity's_Eclipse was talking about.
Savor the Flavor says that legend says that the Helvault and Avacyn first appeared on the exact same day. Unless Avacyn builds objects extremely fast and was created with enough initial cognition to build stuff, I don't think she built the Helvault. (In the meantime, I hope Monday's article will reveal the Helvault's full origins--I am tired of speculating about where it comes from and who created/excavated it.)
There are 63 angels (white only) prior to AVR.
Indomitable Archangel gives your artifacts shroud if you have 3 or more.
Aside from that, there's one other angel that for double white makes another creature indestructible that turn.
But there are no angels, at least white only, that give all other creatures
indestructibility.
~ Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Technically, we've seen stuff similar to Elesh Norn's abilities on Crovax, Ascendant Hero. Norn just turned "nonwhite" into "creatures your opponents control".
"You can tell how dumb someone is by how they use Mary Sue"
This is my point of view. We know more than that Avacyn is an angel, created to protect humanity. Hell--"The Guardian Angel" is so hacknyed at this point that I'm surprised that you're satisfied with a card that shows only that part of Avacyn, given that she's supposed to be important and not just a trope. We know that Avacyn is an angel created by one of the monsters that she is sworn to protect humanity from--in fact, one of the most powerful of those monsters on the plane created her. Not only this, but she has been missing for quite a while because she's been imprisoned with the very monsters she has been protecting humanity from. And finally, Avacyn's art is depicting someone who looks like they just walked out of a HIM concert. I'll admit that the last part is subjective (since you seem to at the least imply that the artwork depicts someone you would consider to be wholly pure at first glance); however, my point is that her origin story, her previous whereabouts, and her attire imply to me that she's not a normal angel, so my assumption was to expect something a little bit darker out of Avacyn. Are you telling me that all of this aforementioned set up should lead up to a creature that could literally have it's card name interchangeable with half of the creatures in the game with the creature type Angel? You can make fun of the opinion all you want, but "Sorin made her" makes the fact that she's just not that special into a valid complaint. She's special, but not "This couldn't possibly be called Deathless Angel instead" special, and that's where she fails with me.
I wasn't expecting anything cuckoo-bonkers powerful like Emrakul--I just wanted something I considered unique or interesting. Still, if we're going to talk about that, my opinion is that she doesn't push any Envelope other than "The Size of Mono-White Creatures," which frankly seems like a strange thing to push on Avacyn, because nothing about her story as I know it implies that she's supposed to be huge.
I can understand that our opinions differ, and there's nothing wrong with that. For all of my complaints, it's not as if I feel like this card commits some sort of sin against me or anything. I'm just kind of disappointed.