I think Avacyn Restored’s advertised set themes are stupid. This is in part because I don’t care one bit about the trite plot. Oh, look: Some big angels came and rescued everything, and somewhere in there, you have some miracles that sometimes happen, with the main miracle being that you got value out of overcosted spells! As someone with little use for stories, the branding of this set and the bulk of spoiled cards to go with it left me bored.

Then, the full spoiler went up, and to my complete surprise, I liked several cards in the set. R&D designed (or I guess D’d?) a bunch of things I want to throw into decks without telling me until the last minute. It’s like a Helvault for weird rares or something.

So, what’s caught my eye this spoiler season? Well, besides that bird on my face (Ow! Stop pecking my eye!), these cards.

Terminus

A lot’s changed since Hallowed Burial was printed. There’s a different President, I live across the country, and green gained synergy with mass tuck. One of these affects deck building.

I’m fiddling with a G/W/r control list for Standard involving Garruk Relentless, Gideon Jura, Elesh Norn, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight (my favorite card from the set), and who knows what at the cheap end. If I’m including Garruk while not in Unburial Rites colors, Terminus makes more sense for that deck than Day of Judgment. If Garruk’s working the night shift, I can Terminus and make a deathtouch Wolf, then sacrifice it next turn to retrieve the best creature I tucked. That ought to be useful regardless of format.

Deadeye Navigator

All the Navigator requires is some creature you want to Flicker. Do you want to protect your commander? Do you want to turn the triggered abilities of Acidic Slime, Angel of Despair, Mulldrifter, or Nekrataal into activated abilities for ? Do you want to steal a creature as booty, soulbond the Navigator to your booty, and Flicker the booty to keep it permanently? (All the Flicker effects in Avacyn Restored return things to your control rather than its owner’s control; this is almost unheard of). Do you want me to stop using the word booty? The Navigator lets you do all of these things.

I’m working on a deck for a friend who wants to use the new set themes on the cheap while playing something powerful in its volatility. The early version looks like this:

"I’ll Have What You’re Having"

• Creatures (28)
• 2 Deadeye Navigator
• 3 Goblin Flectomancer
• 3 Tyrant of Discord
• 4 Augury Owl
• 4 Dominus of Fealty
• 4 Sea Gate Oracle
• 4 Zealous Conscripts
• 4 Braids, Conjurer Adept

• Spells (8)
• 4 Ghostly Flicker
• 4 Peel from Reality

• Lands (24)
• 24 Lands

Buy This Deck

The deck centers around Braids as a lure for opponents to lay out their best cards, at which point you steal them and sometimes keep them. Tyrant of Discord—a creature begging for Flicker effects—is great to accelerate into with Braids, but the others are fine as well. Navigator’s only a 2-of because of curve considerations, but it’s silly with most creatures in here. can represent scry 3 (Augury Owl), Sleight of Hand (Sea Gate Oracle), stealing a permanent (Zealous Conscripts), or destroying random permanents (Tyrant of Discord). It takes so little to make Deadeye Navigator good.

In Commander, Navigator gets sillier. My Soramaro deck doesn’t have many enters-the-battlefield effects, but it does have a lot of Aura-based stealing to the point that I wouldn’t mind Flickering in response to enchantment destruction. The biggest combo, however, and the main reason I want to squeeze in the Navigator if possible, is with Floodgate. Floodgate is one of the reasons I love playing Big Blue, if that’s an archetype, as it can wipe the board effectively with destruction or bounce. You can add Deadeye Navigator to the list, as it makes for the best synergy.

My lands are all Islands in that deck. With eight Islands, Floodgate, and Navigator, I can cast the Navigator and Flicker the Floodgate once. That’s 4 damage to nonblue nonflyers. Next turn, I can Flicker Floodgate four times for a total of 16 damage. Should anyone wish to destroy either part, I’ll respond with the combo anyway.

You’ll use Navigator in a deck someday. Pick them up on the cheap now. They’re never going to be expensive, but I see this as a Commander staple for clever players.

Scrapskin Drake

Yes, I have something to say on a Cloud Elemental. Have you tried to build anything with Innistrad Zombies outside black? It’s virtually impossible. The blue ones are generally either really small (Screeching Skaab, Armored Skaab) or require dead creatures (Stitched Drake and friends). Scrapskin Drake has neither drawback. As such, it’s perfect for curving into Undead Alchemist.

Apologies for making my second deck discussion U/R, but it just so happens that Scrapskin Drake is exactly what this deck wanted:

"Isleback Slogger"

• Creatures (22)
• 1 Mirror-Mad Phantasm
• 2 Geralf's Mindcrusher
• 3 Isleback Spawn
• 4 Arc-Slogger
• 4 Armored Skaab
• 4 Scrapskin Drake
• 4 Undead Alchemist

• Spells (14)
• 3 Demoralize
• 3 Electrolyze
• 4 Careful Study
• 4 Faithless Looting

• Lands (24)
• 10 Mountain
• 14 Island

Buy This Deck

Taking advantage of the Faithless Looting/Careful Study combo for consistency, deck thinning, and threshold, the idealized kill is with unblockable Isleback Spawns. Looting and Arc-Slogger cut your library down to size while giving you other advantages. The backup plan and early defense is blue Zombies, Armored Skaab synergizing with your deck thinning as well. Undead Alchemist enables those Zombies to shrink someone else’s library to twenty cards should you want to make an 8/16 Isleback Spawn that way. I didn’t want to be the milling deck for myself or others, so I wanted to hit a middle ground where milling was for damage, and this is the closest I could come.

You couldn’t build with this consistency before Scrapskin Drake. You could put in Stitched Drake and hope something died. You could play Screeching Skaab. But the maximum value from Undead Alchemist is when you have something to swing with right after you cast Alchemist, and Stitched Drake rarely can do that on time while Screeching Skaab is unlikely to hit anyone. Strange as it may sound, Scrapskin Drake fills an important role in decks like this. Nonblack Zombies didn’t have something good to do at that spot, and now they do.

Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Elesh Norn has most of the advantages over Gisela, but the difference is closer than Gisela’s prerelease price would have you believe. In casual, it gains points for encouraging opponents to kill each other by doubling all their damage, something Elesh Norn slows down. I don’t play much R/W since so much of the overlap is on combat, but Gisela could convince me to play any color combination in existence. She’s that good.

The Watch List

Given how much functional overlap is available in Magic’s history, most of what I look for in a new set is unique or rarely seen abilities; after that, I look for abilities not normally found at a given rarity or in a given color. These break the mold and are groundbreaking. They break moldy ground.

Goldnight Commander – It’s an uncommon, semi-scalable Glorious Anthem in three relevant tribes and that gets its own bonus. They gave this one maximum playability, and at some point, you’ll have a deck that wants this.

Devastation Tide – There hasn’t been a sorcery with this precise effect, never mind as a miracle. In regular multiplayer, I prefer this, while in Commander, I prefer Kederekt Leviathan, but it should be fine in both arenas. It’s cheaper than the Leviathan regardless of miracle, and if you get the miracle off on a turn when it’s useful, then you’re golden.

Elgaud Shieldmate – This is the Darksteel Plate of hexproof. And like Darksteel Plate, it’s going to be supremely annoying.

Corpse Traders – Joining Entomber Exarch, it’s among the few Coercion effects that lets you force a land discard, which is sweet when it matters.

Unhallowed Pact – This is False Demise in black as a common. What’s not to like? I’ve played False Demise in a few decks, and black’s an intriguing place to put the ability.

Rite of Ruin – The reprinted Barter in Blood costs and always maxes out at two creatures. For 3 more mana, you get to hit four more permanents per person, and you get to tweak the card according to your immediate needs. My Radha Commander deck runs no artifacts so it can hate on everyone else’s, and this card is perfect for when there aren’t many artifacts on the board—I can make it tertiary to hate more on creatures and lands. There are splashier plays, but red rarely gets to control its plays this effectively.

Druids' Repository – This is the closest Magic’s come to another Radha, Heir to Keld. I assume the typical fawning over this card is from rampophiles, but don’t forget that, like Radha, this helps fuel activated abilities.

Lair Delve – In many decks, it’s a green Divination. That’s gotta count for something.

Ulvenwald Tracker – Any creature that’s wanted to deal damage has its enabler. In set, you can pair it with black cards Dread Slaver, Griselbrand, or Harvester of Souls for a cackling sort of fun. Out of set, Magebane Armor plus almost any creature ever works out. Animar, Soul of Elements seems particularly happy with the Tracker, as Animar can fight a white or black creature without breaking a sweat. Whether building with a specific creature or a way to shore up the principal weakness of U/G, the Tracker’s a winner.

Conjurer's Closet – Combining the new Flicker style with an artifact opens up several options. The most obvious ones are in blue—Merieke Ri Berit got even better—but anything’s fair game. Even Reaper King would like a closet.

Vessel of Endless Rest – If you’re using Manalith in Commander, you might as well switch to this. Graveyards increase in importance seemingly daily, and this is an easy upgrade to resist the trend.

Conclusion

There’s more value to this set than I expected. Soulbond and favorable Flickering can upgrade your existing decks or become deck themes, while there are several cards that give excellent depth in Commander. The set wasn’t marketed with me in mind, but they certainly designed things I like. If I had to choose one, it would be the latter every time.