With the Standard Pro Tour Qualifier season coming up with the release of Avacyn Restored, it's very clear the landscape has been shaken up with the release of many powerful cards.

Ramp

One of these powerful cards is Cavern of Souls. With its release, Ramp is clearly the deck to beat, and here is the list I've been tinkering with:

"R/G Cavern Ramp"

• Creatures (15)
• 1 Acidic Slime
• 1 Birds of Paradise
• 1 Huntmaster of the Fells
• 4 Inferno Titan
• 4 Primeval Titan
• 4 Solemn Simulacrum

• Spells (20)
• 3 Beast Within
• 2 Bonfire of the Damned
• 3 Slagstorm
• 4 Green Sun's Zenith
• 4 Rampant Growth
• 4 Sphere of the Suns

• Lands (26)
• 3 Mountain
• 6 Forest
• 2 Kessig Wolf Run
• 3 Inkmoth Nexus
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Copperline Gorge
• 4 Rootbound Crag

• Sideboard (15)
• 2 Combust
• 2 Naturalize
• 1 Karn Liberated
• 4 Glimmerpost
• 2 Ulvenwald Tracker
• 3 Pillar of Flame
• 1 Ghost Quarter

Buy This Deck

Bonfire of the Damned is a scalable Slagstorm and sometimes a Devil's Play if you are fortunate to draw it in the late game (which is why it is only a two-of). Beast Within is a nod to the uptick in the number of other ramp decks.

Ulvenwald Tracker seems like a great way to fight opposing weenie creatures in combination with a Titan or even a Solemn Simulacrum. Pillar of Flame is an efficient answer to many small creatures, including Geralf's Messenger and Strangleroot Geist. Glimmerpost is not necessary for most Game 1s if we expect an uptick in the number of ramp decks, but it is worth having access to in boarded games.

It is also still worth considering Devil's Play over one Bonfire of the Damned since it is still two cards in one and a great way to burn out any control deck—you can nickel and dime the control player reliably with your creatures now.

Zombies

Another deck that also gains a lot from Cavern of Souls is U/B Zombies.

I've been working on this one for a bit, and it shows great potential:

"U/B Zombie Souls"

• Creatures (24)
• 2 Highborn Ghoul
• 4 Diregraf Captain
• 4 Diregraf Ghoul
• 4 Geralf's Messenger
• 4 Gravecrawler
• 4 Phantasmal Image
• 2 Phyrexian Metamorph

• Spells (13)
• 4 Go for the Throat
• 4 Tragic Slip
• 2 Sword of Feast and Famine
• 3 Mortarpod

• Lands (23)
• 11 Swamp
• 4 Cavern of Souls
• 4 Darkslick Shores
• 4 Drowned Catacomb

• Sideboard (15)
• 3 Phyrexian Obliterator
• 3 Act of Aggression
• 1 Mortarpod
• 2 Sword of War and Peace
• 4 Distress
• 2 Ratchet Bomb

Buy This Deck

With Cavern of Souls, you now have twelve blue sources to enable those creatures. You always want to hold Cavern of Souls as long as possible to get more information about what creature type you need to name (Illusion for Phantasmal Image if you don’t have Catacomb or Shores, Shapeshifter for Phyrexian Metamorph, and Zombie for everything else). It is possible that Crypt Creeper or Barter in Blood belong somewhere in the seventy-five—each fills a very specific role.

However, Cavern of Souls is not without its costs. For example, you could play the list I found last week (the Zombie-Pod list) updated with Cavern of Souls, since it is essentially U/B Zombies splashing for Birthing Pod. Then, Swamp is the most obvious cut, but it puts you to only seven Swamps for four Drowned Catacomb and four Woodland Cemetery.

I also managed to play some Limited with Avacyn Restored these past few days, and here are my thoughts:

White seems to be by far the best color, with some premier commons being Seraph of Dawn and Defang. Defang is also sort of a double-edged sword—if you put it on a large creature, the opponent will essentially have a great wall for the rest of the game, but if you have enough evasive guys, this is not an issue. Zealous Strike and Cloudshift were both very good tricks.

Blue seems to be the second-best color, with some of the best commons being Gryff Vanguard and Mist Raven. These also play very well with Ghostly Flicker and Peel from Reality.

Red also seems reasonable, although the traditional strengths of red and black are both diminished to a degree here (being the flagship colors of removal spells). I wouldn’t be surprised if Kruin Striker turned out to be quite strong as a creature to punish slower strategies. Heirs of Stromkirk is a threat that can quickly get out of control. Mad Prophet is great as a Merfolk Looter variant.

There are some unexpected surprises awaiting us in this Draft format. For instance, I did see a local player draft a Dreadwaters control deck (U/B) alongside Otherworld Atlas. While it may not be correct to try to do this every Draft, he certainly took his opponents by surprise.

I appreciate any comments you might have, either here in the comments section or on Twitter @jkyu06.

P.S. In the last few weeks, I found some more amusing quotes for your enjoyment: