Archangel Avacyn and Thing in the Ice
To begin with, let us all bend the knee to friend of the ‘cast Christine Sprankle as a blood soaked Archangel Avacyn:
ALL SHALL BE PURIFIED! #GPDetroit #MTGSOI pic.twitter.com/7AeFm7VzD0
— Spranklcyn (@cspranklerun) March 6, 2016
Well, at least Patrick is bending the knee 🙂
Okay!
Serious Business!
Here are some sweet Transform cards from Shadows Over Innistrad:
Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier
In its natural form, Archangel Avacyn is like a Serra Angel with upside.
In addition to its natural state as a 4/4 vigilant flyer for five mana, this hot new card has flash. That means that if you are a Draw-Go style Control player, you will not be required to risk mana on your own turn to play your endgame threat. You can sit back with permission mana open and wait and see.
But wait, there’s more!
Any flash creature has the ability to Simian Grunts the opponent during combat. We have talked for several weeks now how 2/3 and 3/3 creatures are collectively the dominant tempo-oriented force in Standard… Archangel Avacyn dropping by during combat is great for eating those kinds of creatures. Except…
She and all your other creatures become indestructible, too! Now you can talk about fighting 4/4 creatures successfully, too.
How about the Christine Sprankle flip-side?
Remember what we said just a paragraph or so ago about 2/3 and 3/3 creatures? Sorry Reflector Mage! Avacyn, the Purifier is going to be an amazing, possibly format-warping, new card!
At the very least, think about ticking up your Gideon to five loyalty against five open mana. Otherwise, Avacyn might just purify him.
Thing in the Ice // Awoken Horror
Mike’s favorite card (so far) from Shadows Over Innistrad is Thing in the Ice. A 0/4 creature for two mana is eminently serviceable for self-defense… And this one becomes, in Patrick’s parlance “a blue Tarmogoyf”:
… As if a Tarmogoyf can reasonably expect to be 7/8 like Awoken Horror.
These sweet flip cards are joined by red and Rakdos beatdown; and the return of the Madness mechanic in “Archangel Avacyn and Thing in the Ice”: