Warning: Spoilers!
How good is Glorious Anthem? The three-mana enchantment has seen a lot of play over the years, sometimes in White Weenie, other times in token-based strategies. Honor of the Pure is obviously fantastic, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to power up your Avacyn’s Pilgrim, your Wolf Tokens, and your Blade Splicer Golem. How good would Glorious Anthem be today? Honor of the Pure and Intangible Virtue are both fine cards. In fact, Intangible Virtue has just been banned in Block. Lingering Souls is fairly obvious (at this point), but how scared must Wizards of the Coast be to ban Intangible Virtue?
Anyone that has experimented with Innistrad Block Constructed over the past few months is sure to have noticed just how much play Hellrider sees in primarily white decks. Why? With no Hero of Bladehold, White Weenie and token-based strategies are in need of a four-drop that can just take over the game, rewarding them for playing so many guys. Hellrider is hard to cast, but the effect is much desired.
What if there was another way?
Avacyn Restored preview season is in high gear, centering on an Angels vs. Demons conflict. The Angels of Avacyn Restored seem to be relatively big fliers with good additional abilities that are often disruptive to Demons. The Demons seem to be about sacrificial offerings. Today’s preview card is a tool for the Angels to use to prevent the Demons from doing what they do best…
… Of course, it’s also a potent four-drop enabler for White Weenie and token-based strategies:
Angel of Jubilation is the latest four-drop to vie for some time in the spotlight in the aforementioned archetypes. How good is +1/+1 to all of your (non-black) creatures? Well, it’s like a Hellrider, except that it makes your guys win fights against opposing creatures better (both buffing power and toughness), it buffs your team even when it doesn’t attack (giving your opponent a chance to kill it), plus it even works on defense (unlike Hellrider).
But wait! What about haste?
That’s true; this white creature doesn’t have haste. Very astute observation. It also doesn’t buff itself, leading to one less damage than Hellrider. That said, it does have flying instead, which isn’t as good, but it’s also not too shabby an ability itself. In creature matchups, Hellrider is probably dying the first time he gets into serious combat. Angel of Jubilation can just fly over the top instead!
Ahh, but surely the catch is the casting cost! You can’t just run around playing cards that cost triple white, can you?
In Block, Hellrider is supported primarily by Clifftop Retreat, though Evolving Wilds is also legal if you’re desperate. The trick is there are no other red creatures that you really want to use. The buffing is great for white creatures. Well, what if you didn’t play red? Splashing red for a double red card is tricky, but playing mono-white is trivially easy. Alright, we see a major advantage.
What if you want to splash? After all, removal can be valuable. No problem, compare the following Hellrider mana base to the Angel of Jubilation mana base:
4 Clifftop Retreat
2 Evolving Wilds
10 Plains
8 Mountain
4 Clifftop Retreat
2 Evolving Wilds
4 Mountain
14 Plains
The second mana base will actually let you play turn 4 Angel of Jubilation more often than the first will let you play turn 4 Hellrider. Additionally, it opens up a lot more turn 1 Champion of the Parish or Doomed Travelers. Besides, it’s hardly a done deal that red is the best color to splash in a white deck. It’s a little sad that Angel of Jubilation and Sorin don’t work well together, but they’re both four-drops and it’s easy to be on some one-or-the-other time.
This isn’t a Block-only card, of course. Where does it (who can tell with Angels?) fit into Standard? Well, it does have to compete with Hero of Bladehold, but it does have a little bit “hastier” of an ability as it immediately increases your damage equal to your creatures in play. Also, Hero of Bladehold doesn’t have much longer for this format. Besides, Standard is a format where the flying ability of Angel of Jubilation could come in very handy. She flies over stalled out boards but also blocks Lingering Souls and Moorland Haunt tokens.
Speaking of, is it possible that we’ll see a new breed of white-based Spirits deck? Drogskol Captain, Angel of Jubilation, and Phantasmal Image make for a lot of flying Lords. Add Lingering Souls to the mix, and we’re talking about a serious flying armada. One area of Avacyn Restored to keep a close eye on is whether or not there is a playable one- or two-drop Spirit in blue, white, or black.
Another possible home for Jubilee is in some sort of a mid-speed White Weenie. What if you had Hero of Bladehold and Angel of Jubilation? They certainly work well together. You don’t need to play four of each, since six four-drops sounds a bit more palatable these days. They are both firmly in the “Baneslayer” school of sweet rare, meaning that while Doom Blade is good against each one, the more you play the more likely Doom Blade guy is to eventually run out of Blades.
What about Tempered Steel? It doesn’t work with Vault Skirge, but it buffs the rest of your guys and plays into the flying theme. How about G/W Tokens? What about W/b Tokens in place of Sorin?
It should be noted that Angel of Jubilation does have an additional ability. Its ability to shut down sacrifice and life-payment already has fringe applications, but seeing as those are the two primary themes of Demons in this set we’re likely to see quite a few more. Depending on how good of Demonic cards there are in Avacyn Restored, it even has chances of showing up in a sort of pseudo-Linvala role. It won’t shut down nearly as many cards, but it does Crusade your team to help make up for it! It may not be as broad as Linvala, but it will surely come up more than Baneslayer’s protection from abilities, which definitely came up once in a while.
It’s amusing that it “shuts down” Necropotence, Yawgmoth’s Bargain, Force of Will, and more. In particular, the Necropotence ability jumps out at me, leading me to wonder about a Necropotence variant in Avacyn Restored. Most likely, Griselbrand and his ability to pay seven life to draw seven cards (when Angel of Jubilation isn’t in play!) is the Necropotence throwback that this card suggests exists. Of course, I’m not sure it would take a miracle for WotC to want to make another, more Necro-ish card now or in the year to come (perhaps with a mana activation involved…)
But wait! Isn’t it just a 3/3 flier for four!? Sure, but so was Emeria Angel! Being three toughness is a lot less of a liability in the world where everyone plays Shocks and Lightning Bolt isn’t legal. Does Angel of Jubilation have as good of synergies available as fetchlands plus Emeria Angel? Maybe not, but then again, Lingering Souls does have a lot of synergy with it…
How many places will Angel of Jubilation end up making a home in? It’s too early to tell for sure. She is a “dies to everything creature,” but she does have a big impact on the board immediately. She does have a restrictive cost, but this is a pretty good time for exploring white heavy creature decks. She may end up having funny applications in casual formats, but for Constructed she is a probable role-player that will win enough games to help make it even more important for people to actually remove creatures. Between all the new soulbond creatures and all of the other new creatures that have powerful effects on the board, it’s becoming a very dangerous format to not have some amount of removal. Of course, rely too heavily on removal and you’re opening yourself up to control decks, planeswalkers, and hexproof threats.
Avacyn Restored previews are starting to come rapidly. Pro Tour Avacyn Restored in Barcelona is shaping up to be very interesting…
Patrick Chapin
“The Innovator”