Everyone is comparing Avacyn Restored to Core Set formats, but to me this Draft format is even more straightforward than most of those. Magic 2011 Draft specifically had a lot of intricacy with scry that allowed for interesting control decks to form. Avacyn Restored has almost no card draw and no removal. Welcome to the on board format, and here is how I’ve started approaching it with reasonable success.

My Default Pick Order

1. Generic Limited Bombs

Examples: Demonic Rising, Goldnight Redeemer, Cathars’ Crusade

2. Removal That Kills Everything

Examples: Mist Raven, Death Wind, Into the Void, Thunderous Wrath

Not Examples: Pillar of Flame, Defang (usually), Spectral Prison

3. Every Creature You Would Ever Want to Play

In general, prioritize two- and three-drops.

4. Spells

The important direction is bolded for emphasis.

There’s a ton of spells in this format that do varying levels of relevant things. The issue is that beyond a select few, they are all very situational and as such fairly interchangeable. You can set up to milk value out of a Terrifying Presence the same as you could with a Fleeting Distraction the same as you can with a Joint Assault. There isn’t a significant power level increase among most of them in context of the format, so there’s no reason to use your early picks on the ones other people overvalue rather than take what you see late.

Instead, what’s more important is just curving out. The creatures are all strong, even more so due to soulbond, and the spells aren’t good at reversing board states so just hitting your drops is often enough to push very far ahead in a game. The two- and three-drops are all sizable or have great abilities and the mid-drops aren’t too far ahead of them, so there is a real advantage to always hitting them. Even if your opponent has a four- or five-drop to go "over the top," it isn’t going to be much larger. Even if you aren’t trying to attack, remember average creatures are often the best removal for average creatures. If they curve out, your control deck can just match their curve but have the end game on lock.

The other reason for highly valuing creatures is occasional scarcity issues. There can be a shortage of playables in Avacyn Restored Draft for whatever reasons. It isn’t assured, but due to odd print runs people often start fighting their neighbors over colors. If you take creatures highly, your disaster decks turn out to look much better than their counterparts just because you are doing things while they aren’t. They will flood out on situational spells; you will flood out on the board.

Once you hit a reasonable amount of creatures, this can be eased a bit. I would feel comfortable down valuing them with seven or eight playable ones in pack 1 and fourteen or so after pack 2. But when in doubt, take the dude. Ideally, you should end with sixteen to eighteen if not more.

Now that we’re done with the main point, obviously you take bombs over everything. The examples I listed were mainly to alert people to just how insane a few cards are that I’ve seen circle a bit too far. Everyone knows you windmill slam Tamiyo, Entreat the Angels, or Bonfire of the Damned, but these cards don’t get quite enough respect.

You know how wild people are going over Homicidal Seclusion? Demonic Rising is the more resilient cousin of that card. You don’t get hurt nearly as bad by removal and are only mildly worse off in combat comparing the additional 5/5 to the lifelink.

Goldnight Redeemer is a card that gets the appropriate respect on generic pick order, but I think people don’t realize exactly how insane it is because it doesn’t have the gold symbol other cards on the same power level do. You gain a million and a 4/4 flying goes over the "standard" size of 3/3 that other Angels have.

Cathars’ Crusade turns off a lot of people as a five-drop, but seriously. This card just takes over games. "What if I’m not holding a creature?" Well, draw one or you should have held one. "If you spend a turn tapping five mana to do nothing you should have won." You play Amass the Components almost every time. Let’s get real here: this card is easily worth more than a draw two.

Now that we’ve cleared the blueprint, let’s get to the specifics:

White

-White has significant bleed between control and aggro. On one end you have all the giant Angels; on the other you have Goldnight Commander and two 2/x two-drops. It’s fine to have a six-drop Angel in your aggro decks and you want two-drops in the mono-Angel decks, but just be aware of this and try to keep focused.

-Don’t be ashamed to play an Angelic Wall or Cathedral Sanctifier in the Angel deck. All you need is something that provides good blocks.

–Call to Serve is the first in a large group of cards I’m going to bring up that are terrible against blue but great elsewhere. Bad Spectral Flight is much better in a format of almost no removal, and to put things into context this makes any two-drop an Angel. I know I’ve been schooled by a Thraben Valiant pulling a mini-Serra Angel and have Visara’d people out with Falkenrath Exterminator with a pair of wings. Just remember: nonblack.

–Defang ranges greatly in value depending on deck. Be aware how much you want to attack and how good your guys are at breaking through an effective 0/x blocker. I’ve slammed this as true removal in some decks and shipped it on the wheel in others.

–Righteous Blow is actually reasonably close in power level to a low-drop in the big white decks, as the main purpose of your random bodies is to trade with theirs. Blow does that and hits things like Latch Seeker that might get around your blockers.

Blue

-Blue has one two-drop creature in this set. It is a 1/1. Keep this in mind when drafting and realize that often blue will be the support color in your deck because of this. You can’t fill out a curve with Islands. That said, Wingcrafter is a boss and is almost worthy of two-drop power status. Only issue is that he can’t fight.

-Getting Mist Ravened (or Into the Voided) is absolutely miserable. As I alluded to above, there are a ton of cards in the set that are good unless they get Mist Ravened. We all know these cards are good, but they are even better than the good you ascribe to them. Mist Raven also gets exponentially more miserable to play against in multiples.

–Infinite Reflection is yet another bomb. It gets shipped around for no reason, but remember a few things here: there is basically no instant speed removal to two-for-one you on it, you can target their guys so whatever your team becomes is automatically the best thing out there, you can always just Overrun or Falter with it and an evasion guy, and finally your team is locked in once the spell resolves. Notice the trigger that turns them into Clones; it is not a continuous effect. Even if your opponent manages to remove the aura, you still have a bunch of upgraded creatures in play.

-Seriously, that’s what I’ve got on blue. The color is very shallow, even if it does have the best common.

Black

-People really don’t like this color, and I have no clue why. It’s actually pretty awesome. I think the reason for people avoid the color is that it didn’t have a lot of obvious early picks at first, but as people start to realize how good certain cards are I expect it to pick up significantly. It isn’t nearly as shallow as people make it out to be, especially as at the least you can put Death Wind heads up with Mist Raven and argue those two colors are at least as shallow.

-Let’s just double up on that last point. In the first ten drafts I did of the format, I actually was in black more than any other color. This was incidental.

–Crypt Creeper is very meh. There’s a lot of random 1/1s floating around that make him fairly embarrassing, and unlike the white and red Goblin Pikers he has no upside and no significant aggro backing in the color. Definitely playable but also definitely a 23rd/24th card.

-So that leaves Butcher Ghoul as the only real common two-drop, but why am I not criticizing the color for this like I did blue? Well, Butcher Ghoul fights and combos with all your other cards. Alchemist’s Apprentice just likes to chump block.

–Treacherous Pit-Dweller is much better than you would expect. First of all, list the ways he is actually going to die outside of combat. There aren’t many. If you don’t want him to undying their way, you just don’t fight with him and the vast majority of the time he won’t. The other thing is that Bloodflow Connoisseur works very well with the fact that the change of control is a trigger. When he comes back from the graveyard, just sacrifice him to the Connoisseur and turn him from a 4/3 with a drawback for two to a 4/3 for two that Battlegrowths your guy when he dies.

–Essence Harvest is secretly good. How often have you played with Lava Axe? This one costs three. Soul Feast used to be actually good as well. As long as you can reliably do this for four or more life, you are getting good value. Black alone has a lot of ways to do this: Bloodflow Connoisseur, Demonic Taskmaster, Evernight Shade, and a bunch of five- and six-drops. I tend to play this most often as a green card however in what is basically G/B Dinosaurs. It isn’t quite as good as it was in Scars Draft as the opposing creatures are actually in range of gang blocking and you have worse removal and combat tricks, but the ability to drain people out from absurdly high numbers is a totally new angle. Vorstclaw and Yew Spirit look a lot better when you can pull over a ten-point life swing with them through blockers.

–Demonlord of Ashmouth. Bomb level against not Mist Raven, unplayable against it. Welcome to the format.

–Driver of the Dead is a linchpin of red/black. Load up on red creatures up the curve and use black removal to kill the things that would stop you. Driver helps level up Bloodflow Connoisseur as an end game and provides you with more things to Bone Splinters at value, which can be an issue when all your two-drops would rather be in the red zone then the bin. It also can help keep Kruin Striker going strong through the midgame. The card is also good on a deck dependent level outside of this archetype, but it truly shines here.

–Dread Slaver. Someone joked about how happy they would be with Thraben Purebloods in this format. Jokes on them, it is. This card actually never triggers.

–Polluted Dead is just a Sea Snidd. Why does no one have respect for that?

–Grave Exchange is pretty much an archetype of its own. You try to get around thirteen creatures and ten removal or card draw and just kill everything they do before riding a Renegade Demon to victory. Grave Exchange always comes around super late along with Ghoulflesh, and the two combine to eat through almost any team. Just make sure you have enough guys that die to target with Grave Exchange. Alchemist’s Apprentice is usually the optimal one especially as this deck really wants Amass the Components, but the other colors are also options. Just don’t mix Defang or Spectral Prison with this card.

Red

–Hanweir Lancer is the best red common. Not Pillar of Flame, Hanweir Lancer. Let’s start with the problem with Pillar: it doesn’t kill any of the stuff that actually bricks your team. All it kills are things that trade with your two-drops. Seraph of Dawn is still going to kill you. Lancer breaks through the same wall of x/2s but also adds a body to the board. If they just have nothing in the way, I would rather have the 2/2 than the Shock. If they have something in the way, I would probably still rather blank their card and be up on board than trade for their small guy. And if they have something big in the way, Lancer can bond up and hold it off for a bit or help you try to race if it is a Seraph. Fervent Cathar might also be better than Pillar as it actually does break through a big dude.

–Falkenrath Exterminator is fine but surprisingly unexciting outside of red/blue. Red is all about red zoning, and a 1/1 doesn’t fight well. If you have access to bounce spells, Wingcrafters, and Ghostforms, it gets much better.

–Scalding Devil, on the other hand, does much more work. Instead of having to set up for the card with specific game states, you just attack and Devils kicks in. I wouldn’t overload on it as it’s still a 1/1 for two, but the card is perfectly fine.

Green

-I don’t think people in any format have yet to properly appreciate Abundant Growth. You can just freeroll splashes in Limited off of this and Borderland Ranger. 9/7/1 mana bases can easily support double secondary color spells and the splash.

-On the subject of splashes, Defang is a good green card. You are more shorted on removal than everyone else, have the means to easily cast it as your only white spell, need the slight speed bump before your high-drops get online, and most of your creatures should break through random creatures enchanted with it.

–Timberland Guide and Borderland Ranger both sacrifice very well to Bone Splinters. Just saying, black has lots of secret friends.

–Druid’s Familiar is almost unbeatable. I once considered it against Entreat the Angels very closely and I’m not sure the mythic was the right pick.

–Flowering Lumberknot is viable at seven or eight soulbond creatures. It also gets worse in multiples, as it is harder to have enough things to pair with them all and easier to draw them both and flood on blanks. I would play two, but three would require around ten or eleven soulbond creatures.

–Geist Trappers bricks the entire world. Keep this in mind with the big green decks. This will be how you stabilize the board.

-One artifact deserves special mention in my opinion: Haunted Guardian. People really dislike this guy, but he blocks hard. If your deck wants that kind of body, he will do the job very well. I’ve seen him sidelined way too often in decks that need the defender.

Even despite the "reduced complexity" of Avacyn Restored Draft, I really like most of the format. In general games are interesting and involve lots of choices regarding spell timing and combat, and there are a lot of interesting board states to analyze. Though the number of events it will be relevant at is fairly limited, I’m excited to play it on Magic Online as often as my Constructed Daily Event proceeds allow.

Until next time, may your opponents’ decks always have zero Mist Ravens.