Flicker Soulbond

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Happy Friday MTG peeps,

As is is Friday, head on over to your local games store to take in the Friday Night Magic event.  Unfortunately, we can't get out tonight to our local gamery HQ, OMG! Games here in Barrie, Ontario but plan to make up for it with several games over the course of the weekend.  Anywhoos - Today we're just doing some catch-up and looking back on some Avacyn Restored items of interest we brushed over too briefly.

In Avacyn Restored, we can flicker soulbond creatures to renew bonds or create new ones altogether. The interaction between these two set themes is going to create a lot of exciting Limited matches.  When you "flicker" a permanent, it's treated as a new card that just entered the battlefield. This can do a lot of interesting things for you.

• Any counters that it had on it, such as +1/+1 counters from undying, will go away (unless the permanent ordinarily enters the battlefield with counters on it, like Djinn of Wishes does).
   
• Any Auras enchanting the permanent will be put into their owners' graveyards, and any Equipment attached to a creature that gets flickered will "fall off." This can be useful if one of your creatures is enchanted with something nasty like Pacifism.
   
• If you're able to flicker something as an instant—like Cloudshift does—then any other spells that were targeting that permanent will be countered on resolution. If it's a creature, it will also be removed from combat. Any creatures it was blocking are still blocked, but it won't deal or receive combat damage, and it's no longer an attacking or blocking creature.
   
• Any "enters the battlefield" abilities it has, as well as any other abilities that trigger when a creature enters the battlefield, will trigger. This includes soulbond abilities—both its own and others—so you can use Cloudshift to suddenly switch up your soulbond pairings, even in the middle of combat!

The Avacyn Restored cards spoiled / previewed so far . . .

FLICKER
White : Cloudshift, Restoration Angel
Blue : Ghostly Flicker, Nephalia Smuggler
Artifact : Conjuring Cabinet

SOULBOND
White : Silverblade Paladin
Blue : Stern Mentor, Tandem Lookout, Wingcrafter
Red : Lightning Mauler, Stonewright
Green : Geistcatchers, Guardian of the Cursed Grave, Nightshade Peddler, Trailblazer Wurm, Trusty Forcemage, Wolfir Silverheart

Now - some random comments which we thought were worth noting . . .

Telastyn : Soulbound itself is best abused by instant speed bounce or flash effects. Having the paladin under a mimic vat quickly makes all combat in your favor for example.

mindequalsblown : Souldbound is an ability that relies on you having two creatures resolved and intact for a while to benefit.

Arcaia : personally I would go Boros with Lightning Mauler and Paladin. Swinging for 8 turn 3 sounds like a good idea to me.
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