Barcelona Block

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Happy Monday MTG peeps,

We all know that MTG Realm is a casual Magic the Gathering blog, but we cannot help ourselves to see what those Magic the Gathering pro-players are doing from time to time, especially after a set release like Avacyn Restored.  Anywhoos, this past weekend, pro-players descended upon Barcelona, Spain to participate in the Pro Tour Avacyn Restored tournament, which featured Avacyn Restored booster draft and Top 8 Innistrad-Avacyn Restored Block Constructed format.

Fellow Canadian Alexander Hayne (associated with Mana-Deprived) built a deck featuring 16 of the new 'miracle' cards and battled other well-known Magic players like Jon Finkel, Joshua Cho, and Gaudenis Vidugiris to take the title of Pro Tour champion.  You can see all the Top 8 Decklists HERE.  What we here at MTG Realm are interested in is what, if any, impact this latest tournament may make on standard constructed and more specifically, what should we expect of the metagame at our local store during Friday Night Magic events.

We think the following article, 'Top 5 Cards of Pro Tour Avacyn Restored', may provide some insight and evaluation of the fresh new cards we've received with the last set and suggest you give it a read.  We are certainly not surprised that Wolfir Silverheart made this Top 5 list - there was an incredible 22 copies in the top eight decklists.  Since the Avacyn Restored spoilers wrapped up, we've been itching to construct a build with Wolfir Silverheart and Champion of Lambholt.  What we were surprised about was the popularity of 'Miracle' mechanic cards.  Only a crystal ball will give us foresight as to whether its popularity in block constructed will transplant into standard constructed.

Righto - let's have a look at their Top 5 picks now.  We've supplemented this list with comments from the Gatherer card database.

#5 : Mist Raven
•  Love this guy. Probably the best blue common in the set. Potential first pick in a draft. Bouncers are always good, and paying an extra Blue to give a Man-o'-War flying? Sold. 5/5. Posted By: Mickacabra
•  So adding 1 gives a Man-o' War or an Aether Adept flying? Not bad at all, and another abusable ETB creature.
On a more facetious note, looks like we now have Storm Crow, Tempest Owl, and Mist Raven... I like the raven. Ravens are awesome. Posted By: Trygon_Predator
•  This card is a lot of fun with Conjurer's Closet.  Posted By: arfentul

#4 : Borderland Ranger
•  Okay on its own, really good with blink effects. Cloudshift him if you have the mana and need land.  Posted By: SyntheticDreamer
•  He's back! And when Ravnica comes back, his brother Civic Wayfinder will join the standard crowd!  Posted By: Binaro
 
#3 : Bonfire of the Damned
•  The cost isn't that expensive if you think about Bonfire's ideal targets. The only time you'd want to sweep the board is when there are many creatures, which often time are weenies with 1~2 toughness. Wildfire was a successful deck type utilizing heavy artifact mana and achieves 6+ mana by turn 2~4, the same could be applied here.  Posted By: Cyberium
•  This is an interesting one - I think it will basically be cast for its miracle cost whenever it can. There are few incentives to hold this card longer because it takes a lot of extra mana at most points to make more out of it and at the very least it's a Blaze on your opponent.  Posted By: djflo
•  This card will see a ton of play. One sided board wipes are Uzra's days status. And in a burn deck, this card is just too good not to play.  Posted By: MindEcho

#2 : Temporal Mastery
•  This thing is going to be so annoying with Brainstorm... And to be quite honest, I'm very surprised that they decided to bring back Time Walk. That card really is the last card I'd expect to see reprinted. Oh well, at least they found a way to balance it out better.  Posted By: Binaro
•  Barring drawing this one turn 1 or 2, at worst its an Explore for blue. How is that bad? If you draw it on turn 4 with a Delver and Geist in play, you can swing for 9 damage, untap, swing for 9 again. How is that bad?  Sure it might be "situational", if you mean its only good 95% of the time.  Posted By: Scormio

#1 : Wolfir Silverheart
•  Pair with another Wolfir Silverheart. Double 12/12's. Get some evasion on them and game is yours.  Posted By: TheWallinator74
•  Outrageous in limited. I'd imagine he'd be crazy in standard as well, paired with Invisible Stalker or Latch Seeker.  Posted By: nopemx6
•  The combo of choice for me is Wolfir Silverheart & Champion of Lambholt.  If the champion was out first (which it should be) you now have an 8/8 and a 5/5, which can't be blocked by anything with less than 5 power. And really, you ought to have brought out a few creatures once Champion of Lambholt is out, so realistically it's more like a pair of 8/8s which are more or less unblockable.  Posted By: ElCarl

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Finally,
Since we are rather focused on Top X lists today, here, from the folks over at MTG Mint Card are the ten most sold single cards . . .
1. Huntmaster of the Fells / Ravager of the Fells
2. Kessig Wolf Run
3. Hellrider
4. Delver of Secrets / Insectile Aberration
5. Forbidden Alchemy
6. Drogskol Captain
7. Tragic Slip
8. Intangible Virtue
9. Skaab Ruinator
10. Dungeon Geists
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