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What cards will we see from Avacyn in top level decks? I'm betting Mad Prohpet will see some serious play, as will the red and blue planeswalkers. The Time Warp esque spell might see some play too. 

Of the miracles, Temporal Mastery , Terminus , Devestation Tide , Bonfire of the Damned stand the best chance to see tournament play.  The first of these will likely see extensive play in eternal formats, where it is much easier to manipulate the top card of your library, while the all three will probably see varying degrees of standard play.  I'd bank on Temporal Mastery being restricted in Vintage (since it's basically a Time Walk in the format) and banned in Legacy (since it's basically a Time Walk in the format).  Terminus and Reforge the Soul might see some standard play, but it's a bit iffy.

Angel of Jubilation might see some play in White Weenie decks.  Restoration Angel will probably see play in various Pod decks.

Avacyn , Griselbrand and Gisela will be perfectly viable reanimation targets after New Phyrexia rotates.  The other options right now are significantly better, although Avacyn seems like the new Akroma (both kill 4 turns after they hit the battlefield and are immune to the vast majority of removal that they would face).

Sigarda is so obviously powerful I can't imagine that she won't see play.  I'm not sure a deck currently exists for her, so it will be interesting to see what she goes into (my guess is that we'll start seeing Bant Delver lists).

Because of the threat of Ratchet Bomb being in every deck, token-based decks probably won't see extensive play until after New Phyrexia rotates.  But - boy howdy! - when it does Tokens will have some SWEET tools to work with.  Township Tokens will get Champion of Lambholt as a (soon to be) fat finisher that prevents your tokens from being blocked.  Hellrider tokens get Thatcher Revolt .  / Bant tokens now have Favorable Winds , which is Crusade effect 9-12 (as powerful as this is, though, other options will probably prove to be better).  Entreat the Angels will probably see play as a 1-2 of and Cathar's Crusade will probably be about the same.

Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded will probably be everywhere for a month or two, with everybody and his grandmother trying to make the guy work.  I honestly don't think that he's going to pan out as universally as people think that he will (his first ability just ruins any chance of that) and I think that eventually he will be dropped except from RDW sideboards (to side in against heavy control) and MAYBE reanimator decks (the random discard won't hurt them so badly and the second ability is still goo against heavy control decks).

With Desolate Lighthouse , I can see Delver lists and control decks popping up.  It's such an incredibly good ability for a land.  Likewise, if we start seeing humans (now a distinct possibility), I'm sure that both Slayer's Stronghold and Kessig Malcontents will begin popping up as well.

Other cards that stand to be pretty good are Pillar of Flame (particularly if Unearth becomes ore prevalent), Hound of Griselbrand , Dangerous Wager (ie, instant Divinition -- probably will see play in both RDW and Frites), Human Frailty (anti-Human sideboards), [c]Barter in Blood (more likely in post-rotation control decks), Appetite for Brains (probably more post-rotation, but it seems good enough to warrant inclusion in control decks), Tamiyo, the Moon Sage , Misthollow Griffin (in Legacy Food Chain decks alongside Glimpse of Nature and Brain Freeze ), Silverblade Paladin (in White Weenie / Human lists), maybe Defy Death (if post-rotation reanimator lists start reanimating angels more often than not... probably not) and obviously Cavern of Souls (in every format it's ever legal in).  Post rotation, all of the blinking effects stand to make a sort of ramshackle replacement for the currrent Pod decks.

I don't think that Avacyn Restored will be as low-impact of a set as people are claiming that it will be, but I fully admit that the majority of its imppact won't be felt until post-rotation.  Blink decks ( ), Token decks ( , , , ) and reanimator decks (targetting something from Innistrad block) probably won't really shine until Scars of Mirrodin's out of the picture.  Incidentally, I feel that stands to be a VERY popular color combination, as it would give reanimator decks the option to hardcast their bombs in the event of a longer game (plus they'd  have access red's looting effects and both halves of Lingering Souls / Unburial Rites ) and token decks would have access to everything from Hellrider to Lingering Souls .

Apr 25, 2012 -- 9:54AM, MadAdmiral wrote:

This isn't going to happen.  It takes a lot of work to set up a miracle, and just the right kind of deck to take full advantage of the extra turn.  I could see a deck like RUG Delver running it as a 2- or 3-of, since they can take advantage of the extra attack step.  Outside of that, they're not going to see much play.

It takes a decent amount of work to set one up, yes, but keep in mind most of the time you don't need to.  If you draw it for a miracle, you can use it.  If you have it rotting in your hand, just throw it back with Brainstorm or Jace, the Mind Sculptor and miracle it later.  It's not like those cards aren't going to be used a lot.