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Talking about Milignus you said "Not that a Cephalid Life deck is that common even in formats where the ability to gain near-infinite life is legal, but... how awesome is it that red now has a tool to come right back in two swings?"

I'm not 100% sure what you meant but it sounded like you were saying this gives red a card to come back against a deck that can go infinite and gain a ton of life. Lets say that they go up to a small number like one million life. Then the first swing knocks them down to 500k, the second to 250k and so on so that it takes like 14 or so swings just to get them down to around 30 life. Of course if you have 2 of these out then gg but otherwise you are going to be swinging with him forever while the rest of your cards are pointless. 

My short list for the best cards in Avacyn Restored (go get 'em):

• Cavern of Souls
• Thunderous Wrath
• Griselbrand
• Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded
• Restoration Angel

It's worth noting that Temporal Mastery is at best a turn *three* Explore, rather than turn two (unless you open with e.g. Birds of Paradise and it doesn't get killed).  A lot of early analyses make this mistake and overvalue Miracle cards a bit as a result.

Also, I think Thunderous Wrath is being overestimated.  It's great in RDW-style decks that are happy to toss it at the opponent's head if it's topdecked on turn 2 and don't have much else to do with their mana by the time they reach 6, but it's a lot more questionable in a midrange deck with Titans (like the one recently reviewed by Gavin Verhey).

Apr 25, 2012 -- 10:26PM, Fireballmage wrote:

Well, after this, I expect the price of Tibalt to go up. :-( I was hoping to snag a few copies when it gets cheap, but that might take a while...

And yeah, I disagree with Mike. I think Tibalt isn't going to find a place for himself in the new standard; maybe after rotation, but not until then.

I don't play much Standard, so take this with a grain of salt.   Red looting (discard first) is thematically/flavorfully great, but I always have a bad feeling I'm going to downgrade.  Unless I'm intentionally loading my graveyard, it feels like gambling. 

With Tibalt's cost, I'm probably playing mono red (or nearly mono red if there is sufficient mana-fixing).

Turn 2- I tap out and I MIGHT get a better card or bin a card that has value in the graveyard.  Loyalty is 3.
Turn 3- Assuming the opponent didnt take out Tibalt, I can again gamble on getting a better card.  Loyalty up to 4.
Turn 4- Now Tibalt can actually affect the board.  At this point, Tibalt is essentially a Sudden Impact.  

Essentially I paid RR to "Suspend" a Sudden Impact for 2 turns.  It's worse thann suspending a Sudden Impact because 1) the enemy could destroy/damage TIbalt before it gets to this stage, 2) it activates at sorcery speed, not instant and 3) Tibalt is less splashable than Sudden Impact. 

Does the looting effect make it worth it?  I suppose it depends on what you've drawn.  If you have a handful of subpar cards that you dont mind trading, it's useful. But why would you keep that hand?  Why would you construct that deck? 

Tibalt has to work with intentional graveyard use, so flashback and recursion are a plus.  But that also leans toward multicolor decks, which makes casting Tibalt on Turn 2 harder.  If I'm playing red, I'd rather have the consistency of an Incinerate. 

I think Tibalt is more useful in later rounds as a way to employ a couple of extra mana ina cheap RDW deck.  I would like to hear from someone more familiar with Standard about Tibalt's value as a second spell on turn 5.  By that point RDW may be operating off topdeck and you really are looking for specific cards i.e. those last few points of burn.  At that point, red looting is great because I throw away unnecessary lands, utility spells looking for burn.  Essentially, Tibalt's +1 ability is "draw, if you don't like it, try again.