The Devil and the Littlest Frost Titan.

So it's spoiler season and Avacyn Restored is a pretty phenomenal set, even at 25% spoiled every card seems over the top and impressive across the board, kudos to wotc for this one. This is something that will be compared to other impressive third sets like Urza's Destiny or Apocalypse. I'm very excited about this one especially with Grand Prix Los Angeles around the corner. I thought I would take some time to talk about the planeswalkers and how they really are breaking new ground.

I'm the kinda person that would follow the color wheel, or the set number, or any number of things that would make me examine Tamiyo first, but I believe that the stigma Tibalt portrays would actual cause you to read only half of this week's blog as he is so obscure that most of came to a conclusion.

So

RR
Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded

Planeswalker - Tibalt
+1: Draw a card, then discard a card at random.
-4: Tibalt, the Fiend-Blooded deals damage equal to the number of cards in target player's hand to that player.
-6: Gain control of all creatures until end of turn. Untap them. They gain haste until end of turn.
Illus. Peter Mohrbacher #161/244 2

Because he fits the proper curve for rdw doesn't necessarily mean that's where he belongs. At turn 2, on the draw, the only way to successfully attack him and drop him requires a champion of the parish and 2 triggers, something that a lot of decks wouldn't want to see right away. As a planeswalker that can't defend himself this worst case scenario makes him a fog that would allow a control or midrange deck the extra turn against the agro match ups. This is red's wall of omens when it's a bad play. Now, when it goes unchecked it starts fueling decks like frites or u/r delver which seems to be assembling. His ultimate is something that may not be used often but not many walkers can without the proper set up, at RR it is very likely that our first devil walker will for lack of a better word threaten his opposition to draw the attention his way. As more miracles are spoiled remember to check back on Tibalt, I wouldn't cram them all into a deck but there may be a place for reforge the souls, possibly Temporal Mastery.

So from there we look at a card that a lot of people are on the fence about.

Tamiyo, the Moon Sage

Planeswalker - Tamiyo

+1: Tap target permanent. It doesn't untap during its controller's next untap step.
-2: Draw a card for each tapped creature target player controls.
-8: You get an emblem with "You have no maximum hand size" and "Whenever a card is put into your graveyard from anywhere, you may return it to your hand."
Illus. Eric Deschamps #79/244 4

This is a frost titan that cost 5 that is a hella lot harder to kill. The 5 drop puts it at a disadvantage in certain situations, much like JTMS was back during its release, you wouldn't want to put it in danger with the potential of a small army of jund creatures and I can say the same now with Tamiyo. Tamiyo isn't Jace. I would say when Jace was fair, I'm sure that's a hard statement to take in, Tamiyo comes damn close, her only folly is the extra 1 mana, but if any of you remember Gideon had the same kinda critiques against him. When you look at both of these walkers it's best to ignore the ultimates as they aren't very impressive in comparison to others, but the first 2 abilities are simply amazing in the right decks.

These are both fair, well designed walkers, which still means that you have to 2 for 1 them, last time I checked that was called card advantage.