Hey OS I see in your article you called Resolute Archangel crap. Do you think it's worth having in this deck?
I'd be inclined to sometimes call cards crap when that's a deliberate oversimplification. I mean it to be a terse sort of comment, as I don't have time for nuance. In the case of Resolute Archangel, I didn't actually say that the card was crap, though. I said that it costs seven mana. There's a reason that I emphasize that point, but it might not be possible to glean from that review. I had more explanation behind my though process when I reviewed
Born of the Gods, but I didn't include that information in later reviews, although I do think that I probably should (I'll have to remember that for next time). Anyway, the gist of it is that when I review a new set, I'm making a cursory survey of possible combo fun times, but I'm also evaluating each individual card with regard to the long term. That's because how good a card is depends on context. The most extreme example of this is exemplified in this comic:
Resolute Archangel is probably great in Limited formats, as they tend to be slow-paced and decks can't get too efficient. Late game often comes down to racing for a win with attack-step damage, and Resolute Archangel is practically a cheat in those circumstances. You know, we've gotten each other low and you're easily going to have enough damage that I can't block to kill me on your next turn, but I drop Resolute Archangel and gain 16 life or whatever. I've seen that very thing happen. It's probably a well-known phenomenon among draft players. But it's not just an issue of Constructed vs. Limited. That is merely the most obvious and widely known stark contrast between environments. There are all sorts of environments: Standard, Modern, Legacy, Vintage, Commander, Two-Headed Giant, Grand Melee, Peasant, Wizard's Tower, and so on. Even the most casual of environments can have incredible variance: picture the difference between a casual playgroup of generally new players who only have newer cards and a casual playgroup of veterans who have been playing Magic since the 90's and have extensive collections. I can't evaluate new cards under the lens of every environment out there because it's impossible, and the market is saturated with people who can do a better job than I can of evaluating them under what have become the most prominent lenses (Booster drafts and competitive Standard). So I aim to do something more general. I evaluate cards with the the long term in mind. In the
Born of the Gods review, I called it "relevance beyond Standard" or something. There are plenty of cards that, because they're being placed in a constrained pool of cards that is used for deckbuilding in Magic's most prominent format, will be Standard-relevant and therefore "good" cards. But will they stand the test of time? Resolute Archangel probably won't be Standard-relevant, as it's rather expensive. But it will be a powerhouse in Limited formats and people will want to use it for hijinks in casual gameplay, at least until the novelty wears off. Then time marches on. M15 will stop being used in Limited formats (for the most part), the set will be replaced by a new core set and will rotate out of Standard, the players who used the card will lose interest and move on to other things or will acquire better cards and upgrade their decks. Eventually, while it won't stop existing and people will be free to use it in their casual decks, Resolute Archangel will fade into obscurity. Nothing wrong with that. It happens to most cards.
Well, that's a rough description of the focus I'm using to evaluate new cards. In the more particular case of Resolute Archangel, I emphasized mana cost because it's pretty typical for Wizards of the Coast to come out with a new card that does something powerful, but with such a high mana cost that the card is, on the whole, underwhelming. Resolute Archangel potentially provides some life gain (although it's very strictly capped) and then does nothing else but sit around as a 4/4 flying creature. I deem that to be an unworthy use of seven mana when there are so many ways to do game-breaking things with so much mana.
As for Resolute Archangel in a flicker-focused deck, it depends. That EtB trigger is primarily a defensive ability, and if you can reuse it to keep yourself alive and that actually works, you probably had enough board control to keep yourself alive anyway, and possibly use something else to kill or cripple an opponent. Frost Titan, for example, could have a much greater impact for you. I do think that you could probably get away with cutting Resolute Archangel from your deck, although it really all depends on what you want your deck to do. Oh, and exploiting Resolute Archangel's EtB ability with flicker effects could be hilarious in a deck that can pay life as a cost for activated abilities and such. That's different from what you're running now, but it could be pretty cool. It doesn't need to be Yawgmoth's Bargain, although that would certainly do something...
