Tag Archives: Christine Sprankle

Archangel Avacyn and Thing in the Ice

To begin with, let us all bend the knee to friend of the ‘cast Christine Sprankle as a blood soaked Archangel Avacyn:

Well, at least Patrick is bending the knee 🙂

Okay!

Serious Business!

Here are some sweet Transform cards from Shadows Over Innistrad:

Archangel Avacyn // Avacyn, the Purifier

Archangel Avacyn

In its natural form, Archangel Avacyn is like a Serra Angel with upside.

In addition to its natural state as a 4/4 vigilant flyer for five mana, this hot new card has flash. That means that if you are a Draw-Go style Control player, you will not be required to risk mana on your own turn to play your endgame threat. You can sit back with permission mana open and wait and see.

But wait, there’s more!

Any flash creature has the ability to Simian Grunts the opponent during combat. We have talked for several weeks now how 2/3 and 3/3 creatures are collectively the dominant tempo-oriented force in Standard… Archangel Avacyn dropping by during combat is great for eating those kinds of creatures. Except…

She and all your other creatures become indestructible, too! Now you can talk about fighting 4/4 creatures successfully, too.

How about the Christine Sprankle flip-side?

Avacyn, the Purifier

Remember what we said just a paragraph or so ago about 2/3 and 3/3 creatures? Sorry Reflector Mage! Avacyn, the Purifier is going to be an amazing, possibly format-warping, new card!

At the very least, think about ticking up your Gideon to five loyalty against five open mana. Otherwise, Avacyn might just purify him.

Thing in the Ice // Awoken Horror

Thing in the Ice

Mike’s favorite card (so far) from Shadows Over Innistrad is Thing in the Ice. A 0/4 creature for two mana is eminently serviceable for self-defense… And this one becomes, in Patrick’s parlance “a blue Tarmogoyf”:

Awoken Horror

… As if a Tarmogoyf can reasonably expect to be 7/8 like Awoken Horror.

These sweet flip cards are joined by red and Rakdos beatdown; and the return of the Madness mechanic in “Archangel Avacyn and Thing in the Ice”:

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Christine Sprankle and Kaalia of the Vast

“This is not a podcast with a great reputation right now.”
-Mike

Welcome to “the most ridiculous episode of Top Level Podcast ever” featuring our first guest ever: “one-time World Champion / two-time Pro Tour” cosplayer Christine Sprankle!

Christine has made the big time as a cosplayer, being featured in Rolling Stone magazine this week for her cosplay of Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

christinesprankle
Christine Sprankle as Avacyn, Angel of Hope; photo by our good friend Joey Pasco

Also featuring…

  • The first time Mike cheated at Magic
  • Commander chats!
  • Mike is a super newbie at Commander (and barely knows the rules)
  • Comparing Kaalia of the Vast to Butcher of the Horde
  • A special place called the Command Zone
  • The best part of cosplay
  • A certain foil Tarmogoyf
  • Christine in Charlotte

kaalia-of-the-vast

That’s so awesome to me that you play this card —
It’s like the centerpiece of your deck —
It’s your commander — it’s defining the colors of the cards you can play, it has a special ability that defines which other cards you will choose, so you’re going to bend all of your choices around Angels Demons and Dragons because of Kaalia [of the Vast]… And yet you have no expectation of never being able to use her ability.

Around the Internet:

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