Most of you have probably already seen her: The new Avacyn, freshly spoiled on the interwebs...
Definitely looks quite fancy! And I already have some ideas in mind on how to build a deck around her so let's have a look.
The Angel herself
Even without her additional abilities she's already pretty decent at 5 mana for 4/4 Flying, Vigilance, Flash. Nothing amazing or game breaking but playable nonetheless.
Add that one-shot indestructible effect to her and you've got yourself a very nice card in any creature based strategy, much like Boros Charm.
But that's still not everything, because we can also flip her! And in my humble opinion, that's where things get spicy. The most important thing about her second side is that it adds a second color to the deck, but it also points the deck in a direction more clearly.
"When a non-Angel creature you control dies, transform Archangel Avacyn at the beginning of the next upkeep."
Well, I guess the trigger condition is quite easy to understand. Of course I'd love her to transform instantly upon something dying but hey, can't have everything.
"When this creature transforms into Avacyn, the Purifier, it deals 3 damage to each other creature and each opponent."
Avacyn gets mighty mad when the peace-loving town's people somehow die, turning her into a fireslinging Angel of Death. The "each other creature" part is definitely nice in some cases but 50% of the time you'd probably be better off without it when building the deck straight out aggressive/Midrange. But the "each opponent" part is where it's at, at least for me and the way I'd build her! Simply put: there's a lot of potential in the trigger.
A creature-core aka Avacyn's townsfolk
Thinking about it, the way I envision for the deck is particularly cruel considering Avacyn's mental health...
... because I'd actively want to trigger Avacyn - literally. Sounds a bit weird at first, but think about it! While damaging all your opponents for a decent amount, you're also getting rid of all those pesky utility creatures/chump blockers like
And since you need something to die on your side for that to work, why not get some value out of it first? The fun thing is, that your Avacyn will also kill all these creatures when flipping, so you'd basically sacrifice one to get her to flip which will in return kill the rest, netting you a neat amount of triggers which hopefully get you ahead for the next few turns.
Increasing trigger impact
Three damage for all that work? I have to admit it doesn't seem much... BUT! First of all it is way more than you would think, considering you dealt it to EVERY opponent (just imagine the work/time/boardstate you'd have to invest to deal three damage to each opponent through combat). And secondly there are ways to increase the impact and value you'll get out of it...
Just imagine the sequence of sacrificing Academy Rector searching up True Conviction flipping Avacyn. I'd say you'll get around ~21 life (3 per opponent + 3 for each creature on the battlefield) and attack for another 12 damage in the air => 12 more life. So when you pass the turn you'll probably have dealt 21 damage to opponents, 12 of which are commander damage, and gained around 33 life... Acceptable I'd say.
And since we're really trying to burn people out, we might aswell go for one of these! In magical cristmasland you'll even have one or even two doublers on the field along with lifelink on Avacyn... I'll give you a moment to cool down again....
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No seriously though, Gisela and Gratuitous Violence don't even have downsides. Gisela even decreases the damage to your creatures down to one. And since Dictate of the Twin Gods has Flash we can play it with the damage trigger on the stack so we can take advantage of it first ...
The start-button
Creatures that like to die aka we don't care if they do: Check! Trigger efficiency maximized: Check! System is ready; awaiting start-up command...
The theme of the deck is rather aggressive and so are the sacrifice outlets I'd play. Especially the dragons can go veeeery big, and with the help of a mad Avacyn clearing the way, have the potential to deal huge chunks of damage. Good ol' Brion on the other hand is more focused on surviving and waiting for Redvacyn to make her big appearance, much like Spitebellows and Reveillark. Lastly some carddraw can't be wrong - especially in a white-red deck - and Demonmail Hauberk can either go on Avacyn to increase the amount of commander damage she deals or buff a two-toughness creature you control for it to survive the flip.
To be honest, the sacrifice outlets would probably be one part of the deck one would have to change and optimize as he plays the deck. But I think with those 8 above you'll have a good starting point.
Avacyn's last trick
As you can see, the whole deck is focused around Avacyn flipping, maximizing the damage she'll deal and the rest of your creatures can deal while defenses are down due to the flip. But what to do once that is over?! Sacrificing Avacyn is one option, the deck even has the outlets to do that... but I'd rather not do that since commander tax can become... taxing really quick.
Why not simply flicker her? Since the "original" side is the white one, upon re-entering the battlefield, she'll calm down - so to speak - returning to the Archangel Avacyn state. This gives you two neat possibilities: a) You can reset her to get another trigger out of her and b) Restoration Angel and Cloudshift allow you to reuse her "enter the battlefield" ability, granting additional protection against Wraths.
Flickerform even let's her take Felidar Umbra with her on vacation in addition to also sticking around, letting you reset her as often as you want.
Some goodstuff to top it off
Aaaaaaand that's basically how I'd build the deck. A big creature base with "dies"-triggers, some ways to make the flip-trigger better, some sacrifice outlets to make her flip and then some ways to bounce/flicker her so you can get more triggers out of her without having to pay commander tax all the time.
Now everthing that's left is some more generic stuff that still supports the theme of the deck...
The creatures in white-red that offer good value upon dying often put a few 1/1s into play. Having a Cathars' Crusade in play when that happens can lead to some very nasty turns. Speaking of creatures with good value upon dying: Anger should definitely be in there... Just think of the 1/1s we just talked about.
Well and Sun Titan returns a lot of the creatures that died to/for Avacyn's trigger and is just all around a solid card to have.
La fin! I hope I'm not too late with this, since spoiler season is continuing and people have newer cards to think about. Either way, have a nice day and...
See y'all 'round!
Avacyn can't be flickered by Restoration Angel as the text specifically states "non-Angel". Otherwise great decklist, I hope to build something similar!
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