"Resolute Archangel:Turning Tables"

"Resolute Archangel:Turning Tables"

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr. 

There are a few cards in the game of Magic that lets you reset your life total.Reverse the sands from the Kamigawa block comes to mind when it comes to shifting life however because of its prohibitive mana cost a lot of player would just play reasonably cost cards. Much like this new card that I would be talking about today.During one of the M15 Pre release I went to there was one particular PR card that was highly sought after and that card was The Resolute Archangel. A lot of people were praising it because it afforded a delay that players who have long term plans need badly. Simply put this angel allows you to restore your starting life total. 20 in Standard , 40 in EDH. This causes a lot of frustration on your opponent who buy now has probably already steam in his constant assaults of you.

In on of my m15 PR games I played against one such player. I know he was packing a Resolute Archangel in his deck because he was calm in the face of all the damage that I was giving him. I managed to reduce his life to 3 or 4 and was setting up for the final blow when he finally got a hold of his Angel in the following turn.He then hard cast it for the full 7 mana and restored his life. At this point the angel is a 4/4 flying creature that would turn things around and I would end up losing. So believe me when I say that I am frustrated with this little angel who comes in for the save.It was a good thing though that I won in Game 3!

I imagine that in an EDH game the Resolute Archangel would be a thorny issue when it comes to damage and direction of said damage.EDH decks without great spot removal would have a hard time winning since all anyone needs to do is to make the Resolute Archangel blink out of existence and when it comes back their life total is as good as new. I don't know about you but this amount of life gain can be very annoying. 40 life in the blink of an eye. You need to deal exactly 40 damage or more to finish an opponent with this angel in play. An alternate as well is Infect and the good old Commander Damage that doesn't care if you still have the same life total. If you get those 21 damage then you lose.

I could see this particular angel in reanimation decks because of its unique advantage once the going gets tough. It is not a bad creature as well because it is a 4/4 Flyer. Another thing I would love to try with this baby is getting it to Soul Bound with a Deadeye Navigator. In this way , there is always a threat to always survive since you could use Deadeye's ability and then return her from the aether.Or for more complicated fun you could hide the Angel via Fiend Hunter so it does not succumb to spot removal. You could soul bound the Fiend Hunter with Dead Eye navigator. The Angel returns and you could choose new targets for your fresh from the aether Fiend Hunter.  

So when you face an opponent that lets you keep on pouring the damage. They may have The Resolute Archangel somewhere in that deck of theirs or they are plainly nuts.Either way you still need to be careful.The tables just might turn at any time.