Festival sticks around permanently, however, with the trade-off that your spells damage you when you cast them
While we already saw the power of Thalia in powered formats, where she can hate out combo decks and slow down sweepers, such as in the Five-Color Humans deck above, the card has also enjoyed a great deal of success as just a good card for aggressive, creature-heavy decks. Creatures (27) 3 Fiend Hunter 4 Champion of the Parish 3 Avacyn's Pilgrim 3 Mayor of Avabruck 3 Thalia, Guardian of Thraben 2 Restoration Angel 3 Sigarda, Host of Herons 4 Silverblade Paladin 2 Druid's Familiar Lands (25) Spells (8) While Thalias ability is so good, she would likely see a fair bit of play even without first strike, its actually the first strike that really gets her over the finish line
Like the Paintress shaping fate with every stroke, Mr
This way you get more value out of your randomized packs
Challenges (Combat) As I mentioned above the game has a combat system