As of Commander Legends, there are 173 different black-bordered Angels in the game (plus Brisela). Let's see how the iconic creature type representing white can be built around in a series of increasingly wider formats, from Standard to Legacy.
Standard Angels
During the Standard season that ended last September, was the most popular Angel in activity, the centerpiece of a "flying matters" deck that even enjoyed a modicum of competitive success. Then rotation happened, leaving us with a Standard meta containing only six Angels — and it's doubtful that the Norse mythology-inspired Kaldheim will change much in this regard. Two of these are mythic, one being the reprint of classic finisher , and the other the more novel . Life gain lists centered on the latter have been attempted, but they tend to be very dependent on the winged Cleric, which is very easy to tackle down right on the finishing line.
On the other hand, the main innovation brought about by the Angels from Zendikar Rising is the addition of class types to better support the party mechanic, a pattern epitomized by . That gives us one possible direction for an Angel deck that feels different from anything the tribe has done in the past — one that's probably not very efficient, but hey, not every deck that gets built needs to be able to qualify for the Players Tour. Some of them accomplish their chosen goals by just doing reasonably well on our kitchen table! Which is probably the main aspiration of this concoction.
| Azorius Party Angels |
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| Main Deck | Sideboard |
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Appropriately enough, Cleric composes the majority among the party types here, with ten representatives. ( could be another strongly thematic inclusion for the class, but there aren't many consistent ways to gain life in the deck.) Each of the other three types still reaches a solid six-card count. Aside from Linvala, I tried to work in a copy of each Angel that's legal in Standard — Baneslayer ended up in the sideboard, since this is no party gal, while the self-replacing is arguably the highlight amidst the non-legendary Angels. The minor ones still have party synergies to contribute, so they're not too harmful as singletons, despite being added mainly for flavor.
Speaking of which, most of the non-Angel creatures also fit the theme. is a follower of the . The individually powerful is a callback to — I can't exactly tell what a "luminarch" is supposed to be, but it seems clearly linked to the angelic side of things. And is a self-defined man of faith. Now, when it comes to Rogues, the thematic texture tends to falter a little. is in the main deck just because it's a good party payoff; and at least looks like a soulful kunoichi — one might even think the creature is praying on that solitary shore.
Land-wise, Azorius is currently hindered by the lack of a Pathway, which is expected to show up in Kaldheim. And is, bafflingly, a tapped land, so not really worth the awkwardness in a two-color deck that already runs a few slow lands between Temples and modal double-faced cards, yet still tries to play a two-drop on curve. But if you want to party with Angels, some of those Emeria girls over, and maybe your duplicate types along the way, this list is a good starting point.
Pioneer Angels
The passage from Standard to Pioneer adds 58 more options to our angelic deck building. Boros has a strong presence, with in the pool, as well as the build-around . So that already presents one possible route to take when pioneering Angels. An alternative one is based on something Angels are typically very proficient at: gaining life.
| Selesnya Life Gain Angels |
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The main interaction here descends directly from last year's Standard and involves enhancing 's life gain to satisfy 's token-making clause, which triggers the Bishop again, ultimately also boosting Angel of Vitality's own body. Another way to gain five simultaneous points of life as early as turn three is by having out on turn one and then following it up with a Bishop on two, so that Resplendent Angel will self-enable when dropping on three.
Moving up along the curve we find five large Angels with native lifelink: three copies of the invaluable tribal lord as well as singleton copies of both — accompanied by her melding sister to produce the occasional angelic eldritch monstrosity — and Baneslayer Angel. Another payoff for all the life gain is the playset of , creating even more Angel tokens.
Meanwwhile the lone is there to upgrade the little Spirits from the Bishop into, guess what, yet another host of Angels. With that combo online, if we added a free sacrifice outlet, we could keep triggering the Bishop's life gain an infinite amount of times — sacrificing an Angel, which becomes a Spirit, which becomes an Angel again, netting us four life. But the inclusion of a five-mana "does nothing" enchantment like Visitation felt janky enough already, even for casual purposes.
The deck isn't really Selesnya per se, but the moment we include for a bit of protection against removal, it feels bad not to be able to activate the card, even at the cost of a slightly more unstable mana base. (I wouldn't fault anyone for just going monowhite and call it a day, though.) A similar version of this build was played by Luca Van Deun here — and believe it or not, some cards that are perfectly legal in Historic, like , , and even the flavorful synergy of , fall out of the reach of Pioneer.
Modern Angels
Once we advance to Modern, another 57 distinct Angels are ready to be of service. One that was allowed in Pioneer as well, and in fact could have fitted the battle plan of the previous deck, is . I left this magnificent redhead out of the life gain build because Pioneer couldn't perform the infinite combo with — but Modern can. Sadly, the days of fetching that combo via are long over, and other kind of tutoring networks like would take us too far off theme. So what about trying to survive long enough for the combo to incidentally assemble itself?
In broad terms, this shell takes its cue from Modern Hatebears lists, using early and to slow down the opponent, while our s circumvent the symmetrical limitations we ourselves have set. cleans up problematic permanents, and the great thing about this little ghost is that flickering it doesn't return the original target to the battlefield. So can do what it does best and essentially functions as Apparition number five and number six.
And then the Angels come. Even without the Feeder combo, Archangel of Thune is able to strengthen the team, and the deck plays the beatdown in several other ways as well. For instance, all the small utility creatures get weaponized by , whose role is in turn facilitated by the Spirits from , while the inexorable can go to town on its own.
The angelic theme takes a bit of a second seat here, but there are still plenty of them, plus a reference to Linvala's silence, and hey, Thalia's backstory was full of all sorts of dealings with the Innistrad Angels. One could even add a copy of to re-enact that time when the green Angel saved the loyal Soldier from the Angel's own mad sisters.
Legacy Angels
Finally we land on Legacy, and the remaining 52 Angels are unlocked too. So now that we have access to every single Angel in the game, what do we do? Well, Legacy is a cutthroat format, so the gloves must come off. How about bringing out the biggest and baddest of them on turn two?
The game plan here is pretty straightforward. We don't have any way to hardcast our Angels, but what we do have are cheap ways to park them in the graveyard by either surgically pulling them from the library or just discarding them from our hand. Then, once they're in the graveyard, we have similarly cheap ways to bring them out onto the battlefield in all of their glory.
These are the most fearsome Angels you'll ever see. Many of them are able to kill something right away, being the most versatile at that, hence the full set. Others are meant as silver bullets to : and are sweepers of sort; takes care of enemy graveyards; stops a few creature combo archetypes like Elves; and protect from removal and aggression, respectively.
The other Angel that appears in four copies is , which can cut a monocolored opponent out of the game, or at the very least severely hinder their arsenal, especially if reanimated on turn two. is a reanimator effect grafted onto an Angel, and even if we won't be able to pay the echo cost with our minimal mana base, it'll stay around and block for a full turn before going back to the graveyard. It can even stop an opposing from gaining life. Lastly, keeps the reanimation business going, though it's definitely a win-more effect to be pursued exclusively during less challenging games.
And that's a declination of Angels throughout the four major 60-card formats. In order to go even further from here, we could now repackage all of the above (well, most of the above) within a Commander deck, probably under the aegis of Angel lover . "But wait," I can hear you saying. "Where is in all of this?" Unfortunately, one of the most renowned Angels in the game, and arguably one the most powerful, comes plagued by a crucial issue — it doesn't like to be surrounded by other Angels. (Of course it's worded that way to prevent it from infinitely triggering itself.) But don't fret, we might still find a way to include its benedictory likeness in this article.
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