So what is the Alphabet Deck concept? Well it’s very simple. What’s the first letter of your given name? For me it’s my full name, Abraham, so I have “A.” Every card in your deck, other than basic lands, must begin with that letter. Now, build a Commander deck with that restriction!

Simple and easy.

Most people approach that challenge by grabbing a Commander with a bunch of colors. The more colors you have, the more options you give yourself. With “A,” I can grab a five-color legendary creature in Atogatog. Grab that, and make your full deck anything that works. That maximizes my options. Another option is to grab a three color leader (Anafenza, the Foremost or Adun Oakenshield or Alesha, Who Smiles at Death or Animar, Soul of Elements are all good options). Or even a two color leader. But I’m not that person. I don’t need a safety net.

So I’m doing two things. First, I want to explore one color. And secondly, I want to make this a tribal deck as well.

What tribe?

Well I’m sure you can tell by the title.

Angels!

Why Angels?

Well, there’s a few reasons, actually. First, any creature that begins with “Angel” counts for my name. If your name is Gary or Edgar or Melinda, then you’d likely look at the possibility of Goblins, Elves, or Merfolk, right? Another reason is that every “Archangel” counts as well. And there’s a third. Many of the major characters in Angel-dom are, in fact, beginning with the letter “A,” not the least of which is Avacyn and Akroma.

Now I had originally wanted to build this deck around Avacyn, Angel of Hope. That’s a great creature, right? Avacyn’s a great choice. Yay Avacyn! But then we got a new iteration of Avacyn that’s better, cheaper, and flash-tastic. Archangel Avacyn. But there were a few issues. I couldn’t just toss her into my deck and call it, as her W/R identity kept me from putting her into a Mono-White shell. What I could do instead if play her as my Commander. That works. And then I could just run Mono-White in the other places.

But that led me to an interesting question. There are a lot of Red Angelic cards out there that suit my flavor, and my deck. Take a look:

• Aurelia, the Warleader
• Aurelia's Fury
• Anya, Merciless Angel
• Akroma, Angel of Fury
• Angelic Captain
• Avacyn's Judgment

And then Archangel Avacyn as well.

Now that’s seven quality Angel or Angel related cards that make sense for my Angel + “A” deck, right? So what do I do with that stuff? I mean it’s good, right?

Well, at the end of the day, this challenge is about embracing the central Angelic concept. So let’s make that work, ir-regardless of mana and color.

So let’s unpack the deck!

Abe?s Alterative Alphabetic Angelic Activity ? EDH | Abe Sargent

• Commander (1)
• 1 Archangel Avacyn

• Creatures (28)
• 1 Academy Rector
• 1 Adaptive Automaton
• 1 Adarkar Valkyrie
• 1 Admonition Angel
• 1 Aegis Angel
• 1 Aegis of the Gods
• 1 Alloy Myr
• 1 Akroma, Angel of Fury
• 1 Akroma, Angel of Wrath
• 1 Angel of Finality
• 1 Angel of Jubilation
• 1 Angel of Serenity
• 1 Angel of Deliverance
• 1 Angelic Captain
• 1 Angelic Field Marshal
• 1 Angelic Skirmisher
• 1 Antler Skulkin
• 1 Anya, Merciless Angel
• 1 Archangel of Tithes
• 1 Archetype of Courage
• 1 Archon of Redemption
• 1 Artisan of Kozilek
• 1 Auramancer
• 1 Aurelia, the Warleader
• 1 Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1 Avacyn, Guardian Angel
• 1 Aven Mindcensor
• 1 Avenging Angel

• Planeswalkers (3)
• 1 Ajani Goldmane
• 1 Ajani Steadfast
• 1 Ajani, Caller of the Pride

• Spells (26)
• 1 Abeyance
• 1 Acolyte's Reward
• 1 Act of Aggression
• 1 Afterlife
• 1 Akroma's Blessing
• 1 Altar's Light
• 1 Aurelia's Fury
• 1 Akroma's Vengeance
• 1 All is Dust
• 1 Angelic Purge
• 1 Avacyn's Judgment
• 1 Act of Authority
• 1 Always Watching
• 1 Angelic Benediction
• 1 Angelic Chorus
• 1 Angelic Gift
• 1 Angelic Renewal
• 1 Angelic Voices
• 1 Armored Ascension
• 1 Arrest
• 1 Aura of Silence
• 1 Angelheart Vial
• 1 Angelic Armaments
• 1 Argentum Armor
• 1 Armillary Sphere
• 1 Astral Cornucopia

• Lands (42)
• 14 Mountain
• 25 Plains
• 1 Ancient Amphitheater
• 1 Arena
• 1 Arid Mesa

Buy This Deck

And there we are!

So let’s take a look at the deck in all of its glory!

The first thing I want to delve into when using a limited card pool like this is not the fun stuff like creatures and beaters and such. Nope. Because it doesn’t matter if you are swinging with Goliath Sphinx or Sphinx of the Steel Wind, you have a big creature with a path to victory. No matter how limited of a card pool your individual format has, you’ll invariably have creatures to tap and send into the red zone.

That’s not where my mind starts.

So I have to dig deep to find removal that’s either on theme or on letter. On theme we have Avacyn's Judgment, Aurelia's Fury and Angelic Purge. All three tie into our Angel’s theme, and as we have Avacyn as our leader, Aurelia in the deck, and lots of Angels looking to Purge all day and night, then I think we have a trifecta of on-flavor stuff. And we have a smattering of use for them as well.

They fit in with cards like Afterlife and Altar's Light.

Now there are three major A styled mass removal spells. One is on theme: Akroma's Vengeance. We have both the Fury and Vengeance iterations of our good Akroma. This gives me a decent reset button for a lot of trash. Another option is All is Dust, which meets the “A” requirement, but not the Angelic theme. But beggars can’t be choosers right? And the added level of attacking cards from a different angle is something I can get behind. A third option is Austere Command, but guess who doesn’t have any more? That’s right, this guy.

That’s not a bad start. And Act of Aggression can toss in a variant on the Threaten mechanic for Red and play interestingly as well. That’s not a bad set of options for you.

And before you head off, check out both Aura of Silence and Act of Authority.

We have support from other angles as well. What happens when Avacyn flips and your team takes three damage? Do you want to lose the smaller stuff? Want to pump your team? Well Angelic Voices and Always Watching will do precisely that for you. Adaptive Automaton can be both an Angel and act as an Angel lord. Go Angels!

Okay, now it’s Angel time!

By default, Angels will be a tribe of beaters. Most Angels are higher end creatures that swing for a lot, have a powerful board presence, and cost more mana to drop. So the first place I wanted to dive into were cheaper Angels. We have some 4-drops like Archangel of Tithes, which if you can play early, is a powerful intoxicant and board pusher. Even later on we can try to get enough beaters out to make it great. From Angel of Finality dropping down and exiling graveyards in order to keep things sane, to Angelic Field Marshal. I find that to be a great 4-drop. Play it, and then you can drop your leader the next turn, get the lieutenant ability to pump your team, and as your leader has both flash and gives your team indestructible, you can flash it out to pump your Marshal or to give everything else vigilance.

5-drops were another point of emphasis. Everything useful from Angelic Captain and Anya, Merciless Angel to our Guardian Angel form of Avacyn and such.

Anyways, we have a lot of the best creatures in multiplayer for this deck. Both Avacyn, Angel of Hope and Akroma, Angel of Vengeance have a powerful reputation. And new Avacyn is no joke either! Red Akroma? Aurelia? The hits keep on coming.

We also have a ton of built-in protection. Since my leader can flash and indestructible the team, we have a built in answer against mass removal. People with something like Damnation or Mogg Infestation are going to have to play around Archangel Avacyn. And that’s not all. It’s hard to crack Avacyn, Angel of Hope as well. And Aegis Angel can give some indestructible to a key card of ours as well. And then Avacyn, Guardian Angel can also prevent damage to creatures or players. And check out Aegis of the Gods. You can’t be targeted by your foes either, which shuts down other avenues of dealing with your stuff, like Edict effects (see Diabolic Edict as a good example). And we can one-shot the team to protect it with Akroma's Blessing or keep a crucial creature alive from an unseen source with Acolyte's Reward. And for more tricks, check out Angelic Renewal or Adarkar Valkyrie.

So we keep this team alive and trucking! After all, Avacyn is about protecting. So let’s protect! We will protect this house!

Many of these cards work well together, as you see. It’s not a good stuff deck with the best cards in my “A” section rocking the block. I mean, take a look at my support creatures. I pushed cheap stuff that were useful in tandem with my deck. I have a few good enchantments, so fetch up one when Academy Rector dies after chump blocking or Avacyn flips. Grab a dead one with Auramancer. (I like Armored Ascension to grab if you have your leader out, for powerful Commander damage. A flipped Avacyn kills in four turns, and an Ascension can drop that considerably later on)

And that’s not all, obviously. Both Aven Mindcensor and Archetype of Courage are here and play into a similar space. Don’t ignore the potential of Antler Skulkin here as well. Since you can give any White creature persist (and as every non-artifact creature here other than Red Arkoma is white) it has a lot of value helping out your team from another angle.

Finally, do you know who likes Angels? Ajani does! So I threw in all three mono-white Ajani’s for you. I don’t like/don’t have a lot of Ajani Vengeant. But the three here are all good for your deck, from pumping your team with +1/+1 counters for keeping them alive in an Avacyn, the Purifier world to turning her into a major threat by giving her double strike, or +1/+1 and first strike, vigilance, lifelink, and other stuff. Yay Ajani!

And that’s an Alphabet challenge!

Cards I'd like but are missing include Austere Command, Auriok Champions, Angelic Destiny, Angelic Chorus, Angel of the Dire Hour, Akroma's Memorial, Arrow Volley Trap, maybe even Arashin Cleric. Aurification?

Now if you wanted to do a fun “A” challenge yourself, there are a lot of places to look at next. And no matter what your letter is, you can find something. Even “Z” gives you the Zombie horde. And if you have a random “Q” then why not do your last name instead?

And that’s obviously not all.

So what’s your deck? What’s your challenge? How would you build your Alphabet deck?