There were a lot of things to be excited about with our return to Dominaria this Spring. One of the most exciting mythics to come out of that set was Lyra Dawnbringer. This card is incredible on pure stats, but is also an Angel lord, which is something we haven't really seen before. Unfortunately, we've mostly seen Lyra as a stand-in for Baneslayer Angel, rather than as a lord. With Standard moving away from Fog decks and towards more aggressive strategies, perhaps it is time to revisit the possibility:
White-Blue Angels - Core Set 2019 Standard | Esteat, 5-0 Standard League
- Creatures (20)
- 4 Benalish Marshal
- 4 Knight of Grace
- 4 Lyra Dawnbringer
- 4 Resplendent Angel
- 4 Shalai, Voice of Plenty
- Instants (7)
- 3 Settle the Wreckage
- 4 Dive Down
- Enchantments (8)
- 2 Baffling End
- 2 Seal Away
- 4 History of Benalia
- Lands (25)
- 14 Plains
- 1 Scavenger Grounds
- 2 Memorial to Genius
- 4 Glacial Fortress
- 4 Irrigated Farmland
- Sideboard (15)
- 2 Forsake the Worldly
- 3 Ixalan's Binding
- 2 Jace's Defeat
- 4 Negate
- 2 Seal Away
- 2 Sorcerous Spyglass
The idea behind this deck is relatively straightforward. You're playing all the most powerful threats in White, backed up by some amount of protection and with enough efficient removal to buy you time to get there.
Seal Away and Baffling End serve as early interaction, while Knight of Grace can serve as a roadblock against all of the aggressive Red creatures in the format. History of Benalia teams up with Benalish Marshal to give you a strong board presence in the mid game.
From there, it's all angels, all the time. Resplendent Angel, Lyra, and Shalai, Voice of Plenty are your late game threats, and what's exciting about this deck is the amount of synergy between them. One hit from Lyra means that you're going to get an angel off of any copies of Resplendent Angel. Curving Shalai into Lyra makes it much harder for your opponent to interact with your heavy hitter unless they have something along the lines of Settle the Wreckage or Fumigate.
Typically, it'd be a bad idea to go all in on four- and five-mana threats in a format where Unlicensed Disintegration and Cast Out are available as removal spells. However, Shalai gives you some resiliency to these answers, while Dive Down serves as a one-mana protection spell for all your Angels.
If you are looking to slam some Angels and gain a ton of life, this seems well-positioned against some of the more linear aggressive strategies. Most Red- and Green-based aggro decks will struggle to race Lyra on her own. Needless to say, you'll be winning races by miles if you have Lyra plus other Angels.