Commander & Change — Archangel Avacyn

Posted on March 18, 2016

New sets bring about a lot of things. We grow excited for new cards and new mechanics. Some of us can’t wait to hear the story as it unfolds. New characters (sometimes legendary!) reveal themselves as familiar faces change, often looking entirely different. Let´s detour from our look at the seven deadly sins to celebrate the return to gothic horror in Shadows over Innistrad. Our favorite mono-white denizen of the Helvault has returned—and this time, she’s letting her emotions get the best of her.

Let’s be honest: Avacyn, Angel of Hope (from the original Avacyn Restored) was a bit too good for regular Commander games. Sure, she cost 8 mana, which basically took her out of Standard contention, but even in mono-white, ramping to 8 isn’t that hard, and once you have her, everything you have is indestructible. That’s crazy. Meanwhile, her return in Magic 2015 as Avacyn, Guardian Angel was a bit underwhelming. She crushed it for me that time I opened her in my Sealed pool, but as a commander, or even as part of a ninety-nine, she’s just not worth it—not enough actual damage is thrown around, and 7 mana is a lot for that second ability. We have better things to do.

As an archangel, though, she’s changed the game. We have a 5-mana 4/4 with flash, flying, and vigilance, which is a pretty good deal to begin with. Never mind that, when she enters the battlefield, all our creatures are indestructible until end of turn. Seems like a deal.

Then, one of her friends dies, and she gets pissed. She turns red, her wings get all bloody, and she burns the skies for 3 damage to everything but us. Oh, and she’s a 6/5 now. Boom. (I’ve checked the rules here, but I’ve been wrong before. I believe the card is the commander, so her combat damage is commander damage whether she’s white or red. 6 power is two turns faster than 4!)

What does this give us? Red and white, for one. We need to have non-Angels to die in order to transform her. We probably want to be able to turn her back into the Archangel, just so we can keep transforming her back over into the Purifier. Let’s take a first stab at this, with full knowledge we can swap things out as we choose.

Archangel Avacyn ? Commander | Mark Wischkaemper

Commander (0)

Planeswalkers (1)
1 Elspeth, Sun's Champion

A couple things before we move on. Most of you know I’m a budget deck-builder. That remains true, but because of the excitement around SOI—and the fact Avacyn is pre-ordering for around $22—we’ve increased the budget for this one to $100. Also, if you’re not a regular, I like to go through “My Deck Tickled a Sliver” to see how it shapes up. Finally, this is a shell with a few different ideas—please change any of it based on your preferences! I suspect it will be better if it is pointed in a particular direction.

What we have is an Angel–Human tribal thing with a play on enters-the-battlefield effects and a holy-war sort of theme. We get nowhere without mana, though, so let’s start by looking at the lands.

We have a bunch of dual lands, some of which may seem a touch out of place. Ancient Amphitheater is basically a Guildgate here, what with no Giants around, but it does tap for both colors. Stone Quarry joins the team of nonrare dual lands, fresh off the presses from Shadows over Innistrad. Flamekin Village can grant haste, which can be really fun for us when we play a big Angel. Holdout Settlement can make a difference, and sometimes our little Humans have gotten too small for combat. Cathedral of War was just too on-theme; often, it’s going to make more sense to attack with everyone, but who knows? Exalted might matter. A few mana rocks help ramp and fix, for a total of forty-four mana sources. That should be fine. And don’t be afraid to just play Everflowing Chalice with X equal to 2, though if you have it and four lands in hand at the beginning, it’s probably worth waiting.

Because we’re going to be attacking a fair amount, draw in the form of Rogue's Gloves and Infiltration Lens seemed to make sense. We also have the woefully underappreciated Diviner's Wand, which lets us just pay mana and draw cards. Inheritance is a nifty old white card that lets us draw when creatures die. Sure, it costs some mana, but it can really pay off. Mentor of the Meek works with nearly all of our Humans. Thraben Inspector lets us use the new ability, investigate, to draw a card, while Bygone Bishop turns most of our little dudes into clue-makers.

We’re going to put a bunch of threats on the battlefield. Our army of Humans is nothing to shake a stick at, but when they’re partnered up with an Angel or two, they become really scary really quickly. Angel of Glory's Rise can return a whole bunch of our graveyard back to the battlefield all of a sudden. Angelic Skirmisher makes everything on our side of the battlefield a force to be reckoned with. Angelic Overseer is nearly impossible to kill once we have any Humans out. Anya, Merciless Angel is pretty darn cool all by herself. Avacyn’s partner Gisela, Blade of Goldnight sure makes killing us challenging, and Aurelia, the Warleader makes sure we can keep attacking. Our new Flameblade Angel makes it harder for anyone to attack us.

In addition to Avacyn’s Pyroclasm effect, we have End Hostilities and Mass Calcify to blow up the world. Oblivion Ring and Banishing Light can target specific problematic permanents, and Chained to the Rocks is worth running any time we have

and

. The Helvault is more than just on-theme; it’s pricey, but it gets rid of stuff just fine. Fight to the Death is a delightful combat trick; use it sometime when you’re not even involved in combat just to mess with everyone. Aurelia's Fury can be a solid game-winner—just burn someone out, or tap down entire teams, and swing for the win. We also have some creature-based enchantment hate and a bit of graveyard destruction in the form of Angel of Finality.

We also have some fun synergies. Conjurer's Closet, and even better Flickerform, let us pop Avacyn out and back in, resetting her to her front face, making all our dudes indestructible and getting another shot at transforming her. Heliod's Pilgrim searches out Flickerform for us. Dualcaster Mage can double up on our own Aurelia's Fury or someone else’s Dig Through Time. Mikaeus, the Lunarch buffs our entire team nicely. We have a bunch of soulbond creatures, which give whatever they’re paired with some relevant ability—tell you what, Gisela, Blade of Goldnight paired with a Silverblade Paladin is a nasty sight for everyone else at the table.

We also have some Avacyn-related stuff—Mask of Avacyn, Scroll of Avacyn, and Avacyn's Collar, as well as the new Avacynian Missionaries—and a bunch of priests and the like. Suture Priest, Monk Realist, Nearheath Pilgrim, Banisher Priest, Fiend Hunter—these are the kinds of dudes who follow Angels.

The deck is fun to play as is. I’d want to play a few games with it before making any big changes, but there are a lot of directions it could take. One could go all in on the Angel theme, running things like Luminarch Ascension and Serra Ascendant. R/W is also a great way to go really aggressive, and there are bunches of ways beyond Aurelia to take multiple combat steps. One could lean into Equipment—always fun when one has access to white—and play more with Humans; figure out ways to buff their toughness up above 3 so Avacyn doesn’t keep killing them, or figure out how to Flicker Angel of Glory's Rise and just keep bringing everyone back. There are a lot more Flicker effects—including Flicker and the new Eerie Interlude—that are one-shots; a deck that plays on that could be really fun. One could even go with Human Clerics and really get into the whole Angel-worship thing. If I happened to open a Nahiri, the Harbinger at a prerelease, I’d probably run her here, too—she seems pretty good.