Forged by that which was once thought to be evil, Avacyn has come to bring an indomitable light to the darkened and desolate plane of Innistrad. Created to offer a balance opposing all of the earthly evils that grew like weeds in his homeland. Avacyn is the epitome of peace in a place void of such trivial ideals but a pinnacle worthy of worship as Mikaeus and his followers know all too well. She single-handedly maintained the peace on the plane. And then, there was Griselbrand...
Griselbrand was Avacyn's dark counterpart, all of his strengths lied in her weaknesses and it was a painful reflection. Knowing that she could not simply overpower this monster, she did what she had to do. Avacyn fought Griselbrand into the Helvault where she aimed to imprison him perpetually but in a last ditch effort, Griselbrand threw his spear and impaled his captor locking her up inside this wretched prison alongside him.
Not much is known of what occurred inside of The Helvault, only that the plane of Innistrad lost it's light that day. No one expected it to ever improve until Liliana came around. Liliana had made a soul-pact with the demon, Griselbrand that could only lead to hellish consequences if Griselbrand wasn't handled accordingly. She forced Thalia's hand in breaking open the hellish rock by threatening that which Thalia held most dear, her command. Thalia broke open the titanic rock freeing Griselbrand and more importantly, his holy warden. Avacyn is once again whole.
About Me:
I'm a 16 year Magic Veteran but have only been playing EDH for roundabout two years. One of the earliest things I heard in Magic was that you COULD NOT build a competitive mono-colored deck in EDH so guess what my first goal was? I wanted a deck in each color that was competitive quality. First, I started with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as a general making a pretty generic pain deck that would pretty quickly turn into infinite mana exsanguinate.
Next, there was Norin of the Wary Probably my favorite deck to play even though it was largely stolen from a member here. I LOVE THAT DECK!
Then, Azami, Lady of the Scrolls... I want to say that I liked this deck but honestly a pretty consistent turn 2-3 just seemed wrong. It defeated the spirit of EDH in my opinion almost as bad as the next deck.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking-If you play this deck, you're playing EDH training wheels. Congratulations. No.
Finally, the color I never thought I'd like... I generally don't like White or Green. I'm not one for the lighter side of things. Initially, this was going to be Eight-And-A-Half-Tails but after testing Avacyn once, my mind was made up. This was my first deck that actually offered as much control as power and it offers more of both than most other colors. Enough lead-in though, here's the deck list.
I'll skip the auto-includes here because they're auto includes for a reason.
The Commander:
Why do you play Avacyn? Well, do you like indestructibility? Playing with gods while everyone else is tinkering around with mortals? Do you like the idea of resetting your opponents on each of your turns while your stuff flourishes? Well, then Avacyn is awesome. In my build, I pretty regularly have a turn 4 Avacyn (Once on turn two, thrice on turn three) and the general response is a scoop. So, turn 4 and you have one of the most powerful creatures in Magic history out on the battlefield? What to do? Nevinyrral's Disk every turn while you swing away or just make her untouchable and gradually kill them all? Why not both? This is the most I've had playing a simple aggro deck. I absolutely love it.
Enchantments:
Angelic Renewal: It's a small card but it does work. Someone blow up your Solemn and you could use the mana? Use it. I do need a sac outlet though as I used to bounce Sun Titan as many times as necessary.
Gift of Imortality: Another card that is begging for a sac outlet... I really should look into that... Plays well with Solemn and... well, anything with any ETB effects. I love this card.
Endless Horizon: Deck thinning that offers an extra card in hand to be Scroll Racked away as you need it? I'll take 10.
Instants:
Let's face it, generic spot control and removal
Creatures:
Weathered Wayfarer: Land fetch, getting those two for one lands early on can be a necessity for a fast Avacy. Puresteel Paladin: Your draw power suite is less than ideal in white so we take what we can get plus the easy 0 equip cost is pretty sweet. Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant: He plays, he flips, he does work. Pretty self-explanatory I guess. Hundred-Handed One: I love this card, you give it indestructibility and it more or less just laughs at everything. Offer it some level of protection and many decks quickly realize they won't get through. Twilight Shepherd: Just in case you do get wiped by someone quickly exiling your avacyn, why not give yourself an easy way to rebuild? Admonition Angel: Fetch lands make this guy funny. That is all. Iona, Shield of Emeria: There are two colors that can kinda shut this deck down given enough juice, why not make the more prevalent one a dead duck?
Sorceries:
They blow stuff up, need I say more?
Artifacts:
Aether Vial: This card has been hit and miss but when it hits, it hits hard enough to justify an include and it always seems to be there when I get mana screwed. Mimic Vat: Most fun I've had, exiling Iona under this and popping it only when another player was about to ruin me. It was swoon-worthy. Worldslayer: Worldslayer on Avacyn is unquestionably as wrong as it gets in this deck. When it happens on turn 4, it's just comical.
Lands:
Vesuva: This actually was about to get removed, then I found the next card down. Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: One of these is hilarious, almost Cabal Coffers good in a mono-colored deck. I can frequently have it tapping for 11+ and given the color, that's phenomenal. Homeward Path: My meta likes playing pass the card with certain cards. I like getting mine back and feel this should be an auto-include in every EDH deck in existence.
FAQ:
Q: Why don't you run more Swords?
A: A lot of metas seem to like trading those around the board be it with a Bribery or a Praetor's Grasp. I simply don't like having things that can single-handedly ruin me in my deck.
I would be careful with Iona. I play 8-1/2 Tails...and have been on the wrong side of a turn 2-3 Bribery...several times. My friends called it a lesson each time it happened. It sucks because I really like playing her...
In my avacyn deck, I am actually glad if they choose Iona.. I can get rid of her quite well. Worse is it with Ulamog
Well, the deck plays a lot of All is Dust and other mass removal that are also colorless (O-Stone, Disk, Karn, ..). And against Avacyn, a lot of exile like Path, Swords, Final Judgment for me, Karn, All is Dust...
It is important when playing either of Avacyn/Iona to have a plan if we know our opponent plays things like Gilded Drake or Clones. Anything blue really.
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Nice to meet another Avacyn player who knows where the true monowhite power lie
Nice decklist, much more creature oriented - my Avacyn primer is more board control, less creatures. Good to see other aproach to the Avacyn build.
Several questions/suggestions:
- how is the deck performing with the mana base? 33 lands (3 of them are fetches) and 8 ramps or mana spells. My deck is running only 31 lands (no fetches) but 22 ramp or mana spells and it is still very very tight.. the difference is quite big (41 vs 53 mana cards) and when I see my manabase optimized but very tight, I am not sure how well performs yours But I can see slightly lower CMC in your list than in mine.
Is it performing well? What about adding cards like Tithe, Journeyer's Kite or Kor Cartographer?
Lets look into lands. I understand you play fetches because of crucible, good idea. But still, there are several land choices, which I see not obvious and want to know your opinion:
Temple of the False gods - Is this land good in the deck? Isn't it too risky? With your land count, The average land number in your hand is something about 2, and if one of them is Temple, it is bah.. It is good in late game, but is the land worth the risk?
Cathedral of War - How is this land perform? is the exalted trigger worth the colorless mana and land which comes to play tapped? Personally, I would switch it to Plains which can be doubled with Caged Sun etc. Is Your deck so aggressive that it needs it?
Reliquary Tower - Same as above.. how often do you use it's ability? Do you have full hand with more than 7 cards often? I can see the opinion that you don't need the white mana much and therefore you can afford more colorless lands, but still, after all, there are better choices in my opinion - or you can always run plains to make doubling artifacts or Emeria land better.
Mistveil Plains - Is this card good? How you use it? I run it about a year ago, but I realized that ordinary Plains is almost always better.
My land suggestions:
Flagstones of Trokair - just for the good feeling when lands are blown. not necessary, but nice
Terrain Generator - very good card. I was surprised how it performs. It actually do something - I would switch it with for example Reliquary Tower without an eyeblink. Ramping is cool I highly recommend it.
Buried Ruin - another colorless land which I think can actually do something in your list. Recursion is good and even if you don't use it very often, it is very useful to have more options. I highly recommend it.
Boseiju, Who Shelters Al - Meta dependent. In my meta is countering quite normal. I want to be sure my board wipes resolve. I recommend it in the case you have blue mages in your group
Other cards:
Extraplanar Lens - is this card good here? I see you have low basic count. It should be good only of you have active Crucible+fetch package. Personally I don't run it because in my meta it doesn't stay on table long enough to be good and my deck is not the explosive one. Is it worth here?
Orim's Chant - another card, which I wouldn't run. I don't see Isochron Scepter in the list, so I don't think this card is good enough here.
Elspeth, Knight-Errant - do you play duels or multiplayer games with the deck? In multiplayer mode this elspeth version do almost nothing, but even for duels I can see the Elspeth 3.0 much better and I would recommend to change it.
I would have more recommendations (for example Tower of Fortunes) but I understand that your build is not too rampy as mine..
still, nice to have more Avacyn approaches, maybe you will consider some of my recomendations..
Thanks for the critique, as for my land count, I've never had any issues. I frequently have a turn 3-4 Avacyn. I know a lot of my mono-colored lands are more or less useless, I'm seeking to improve that and will definitely take what you've offered into consideration. As for ramp, I'm not big on one pump chumps. If it can't offer some degree of consistency or deck thinning then there isn't room for it in my deck. Reliquary Tower comes in more than you'd think with land tax and Endless Horizons, filling your hand with lands and then scroll racking them away is amazing. I actually thought my basic count was fairly high, I could possibly use a couple in place of the pointless tap lands but it's been more than sufficient and I run a lot of land fetch. Orim's Chant has helped me a shocking amount in those tight finishes. Staff of Nin is searching for a spot. How is Argentum Armor best for Stonehewer when Worldslayer is a thing? My big thing is not playing things that can be used against me. Karn kills my deck, Terminus kills my deck even if I use it... Magus and Staff are definitely searching for a spot though.
Elspeth is mostly to generate a target while I'm building. They really think I'm aiming for that ultimate.
Private Mod Note
():
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
Her Tale:
Griselbrand was Avacyn's dark counterpart, all of his strengths lied in her weaknesses and it was a painful reflection. Knowing that she could not simply overpower this monster, she did what she had to do. Avacyn fought Griselbrand into the Helvault where she aimed to imprison him perpetually but in a last ditch effort, Griselbrand threw his spear and impaled his captor locking her up inside this wretched prison alongside him.
Not much is known of what occurred inside of The Helvault, only that the plane of Innistrad lost it's light that day. No one expected it to ever improve until Liliana came around. Liliana had made a soul-pact with the demon, Griselbrand that could only lead to hellish consequences if Griselbrand wasn't handled accordingly. She forced Thalia's hand in breaking open the hellish rock by threatening that which Thalia held most dear, her command. Thalia broke open the titanic rock freeing Griselbrand and more importantly, his holy warden. Avacyn is once again whole.
About Me:
I'm a 16 year Magic Veteran but have only been playing EDH for roundabout two years. One of the earliest things I heard in Magic was that you COULD NOT build a competitive mono-colored deck in EDH so guess what my first goal was? I wanted a deck in each color that was competitive quality. First, I started with Xiahou Dun, the One-Eyed as a general making a pretty generic pain deck that would pretty quickly turn into infinite mana exsanguinate.
Next, there was Norin of the Wary Probably my favorite deck to play even though it was largely stolen from a member here. I LOVE THAT DECK!
Then, Azami, Lady of the Scrolls... I want to say that I liked this deck but honestly a pretty consistent turn 2-3 just seemed wrong. It defeated the spirit of EDH in my opinion almost as bad as the next deck.
Azusa, Lost but Seeking-If you play this deck, you're playing EDH training wheels. Congratulations. No.
Finally, the color I never thought I'd like... I generally don't like White or Green. I'm not one for the lighter side of things. Initially, this was going to be Eight-And-A-Half-Tails but after testing Avacyn once, my mind was made up. This was my first deck that actually offered as much control as power and it offers more of both than most other colors. Enough lead-in though, here's the deck list.
The List:
1 Land Tax
2 Angelic Renewal
3 Gift of Imortality
4 Endless Horizon
1 Condemn
1 Path to Exile
1 Enlightened Tutor
1 Orim's Chant
1 Swords to Plowshares
3 Oblation
1 Weathered Wayfarer
1 Serra Ascendant
1 Mother of Runes
2 Puresteel Paladin
2 Eight-and-a-Half-Tails
2 Stoneforge Mystic
3 Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant
4 Linvala, Keeper of Secrets
4 Hundred-Handed One
4 Sublime Archangel
5 Karmic Guide
5 Stonehewer Giant
5 Reveillark
6 Twilight Shepherd
6 Adarkar Valkyrie
6 Sun Titan
6 Admonition Angel
6 Sunblast Angel
7 Elesh Norn, Grand Cenobite
9 Iona, Shield of Emeria
4 Armageddon
4 Day of Judgment
4 Resurrection
4 Wrath of God
4 Rout
6 Austere Command
6 Planar Cleansing
6 Akroma's Vengeance
6 Catastrophe
0 Mana Crypt
1 Aether Vial
1 Skullclamp
1 Sensei's Divining Top
1 Sol Ring
2 Scroll Rack
2 Lightning Greaves
2 Swiftfoot Boots
3 Mimic Vat
3 Whispersilk Cloak
3 Oblivion Stone
3 Sword of Feast and Famine
3 Extraplanar Lens
3 Sword of Fire and Ice
3 Crucible of Worlds
4 Thran Dynamo
4 Nevinyrral's Disk
4 Solemn Simulacrum
5 Worldslayer
5 Gilded Lotus
5 Mind's Eye
5 Gauntlet of Power
6 Caged Sun
6 Duplicant
16 Plains
1 Cavern of Souls
1 Vesuva
1 Kor Haven
1 Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
1 Temple of the False gods
1 Homeward Path
1 Darksteel Citadel
1 Cathedral of War
1 Arid Mesa
1 Reliquary Tower
1 Marsh Flats
1 Windswept Heath
1 Flooded Strand
1 Ancient Tomb
1 Emeria, the Sky Ruin
1 Strip Mine
1 Mistveil Plains
1 Maze of Ith
Card Choices:
I'll skip the auto-includes here because they're auto includes for a reason.
The Commander:
Enchantments:
Angelic Renewal: It's a small card but it does work. Someone blow up your Solemn and you could use the mana? Use it. I do need a sac outlet though as I used to bounce Sun Titan as many times as necessary.
Gift of Imortality: Another card that is begging for a sac outlet... I really should look into that... Plays well with Solemn and... well, anything with any ETB effects. I love this card.
Endless Horizon: Deck thinning that offers an extra card in hand to be Scroll Racked away as you need it? I'll take 10.
Instants:
Creatures:
Puresteel Paladin: Your draw power suite is less than ideal in white so we take what we can get plus the easy 0 equip cost is pretty sweet.
Rune-Tail, Kitsune Ascendant: He plays, he flips, he does work. Pretty self-explanatory I guess.
Hundred-Handed One: I love this card, you give it indestructibility and it more or less just laughs at everything. Offer it some level of protection and many decks quickly realize they won't get through.
Twilight Shepherd: Just in case you do get wiped by someone quickly exiling your avacyn, why not give yourself an easy way to rebuild?
Admonition Angel: Fetch lands make this guy funny. That is all.
Iona, Shield of Emeria: There are two colors that can kinda shut this deck down given enough juice, why not make the more prevalent one a dead duck?
Sorceries:
Artifacts:
Aether Vial: This card has been hit and miss but when it hits, it hits hard enough to justify an include and it always seems to be there when I get mana screwed.
Mimic Vat: Most fun I've had, exiling Iona under this and popping it only when another player was about to ruin me. It was swoon-worthy.
Worldslayer: Worldslayer on Avacyn is unquestionably as wrong as it gets in this deck. When it happens on turn 4, it's just comical.
Lands:
Vesuva: This actually was about to get removed, then I found the next card down.
Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx: One of these is hilarious, almost Cabal Coffers good in a mono-colored deck. I can frequently have it tapping for 11+ and given the color, that's phenomenal.
Homeward Path: My meta likes playing pass the card with certain cards. I like getting mine back and feel this should be an auto-include in every EDH deck in existence.
FAQ:
Q: Why don't you run more Swords?
A: A lot of metas seem to like trading those around the board be it with a Bribery or a Praetor's Grasp. I simply don't like having things that can single-handedly ruin me in my deck.
[EDH] Ob Nixilis the Fallen
As far as Iona goes, I feel the same at times. Usually, in my group a Bribery targets either Iona or Vorinclex and either way, it hurts.
Well, the deck plays a lot of All is Dust and other mass removal that are also colorless (O-Stone, Disk, Karn, ..). And against Avacyn, a lot of exile like Path, Swords, Final Judgment for me, Karn, All is Dust...
It is important when playing either of Avacyn/Iona to have a plan if we know our opponent plays things like Gilded Drake or Clones. Anything blue really.
Rules Advisor
Pauper decks: Weenie Tokens — Zombies
My own rules when building a Commander deck:
1) Underrated general that I can build around but the deck must work without him/her too.
2) Every card must be legal in both banlists.
3) No infinite combo that could win (and ruin) instantly a multiplayer game.
4) Synergy at all costs; stay on theme, avoid goodstuff.
Thanks for the critique, as for my land count, I've never had any issues. I frequently have a turn 3-4 Avacyn. I know a lot of my mono-colored lands are more or less useless, I'm seeking to improve that and will definitely take what you've offered into consideration. As for ramp, I'm not big on one pump chumps. If it can't offer some degree of consistency or deck thinning then there isn't room for it in my deck. Reliquary Tower comes in more than you'd think with land tax and Endless Horizons, filling your hand with lands and then scroll racking them away is amazing. I actually thought my basic count was fairly high, I could possibly use a couple in place of the pointless tap lands but it's been more than sufficient and I run a lot of land fetch. Orim's Chant has helped me a shocking amount in those tight finishes. Staff of Nin is searching for a spot. How is Argentum Armor best for Stonehewer when Worldslayer is a thing? My big thing is not playing things that can be used against me. Karn kills my deck, Terminus kills my deck even if I use it... Magus and Staff are definitely searching for a spot though.
Elspeth is mostly to generate a target while I'm building. They really think I'm aiming for that ultimate.