I wanted to use my playsets of Cavern of Souls and Maelstrom Archangels in a 5-color angels deck. Although I went through four other deck designs that used Angel of Despair and Sunblast Angel in control themes, I’ve centered on lower curve angels for 1v1, team, star, and Emperor’s games in a more aggro approach. By putting out small angels and buffing from there, the hope is to get a front out, tap opponents and keep them tapped for attacks using Stoic Angel while giving angels vigilence and buffing from Ajani. Simple, straightforward.
I own the lands already, but everything else is negotiable. If you have some ideas that can correspond with the aim here, especially card-for-card swap suggestions, please let me know. Cheers.
Maybe a Rogue’s Passage? (For a plowshare?)
Or a Loxodon Warhammer or other trample granting card? (For a plowshare?)
You want those Maelstroms to punch through...
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
I agree there are lots of mono-white angels that are better. I felt the hankering to do a rainbow angel build. I could just as easily run an Orzhov angel tribal and dump angels to the ‘yard and Exhume/Living Death to whole shebang while blasting the opponents’ yards, but then it wouldn’t be rainbow angels, lol.
Jenara is a self-pumping angel for 3 mana that I can pump when I have mana spare. That’s the reason for 4. The other idea I had was something like this.
This was actually closer to what I originally had in mind. My concern is mana coming online fast enough to avoid early alpha strikes, and the fact this is pretty much ffa and only ffa due to the blow-everybody-else-up nature of Sunblast Angel. In here, Stoic Angel and Maelstrom Angel have more synergy.
If you're just looking to use it to cheat creatures into play, Lure of Prey, Elvish Piper etc. have that covered.
Hmm, very good feedback from all three of you. Thanks. So if I were to create a shell of something like some number of Alara blades (maybe two of each for a total of ten) to weather early assaults, the archangels, twenty lands for rainbow colors, and then set the Cavern of Souls as a final four lands for “avatar”, I could then use 5-mana avatars for mid-game, and have some really big avatars like the Primordial cycle and Progenitus for finishers with massive spells of the stupidly powerful variety. Is that something along the lines of what the archangels are best for?
I’m thinking spells like Insurrection, Blatant Thievery, Army of the Damned, etc.
I stand by my earlier advice, to run something to make sure you deal combat damage to the opponent.
Hit opponent for effect is a nice subtheme. (anyone know what Silent-Blade Oni does without peeking?)
Maybe something like this as a rough shell? The Deed will clear most chump blockers to get the angels through to one of my opponents and help keep me upright in other situations.
Hmm, I see a problem though with Deed blasting my own mana. Maybe instead do some 4x Darksteel Ingots and a couple Ravnica bounce lands for double mana...something like that.
Re-working the Maelstrom Archangel idea here, I’ve come up with a radically different idea. Many thanks to feedback so far, as this latest idea is heavily based on that feedback. So the deck idea is called Skittles because, unlike Skithryx mbc decks, this one uses the rainbow concept throughout, from the smallest little dudes through the highest cmc spells. Something like a tagline of “Suck the rainbow, taste the rainbow!”
I’m posting this here because while I have the ultimatums in as first test for Maelstrom Archangel, I am concerned that enemies will stymie their use effectively by dealing with the angels, and it will take too lomg with the present list to get 7 colored mana. My meta being less-than-spikish will only let me get away with so much before I’m being too greedy.
Another option would be to have only one of each bringer mentioned above, one Chromanticore, and four Angel of Despair. But I’m honestly thinking that restricting my max curve to five is the best option here. Thoughts? I’m personally leaning toward the Ultimatums replaced by the 2 of each bringer and 2 Chromanticore.
If you don’t always use your mana maybe Dragonsoul Knight and/or Paragon of the Amesha in the low curve spots?
They are only ‘fair’ but marvelously on theme.
You should test it yourself but I’m not sold on Ultimata, unless they are in a copy spells deck...
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In magic there's Harry Dresden, Fizban, Sethra Lavode, Dorotea Senjak and me...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Thanks, guys, for the feedback! I appreciate it. Absolutely I’m still in the game if I keep those blades in. With Deed, spot removal, Knight of New Alara, and All Suns’ Dawn, that’s the potential for making quite the mess of the boardstate. That being said, I’ve actually been looking at swapping out some cards for fixing. My thought was to do the following as I’ve thought about options.
Here, I know I will reliably get five colors with five mana a decently high % of the time as I’ve played this land color-saturation successfully many times. I could make it 4x Darksteel Ingots instead of Dark Rits for steady resilient color ramp, but the Dark Rits accelerate faster into the Ultimatums and Deeds.
However I slice the mana, the goal here is to keep the shard blades so that they can go crazy with Knight of New Alara (who will also pump the higher curve critters.). To take them out is to nullify half the reason for this deck in the first place.
Is it vulnerable to sweepers? Sure, all creature decks are. But to say blades are obsolete because they can be swept is potentially as laughable as saying that non-black creatures are obsolete because they die to Doomblade. In non-spikish metas, one can certainly plan a creature deck around sweepers. I know that because I do it all the time successfully. That’s part of why I have the All Suns’ Dawn and Cruel Ultimatums, giving me lots of creature recursion.
Specifically, if my friends sweep 4cmc, that saves me using my Deeds because their creature decks just got wasted, too. There are a ton of aggro horde decks in my group. Ergo, they rarely do that. I totally understand you wouldn’t know that from my list, but that’s the background. Even if they do, I can Dark Rit, All Sun’s Dawn, then start casting the army back, then curve into the 5cmc cards. And the mana curve with the admittedly slower etb-tapped lands is easily sufficient to hit those 5cmc creatures without much lag.
Certainly, if I find myself wishing I had a Darksteel Ingot, then I can swap the Dark Rits out, but I’ll have that resolved via gold-fishing before it sees my friends. The Ingots or Rituals here are better than Relics or Signets because I’m using Pernicious Deed.
I own the lands already, but everything else is negotiable. If you have some ideas that can correspond with the aim here, especially card-for-card swap suggestions, please let me know. Cheers.
4 Lightning Angel
4 Firemane Avenger
4 Stoic Angel
4 Maelstrom Archangel
4 Karmic Guide
4 Jenara, Asura of War
4 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Fellwar Stone
3 Naya Charm
3 Ajani Goldmane
1 Recurring Nightmare
5 Vivid lands (1 of each)
5 Alara tri-lands (1 of each)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Exotic Orchard
Maybe a Rogue’s Passage? (For a plowshare?)
Or a Loxodon Warhammer or other trample granting card? (For a plowshare?)
You want those Maelstroms to punch through...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Jenara is a self-pumping angel for 3 mana that I can pump when I have mana spare. That’s the reason for 4. The other idea I had was something like this.
4 Lightning Angel
4 Stoic Angel
4 Maelstrom Archangel
4 Karmic Guide
2 Sunblast Angel
3 Angel of Despair
3 Vindicate
4 Swords to Plowshares
4 Naya Charm
4 Kiss of the Amesha
4 Fellwar Stone
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
1 Recurring Nightmare
5 Vivid lands (1 of each)
5 Alara tri-lands (1 of each)
4 Cavern of Souls
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Exotic Orchard
This was actually closer to what I originally had in mind. My concern is mana coming online fast enough to avoid early alpha strikes, and the fact this is pretty much ffa and only ffa due to the blow-everybody-else-up nature of Sunblast Angel. In here, Stoic Angel and Maelstrom Angel have more synergy.
Unless you're using Maelstrom Archangel to land things like Omniscience, Akroma's Memorial, Spine of Ish Sah, Thought Reflection, Grave Betrayal or some massive freaky creatures, you're missing out on what the card was made to do.
If you're just looking to use it to cheat creatures into play, Lure of Prey, Elvish Piper etc. have that covered.
I’m thinking spells like Insurrection, Blatant Thievery, Army of the Damned, etc.
You could even run some bringers... (Bringer of the Blue Dawn for example)
I stand by my earlier advice, to run something to make sure you deal combat damage to the opponent.
Hit opponent for effect is a nice subtheme. (anyone know what Silent-Blade Oni does without peeking?)
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
Hmm, I see a problem though with Deed blasting my own mana. Maybe instead do some 4x Darksteel Ingots and a couple Ravnica bounce lands for double mana...something like that.
“Boom!” Goes the Archangel Anarchy
Creatures:
4 Esper Stormblade
4 Grixis Grimblade
4 Maelstrom Archangel
4 5-or-less-cmc avatars
1 Progenitus
5 Primordials - the cycle
Non-creatures:
4 Fellwar Stone
1 Sol Ring
1 Mana Vault
2 Decree of Pain
4 Pernicious Deed
4 Beast Within
2 Blatant Thievery
1 Recurring Nightmare
Land:
20 rainbow lands
4 Cavern of Souls
Re-working the Maelstrom Archangel idea here, I’ve come up with a radically different idea. Many thanks to feedback so far, as this latest idea is heavily based on that feedback. So the deck idea is called Skittles because, unlike Skithryx mbc decks, this one uses the rainbow concept throughout, from the smallest little dudes through the highest cmc spells. Something like a tagline of “Suck the rainbow, taste the rainbow!”
I’m posting this here because while I have the ultimatums in as first test for Maelstrom Archangel, I am concerned that enemies will stymie their use effectively by dealing with the angels, and it will take too lomg with the present list to get 7 colored mana. My meta being less-than-spikish will only let me get away with so much before I’m being too greedy.
2 Esper Stormblade
2 Grixis Grimblade
2 Jund Hackblade
2 Bant Sureblade
2 Naya Hushblade
4 Knight of New Alara
4 Maelstrom Archangel
4 Fusion Elemental
4 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Violent Ultimatum
4 Bant Charm
4 All Suns’ Dawn
3 Pernicious Deed
Lands used:
5 Alara tri-lands (1 each)
5 Vivid lands (1 each)
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Azorious Chancery
1 Gruul Turf
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Dimir Aqueduct
Alternate changes if playtesting doesn’t pan out for using ultimatums
-4 Violent Ultimatum
-4 Cruel Ultimatum
+2 Chromanticore
+2 Bringer of the Black Dawn
+2 Bringer of the Blue Dawn
+2 Bringer of the Red Dawn
Another option would be to have only one of each bringer mentioned above, one Chromanticore, and four Angel of Despair. But I’m honestly thinking that restricting my max curve to five is the best option here. Thoughts? I’m personally leaning toward the Ultimatums replaced by the 2 of each bringer and 2 Chromanticore.
They are only ‘fair’ but marvelously on theme.
You should test it yourself but I’m not sold on Ultimata, unless they are in a copy spells deck...
My meta: 3 or 4 player free for all, anything goes but boring games or broken decks cause a vote to end that game.
2 Esper Stormblade
2 Grixis Grimblade
2 Jund Hackblade
2 Bant Sureblade
2 Naya Hushblade
4 Knight of New Alara
4 Maelstrom Archangel
4 Fusion Elemental
4 Dark Ritual
4 Cruel Ultimatum
4 Bant Charm
4 All Suns’ Dawn
3 Pernicious Deed
Lands:
5 Alara tri-lands (1 each)
5 Vivid lands (1 each)
4 Reflecting Pool
4 Exotic Orchard
1 Volrath’s Stronghold
1 Azorious Chancery
1 Gruul Turf
1 Selesnya Sanctuary
1 Rakdos Carnarium
1 Dimir Aqueduct
Here, I know I will reliably get five colors with five mana a decently high % of the time as I’ve played this land color-saturation successfully many times. I could make it 4x Darksteel Ingots instead of Dark Rits for steady resilient color ramp, but the Dark Rits accelerate faster into the Ultimatums and Deeds.
However I slice the mana, the goal here is to keep the shard blades so that they can go crazy with Knight of New Alara (who will also pump the higher curve critters.). To take them out is to nullify half the reason for this deck in the first place.
Is it vulnerable to sweepers? Sure, all creature decks are. But to say blades are obsolete because they can be swept is potentially as laughable as saying that non-black creatures are obsolete because they die to Doomblade. In non-spikish metas, one can certainly plan a creature deck around sweepers. I know that because I do it all the time successfully. That’s part of why I have the All Suns’ Dawn and Cruel Ultimatums, giving me lots of creature recursion.
Specifically, if my friends sweep 4cmc, that saves me using my Deeds because their creature decks just got wasted, too. There are a ton of aggro horde decks in my group. Ergo, they rarely do that. I totally understand you wouldn’t know that from my list, but that’s the background. Even if they do, I can Dark Rit, All Sun’s Dawn, then start casting the army back, then curve into the 5cmc cards. And the mana curve with the admittedly slower etb-tapped lands is easily sufficient to hit those 5cmc creatures without much lag.
Certainly, if I find myself wishing I had a Darksteel Ingot, then I can swap the Dark Rits out, but I’ll have that resolved via gold-fishing before it sees my friends. The Ingots or Rituals here are better than Relics or Signets because I’m using Pernicious Deed.