Innistrad Tribal Block Constructed: The Skaabs

Okay, so at first I wasn't really sure what to do for this zombie list as most all of the mono-blue zombies sucked, though I eventually decided on a build revolving around Grimgrin, Corpse-Born as our main wincon.

Once I decided on that, I realized I would definitely need some fodder for the cannon and luckily there were a few zombies that fit the role, such as Gravecrawler, Geralf's Messenger, and Black Cat. Most of the time we're going to be casting Gravecrawler from our 'yard several times per match, so why not profit from that with Secrets of the Dead? Though, I figure we'll need more support for the enchantment than just Gravecrawler, so we'll add Think Twice, and Havengul Lich.

Now, we can't go putting all our eggs in one basket so as an alternate wincon we can throw in some Endless Ranks of the Dead (also provides food for Grimmy if need be) as well as some Diregraf Captains to make our meagre tokens slightly more threatening. Diregraf Captain also works pretty well when we are constantly feeding our Gravecrawlers to Ol' Grimmy. 

At this point we'll just add some removal a la Barter in Blood and Tribute to Hunger, assemble our mana base and we're done. Our finished product looks something like this:

Creature: 17

3 x Black Cat

4 x Diregraf Captain

2 x Geralf's Messenger

4 x Gravecrawler

3 x Grimgrin, Corpse-Born

1 x Havengul Lich

Enchantment: 7

3 x Endless Ranks of the Dead

4 x Secrets of the Dead

Instant: 8

4 x Think Twice

4 x Tribute to Hunger

Sorcery: 4

4 x Barter in Blood

+ 24 Land

Of course, Cavern of Souls was added to the mana base , though from this point I'll just leave that as a given.  

Any suggestions or cool ideas, just leave a comment! =)

Next up are the B/R Vampires. 

Thank you for reading, 'till next time.

Innistrad Tribal Block Constructed: The Geists

Today and in the next few days to come, we'll be looking at the tribes of Innistrad and how a (block constructed) deck built around each tribe might look. Going in a clockwise motion and starting with White, first up would be the W/U Spirit build.

The first obvious inclusion is Drogskol Captain who pumps and grants protection to our spirits, and coming in second is Geist of Saint Traft, who doesn't want six power for three mana? Though, it really does irk me that he doesn't have flying but I digress.

Two other great spirits to add are Mindshrieker and Spectral Rider. Mindshrieker can go off multiple times in a turn for some potentially impressive boosts and already has evasion so what's not to like?

Now we have our beatsticks out of the way, and since we're in some very controlling colors, we'll add some board control in the form of Dungeon Geists, Soul Seizer and Rebuke; and for the fun of it I suppose a couple of Divine Deflections could do as well. 

As the bane of all decks is running out of fuel we'll throw in a playset of Amass the Components to keep our tank full. 

So now we have beats, board control and refilling our tank covered, what now? Well, I'd say since a majority of our creatures have flying, a few Favorable Winds might do nicely. Its not as good as the Captain but as the old saying goes, two anthem effects are better than one. Not to mention that the Captain is less likely to stick, being a creature and all, so it can fill in in his absence.

Seeing as how this deck isn't exactly laden with creatures, I figured Midnight Haunting could serve us when we have no creatures to speak of.

Put it all together and we have something that looks like this:

Creatures: 19

4 x Drogskol Captain

3 x Dungeon Geists

2 x Geist of Saint Traft

4 x Mindshrieker

2 x Soul Seizer

4 x Spectral Rider

Enchantments: 3

3 x Favorable Winds

Instants: 10

2 x Divine Deflection

4 x Midnight Haunting

4 x Rebuke

Sorcery: 4

4 x Amass the Components

+ 24 Land

In our mana base, we have another obvious inclusion in the form of Cavern of Souls, and Moorland Haunt allows us to use our graveyard as a resource.

You're probably wondering why Angel of Flight Alabaster isn't on this list, as she would allow us to make better use of our graveyard than Moorland Haunt; so to answer your question, the only reason she wasn't included is that I was trying to keep it to a strict spirit build.

This concludes our look at the W/U Spirits next up is the U/B Zombie tribe. If you have any suggestions or secret tech, please leave a comment!

Thank you for reading, until next time.

The Brutal Bruna Brew

Last but not least, today's decklist is based on Bruna, Light of Alabaster.

Smack dab in the middle between Sigarda and Gisela, Bruna is not what I would call aggressively costed nor is she that expensive. Though, 6cc for a 5/5 with evasion and one of the most powerful abilities I've seen in a while, she is more than a bargain.

So lets get into what her 99 is composed of. Her ramp package is quite similar to Gisela's, give or take a couple of cards. The graveyard hate section is identical to Sigarda's and of course the ubiquitous staples were included. 

What about the cards that are unique to her list, you ask? Well first up were the buffs (Auras) that Bruna would be relying on to establish some kind of board presence. I wanted each of the buffs to serve at least one of three functions: pump by at least +2/+2, grant evasion, and/or grant protection as those are the three most important things I figured Bruna and the rest of my creatures would need.

The buffs that were added are as follows: 

Angelic Destiny

Armored Ascension

Auramancer's Guise

Battle Mastery

Celestial Mantle

Diplomatic Immunity

Drake Umbra 

Eel Umbra

Eldrazi Conscription

Indestructibility

Infiltrator's Magemark

Mammoth Umbra

Spirit Mantle

Steel of the Godhead 

Unquestioned Authority

Going by the seven by nine rule which you can read about here. I tried to include at least seven cards that served each function. Some of these buffs served more than one function, Drake Umbra for example, pumps, grants evasion, and grants protection all in one; and on the opposite end there is Battle Mastery which serves none of the functions yet I liked it enough to include it.

Also, I realize that in my initial post reviewing Bruna I advocated the usefulness of Crab Umbra yet you will notice its absence in the above list. To clear up any confusion I was really advocating the usefulness of the Umbra card's Totem Armor ability and not specifically Crab Umbra itself. Don't get me wrong, because I'd include every single W/U Umbra if I had room. Sadly the deck needed room for some other essential cards so some Umbras needed to be cut.

Next up is our tutoring section, as consistency is key to a solid game plan. As our deck runs on our enchantments we'll need plenty of ways to get the enchantments we need when we need them. So our tutoring section consists of:

Academy Rector
Auratouched Mage
Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Totem-Guide Hartebeest
Enlightened Tutor
Intuition
Mystical Tutor
Idyllic Tutor
Three Dreams

Intuition is great in this deck since Bruna doesn't care if our enchantments are in the graveyard or not and Mystical Tutor doesn't tutor for enchantments but can become any of our other tutoring spells; at instant speed no less!

Last but not least we'll need some good creatures to target with our enchantments and similar to our Sigarda list, this would include creatures with combat damage abilities, evasion, or protection built in. Some of these creatures included:

Beloved Chaplain
Cephalid Constable
Commander Eesha
Kor Spiritdancer
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Rootwater Thief

Rootwater Thief is good for disrupting any combo players at the table and if you can pump up Cephalid Constable and manage to get a Battle Mastery on him then more power to you!

At this point we'll add some standard recursion, some card draw, a little removal/board control, and some good stuff and we're done. Our finished list looks something like this:


Commander:
Bruna, Light of Alabaster

Artifact: 6
Armillary Sphere
Azorius Signet
Coalition Relic
Expedition Map
Sol Ring
Tormod's Crypt

Creature: 21
Academy Rector
Auratouched Mage
Beloved Chaplain
Cephalid Constable
Commander Eesha
Consecrated Sphinx
Duplicant
Hanna, Ship's Navigator
Jace's Archivist
Kor Spiritdancer
Mesa Enchantress
Ninja of the Deep Hours
Reveillark
Rootwater Thief
Solemn Simulacrum
Sovereigns of Lost Alara
Stonecloaker
Sun Titan
Totem-Guide Hartebeest
Umbra Mystic
Weathered Wayfarer

Enchantment: 24
Angelic Destiny
Armored Ascension
Auramancer's Guise
Battle Mastery
Celestial Mantle
Diplomatic Immunity
Drake Umbra
Eel Umbra
Eldrazi Conscription
Enchanted Evening
Faith's Fetters
Fool's Demise
Indestructibility
Infiltrator's Magemark
Karmic Justice
Land Tax
Mammoth Umbra
Prison Term
Rhystic Study
Spirit Mantle
Steel of the Godhead
Take Possession
Treachery
Unquestioned Authority

Instant: 6
Enlightened Tutor
Intuition
Mystical Tutor
Return to Dust
Swords to Plowshares
Tithe

Sorcery: 5
Austere Command
Idyllic Tutor
Replenish
Three Dreams
Winds of Rath

+37 Lands


In our mana base we have Serra's Sanctum to help ramp mana and Minamo, School at Water's Edge to help abuse the Sanctum (Especially with an Enchanted Evening in play). There is a combo with Enchanted Evening and Cleansing Meditation but I decided not to be dirty.... yet.

I not sure but I may have let the theme dilute the power as I excluded a lot of good stuff (Phyrexian Metamorph and friends) for more thematic cards. There is actually an article that a friend of mine did covering the issue of theme vs power and you can read about it here. Of course, as with any deck, play-testing will reveal what cards can or should be taken out and allow for some fine-tuning.

Also, speaking of fine-tuning, I'm not sure how it happened but Sensei's Divining Top is not on the list. This needs to be rectified of course but as it stands I'm not sure what to cut.

This concludes our look at AVR's three angel legends, if you have any suggestions or secret tech be sure to share!

Thank you for reading, I'll see you next time. 

Double Damage, Double Strike, and Double Fun

Okay, this post is about Gisela, Blade of Goldnight and what a deck with her might look like. I have to say though, Gisela presented me with quite the quandary. Her ability is one that begs for aggressiveness but her mana cost says the complete opposite, especially when we don't have access to green for the ramp.

I wanted double strike and extra attacking phases to be a main theme in order to milk the double damage ability that she gives us; but how do I survive long enough to even get her into play? The best I could do was try to add as much of a controlling element to the deck as I could, without diluting the aggressiveness too much. So needless to say, the deck is abound with spot and mass removal in an effort to control the board while we put our own game plan together.

So, now that we know what we want to do, what cards do we include? First we're going to need a ramp package in order to get Gisela on the field as soon as we can. We're outside of green so the best cards I could put together for a ramp/land tutoring package were Armillary Sphere, Boros Signet, Expedition Map, Sol Ring, Thran Dynamo, Land Tax, Tithe, Gift of Estates, Weathered Wayfarer, and of course, Sad Robot. As you would notice, most of these cards don't allow you to get ahead mana-wise by putting lands directly into play, but we can at least keep up with the rampers at the table by making sure we don't miss too many land drops.

Next up is board control, we're going to need a lot of it if we're going to stay alive long enough to get the Blade of Goldnight into play. So, like many EDH decks before this one, we'll stock up on mass removal such as Austere Command, Rout, Planar Cleansing, Earthquake, and Wrath of God; and our spot removal is covered by Flametongue Kavu, Inferno Titan, Spitebellows, Orim's Thunder, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Return to Dust, and Chaos Warp. The latter five of those cards, led me to include Sunforger for some much appreciated toolboxing capabilities and because of Sunforger, I threw in a Wild Ricochet as well. Why not, right?

One thing I was worried about was that my removal section might actually be a bit too hefty. After some play-testing, of course, this can easily be fixed.

Next up was the creatures and my means of turning them into credible threats. Since I wanted double strike and extra attacking phases to be a main theme, I figured it would make sense if some of the creatures had some nice combat damage abilities in order to get the most out of them. Sadly, there weren't that many but the ones I did find suited the deck quite nicely. These include Blinding Angel, Akki Underminer, Falkenrath Marauders, Balefire Dragon, and Dragon Mage. I probably don't need to tell you but Falkenrath Marauders can get pretty out of hand when you throw double strike into the mix. Your opponents will be forced to either deal with them swiftly, or lose.

Since I couldn't find that many creatures with decent combat damage abilities, I decided to throw in some Swords of Stuff and Junk to grant abilities, evasion, and protection all in one convenient package. Now our equipment count is going up and while equipping our creatures isn't our main strategy, its important enough to warrant some tutors. So the usual suspects when it comes to equipment tutoring were added.

In addition to equipment, there are some powerful enchantments in these colors that would also turn our meagre creatures into something more formidable; so I couldn't resist adding True Conviction, Rage Reflection, Glory of Warfare, and Crescendo of War. Rage Reflection is redundant and less powerful than True Conviction, yes, but the latter will be a big target for removal so its good to have a backup for just such an occasion.

At this point, we'll throw in some more aggressive creatures, some card draw, a little recursion and some Relentless Assault type cards and we have something that looks like this:

Commander:
Gisela, Blade of Goldnight

Artifact: 15
Armillary Sphere
Boros Signet
Expedition Map
Fireshrieker
Mind's Eye
Scroll Rack
Sensei's Divining Top
Sol Ring
Sunforger
Swiftfoot Boots
Sword of Feast and Famine
Sword of Fire and Ice
Sword of Light and Shadow
Sword of War and Peace
Thran Dynamo

Creature: 21
Academy Rector
Akki Underminer
Balefire Dragon
Balefire Liege
Blinding Angel
Dragon Mage
Falkenrath Marauders
Figure of Destiny
Flametongue Kavu
Hellkite Charger
Herald of War
Imperial Recruiter
Inferno Titan
Reveillark
Serra Ascendant
Solemn Simulacrum
Spitebellows
Stoneforge Mystic
Stonehewer Giant
Taj-Nar Swordsmith
Weathered Wayfarer

Enchantment: 6
Aggravated Assault
Crescendo of War
Glory of Warfare
Land Tax
Rage Reflection
True Conviction

Instant: 9
Chaos Warp
Enlightened Tutor
Orim's Thunder
Path to Exile
Return to Dust
Savage Beating
Swords to Plowshares
Tithe
Wild Ricochet

Sorcery: 10
Austere Command
Earthquake
Gift of Estates
Planar Cleansing
Rout
Steelshaper's Gift
Waves of Aggression
Wheel of Fortune
World at War
Wrath of God

+38 Lands



Once again, I'll divulge a little about my mana base. Obviously, Sunhome, Fortress of the Legion made it into the deck, as did the yet to be released Slayer's Stronghold. I decided to test if I could make Emeria, the Sky Ruin work for me outside of mono-white and it is on my watch-list of cards that will be taken out should they underperform.

On a final note, two things that worry me with this deck is the complete lack of any graveyard hate and the mana curve, I'd like to lower it a little if possible. So it could be said that I'm not truly happy with this list but we'll see how it goes for now.

Thank you for reading, next up is the Light of Alabaster, Bruna.

Heaven-sent

I know I said that my next post would either be a Bruna or Gisela deck list, but I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw today's spoilers. As you probably know by now, Avacyn Restored is all about good triumphing over evil and many cards have an angelic or holy theme. One card that doesn't really have such a flavor but strikes me as a heaven-send is Cavern of Souls (rough translation).


The rough translation for this card is:

Land

As ~ enters the battlefield, choose a creature type.

{T}: Add {1} to your mana pool

{T}: Add one mana of any color to your mana pool. Use this mana only to cast creatures of the chosen type. If mana is spent this way, that spell can't be countered by spells or abilities.


Needless to say, this card is already an EDH staple. The obvious use is to play it, name a creature type that your commander has and go to town. Gone are the days where people lived in fear of Hinder and Spell Crumple and gone are the days where people played Declaration of Naught and named your commander while you sit powerless to do anything.

Of course, in certain decks this card will be a needle in a haystack, certain colors without land tutoring abilities will have to mostly rely on luck. Though, if getting this land into play means that much to you then there is always Planar Portal and Expedition Map*.

Having said all that, I'd appreciate finding a meta where tuck effects, counterspells and LD weren't so rampant (they are everywhere on Cockatrice). So, ideally, I would never have to use this card in the first place. However, at least I can defend myself in the meantime. Thank you Wizards!

One last thing I'll say, is that if Wizards keeps designing cards like this maybe all the talk of banning islands will cease.

Oh, and tribal decks just got a lot better too!

The Host of Herons and Her 99

Welcome to another installment here at The Tolarian Academy. Today we're going to be looking at a deck list for Sigarda, Host of Herons. A new mythic legend from the soon to be released Avacyn Restored set.

A deck with Sigarda should be very straight forward: Ramp mana, cast Sigarda, and proceed to smash face. Her mana cost, P/T, and evasion make her an aggressive commander for sure and her powerful defensive abilities mean that your opponents will be sweating blood trying to deal with her. 

But lets get into the nitty gritty here and talk about what a deck list with Sigarda might look like. First thing we might want to do, while she is already pretty aggressive, is turn her into even more of a threat. This can be done in a variety of ways; there a certainly some powerful creature enchantments that we could use but if thats the road we want to travel then we're better off choosing another commander since Sigarda cares nothing for enchantments as well as the card advantage problem that those enchantments present.

So it seems like equipment is the way to go, and while Sigarda doesn't care much for equipment either, at least they are better for our card advantage and there is lots of support for equipment in the colors that we have available to us.

First thing that I wanted to do with Sigarda was give her a boost of at least +2/+2 so that she would would be swinging for a minimum of seven combat damage per turn. Putting your opponents on a three turn clock puts you in a very good position to win the game. Fortunately enough, there are plenty equipment cards that do this and more, so the first cards to make the cut were: Behemoth Sledge, Nim Deathmantle, Sword of Feast and Famine, Sword of Fire and Ice, and Sword of Light and Shadow. 

Though, there are other ways to trim down the clock you set for your opponents other than simply boosting Sigarda with +2/+2 and some of these cards include Fireshrieker and Quietus Spike 

Besides trimming down our opponents clock, the thing that all these cards have in common is that they can be recurred with Sun Titan. Which, of course, made the cut as well. In fact, the only equipment in the deck that can't be recurred with Sun Titan is Batterskull. Unfortunate, yes, but it was too good to be excluded just because of that one fact.

The next problem we are faced with is consistency; how do we get the equipment cards we need when we need them? Luckily, there is lots of support for this in white as we have Enlightened Tutor, Steelshaper's Gift, Stoneforge Mystic, Stonehewer Giant, and Taj-Nar Swordsmith; the need for even further consistency in finding some of these cards themselves brings us to include Survival of the Fittest, Fauna Shaman, and Academy Rector. This rounds out our tutoring package. Though, ideally, I'd like to have an Eladamri's Call somewhere in there as well.

With the equipment and the issue of consistency out of the way. Next up is finding some good creatures to use our equipment, I mean, as diehard as Sigarda is, there will still be times when we'll need to rely on some other creatures, should Sigarda happen to draw a lot of hate (Which she probably will). Luckily, we are blessed with quite a few options in these colors. To keep with the very aggressive nature of the deck we'll want creatures who can swing into the redzone unhindered by blockers. Usually, being unblockable is a characteristic of blue creatures but we still have a few options available to us such as, Rhox, and Beloved Chaplain. 

A couple of other excellent creatures to equip things to are: Mirran Crusader, Kemba, Kha Regent, Hystrodon, Hero of Bladehold, and Serra Ascendant.

Now, mass removal is extremely prevalent in EDH and many decks run several cards to this effect. Add to this the factor of multiple opponents and you are pretty much guaranteed to have the board wiped at some point. To take measures against being the victim of a Wrath of God or Fracturing Gust there are a few cards we will look to for aid: Second Sunrise, Ghostway, Dauntless Escort, Darksteel Plate, Spearbreaker Behemoth, and Shield of the Oversoul

With our core strategy laid out, and some cards to cover for our weaknesses, the deck is beginning to take shape; but we're not finished yet. There is still some necessary utility we will need, some acceleration, and of course some good ol' staples that fit into just about any EDH deck but I wont elaborate on everything.

So, to start with the utility, we will need some spot removal (creature or otherwise), mass removal (for when things don't go our way), and some graveyard hate. Believe me, every deck should have graveyard hate. I learned this the hard way.

For spot removal, since we're in white, the obvious choices would be Path to Exile, Swords to Plowshares, and, if you're play-group is okay with it, Condemn. For me, I will stick with the former two as I find tuck effects in EDH are kinda dickish. To round out our spot removal package, we'll add Beast Within, Return to Dust, Harmonic Sliver, Duplicant and for a rattlesnake card, we'll throw in Karmic Justice. The fact that Harmonic Sliver and Karmic Justice can both be recurred by Sun Titan makes it even better.

When it came down to it, I really couldn't find much room for mass removal so I needed something versatile enough to always be useful and Austere Command fit the bill quite nicely. 

Like my mass removal, my graveyard hate section is quite small but reusable since they can be recurred with Sun Titan for repeated effect. I'm talking about Stonecloaker and Tormod's Crypt. Sun Titan, if you haven't noticed, is turning out to be an all-star in this deck.

I won't go into detail about the acceleration section or the staples of this deck since I'm sure you don't need me to tell you why you should be playing with Sol Ring or Primeval Titan. Those cards speak for themselves. I'm also sure you're not interested in what my mana base is so I'll leave that out as well. Though, if you want me to elaborate on anything just leave a comment and I'll be sure to answer your questions.

So with all that out of the way, our finished list looks something like this:

Commander:

Sigarda, Host of Herons

Artifacts: 15

Batterskull

Behemoth Sledge

Darksteel Ingot

Darksteel Plate

Fireshrieker

Mind's Eye

Nim Deathmantle

Quietus Spike

Selesnya Signet

Sensei's Diving Top

Sol Ring

Sword of Feast and Famine

Sword of Fire and Ice

Sword of Light and Shadow

Tormod's Crypt

Creatures: 26

Academy Rector

Beloved Chaplain

Brass Squire 

Dauntless Escort

Duplicant

Eternal Witness

Fauna Shaman

Genesis

Harmonic Sliver

Hero of Bladehold

Hystrodon

Kemba, Kha Regent

Mirran Crusader

Primeval Titan

Puresteel Paladin

Rhox

Sakura-Tribe Elder

Sanctum Gargoyle

Serra Ascendant

Spearbreaker Behemoth

Stonecloaker

Stoneforge Mystic

Stonehewer Giant

Sun Titan

Taj-Nar Swordsmith

Wilt-Leaf Liege 

Enchantments: 6

Burgeoning

Karmic Justice

Mirari's Wake

Shield of the Oversoul

Survival of the Fittest

True Conviction

Instants: 7

Beast Within

Enlightened Tutor

Ghostway

Path to Exile

Return to Dust

Second Sunrise

Swords to Plowshares

Planeswalkers: 1

Garruk Wildspeaker

Sorceries: 6

Austere Command

Harmonize

Kodama's Reach

Remember the Fallen

Skyshroud Claim

Steelshaper's Gift

+ 38 Lands

Cards I'd like to Add

Eladamri's Call

Phyrexian Rebirth

Privileged Position

Sword of War and Peace

Swiftfoot Boots

Etched Champion

Ok, I lied, I'll tell you a little about my mana base, so, just to say, I am playing with Ancient Den, Tree of Tales, and Darksteel Citadel, bringing my artifact count to twenty-one. Hopefully this should be enough for Puresteel Paladin but only play-testing will tell. Also, Hall of the Bandit Lord works with almost every creature in the deck and Forbidding Watchtower, Treetop Village, Stirring Wildwood and Khalni Garden all give us creatures to equip stuff to in dire times.

This concludes our look at Sigarda and next up is either Bruna or Gisela. I haven't decided which yet.

Thank you for reading and I'll see you next time.

The Light at the End of the Tunnel

As promised, my next review of the AVR legends is on Bruna, Light of Alabaster.

I have previously said that a dependency on enchantments is a bad thing but this is not the case with Bruna. She takes the card advantage problem of creature enchantments and throws it right out the window. With her, not only do you get to suck up all auras on the field and play all auras from your hand for free; but you also get to recur any lost auras repeatedly? I can hear the Uril, the Miststalker players grinding their teeth in jealousy, since, if you haven't noticed yet, much like her Herons cousin Sigarda, not only does she outclass Uril, she hoses him should both of them happen to be on the battlefield.

Much like Gisela, she just screams "Timmy", and right off the bat there are some cards that you would recognize to be auto-includes in any deck with Bruna at the helm.  (Blah blah blah... Eldrazi Conscription ... blah blah blah) 

One such card, that might not appear so obvious though is Crab Umbra. At first glance this card seems to do nothing for Bruna, I mean, unless you happen to be staring down a Frost Titan or some such thing; but what we're really looking at here is the ability at the very bottom. Totem Armor turns Bruna into even more of a beast than she already is. Should she happen to eat any removal during your turn or your opponent's, Crab Umbra eats it instead then you simply attack or block to get it back (Or any other white or blue Umbra card for that matter.).  

And lets not get into if you have more than one Umbra attached to her or if you happen to have a Fool's Demise. Your opponents will be very hard pressed to deal with her. Speaking of Fool's Demise, don't forget that you can also use it to gain control of your opponents creatures too. Your opponents will think twice about sweeping the board if they know your going to get their best creature afterwards and insurance against wrath effects is always good.

Oh, and Bruna has vigilance too. Did I already say that?

This concludes my review of AVR's cycle of legendary angels. Though I will say that I was really hoping to see a WB angel. Sadly though Herons, Goldnight and Alabaster are the only three flights of angels from what I understand of the Planeswalker's Guide to Avacyn Restored

Next up should be some EDH/Commander deck lists. Each one with one of these angels at the helm. I think I'll start with Sigarda. 

TIMMY!

As some of you would have noticed in the recent AVR spoilers, Wizards seems to be printing a cycle of dual colored legendary angels; all of which (spoiled so far) just seem to scream "TIMMY!" at the top of their lungs.

But by far the Timmy-est card spoiled so far is Gisela, Blade of Goldnight.

This card alone, I must admit, has awakened my inner Timmy, and much like Sigarda, Host of Herons, I find myself compelled to make a deck with her.

Lets start to break down some of the stupid things you could do with Gisela, shall we? For one thing, your going to want to make the most of abuse her double damage ability as much as possible. This would include spells or creatures that deal direct damage, creatures that have double strike, cards that grant double strike, as well as cards that grant an extra attacking phase. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Savage Beating.)

Talking about a savage beating, Gisela with her abilities basically reads as a flying 10/10 with first strike, so much like the old ball game, three strikes and your out; and thats without help from the aforementioned Savage Beating or cards like Inquisitor's Flail. Ouch!

Of course, no card is perfect and sadly Gisela's one drawback is her mana cost and without access to green for the mana ramp, we must use less reliable methods to get the 7cc required to cast her. Though, this doesn't mean its impossible to cast her early since with cards like Sol Ring and Thran Dynamo you can cast Gisela as early as your third turn. Who needs green now, right?

So, I hope all you Timmys out there are excited about AVR. I know I am.

Next up is Bruna, Light of Alabaster.  =)

Faith and Sacrifice

Usually faith and devotion require sacrifice, but not with this pretty gal.


For 5cc you get a 5/5 with evasion and protection. Formidable, no? But thats not all, the very next thing you'd look to to remove her with is also covered. That is to say, neither Sigarda nor any of your other permanents can be sacrificed as long as she is on the field, and with her covering so many bases its likely that once she hits the board she'll be around for a while. Don't get me wrong, she's not invincible, since wrath effects can remove her (and the rest of your creatures, duh.), but we'll get to that in a minute.

I personally consider Sigarda, Host of Herons to be almost strictly better than Uril, the Miststalker as a commander. Why? Lets list the reasons.

1 - Built in evasion
2 - No dependency on enchantments
3 - Protects herself and your other permanents from Martyr's Bond effects


Lets touch upon point number two briefly. Why is a dependency on enchantments a bad thing? Well for starters, unless you are using Angelic Destiny or Spirit Loop then you are going to have a problem with something we call card advantage (CA). Secondly, even with the aforementioned creature enchantments and others like them to minimize losing CA, you are still going to have to pay the mana cost over and over should Uril be destroyed, while equipments maintain steady board presence and a usually lower equip cost.

Now, back to the issue of wrath effects. As you can tell this is one of Sigarda's few weaknessses but we can fix that with cards like Spearbreaker Behemoth, Darksteel Plate, and similar cards to supplement her.

Spot removal? Check. Mass Removal? Check. Grave Pact? Pfft.

It seems like only counterspells can stop her but even then there are options available to us in these colors.

I shall definitely be looking to build an aggressive Sigarda deck soon.

Until next time.

Welcome to The Tolarian Academy.