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. 

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.