Topic: At my gf's request...

So my gf is learning the game and I'm looking to put together a few standard decks so that she can play FNMs too (rock on!).  She wasn't too impressed with any of the standard ideas I've thrown up yet.  She seems intrigued by Selesnya as a guild option for RTR after rotation and requested I look into "an angel deck."  So this is what about 40 minutes of perusing the post-rotation sets has yielded.

http://deckbox.org/sets/215062

The idea is to drop the humans early to provide some early defenses and also mislead the opponent.  They see Doomed Traveler, Avacyn's Pilgrim, and Thraben Doomsayer and they'll be expecting Champion of Lambholt, Champion of the Parish, or tokens (I hope).  But the real clincher comes in the form of angels, and with any luck, a quick Avacyn, Angel of Hope.

Obviously angels have a steep mana curve; however, that's the beauty of green as I can ramp the mana using Avacyn's Pilgrim and Somberwald Sage.  Angels will get cheaper thanks to Herald of War to further expedite the process.  And if none of those work, Descendants' Path will let me drop either the humans or the angels at no added cost to me.

I don't forsee getting decked with Mentor of the Meek pairing with Thraben Doomsayer to help me draw.  Scroll of Avacyn gives a nice life gain while also powering some added draws.  Lastly, multiple Descendants' Paths will let me cycle through the deck with the quickness.

Divine Reckoning works either once Avacyn is out or otherwise just to bail my ass out when I'm looking at a bad draw (or at least a bad board presence).  Defy Death will let me score Avacyn if they counter her or if she's otherwise forced to the graveyard (and five is certainly cheaper than eight).

I have SOME removal in Pacifism and Oblivion Ring, but don't know that I'll really need much because of the basic design of the deck - I should be able to secure a better board presence pretty quickly or just chump block the crap out of them.

Lastly, Ajani, Caller of the Pride is just in for some grins.  He can help with Herald of War by adding counters or otherwise his -3 ability will help get the kill.

So here are my concerns:

1) Sideboard - at current it has 4x Nevermore as I'm viewing that as the ultimate SB card.  Play the first game, see what happens, sub them in and you can cripple most decks relatively easily - just think about calling out Mana Leak/Vapor Snag/Tragic Slip/Bonfire of the Damned or better yet, Delver of Secrets or Snapcaster Mage.  Curse of Exhaustion is sort of barking up the same tree there.

2) Do I need more removal?  Would it make sense to dump Pacifism for more Oblivion Rings - they're more versatile and can even help mana screw your opponent.

3) I can't help but think I'm missing something in green as the color balance is wildly in favor of white.  I'd adjust the mana, but forests are so important to get things off on the right foot with Avacyn's Pilgrim.

4) Entreat the Angels, Banishing Stroke and several others are tempting.  But are they necessary?  I can't help but think that the creature composition of the deck is spread too thin.  Would it make sense to drop some and make it more focused?

How does this sound more generally?  Thoughts?

As always, any input anyone can offer will be greatly appreciated.

Last edited by TyWooOneTime (2012-08-14 21:21:53)

Re: At my gf's request...

Don't use Entreat in this deck, most of your ramp is gonna come from the sage as you'll likely only get 1 and maybe 2 pilgrims out in a game so it would be wasted, Sigarda is a good option tho.

Pacifism... That's a tough one, I've never once drawn an O-Ring and said to myself "I wish this was a pacifism" but I have said the opposite, I can understand it if you decide to go for Planar Cleansing as your board wiper but other than that I don't see it working too well. Moral of the story I like Oblivion Ring alot better but it's up to your playstyle, I hate to see planeswalkers on the other side of the field. I don't know what you mean about Mana Screwing tho, not unless they're using Mana Dorks since O ring can only hit non-land permanents.

What are you missing in green you ask, why the best card in M13, Rancor!! Yes I will continue to blab about rancor until you're sick of it, but it wins games there's not much to argue about that.

Honestly Nevermore is an ok sideboard card but usually decks don't rely on one certian card and if you're able to get up to 3 mana and your opponent 1 doesn't have a delver out and isn''t able to leak your nevermore they have no idea how to play delver, lol

Speaking from experience, ground seal is junk, I hate to say it because it seems good but literally the only thing that it can stop is Snapcasters and in that case you're still better off with Grafdigger's Cage, I found that out the hard way sad

Scroll of Avacyn is interesting, I've usually found that it's not worthwhile, by the time you actually get an angel out you'd better hope that you don't need that extra 5 life and card cause it usually won't be enough.

Defy death seems to me more like a sideboard card as Anti-Mill, casting a 10/10 Avacyn for 5, sounds good to me, lol

This deck looks pretty similar to my original Humans and angels deck, I've found that Naya actually works out alot better, especially looking at non-rotating cards, if you're willing to lose a little trade value/cash, Huntmasters are amazing, it's like card advantage stapled to card advantage every time it flips. I also love Gisela, and I would recommend just putting one in, it's usually worthwhile as a 1 of since it ends games way faster than Avacyn does. If you decide to add Gisela I'd at least consider Birds of Paradise, they're really important if you decide to go for 3 colors but that's just me plugging what's worked out for me, I think GW can be awesome on its own, The overseers are really awesome

Finally a couple of the white soulbond humans are awesome in GW humans and angels, namely Silverblade Paladin and Nearheath Pilgrim

Well that's my rambling 2 cents, hopefully something in there helps/makes sense, good luck!

http://deckbox.org/users/imsully2

Re: At my gf's request...

I'll openly admit, I was having a brain fart when I thought you could exile lands with Oblivion Ring.  In either case, I can see it still being FAR more useful than Pacifism, so I've swapped that up.  I dropped the Scroll of Avacyn for Abundant Growth as those can help both if the mana comes out stacked in favor of green, provide the red for Gisela, OR, they're a one green "draw a card."

On the one hand I can see where Rancor is the "cat's meow" for a lot of people, but really, in a lot of instances if your creatures aren't giving you a board advantage already... either way, it can only solve so many problems on its own.

For the board clearing, I thought Divine Reckoning is a good option.  I don't end up clearing my own enchantments and will likely have a larger creature on the board than them, so why not drop it?  Also, it has flashback, so for only two slots I can technically clear the board four times.

Ground Seal - I was really just looking for a placeholder there, so it'll be easy to swap out.

Nevermore - you're correct that it wouldn't stop Delver decks cold, but man, if you could get that out, so many players have ZERO creativity and just build the exact same decks with only five cards in them.  And if you were to draw into one at the right time, you could TOTALLY stop countermagic.  That's a luxury most of us would pay for, right?

Gisela will make a cameo and we'll see how she works out.

Thanks, as always, for the input.

How did said Humans and Angels deck fare for you?

Re: At my gf's request...

No worries about Oblivion Ring, I've tried to exile lands with them before, lol, my opponent wasn't too amused but that's their fault for taking it too seriously

I like Abundant growth, I might even swap that out in my deck since I really hate moving away from tribal but at the same time I need early fliers

I agree with everything you said, I was just trying to let you know what worked for me, I think this deck should work pretty well

As far as my deck http://deckbox.org/sets/210974 is what i'm currently using, I got second at FNM with it but only by one game sad The prize was a bonfire too :.(, I only lost to mono-black infect which was super aggro and in each game he got a phyrexian crusader out with a Lashwrithe, that's Protection from most of my deck, lol including all of my removal so I couldn't do much. The green white went well but mine's more focused on exaltedy shenannigans, Ajani's usually my win condition, even with a birds of paradise and rancor lol

http://deckbox.org/users/imsully2

Re: At my gf's request...

As a note, something I just realized is that Shimmering Grotto is standard legal, meaning that it's not difficult to have four of an easy mana color converter... who knew?

Re: At my gf's request...

TyWooOneTime wrote:

As a note, something I just realized is that Shimmering Grotto is standard legal, meaning that it's not difficult to have four of an easy mana color converter... who knew?

Very true, it's pretty slow tho, sets you a turn back and my deck's pretty aggro but it's something you need if you're really going 3 or more colors mine's just splashing red so I don't really need it

http://deckbox.org/users/imsully2

Re: At my gf's request...

Bonds of Faith may be a better option than Pacifism.  Pacifism will run the risk of being a dead card against decks that either don't have creatures or the creatures are protected from it, while Bonds can be used to boost your own creatures in that situation.  I'd also consider sideboarding a couple more Defy Deaths in case of removal/counterspell-heavy decks.  Other than that, I don't really have many suggestions...I just don't know what's all in the last block to say for sure what it would need.  Looks like it would at least be a competitive deck though.