MTG: Ride of the Valkyries – Top 5 Angel Commanders
They may be sent from a higher realm, but these MTG Angel Commanders aren’t here to be merciful to your opponents.
Welcome Planeswalkers and Praetors to our ongoing series about the best casual experience in Magic: Commander. For the uninitiated, Commander is a semi-casual format for Magic: the Gathering. You use a deck of 100 cards led by a legendary creature, aka, your Commander.
Aside from basic lands, you are only allowed one copy of each card in the deck. Moreover, you can only include cards in your Commander’s “color identity” or artifacts. Each color and color combo has a unique playstyle and a wealth of mighty generals to lead your deck to victory. EDHRec.com is an excellent source for Commander info and can give you ideas to build your next Commander deck or tune an existing one.
Angels are glorious warriors of the sky, and they make a mockery of your opponent’s attempts to stop them. They all have flying (obviously) and most of them also sport vigilance or lifelink, making them big-ticket fighters with tons of evasion and protection tricks. While not the easiest decks to pilot, thanks to their mana values, with just a little effort, you can make a nasty air force that your opponent will be hard-pressed to deal with. Plus, most Angels are at least partially in White, giving you access to easy protection.
Giada, Font of Hope
Starting things off we have the queen of the Angels, the unassuming Giada of New Capenna. Whether she’s helping Elspeth fend off a demon incursion or fighting back Phyrexia at Errant’s side, she’s a powerful force for good. Her ripple-style buff effect encourages you to have as many Angels as possible, and with vigilance, she can smack your opponent and still have a free extra White mana to throw out another Angel (which will then get stronger). There’s a reason she’s the primary Angel general.
Kaalia of the Vast
This is one of my least favorite Commanders to play against, thanks to how obscene the combos can be. As an Angel tribal deck, she can cheat out your biggest threats (Avacyn, Akroma, etc.) with no drawback, but that’s rarely all she is. If you want to catapult Angels at your friends, this is the deck for you. Just be ready to be sniped off the table almost immediately.
Sigarda, Font of Blessings
Another semi-cheat Commander, Sigarda, also offers some fun protection by giving the rest of your field hexproof. While that doesn’t help you against board wipes, it does get around single-target removal and makes your artifacts and enchantments harder to shift. Sigarda wants to give you card advantage in the form of library casting, then use the Selesnya good stuff to dish out big damage. Just watch out for Blasphemous Act.
Avacyn, Angel of Hope
The biggest, baddest Angel out there (sorry, Akroma), the guardian of Innistrad is a force to be reckoned with. She can’t be killed, she makes it so everything else you have can’t be killed, and she can attack and still line up to block. The army that rallies behind her will be a nigh unstoppable aerial force, and woe betide any who stand against her.
Lyra Dawnbringer
On the other side of the coin, Lyra wants to make all your Angels help YOU stay alive. She’s a solid 5/5 with lifelink, flying, and first strike, so she’ll keep you healthy on her own. However, her real value is in her buff aura, which gives all the rest of your Angels a small boost and lifelink. Lyra might not have the damage output of Avacyn or Kaalia, but she can get your life to triple digits in no time.
What do you think of these Commanders?
