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Legality
| Format | Legality |
| 1v1 Commander | Legal |
| Alchemy | Legal |
| Archenemy | Legal |
| Arena | Legal |
| Block Constructed | Legal |
| Brawl | Legal |
| Canadian Highlander | Legal |
| Casual | Legal |
| Commander / EDH | Legal |
| Commander: Rule 0 | Legal |
| Custom | Legal |
| Duel Commander | Legal |
| Gladiator | Legal |
| Highlander | Legal |
| Historic | Legal |
| Legacy | Legal |
| Leviathan | Legal |
| Limited | Legal |
| Modern | Legal |
| Oathbreaker | Legal |
| Pioneer | Legal |
| Planechase | Legal |
| Pre-release | Legal |
| Quest Magic | Legal |
| Standard | Legal |
| Tiny Leaders | Legal |
| Vanguard | Legal |
| Vintage | Legal |
Lay Down Arms
Sorcery
Exile target creature with converted mana cost/mana value less than or equal to the number of Plains you control. Its controller gains 3 life.
lespaul977 on I’m looking for a one …
9 months ago
wallisface, thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences about Lay Down Arms. It’s a cool card, and I love that it has some similarity to Swords to Plowshares.
wallisface on I’m looking for a one …
9 months ago
lespaul977 in answer to ”Have you ever run into issues with not having enough Plains down in order to remove a more expensive creature with it?” - i think 99% of the time this won’t be an issue. Mono-White decks typically play midrange/grindier games where their land count is similar or above whatever the opponents deck has. Meaning that the spell will only ever fail in the cases where your opponent can cheat a creature into play without paying its ordinary casting cost. Conveniently, white is also the colour capable of stopping all of these cheaty tactics - so in practice Lay Down Arms should be able to hit any creature on the board with ease.
The only real drawback to the card is its Sorcery speed - but even this issue comes up a LOT less than you’d expect.
lespaul977 on I’m looking for a one …
9 months ago
Hi wallisface! Lay Down Arms looks as close to Swords to Plowshares as I’ve ever seen. Have you ever run into issues with not having enough Plains down in order to remove a more expensive creature with it?
darkmus on
Ang-Hellic
11 months ago
Well, I am still testing Sigarda, Font of Blessings but for now its doing an amazing job, definitely a keep IMO. Both the "card draw" and the protection effects are huge on their own, and combos like a charm with Giver of Runes and/or Shalai, Voice of Plenty to have our stuff pretty much untouchable. Add Heroic intervention in now that we can, and we have a lot of layers of protection. Thats's actually the main difference between our builds, I try to protect our stuff as much as possible (since we can barely draw) while you go a bit more all in in life gain triggers (that's why Thune would work for you even better than for me). I also play angels in historic with coco, I pretty much play angels everywhere I can, xD. I've tried coco before, but I didn't have much positive difference if any in winrate, and restricted me way more in deck building. I have way more fun with this build. I've haven't meet that many Stormbreath Dragons in a while, so I dont really count for them. WG is not the best color to deal with that, but tbh, we gain so much life that on defense a 4/4 hitting us every turn doesn't really worry me much normally. And on attack, amongst Giver of Runes's protection, Righteous Valkyries anthem and the counters from Giada, Font of Hope and Archangel of Thune opponent may have free blocks, but a 4/4 is not killing our angels. Best option to remove it in white is most likely Settle the Wreckage I use 2 of them in and out of the side depending the meta. If you play most games against your buddy with the dragon, black my be the best second color for you, but with what I am testing, Sigarda seems the way to go.She ads so much. I can totally respect flavor, check my list and you will see that in this deck (as said, pet deck, xD) I've burn too much money in lands just for flavor, haha. I used to play 2 Lyra Dawnbringer and 2 Archangel of Thune but slowly Thune took all the places. 90% of times ill rather play Thune than Lyra. She would be even better in your build, and you can stack her since it's not legendary. I don't think that Shadowspear is a good card here, and really bad for want you want from it. You have only 1 and no way to search for it, so you are almost never going to actually be able to use it for what you want, and even when you do, you still need some way to kill Heliod. Since you are playing black, the best option you have to deal with indestructible (arguably the best in the game) is Anguished Unmaking. it will deal with anything but lands instant speed. The 3 life loss is irrelevant in this deck. I tried soul warden and is not good enough, it gives us more lines to have t3 Resplendent Angel trigger and more Thune triggers but other than that, adds almost nothing and mid to late game is a totally dead draw. Quite similar thing happens to speaker, slightly better, the ceiling of that is huge, but the floor is way to low. If you are losing and top deck this, you have lost. Esper Sentinel is a great card up to the mid to late game, while Giver of Runes is always a great draw. And both of them must be answered pretty much t1, if you play t1 giver or sentinel they are taking their Fatal Push before she can tap. If you play speaker or warden, your way more valuable t2 Giada, Font of Hope and Bishop of Wings are taking that push. Amongst Giver of Runes and Esper Sentinel both have their pros and cons, Sentinel give us much needed card advantage and can be played with Sigarda, Font of Blessings ability, while giver protects our stuff or makes it unblackable and is a cleric so she triggers Righteous Valkyrie and against control we may even be able to set our second cavern of souls to cleric to cover all our creatures. In my build, which goes big in keeping our stuff alive to somewhat offset the lack of card draw, she is the best option for sure. And overall I'll say it's the better option, synergizes better with the rest of the deck and she's always great, while Sentinel does nothing against creature decks, and mid to late game they are more often than not going to be able to pay for it. I used to play Serra Avenger when there weren't other 2cmc angels, but she's only good with vial, now we have better options. To me Aether Vial is a must, it ramps use, guarantees a "landrop" and allow us a lot of interesting lines, like triggering Resplendent Angel on opponent turn or use Shalai, Voice of Plenty and Sigarda, Font of Blessings as short of counter spell, amongst many other things. Psicologically is also great, because even if you are tapped out, opponents would be uncertain to attack if you can instant speed a blocker. I haven't tried soul partition, but I dont know if our deck is fast enough to not have whatever they exiled back in play before we can take them. I'll rather pay an extra mana for Anguished Unmaking and have the thing gone for good. Lay Down Arms looks decent, but I dont think it is. The rare creature we are worried about enough to need to remove it tends to be "cheated" in play, like Archon of Cruelty, Primeval Titan or Murktide Regent, and that won't hit those on time. Also the sorcery speed. I'll rather have Path to Exile or Fateful Absence. I don't think neither Legions to Ashes or Temporary Lockdown are good enough for Modern. Legion to ashes does fill a good sideboard slot, but IMO Declaration in Stone is a bit more flexible and cheaper. Ive used it often in the side and its great simply as a removal, and amazing against tokens. Temporary lockdown also hits our stuff, which is a no no. In arena can be good because we care about 3cmc, but it is not here. I do play FNMs and sometimes modern LGS tournaments with this deck (which is pretty much the most "competitive" events I play), because I love it and I want to test and play and win with it, but tbh, the times I really want to do well this is rarely what I play. And yes, I've never had a mirror match in any of those, xD. Or almost ever in years really... I think that covers all, haha.
BotaNickill on
Ang-Hellic
11 months ago
darkmus! Awesome to meet another Angel Tribal Member! Angels are my favorite tribe in magic! You are just the person I need to talk to! I just checked your build out, and it looks good! +1! I had not seen the new Sigarda, Font of Blessings yet, I'll have to track her down and get some copies. Kinda of a Realmwalker effect going on there, I like it! I was kinda surprised you are running Green and No Collected Company tho? I guess you have 9 Angels that are 4 cmc tho, so maybe not great for your build. I Run this deck as Selesnya CoCo Angels on Arena and have pretty good luck with it, but my Paper Deck I switched to Orzhov for better removal. My bro plays a dragon deck with Stormbreath Dragons and they are kinda hard to get around with all white angels. Thus the black removal spells in the sideboard. Plus my Horizon Canopys are in my Bogle Deck, so, yeah I picked up some Silent Clearings and here we are. That, and I feel like the Godless Shrine goes well with the flavour of the deck. I do have two Archangel of Thune she is one of my Favorite Angels for sure, and I did have them in the deck for a while, I kinda go back and forth with the Ratio, Two Archangel and two Lyra Dawnbringer or 3 lyra and 1 Archangel. IDK. Maybe I'll throw them back in there based on your advise. Shadowspear is there for when I run into a bogle deck or something else that has indestructible like Heliod, Sun-Crowned or whatever. I had the Esper Sentinels in the deck as well as my two copies of Giver of Runes but right now I am testing out having the Soul Wardens and Speaker of the Heavens instead. I tried the Aether Vials along with a playset of Serra Avengers but wasn't too happy with how it played out. I don't have the Cavern of Souls but those would probably be nice. I do like having the Soul Partitions tho, it's pretty decent removal in my opinion, and so is the Lay Down Arms but you have to keep your plains count up to make it consistent. Legions to Ashes I was using to help against my brother's Squirrel deck, but I've also been using Temporary Lockdown in my arena build with some pretty decent success. I actually just saved my own ass with it this morning against a merfolk deck for the W!
Do you play in Modern tournaments with your build? I never really see anyone playing angels outside of Historic on Arena.
Thanks for the advice, the upvote and for sharing your deck! Much Appreciated!
darkmus on
Ang-Hellic
11 months ago
Angels is my pet deck, by far. I've been playing them in modern for years trying to make them competitive and I've came to a relatively similar deck to yours, but with a few changes that make it quite different in strategy. I was just updating it now with MOM:aftermath cards and as always, checked for other angel decks to see what other have done. You might want to check it out for the same reason, it might give you some ideas:
https://tappedout.net/mtg-decks/serras-descendants-competitive-angel-tribal/
My biggest comment would be, out Lyra, in Archangel of Thune (which is funny you are not using because it appears as the image of this deck, xD) you have a ton of life gain triggers, that thing will give you +1/+1 to all (not only angels) your creatures for every trigger, normally 2 or 3 as soon as she hits the board, and will keep gaining them until answers, but won't be removed when she is. Totally worth not giving every angel lifelink IMO. It will also be an extra card that can grow you Esper Sentinel. other than that, I dont want to over extend and I've literally tried every card on your deck, side, and maybe board other than Shadowspear, Lay Down Arms and Legions to Ashes xD, so fell free to ask why or why not I use something to see if it may work for you. I'll happily engage with another angel tribal fan to help improve both our decks. I hope that helps, bye!
wallisface on
Knights of the Firststrike Table
11 months ago
Some thoughts/suggestions:
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modern decks typically don’t want to run more than 4 cards costing 4 mana, and often run nothing above this cost (this is to try avoid the deck becoming slow/clumsy). You’ve got 8 cards costing 4-or-more, which is a bit high. I’d recommend ditching all of Dearly Departed, Vraska's Scorn, and Vraska, Scheming Gorgon, because all of these cards are extremely weak for their mana cost.
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just from a mana efficiency persoective i’d also ditch Forebear's Blade (6 mana for +3/+0 is a pretty bad return), and Paladin Class (there are better white enchants, like Honor of the Pure).
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having a 12/12 Plains/Swamp split when almost all your creatures need 2 white mana on turn 2-or-3 seems really unideal, as you won’t be able to reliably achieve that. A better Plains/Swamp split might be 18/6 - though realistically if you only have access to basic lands, then your deck would be a lot stronger & more consistent just being mono-white.
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You need ways to interact with your opponent, as just letting them do what they want is a recipe for disaster. I’d recommend adding in Path to Exile and/or Lay Down Arms.
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I get what you’re trying to do with Basilisk Collar, but an all-first-strike deck is already incredibly strong defensively (because you can double-block). It feels more cute-than-useful, imo.