Combos Browse all Suggest
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 |
Righteous Valkyrie
Creature — Angel Cleric
Flying
Whenever another Angel or Cleric enters the battlefield under your control, you gain life equal to that creature's toughness.
As long as you have at least 7 life more than your starting life total, creatures you control get +2/+2.
Barbarian_Sun_Pope on
Black/With Angel
3 weeks ago
Your changes make sense if you're moving more towards the angel beatdown strategy, which your deck is well suited for. I think the Voice of the Blessed cut is a good call since it is a bit slow to build here and makes more sense in a deck much more dedicated to life gain.
The Bishop of Wings is a nice addition as it pairs well with the Righteous Valkyrie. If you want more payoffs from the Bishop, consider pairing it with Angelic Accord. Hope this helps.
Barbarian_Sun_Pope on
Black/With Angel
3 weeks ago
You're really low on lands, you should push the number of lands to 23-24. You're pretty set when it comes to color fixing (ability to reliably pay all the colors of your deck), so I think some more plains should cover it. Other than that your deck is pretty cohesive and should work well (+1). You might want to consider Righteous Valkyrie as a replacement for Inspiring Overseer as the Overseer is pretty underwhelming. If you need the card draw, there are better options in black such as Reckoner's Bargain, Morbid Curiosity, Sign in Blood, Deadly Dispute, and Night's Whisper, just to name a few. Hope this helps.
9-lives on
2 months ago
That link and its deck is sad. He has to have a bunch oF +1 life generators, which goes well early in the game, but then he doesn't really capture the points of his deck. For instance, Speaker of the Heavens is not going to work with his healing clerics; that requires a lot of quick early healing and keeping the life points at that level. This would only be achievable if you're healing a lot more and more often. Righteous Valkyrie only gives max 2 health per cleric, and requires that they ETB to get the life. Then, he tries to fit in Vito, Thorn of the Dusk Rose, and expecting it to work whenever he has barely any healing triggers ETB. Then, he's mixing in his poor strategy with +1/+1 counters. This is really all his deck does. My deck is far beyond and better than any of this crap.
wallisface on
2 months ago
Oh no I understand your reasons for healing entirely - i just don’t think the gameplan is optimal. But if your playgroup is more casual i’m sure this will work ok.
If you’re building around Righteous Valkyrie, you mind find this article a good read.
9-lives on
2 months ago
Well, I'm going for strong Healing cards like 7 or 8 health gained. And thanks, Righteous Valkyrie is great! I think you're misunderstanding my reasons for Healing, again, but to each their own.
wallisface on
2 months ago
9-lives i’m not suggesting you get rid of healing, i’m saying those cards that only gain you life are super sub-optimal - on their own they don’t improve your boardstate, and so you’ll end up empty handed and beaten-down. Lifegain cards should do more than just gain life, like Collective Brutality or Righteous Valkyrie.
In Modern you need for cards to be good on their own - a card that only gains life is not.
wallisface on
Esper converting to mono white angels +1c lifegain
2 months ago
Some thoughts:
-
You're running a LOT of cards as 1-ofs and 2-ofs here. This is going to lead to consistency issues and overall a much weaker deck. Ideally most decks should be aiming for the majority of their cards to be playsets (4-ofs). A good deckbuilding approach for new players is to pick 9 cards and run playsets of those (making 36 cards) alongside 24 lands (making a 60 card deck).
-
You have almost nothing to do in the first 2 turns of the game, which effectively means you'll be starting most games 1-2 turns behind your opponent - that's a really dangerous place to be! Added to this, your mana curve is really high. Having soo many of your cards cost 3-or-more mana is going to make your plays very clunky/slow. In particular, modern decks normally can only ever justify running 4 cards (1 playset) costing 4 mana, and run nothing above this... you've got a whopping 15 cards costing 4-or-more, which is far too much. Going from my previous example of picking 9 cards, the mana-curve of those cards should ideally look something like 1,1,1,2,2,2,3,3,4.
-
Lands that enter tapped (of fetch for a land that enters tapped) are super slow and cumbersome, and should be avoided unless there's absolutely no other option. Your current deck would be a LOT stronger if you just ran all-Plains and ditched those 3 cards that needed blue/black mana. Even going 2 colours would help you a lot here, as often its pretty safe to run all-basics in a 2-colour deck without major issue. In any case, I would suggest avoiding those taplands like the plague.
-
Note that lifegain is probably the overall weakest ability you can have in Magic. Unless you're running playsets of both Righteous Valkyrie and Speaker of the Heavens, I would really suggest against trying to focus too heavily on it. Without big payoffs, gaining life is actually doing nothing for you in 95% of games (it's only ever going to matter if you're facing burn decks). If you are trying to focus on lifegain, this deck here is probably the direction you want to head
kirbysan on
[Primer] Helming the Host of Heaven *Update*
3 months ago
Last game of the year! Sorry I've taken over your comment board, hope all these gameplay interactions help!
Opponents: Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools / Armix, Filigree Thrasher
Starting Hand: Marsh Flats, Plains, Sol Ring, Serra Ascendant, Serra Avenger, Court of Grace, Breathkeeper Seraph
T1 - Marsh Flats into Plains into Serra Ascendant
T2 - Plains into Sol Ring and Luminarch Ascension (drew into), swung in for 6 damage
T3 - Plains into Court of Grace, drew on endstep, swung in for another 6 damage
T4 - +1 Angel on upkeep, Plains into Giada, Font of Hope and held up mana to make 2 Angels, drew on endstep, swung in for another 6 damage
T5 - created 2 Angels (6 power & 7 power) on opponents end step, +1 Angel (8 power) on upkeep. Cast a Tome of Legends getting ready for the boardwipe. Swung in for 21 damage, drew on endstep.
T6 - nobody at the table had the boardwipe so I cleaned up next turn with Sigarda's Vanguard knocking out each other player simultaneously. I think this was the fastest this deck has ever performed in a 4-man pod and all the damage was dealt by me.
Opponents: Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools / Armix, Filigree Thrasher, O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami
Starting Hand: Windswept Heath, Arid Mesa, Plains, Bonders' Enclave, Serra Paragon, Gisela, the Broken Blade Meld, Archangel of Thune
Thought about not including this one either as it was a slow hand and a fast game. Muldrotha comboed out turn 4 making 2 million squirrels and nobody had any interaction so we were dead on turn 5.
Opponents: Koma, Cosmos Serpent, Muldrotha, the Gravetide, Tevesh Szat, Doom of Fools / Armix, Filigree Thrasher, O-Kagachi, Vengeful Kami
Starting Hand: Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx, Plains, Plains, Pyre of Heroes, Gisela, the Broken Blade Meld, Battle Angels of Tyr, Angelic Curator
I had played Battle Angels of Tyr but it was quickly removed by Tevesh before I could swing with it, which is fair given a 5-man pod.
Instead I went for the slower play with Giada, Font of Hope, Angelic Curator and Angelic Sleuth on the field. I held Pyre of Heroes in hand thinking I would go for the Inspiring Overseer / Serra Paragon line to draw into some cards and get some clues.
However, Muldrotha again was a huge problem turn 5. They had Scute Swarm and cracked some fetches and played green ramp spells bringing up their total to the low 100s but they only had 32 they could attack with. They decided to swing all of them at me as I was the only one with any sort of board presence. O-Kagachi let the table know they had a fog effect but we elected to use it on the next turn.
At this point I had Giada, Font of Hope, Angelic Sleuth, Righteous Valkyrie and Pyre of Heroes on the battlefield. Once Muldrotha had started producing massive amounts of Scutes I knew they were coming at me. Also I had drawn into Archangel of Thune which I played and swung in bringing me back up to the low 20's.
On turn 6 O-Kagachi used the fog and Muldrotha just set themselves up better for the next round. They cast a Sandwurm Convergence to stop me from knocking them out.
Tevesh decided this was the best time to go off so they tapped out for a Peer into the Abyss. A lot of artifact shenanigans happened and they ended up at 4 life due to Bolas's Citadel, nearly wiped the board with Ugin, the Spirit Dragon and killed Muldrotha with an artifact creature with Cranial Plating and Lightning Greaves. Unfortunately they didn't see that O-Kagachi was out and only -5 for Ugin so they were dead to the dragon on their turn.
I was able to build back relatively quickly as I drew into a Thorough Investigation and cracked some clues. O-Kagachi became the new archenemy as they had their commander out and a Fist of Suns so they were casting high-costed cards with the limited mana they had. Koma used Kiora, the Crashing Wave to negate the damage of O-Kagachi's commander. They also countered a Conflux which could've ended the game.
I tried to swing in once but was stopped by a fog. I also made another misplay with Oblation targeting their Myojin of Seeing Winds as I misheard thinking it was a 10/10 flying indestructible when it was a 3/3 that didn't even fly. They removed the divinity counter drawing 12 and drew another 2 off Oblation. Next turn they cast a Morophon, the Boundless and dropped all the spirits they drew off those 14 cards. If I had held up my Oblation for their fist of the suns instead they would have had no mana for anything else and I could've swung in for the win.
Court of Grace was also amazing here. While 1 card a turn is not the best for 4 mana, 1 card and 1 angel for 4 is amazing. Obviously the Sol Ring did work in getting it out early but against slower decks they had no way to attack me regardless.
Pyre of Heroes was actually useful this time! Pitching the 2/2 body of Angelic Curator into a Righteous Valkyrie is a strong move. I was only able to use it once before the Ugin exile but it helped keep me in the game. Without it, I would've been dead right after Tevesh finished off Muldrotha, perhaps even in the same turn.
Sigarda's Vanguard was also great again. However if I'm not planning out dropping my angels out in the correct turn order then I'm not always getting the full benefit from her. Akroma's Will would save us the headache of counting and planning while also providing the evasion to get through flying creatures. I think I'll still stick the Vanguard as the light recursion package allows us to bring her back on another turn for additional value whereas Will would just languish in the graveyard.
We had a turn 0 discussion before games 2 and 3 and agreed on playing more mid-tier decks as I only brought Giada. The Muldrotha player typically durdles with nothing to do and decided to add in some spicy cards not knowing how they'd perform. Tevesh doesn't always go off like this but Peer into the Abyss is usually a card that gets countered. The table let it resolve due to needing to knock out Muldrotha first.
| Have (4) | Azdranax , Galdelonian , BillyBalverine , Catpocolypse |
| Want (3) | Amaterasu312 , Jayce_Ran , Lunar_Wing |