Commander Collection: S(i)erra Sidewinder

Commander / EDH Angels Bracket 4 Combo Mono-White

Jurrane

Angels (24)

• 1x Angel of Finality
• 1x Angel of Vitality
• 1x Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Archangel of Tithes
• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1x Baneslayer Angel
• 1x Battle Angels of Tyr
• 1x Emeria Shepherd
• 1x Exemplar of Light
• 1x Gisela, the Broken Blade  ^Meld
• 1x Herald of the Host
• 1x Lyra Dawnbringer
• 1x Metropolis Reformer
• 1x Resplendent Angel
• 1x Righteous Valkyrie
• 1x Roaming Throne P
• 1x Serra Paragon
• 1x Serra's Emissary
• 1x Shattered Angel
• 1x Starfield Shepherd
• 1x Sunblast Angel
• 1x Wojek Investigator
• 1x Youthful Valkyrie

Protection (6)

• 1x Akroma's Will
• 1x Dawn's Truce
• 1x Flare of Fortitude
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Orim's Chant
• 1x Teferi's ProtectionGC

Win Conditions (3)

• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1x Walking Ballista

Land (36)

• 1x Ancient TombGC
• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1x Gemstone Caverns P
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 1x Monumental Henge
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 18x Plains
• 1x Radiant Fountain
• 1x Scavenger Grounds
• 1x Seraph Sanctuary
• 1x Three Tree City
• 1x Urza's Cave
• 1x War Room

Removal (7)

• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Mass Calcify
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Winds of Abandon

Card Draw (4)

• 1x Endless Atlas
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Folk Hero
• 1x Haliya, Guided by Light

Commander (1)

Ramp (9)

• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Chrome Mox PGC
• 1x Dowsing Dagger  ^Flip
• 1x Mox Amber P
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Smothering TitheGC
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Starnheim Aspirant
• 1x Sword of the Animist

Lifegain (6)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Auriok Champion
• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant

Tutors (4)

• 1x Enlightened TutorGC
• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Ranger-Captain of Eos P
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard

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{W}{W}{W} Introduction: Angel Delight {W}{W}{W}

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We sit down at the EDH table. Our opponents see we’re playing mono white and think they’re getting an easy ride. Let’s teach them the error of their foolish ways.

Welcome to this primer for my white Angels EDH tribal deck featuring Giada, Font of Hope as the Commander. Angels is a tribe that’s slowly been improving over recent years, with some great new cards added in Kaldheim and Streets of New Capenna. It’s also good to see the introduction of more strong white impact cards in newer sets, to the point where running mono white isn’t a meme for being completely terrible, and well built mono-W lists can have decent game against many different opponents.

Lyra Dawnbringer had been my Angels commander of choice but she’s been replaced by Giada, Font of Hope from Streets of New Capenna. Giada has the advantage of coming into play much earlier, she’s a ramp or mana rock effect for higher costed Angels, and her buff is potentially more explosive than Lyra’s. I'm finding her ramp effect to be particularly effective, granting the deck a useful bit of speed in the early game and the +1/+1 counters she gives other Angels allows them to hit much harder. She's the real deal.

One thing to note is this isn't a true Angels tribal deck. We run almost as many non-Angel creatures as we do Angels. But the Angel creature type forms the basis of most of our strongest attacking threats, so I'm still calling it Angels tribal. If we're splitting hairs I'd call it mono-white lifegain/midrange but saying Angels is a lot easier.

Power Level

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I categorise decks in my collection according to four tiers of power, from 1 (most powerful) to 4 (least powerful):

Tier 1: Higher powered decks with fast mana, free spells, and infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors.
Tier 2: Well tuned decks which may have infinite combos or instant wins that are searchable with tutors, but not many fast mana sources and/or free spells.
Tier 3: Reasonably well tuned casual decks that are capable of powerful plays. May occasionally have infinite combos or instant wins but don't generally use tutors to find them.
Tier 4: Lower powered or linear decks, weak enough to play against other casual decks.

I would classify this build as one of my Tier 2 decks (in fact these days it's probably nudging Tier 1). It's well tuned and features optimised card selections in most categories, and now includes fast mana sources including Ancient TombGC, Chrome MoxGC, Mox Amber and Gemstone Caverns. It has an infinite damage win condition, with the combo pieces able to be found with multiple different tutor cards. I generally try to play it against other stronger decks as it can be a bit overpowered for some casual tables. It currently has a 60% win rate.

Using WotC's new power brackets for EDH, I'd say this list fits into Bracket 4. It currently runs four game-changer cards (Ancient TombGC, Chrome MoxGC, Smothering TitheGC and Enlightened TutorGC), and its infinite damage combo isn't necessarily restricted to the game's later turns.

Budget

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The average price for this deck on Card Kingdom is between $800-$900. It's very definitely not a budget build and I've spent a lot of time over the past few years to make it as competitive as possible. However it's perfectly possible to build Angels tribal on a budget and for it to be fairly strong. In particular, being mono coloured means you don't have to worry about an expensive land base and there are plenty of viable Angels (plus strong support cards) listed here: https://edhrec.com/commanders/giada-font-of-hope/angel/budget

If I was to upgrade to a higher budget build, my priority would be to include more fast mana sources like Mana VaultGC (I've recently added proxied versions of Chrome MoxGC, Mox Amber and Gemstone Caverns). But they aren't essential and the deck performs well without them thanks to Giada's ramp ability.

The Heavenly Host

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Here's a full list of all the Angels I'm using in this deck and why I've chosen them.

• Angel of Finality: Graveyard decks are pretty common in EDH so she's a useful source of targetted graveyard removal.
• Angel of Vitality: Boosts our lifegain sub-theme and is a nice low mana value flyer.
• Angel of the Dire Hour: Play it at the right time and she can wipe out an attacking army in one fell swoop. Opponents will probably suspect shenanigans if they're attacking into seven open mana but sometimes they won't see it coming.
• Archangel of Thune: One of our most powerful Angels. Our army can get out of control quickly if she's in play and we're gaining life from multiple sources.
• Archangel of Tithes: A great card whether we're on offence or defence. On defence she's a psuedo-Ghostly Prison that taxes our opponents if they want to attack us. On offence she means other players have to keep mana up if they want to block, which they won't always do.
• Avacyn, Angel of Hope: Eight mana is a pretty significant investment but she's worth it. Much harder to destroy our stuff if she's around.
• Baneslayer Angel: A bunch of relevant keywords and protection from demons and dragons is occasionally relevant. All these years later and opponents are still scared of her.
• Battle Angels of Tyr: Absolutely bonkers if Giada, Font of Hope is in play. The original and copies will all see each other at the same time and get a bunch of counters. Smart opponents won't let it stick around to attack.
• Emeria Shepherd: Our best source of recursion. Expensive to cast but definitely worth it.
• Exemplar of Light: Extra card draw in mono white is never a bad thing. This one triggers off lifegain, which will happen quite a lot with this list.
• Gisela, the Broken Blade  : I don't run the other angel that makes her meld but a 4/3 flying, lifelinking first-striker is very strong for just {2}{W}{W}
• Herald of the Host: Similar to Battle Angels of Tyr, another myriad Angel that's OP with Giada, Font of Hope.
• Lyra Dawnbringer: The OG commander of this deck. She's definitely been outclassed by Giada but her lord ability and lifelink mean she's still worth including.
• Metropolis Reformer: Another nice low-cost Angel to play on curve. Sometimes it's reverse lifelink ability will discourage opponents from attacking.
• Resplendent Angel: We have lots of lifegain in this deck so its token generation ability should be pretty easy to trigger. Giving it lifelink is expensive but is a useful mana sink if we don't have other ways to spend it.
• Righteous Valkyrie: One of the best lifegain abilities in the deck. It's not hard for us to go above 40 life which means he boosts our team's power and toughness.
• Serra Paragon: A second strong recursion option, alongside Emeria Shepherd. She won't always bring creatures back as many of ours are 3+ mana value but she's great for recycling our smaller stuff.
• Serra's Emissary: Expensive to cast but worth it for such a bomb card. The card type we choose when she ETB's will be situation dependent but protection from creatures usually offers the highest upside.
• Shattered Angel: Another amazing source of lifegain, especially if we can play her in the early game.
• Starfield Shepherd: Has just replaced Knight of the White Orchid. Doesn't actually ramp us a land but pulls double duty as either a tutor for a Plains or Walking Ballista; and/or the option of a 3/2 flying body. Lovely flexible card.
• Starnheim Aspirant: A staple for this deck. One of our best sources of ramp. Pair her with Giada, Font of Hope to power out our higher-costed Angels with ease.
• Sunblast Angel: Often a one-sided boardwipe. Will catch a lot of opponents with their pants down.
• Wojek Investigator: Two relevant keywords on a efficiently-costed creature. A nice pseudo-card draw source too.
• Youthful Valkyrie: Absurdly costed for just {1}{W}. Can often become a pretty hefty threat, especially if either of our myriad Angels make an appearance, or if we start making lots of tokens.

Supporting Creatures

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We run a bunch of non-Angel creatures, mainly to support our lifegain strategy. Here’s why they’ve been included.

• Auriok Champion: Not technically one of our Soul Sisters but functions like one. We run it here because of its completely symmetrical effect, triggering the life gain on any creature entering the battlefield, no matter which side it's on. Protection from black and red is very useful too.
• Esper Sentinel: One of white's best card draw options. Staple for any mono-white deck. Enough said.
• Felidar Sovereign: A bit of a cheesy alternative wincon but why wouldn't we run it in a lifegain deck? Flash it in with Emergence Zone in an opponent's end step ready to win on the spot in our upkeep.
• Haliya, Guided by Light: A new source of card draw for white, which fits well into decks featuring a lifegain theme.
• Heliod, Sun-Crowned: One half of our infinite damage combo with Walking Ballista and another good source of lifegain when Ballista's not around. Also powers up our flying attackers.
• Recruiter of the Guard: Tutors for Walking Ballista. That's all.
• Ranger-Captain of Eos: Same as Recruiter of the Guard - it's another way to find Walking Ballista. It has the added upside as a pseudo-Silence effect when we sacrifice it in the turn we want to execute our combo.
• Serra Ascendant: Playing it on turn 1 seems utterly unfair. We'll quite often be above 40 life so a 6/6 flying lifelinker for {W} is absolutely insane.
• Soul Warden: One of the original Soul Sisters. Lynchpin of our lifegain strategy.
• Soul's Attendant: The other OG Soul Sister. Same as Soul Warden.
• Starnheim Aspirant: An amazing cost reducer for our Angels. Staple for any angel deck.
• Walking Ballista: The other half of our infinite damage combo with Heliod, Sun-Crowned. Can be tutored with Enlightened TutorGC and Recruiter of the Guard.

Win Conditions

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When playing this deck, we have three main routes to victory:

1. Angel Beatdown: Ramp into Angels as quickly as possible, using Giada, Font of Hope and other lord or tribal effects to power up the team. White has some of the best removal effects in the format, to help clear opponents' board states. Archangel of Thune is an all-star in this deck, as pairing her with all the various lifegain effects means threats can get out of control very fast. Our two myriad Angels (Battle Angels of Tyr and Herald of the Host) are explosive when paired with Giada, Font of Hope as Giada sees all the copies at the same time when they ETB (so they'll get a lot of counters).

2. Lifegain Sub-Theme: The deck has numerous lifegain cards, including three Soul Sisters (Auriok Champion, Soul Warden, Soul's Attendant) and Authority of the Consuls as early drops, to help boost our life total way above its starting level. Many of our Angels have lifelink too. Once our life points are high enough, Enlightened TutorGC can then search for Aetherflux Reservoir to take out one or more opponents in a single hit. Although it’s not an Angel, we of course play Felidar Sovereign in a lifegain deck, as a cheesy way to potentially win on the spot (at instant speed if Emergence Zone is in play).

3. Heliod Combo: The infinite lifegain/damage combo of Walking Ballista and Heliod, Sun-Crowned is included for the combo kill, with Idyllic Tutor, Recruiter of the Guard, Ranger-Captain of Eos and Enlightened TutorGC as easy ways to reliably find them. Here’s how it works:

Prerequisites

• Heliod, Sun-Crowned on the battlefield;
• Walking Ballista on the battlefield with at least 2 +1/+1 counters on it;
• {1}{W} available.

Steps

1. Activate Heliod, Sun-Crowned's ability, giving Walking Ballista lifelink;
2. Remove a +1/+1 counter from Walking Ballista, dealing 1 damage to any target and gaining 1 life;
3. Heliod, Sun-Crowned triggers, putting a +1/+1 counter on Walking Ballista;
4. Repeat for infinite damage and infinite lifegain.

Other Card Categories

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While creatures form the backbone of this list, we run cards in a number of other categories to support our game plan. This section explains those choices.

Removal
White is probably the most versatile colour for removal in the EDH format. We can take care of pretty much any permanent on the battlefield that might be causing us issue. In this list I've prioritised removal cards that either (a) hit as many different potential targets as possible; and/or (b) are highly efficient for their mana cost. To meet the first requirement we have Generous Gift, Excise the Imperfect, Stroke of Midnight and Reduce to Memory. For the latter, Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile and Winds of Abandon are included. Winds of Abandon can often be a one-sided boardwipe in a similar way to Cyclonic RiftGC. Mass Calcify fulfills a similar role too.

Card Draw
White uses to be pretty bad at drawing cards but things have improved a lot in recent years. As well as some of the creatures listed above, we have Folk Hero, Endless Atlas, War Room, Bonders' Enclave and Minas Tirith. The beauty of many of those colourless options is they can fit into most decks but we particularly benefit from them here.

Ramp
I've pulled back a bit on the number of ramp cards in this list as Giada does a lot of the heavy lifting for us. Nevertheless, I've included a bunch of other efficient ramp sources to help us accelerate when needed and cast our higher mana value Angels as quickly as possible. These include Smothering TitheGC, Ancient TombGC, Gemstone Caverns, Three Tree City, Chrome MoxGC, Mox Amber, Sol Ring, Arcane Signet, Pearl Medallion, Dowsing Dagger   and Sword of the Animist.

Protection
We're a creature-based deck so we need ways of protecting our team when they're targetted by spells or threatened by boardwipes. Cards chosen for this purpose are Teferi's ProtectionGC, Flare of Fortitude, Dawn's Truce, Flawless Maneuver and Akroma's Will (the latter also works well when we're on the attack). Orim's Chant is a helpful way of protecting us and stopping opponents interacting with us in critical turns.

Recursion
Despite the protective measures we run, our creatures will often end up in the graveyard. We run Emeria, the Sky Ruin alongside Serra's Emissary and Emeria Shepherd to bring our most important Angels back from the dead. Hall of Heliod's Generosity is great for our most important enchantments (it won't usually need to work on Heliod, Sun-Crowned but you never know).

Playing the Deck

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Playing on curve is really important for this deck, so I’d advise on mulliganing aggressively to ensure you have some early action and, ideally, some form of ramp. From there, we’re essentially an aggro-midrange deck, trying to stay ahead of our opponents with threats and reducing their life totals by attacking with our flyers. We have simple, strong, versatile removal (Swords to Plowshares, Path to Exile, Generous Gift, Stroke of Midnight, Excise the Imperfect etc), which is usually best saved for either must-answer threats or other cards that prevent us from enacting our game plan. Needless to say, anything that stops us attacking with our creatures – either by locking down the board or mass removal – is a big problem, as is anything that stops us gaining life. We don’t have many ways of recovering our creatures if they’re removed – mainly Emeria Shepherd and Emeria, the Sky Ruin – so be wary of overextending.

Do what you can to hang in there as the game goes long, and sooner or later hopefully we’ll draw into some of our late game impact cards. These include Mass Calcify, Akroma's Will, an overloaded Winds of Abandon or Serra's Emissary (naming creatures) as ways to break creature stalemates; the Heliod, Sun-Crowned // Walking Ballista infinite damage combo mentioned above; or Aetherflux Reservoir // Felidar Sovereign if you have enough life. Played correctly, Angel of the Dire Hour or Sunblast Angel can also be one-sided boardwipes to also break through stalled game states.

Upcoming Changes

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For a mono white list, this deck is now pretty strong and I've optimised it about as much as I'd want to. There's still the option of adding more fast mana cards like Mana VaultGC but this isn't a particularly high priority compared to changes I'd want to make to some of my other decks. Thanks for reading this primer! :)

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All My EDH Decks

{W} Giada, Font of Hope {W}
S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal

{U} Orvar, the All-Form {U}
Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters Combo

{B} Sidisi, Undead Vizier {B}
Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Midrange Combo

{B} Ayara, First of Locthwain {B}
Black Diamond: Mono-Black Aristocrats Combo

{R} Torbran, Thane of Red Fell {R}
Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug

{R} Rionya, Fire Dancer {R}
Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens

{G} Titania, Protector of Argoth {G}
Timber Terror: Mono-Green Land Sacrifice

{W}{U} Grand Arbiter Augustin IVGC {W}{U}
Control Freak: Azorius Control

{W}{U} Elminster {W}{U}
Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry

{U}{B} Oona, Queen of the Fae {U}{B}
Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal

{U}{B} Narfi, Betrayer King {U}{B}
Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies

{U}{B} Lord of the Nazgul {U}{B}
The Black Gate Opens: Dimir Spellslinger

{B}{R} Rakdos, Lord of Riots {B}{R}
Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss

{B}{R} Juri, Master of the Revue {B}{R}
Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice

{R}{G} Wort, the Raidmother {R}{G}
Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire

{W}{G} Sigarda, Font of Blessings {W}{G}
Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal

{W}{G} Captain Sisay {W}{G}
Legendia: Selesnya Legendary

{W}{G} Sythis, Harvest's Hand {W}{G}
Diamondback: Selesnya Enchantress

{W}{B} Daxos the Returned {W}{B}
Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation

{W}{B} Kambal, Consul of Allocation {W}{B}
Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain

{W}{B} Eriette of the Charmed Apple {W}{B}
Flight of the Wicked Witch: Orzhov Auras

{U}{R} Firkraag, Cunning Instigator {U}{R}
Dragon’s Fury: Izzet Dragons/Goad

{B}{G} Hapatra, Vizier of Poisons {B}{G}
Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch

{B}{G} Nath of the Gilt-Leaf {B}{G}
Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard

{W}{R} Bruenor Battlehammer {W}{R}
Steel Force: Boros Equipment

{W}{R} General Ferrous Rokiric {W}{R}
Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured

{U}{G} Ezuri, Stalker of Spheres {U}{G}
Toxic Garden: Simic Infect

{W}{U}{B} Tivit, Seller of Secrets {W}{U}{B}
Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts

{W}{U}{B} Yennett, Cryptic Sovereign {W}{U}{B}
Riddler’s Revenge: Esper Topdeck

{U}{B}{R} Marchesa, the Black Rose {U}{B}{R}
Revenge of the Mummy: Grixis Dethrone/Combo

{B}{R}{G} Vaevictis Asmadi, the Dire {B}{R}{G}
Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal

{W}{R}{G} Pantlaza, Sun-Favored {W}{R}{G}
Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal

{W}{U}{G} Galadriel, Light of Valinor {W}{U}{G}
Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker

{W}{B}{G} Karador, Ghost Chieftain {W}{B}{G}
Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator

{W}{B}{G} Bilbo, Birthday Celebrant {W}{B}{G}
A Long-Expected Party: Abzan Lifegain/Combo

{W}{U}{R} Kykar, Wind's Fury {W}{U}{R}
Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens

{W}{U}{R} Hinata, Dawn-Crowned {W}{U}{R}
Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Control

{U}{B}{G} Yarok, the Desecrated {U}{B}{G}
Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers

{W}{B}{R} Kaalia of the Vast {W}{B}{R}
Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons

{U}{R}{G} Omnath, Locus of the Roil {U}{R}{G}
Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

{U}{R}{G} Eshki, Temur's Roar {U}{R}{G}
Thunder Striker: Temur Power Matters

Date added	6 years
Last updated	1 month
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	16 - 0 Mythic Rares 49 - 0 Rares 14 - 0 Uncommons 3 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.16
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, Clue, Copy Clone, Elephant 3-3 G, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Plant 0/2 G, Treasure
Folders	edh