Designed to steadily buff up creatures as you constantly gain life.
Cards like Ajani's Pridemate and Archangel of Thune are just too much fun not to base a deck on, so I did. This heavily white centered deck works out pretty well as its two themes complete each other. Decks that focus on +1/+1 counters can often be too slow, relying on things like outlast abilities or creature drops (with Cathars' Crusade or Anafenza, Kin-Tree Spirit) to build up a good offense. Essentially, all lifegain does is slow the game down, and this, by itself, just wastes deck space. Slowing the game down to buy extra time is precisely what I need to make piling counters work, and lifegain is what triggers several abilities the deck is based on.
Banishing Light is vital removal, it doesn't really fit with the theme, but it's so effective that I don't honestly care. I am thinking about a sideboard, so I'm open to suggestions.
What really pushed me to make this deck was rewatching the final M15 match, where Ivan Floch owned it with two Nyx-Fleece Rams and an Archangel of Thune. At first I was going to run four Nyx-Fleece Rams, but that was messing with my curve and lifegain lands and Ajani gave me enough life per turn that the the rams felt redundant.
This deck's central combo, which is frankly broken, is Archangel of Thune + Spike Feeder
. This works whenever you have both down and Spike Feeder has more than one +1/+1 counter. Using the Spike's "Remove a +1/+1 counter: you gain 2 life" ability triggers the Archangel's ability, giving all creatures +1/+1 counters and allowing Spike Feeder to do it again. Being able to infinitely use both abilities puts any number of +1/+1 counters on everything but Spike Feeder who is unchanged, and in turn gives twice as much life. Alternatively, enchanting Spike Feeder + Sunbond
just gives any amount of life and +1/+1 counters to only Spike Feeder.
