Commander Collection: S(i)erra Sidewinder

Commander / EDH Angels Flying Mono-White

Jurrane

Creature (35)

• 1x Angel of Vitality
• 1x Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1x Archangel of Thune
• 1x Archangel of Tithes
• 1x Archivist of Oghma
• 1x Auriok Champion
• 1x Avacyn, Angel of Hope
• 1x Baneslayer Angel
• 1x Battle Angels of Tyr
• 1x Deep Gnome Terramancer
• 1x Emeria Shepherd
• 1x Esper Sentinel
• 1x Felidar Sovereign
• 1x Gisela, the Broken Blade  ^Meld
• 1x Heliod, Sun-Crowned
• 1x Herald of the Host
• 1x Knight of the White Orchid
• 1x Lyra Dawnbringer
• 1x Metropolis Reformer
• 1x Recruiter of the Guard
• 1x Resplendent Angel
• 1x Righteous Valkyrie
• 1x Segovian Angel
• 1x Serra Ascendant
• 1x Serra Avenger
• 1x Serra Paragon
• 1x Serra's Emissary
• 1x Shattered Angel
• 1x Soul Warden
• 1x Soul's Attendant
• 1x Starnheim Aspirant
• 1x Subjugator Angel
• 1x Sunblast Angel
• 1x Walking Ballista
• 1x Youthful Valkyrie

Land (35)

• 1x Ancient Tomb
• 1x Arch of Orazca
• 1x Bonders' Enclave
• 1x Cavern of Souls
• 1x Eiganjo, Seat of the Empire
• 1x Emergence Zone
• 1x Emeria, the Sky Ruin
• 1x Flagstones of Trokair
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Hall of Heliod's Generosity
• 1x Homeward Path
• 1x Minas Tirith
• 1x Nykthos, Shrine to Nyx
• 18x Plains
• 1x Seraph Sanctuary
• 1x Terrain Generator
• 1x Vesuva
• 1x War Room

Instant (10)

• 1x Akroma's Will
• 1x Enlightened Tutor
• 1x Excise the Imperfect
• 1x Flawless Maneuver
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Heliod's Intervention
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Stroke of Midnight
• 1x Swords to Plowshares
• 1x Teferi's Protection

Planeswalker (1)

• 1x Serra the Benevolent

Commander (1)

Artifact (11)

• 1x Aetherflux Reservoir
• 1x Arcane Signet
• 1x Explorer's Scope
• 1x Extraplanar Lens
• 1x Fellwar Stone
• 1x Herald's Horn
• 1x Mind Stone
• 1x Pearl Medallion
• 1x Pyre of Heroes
• 1x Sol Ring
• 1x Sword of the Animist

Enchantment (4)

• 1x Authority of the Consuls
• 1x Folk Hero
• 1x Smothering Tithe
• 1x Smuggler's Share

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Idyllic Tutor
• 1x Reduce to Memory
• 1x Winds of Abandon

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{W}{W}{W} Introduction: The Heavenly Host {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.

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.

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.

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. This is also the huge advantage of playing Lyra Dawnbringer over Giada, Font of Hope. Once our life points are high enough, Enlightened Tutor 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.

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 and Enlightened Tutor 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.

Overcoming Mono-W’s Drawbacks

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We all know the drill by now. White’s the weakest colour in EDH, it’s only good as a supporting colour, blah blah blah. But the reputation’s at least partly earned and, if we’re going to play mono-W, we’re going to have to work extra hard to overcome its shortcomings. Here’s how I’ve tried to do it:

- Mono-W Is Too Slow: I’ve worked really hard with this deck to lower the mana curve to an average of around 3. This means playing a lot of mana rocks, some of white’s catch-up ramp cards like Knight of the White Orchid and Deep Gnome Terramancer, and some of the best artifacts for gaining resources (Explorer's Scope, Extraplanar Lens, Sword of the Animist etc). I’ve also sacrificed the raw power of many of the higher costed Angels for smaller, more efficient creatures that help the deck generate threats and ramp more quickly.

- Mono-W Can’t Draw Cards: OK, this is a tough one to overcome. But things are getting better and we now have Smuggler's Share from Streets of New Capenna. We've already got Esper Sentinel, which is the current undisputed champion of mono-W card draw, and we supplement it with Bonders' Enclave, War Room and Folk Hero to help things out.

- Mono-W Can’t Interact On The Stack: This is also tricky. First and foremost, we’re a creature deck and if opponents use mass destruction or other crowd control spells on our team, then we often have an issue. I’ve tried to protect against boardwipes by running protective measures like Flawless Maneuver, Teferi's Protection and Akroma's Will (which also doubles as a finisher).

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 Subjugator Angel, 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 be one-sided boardwipes to also break through stalled game states.

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All My EDH Decks

• S(i)erra Sidewinder: Mono-White Angel Tribal
• Blue Streak: Mono-Blue Spellslinger
• Clone Zone: Mono-Blue Shapeshifters
• Swamp Thing: Mono-Black Goodstuff
• Black Hole: Mono-Black Sacrifice/Aristocrats
• Red Force: Mono-Red Group Slug
• Firebird: Mono-Red Storm/Tokens
• Timber Terror: Mono-Green Stax
• Hydrus: Mono-Green Hydra Midrange
• Control Freak: Azorius Control
• Crystal Wing: Azorius Skies & Scry
• Dreamcatcher: Dimir Faeries Tribal
• Ice Breaker: Dimir Snow/Zombies
• Steamin’ Demon: Rakdos Life Loss
• Pandemonium: Rakdos Sacrifice
• Trailblazer: Gruul Kicker
• Barnstormer: Gruul Conspire
• Stampida: Selesnya Humans Tribal
• The Boss: Selesnya Hatebears
• Diamondback: Selesnya Auras
• Curse of Novgorod: Orzhov Constellation
• Oblivion: Orzhov Lifegain & Lifedrain
• Time Traveller: Izzet Suspend/Big Mana
• Scorpion Express: Golgari Deathtouch
• Outlaw Run: Golgari Elves/Discard
• Steel Force: Boros Equipment
• Gatekeeper: Boros Multicoloured
• Wicked Twister: Simic +1/+1 Counters
• Steel Vengeance: Esper Artifacts
• Twisted Twins: Esper Theft/Clones
• Mindbender: Grixis Discard
• Dragon Wagon: Jund Dragons Tribal
• Raptor Attack: Naya Dinosaurs Tribal
• Vapour Trail: Bant Flicker
• Hair Raiser: Abzan Reanimator
• Storm Runner: Jeskai Tokens
• Phantom’s Revenge: Jeskai Spirits Tribal
• Boomerang: Sultai ETB Triggers
• Abyssus: Mardu Angels & Demons
• Boulder Dash: Temur Landfall

Date added	4 years
Last updated	4 days
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	14 - 0 Mythic Rares 46 - 0 Rares 18 - 0 Uncommons 4 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.05
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W w/ Vigilance, City's Blessing, Copy Clone, Elephant 3-3 G, Emblem Serra the Benevolent, Human 1/1 W, Incubator, Phyrexian 0/0 C, Spirit 3/2 RW, Treasure
Folders	edh