Traft lived in the vampire-afflicted province of Stensia. Strong and valiant, he vanquished all manner of evil creatures, specializing in fighting demons along the Ashmouth. Avacyn's own ranks of warrior-seraphs trusted Traft's skill in battle and fought alongside him. raft's exploits became famous, and he became recognized as a saint before his fortieth year. While the act of being destroyed was not a permanent obstacle for the demons, Traft's repeated slayings had frustrated their plans to corrupt human minions, gather eternal souls, and feed their lust for power. They plotted their revenge at Needle's Eye, where Traft was tricked into killing several people and then murdered by the demonlord Withengar.
After Traft was buried, he never passed into the Blessed Sleep, and instead became a geist to haunt the world. Although as a geist he does not possess the same holy skill he had in life, it was said that wherever his apparition appeared, the angel who had failed to protect him in life was never far behind, always watching over him and always matching his every movement with her own.
When Avacyn became affected by the madness caused by the machinations of the planeswalker Nahiri, the archangel turned against the very humans she was sworn to protect and started to remove every perceived blemish on her plane by killing them. Meanwhile, the Church of Avacyn was infiltrated by the Ormendahl worshiping Skirsdag. Seeing the corruption and unable to reform the church, the cathar Thalia left and together with the Geist of Saint Traft created the Order of Saint Traft to battle evil. In the Battle of Thraben, Traft possessed Thalia to protect her from Emrakul's madness, and to battle the Eldrazi together. Using Avacyn's spear and with Sigarda's help, Brisela was killed by Thalia. After Brisela's death, Emrakul's presence in Innistrad forced Traft to leave Thalia's body, causing her to almost succumb to madness.
This is an Azorius "voltron" deck featuring Geist of Saint Traft as our Commander. For those unfamiliar, voltron is a deck archetype with the goal of casting one creature, then using other cards such as auras and equipment to enhance that creature and making it a true threat to the opponent(s). A lot of voltron decks can be extremely powerful, and they aim to lock down our opponents from interacting at all with the Commander. However, I've built this deck to be fair and allow for table interaction to make the game fun and interesting. Regardless, one of the archetype's major weaknesses is the amount of attention the Commander will get and become a target of removal spells. With this in mind, I've inserted an Angel sub-theme that should help us with defenders to block and attack with. No matter how you end up playing this deck out, the goal is to keep Saint Traft alive so he can re-unite with Avacyn and bring peace to the planes.
For our land base, we're running standard EDH staples - shocks, fetches, MDFCs, etc. We also have a few utility lands for interaction and recursion. Academy Ruins, Hall of Heliod's Generosity and Inventors' Fair can bring back artifacts from the graveyard. Inkmoth Nexus turns into a flying 1/1 creature with infect until end of turn - because why not? Lastly, Rogue's Passage makes for an unblockable creature each turn.
Ramp is your typical 2-3 CMC mana rocks to include both signets, Mind Stone, Commander's Sphere, and the classic Sol Ring. I also threw in a Danitha Capashen, Paragon to help cheat out an expensive artifact or enchantments when needed, and makes for a perfect secondary voltron creature!
Card draw is especially important in narrow decks with a voltron theme. To circumvent a lack of card draw, we have 10 forms of reliable card draw sprinkled into the deck - from creatures to enchantments. For creatures, we have Esper Sentinel, Kor Spiritdancer, and Sram, Senior Edificer to name a few. For enchantments, we have Curiosity, Mystic Remora and Staggering Insight. We also run Wedding Ring, which is an amazing life gain and card draw engine. You may wonder why we'd want to give an opponent an opportunity for card draw and life gain - I assure you the benefits for us far out weigh what it provides for the opponent. In a voltron deck, we won't be concerned with life totals because all we need is 21 commander damage.
Since voltron gains a lot of attention at most tables, its important that we can interact with our opponents' board states and spells in order to preserve our own. This deck contains 4 counterspells and a redirect creature Spellskite, for spells that seek to remove or destroy our permanents. We also have cards which limit potential attacking creatures such as Crawlspace and Sphere of Safety, or redirect attacking creatures at our opponents with Windshaper Planetar.
It's also important to reduce our opponents' defenses. For that, we have Shadowspear which will remove hexproof and indestructible from our opponents' creatures for turn. Likewise, there's equipment which can protect Geist and his band of creatures from removal, destruction or other effects. Robe of Stars acts as a single-target Teferi's Protection, and Darksteel Plate grants our creatures indestructible and is also indestructible itself, protecting it from Vandalblast or Nature's Claim. Lastly, Moonsilver Spear can be equipped to one of our creatures to go wide with 4/4 Angel defenders, and we'll buff them with our Angel Lord, Lyra Dawnbringer.
It wouldn't be an Azorius deck if we didn't have some classic board wipes in order to allow Geist to swing in freely. Winds of Abandon, Settle the Wreckage and Cyclonic Rift are the most notable, asymmetric creature removal spells within the deck.
For tutoring and graveyard recursion, the build includes a wide variety of activated abilities from lands, creatures, and artifacts, as well as instants and sorceries which allow us to dig through the deck in order to find the artifacts and enchantments we need.
This build is constantly getting fine-tuned and I welcome and suggestions on improving it. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do, and please upvote. Thanks and happy tapping!
