Graveborne Angels
Black/White re-animation deck. Simple premise: put strong (usually high-cost) creatures into your graveyard, then raise them from the dead using much cheaper spells. As with most "necromancer" style decks, the kicker is that these risen creatures have game-changing abilities.
VITAL CREATURES
Iona, Shield of Emeria: Often the most important card to get out. Allows you to totally shut down mono-colored decks, or severely hamper multi-colored decks. It's worth mentioning that, against multi-color decks, her color ban applies to multi-colored creatures/spells, as long as they contain the chosen color. EX: an opponent can't cast Bladewing the Risen, if you have banned them from casting anything black.
Angelic Arbiter: Adds another simple, but potentially crippling, control effect to your opponent. Force them to choose to attack OR cast spells, not both. When facing a 3+ color deck, consider putting her out first, as any decent 3+ color deck will be able to work around Iona's single color ban.
Akroma, Angel of Wrath: A simultaneously aggressive and defensive option, putting up quick damage while blocking effectively. Protection from black and red makes her safe from most spells that would destroy her. Could be a good choice to cast first, if your opponent lacks spells/abilities to remove her. If you feel safe going full aggro, and are sure you don't need the control elements of this deck, play her first.
Angel of Despair: Best used as a means of destroying a vital permanent, vs. a combo deck. I think of her more as a "destroy target permanent" sorcery that happens to give a free angel.
Sigarda, Host of Herons: A situational angel, best used to counter decks with dangerous "sacrifice" abilities, like "Annihilator". Unfortunately, while she is hard to get rid of, it can be done. Spells that exile all creatures, or return all your creatures to your hand, will remove her. If a deck is able to clone her, she gets discarded. Spells like Day of Judgment will also work, because it targets ALL creatures, and not just Sigarda. She's a great creature, but she has her weaknesses. However, against the right deck, she is capable of winning a game, by herself.
Putrid Imp: Cheap creature that allows you to discard cards (angels) from your hand, to be cast from your graveyard. Important, since it can use its ability on turn #1, setting up a turn #2 "reanimation" type spell.
VITAL SPELLS
Entomb: Allows you to choose which creature you want in your graveyard, AKA the creature you want to cast from graveyard. It is possible to get any creature in the deck out on turn #2, using this card. Within reason, you should mulligan until this is in your starting hand, along with a minimum of 1 of the next two spells...
Animate Dead: paying 2 mana to bring (almost) any creature back to life is extremely valuable, here. If you Entomb one of your Iona, Shield of Emeria on turn #1, you can use Animate Dead to bring it to the battlefield on turn #2. If you're playing against a mono-color deck, this is game-over for them, unless they can somehow cast all their win-condition cards on turn #1 or 2. Very unlikely.
Reanimate: Same effect as Animate Dead, but costs life...probably, a LOT of life (depending on the target). The advantage to this is that your creature comes back at full strength, as opposed to getting -1 strength with Animate Dead.
Death: Same effect as Reanimate, but for 1 extra mana cost.
NOTE: Animate Dead and Reanimate can target creatures in ANY graveyard, allowing you to steal some creatures when playing against another "necromancer" style deck. Nothing more satisfying than beating an opponent with their own creature >:D
VITAL ARTIFACT
Isochron Scepter: my favorite card in this entire game. Allows repeated casting of any instant with CMC of 2 or less. Pair it with Holy Day, and you can remove all combat damage during enemy attacks. Pair it with Diabolic Edict, and you can pick apart your opponent's creatures (using "sacrifice" to bypass annoying abilities like "Indestructible", "Hexproof", and "Shroud"). You could also pair it with Entomb, though I wouldn't recommend it.
Perfect Game Breakdown
Under ideal circumstances, this is the way a match should unfold:
Ideal Starting Hand Includes: Swamp, Entomb, Reanimate, Dark Ritual.
Turn #1: Play Swamp, tap, then play Dark Ritual. Use 1 black mana to cast Entomb to discard the angel you'd like to play, and the other 1 or 2 to cast one of your "necromancer" spells on the discarded angel.
Turn #2+: Attack until you win. If you've chosen a control effect that works against your opponent, like Iona vs. a mono-colored deck, you're pretty much guaranteed a win.
Deck Breakdown
At its heart, this is a control deck. By making the right choices, you prevent your opponent from doing things that are harmful to you. Between Holy Day + Isochron Scepter
, Iona, Shield of Emeria, Angelic Arbiter, and Sigarda, Host of Herons you can prevent your opponent from doing any (or even ALL) of the following: dealing combat damage (the most common method of winning), casting spells that include any 1 color of your choice, limiting them to either attacking or casting spells, and/or prevent them from forcing you to sacrifice permanents. You have the freedom to choose whichever effect harms your opponent the most. With these options removed from your opponent's toolbox, and the power of these flying creatures, odds are really good that they will not be able to pull off a win. Getting the right starting hand is crucial, as the success of this deck depends on its speed. If you don't have an angel on the battlefield by turn 3, something isn't right...
Once you've played what you've decided is the most important limiting effect, you can pile more of them on, if you have the cards...and the appropriate level of sadism lol.
If all the "necromancy" elements of this deck fail to properly align, Isochron Scepter paired with Holy Day or Diabolic Edict could buy you some (or all) the time you need to make things happen on your end. I've personally stalled an opponent for 5 turns, using the Holy Day combo, until I had all the cards I needed to take control.
Weaknesses
This deck's biggest weaknesses are decks that run 1-2 CMC cards that can counter/discard vital cards from your hand. Duress, or any "counter non-creature spell (with or without "unless its controller pays __". Adding in some copies of Chancellor of the Annex from your sideboard can negate this, if you're lucky enough to have one in your starting hand.
It is also very weak against spells that return a creature (or all creatures) to your hand, since that's the last place you want your angels to be (Putrid Imp can help, if he's out). If they're countered, at least they go into the graveyard where they can be brought back again, but having them put into your hand can complicate things, since this deck is not meant to cast angels from your hand. It doesn't even have all the mana types necessary to do that.
Obviously, this deck is also weak against "graveyard hate" cards (spells that exile a card from a graveyard). If your opponent can do this reliably, you don't stand much of a chance...though the game could end in a draw, if their "win condition" requires combat damage, thanks to that Holy Day + Isochron Scepter
combo.
If you find yourself having to lean on Isochron Scepter, decks that can destroy artifacts will give you trouble. This will likely mean a loss, because if you're relying on the scepter to buy you time, it means you probably have nothing better to do.
Long story short, this deck isn't perfect, but it gives you some great tools that can unravel most enemy strategies before they even begin. Every deck has its weaknesses, but this one is pretty versatile.
One last thing to mention, Orim's Chant is in the "maybe" section because I feel it is a much better option than Holy Day paired with the Isochron Scepter. The only reason it isn't in this deck is because this is a pretty expensive deck already, and the best prices I could find for a moderate-condition copy of the card was $10 +shipping. Holy Day is good enough, but Orim's Chant could make this deck much more of a force to be reckoned with, if you actually wanted to make this deck for yourself.
What Do You Think?
I welcome any and all feedback. I'm actually quite proud of this deck, so if there's anything I can do to improve it, let me know in the comments. :)
