For blossoming defense there is nothing that can replace it. Unless there is a similar card at rotation, I don't believe there is a similar card. Adamant Will is about as close as I could get but that is indestructible and not hexproof. The main emphasis should be to get Shalai out on turn 3 or 4 to hexproof everyone and have a defense against settle.

Blinding Fog Is not an option, because it affects all creatures(including opponent)

Depending on what you want the deck to do. Aggressive Mammoth and Pegasus Courser should be considered for removal just to open the deck to more opportunities. Also there may be a possibility to add more lands in order do additional ramp and add further counters.

kysg,

Blinding Fog is the best Blossoming Defense that is rotation proof at the moment. Sure, it prevents all damage to creatures, but who cares? Would you rather your Lyra or Shalai to die, or a random, worthless guy from the other team.

The problem here with use of Blinding Fog is that at this moment Blossoming Defense and Heroic Intervention are the better cards. I'd rather wait till Guilds comes out to make a decision on it...and that's only for Blinding Fog. The other issues I see with it is the 3cmc cost, the way hexproof works for it is a little odd.

http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=435332

There is also Make a Stand but I'm not sure about that one either.

Actually I'm not sure if Blinding Fog is affected by trample or deathtouch. Still have to read up on that.

Here's what I think happens.

My creature A(CA) with trample and deathtouch gets block by your creature B(CB). I assign 1 damage to your CB (as my CA has deathtouch, with the rest going to you. You cast Blinding Fog, which means your creature is saved. But I'm pretty sure you still take the trample damage, as you yourself doesn't get any protection.

As deathtouch's reminder text is: "Any amount of damage this deals to a creature is enough to destroy it.", so if you prevent the damage, deathtouch does nothing.

Yo,

Yea I see your points on deathtouch and trample. Blinding Fog doesn't offer any defense against Banefire but have to just find another solution for that. The Plains count can be lowered a little bit. I've also considered tweaking the sideboard. May have to look into Runic Armasaur

Yes I was looking into Runic Armasaur as well for sideboard. Once I get on my laptop, I will put in some of those for my sideboard

Yes I was looking into Runic Armasaur as well for sideboard. Once I get on my laptop, I will put in some of those for my sideboard

Consider Merfolk Branchwalker, I don't think you really need Druid of the Cowl especially when you have 4x Llanowar Elves. Merfolk Branchwalker helps you cycle through your deck a lot faster and its attached to a body. I don't think Pegasus Courser is particularly necessary either, I'd drop it for something like:

Jadelight Ranger, This helps you cycle even more.

Runic Armasaur, I saw you've been considering it, its quite good in some match ups.

Resplendent Angel If you can have two white on turn three this is a bomb, at the very least it will soak strong removal leaving your board more open for Shalai, Voice of Plenty or Lyra Dawnbringer if not you have a decent beater with a game winning mana sink.

Seal Away strong, cheap card. makes you more mid-ranged.

In your sideboard, why play Cleansing Nova? Settle the Wreckage is almost always better especially considering this is a creature based deck.

hueylicious I think we are better off waiting for rotation.

I'm totally out on Merfolk Branchwalker. It's asking for removal as soon as it hits the board. Thorn Lieutenant is probably the best 2 drop we can ask for here.

For Jadelight Ranger and Resplendent Angel probably better off waiting for rotation. Thrashing Brontodon does what we need it do in the 3 drop slot. Really what we are trying to do is get to Shalai, Voice of Plenty or Vine Mare on Turn 3 and Lyra Dawnbringer or Vivien Reid on Turn 4. As far as card draw we have Adventurous Impulse for that and that is cheaper. Considering the fact we are losing Blossoming Defense and that I haven't seen any new cartouche's or cards similar to those abilities yet. It is probably better to wait.

Yea Seal Away is in there...no argument.

Settle the Wreckage vs Cleansing Nova Yea settle wins here but if your opponent is green and has shalai then yea settle ends up being useless. I mean I get it but really the idea was to wait for rotation on that one to see if we were getting another 4 mana sweeper.

Druid of the Cowl was a stand in for Servant of the Conduit...dunno why people keep missing that one.

Runic Armasaur have to still test him out to see where he stacks up. I still think Shapers' Sanctuary does a better job of this.

Honestly, I'd rather have both. It gives wider protection than just one. I'm about to do an update on this deck, so yea.

Have you been playing this in any comps/FNM? if so how did you do?

I've played one FMN with it before I had to go back to school, and it was ok. 2 wins and a loss.

GL man GL.

Thanks kysg

I love the unique splash of red for the angel i actually made my own standard midrange g/w deck and I'd never thought of splashing until now...

Thanks fish234 for the upvote! Do you have any suggestions for my deck? I have given you some feedback on your deck.

hexaflexagon I got to say I mean I playtested a bit more and found like actually no problems, I mean I guess more red sources like clifftop retreat but you can just find sacred foundry with flower/flourish so, I really like the deck.

I already have 5 red sources, 3 Drover of the Mighty and 2 Sacred Foundry, which I think I pretty good for three cards. I like Sacred Foundry because it lets my Sunpetal Grove enter untapped. Flower / Flourish would be OP if you could get a nonbasic, but sadly, you can only get basics.

Cut Drover of the Mighty and add Druid of the Cowl

Hey Resistance,

Thanks for your comment and suggestion. I use Drover of the Mighty to produce for Aurelia. It also comes in handy when I have sided in Carnage Tyrant, as you get a 3/3 mana rock for two.

Hey Hex, you asked for my help. Deck looks good, but consider a lot more red support for Aurelia?

I like your idea of including Drover especially to ramp into Lyra. In theory playing Drover to make red mana can work with Aurelia, but you want to account for the times when you want to cast Aurelia and you don't have Drover in play because you didn't draw him or he was killed. When these times happen you want to rely on your manabase and two sources of red is not enough to consistently play Aurelia. With the current Naya dual lands consider a 8-10 source splash of red to consistently play 3x Aurelia?

Playing 4x Flower and 4x Impulse is a lot. You risk drawing too many of these cards which is not good. Flower is great to be able to keep the amount of lands you play lower than normal, but low amount of lands conflicts with explore (Branchwalker and Jadelight). With explore creatures you want to reveal lands and put them into hand because putting other cards into your graveyard is not part of this deck's strategy (can't take advantage of it).

With only 2x Foundry then explore or Impulse aren't reliable ways to find a red land. Flower can be a replacement for green and white lands, but it can't find a red land therefore it's not as good in a three color (Naya) deck. You want the spots that Flower is using for red lands to make enough red for the splash. Flower can replace lands in Selesnya Tokens for example because that deck is only two colors (green and white) if you were to add a third color (red) then Flower wouldn't be part of the deck.

Jadelight's mana cost and wanting Llanowar Elves consistently turn one can cause conflicts with the manabase because making is more important to play Resplendent and Lyra. You want minimum 12 green sources that can ETB untapped turn one to consistently play Llanowar turn one. You want 16 sources of green to play turn three Jadelight. Both Llanowar and Drover can help with Jadelight, but it's better to not rely on having mana dorks to cast your cards instead rely on your manabase. You also want 16 sources of white for turn three Resplendent which Drover can help with. All these amounts of sources is difficult to make with a three color manabase without having access to Stomping Ground for Llanowar. Wanting turn three and is too problematic with a three color manabase.

There's a reason you don't see more decks playing Llanowar with three drop cards such as Resplendent and History of Benalia because it's too difficult currently to make a consistent manabase to support these white three drops with as much green as you need to also consistently play Llanowar turn one. With your current deck this is the ratio of color sources you want in manabase: 16 green (including 12 sources that can ETB untapped turn one), 16 white and 8-10 red. These ratios are actually not possible with 19 lands therefore you have to hedge a little on color sources (not recommended), add more lands (recommended), cut Llanowar (recommended), cut Jadelight (recommended) or cut red (not recommended).

Impulse in my opinion is a much better card for this deck's strategy because it can potentially find Resplendent or Lyra or a red land. Consider cutting Flower for red lands? More red lands makes Branchwalker and Impulse more consistent to reveal a red land. District Guide is an option to consider to help with the red splash. Her single is easier to cast then Jadelight and she can tutor directly for a Mountain or Plains. For the purposes here that's more beneficial than Jadelight. It's more important to have the right mana to cast Angels as well as be consistent that you can play Guide turn three.

Consider this base to help with the red splash (3x Aurelia):

• 4x Drover
• 4x Branchwalker
• 3x Guide
• 4x Impulse

Another option to consider is to cut Llanowar and only use Drover as your mana dork. You lose out on the powerful turn two play of a three drop, but gain more consistency of playing the Angels: Resplendent, Aurelia and Lyra.

If you choose this direction here's a full example (recommended):

• 4x Drover
• 4x Branchwalker
• 4x Resplendent
• 3x Guide
• 2x Autumn (more in the sideboard)
• 3x Aurelia
• 2x Shalai (more in the sideboard)
• 4x Lyra
• 4x Impulse
• 4x Tribunal
• 2x Binding

Lands

• 4x Temple Garden
• 3x Sacred Foundry
• 4x Sunpetal Grove
• 3x Rootbound Crag
• 2x Clifftop Retreat
• 3x Forest
• 3x Plains
• 1x Mountain

I'm suggesting 24 lands because of Lyra who's a five drop and very important for the strategy. You want more lands to consistently be able to make your land drops to cast Lyra turn five without mana dork help. There's also a lot of four drops here, more lands lets you more consistently make your fourth land drop to play a four drop. More red lands are included to make Branchwalker's explore and Impulse more consistent to reveal a red land. Another reason to add more red to the manabase is to play sideboard Deafening Clarion. Which is an excellent card with Angels (Aurelia, Shalai, Lyra) as seen in current Standard by the good win results of Boros/Jeskai Angels.

Good luck with your deck.

Hey multimedia,

Thanks for answering my request for help with a long response. I really appreciate it.

First of all, I agree with you on more red lands. A friend of mine, who I played with to day, showed me a chart which showed to play three red symbols, you need about 10 red symbols in your lands.

I see your point on Jadelight Ranger. For District Guide, I am a bit hesitant to put it in my deck, as Ranger is a flex spot. Would you consider the Guide to be a flex spot too?

For your suggestion to add in one more Lyra while taking out 1 Shalai, I'm a bit hesitant on that too, as I don't have another Lyra.

I thinkk your manabase suggestion is spot on. No Elves, but four Drovers looks bad on paper, but I think it'll work. Because this is a three colour manabase, we need alll the help with supporting the three colours as we can get, and Drover helps us a lot by giving us all three.

Once I buy all the cards, I am definetly changing to your list, it looks much better than mine.

Thanks, you've really outdone yourself this time

Hexaflexagon

Hey, you're welcome.

Typically a splash is 10 sources of the splash color, but you can get away with less when playing cards that can help you find lands for the splash. In the example's case Impulse, Branchwalker and Guide. None of these cards are in the colors of the splash color therefore they can be consistent in helping with lands. In my suggested example there's only 9 sources of red in the manabase, one less than is recommended.

In my example I included 4x Lyra because she's the combo with Resplendent and having 4x of each of these Angels gives you more consistency of drawing both. If you don't have a fourth Lyra then a third Shalai is fine. However if you're serious playing Angels I think getting a fourth Lyra should be in your future plans (after getting Naya dual lands of course).

In the example District Guide is definitely a flex spot, but she is deceptively powerful because she guarantees that you can make your current turn land drop or your next turn land drop. In the case of a fourth or fifth land drop that's good for this deck. In some games you will not cast Guide at all, but in other games she will help you to get a land. It's in those games that you'll appreciate having her. Since she's a flex spot she can be taken out for sideboard cards in some matchups.

I'm by no ways suggesting that Guide is a better card than Jadelight Ranger, overall Guide isn't, but for your deck she is because of the manabase situation. Jadelight is a difficult card to consistently cast turn three when green is not the primary color of the manabase.

For the sideboard consider Tocatli Honor Guard? Guard shuts down Golgari's game plan getting value from creatures when they ETB. Ravenous Chupacabra is too good against Angels and when your Golgari opponent can keep recurring Ravenous then this can prevent you from having any Angels at all. Golgari is relying on explore creatures to fill the graveyard; Guard prevents explore from happening because it's an ETB ability with Branchwalker, Jadelight and Squire. Guard is good with Angels because they don't have an ETB ability. Guard however shuts down Guide, Autumn and Branchwalker which sucks, but it hurts your Golgari opponent much more in the matchup. Guard's 3 toughness is difficult for Golgari to deal with.

Hey multimedia,

Thanks for your second response. If you think District Guide can be a flex spot, then I can put it in right away, as I have opened three of them. I can easily trade or sell the Jadelight Rangers for either a Lyra or the dual lands. They are my first priority, then I have completed the deck.

For the sideboard, what do you think I should put in it? Anti Golgari (like Deathgorge Scavenger and Tocatli Honor Guard) are definetly in. I'm also adding in Deafening Clarion. Should I add in Kraul Harpooner against other Angel decks and Carnage Tyrant for control? Do you think my sideboard should mostly be kept the same?

Thanks again,

Hexaflexagon