Thanks Saint Traft - Spirits & Angels EDH Beatdown

Commander / EDH Angels Casual Spirits Tempo Theme/Gimmick WU (Azorius)

Bolbae

Creature (28)

• 1x Angel of Finality
• 1x Angel of Flight Alabaster
• 1x Angel of Jubilation
• 1x Archangel of Tithes
• 1x Bishop of Wings
• 1x Dorothea, Vengeful Victim  ^Flip
• 1x Dreamshackle Geist
• 1x Drogskol Captain
• 1x Empyrean Eagle
• 1x Firemane Commando
• 1x Flickerwisp
• 1x Giada, Font of Hope
• 1x Hunted Phantasm
• 1x Lulu, Loyal Hollyphant
• 1x Lyra Dawnbringer
• 1x Mausoleum Wanderer
• 1x Patrician Geist
• 1x Rattlechains
• 1x Remorseful Cleric
• 1x Righteous Valkyrie
• 1x Selfless Spirit
• 1x Shacklegeist
• 1x Spell Queller
• 1x Sunblast Angel
• 1x Supreme Phantom
• 1x Thassa, God of the Sea
• 1x Thistledown Liege
• 1x Thraben Watcher

Artifact (2)

• 1x Spear of Heliod
• 1x Sundial of the Infinite

Land (36)

• 1x Azorius Chancery
• 1x Azorius Guildgate
• 1x Calciform Pools
• 1x Evolving Wilds
• 1x Exotic Orchard
• 1x Flood Plain
• 1x Ghost Quarter
• 1x Irrigated Farmland
• 9x Island
• 1x Isolated Watchtower
• 1x Minamo, School at Water's Edge
• 1x Myriad Landscape
• 9x Plains
• 1x Prairie Stream
• 1x Rogue's Passage
• 1x Seraph Sanctuary
• 1x Temple of the False God
• 1x Terramorphic Expanse
• 1x Tranquil Cove
• 1x Windbrisk Heights

Enchantment (11)

• 1x Always Watching
• 1x Anointed Procession
• 1x Aura of Silence
• 1x Blind Obedience
• 1x Coastal Piracy
• 1x Favorable Winds
• 1x Invocation of Saint Traft
• 1x Luminarch Ascension
• 1x Paladin Class
• 1x Reconnaissance Mission
• 1x Smothering Tithe

Commander (1)

Instant (15)

• 1x Brainstorm
• 1x Brought Back
• 1x Counterspell
• 1x Cyclonic Rift
• 1x Disenchant
• 1x Dovin's Veto
• 1x Fact or Fiction
• 1x Generous Gift
• 1x Keep Watch
• 1x Mirrorweave
• 1x Negate
• 1x Path to Exile
• 1x Perilous Research
• 1x Render Silent
• 1x Swan Song

Sorcery (7)

• 1x Aether Gale
• 1x Baral's Expertise
• 1x Curse of the Swine
• 1x Day's Undoing
• 1x River's Rebuke
• 1x Treasure Cruise
• 1x Winds of Abandon

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Maybeboard

Creature (5)

• 1x Angel of the Dire Hour
• 1x Angelic Guardian
• 1x Glorious Protector
• 1x Serra Paragon
• 1x Valkyrie Harbinger

Sorcery (3)

• 1x Ponder
• 1x Preordain
• 1x Sudden Disappearance

Enchantment (1)

• 1x Court of Grace

Battle (1)

• 1x Invasion of Xerex  ^Flip

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General Deck Idea

This deck does two things:

• it aims to quickly beat down its opponents by maximizing its tempo.

• it features all those cool Spirits and Angels from Innistrad I liked so much when I started playing Magic.

When building it, I tried to balance these two aspects, functionality and flavor. Currently, I am pretty happy with how it's working - it has a nice theme that fits the casual playstyle of my group while also being able to pose a serious threat.

Generating Tempo

Lots of cheap flyers ensure that you can always spend your mana efficiently and fill up the board quickly. The commander itself is not really needed for any strategy, Geist of Saint Traft ist just a very efficient attacker that profits off of many other cards, like the anthem effects.

Once you have enough bodies, cards like Favorable Winds and Spear of Heliod buff those creatures and significantly increase the damage output.

Should blockers come in the way, bounce effects like Aether Gale and River's Rebuke can cheaply remove them and keep the tempo going.

There are a few counterspells in the deck that help you defend your board and prevent a threat from being one. Cards with Ghostly Prison-like effects allow you to always fully attack without worrying about the consequences.

This type of playstyle makes the deck prone to quickly losing gas. I included lots of card draw, especially the kind that synergises with evasive creatures or tokens, like Bident of Thassa and Perilous Research.

In the later turns, Angels like Lyra Dawnbringer and Sephara, Sky's Blade can help provide the last little push to close the game.

If things work out well, it's not unusual for the deck to start dealing 10+ damage per turn starting on turn 3 or 4. If left unchecked you can easily reach 20+ damage per turn around turn 6.

Synergies and Combos

Even if the usual strategy of playing lots of cheap, flying creatures doesn't work, there are a few card synergies that help the deck stay relevant. There are no infinite combos in this deck (that I know of) and I don't plan on including any.

• Anointed Procession + Luminarch Ascension or Smothering Tithe or Invocation of Saint Traft. Of course, Anointed Procession is just an absurdly strong card, which synergizes very well with basically all token makers. Nonetheless it feels pretty cool swinging with Geist of Saint Traft enchanted by his Invocation and creating four Angel tokens.

• Thistledown Liege + Mirrorweave turns just the Liege and an attacking Geist of Saint Traft with it's Angel into 15 damage. Four creatures deal 28, five deal 40 damage. Of course, for this to work they have to come through, but as I said, the deck consists mainly of evasive creatures. Keep in mind that Mirrorweave turns ALL creatures into its target, this doesn't really matter for this combo though.

• Geist of Saint Traft / Invocation of Saint Traft + Sundial of the Infinite lets you keep the created Angels forever if you activate the Sundial in response to the delayed triggered ability that tries to exile the tokens.

• Lulu, Loyal Hollyphantl + Shacklegeist + another few spirits can lock down a creature threat for some time or tap down blockers in the last opponent's end step. This works without Lulu aswell, the deck's general strategy doesn't work then though, since you can't attack in order to be able to use the Shacklegeist's effect. Vigilance provided by Always Watching helps too.

These are probably the most important ones and also the ones with the highest impact. Obviously, Lyra Dawnbringer + any Angel is another synergy. There are lots of interactions in this deck that I find either too obvious to list or that work only sometimes and are therefore not worth the mention.

Where Are All The Auras?

In a previous version of the deck I included some of the cards typically associated with Geist of Saint Traft, like Steel of the Godhead and Aqueous Form. I later decided to remove them because they made the deck feel like any other Geist of Saint Traft deck and also drew lots of hate on the commander. Not only did that make room for other cool cards, the deck still works because of politics. In a multiplayer game there's always someone willing to take the Geist if I promise to hit somebody else with the created Angel. And if everything else fails, there's still Rogue's Passage and Thassa, God of the Sea.

Details on Cards

If you're looking for a more detailed analysis of the intended use of each card in this deck, have a look at the Custom Categories I wrote (e.g. Removal, Card Draw, etc.).

Notes

• The deck can probably be optimized by adjusting the Spirits to Angels ratio. Spirits are mainly cheap creatures that help in the early game, while Angels tend to be more expensive and help in the late game. I found that the ratio I'm currently using works quite well in my meta, it can be different for you though. I included another few great Angel options in the Maybeboard.

• I am very open for card discussions and your thoughts on my build. Let me know if you have ideas for improvement or interesting jank.

• Absolutely adding Dorothea, Vengeful Victim  .

Thanks for reading, have fun!

Top Ranked	Achieved #47 position overall 4 years ago Achieved #37 position in Commander / EDH 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Angels 4 years ago Achieved #1 position in Commander / EDH Tempo 4 years ago
Date added	5 years
Last updated	1 year
Legality	This deck is Commander / EDH legal.
Rarity (main - side)	5 - 0 Mythic Rares 44 - 0 Rares 23 - 0 Uncommons 9 - 0 Commons
Cards	100
Avg. CMC	3.02
Tokens	Angel 4/4 W, Bird 2/2 U, Boar 2/2 G, Elephant 3-3 G, Goblin 1/1 R, Spirit 1/1 W, Spirit 4/4 W, Treasure
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