Avacyn, Angel of HopeAvacyn, Angel of Hope | Art by Jason Chan

Angels are the face of white . In fact, they're the iconic creature type of the color!

They have a range of abilities, strategies, and functions, but always will be a force to reckon with when fielded. And they really can do it all! Few Angels can't hold their own in a fight, and fewer still don't have some major synergy with other Angels, Humans, or Clerics. And oftentimes, all three of these creature types feed into one another in multiple ways.

But how do you get started with Angels? And what are their best practices?

Everyone needs to start somewhere. With Angels, it's always best to grab yourself some wings, put on a halo, and get ready to smite the unworthy.

At A Glance

Angels are predominantly white-aligned, with a few significant deviations to other colors. The most notable and consistent are "fallen" Angels that include black, though there are a fair few corrupted Angels that are red-aligned.

As a fairly common creature type, there are Angels that splash into every color, including purely colorless Angels.

Their most common keywords are flying, lifelink, and vigilance, making them fantastic defenders who nevertheless can be fairly aggressive. Their stats tend to be either mid-range or higher; weak Angels often have ways of increasing their stats, such as Angelic ProtectorAngelic Protector.

Their highest synergies tend to be with other Angels, often due to their shared lifelink and various abilities requiring gaining life or having a life count higher than your starting life total. Others rely upon providing +1/+1 to creatures and/or spawning tokens; see Resplendent AngelResplendent Angel for an example.

Their biggest weaknesses tend to be their cost and their focus on "conventional" strategies of attacking a single opponent directly. The former is mitigated by built-in and synergistic cost reduction targeting Angels, a la Starnheim AspirantStarnheim Aspirant. The latter can be offset by the sheer number of Angels you can field as well as white's built-in removal.

What Are Angels?

Angels in Magic are quite similar to modern-day conceptions of angelic figures. They represent divine emissaries and servants of deities, particularly good deities. In some planes, Angels are mortals who ascended with the grace of a higher power.

A step below proper Gods, Angels are more active forces in the planes they're active on than their masters. They are responsible for responding to prayers and shepherding the faithful. Though not always worshiped, Angels are nearly universally lauded and respected as protectors of their home planes.

They simultaneously act as the shield of the weak and the sword of justice, primarily against higher-orders of threats, such as Demons. Most notably, they were a pivotal force to protect the multiverse from the Phyrexian Invasion. This was due to the unique substance they can produce called Halo, which allowed defenders of the planes to stave off phyresis.

For a set focused on Angels, Streets of New Capenna is a fantastic place to start.

What Do Angels Do?

The core competency is making a flying shieldwall of lifegaining mid-ranges.

Almost every Angel has flying, meaning they not only can ignore most chaff but they can defend against most threats as well. On top of this, vigilance primes them to defend you even after attacking, which pairs to be an aggressive combination of keywords if an opponent doesn't have flying blockers.

Lifelink gives them the ability to gain life when dealing damage, and many Angels have abilities that scale off of how much life you have or activate upon gaining life. Righteous ValkyrieRighteous Valkyrie has an ability that only activates when you have at least 7 life more than your starting life total, for instance. Some don't even require you to gain life, merely retain your life and not drop below a threshold, such as Angel of VitalityAngel of Vitality, which, for an inexpensive Angel, is quite handy to have!

Further, Angels love +1/+1 counters. In fairness, white as a whole loves +1/+1 counters when they come wrapped in a lifegain bow. Creatures such as Archangel of ThuneArchangel of Thune are just extending this to the already lifegain-heavy Angel creature type. In addition to the conditional bonuses mentioned above, Angels will absolutely benefit from being kept on the field and allowed to grow.

Some Angels impart protections onto other creatures, like Avacyn, Angel of HopeAvacyn, Angel of Hope. Others allow for additional value from playing more creatures or reclaiming creatures that die, such as Liesa, Forgotten ArchangelLiesa, Forgotten Archangel. And of course, Angels that lean into other colors will naturally have affinities for those others colors' mechanics.

What Works With Angels?

Angels love Angels and are a common enough creature type that a deck can reasonably be filled with them exclusively. Some Angels explicitly power up other Angels, like Lyra DawnbringerLyra Dawnbringer. But more commonly, Angels either provide lifegain or benefit from lifegain, thereby feeding into a positive cycle of growth.

However, there is a fair amount of support from other cards, particularly Humans and Clerics. Even lands can help buoy them up, like in the case of Seraph SanctuarySeraph Sanctuary.

Bishop of WingsBishop of Wings furthers your lifegain upon Angels entering the field and allows you to comfortably trade weaker Angels in blocking. Sigarda, Font of BlessingsSigarda, Font of Blessings is an Angel that allows you to play both Angels and Humans more easily. Kaalia of the VastKaalia of the Vast got tired of paying mana and simply decided you can play Angels for free.

At their core, Angels are the posterchildren of white and have a synergy with just about anything that is typical to the color. Lifegain, +1/+1 counters, indestructibility, and taxing your opponents all have either direct mechanical interactions with Angels or simply synergize well with them.

What Are Angels Weak To?

Their Own Cost

Given that they average in mid-range stats, Angels tend to be more expensive. Further, they often fail the "vanilla test," which is to ask if the converted mana cost of a card is equal to or less than its power and toughness. Serra AngelSerra Angel is an example of a card that fails this, costing five mana but having a 4/4 statline. Like with most Angels, it has flying and vigilance to mitigate this.

However, Angels love making themselves less expensive. Sometimes they do this for themself, like Sephara, Sky's BladeSephara, Sky's Blade. Other times they rely on external support, such as Starnheim AspirantStarnheim Aspirant, and sometimes it's just Giada, Font of HopeGiada, Font of Hope, who not only makes your Angels cheaper but also stronger.

It's not generally an issue to field your Angels and, once the game gets going, you'll have no problem at all, but in those first few rounds, your board will likely be more open than you'd like. You can always add some cheap, life-gaining creature, such as Soul WardenSoul Warden, to act as chump blockers in the early game and Angel support in the endgame.

Playing Nontraditionally

Broadly speaking, Angels don't support a strategy other than "attack the opponent until their life is reduced to 0." Sometimes they swarm with dozens of tokens, sometimes it's a few heavy hitters. Angel decks are primed to win via commander damage, given their synergies and flying commanders. They have options!

But rare is the Angel that deviates from this.

There are always exceptions, as seen with something like Platinum AngelPlatinum Angel, but even then, it's not winning via an alternative method or forcing your opponent to respond to a schema shift, it's just good ol'fashioned creature pressure, which is a completely valid strategy, and one often ignored outside of aggro decks.

Some Angels take this a different direction, such as Atraxa. Being able to proliferate with Atraxa, Praetors' VoiceAtraxa, Praetors' Voice opens up poison counters or even something wacky, like Azor's ElocutorsAzor's Elocutors, as alternate strategies. Then Atraxa, Grand UnifierAtraxa, Grand Unifier simply has the utility to get you the cards you need in your hand. Never a bad thing, particularly given that commander involves other colors than white.

In either case, a deck full of Angels to support them will ensure you can continue in your plans without much issue from direct confrontation, and even pinging spellslings may not be able to keep up with your lifegain.

Green, To An Extent

Angels are uniquely at odds with green's built-in protections.

There are green spells that destroy fliers, and reach is almost exclusively a green keyword. Green's ability to create tokens and build massive creatures will slow or stop most early-game Angel fields. Green's love of trample means they can maintain pressure to combat lifegain. Hexproof can stop white's removal.

However, Angels aren't "weak" to Green, they're just a prime target for some of its unique features. Trample won't always outpace Angel's lifegain, and most of green's flying removal is single-target, which can even be protected against a number of ways; Shalai, Voice of PlentyShalai, Voice of Plenty is one such means of protection.

Angels Are a Solid Choice

There are very few things that Angels are legitimately bad at, which makes sense, given they're an iconic creature for white!

They can attack opponents while easily defending you, strengthening themselves every combat while gaining you life. Though they struggle to go outside of this traditional approach to play, they're quite good at that approach, and their methods to step around it aren't too bad, either!

A mono-white Angel deck is a fantastic place to start in Magic as a game, and with some brewing can even be a threat at higher brackets. Some good introductory commanders are:

• Giada, Font of HopeGiada, Font of Hope, allowing you to summon cheaper Angels that scale the more you have on the field.
• Lyra DawnbringerLyra Dawnbringer, to focus on life-threshold abilities and make your mid-range Angels legitimate threats.
• Avacyn, Angel of HopeAvacyn, Angel of Hope, to have a powerhouse, sweeping endgame rush.